Lifes Keys Chapter Two: Get Up and Never Give Up

                                                                 Romans 8:28


"Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts."
Winston Churchill

"If you are going through Hell, keep going"
Winston Churchill

I find that over the last few years I have become almost a motivational speaker when speaking with other brothers and sisters in the faith. I think it is because the church has bought into that very American idea that says everything in life should be easy; and when it is not, it is a result of some lack in our own lives. In retrospect, I think, it could also be from a false religious idea that came about through an institutionalized misunderstanding of life that crept into the church during the dark ages.  In any case, I find that we as a body have embraced the idea that life in Christ means nothing bad will ever happen to us and if it does its our fault somehow. I wont lie, most of the time it is our fault in some way; but, the Bible clearly states that God is bigger then this. You see we all fail in life at times. This in no way means we have to keep failing in life. I believe that God made a way for us to be able to live free from sin in this life not just the next. You see, to me if God only cared about the next life then He is a poor tactician and we know he is not. In any case, failures we may be; but, we in no means have to stay there.

I love to study about people who have come before me that have risen above their own personal failures to truly change the world. Among my favorites in Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant and Winston Churchill. Neither of these men were what we would refer to today as Golden Childs.  In fact, all of these men were just the opposite. Churchill may have been more of one then Lincoln; but, he was still  a failure who was almost drummed out of political and public life by his failures as the head of the Admiralty for Great Brittan during WWI. Lincoln failed at almost every election he ran in; and when he finally won the presidency, it split the nation. U.S. Grant failed at everything he tried his hand at and only went back to the Army because he could not succeed at anything else. In the end, he won the Civil War for the Union and eventually became president of the United State. What do all of these men have in common? They all refused to give up. They refused to see themselves as nothing more then failures. They continued to believe it was possible for them to overcome no mater how dark the night got nor how badly they had failed.

Here's the deal then, you have failed. So what! Wait a minute here; you mean it doesn't matter that I just fell again. Well, I am glad you asked. No it does not. I can not say this anymore strait forward then I just did. The only way that it maters is if it has become a consistent character issue in your life and if you are unrepentant of that issue. If you simply do not care about God and want to continue sinning, then by all means death is your portion; but, if you are genuinely repentant of this issue and want freedom from it then you can have it. Get up, dust yourself off and keep moving. You don't have to let failure become your identity! The Bible says in Romans 8 that ALL things work together for our good. In my dictionary all means exactly that, all. So all even encompasses our failures. After all, if God is not even big enough to overcome our simple little failures then He really isn't much of a God is He? We talk about God being bigger then our circumstances and our enemies, but He is also bigger then us. He is bigger then our mistakes, our wrong turns, our sin and our failures. If we really love Him and if we really are the ones called according to His purposes then HE will work all things together for our good. (Just a little clarification, the ones who are called according to His purposes is everyone who excepts Him and runs after Him. So that means you honey.)

The only way we can truly fail in this life is if we simply stop trying. Any creature will die if it loses the will to go on. Maybe it is hard for you to have faith right now because you have failed so miserably. Maybe just getting out of the bed you have made for yourself is the most difficult thing you have ever had to do. I feel for you I have been there; but, I got up, and I still am. Everyday I get up anyway and hope. You see you can not have faith without hope. Faith is the evidence and substance of the things that are hoped for. Faith is not possible without hope. Hope is simply the possibility that something can happen; where as, faith is the substance and evidence of that thing. God is bigger then the bed you have made for yourself and in Romans 8 he lets us all know that His response to our self made situation is not, "you made your bed now lie in it."; but rather, "Take My hand and let Me show you that I am bigger then this situation you have made!" In Hebrews 12:1 Paul encourages us to set aside those sins which so easily beset us and to run on after the high call of God. Just like us Paul knew what failure was like. He knew what it was like to have to overcome his own mistakes. After all, he was a serial murderer of Christians and now he had become one. No one trusted him; in fact, it took a  miraculous act for God to get someone to go to Paul and heal his eyes. Maybe you are there right now. Maybe you are in a place where it is going to take a miraculous move of God to even get people to start trusting you again. Well then, you are in the same place Paul was after his conversion; the right place for God to move for you. I leave you with the words of Winston Churchill, "Never Give Up! Never Give up!"

