Tag: Decisions

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How to return home.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Praise the Lord! I will thank the Lord with all my heart as I meet with his godly people. How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in him should ponder them. Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails. He causes us to remember his wonderful works. How gracious and merciful is our Lord! Psalms‬ ‭111‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Psalm 111 is a tribute, written by Ezra the high priest and scribe, AFTER returning from 70 years of captivity in Babylon. To be clear, everyone knew why Israel was taken into slavery. The citizens had not only walked away from God, disregarding His laws and warnings, they had given themselves wholly to other gods, foreign gods – FAKE gods! God’s prophets, His spokespersons had been warning both the leaders of Israel and the prominent families to turn their hearts back to God. Israel consistently chose to do their own thing. Now, after 70 years, their city, their temple was decimated. Their kings, dead. Their brothers and sisters in the ten tribes that had split off from the whole, lost forever. The only ones to return were the remnants, the “root of Jesse,” as they were called.

Yet, in all this loss and penitence. In their humility, they found their heart for God. In mass they repented and made the journey back to rebuild what had been destroyed. Even though their hope was a flickering flame, a smoldering wick, just barely showing light, they remembered their God. Ezra writes, “He causes us to remember his wonderful works.” In complete misery of loss they remembered God and their own hearts turned, once again, towards Him!

How does one come back from devastation? How does one return to rebuild their entire life? How does one find hope in their future? Israel recognized their sin and remembered their God! Captivity wasn’t God’s fault, it was His love and discipline, going to extremes to keep His people from complete and utter destruction. The human heart, left to its own desires, will crash and burn and destroy everyone and everything around them. We are desperately wicked and strive against God to have our own way and do our own thing. God intervened, putting the nation in timeout until they came to their senses.

Psalm 111 captures the results of them turning their hearts towards God as they make their final assent back up to the city of Jerusalem. Ezra, returning and reflecting on the years of loss, looked up the road to Jerusalem. Then his eyes continued to look up, high into the heavens and thank God. What do you do to return? You look back and see your own decisions that led to devastation. You look up the road to see the restoration of your own future. And, you look even higher, to see God and thank Him for His righteousness, grace and mercy. This is the lesson of Psalm 111. Don’t quit. Don’t wallow. Don’t wait! Come home.

Prayer

​Dad,
What awaits us when we return home? Is it judgment, shame and humiliation? No! What awaits us is exactly what awaited Ezra and Your people – righteousness, grace and mercy. You want us to win. You want us to be well. You want us to live! Thank you oh Lord, for the means of mercy to see our failures and poor decisions. Thank you for the gift of seeing our past with the ability to turn to you and see our future. Thank you for real and genuine hope in the plans you have for us, if we would just turn and return. Amen.

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Discovering life-gold in Proverbs.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.” ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭16‬:‭3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

When I first believed, there were only two lessons I needed to learn and that God was willing to teach me: Obedience and discipline. I learned to hear God’s voice and struggled with being obedient to it. Very soon afterwards, I began to ask God what He had planned for my life. Before Christ I had no future, no hope and absolutely no direction for my life. But after, I began to have hope in a future. But what would that look like? I had no idea.

Enter Proverbs. For two years plus, committing to reading one entire chapter every day. Since their are 31 chapters in Proverbs, it worked out well. When I came to chapter 16, three verses leapt off the page and highlighted in front of my eyes. Proverbs 16:1, 3 and 9. These verses became my game plan to determine what God wanted me to do with my life.

At first, it felt like I was just making stuff up! Maybe I should go to Long Beach State College and get a degree to become an electrician like my adopted father. I loved taking things apart and hadn’t killed myself playing with electrical sockets in our house, maybe that was it? I had gone to two college preview days (Junior and Senior year of High School) maybe I should go to a private Christian School and study to become a pastor? Who knew? I didn’t!

But applying these wisdom principles in my life gave me a confidence and a guide to help me determine my life’s big next step. I had some strange and miraculous things happen when I was 16. When I started my senior year of High School, I was feeling confident that God was leading me into full time ministry – as a pastor. The week before school began they took class pictures for the yearbook. For the seniors, they asked us what we were going to do after graduation. In my simple faith, or nativity, I wrote down – I’m going to be a pastor! Of course, my family was shocked, friends that knew me were shocked. I was even shocked when it came true!

These verses became my first decision grid on making major decisions in life. I love the mystery and wonder of 16:9, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” It’s like this. When we are walking we generally know where we are going, the direction of our whole physical body determining the next step as our foot lifts, then lands in front of us. In my mind, I imagined that I make a plan and set out on my day. What I’m going to do, where I am going to go, and who I plan to see or call. But here’s where the mystery comes in, just before my foot hits the ground (according to my plans) God seems to direct it to land where He intends, not necessarily where I intend. I notice every day, that I make plans, but God brings in His will, His way, His plans and supernaturally, superimposes them on my own plans, resulting in accomplishing God’s will in complete cooperation from me. Does that make sense?

