Live Delivered

Tell me.  How many of you, when you are in a hurry, will get to the elevator and press the button, but while you wait for it to arrive you decide to take the stairs instead?  The elevator just does not arrive fast enough for many of us.  So, we exhaust ourselves by taking the stairs only to realize when we get to our floor the elevator has made it there just ahead of us.  If we do not think we need the Lord’s help with a thing, it is not likely we would think to wait on Him.  We can take the stairs using our own strength.  The elevator will always arrive on time, but our impatience can make it seem like it is delayed.

I want to encourage you to be one to wait on the Lord for everything.  Psalms 27:14 encourages us with this simple message, “Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart:  Wait, I say, on the Lord!”  If you learn to wait on Him for everything you do and all that you want to do, then He add to you natural strength, His Spiritual strength to make things happen.

We don’t know for certain, but the belief is that it took Noah at least 75 years to build the ark that would later save his family from the great flood.  Abraham had to wait till he was almost 100 years old before he became father to his only son Isaac.  Joseph spent several years in an Egyptian prison for something he did not do before he was released and made second in command in Egypt.  The Israelites were captive in Egypt for over 400 years before God brought them out by Moses.  It can take an Oyster over a year or more to produce a pearl.  

You might say Noah took such a long time to build the ark so that other people would have time to learn to love God.  You might say Abraham had to wait as long as he did because he had to learn to be a great father.  You might say Joseph spent time in prison so he could learn to wait on the Lord for everything.  You might say it took over 400 years to secure the release of the Israelites because they had to grow in numbers that would rival their enemies who were already in the promised land.  And you might say the oyster takes as long as it does to produce that pearl because the oyster must learn to live with a difficulty that will not go away.  When you learn to wait, the Lord will be there to help you endure and get through your greatest difficulties.

We are very impatient people today.  We do not want to wait for much, but we want much to change in our lives each day. We are challenged to wait in two simple ways.  We must learn to wait for something good to happen in our lives, or we must learn to wait for something difficult to stop happening in our lives.  Waiting comes down to those two simple things.  The challenge for each of us is to learn to wait on the Lord so that we do not lean upon our own strength to get us through.

What should you do while you are waiting on the Lord?

• Don’t make things harder for Him to work on your behalf.  If you are waiting on the Lord to change the heart of someone you care about, wait for Him to change your heart instead.  A change in you which might be the thing needed to change the heart of someone else.
• Don’t expect to get something for yourself without changing something about yourself.  Often times the miracle you are waiting on is the miracle you allow the Lord to do by changing something in you.
• Don’t complain about where you are while you wait for things to change.  Your attitude is an indication of whether you are waiting faithfully on Him or whether you are faithfully frustrated with Him.

What is the Lord doing while you are waiting for Him?  Noah probably asked this question many times!

• He is trying to order your steps in Him rather than in the world.  Make it easy for Him and stop wondering about chasing your own paths to nowhere.
• He is trying to work His miracle in you so that others can see His favor upon you.  If you are determined to do it by yourself, it is not likely He will be able to do more than what you do for yourself.
• He is waiting to see if you will wait to see.  The Lord cannot deliver you from your challenge if you are going to take the stairs to another level of your challenge.

Learn how to deny your urge to try to be successful at everything that you do and wait on Him to help you do what you cannot do.  Our circumstances do not determine the speed at which the Lord responds to our needs. Our patience to wait in those needs is what determines how quickly the Lord helps us.  Learn to always be heard by the Lord by being silent before everyone.  Then the Lord will speak for you and others will hear about you.  Learn to take your impatience to the doorstep of the elevator of patience.  Press the button and then wait on the Lord to deliver you through your circumstance.  Wait on the Lord; He will come in time to deliver you.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

My message today has more relevant meaning because we will celebrate Memorial Day tomorrow.  This is a day that we honor military personnel who died in the service of our country. More specifically, it honors those who have died because of wounds they sustained during a battle.  So Memorial Day is the way we remind ourselves and our country to remember to honor those who died protecting our way of life.  I imagine without this day set aside as it is, we would probably live our lives forgetting the cost that has been paid so that we can live the lives we have.

