Monthly Archives: October 2015

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” Genesis 12:1

Abram likely had never heard of this God who spoke to him. He lived in familiar surroundings, with family and friends, and security. God told him to leave. And go where? God’s answer appears to have been something along the lines of “don’t worry about it. Just say yes.” Abram did.

Nearly 40 years ago I said yes to God. The question was something along the lines of “will you do whatever I ask of you?” That was “my call.” I did not know where it would take me, but I was excited to go.

Not for a moment would I say that I have been obedient at every turn to that simple question. I have had times of great clarity when the path before me was obvious. Other times have been quite murky. I have seen though a glass darkly, and not been able to discern a clear answer. Doubt and fear have plagued me. When I find the courage to follow, I walk by faith, falteringly, but with an honest desire to please God.

For a while now I have been at a turning point in my life. Alcoholism showed me how my will can run completely counter to God’s higher purpose for me. Recovery has helped me discover new ways the rhythm of my life and will can resonantly align with God’s gentle Providence. I think that only by falling far, could I realize how far down God would reach to lift me back. I am profoundly grateful.

So now after 35 years as a pastor I have made a decision to take a new path, one that leads me from the clear and familiar to a land that is excitingly new. Today I resigned as pastor to follow God’s call to help alcoholics, addicts and their families find hope.

My own battle with addiction was dark and lonely. God’s grace has given me a story to share with people who still live in the shadows. I hope to have a special outreach to addicted people of faith who struggle with doubts about God, fear of God, disappointment with God.

I know what it’s like to lose close contact with the God I love and make a new and deadly friend with a substance that drained my life and spirit. I also know what it’s like to come home. I can help people find their way home through treatment for their addictions.

So I have begun Chrysalis Interventions (www.chrysalisinterventions.com) as a way to educate people about addiction and help them find hope through recovery. People can recover. They can get well. I will reach out to churches and denominations to offer my story and my assistance to that end. I’m willing to go anywhere to share this hope. If you have someone struggling with addiction to drugs or alcohol, and you’re ready to take action, call me. I can help you. This is the new chapter in my calling.

Whenever I’ve read Abram’s call, I’ve thought about the thrill of faithful uncertainty. He didn’t know where he was going, but he did know who to follow.

That’s where I am in this new chapter of my life and ministry. I have to say, the thrill of this new chapter stirs my heart is ways I don’t believe I’ve ever felt. Without knowing the destination I know Who to follow.

A calling is simply the intersection of gifts, experiences, opportunity, and obedience. My calling at this stage of my life is not nearly as uncertain as Abram’s. I know without a shade of doubt what I am to do. Where this “yes” will take me, and the exact form it will take matters not one whit.

Anyone can say yes to God. A call is not reserved for a certain strata of believers. The ground around the cross is level, and the access to heaven available to us all. What binds me to Abram, to you, and anyone considering their call is a simple decision to trust. There is something profoundly right about trust.

I’m looking forward to this new journey. Please let me know of any way I can help.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
October 25, 2015

“Make love your aim” 1 Corinthians 14:1

Do you love yourself? It’s a serious question. Jesus said we are to love your neighbor “as you love yourself.” So self-love has an important role in our spiritual formation. But love of self is very tricky. If we don’t understand the proper motive and intention then we risk becoming narcissistic, maudlin, and even amoral.

Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th century monk, wrote a book entitled On Loving God. In it he described four degrees of love, each one successively better and purer than the one before. His degrees of love can help us think more clearly and deeply about aiming for the highest love.

The first degree of love is love of self for the sake of self. In other words, we solely are concerned about self. A baby comes with this programming, and there is certainly nothing wrong with it unless we don’t grow out of it. Many people have only this selfish love as their aim.

The second degree of love is a considerable improvement. It is the love of God for the sake of self. This is an improvement because at the very least the idea of God has been introduced to the selfish person. God is on the radar screen, and the person has some stirring of faith. Good start!

But there is a real danger. This individual has figured out that faith in God, love for God, can be beneficial, to the extent that you can get something out of God. Love Him and He will bless you. This kind of love is no different from a child’s love for Santa Claus. The child really does not love Santa, but the presents Santa brings! Many Christians never move beyond love of God for the sake of self.