Lifes Keys Chapter One: Fighting For Others

                                                            

                                                                    Mathew 14:13-14

In life we sometimes face situations that completely demolish our hearts. It is in these times that the enemy often comes in and tries to lead us astray. Whether it be in an area of sin in our lives that we use as self medication. (What?? I don't use sin as a means of self medication.) Well, that is a topic to discuss on a another occasion; but just let me say, that most of us use sin as self medication. I would dare to say that most of the sins that so easily beset us in our lives can be attributed to self medication. If not to sin he will try to bring us to a place of discouragement. In either case most of us usually become so self absorbed that we can not see past our own hurt and grief. I am no different then any other person in this life and when I went through my divorce I fell into a depression that I never thought I would recover from. During this period in my life I had many friends give me many tidbits of advice on how to drag myself out. I even had one, cough Doug, tell me he would shoot himself in the head if he were me. He was, of course, joking...well at least I think. In any case, most of the advice I was given was good, but in the end I was still in an out of control spiral that I could not recover from.

One in particularly hard day I was praying and God brought me back to a message my dad preached when I was at bible college. It was a message on compassion. He taught about how after John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herrod that Jesus had gone out into the wilderness to be alone so he could morn. Now John was not only his cousin, but he was the only other person in the world who knew exactly who Jesus was; and, in all the time John had been in prison Jesus was unable to go visit him. In fact, John had even sent Him a letter asking him if he really was the Christ. Jesus responded but was still unable to come to him. Soon after John was killed and Jesus had retreated to an isolated place to be alone and morn. Of course, being who He was, when the multitudes heard He was there they all trekked out into the wilderness to find him; and of course, find Him they did. When Jesus heard them He came out of his place of isolation and did something extraordinary. Instead if loosing His temper with them by sending them all away he rather chose a different path. The bible says in Matthew 14 that He was moved by compassion and healed all who were sick. That in itself is amazing; but Jesus does one better, and He miraculously feeds the multitude with just five loaves of bread and two fish.

Now we all know, if this had been us that we would have either not come out at all or we would have completely lost it and probably shot at least half of the people before they had a chance to flee in terror. Even though my track record in handling such things had not been, shall we say, kosher up to this point; God did however, show me something in this scripture passage I had not truly seen before. It was a key that I could use to unlock my own seemingly hopeless situation. It is this key that ultimately was the turning point in my recovery. The key He showed me-drum roll please-was simply compassion. What, you mean it wasn't time heals all wounds; because, we all know that works right? (I hope the sarcasm came through the computer screen there.) No my friends, it was not sit around and wait for God to miraculously heal me from the inside out. The truth is, He was already doing that and I still could not see past my pain. What He showed me here was very simple and yet profound. What He showed me was that I needed to get my eyes off of myself and on to those who were around me; and when I did, my whole world changed in a flash.

When I for the first time in years really looked around I saw people. Thousands of people who were hurting just as badly as I was. I saw people who were on the verge of suicide. I saw people who were so bound up that they were in mental hospitals. I saw friends and family who were hurting and being beaten by the enemy. In that moment something clicked inside me and I grew angry. Not angry at God or at my situation as I had been before; but rather, angry for the people I saw around me. I was moved with compassion. It hit me then and I realized what Jesus had been doing in the moment after John had been killed. He was not allowing Himself to stay in his hurt and grief; but instead He allowed His grief to drive Him to truly see the plight of the people around Him and it move Him into action. You see, this is what I needed to do as well; and as soon I did my world changed. I was no longer a failed destroyed mess but I became something else. I became the person that my friends now refer to as Captain America. I became more like Jesus that day then I had ever been before. I became a hero; because after all, Jesus is and still is a hero. He is the savior of all, and we were created in His image; so by divine design, we were fashioned to be heroes as well. This is why the enemy goes through so much trouble to try and keep us so focused on ourselves and our own circumstances.

You see, the key to finally getting out of depression and hurt is not just time or healing; but,  it is turning outward and choosing to pray and fight for others. After all, the bible says in Isaiah 58:8 that God is our rearguard; if this is the case, as my dad often says, then when we turn around away from our problems and start seeing others instead we put our problems in the best place for God to deal with them. To be honest, if we want to be like God then this is the way we should live in every area of our lives. The bible talks extensively about living our lives for others and not ourselves. The bible says that we should aspire to be fathers in the faith. Since I had great parents and I hope I am a great father I know full well that the job of a father is to sacrifice for his children. Fathers are always the ones who are willing to put others before themselves. True fathers are the ones who are giving their lives so others can succeed. So you see folks, the key to freedom from pain and depression and life in general is looking outward instead of inward. Now, go be heroes and fathers. Go find someone today who you can fight for and invest your life into; and I promise you, you will certainly change and so will your world. For me, I am already picking up the phone to call Bucky and the Twins Hawk and Dove. Excelsior!

