Q & A Quickie

I have a few questions to ask and, although the answers may seem obvious, they may require a bit more thinking than your instinctive reaction would indicate. I should note that this is being addressed to those who profess to follow Jesus and not those outside of the Church.


1.  Do you believe that God - in the form of the Holy Spirit - dwells within you?


2.  Do you believe that God is omnipresent - that is, He is everywhere all at once; seeing and hearing everything?


3.  Is God at the top of the ladder in your life - is God "God" or is someone/something else for you?


Now the obvious, instinctive answer to all three of those questions would be a resounding "yes, of course", but is that the true answer? Consider the following:


Jim is a believer and when those questions are posed to him, the answer to each one is "yes, of course".  Jim has a small problem though.  You see, Jim has a real issue with pornography - not just pictures either, but chat rooms, erotic stories, videos...a bit of everything.


So, in the morning, Jim waits as his children head off to school and then his wife goes out to run some errands.  He then waits about five minutes, just to be sure the "coast is clear", then runs to his computer where he spends a fair bit of time watching, listening and reading.  The sound of his wife's car door closing stops him quickly and he closes out of everything, does a quick clearing of his browser's history, straightens himself up and is in the kitchen making a coffee when she comes through the door.


Now then, going by the above story, is the actual, true answer to our three questions a "Yes" for Jim?  You may wonder, how would you know but take a look and it becomes obvious.


IF Jim truly believed that 1) God was omnipresent and 2)that He was fully within Jim's person in the form of the Spirit, then why does he find it okay to indulge after his wife and kids leave for the day?  After all, God did not go anywhere - He is still right there with Jim for the entire event.


And if Jim actually does believe that "yes" is the answer to questions 1 and 2, then the answer to 3 must be a resounding "no", since the opinion of his family of his obsession obviously matters to him far more than God seeing - up close and personal - him do it each chance he gets.


Now this may seem a bit overly simplified and surely there are absolute hoards of different directions one could take in discussion from here, but it does help to get the point across.  Just because we know what the answers "should" be and we know what to say when we are asked, do we show the reality of those answers in our lives?


This is not meant to shake your faith or make you paranoid or anything else of that nature. However, it should cause us to take a quick glance at what we say we believe and whether or not we merely say it because we have been taught or conditioned to do so or if we actually believe what we are saying.  After all, what we actually believe will show itself in our actions.


"But, but what if I check and find that the answer to all three questions is actually a no? What do I do? What does it mean?"


One, it means you cared enough about your relationship with God to take a real stock of yourself - that would be love in action, my friend - so it means you do love God, but you have some unbelief in some areas which, I am afraid to say, makes you completely normal; most people do.  And you cannot force yourself to believe anything but God on the other hand, He can show you things in a level of reality that removes any and all doubt for you - all you have to do is ask.


“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” ~ Mark 9:24

Ties That Bind

Perchance as you read those things which I feel to put down upon the page you ask yourself "who does he think he is" saying <such and such>?  Perhaps you think "how wonderful it must be to be so perfect" or "to have it all together" or "to have such a wonderful life". Well, to answer the first question - who does he think is he - allow me...


"I have a wonderful, picture perfect family life?"


I can honestly say I hope yours is not as wonderful as mine is.


My wife and I have been apart for quite some time now - years to be exact - and I played a pretty significant role in that initial separation.  No details since, obviously, more than myself involved but trust me when I say a "significant role".  I have two incredible daughters and my relationship with them is far less than perfect even on the best of days. Honestly, most of the time, I feel like an utter failure as a father to them.


My relationship with my other immediate family is far less than stellar as well due in no small part to my own actions.  Granted, it is better now than perhaps it had been once but is not even close to the loving 1980's sitcom family.


So yeah, I honestly hope yours is not the same kind of wonderful that mine is.


"Had an easy life with few, if any, major issues?"


The list of major mistakes that I have made in this life thus far is a pretty long one.  I mentioned the marriage situation already. The list of medium - by comparison to the major - mistakes I have made...I am not sure there is an end to that list.  The smaller ones do not even make the cut for this.  And when I say major, I mean major mistakes. I know what selfishness and betrayal feel like - from both the receiver and giver's side.


