Insights on Life Archives - Page 2 of 9

There is a Difference

The city of Cusco was but a small Peruvian town in 1949, but to this 10-year-old lad, the son of missionary parents, it was home. Far from being the tourist mecca it has become today, it was a typical Andean city of some 60,000 residents, with one short, gravel runway, only one Hotel we could recommend, and no restaurants of note. The streets were of stone, and the churches were magnificent, and reminders of the city’s Inca heritage could be seen throughout the city.

Sunday mornings were different from any other I have experienced during my many years in South America. Some time around 8 a.m. church bells began to ring, calling the faithful, most of whom did not own a clock, to Sunday Morning Mass. Each church had a distinctive set of bells and as the noise of perhaps twenty churches reverberated across the city and bounced off the surrounding hills, it was an early-morning wake-up call I will never forget.

If you ever have the chance, a visit to Cusco will be the highlight of your traveling experiences. There is a difference, however, between enjoying a quick visit to the city or to Machu Picchu and living there. A few days in the mountain air gives you only a glimpse of what this Andean culture is all about. You must go shopping in the open market, converse with someone who speaks little but Quechua, and survive the taxing demands of catching your breath at 11,000 feet. A quick visit will never do; you must become a part of the culture.

You may be wondering where I am going with all of this … so, to the point.

There is a difference in knowing about God and truly knowing Him. We want to spend eternity with God, but we’d be pleased if He’d leave us to our own agenda. We want happiness without holiness, success without self-discipline, sanctification without sacrifice.

But until you experience a relationship with God for yourself you don’t know what Christianity is all about. God has no grandchildren; you cannot inherit your parents’ faith. This is one discovery you must make for yourself.

And it is then, and only then, that you find God to be far different from the stern, demanding, autocrat He is sometimes pictured to be. He everything you would expect from a compassionate, understanding, and patient Father.

Living for God is not a spectator sport. You can’t sit on the sidelines. It is only as you become a part of the action, face the enemy of your soul and overcome the influence of sin, that you find a reason to cheer.

Promises must be put into practice. The theoretical must become experiential. The talk must be sanctioned by your walk. What you claim you must live. To know about Him is one thing; living for Him is something else … and you won’t know what you’re missing until you do.

The Price of Success

In the New Testament book of Hebrews, we read: “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt.” Of Hebrew origin, he was the adopted grandson of society’s most powerful and wealthy man … and everything life had to offer was available to him.

Despite the ease and comfort available to him as an Egyptian Prince, Moses chose instead to be identified with his Hebrew family. When he was 40 years old, things finally came to a head. He killed an Egyptian who was abusing one of the Hebrews and had to flee for his life. For the next 40 years, giving up on any dreams of greatness he might have had, he became a shepherd to his father-in-law in southern Arabia. The “pleasures of sin,” the sumptuous life-style, the educational opportunities, the benefits of power – all lay behind him.

But God had not abandoned him. At 80 years of age, God called on him to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt into a 40-year journey through the wilderness of Arabia, to the land promised to Abraham centuries before. Moses, who had spent forty years in Egypt thinking he was somebody, spent 40 years shepherding sheep convinced he was a nobody, only to discover that God can take a nobody and make a somebody out of him – so long as he is willing to pay the price for his success.

But that is God’s way. He is more than able – and willing – to take us as we are and where we are and make us be the best that we can be. That I believe to be true whether we acknowledge Him or not. But taking Him seriously and following the guidelines He has laid out for us, changes everything. A godly life may demand self-discipline and surrender to His will, something that unfortunately most people do not find the least bit appetizing, but as Moses discovered for himself, it beats anything a self-centered and godless life has to offer.

God’s plan for our life, however, can only be discovered “from the inside out.” In Jesus Christ we find enough evidence to substantiate the fact that our faith in God is not misplaced. It is to our advantage, far above anything life without God has to offer, to take a step of faith, accept Jesus Christ as the Lord of our life, and discover for ourselves that the promises of God have not been exaggerated; God is as good as His word!

You want to talk about it? Hit me up at [email protected]

Dream Impossible Dreams

Our weaknesses and misgivings notwithstanding, nothing should be allowed to hold us back from attempting the apparently impossible when we know our Heavenly Father approves. We serve a great and powerful God and He is anxious to demonstrate His greatness through human beings just like you and me.

Matthew Barnett came to Los Angeles with a lofty dream: to establish a mega-church in the city of Angels. It wasn’t going to happen.

As Matthew was walking through Echo Park, God gave him a new vision: to establish a ministry to the lost and hurting in downtown Los Angeles. It would not be a conventional church. He dreamed of establishing a hospital for the hurting, a place of physical, emotional, and spiritual healing for those in desperate need.