Like Memorial Day, God did many things and continues to do things that would be a reminder to us to remember Who He is and how He works in our behalf to make sure we have an abundant life with Him.  In Joshua 4:3-6, scripture says, “Take for yourselves twelve stones from here, out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place where the priests feet stood firm…that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’  Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were held back before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, when it crossed over the Jordan.”

At that time, the Israelites were a fragile people, but God made a way for them to cross over the Jordan river on dry land.  On our own we are a fragile people today.  We need reminders so that we can remember the things that are most important to us.  God knew this would be a challenge for us.  So, the twelve stones became reminders to the Israelites to remember the day that the Lord made a way for them to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land for the first time.  God wants us to remember the things that will help us learn to live in ways that will give us more abundant lives.  But worldly views have confused us, causing us to remember the things that we should not want to be reminded of.  For example:

• God says to remind yourself to remember that Jesus died for you and me so that we may have eternal life, but our world view says remember that no one can care about your life more than you can, so we reject any reminders of what Jesus means to us.

• God says to remind yourself to remember that all life is a gift of God, but our world view says remember that life is the product of a man and a woman, so you should reject any reminders that life comes from anything higher than two humans.

• God says to remind yourself to remember to love one another just as Christ loves you, but our world view says remember that the last person you loved hurt you, so you should reject any reminders that you should love others unconditionally.

• God says to remind yourself to remember that God wants to be a part of all your life, but our world view says remember that God created you to think and act on your own, so you don’t need any reminders that tell you to submit to anything or anyone that keeps you from exercising your free will.

• God says to remind yourself to remember that you should choose the life that will lead to eternal life in heaven with God, but our world view says remember that heaven and hell are not proven to exist, so we reject reminders that there can be anything beyond life but death.

• God says to remind yourself to remember to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and all things on earth will be provided to you, but our world view says remember good things comes only to those who work harder than the next person, so we reject reminders to pursue anything other than what we believe is best for us today, seeking only things we can achieve through our own hard work.

• God says to remind yourself to remember to honor your mother and your father which is the first commandment with a promise (long life), but our world view says remember we do not have to honor or respect anyone or anything that has not itself honored or respected us, so we reject reminders to do otherwise.

So, as this is a season of reminders, let us remind ourselves to remember that God says that in all our ways that we should acknowledge Him, and He will direct our paths.   When God is directing our steps and our thinking, we will not be misled by a majority thinking that our world views are the best views to have.   In doing this that we have the opportunity in Christ to live a life that is fully delivered from the world view way of living that is all around us today.  So, let’s create some memorial stones in our hearts today, stones that will remind us to remember that God is for our good and never for our harm, despite our world view which might suggest otherwise.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Why are you and I here today?  Jesus knew why He was here.  He said in John 10:10, “The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy.  I have come that they have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”  Then in John 19:30, He said, “It is Finished”.

Three Words.  Three little words spoken to God and to us by Jesus Himself just before He gave up His life on the cross.  It is finished!  These are not words of defeat or hopelessness.  No, these are words of life.  By these three simple words Jesus secured life everlasting and the promise of an abundant life here on earth for you and me.

Jesus came to fulfill the purpose of life God ordained for you and for me.  This is what He means by saying, “I came that they may have life.”  That was His purpose, His meaning, and the reason He came.  Jesus finished fulfilling a Purpose of Life that He had for us—everlasting life.  So, from the cross, He is saying to God, “It’s finished.  My purpose is over.  I’ve finished the work needed so that We can have a relationship with all those who will want it.”

So, what about you and me?  I ask again, why are we here today?  What is your individual Purpose of life?  I don’t believe we can ever know our purpose of life if we believe we were meant to simply live because we were born; or to do because we must live; or to die because it’s the end of living.  When we live this way, we can never really say, “It is finished” because there will always be another thing for us to do right after we finish the thing that we did last.

But doing lots of stuff is not the abundant life Jesus spoke of.  Abundance comes to us when we discover and accept our purpose of life.  It is through purpose of life that we can change many of the circumstances of our lives that keep us from the abundance Jesus promised us.  So, “It is finished” are three words you and I ought to come to speak, but not as if we are completing a job or task, and not as if we are walking away from something that we couldn’t change.  Jesus wasn’t speaking with an attitude of defeat, and neither should we.  His was an attitude of victory.