I simply go about my day, my month, my year, making plans and yield (at every moment possible) to God’s intentions. Of course, it’s not perfect on my end! God also has the ability (mostly because He already knows my choices) to correct things in real time, re-writing mistakes and flub-ups to get me back on track with Him. And, all of this works together for His glory! This is how and when Romans 8:28 kicks in, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” So – go and make some plans! Dream big and make some Godly plans. Go for it. God will lead and guide by His peace.

Prayer

Dad,
I’m on the other side of life’s perspective of just starting out. Now, I’m looking back and can fully declare that you have been soooo faithful. Your will, your ways are perfect. I am thankful for your guidance and patience in my life. I can see how amazing these wisdom principles are because they have 100% worked in my life. What plans should I make now? I’m going to continue to dream big 😀!

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Following the voice of God

Reading Time: 4 minutes

“But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.” 1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭4‬-‭6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

John uses his position and authority to help us, warn us, about who we should be listening to and who we should not be listening to.

In the earlier verses John writes clearly, “DO NOT listen to those who believe that Jesus wasn’t a real human being.” Jesus was fully God and fully human. The early Church not only argued several positions about Christ’s divinity and his humanity, but the Church did so for about 500 years after his death!

John was laying down a baseline – any denial of both divine or human is not worth listening to – period (‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭2‬). But wait, there’s more.

John takes a position and helps us build a decision-grid, not only of truth, but of following the voice of God. God gave you and me His own Spirit, living and active in our lives because we have made a declaration of faith in Jesus. This Spirit of truth is enough to help us lean in and listen to God about ANYTHING we struggle with, any question we may have about faith and obedience. John writes, “The Spirit within is GREATER than the spirit of the world.” This is helpful in knowing the truth and yielding to Christ. I’m not sure how effective it is in knowing the truth and telling other nonbelievers of Jesus how they should live their lives.

John doesn’t really use the phrase, “those people,” that’s a clarification found in the NLT version of the Bible. John simply writes, “they” referring to those who do not believe nor yet belong to God. “They,” belong to this world. They speak from the world’s viewpoint and it is the world that listens to them. At this point it sounds like John is describing an “us versus them” situation, like one of us are aliens! Well, that’s not too far off.

There is a spirit of the world (kosmos) and it is different and from the Spirit of Christ. The world order is not only based on the idea of “original sin,” where there was a chasm created between God and humans based on disobedience and the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15-17). There is also a real enemy, the slanderer (liar, deceiver) who was thrown out of heaven and down to earth’s domain (Isaiah 14:12–14, Ezekiel 28:12–18, Luke 10:18 & Revelation 12:7–12). The Apostle Paul tells us that satan is in fact the god of this world and has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Here’s the summary: There are quite a few voices to listen to and it’s important to know the difference between them and make decisions based on only one of them! There’s a voice inside our head which gets pretty loud and often confusing. There’s the voice of others Godly or worldly. There’s the voice of the slanderer himself, thwarting and twisting everything. And there is the voice of the Holy Spirit, God himself. Wow. Simple, right?

John’s advice, which is Godly wisdom, is to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, who WILL LEAD US (and is greater – mega good). He also says we can, and should, listen to the voice of the Spirit of God coming from a trusted believer. Paul uses this helpful phrase in Romans 8:16, “The Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit,” Saying, it’s a match and it’s trustworthy. That same principle is applied when we are speaking into one another’s lives in helpful ways with affirmation, encouragement and sometimes even admonishment (gentle correction). We CAN hear from God and from one another. Clearly, John wants us to know that this whole idea of hearing from God and listening to the Holy Spirit is helpful, but it becomes critical when deciding about TRUTH. Is it the Spirit of truth or is it the spirit of deception? Spirit of God or spirit of the world? I also believe that God has given every living soul a conscience of right and wrong, that’s a topic for another time. Know this: you can hear and be led by the voice of God through the Holy Spirit!

Prayer

Dad,
The only way I discovered how to listen and discern your voice was to read Your Word, listen and obey your Holy Spirit! Both took discipline and practice. It was not simple at all. It took time and patience. It was filled with joy and grief. Getting it right, learning to be obedient and trusting you was not easy. Yet through years of practice (and still today) it has helped me to truly discern your Spirit from the spirit of deception. And oftentimes, in hindsight, I discovered I had been thrown off by my own desires, voices of others and flat out lies when trusting the wrong person! It has not been a perfect process, but it has built trust and faith in you. It has also built some confidence and boldness when I had to choose you over all other voices. I am thankful that your Spirit in me is greater than the spirit of this world.