Monthly Archives: November 2011

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end is death." Proverbs 14:12

Each one of us has a great capacity to make ourselves miserable, and we often do this unwittingly, confidently, and even blithely. The scripture for this week's GraceWaves highlights this chronic tendency. We are all capable of constructing and following a way that seems right, best, and most likely to produce the happiness we desperately want, but it leads precisely the opposite direction.

The Bible is unsparing in its evaluation of the result of this kind of pursuit: death. Other translations have destruction. The Hebrew is literally "the ways of death."

Solomon, the author of the proverb, is case in point. Gifted with wisdom beyond all others, he constructed a life of fantastic wealth, learning, and insight. He knew people were self-delusional and prone to self-destruction. Yet he himself ended his life in a sad state. Read the book of Ecclesiastes. This is Solomon at his lowest point. Nearing the end of his years he considered everything empty. He knew that one should focus on God alone, but he had lost focus, the nation lost direction and split into two kingdoms after he died. Even the wise physician could not heal himself.

Staying away from the broad, and heavily populated way that leads to death necessitates knowing what the truly right way looks like. Two main principles emerge from scripture and lead us to life. Both are paradoxes.

The first paradox is you are both divine and human. This idea is not some new age (whatever that means any more) idea about a divine spark or embodied spirit. I'm reflecting here the biblical idea that God made every one of us in His image. We can't pin down what that image is precisely but God has made us somehow like Him. You are made in the image of God.

At the same time, however, you are human, and your humanity has been terribly scarred by sin. Some people are so deeply twisted they mock the idea of divinity for themselves or others. On the other end of the spectrum, even the best among us give expression to the spiritual battle seething within us. Paul could include himself (and all Christians) as among the saints, but also wrote of the terrible struggle of knowing precisely what is right, yet doing precisely what is wrong (Rom. 7:15).

So how do we meet this challenge? The answer is simple and also paradoxical. We humbly admit our incapacity and ask God to continue His slow work of transformation. Admit you are essentially powerless, and God pours His strength into your weakness. Go at this problem on your own, in your own strength, and you will only feed the disabling weakness through your pride.

God is painfully, frustratingly slow from our perspective, but He actually has perfect rhythm and timing. Your challenge is to trust that He is still working in you even when you stumble. You may feel completely wretched and beyond His reach. You are not. God is a great "Reclaimer," and He wants to reclaim and recreate the son or daughter He created you to be. You must trust that His love for you is unconditional, and His grace is relentless.

Now the second paradox is only slightly less perplexing: focus on yourself and you lose, deny yourself and you win. This truth, of course, is central to Jesus' call to follow Him. "You must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me" (Mark 8:34). To drive it home He added, "for whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it" (8:35).

Jesus did not mean that we cannot have "time to ourselves." He would commend care of ourselves in the form of exercise, solitude, or recreational pursuits. What He did mean is that we cannot focus on ourselves. Self-help in any form has a self-imposed limit of the self! You need more than you can give yourself, and that is where the first paradox comes back into play. God enters every space you clear out the clutter of self.

Jesus was quite clear on this, saying several times: The first shall be last, and the last first. This "Great Reversal" highlights both our problem and our opportunity. Take a good, honest look at where you're heading. Does it lead you to God? Then you will find life. But if it does not, then you face only chaos and destruction.

When you stop going down the wrong way, you discover you were walking alone and did not realize it. Turn back the other way, love and serve God and others, and you discover that Christ will take your hand and lead you to joyful and abundant life.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

November 28, 2011

"O give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His steadfast love endures forever." Psalm 118:1

An old motivational story concerns a breakfast of eggs and bacon and the difference between the commitment of the chicken and the pig. The chicken is involved, but the pig is fully committed. You can now use the story in a variety of ways to encourage people to be fully committed, no matter what. No one likes a half-hearted commitment. If you are going to engage in any endeavor, if it is worthwhile, give it your best! Be wholehearted!