So, if you and I find and live our Purpose of life, we will never speak about our circumstances with an attitude of defeat or hopelessness.  On the contrary, with Purpose we would be speaking with attitudes of joy and fulfillment, no matter our circumstance.  You and I must come to a place in our natural lives where we give up us our natural inclinations so that the Spirit of the Lord can have His way with us.  We must come to the point of Purposeful obedience in our natural lives where each of us says to the Lord, “My struggle with being me is finished.”

When we do this, a life of purpose will be born in each of us.  So, what does it mean to be finished?  It means we no longer struggle against God with our natural selves.  It means we come to behold our lives the way He beholds them.  To be finished means to see the death of your old self and the birth of your new self in a moment with a Purpose of life.  Living without purpose is empty living.  Jesus promised abundant life.  Purpose helps you come to live the abundant life right here and right now.  The more things you choose to finish in your natural life, the greater things you can have in spiritual abundance.  So, wake up to the promise of that abundant life and say to your life of living by your own strength, “It is finished.”  Live a delivered Life.  Love you.

At the beginning of the book of Joshua, God spoke told Joshua a lot of things that must have seemed unbelievable.  The Israelites had wandered in the desert for forty years and now they were poised to cross over the Jordan into the land God had promised Abraham many years earlier.  But not everything going forward would be easy.  They would have to conquer many people of the land who had lived there for many of the 400 plus years that the Israelites had been in Egypt and the desert.  This would be a big challenge for them, the biggest of their lives.

Speaking in Joshua 1:6, God encourages Joshua to “Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.  Only be strong and very courageous.”  I don’t know about you but after over 400 years of challenges, I believe I would have trembled in my knees at the prospects now of having to do something I had never before done nor been trained to do.  I would have been afraid.  I would have been discouraged.

But now I know there is something greater than my fear.  Tough things are a part of life, but we serve a God who will help us through the tough things to find the great things that await us.  When God is in your tough stuff, you can be certain He plans to bring you through to something greater.  You may not see or know His plan for you as clearly as Joshua did, but knowing or not knowing His plan doesn’t mean His plan for you is not there and sure.  As with Joshua He simply asks that you don’t decide when things are over for you because He holds the key to the beginning and the end of all things.

So today I want to encourage you by helping you find the courage of life to “be strong and of good courage” (God’s way of saying it), because where there is good courage, many of life’s challenges cannot stand against us.  

How do we find this good courage?  First, we must learn to deal with fear.  Fear is a thief.  It is not the opposite of faith; fear is the absence of faith.  Fear is your inner weaknesses telling you to believe everything your mind tells you to see.  Fear says, “Seeing is believing.”  Faith says, “Believing is what you have not seen yet.”  Joshua saw what was ahead of him and the Israelites, but He believed what God said.  Fear wants to make you get off track from what God has planned for you.  Don’t listen to your fear.  Conquer fear with faith and belief in the Word of God.

Next, learn to keep yourself from discouragement.  To be discouraged is to remove courage from your life and your circumstance.  Like fear, discouragement arises from the sense of “seeing is believing.”  The devil wants you to believe everything you see so he can make you discouraged about what you want but can’t see.  So, learn to keep discouragement out of your life.  Where there is fear, there is belief is something not real.  Where there is belief in something not real, there is discouragement in wanting what is real yet unseen.

Finally, learn to be encouraged.  Encouragement is learning how live with a faithful expectation that what you cannot see is the land where all your promises of life can be had.  The devil wants you to forget what you should remember about believing what God says, and he wants you to remember what you should forget about your circumstances.  So, he hates it when you start adding encouragement to your life because it is God’s way of saying to him, “It’s all over for you!”  So, learn to live a life filled with encouragement and you will never be discouraged for long when the tough times come your way.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you. 

Let me start by acknowledging that I have often struggled with the message for today.  I have had many occasions when the words I spoke did not always match my actions.  Now, don’t be alarmed.  I suppose many of us have struggled with this character challenge before.  The book of James tells us, when speaking about how unruly and uncontrollable the tongue is, that the tongue is a mean thing.  James asks rhetorically, “Can a spring bring forth both fresh water and bitter water from the same opening?”  We all know this is not possible.  The point is that we have to fight to match up the things we say with the things we do.  For me, when I came to my senses, the answer is simple: speak less than what comes to my mind and do more from my heart, then the character of my actions will reflect the character of my heart.  But still, we often find it easier to say things than to do those same things.

