The Rest of the Old Old Story

This is another old story, but it addresses well the fact that there are some people God listens to more than he does others. In case you didn’t know that, it’s true. In fact, it’s very true.

As a very young Christian, 26 years ago, I went to my boss, Roger, who was mainly responsible for my conversion, and I told him about one of my best friends. He was an alcoholic with a very regular habit. He drank 12 beers every day except Saturday and Sunday, when he drank a whole case. He did this every day and every week like clockwork.

Roger prayed. He prayed one of those charismatic-type prayers about binding “that demon of alcohol.” Personally, after 26 years, I don’t think those prayers are any more or less effective than more traditional prayers. I don’t think God tends to be impressed with our words or methods. I think he’s impressed by faith.

Anyway, that was a Friday. I didn’t see my friend that night because I spent most Friday evenings praying and worshipping with my new friends. As I said, I was a new Christian at the time.

Saturday, however, I did see Beav. The first thing he said to me was, “The most amazing thing happened last night.” He then told me how he hadn’t wanted to drink the whole night. He hadn’t had a single beer.

Now the flip side of that is that it was Saturday morning and he was already drinking. I went off by myself later and tried to “bind that demon of alcohol” like Roger did, and it didn’t work. God simply had a lot more regard for Roger’s prayers than for mine. I’ve had to learn why over the years, and my prayers are much more effective now than they were then. Mostly, I have more faith, and I’m a lot more likely to wait for God to show me what to pray for. As the Scriptures say, “We do not know how to pray as we ought.” Prayer requires God’s help.

If this is your first trip to my blog in the last 24 hours or in the last few days, don’t forget to scroll down past this article and see the ones on answers to prayer. They are encouraging and uplifting.

However, I really want to write this even though I’m in the midst of a series on prayer. I just got done posting a book review on ezinearticles.com. It’s the book review I posted here on Nov. 27. In that review, I call the book, A High View of Scripture!, a must read for Evangelicals. I got to thinking about whether I really meant that. After all, the book is a bit scholarly, it’s written on a subject only some Evangelicals would be interested in, the author repeats himself too much, and it’s not something most Evangelicals would be open to changing their mind on.

It’s that last point that hit me. Yes, I think the book is a must read, even if it’s scholarly. It’s not really boring, but even if it were, it would still be worth reading. The subject is important. IMPORTANT!!! Can I shout it a bit. IMPORTANT!!!

Don’t people realize how badly Christianity is failing? Doesn’t anyone care? Evangelicals talk about reaching the world, but we Christians are losing to scientists, atheists, and the immoral right here in America. Jesus said that the world would know we’re his disciples by our love for one another, but we are famous for our fights, divisions, and condemning attitudes, not our love. He  said that the world would know he was sent from God by our unity, but if there’s anything Evangelicals are not known for, it’s unity.

Do we not want to change that?

Maybe Evangelicals don’t understand that if you do the same things over and over again, you will get the same results. There are a few people–by my estimation when I was in institutional churches about 3%–that are so committed to Christ that they learn to live by the power of the Spirit of God. Everyone else produces either division or lifeless Christianity because they’re carnal. You can get them fired up by revivals or camp meetings, but after a while they simply return to producing lifelessness because they’re carnal.

The problem in Evangelicalism is not in the commitment of its members, it’s in the message. It’s in the “faith and practice.”

Evangelicals across the board say that “the Bible is our sole rule for faith and practice,” but it’s simply not true. All of them, with only the rarest of exceptions, cling to pet doctrines that are not to be questioned, no matter how obviously false they are.

The book I reviewed, A High View of Scripture?, challenges one of those pet doctrines that is pervasive in Evangelical circles. It challenges the role of Scripture, and it even challenges our conception of the canon of Scripture. It’s historical, it’s obviously accurate, it’s written by a believer in the inspiration of the Scriptures, and it’s published by a respected Evangelical publisher (BakerAcademic, a branch of Baker Books). Nonetheless, almost no one will drop what they’re doing and actually read the book. As a matter of fact, I’ll write about it, a very few people will read what I wrote, and almost none of those will pass it on. Maybe a couple people will actually go out and purchase and read A High View of Scripture?.