I want to apply this to thanksgiving. I believe that gratitude is a spiritual discipline on the order of prayer, study, service, etc. God wants us to be thankful, not for His benefit, but for ours! The more grateful we are the closer we draw to God who is the source of all blessings. Our annual celebration of Thanksgiving should be a time when we strengthen the bond between what we are, or what we have, and God's blessing in our lives. We should become more deeply aware of how greatly God has blessed us

The challenge we face is a great one! For some reason, thanksgiving sounds juvenile, perhaps a childhood hangover from parents making us write those notes. Maybe the problem is that we retain at least some suspicion that our blessings came from our own cleverness or ability. So why should we be thankful for all this stuff we bought? Of course the main reason for lack of gratitude is that we have moved along too quickly to the next worry. We seem uniquely suited to forgetting that as God has acted in the past He will act in the future. Just as the heart shapes the life, so also the life shapes the heart. If you are given to doubt, to fear, to criticism, complaint, anxiety then you will likely grow to be wholehearted in those areas.

Take worries for example. You may have a main worry this morning, something that is taking up a great deal of your heart and mind. Everyone struggles at this point to some degree, but here is what I want you to notice about worry. It seldom gets solved. Oh, most all worries are resolved, but for most people worry is like a Pez dispenser. Take one off the top and another rises to takes its place. Without realizing it, you may have become a wholehearted worrier!

As we look at God's Word this morning and think together about it, let's open our hearts and minds and ask God to solve some our struggles at the deep level where the Holy Spirit meets our hearts. This survey requires a great deal of honesty. Look for ways to embrace wholehearted Thanksgiving. Be intentional.

We make our choices, then our choices make us. On choice I challenge you to make is to focus on the blessings of the "inner man" or to give us blessings in the "spiritual places." The major flaw in all of our requests to God is that we aim too low. We are all closet "prosperity gospel" proponents, but how many of us would be completely satisfied with God's saying to us, "I will bless you richly. You may not see the blessings right away, but trust me that I am preparing you for success in eternity, not here on earth."

We all have a fundamental decision to make concerning the direction and intent of our lives. Do you want most of all the spiritual blessings that God wants to give you? Or are you almost exclusively focused on the material blessings?

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

November 21, 2011

"By this we shall know we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before Him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything." 1 John 3:19-20

People who are paid to know this stuff say we are in "the post-modern age." Whatever post-modernism is, and by definition it seems to enjoy being slippery, it does seem to be deeply colored by feelings. It is a mood, unburdened by the bothersome constraints of order or the Neanderthal notion of linear thinking. Feelings and emotions are important in the post-modern mind.

However, a feelings-driven faith, which no one would admit to, presents a variety of problems, for many times we simply do not feel very Christian. I read recently of a man battling cancer, a battle he eventually lost, saying that he was sick and tired of being sick and tired. As he was in the business of cranking out weekly columns of inspiration and encouragement, he lamented not being able to bring bright light to his readers from the darkness of his own experiences. He felt inadequate, unattractive, and incapable. In other words, he didn't feel very Christian.

Neither does the man who is struggling to keep the family finances in some semblance of order. The raises can't come fast enough, and the bills keep piling up. The children have no idea how much they cost, and even that thought only reinforces his own personal disgust. How could children "know" how much they cost? And what difference would that make? All he knows is that words like faith, confidence, and love are pretty meaningless in his world right now. He does not feel very Christian.

I think young mothers face the toughest time right now. Maybe I'm being paternalistic, but these young ladies appear to face more challenges than any other demographic. They have the normal challenges of getting the children going in the morning, after changing sheets for one of them during the night. The doctor visits, dance lessons, year-round sports teams, carpool, etc., make her feel like a taxi. And she never gets a tip. And as for housekeeping? She does well to scrape off the kitchen floor a formerly soggy frosted flake that has dried into a substance only slightly less than diamond-hard. And she is doing all these things in a world where "a good man" is harder and harder to find. She doesn't feel very Christian.

This problem is an ancient one. In John's words sometimes "our hearts condemn us." Our commitment waxes and wanes according to the latest run-in we have had with a bad day, or a disappointing church or minister, or a messy reminder of church history in general, or a devastatingly clever agnostic verbal riposte (and they do love to be "devastatingly clever").

What do we do when we don't feel very Christian?