Why?  Because you and I are not God.  We are imperfect and sinful.  Yet, God demonstrates to us, and the book of James tells us, that what we do should match what we say, and those two should match who we are.  Now, we don’t have to be perfect at this because we cannot be. But we should always be working towards being better than we are at heart.  Psalms 119:68 says, “You are good, and You do good.”  David is speaking of God here.  He is saying, “God You are good and because You are good, You do good things.  And You do good things because You are good because you are God”.  God shows us how the character of what we do should match the character of who we are.

Still, you might say but you have done so much wrong that you cannot see how you can possibly change who you are.  But then that is the point of this message; we should be careful not to think that the things we do are the best indication of who we are.  If you take a piece of food that is not yours and give it to a child who is starving are you a thief or an angel? There is more to this, and here is what that is.  Clearly the character of our acts must stand on their own.  What we do is what we do.  But the character of who we are can reshape the character of how we view the things we do.

How is this so?  Well, I know that a criminal did it so it must be possible for you and me to do it.  Scripture says two men who were criminals, thieves to be exact, were crucified along with Jesus.  One of them, in the agony of being crucified, repented of his wrongs and defended Jesus.  He asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus came into His kingdom.  Jesus responded to this man by saying, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.”  Being a thief is what earned this man the cross; a repentant heart and belief in Jesus is what got him to paradise.  Still, was he a criminal or was he a believer?  Could he be both at the same time?

RW Emerson is quoted to have said, “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” I believe this thinking does not quite describe you, me, and other people of faith.  Clearly what we do in life will follow what we think in life, so it seems to me that our thoughts must come from a character of life that exists before we act.  In a moment, this criminal changed the makeup of his character and so it was reflected in the character of the most amazing act of his life: the act of belief in Christ.  The habit doesn’t reveal the character of the believer.  The character of the believer shapes and defines the character of their acts and habits.  We should all want this for ourselves.

You and I are indeed imperfect and so we are like one of those two criminals.  There is one who isn’t repentant about anything and is set on living apart from God.  And the other who in knowing that he is apart from God tries to find his way back to a place with God.  We are all made to be like God in the ways that we have the control to become.  But we fail, so at best we want our acts to speak of the character we want others to believe for us, and at worst we want our acts to disguise our real character from the sight of others.

But the scripture is true; just as it is not possible for a spring to bring forth both fresh water and bitter water at the same time, it is not possible for the things we do to fully and accurately reveal the character of who we are.  So, if you want your character to be truly revealed in your acts, and you want your acts to be a true representation of your character, do these things:

• Love others quickly and lavishly and others will see the character of the love that you are;
• Speak less and others will see the character of the listener you are;
• Do less and others will see the character of how you inspire action with no action;
• Start your life journey on the inside and others will see the character of that journey in what goes on outside;
• Speak more good about others and others will see the character of the selflessness found in you and;
• Serve the Lord and His interests in others and others will see the character of His interests in you.

When you learn to do all things in these ways, you will be one whose character is seen in the things you do, and the things you do will be done because of the character of person you are.  God, You first make us better so that we will do better, and we will do better because You first make us better.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Two little boys wanted a pony for Christmas.  They ran downstairs on Christmas morning hoping to find that pony.  But all they found was a Christmas tree with piles of manure around it.  The older boy cried, “No pony!  Christmas is ruined!”  The younger boy ran to the barn to get a shovel.  When he returned, he started shoveling away, saying, “With all this manure, there has to be a pony in here someplace.”  I want to talk to you today about how to hang on to what you desire of the Lord especially when there is a lot of stuff piling up around you.

The two boys in this story had very different views of the circumstances on that Christmas morning; they had desires for the same thing, but circumstances caused them to see things very differently.  Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.”  In many ways we are like these boys.  Often the circumstances of our lives are so challenging that we fail to see the One Thing about Life that matters the most.  Where do we live with our desires?

Now, you may say, “But circumstances are real, so how can we pretend they do not exist?”  I am not suggesting we ignore our circumstances at all.  I am saying that as believers we must learn to see through our circumstances to find the Lord’s provision for our desires.  We can learn something from each of those two boys.  We can learn to not miss out on our blessings because we see all that is bad—all that is not what we want—in our circumstances.  Or we can be willing to put our faith and hope to work a little and shovel away some of the things that surround our circumstances so that we can find what the Lord has given us.