It’s not that people need to listen to me in particular. It’s that I wish they’d listen to somebody. My complaint is that there are so few people who actually care. Who’s broken-hearted over the state of the churches? Who’s willing to look at the very root of their faith? Who’s willing to make some hard choices, overthrow some pet doctrines, kick down some sacred cows, and do some suffering in order to love and in order to bring about the unity that lets the world know that Jesus was sent by the Father? Who’s willing to help Jesus have the only kind of disciples he wants: those that are willing to hate their families, hate their own lives, take up their cross, and forsake all they own? Where are the real Bible-believers? Not those who speak highly about plenary, verbal inspiration and argue vehemently for a canon of 66 books, but those who are willing to be instructed, corrected, rebuked, and changed by the Scriptures so that they can be thoroughly equipped for every good work? Doers of the Word and not arguers and disputers only?

It’s time to kick over some sacred cows, question the traditions that are failing, and take up ones that work. Only the brave and those who care will be able to do it. Of course, cowards will be thrown in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8), so it might be good to take up some courage.

Here’s another one that got emailed to me. I have some comments at the end about what I like about this one.

About ten years ago, while still living at home shortly after graduating from my undergraduate studies. My mother, a very nominal Jew, subscribed to a magazine that was celebrating Abraham Joshual Heschel. I wasn’t a believer of any stripe then. I remember feeling very lost during that time, weighed down by the poor and selfish decisions I’d been in the habit of making for a long time. I was searching, but had no real faith in anything to speak of.

I don’t remember much about the text Heschel wrote except that he testified that the world really did testify to a Maker. I remember that point making a very real impression on me. I remember thinking on this throughout the day. Well, after work I remember walking down the street and realizing that I could not account for “creation” by man’s efforts alone. It was at that moment when I realized I was a believer–not in Christ, but in a Creator, generally speaking. Then, I had a nagging desire to know this Creator, and remember thinking I didn’t care who it turned out to be, or in which religion I found Him–Buddhism, Islam, Jesus. It just didn’t matter.

I remember thinking, “I really want to know this God. And, I’d really love to have someone who could teach me about it. It was minutes, maybe seconds, from that moment, when a guy walked up to me and asked me if he could ask me a question. I said sure, and he asked me about my “relationship with God.” It took about another 6 to 8 months before I came to the place when I could give my life to Jesus. But, I always remember that thought/prayer which expressed my own desire to know the Creator, and how quickly (within moments/seconds) He answered. That experience has been very helpful in the many moments since when I’ve found myself feeling faithless.

I don’t believe prayer is a one-way street. Prayer comes in many forms, but quite often it is prompted by God. First God speaks, then we ask, and then we see the answer. In this case, God was obviously sending the answer long before the prayer was prayed. Prayer was just part of what God was doing. It was not what initiated God’s actions.

Sometimes God’s actions are initiated by a person or people crying out to him, but just as often his answers are like this. The prayer is just one part of a plan he had long before anyone prayed.

One prayer answer I wrote down, which wasn’t even really a prayer, was something Haviylah, a midwife, told me about. She was at a very difficult birth, and inside she was crying out to God for guidance. Something happened with someone at the birth. I don’t remember whether it was the husband or parents of the mother or maybe someone else. All I know is that someone learned something through all the difficulty of the birth. As Haviylah told the story, when that person–whoever it was–spoke about what was happening, something settled inside Haviylah, and she knew that the baby could now be born. The rest of the labor was smooth, and the baby was born in under two hours.

Like it or not, that is like God. He cares about teaching us, and in the midst of difficult situations it is important–crucial–to look for what God is doing and where he is at. There are not many doors out of difficult situations. There’s usually only one door that will bring about the will of God and the best for all who are involved. Those who know to look for it prosper in all circumstances and cause those around them to prosper.

Blessed is the man . . . [whose] delight is in the Law of the Lord and in that Law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water, which bears fruit in its season. His leaf shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so. . . . [They] shall not stand in the judgment.

~Psalm 1:2-5

Today I had to ransack my memory all the way back to, uh, today.

My wife’s had sciatica off and on for a couple of years. She’s been seeing a chiropractor in Memphis, and for a while that was helping. I happen to believe that most cases of sciatica (nerve pain down the leg) are caused by muscles in the pelvic area, most often the piriformis. However, when the pain started she really didn’t seem to have any tension in that area and piriformis stretches didn’t seem to help, so I let the chiropractor do adjustments instead. Like I said, for a while they did help.