With a remarkable faith in the greatness of God, he was driven by a passion for the down-trodden in central Los Angeles. Like the Psalmist, “My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned” (Psa. 39:3). And then he learned the Queen of Angels Hospital, owned by the Catholic Church, was up for sale.

Reality says, “Don’t be a fool!” Faith says, “Why not!”

They were seeking to sell it for $25 million, and an offer was already on the table from Paramount Studios for $15 million. They made an offer of $3.9 million, not mentioning they only actually had $30,000 in the bank.

As recounted in her book, Willing to Walk, Caroline Barnett writes, “The nuns accepted their offer with one stipulation — the mortgage had to be paid off within eighteen months. Matthew and [his father] Tommy morphed into fund-raising roadrunners. For the next year and a half, they made phone calls, they traveled, and they talked to anyone who could help. At the eleventh hour, which seems to be God’s favorite time, the last $2 million came through.”

The history of Trinity Temple, the church I established in Camp Hill, PA. in 1968, was much more modest. But a crisis three years into our ministry was just as critical to our future.

Through a series of events I can no longer reconstruct, Trinity Temple acquired a small but lovely Methodist-Episcopal church building in West Fairview, PA. Complete with a working bell-tower and irreplaceable stained-glass windows, it was perfect for our needs. We installed front-to-back royal blue carpeting, a floor-to-ceiling light-blue set of drapes behind the platform, set off by golden chandeliers throughout. Unbelievable! Trinity Temple was back in business!

Contiguous to our property, an all-brick school building the school district had abandoned came on the market. The bottom-line asking price was $13,000 cash, a steal for the size of the building, but for our small congregation of some 80 people an impossible dream. We prayed about it and I invited the congregation to join me in a true venture of faith and offered $13,000. I held my breath — or perhaps, more correctly, I stopped breathing — as I came to the board meeting in charge of the sale. We were the only bidders! We raised the $13,000; Trinity Temple was in business again!

Venture to do great things for God. He can still do the apparently impossible for those who dare to trust Him. The life to which God has called us will seldom be equal to our strength. He challenges us to a walk of faith that demands His intervention or we fail.

Dream impossible dreams!

You want to talk about it? Hit me up at [email protected]

A New Heart … Changes Everything!

Rod Carew, former Hall of Fame baseball player with the Minnesota Twins and the California Angels, was golfing one September day in 2015 when he had a massive heart attack. He lived, but the doctors told him he would need a heart transplant and for the next year he survived with the help of a mechanical device serving as his heart. And then, in December 2016, a donor was finally found.

Ironically, Carew’s new heart came from a young man he had met twenty years earlier. Konrad was only eleven years old when he met Rod for the first time, never realizing the impact he would have on Carew’s life.

Rod Carew’s survival came with the death of Konrad Reuland, a former tight end for four different NFL football teams. On December 12, 2016, Konrad passed away from a brain aneurism. It was a disaster for his family, but for Rod Carew, it marked the gift of life. They were a match, and within days, Carew underwent a successful 13-hour heart and kidney transplant. The heart of the one man was, for the other, the gift of life.

I am reminded of something the Prophet Ezekiel wrote when the people of Israel were in need of new life from God. Concerning a day yet to come, Ezekiel wrote, “I will gather you from the nations and bring you back. … I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”

God has his hands on the people of Israel. Their return to Palestine in 1948 was not coincidental; it was only the first step toward the fulfillment of that promised by the Prophet Ezekiel. Keep your eyes on the Middle East.

To understand something of what God has in mind, we need to note what He has already done in the life of every Christian. He has, indeed, taken our “heart of stone” and given us a “heart of flesh,” a new heart, responsive to His will. More than a change in point of view, Christianity is an experience. Becoming a Christian involves more than a new belief system. The Christian faith initiates a fundamental transformation, a change of heart, a miracle worthy of our God.

This transformation comes with new drives, new desires, and a new perspective on life. Nothing mysterious here, but the change is real. “If any man be in Christ,” writes the Apostle Paul, “he is a new creation.” This gift of life, equally critical to our eternal survival, is available to us all. And it’s only a prayer away!

The Third Option

Rioting in the streets, an approaching national election that may change the face of America, and an uncertain future have left many of us sleepless and concerned. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess; we’re a nation in deep trouble!

The first and greatest commandment, said Jesus, is that “You should love the Lord your God.” And a second, a take-off from the first, is that “You should love your neighbor as yourself.” These two commandments go together; as we have turned away from God, we have turned against our “neighbor.”