Often, we are unwilling, either knowingly or unknowingly, to see that even as we tell the Lord what we desire, we may have to look for that to come in ways that are not what we expect.  The One Thing sure to move the Lord to respond to our prayers is when we pray a prayer of faith that is based on patience and encouragement.

We see this also in our scripture.  David asked the Lord for “One Thing.” His circumstances at the time were grave as he had enemies coming at him from every direction, and he had people close to him who would undermine him at any opportunity.  He could have said, “I need a lot from you right now, Lord.”  But instead, he said, “The One Thing I desire from you is to live in Your house.”  In a way David is saying it doesn’t matter what his circumstances are, he wants to live those out in the house of the Lord.  What about you and me?  Where do we live out the circumstances of our lives?

The world that we live in right now is a little crazy, and it becomes even more so daily.  We cry out for unity, but we bring division by the way we live and the things we do.  We say we want a pony for Christmas, but we do not want to deal with the manure and the straw and the work that comes with owning a pony.  As a nation, we do not really want a relationship with the Lord, and we do not know how to have the relationship we believe we want with each other.  Our scripture today is saying to us that even in a world that is lost within in its self-made needs, the believer can still have their desires met when we remember the One Thing that matters most.  No matter what is happening around us, we must live dependent on and in the presence of the Lord.

So, like that kid who shoveled the manure away looking for that pony, let’s look at the Word today and learn to shovel away at the needs we have that grow each day and learn to live by a single desire that is sure to be found underneath all our wants.  Here is the One Thing that is always true for us.  The Lord is our light in all the darkness we will face; let’s not look for that light in any other place.  The Lord is the strength of our life; let’s not have any other thing that we believe we can draw strength from.  The Lord is the place where we may live when we are in a time of trouble; let’s learn to bring our troubles to Him rather than learn to live in the wrong places.  And in those times when we may feel like we will faint and lose all hope, let’s remember to believe that we will see the goodness of the Lord while we yet live, no matter our circumstances.

The One Thing that matters most and will surely encourage you to live life to the fullest is to learn to wait on the Lord and to be of good courage because He will strengthen your heart.  If you do this, you will find a shovel somewhere in your life that is exactly right for shoveling away some of the mess hiding what the Lord has given you.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

After Jesus was raised from death, but before He ascended to heaven, He was seen by His disciples and many other people over the next 30 days.  On one occasion two people walking along the road to a city called Emmaus were joined along the way by Jesus, but the travelers did not recognize Him.  As they walked, Jesus talked to them about the scriptures and all that was written about Himself.  At some point the travelers finally recognized that it was Jesus who had walked and talked with them just before He disappeared from their sight.  They said to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He opened the scriptures to us?”

My message today is on the experience of how we can know when God touches our hearts.  In 1 Samuel 10:26 scripture says, “And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and valiant men went with him, who hearts God had touched.”  God’s ways are not our ways so He can touch anyone at any time He wants for any reason He wants.  He can touch us in response to our prayers for ourselves.  And guess what?  He can touch us in response to someone else’s prayers and needs.  I want to talk to you about how we can know that He has touched our heart even if we were not seeking a touch of God in that way.

First, when God touches your heart, you are likely to do something out of the ordinary for you but extraordinary for others because you respond to His presence.  God touched the hearts of those valiant men so that some valiant things of God would happen around King Saul.  God’s touch can cause some people to use their strength in ways mightier than what others can face on their own.  They will serve people who need strength and the sense of victory in their lives.

When God touches the heart of a person, that person will become humble under the strength and service of God for the benefit of someone else.  When God touches the heart of a humble person, that person will be strengthened to a place of valiant acts beyond what he or she could have ever imagined.  When God touches our hearts, we will go with the people God is directing, and we will carry with us a sense of valiant strength, determination, courage, confidence and favor that will be present in all we are.

When God touches your heart, He will make you to stop talking so much, and you will start listening more than you ever have.  In a way, He makes you act because you have first listened, instead of talking and acting but hardly listening at all.  This disposition of listening and learning is the state of the heart that makes us think our hearts are burning inside of us.  And in a way, the heart is burning.  It is on fire to hear more, to take in more, and ready to be transformed more by what it has never experienced.