Your first response is to not fling away from faith. As John wrote, "God is greater than our hearts." Just stop, take a deep breath and remember that God must be bigger than your fears. He is more constant than your doubts. I believe it was Phillips who wrote, "The King is still in residence. His flag is still flying." The thorny knot of problems you face has not defeated heaven's forces or heaven's rationality.

Second, remember the priority of your faith. It rests on solid facts, and can be supplemented by feelings. So your priorities are faith, facts, and feelings, and you must never get those three out of order. Again, because we live in a culture that caters to feelings, we have exalted the most vulnerable and misleading part of our experience. We pursue and try to manufacture the feeling that makes us feel best. That approach is a cheap drug and useless nonsense.

Often you have to go on believing even when it does not feel right or good. Trust the facts of what God has revealed to you during times when you saw most clearly. They have not changed. Your faith is your most cherished gift. Don't allow any feeling to convince you faith no longer applies.

Finally, remember the literary context of 1 John 3:19-20. He wrote that we must keep the commandment to love one another. The reminder to love precedes and follows the two verses about confidence. When you struggle with bitter feelings, find someone to love. Or better find someone whom Christ can love through you. We feel God's love most clearly when we are sharing it consistently. Grace in, grace out.

I've never known an honest Christian who would not admit to the problem of sometimes not feeling very Christian. Thank God He is stronger than my feelings and more certain than my doubts.

Dr. Terry Ellis

November 14, 2011

"He who has ears, let him hear!" Matthew 13:9

During a doctor visit a man happened to mention his concern for his wife's hearing. The doctor suggested a simple test, and the man tried it when he returned home. Standing about 20 feet behind his wife he said in a quiet voice, "Honey, what time is dinner?" No reply. He stepped to 10 feet and repeated the question softly. Silence. He then moved directly behind his wife and quietly said, "Honey, what time is dinner?" She turned around and said, "For the third time, it's at 6:00!"

You can hear quite a few complaints about the way God speaks, and most of us have joined in that chorus at some point. David, more than once in a deep crisis, questioned God's apparent silence. "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever" (Psalm 13:1). Like you and me, David had questions and needs, and wasn't hearing any answers.

Jesus often noted the disconnect between God's voice and our hearing. The verse for this week's GraceWaves is a common exhortation usually following a parable. We think of the parables, and Jesus' teaching in general, as very accessible. He taught clearly, and we sometimes pat ourselves on the back for understanding something that eluded the disciples.

Still we have all been in the position of wondering if God is speaking. We have ears, and we even want to hear, but nothing is coming through clearly. Is God silent?

First, God is never silent. Let me repeat, He is never silent. We live in a world that echoes with His voice, His grace, His providence. Without question part of the problem might be that we are standing in the brass section trying to hear the cello. But don't think for a moment God is not trying to get His message across to you in countless ways.

The foreground noise is, I am sure, one reason Jesus sought out "lonely places." He needed to hear the Voice in the background. If you don't pay regular attention to your need for a quiet place, then don't complain about not hearing God. The problem is not on His end.

Second, we must acknowledge the substance of the gospel is both plain and mysterious. Some parts are harder to hear. The fact of God's love is fairly obvious and evident. We sing plenty of songs and preach plenty of messages about God's love. This is the "all about me" part of the gospel that we hear eagerly.

But part of the gospel also is the need to deny self, to be last of all, and servant of all. Ironically, the oft-heard complaint about irrelevant worship (e.g. "I'm just not being fed.") comes from people who simply do not want to hear anything about denying self. They want their self satisfied and catered to. The complaint arises from the very area that needs to be addressed. The fact is, God is speaking to the need for all of us to set aside personal agendas for the sake of the gospel, but we are simply unwilling to hear.

Can we seriously blame God at this point? The stoniness of this kind of soil is no reflection on the effectiveness of the sower. Instead of constantly fretting about a twisted notion of "being all things to all people," the church will do better to stick with the gospel and acknowledge that some people are simply not asking the right questions. We should not expend great energy chasing an audience that really is not all that interested in being caught.

Your task this week is to listen twice as much as you speak (our anatomy speaks for itself: one mouth, two ears). Open the Bible. God has a word for you. Listen to a friend's struggles, and pray together. You can almost hear Jesus' frustration, but let's accept the challenge. You have ears! Use them!

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

November 7, 2011