I need not prove the point. Watch the news. Observe men beating men they do not know, mobs entering a business to steal everything they can get their hands on, young people stoning their local police, there under assignment to protect the community.

What we have here is not a political or social problem, we have a spiritual problem. The hatred shown our police, the devastation of our cities, and the call for changes that defy common-sense, is evil. Race relations are not being served, social inequities are not being resolved, and no one is better off for all the mayhem.

I admit that, as a white man, I am unable to identify with the pain and suffering that has been festering in the black community. America needs help; things need to change. The death of those who like George Floyd have suffered at the hands of the white community must count for something. But we have not helped ourselves by turning away from God. We have loosened the restraints of moral responsibility, hoping a free society will be a happy society. It will not happen!

So what do we do?

Miles McPherson, onetime football player for the San Diego Chargers, and now pastor of Rock Church, San Diego, has addressed the problem plaguing America in his book, The Third Option. Moved by the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Rashard Brooks and George Floyd, McPherson says those of us who care have another alternative, a Third Option. We can back off from highlighting our differences and honor those things we have in common.

We can, he says, 1). Acknowledge our blind spots and admit we don’t always know what others have gone through; 2). Rename “others” as your brother or sister. Don’t label others in a way that destroys what we have in common; 3). Be the person who, in the name of Jesus Christ, makes others feel welcome in your group; 4). Acknowledge your brother or sister’s color. It is OK to validate the way God made us; and, 5). View every conversation as a race consultation. Before you make assumptions, get the facts.

I question whether Miles McPherson’s philosophy will change the face of America. I do not see fundamental change coming to America short of a spiritual revival. But his approach can surely change me, and that, I believe, is where we must each begin.

America needs God, and if they are going to find Him, they will do so through men and women who reflect the love and compassion our God has for all His children. Our role is not to convict others of sin; that is the role of the Holy Spirit. Our mission is to show love and compassion, to tell the angry, rioting mob we care, and that God has a solution to all their frustrations and hurt. His Name is Jesus!

NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS

Moses, the man who led the people of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, once roamed the royal palace, the adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter. But Moses’ people, the people of Israel, had been enslaved by the Pharaoh and it was a condition the determined forty-year-old statesman would never accept.

But Moses’ dream of emancipating his people went off the rails. When one of his Hebrew brethren was being abused by an Egyptian, Moses went to his defense and killed the man. But no one cheered his ambition, and soon he had to flee for his life. He was to spend the next forty years dreaming of what might have been.

Moses, eighty years old and living in the arid and hot southern region of the Arabian Peninsula, had by this time become a humble shepherd. It was a mundane life for the once high and mighty. Never did he dream his last mission in life would be tending his father-in-law’s sheep!

But things were about to change. One morning, amid the stillness known only in the desert, a nearby shrub burst into flames. And suddenly, a voice. “Moses, take off your sandals. The ground on which you are standing is holy ground!” Come again? Holy ground? Yes, holy ground! God is present and that changes everything.

The hot-shot young Hebrew has become a seasoned shepherd, and he’s lost his bravado. When God tells Moses his lifelong dream is about to become a reality, Moses can hardly believe it. He is to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, God tells him, and all he can think to say is, “Who, me?” “Yes, you!”

And then comes this question, and it is the signature moment of Moses’ life. “When the Israelites ask who sent me,” Moses responds, “what shall I tell them? What is your name?” “I AM WHO I AM,” God replies. “You can tell them the I AM has sent you.”

And that is the turning point. Knowing God, up close and personal, and by name, changes everything. The brash young Hebrew is now an elderly, insecure shepherd, convinced life has passed him by. But his forty years in the wilderness have not been wasted. Finally, he is a man God can use.

Which brings me to this question. “Can God do for you what he did for Moses?”

The problem is that most of us have heard of God. We’ve been told of His existence; we acknowledge Him as Creator and recognize Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing about Him, however, is one thing; knowing Him is another matter entirely.

But as He did with Moses, God would like you to know Him, up close and personal. You, too, can have a “God moment,” a “burning bush” of your own; it’s never too late to launch a new beginning.

Jesus said, “Come to me and I will give you rest.” With our nation in turmoil, and the pandemic dominating our lives, it’s an offer that, taken seriously, could change the course of your life.

Like Moses, you may have spent the last forty years agonizing over what could have been. Perhaps sin, an error in judgment, or an unfortunate decision, altered your life and destroyed your hope of being the person you know you could be. But do not despair. God is more than able to take your past and use it to help you become the person who, without Him, you could never be. He can make it happen; never give up on your dreams!