When God touches your heart, people learn to see your heart before they hear your words.  When God touches your heart, He enables you to live from what is in your heart more than by what is before your eyes.  If you learn to live this way, you will find God in all that you see because you will see with the eyes of your heart, the place where God lives and abides in you.

When God touches your heart, He makes you to live in joyful expectation of having what you have never asked for but now you know that you have need of it.  If you have lived a life independent of God, when He touches your heart, you realize that He is the key to your life and all life, so you live in joyful understanding of His presence.  In the places where God is present, miraculous things will happen all around, over and over again.

When God touches your heart, you wake up each day a changed person because God’s touch is life changing, never ending, and always transforming.  You will approach every new day as if you are a new person because God’s touch of the heart kills something old and brings to life something new in each of us.  You cannot remain the same as you were before God touched your heart.  When He touches your heart, He deposits something of Himself into you, something that you were missing.  You can recognize more of His ways because you have more of His presence in your life.  When God touches your heart, you begin to touch the hearts of others in ways that you never did before.  To some of us, He may seem to disappear from the things we see, but this is only so that He can appear right in the heart of who we are and who we should be for Him.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

In Luke 10:25-29, scripture says a lawyer tested Jesus by asking Him what he had to do to inherit eternal life.  Jesus responded by asking the man what the law said.  The lawyer responded to Jesus this way: “So he answered and said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’”  He was saying to Jesus we must love a great God in a great way, but we should love our neighbors in the same way that we love ourselves.  Jesus told the lawyer that he had answered correctly, but wanting to justify himself, the lawyer then asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

Loving God in a great way we can all understand; we conclude God deserves our best because He is God.  But, but like the lawyer, we sometimes ask who is our neighbor?  We do this because sometimes we may know a few people who get on our nerves, who do us wrong, who are impossible to live with, and so forth.  Surely, we think, there must be a limit on how far we go with some people, so we ask, “Who is our neighbor?”

Here are some truths I have learned from life with God.  If I am your father or mother, that makes you my child; if I am your child that makes you my father or mother.   If I am your husband, that makes you my wife; if I am your wife, that makes you my husband.  I believe it would be difficult for anyone to rightly argue the truth of these statements.  Likewise, If I am your neighbor, that makes you my neighbor.  And, if you are my neighbor, that makes me your neighbor.  These are truth also.

To me it doesn’t seem like God would be completely satisfied that we would only love those that we think of as neighbors as ourselves. What about everyone else?  Not all people are our neighbors in the way we think of neighbors.  This is how we might see a neighbor: the people who live near us; the people of our community; the people with whom we share something in common; the people who do good towards us; the people who are our friends. These we could think of as neighbors.  But God doesn’t see a neighbor the way we see a neighbor.

The lawyer is saying we can love our neighbors, but perhaps we don’t have to love those people who are not our neighbors or who are against us in some way.  He was saying could there be room in the law for us to decide how far to go with non-neighbors.   He is saying there will be people who are mean to us, there will be people who will persecute us and behave hatefully towards us, there will be people who betray us, so surely it is within what is right in the law to withhold love to people like that.

Well, we must be careful not to turn God’s desires into a law that we blindly follow.  If we look deeply into God’s wishes of how we should relate to others, we will find a Spirit that goes beyond the law we see on the surface.  The law is specific to a particular event or circumstance, but the intent or Spirit of the Law relates to all that we are and all that we can ever be.  Who then really is our neighbor?  I must say my neighbor is probably more than the people who live nearby.  In trying to justify himself, the lawyer asked the wrong question.  It is not just knowing who is my neighbor that matters.  Rather the question should be, “Lord, would you show us how to be neighborly towards others?”

Jesus describes a scene for the lawyer in which a man leaves Jerusalem and is robbed and left to die by the roadside heading into Jericho.  Three people going to visit Jericho pass by this man.  Two of those people, a Priest and a Levite, see the man, but they pass by without stopping to help him.  But the third person, a Samaritan, sees the man and stops to give him help.  He probably saves the man’s life as a result.  Jesus asked the lawyer which of those three people was neighbor to the man who was robbed.  The lawyer responds, the one who showed mercy on him.  Jesus tells him that is right.  The Priest and the Levite were people of God so we should have expected them to help the man, but they did not; the man was not a neighbor of theirs. The Samaritan person was not thought to be a person of God at that time, yet he stopped and was neighborly towards someone who wasn’t his neighbor.