                                                                        Listening to

Do not Doubt in the Darkness That Which You Believed in the Light

If there is one thing I have learned in life it is this; “Do not doubt in the darkness that which you knew to be true in the light (Lawhead, Byzantium).” It is so easy to be strong and confident and filled with faith when everything is going right and the world is peachy and filled with rainbows and unicorns. It is another thing entirely to stand and believe when we are facing the fiery furnace or when we are sitting in the depth of a lions den; yet, this is when it is most necessary. I have heard many people boast of their faith and how they will stand in the midst of the hardest battles in life, and then simply fizzle when the battle actually finds them. To be honest, I have been one of them in the past. I have been so filled with zeal and righteous intensity only to break and run at the first volley from an enemy that God has already defeated. The fact is that feelings and intensity are not necessarily faith.

Sure it is important to bring our emotions into line with the word of God; but, it is not emotion that gives us the strength to stand and believe. In fact, when Elijah went by emotion he actually failed. After he stood against 400 prophets of bail on Mount Carmel and defeated them all by the power of God he fled to the wilderness and hid in a cave because Jezebel threatened him (1 Kings 18). He was overcome by fear and his faith left him even after God had moved in a visible and mighty way. One minute he was a super hero filled with faith and power, and the next minute he was hiding in a cave. Now do not judge Elijah too harshly we have all been there in one way or another. One minute we are walking on cloud nine and God is moving pushing aside whole armies of the demons for us; and then, one tiny devil rears its ugly head and we are hiding in the corner in a fetal position. He moves and gives us a brand new car and then the tire blows. We stop seeing the amazing blessing he has done and only see the one thing that went wrong no matter how insignificant it is in comparison to the
blessing.

 Jezebel was no where near as powerful as 400 prophets of bail; and yet, Elijah fled from her in fear. What did he do wrong? He took his eyes off of God and what he had done and put it back on the enemy in front of him. This caused Jezebel to become the center of his attention instead of God causing her to become the center of his focus and not God. When the enemy or the circumstances become the center of our focus then God no longer is. But if we do not focus on the enemy at hand then we are not being responsible right? That may be conventional wisdom according to the world; but, it is not spiritual wisdom. Faith says even though I do not see I still know God is in control. Psalms 55:22 says, “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken (NIV).” This scripture does not say, “Worry and run around exhausting your strength feeling anxious and depressed; and then, God will move and help you possibly if you feel like he will.” No! This passage says cast your cares upon Him and HE will never let the righteous be shaken! He, being God and not you.

Whoa now Nelly! Are you actually saying that God doesn’t want me to worry about my finances or my circumstances? You mean I don’t have to pray everyday over and over again for the same thing? Isn’t that what God wants me to do? Let me ask you something. If you ask me to help you and I say I will and then you ask me every second of every day to help you how do you think that is going to make me feel? I said I would help and you can rest assured I will; but, if you keep asking me it makes me feel that you don’t trust me to do what I said I would. If we ask God over and over again for the same thing what we are saying to God is that we do not believe He will do what he says he will. If we need to be constantly reassured then it shows that we do not trust Him. But, I don’t feel like He is doing anything. So what! I don’t feel like the sun will come up tomorrow, but it is going to rise like it has every day since the beginning of the world whether I feel it or not.

Now I am not trying to minimizing how you feel; but rather, I am trying to show you that feelings lie and are not necessarily based in reality. Elijah’s feelings lied to him, and when he listened to them they drove him into a cave to sulk. He stopped believing in the darkness what he knew to be true in the light. This is also why praise is such a powerful tool and why it is the tool God established to overcome the spirit of heaviness. When we choose to take our eyes off of the problem and put them on to God we exalt Him above our circumstances and it gives Him the place to change everything not just our emotions. It is sad how we limit the power of praise to simply a motivational tool to change our feelings. Praise does not just change our emotions but it also changes our very circumstances. It literally changes the atmosphere around our lives. Just look at Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16). Praise did more then just make them feel better. It not only caused their chains to fall off, but it literally shook the walls of the prison until they came down around them. Imagine if we actually grabbed a hold of this principle and put it into practice in our own lives!

There is actually a type of medicine in the world called pain management. Pain management is when doctors have given up on their patients and they simply help the patient manage their pain through medication and other means. This is how we tend to view praise in the church at times. Praise is our emotional pain management. We praise so we can feel better instead of praising out of faith believing that God is already changing our situations. You know what God is saying when he says put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3)? He is saying that He is not only going to give you relief from that spirit but that He is going to SMASH the power of it over your life! Praise is the remedy for the spirit of heaviness not the management of it. It is not the Advil for the spirit of heaviness but the complete and utter destruction of the source of it! This is also why every time God did something for Israel they stopped and built an alter. It was not because God wanted attention nor simply because they wanted to thank Him. No they did it so they would always have something they could physically go back to that would remind them of what God did. In fact, they would often give the area a new name that represented what God had done there. This was so, that no mater how dark it got or what they faced that they could always go back to that place and be reminded that if God had done it then then he would do it again! Let us throw off the chains of oppression and praise God out of faith remembering that what he did in the light he will also do in the darkness; or as I prefer to express it:


“in brightest day and blackest night


 no evil shall escape His sight


 let those who worship evils might


 beware His power Jesus light!”