The last few months, though, the sciatica has been returning and increasing, and the visits to the chiropractor weren’t helping. A lot of people were praying for her, and a couple weeks ago as I was praying, God–I believe–told me to take over her treatment. I checked on the muscles around her piriformis, and they were so knotted that she thought at least one was a bone. I took her off all the chiropractor’s exercises, and I had her only do stretches, while I massaged her morning and evening.

The muscles loosened up, but the piriformis is way down deep in the hip, and massage won’t always reach it. The tension in her hip was better, but the pain was still there. I needed some sort of treatment. Sunday night (Dec. 21), some young people came over to my house to pray. I felt like God was telling me I had the right diagnosis on my wife’s pain, but that he didn’t intend to let me treat it without our praying. So I asked the youth to pray. Specifically, I asked them to pray for her to be pain-free by Christmas day.

Yesterday afternoon, my wife called me into her room to watch a youtube video. She spends a lot of time there due to the sciatica. What she showed me was a clip on “Active Release Technique,” a relatively new strategy for dealing with piriformis syndrome (and other muscle injuries). The method on the video was unique, but any strategy for reaching the piriformis muscle was something I would try. I’ve spent a lot of time studying muscles, so I had no problem understanding the areas and angles he said to avoid with this technique.

The end of that story is that I tried it yesterday afternoon and evening, and she hasn’t been back to bed since. She’s spent Christmas day virtually pain-free despite being up the whole day.

#2

John and Frank came back this week from a job in South Carolina that they’ve been on for a few weeks. There they had a boss that was hot-tempered and foul-mouthed. They called back to Rose Creek Village for prayer about how to become friends with the man.

Soon after, that boss saved John from making a bad mistake on the job. He decided to try to do something to say thank you. He went to a store and while he was there he saw Verner’s Ginger Ale and felt led by God to get it for the boss.

You can probably guess what happened next. Maybe I shouldn’t bother with the rest of the story.

Well, okay. It was the boss’s favorite and completely unavailable locally. He was having friends in his home town buy it and ship it to him. He couldn’t believe it, and now they’re friends. John told me today that this boss helped him clean up his site and pack his tools so that John could get on the road early for the trip back here.

Well, my memory’s starting to kick in, so today it was much harder to decide what to put in here. I got an email from Britt, too, telling me a couple. I’ll give you one of his today, and a short one from me.

#1 

 What’s funny is the one I’m going to tell is only from about two weeks ago. One of the ladies–it’s strange referring to her that way when I’ve known her since she was ten–was two weeks past the due date for her pregnancy. The midwives decided to give her castor oil to try to induce labor before they went to the hospital. This mother’s first baby was born in the hospital, and we were really hoping this second one wouldn’t have to be.

One of the sisters in my house told us in tears about the difficulties of the first birth and how she really wanted this mom to be able to have to have the baby at home. This was at breakfast, so our house prayed together, children and all. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to pray, and so, rather than a lengthy prayer telling God how he should help her, I prayed: “Father, please let the baby come quickly and everyone be safe and healthy.” At that point, I felt faith come, and I was pretty sure she’d have the baby that day. I’m not really a great man of faith; it’s hard for me to feel certain about anything, so I was only pretty sure. A better Christian would have had much greater confidence, I’m sure of that.

Anyway, the baby came that night in a two-hour labor! We hardly had time to get the word out and pray during her labor because the baby came so quick.

#2

That first one could have just been a coincidence (yeah, right), so here’s Britt’s. Britt sent me three. I actually liked his third one, which he said was thrown on for free, best. You have to wait for it, though. One at a time.

In his words:

Becca and I were part of group that God hijacked to go to Fiji.  I say hijacked because we were all saving up money to go to Australia for a vacation, but a week before we were supposed to go, we were approached with an opportunity to visit another missionary in Fiji.  We hadn’t finalized our trip for Australia, so it was easy to just shift gears.  Within a week we all had tickets and got stuff together to bless the village in Fiji (it had been hit hard by a hurricane the previous season).

The night before we were to leave, we were all at one family’s apartment, packing up, and one of our group began to complain of some serious pain in her knee that seriously affected her mobility.  Becca was sitting on the floor before this woman with pain in her knee.  Becca just reached out, laid her hand on the woman’s knee, and prayed a very short prayer for healing.  The woman was immediately healed.  The pain was immediately gone.  We really praised the Lord that evening.