God wants to keep us from getting the right answer to the wrong question.   The question is not “what we should do to inherit eternal life”, nor is it “who is our neighbor.”  Eternal life is not the wages God pays us for the work we do.  Rather, eternal life is the gift of God for the condition of the hearts we have towards Him.  Jesus describes a neighbor as anyone, even those who may not be neighbors in the way we know it, who lives in a neighborly way and who does neighborly things towards anyone else.

So, while we must learn to rightly understand the letter of the law, we must also learn to correctly discern the Spirit of the intent of God’s Word.  Perhaps the Spirit of the law is this: that we learn to live in a spirit of love towards God and towards all people, and by doing so we will do neighborly things towards all people.  A neighbor isn’t just the person who lives near us.  We have the power to make everyone our neighbor by the way we live towards others.  Learn to ask God the right question so that you come to the knowledge of the right answer, so that you learn to live in the right ways, and so that you can be the person that God points to when He says, “See how he lives?  He has the gift of eternal life; go and live likewise.”  Live in a Spirit of neighborly love, and you will make neighbors of all people you encounter.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

There is a Proverb that I like to remind myself of daily.  It says, “I went by the field of a lazy man, and by the vineyard of a man lacking common sense; and there it was, all overgrown with thorns.  Its surface was covered with needles; its stone wall was broken down.  When I saw it, I considered it well; I looked on it and this is what I understood.  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.  So shall poverty come upon you like a robber.” (Proverbs 24:30-34)  What this says to me is simple.  If I live a lazy, irresponsible life I will get lazy, irresponsible results from what I do.  If I live a sloppy life, I will get sloppy results.

The devil will be most happy with me if I choose to live this way, because he knows that I will be wasting away the life of abundance God has promised me.  I have come to learn that I do not want to do anything that would make the devil happy.  Scripture tells us to be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  In James 4:7 scripture tells us, “Therefore submit to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

So how do you resist the devil, and how do we draw near to God?  Well, I believe you can do three things that would make it difficult for the devil to find you while he wanders about, and these same three things will bring you closer to God who then will come closer to you.

First, every day—each and every day—we should all wake up with the mindset that as soon as our feet hit the floor from a night of sleep, we will be focused on chasing something that the devil would never chase.  You see, you don’t need to necessarily fight with the devil each day.  Sometimes the best way to resist him is to chase something that he would never chase.  So, the first thing that you should chase each day is the presence of God Himself.  It doesn’t matter what your situation is at the moment.  If you decide you are going to chase after God, you will be putting distance between you and the devil, and you will close the distance between you and God.  For every step you take toward the presence of God, He will take two steps towards you, so that your effort to find Him is made easier by Him.  And God is not difficult to find if you learn to wake up chasing after Him.  Don’t wake up and go through the day pursuing things the devil can help you to get.  The devil will never help you become a better person, nor will he help you have a closer relationship with the Lord (or anyone else!), so if you chase after these things, he will flee from you.

Then you should wake up chasing after a particular place to be.  Just like he wanders about each day seeking whom he may find and devour, the devil hopes you will live your life wandering about without a real purpose of life or a place to be.  Don’t give him this power over you.  You ought to wake up each day chasing after something specific, a specific place, a specific location that you want to be because someone else expects you to be there.  Now this may be to be a better person in your spouse’s life, or a better parent in your children’s lives, or a better friend to your friends.  When you chase after being in a special place for someone else, the people who need you will find you more easily because they look for you to be where they need you.  If you don’t have a specific place to be or purpose to fulfill, you give the devil the opportunity to entice you with the spirit of laziness.  Your fields will be overgrown, your work will be of lower quality, and your relationships will be weakened, all because you do not chase after being where it is most important for you to be.  The Lord saw that we would have this need, so He decided to be where we could always find Him: right in the middle of our hearts.  So, learn to wake up chasing to be in a place where others can always be assured to find you.