An aside here. Much of the “prosperity preaching” today is second degree love. Nothing more. It is a popular appeal to a shallow self.

The third degree of love is much higher. It is the love of God for God’s sake. In other words you love God simply because of who He is. You delight in Him. You have the deepest affection for God because of His excellence and beauty. At this point you are no longer concerned about circumstances, and you do not stand in judgment of God’s faithfulness. You love God no matter what comes.

Now you might think that is as good as it gets. How can we improve on loving God for God’s sake alone? Bernard’s brilliance is that he envisioned a fourth and highest kind of love, the apex of spiritual development. It is the love of self for God’s sake.

In this love, you recognize that you are indeed uniquely formed in His image. You constantly remember that you are so valuable to Him that He would send His Son for you. You acknowledge and revel in the fact that the great God of the universe delights in you, forgives you, and transforms you. You take satisfaction in the talents and gifts God has bestowed upon you. You stop trying to be someone else, and decide to be precisely who God created you to be. In this acceptance you love the “self” God created you to be. This is the love of self for God’s sake.

I have known many people who have a great difficulty in loving themselves. They are filled with regrets and recriminations over some previous behavior or neglected commitment. They cannot forgive themselves. This graceless self-loathing comes in a variety of forms and causes tremendous damage. What they do not realize is that they are in fundamental disagreement with God, and that is part of the problem! The real way forward is to love yourself as God loves you, or love yourself for the sake of God.

The greatest general mistake in self-help attempts is starting with self. That never works. Until you love God, you can never have a healthy self-image. And the starting point is realizing and accepting God’s deep and joyous love for you!

Interestingly, some people in attempting to draw close to God end up feeling terribly unworthy. That is equally as unhealthy as narcissism, and it results from an unhealthy view of God.

I believe a great deal of personal misery is alleviated when we relax and begin to accept the fact that God really does love us deeply and we are the objects of His deepest grace. In our love for Him we find an appropriate and necessary love for self. So loving God truly transforms everything in life. Make love your aim.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
October 18, 2015

“But with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

What is the “impossibility” in your life right now? Do you have something that seems totally beyond your ability to handle? If so, then congratulations! You are on the verge of learning more about the depths of God’s grace.

We regularly encounter impossible situations, events and conditions that are completely beyond our ability to solve, control, or sometimes even comprehend. We can count on those things coming our way. We live in a world that regularly disregards our preferences and demands.

Your situation may be one of a thousand things, but it is your impossible situation, and it hurts and bothers you. I say this because I often hear something along the lines of “I was sad because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” That’s always sounded to me like the way to feel better is to find someone worse off than you.

That kind of thinking diminishes the seriousness and reality of our challenges, and I’m not at all sure that’s what God wants us to do. He doesn’t want us to act as if we have no problems. He just wants us to take all problems to Him.

My granddaughter is 2 years 9 months old. She runs up against impossible situations. For example, yesterday while I was keeping her I heard her keening frustrations and moaning, verging on crying (all the equivalent of toddler cussing). The problem? She couldn’t make her little scissors work.

My response? I didn’t mock her and tell her she has nothing to complain about. I didn’t say “You cry because you can’t work the scissors. But just wait until you meet a toddler with no hands!” No, in the context of her little world, this was a frustrating, impossible situation. I simply helped her with the scissors.

I take this little digression, because we need to acknowledge our impossibilities. In the grand scheme, my daily frustration is certainly not of the same degree as a man facing cancer, for example. But I don’t make any progress if I either act like it shouldn’t be a problem or feel better at his expense. Frankly, I want a theology that applies equally to the man that has no feet or the man who stubbed his toe.

So, what is your impossible situation? A pet died? A stupid boss? A lost job? A health crisis? The Saints struggles? Traffic? (Of course, it’s always traffic). What is it? Don’t worry about the degree, or how petty it may seem. What is the situation in your life that is beyond your ability to control or manage or solve?

Here’s what you can do with your impossibility. Take it to God. Ask Him to help. Then patiently wait.

From opening to closing, the scripture shows us that God is truly loving and very interested in everything that goes on in our lives. He really does care. He wants you to face every impossibility with Him.