Shammah

My story today is old, but it’s one of my favorites, so I want to tell it. Tomorrow I’m going to ask the wife to remind me of some more recent ones. There’s so many that they don’t stand out as awe-inspiring any more. It’s funny, I’ve been in arguments with atheists (and even one Christian!) on the internet about answers to prayer, and as my stories multiplied they started suggesting I was lying. At the start, they told me that the prayers of Christians just evaporate and are pretty much never answered in any meaningful way. I don’t think they were used to a Christian giving them the kind of stories I was giving them, and so many.

This story happened in 1986. Sorry it’s so old, but it did happen to me, and it was pretty amazing. I was in Germany, in the military, and I got a letter from my sister asking for prayer for my nephew, her son, Joseph. He had gotten an infection in his eye, and the doctors couldn’t stop it and didn’t know what it was. It had spread slowly over a year and a half, and the Air Force (she was military, too) had moved her to Andrews AFB so she could be near Bethesda hospital for treatment. By the time she wrote me, my nephew was blind in one eye and had 50% sight in the other.

When I got the letter, I rushed over to a couple’s house (Dan & Melcy Kanitz–Dan, if you find this post, I’d love to find you!) to pray. We prayed, and it was one of those times we could feel the Lord’s presence powerfully. I knew our prayers were being answered. I just had the nagging feeling that we weren’t quite done. We prayed on for quite a while, but I couldn’t get that feeling to go away.

Two weeks later–which means my sister sent the letter a week after we prayed, since mail took a week to Germany at that time–my sister sent me a letter saying that the infection had receded tremendously and that my nephew had all his sight in both eyes. The doctors said he just had a small infection left in one eye, and they believed they’d be able to treat it.

My sister’s letter had held out no hope of finding a cure for my nephew’s infection. A week after we prayed, he was almost entirely cured. I have always believed God left that nagging “not quite done” feeling so that when the infection receded “not quite” all the way, we’d be all the more certain it was prayer and not coincidental timing that had resulted in my nephew’s healing.

The atheists and agnostics on that internet message board I mentioned had no problem writing this event off to coincidence. Of course, once I started adding the myriad other answers to prayer over the twenty years since, coincidence started sounding more and more ridiculous as an explanation. It didn’t matter how much they said “you can only know anything for certain if you conduct a double-blind study.” Yeah, right.

I don’t believe God wants to prove anything to the world by answers to prayer. He wants to prove his power to the world by filling us with an other-worldly love and righteousness, and binding us together in the unity that only a heavenly family can have (Jn. 17:20-23 & 13:34-35). However, it is good for us to be encouraged and our faith built, especially in the midst of a country as unbelieving in the supernatural as America is. That unbelief limits and offends God, who created everything. Let us remind one another of his deeds and proclaim his glory!

Remember, you can add your prayer stories to this series by emailing me.

I want to do a series of posts on answers to prayer. I heard a neat one on the radio yesterday that I’ll start with.

I have disabled comments, but you can email me with the link to the left. I am looking for more prayer stories to post, but please limit it to stories you are confident really happened. No stories from someone you were told about through someone in your church. Either you need to be an eyewitness or someone you personally know and trust.

The first story here violates the standard I just gave. However, I will tell you that this was called into the Dave Ramsey show on Friday afternoon, Dec. 19. As a caveat, let me point out that I think Dave Ramsey’s financial advice is good. It is horrifying to me, however, that a show can start every day with the statement that its purpose includes “the pursuit of piles of cash,” yet still end with “the only way to financial peace is to know the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.” The last statement, as wonderful as it is, isn’t even true. Lots of people have financial peace by following great financial advice like the advice Dave Ramsey gives, whether or not they know Jesus. If you know Jesus, then you’ll know that he doesn’t approve of “the pursuit of piles of cash.” He considers it “foolish” (Luk. 12:20-21). He prefers the pursuit of holiness (Heb. 12:14).

Okay, so this lady calls and says she was frightened because she was “unexpectedly expecting.” She was concerned about their financial ability to take care of this child. Then one day she ran across one of those adopt-a-child-overseas charities, and one child available had the same birthdate as her child. (The birthdate matched her first son; the one she was expecting was her second son.) She said she felt very impressed by God to support this child despite their limited finances.