Finally, wake up chasing after the need make yourself a better person so that you inspire someone in a positive way each day.  Have something of yourself to bring each day and to transfer to someone else so that they will be inspired to pursue being better.  They will find it if you inspire it.  So, wake up each day chasing after being a better you.  A lazy person will find a reason why things do not go their way, but the inspired person will chase after being better because they know someone else is counting on them for that.  And they also know that a better person will do better things to make things better for other people.

Wake up determined to be something for someone else.   In this way God sent Jesus to die for us. When God is for us, who can be against us?  What can stand against us?  Likewise, we ought to wake up each day chasing after the privilege of being there for others and to stand for others, so that they are not easily overtaken by those do not care for them.  When God could do nothing better, He decided to send His only Son to save us.   We can do nothing better when we choose to wake up and chase after being in the hearts of someone who needs our presence in their lives.

When God’s greatest people wake up each day to fulfill these expectations, they place themselves to help others live more abundant lives here on earth.  If you learn to chase yourself in these ways, people will journey with you because you travel with them.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

In Matthew 28:6, scripture captures the account of the risen Christ this way: “But the angel answered and said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for He is risen, as He said.  Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

On the first Sunday after Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and another Mary had come to the tomb where Jesus was laid.  An angel met them there and told them He was not there, that He was risen from the grave.  That is the essence of what we acknowledge as Easter Sunday, the day that Jesus was raised from the dead.  Everyone should be happy that He indeed was raised to live again at the right hand of God and in the middle of our hearts.

Jesus told the disciples many times that He would be crucified and buried and on the third day, He would be raised again.  So, the empty tomb was the proof of that.  He said it; so now if they didn’t believe it before, they should believe it now.  Jesus said it; so the question is do you believe it?  But more than acknowledging or celebrating Easter as just a special day, I want to encourage you to be inspired to hear and to be moved by many other things He said, and thus we should believe.

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  He said it; do you believe it?  To many of us never leaving and never forsaking are Words that we miss the true meaning, so let’s give that some meaning today.  Perhaps the Lord is saying to us, “I am risen because I want you to know I will walk with you; I will go with you; I will be at your side always, and you can count on the fact that once I am with you I will never leave you alone nor will I ever forsake you.”  To forsake you would be akin to more than just leaving you by yourself but to leave you to yourself.  The Lord is saying to us that we can count on Him always walking with us, and that He will never leave us to ourselves.  Now that is a benefit of His being risen for which we should overflow with gratefulness.  He said it; do you believe it?

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him.”  He said it; do you believe it?  Many of us do not understand Love the way Jesus describes it.  In our carnality we have come to understand love as a compilation of acts towards others.  But God is Love.  And because He is love He does loving things.  Jesus is saying to us here that if we are Love towards Him, we will do the loving thing of keeping His word.  And when we are this, God the Father will, in return, be Love to us.  Love is what took Christ to the cross.  Love is what allowed Him to go to the grave.  Love is what raised Him from the dead.  And love is what saved us.  Easter is then to me the expression of Love that loves.  If you can see that then perhaps you should use this as a reason to become Love so that your acts of love come from the love that you are.  He said it; do you believe it?

“In my Father’s house there are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told.  I go to prepare a place for you.”  He said it; do you believe it?  I know some of us can’t really understand what Jesus means when He says that He is preparing a place for us.  But if you listen intently perhaps you would hear that He is saying that we are living more in the world when we should be living in the Spirit.  We are wandering about in our living when He has a permanent home for us.  We may be living in a place that keeps us from having an abundant life while He has prepared a home where all our living is abundant and beyond what we can imagine.  When we learn to live with Jesus, we are not guaranteed we will be free of trials and some of the messiness of life, but we can be assured that we will be able to live through our trials and come out better than we were.   He has a new address for the believer where your mess is turned into your best.  The question is will we move.  He said it; do you believe it?

So, this Easter lets look at the many things He said that we should believe.  Lord, You said it; help us to believe it.  Help us to believe the impossible because you have already shown us You do the impossible for us. Help us to believe in Your miracles because You have already shown us the miracle of the Risen Christ.  Help us to believe that this mountain can be moved.  Help us believe our chains can be broken because we know You move the impossible, and You are a chain breaker.  There is Power in Your Name and in our believing for all the things that You have said.  This Easter, help us believe not just that you were raised from the dead but in all that You have Said.  Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.