Beware of dividing your life between things that you believe you can handle by yourself and things that you think only God can handle. He is the God of every impossible and pleasant situation. He can enrich and infuse with eternity every moment.

And just to be clear, the answer God provides rarely has anything to do with changing the situation. Your mind is the intersection of heaven and earth, and it is there that God does almost all of His work. The knowledge of His peace and presence is the solution to every impossibility.

Once again, we face the collision between obstinate situations and eternal promises. The temptation is great to focus only on the impossibility, our lack of control, and our resulting frustrations. Let’s focus instead on the solution. Face everything with God. Then nothing is impossible.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
October 11, 2015

“Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” 1 Samuel 18:7

Comparing myself to others is one of the most dangerous spiritual vulnerabilities I have. I doubt I’m alone.

Saul was Israel’s first king David, who would later become king, served Saul faithfully, and never sought glory for himself. The verse above is a song or cheer from a group of women after David returned from an especially successful military encounter. David did not instigate it, but it stirred envy in Saul’s heart. He soon tried to kill David, more than once. His reign ended in ignominy.

You don’t have to be a king to compare yourself with others, but you risk the same futility. Using others as a measuring stick leads to fault-finding, a disabling sense of superiority, or an unnecessary depression over your own perceived inadequacies. All of these are the fruit of envy, a deadly sin.

The antidote to envy, in part, is gratitude. You are grateful for who you are and the blessings with which God has surrounded you.

One of the richest people I have ever known lived in southwest Mississippi. Her name was Dot Robertson. Dot was a teacher for many years and was especially proud to have been able to work in the public school system, help her school navigate the transition to integration, and especially, in her words, to give students a chance to learn when they did not have much of a chance before.

In her retirement years she tended a large garden at her rural home, worked in her church, and enjoyed deep relationships with family and friends. I will always remember with fondness sitting in her kitchen, eating cornbread, and drinking a Mountain Dew that she bought just for me.

Her wealth had nothing to do with her income or estate, neither of which I have any knowledge. It came from a consistent gratitude to God for her life, her family, and the stream of young ministers that came to that little country church to learn something about being a pastor. She was remarkably present, and her sense of presence came from gratitude to God.

This blessing of presence through gratitude can be yours also, but you must take your eyes off of everyone else’s accomplishments and be grateful for your own. Thanksgiving is a chief theme in the psalms, and the author of most of them is David. I believe we could trace gratitude throughout his life. He was grateful when he tended sheep or slew a giant. Grateful when he reigned over Israel from Hebron or Jerusalem. Grateful when God blessed and grateful when God corrected.

Relentless gratitude to God opens the spiritual paths to greater understanding of who God is and what He longs to bring you. In gratitude, you realize that He truly does create you for joy, and therefore you can trust God to bring into your life precisely what you need in order to construct of life of real happiness. That kind of blessing has nothing to do with all the things the world counts as valuable. It has everything to do with trusting God and being grateful for what you have instead of feeling sorry for what you do not have.

Are you grateful for where you are in life? We waste a great deal of time pining for something other than who we are or what we have. When I was a teenager, trying to define or understand my identity, I wanted to be someone else. I wanted to be tall enough to play basketball for Kentucky. I wanted to be good looking enough to be popular. I didn’t like my hair, my teeth, my frame. It’s a fairly common adolescent experience, the problem is some people never outgrow it.

I can remember vividly what helped me out of that cycle. During my junior year in high school someone helped me realize that being kind and that was better than being cool. I could live the way God wanted me to live, enjoy the fruit of the Spirit and trust God would honor that way of living. I don’t remember who exactly helped me to see that, but God led me through some good teaching to realize that pleasing Him was far more important than pleasing other people.

I have had to re-learn this lesson many times. But I am at my best when I realize God created me to be Terry Ellis, and that I can trust Him to make of me precisely what is best. My reigning ambition in life is to be the best Christian I can be. That basic, daily commitment brings me a great sense of freedom in Christ.

We can all have that freedom too, but only after taking careful note of how we look at other people. If you sense you are evaluating and judging then you are in for a rough time, for envy will suck out the joy of each day. Let gratitude become your theme, and rejoice in being present with God.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis
August 21, 2011
October 4, 2015