She obeyed God, and soon after she was told that she won $50,000 in an essay contest she had entered. She at first was thrilled by God’s blessing, but then she was scared. She said she knows that God often provides even before we know our own need, and she wondered what calamity would lead to her needing $50,000. As it turned out, she spent the last few months of her pregnancy on bed rest, without a job, and her and her husband did need the $50,000. On the other hand, it was enough.

She was terribly excited about this story and gave great praise to God for taking care of her family. She emphasized the importance of obeying when God speaks. It was really neat.

At the same time, we at Rose Creek Village are also going through an answer to prayer. One of our young men, now 18, was born with heart defects. Repairing the major problem had to wait until he was through puberty. So a couple years ago he had heart valve replacement surgery at Le Bonheur in Memphis. Recently, though, there were a lot of problems, so he had to go back in for further, possibly even more comprehensive, open heart surgery.

We didn’t only pray for the surgery to go well. We prayed for the surgeon and staff to see God in Austin and the others visiting him at the hospital.

Thursday, two days ago, Austin went through 9 hours of surgery. The surgeon came out exhausted, saying that  he’d left the closing up to younger helpers; he was too tired. He said it went well, that they fixed several problems, and that Austin would be at 100% for the first time. Then he added, “You sure could see God in that young man. He just glowed.”

Probably just a coincidence, huh? If you have any such “coincidences” you want to tell me about or for me to put up in this series of posts, email me.

In both Ephesians 4:16 and Colossians 2:19 Paul says that the church grows from “what every joint supplies.” Have you ever thought about what that’s saying?

Paul likes to use the human body as an illustration of the body of Christ. He spends a whole chapter on it in the first letter to the Corinthians, but the illustration sure seems to break down here in Ephesians 4:16. Is a human body really nourished by what its joints supply???

The human body may not be nourished by its joints, but the spiritual body of Christ most certainly is. We tend to think that its individual members of the body that cause our growth in Christ. We depend on evangelists, pastors, and teachers (and if we’re charismatic, then on apostles and prophets, too) to build the body of Christ, but that’s not what Paul said in Ephesians 4. Paul says that the job of these church leaders is to equip the saints to build the body of Christ. The leaders don’t do it, the members do.

And how do they do this? That’s where the supply of the joints comes in. Colossians 2:19 says that what the joints and ligaments supply produces a growth that comes from God. We are a spiritual people, not a physical people. We grow together with a growth that comes from God. We do not grow by mental means, by careful teaching, or by outlines and systematic theologies. We grow with a growth that comes from God.

What supplies that growth? The joints. The joining of the members to one another produces the supply needed for growth. It’s not what the members supply, it’s what the joining of the members supply.

If we understand the importance of loving one another and of unity, then it’s easy for us to understand how the joining of the members supplies the growth of the body. Love is at the center of all we do as Christians. The greatest commandments are to love God and love one another.

American Christians tend to think that they grow by themselves. We think that our supply will come from Bible study or prayer. These are good things, of course, and we need to do those things if we are to grow, but those things will not supply our growth. If we are not also joined to others, we are likely to simply become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. The Bible says that! In Hebrews 3:13 it says that if we are not exhorting or encouraging one another every day, then we are in danger of hardening by sin’s deceitfulness. Look it up! It’s really there!

Colossians 2:19 says that it’s the joints and ligaments–the things that connect us to one another–that supplies the growth of the “whole body.” Ephesians 4:16 says that the “whole body” increases. Ephesians 4:13 speaks of “we all” coming to the unity of the faith and to the full measure of the stature of Christ. We are to be growing together, supplied by the joining of ourselves to one another. That joining is seen in our “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) and exhorting and encouraging each other every day (Heb. 3:13).

Don’t underestimate the importance of this. Jesus prayed that we would be “perfect in unity,” joined just as he and the Father are, so that the world would know that the Father sent him (Jn. 17:20-23). It’s our love for one another, he said, that lets the world know that we are his disciples (Jn. 13:34,35).

I point this out repeatedly, but it’s worth doing. Jesus did not speak of us shining our own little lights to the world, no matter how often we sing about it. The “you’s” in Matthew 5:13-16 are all plural. He wants us to shine the great light of a city, not the little light of an individual to the world. This is why Paul can say that our good works should be done first and foremost to one another, not to the world. We should love outsiders, and we should do good works to them. However, Galatians 6:10 says “especially to those who are of the household of faith,” not “especially to those of the world.” Paul knew that our love for one another is the testimony Jesus offered to the world. He also knew how effective it was, for he told the Thessalonians that their love for one another was such a powerful testimony that he didn’t need to say anything at all in their area (1 Thess. 1:3-10).