Fear Nothing God is With You

                                                                      Daniel 3

Over the past few months I have found myself facing many unsurmountable situations in my life. To some my life's struggles may be laughable compared to what they are facing; but, to me it has been nothing less then impossible. At times I have been pressed beyond my own measure and even overwhelmed. I have found myself facing very real situations that I have no earthly answer for. All of my plans have failed, my strength is gone and I have no idea how to overcome what I am facing. I have felt abandoned and have fought the urge to scream at the heavens asking where my God is. Perhaps, you are here right now as well. Perhaps, you are facing circumstances or a combination of events that are beyond you. Perhaps, you are even facing death; and maybe, you too are asking, "Where is God!" Well I have only one thing to say to you...FEAR NOTHING!

The three Hebrew children in Daniel chapter 3 were facing a situation very similar to that of what I was facing. Sure, I was not in any danger of being killed (well at least not any more then usual anyway); but, what I was facing are circumstances that are beyond my power and control. Just like them I was helpless and at the mercy of my circumstances. I was afraid that God would not come through for me this time. Now, that is where the three and I differed in our responses to what we were facing. I had allowed fear to creep into my heart where they had not. Just look at their response to the King.

 "“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us^[c] from Your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Now, King Nebby had the power to kill them. He had the power to torture them and to throw them into the fiery furnace to their doom. Here they were standing before the whole kingdom facing the wrath of the most powerful person in their world. There was nothing they could do to deliver themselves. Even if they knew the most powerful Kung Fu, or had a ring of power they still could not have overcome the powers that had been arrayed against them. By all rights their world was about to end in unspeakable agony and death; and yet, they were not afraid. They even challenged the king when they blatantly informed him that they did not need to defend themselves in this manner to him. THAY WERE NOT AFRAID! How could this be? I mean surely there must have been a spark of doubt in their minds. If it had been us we most certainly would have said, "What if God does not deliver us?" Ah, there it is! The horrid what if.

You see the one thing that always erodes faith is fear. You can not have both fear and faith coexisting together. They are like anti-mater and mater destroying each other when they meet in a huge explosion. When fear is allowed in to a persons heart then it will consume any faith that resides there. The enemy knows this and it is why he always whispers the what ifs into our ears. Its when we listen to the what ifs that we begin to take our eyes off of God and put it onto what we are afraid will happen. This takes us out of the realm of faith, which says what can and will happen, into the realm of fear which is always concerned with what may happen. You see, the three Hebrew children did not say what if. Instead they said He can and he will; and when faced with fear, they countered it with the phrase, "but even if he does not." You see this is different then what if.  But even if he does not, is a statement of defiant faith and not a statement of fear. If they had said what if, then the story may have turned out very different. 

To the three Hebrew children there was no room for doubt or fear, and there is no room for fear in our lives either. in that moment God was not standing there with them facing the enemy; and yet, they believed anyway. He did not come down from heaven in all of his glory; nor, did he send a battalion of angels to their aid.  There was no praise and worship team to set the atmosphere and trump up their emotions. There was no pastor to preach a rousing sermon to them, nor a Christian radio station to listen to. No, they stood there all alone exposed before the entire nation; and yet, they still did not fear. They had to walk it out and believe even though they did not see. They had to throw aside the what ifs and simply take a stand. They had to believe what they knew to be true was more real then the circumstances they were facing; and this, is what we must do as well. You see, the story does not end for the three Hebrew children in pain and death because God did show up. He did not, however, show up until they were actually physically thrown into the furnace. The manifest presence of God was only found in the fire. God was found in the one place that destruction was immanent. God was in the furnace with them. I would wager, that he was always in the furnace they just could not see Him until they were in there with Him.

We may be in the furnace but know that God is with us. We do not have to give into fear and the what ifs of life; because God is with us. He is always with us and will never leave us or forsake us, and there is nothing in this life or the next that is greater then He. He has brought nations to their knees, he has laid waste to entire armies, and he is the God who created the entire universe. In fact, the bible says that in Him we live and move and have our being. This means that there is no where in all of the universe that we can go where He is not. David even says that if he made his bed in hell God would still be there with Him. Brothers and sisters lets rise up and dismiss the what ifs, throw aside fear and be like the three Hebrew children. Always remember, "Fear nothing for God is with you!'