There are two central things that Rose Creek Village believes. One, a disciple is to follow Jesus Christ with all his heart, mind, soul, and strengh, and two, he is to follow Christ in perfect unity with all others who follow Christ.

The Scriptures say, “Follow righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).  That verse sums up what we are trying to do. Everything else we teach is to advance those two main causes for which we live.

On the first subject, following Christ with everything in you, I want to focus on one word. That word is “cannot.” In Luke 14:26-33, the passage from which we get the phrase “count the cost,” Jesus says the word “cannot” three times. Each time he says that there is something a person must do, or they “cannot” be his disciple.

Many excuse have been concocted by modern believers to avoid Jesus’ “cannot.” Some teach that Jesus taught the law because it wasn’t abolished until his death. This is nonsense, of course, as it leads to “believers” ignoring the teachings of the very Master they say they follow. (See also any of the articles on this page if you, too, believe Jesus taught under the Law.) Others have said it’s not necessary to be a disciple; being a believer is sufficient. This, too, is not true. The followers of Christ are called disciples 29 times in the book of Acts, but believers just once.

No, it’s a clear teaching of Jesus that unless you hate your family, your possessions, and your own life so that you take up your cross and give up your possessions, you “cannot”  be Jesus’ disciple. That’s what Jesus taught. You can try to be his disciple without following him his way, but you won’t be able to do it. He says you “cannot” do it.

Admittedly, there are various ways of interpreting those things. Obviously, Jesus doesn’t want you to strip yourself naked set out penniless through the world. However, he did want you to do something. I find it hard to believe that “save up for retirement, go to an expensive college, and ignore your out-of-work brother in Christ” is an acceptable interpretation of “forsake all your possessions.” Don’t you?

On the second subject, that of serving Christ together (“in perfect unity” is how our Master says it in Jn. 17:23), I want to point out two things. One, the testimony with which Jesus is going to change the world is that his disciples love one another and are a family. Two, the only way that the Bible says we grow is together.

First, Jesus’ prayer in Jn. 17:20-23 states in no uncertain terms that our unity is tied to the world believing in Christ. Jesus cannot possibly mean the kind of “meeting unity” that most Christians have. Boy Scouts have that kind of unity. What kind of unity would make the world believe that Jesus is sent by God? Jesus calls it a perfect unity. He says it’s the sort of unity that the Father has with the Son. It’s the kind of unity that could be described as “you in me, and I in you.” That’s not a Sunday morning and Bible study unity. It’s the “one heart, one mind” kind of unity that Paul mentions repeatedly.

The Spirit of God is supposed to make us a spiritual family. He’s supposed to make us into a people that can’t live without one another, like members of one body, each part needing the other. In 1 Tim. 3:15, the church is called “the household of God.” If Jesus is going to tell us that we are to “hate” our fathers, mothers, siblings, spouse, and children, then clearly he believes that our new spiritual family, the church, is supposed to be a much stronger, much more united family than our biological families.

Stunning? Yeah, I know. It would take a miracle. Something like a new birth. Something like that might make someone believe in God.

Matthew 5:13-16 is one of my favorite passages in this respect. The “you” used throughout those verses is plural in the Greek. That means he’s not talking to us as individuals. He means that we together are the light of the world. He means that our good works are to shine a light to the world, not my good works. That’s why he says it’s a “city” set on a hill that cannot be hidden. An individual on a hill can hide with no problem. Only together can we light up the whole area so that it can be seen from a distance.

Isaiah 60 tells us, “Arise, shine, for your light has come! The glory of the Lord has risen upon you!” It goes on to say that “Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

Together our light will shine to the world. When this happens, people will come to us! I’m not saying we shouldn’t go to them, but according to the Scriptures it’s normal for people to come to us. That will happen when we are loving one another with that miraculous love from heaven. When was the last time someone asked you “a reason for the hope that is in you”? (1 Pet. 3:15) They will when they get a chance to glimpse the love of the Spirit that causes those born again in Christ to separate from the world and attach themselves to one another.

But it’s not just the world that needs us to be together. We need to be together. The Scriptures say that we are like body parts, so that the eye can’t say to the hand, “I have no need of you” (1 Cor. 12:21). We are inextricably linked by the Spirit of God. When a person really forsakes everything–even his own life–for the sake of Christ, he will find that he is filled with love for all those who love his Lord like he does.

That need has everything to do with our growth in Christ. Hebrews tells us that we are to exhort one another “every day,” lest we be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (3:13). Ephesians 4 says it even more clearly. There we learn that we grow only as every part does its share, and that it’s our speaking the truth in love to one another that causes growth of the body and protection from deception (vv. 11-16).

We tend to think it is Bible study that makes us grow and protects us from deception. That’s not enough. If we are not exhorted daily, then we are in danger of hardening–says that Bible we are studying–even if we’re reading the Bible. Millions of people study the Bible and disagree every day. Division is a work of the flesh, so studying the Bible is not delivering those people from being fleshly. Millions of people also study the Bible every day and are deceived, at least according to the millions of people who disagree with them on the Bible. Studying the Bible is not enough. We must be those who are together, speaking the truth to one another in love.

In another one of those Bible passages where the Greek “you” is plural, the apostle John tells us that it is “the anointing” that will protect us from those who are trying to seduce us. There is an anointing that God gives to the saints when they are together that will lead them into truth. At least, that’s what 1 John 2:27 says. So if we are going to be Bible believers, then we need to believe that we need more than the Bible to grow and to avoid deception. We need each other.

The main points we focus on at Rose Creek Village are very clear Bible teachings, but they have been lost for a long time. For some reason, Christians have lost the knowledge of how important it is to love one another, to be of one heart and one mind, to take care of one another, to forsake the world and its riches, and to be a new family together in Christ. These teachings are not esoteric, mysterious teachings available only to those who do deep exegesis in the original languages. These teachings are on every page of the New Testament, but somehow we westerners find them extreme. If not extreme, then in some way unbelievable because we don’t believe them.

Are you distressed with the state of modern Christianity? with the worldliness in your church? with the worldliness in your own life? This is the place to start. Give up everything, your whole life, and enter the life of Christ along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Like the Psalmist declare, “The saints that are in the earth . . . they are all my delight” (Ps. 16:3).

In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures foreveremore. ~Ps. 16:11

I don’t know how much there is to say here, but I do wonder how many of us believe this. Do we really believe that the fullness of joy is in his presence? Do we really believe there are pleasures forevermore at his right hand? Shoot, there are Christians who believe that God’s against pleasure, and that pleasurable feelings are automatically taboo.

God is the Creator of man, and when he walked on earth in human form, he spoke regularly of joy. In fact, he gave it as the purpose that he came. “I have come that [the sheep] might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10).

You will find the word joy 60 times in the New Testament and 95 times in the Old Testament (KJV).  In fact, listen to this passage:

Sing, O daughter of Zion
Shout, O Israel
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, o daughter of Jerusalem

Yahweh has taken away your judgments
He has cast out your enemy
The King of Israel, Yahweh, is in your midst
You shall not see evil anymore . . .

Yahweh . . . will rejoice over you with joy
He will quiet you in his love
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy!

Have you ever pictured the God of heaven rejoicing with shouts of joy?

But understand, the issue here is not how wonderfully happy you should be. The issue here is how focused on God you should be. It is not the seeking of the world, the obtaining of treasures, nor the fulfillment of your desires that will produce fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore; it is the presence of God.

The number of Christians that sing “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” greatly outweighs the number of Christians that actually seek first the kingdom of God. College, savings accounts, retirement, and careers are all important to us. Those things are part of the American mantra, and most American Christians are more American than Christian (and here in the South, many are “doggone proud of it!”).

Dare we be among those who seek first the kingdom of God? Dare we believe that if we do so, then all our needs, as determined by God, will be added to us? Or must we first secure our own future?

I’m telling you that the happiest people on earth are not those who have made themselves the most secure, but those who trust God the most. Please don’t confuse those who trust God the most with those who are most religious. I mean those who trust God the most, not those who offer the loudest and most profuse prayers, nor those who attend church the most or hold positions in their church. I mean those who trust God, and sometimes those people don’t look very religious at all. They do, however, always look kind, and they almost never look rich.

Let’s close with something simple. The route to fullness of joy? Get in God’s presence. Seek God’s will, and don’t get it confused with your own. Take delight in the Lord God, and he will take great delight in you.