"Yeah, but that was all before you were saved - now you're all perfect and stuff..."


How I so wish it were all before I was saved - I have been saved for quite some time now - but that is not the case.  I dare say I cannot go a full week without making some serious error in judgement in some area or another of life and, when talking in longer terms like a year, trust me, that list is terrifying to say the least.


I have had no perfect life and no small part of that is due to my own role within it. Sure there have been others who have contributed but in the end, it was mostly (if not entirely) my own fault and doing. And it still continues today even though I am saved.


So should you think, even for a moment, that whatever you have done or been through disqualifies you from the forgiveness of God, you are dead wrong. If He can forgive one such as I, He surely can and will forgive you.


And should you feel like you are failing at your walk with Christ - like you are not near perfect enough for Him - you too, are dead wrong.  I am very, very familiar with the grace of God - I know - and I mean I know - I deserve to be obliterated off the face of the earth before I do something else that results in someone getting hurt somehow....but that is not what I get. What I get is forgiveness, acceptance and more chances than I could ever hope to count.  So if you feel less than perfect, that is okay...you are not alone...you never were.

A Glance Inward

If you follow my writing at all, by now your are aware that, from time to time, God decides He is going to begin addressing <something> with me and I feel prompted to share that with you - the reader. Sometimes, it is afterwards, sometimes during and sometimes, like now, it is in the very early stages.


Have you ever noticed how, when God is trying to get your attention about something, whatever it is seems to pop up everywhere you look even when you are not trying to look for it?  Well, that is what has been going on with me as of late.  First it was just a thought, here and there, and then it started popping up from outside sources a bit. What, pray tell, is it this time you may ask?  Basically, self examination.


Revelations 3:1, is kind of interesting if you stop to take a look at it.  In it, Jesus is addressing a Church that is known by other people as being one that is vibrant and alive - thriving.  However, He is quick to point out that while they may have built up a reputation for being alive, He can see the truth that they are actually dead inside.  Apparently, even though those within it and those outside of it were seeing it as thriving, the truth of the matter was totally different.  And that is actually kind of scary in a way.  I mean really, no doubt the people included within it did not think they were dead - they likely believed that they were thriving as well...but they were not. And it makes one stop to ponder, even if briefly, if we are as alive as we think we are or are we merely believing our own lie.


Recently, I found myself reading AW Tozer's "That Incredible Christian" and he mentioned something along the very same lines.  In it, he mentions that most people live their entire lives without another person actually knowing who they really are and that they are so good at keeping up their camouflage, that they themselves rarely know either.


Tozer goes on to suggest a few starting points for checking into who we truly are at our very core (I do not mean who we are in Christ, but rather, with regards to the actual desires of our hearts).  The first he gives is "what do we want the most" and that we should reject any kind of conventional answer, but rather, get alone with out thoughts and take a real look within. If you are like me, then your gut reaction is going to be to say something about knowing God more or something of the like, but is that really the honest, core answer? Is that the answer that Christ would give you if you asked Him what it is that you really want?


He gives others as well, including "what do we think about the most" - the stuff that fills our thoughts when we do not feel we must be thinking of something else; "how do we spend out leisure time" and "what do we spend our money on" (outside of that which we must spend it upon) both give clues as to where our heart truly is much of the time and reveal a bit about who we actually are as opposed to who other people see us as, who we pretend to be or who we want to think we are.


I cannot speak for you but I know that as I start to ponder these things a bit, to be honest, I start to see things I would so much rather not see there.


But what if we honestly simply cannot seem to see them ourselves? After all, the Church in Rev. 3:1 did not see their our issues - it took Jesus to point it out to them.  With that in mind, perhaps a quick glance at Psalm 139 may be in order - specifically, verses 23-24: "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."


That really is a bold prayer that David made. Oh sure, it is easy enough to say, but to mean it from start to finish.  Not only asking God to search out his heart but to be willingly be led away from <whatever>.  That last part may make you lift an eyebrow but let's be honest with each other for a moment. That sin, habit, mindset or whatever that we have that we know we should not have is not some powerhouse temptation that just railroads over top of Christ every chance it gets.  It is there because - for whatever reason and in whatever way - we like it. We may hate what it does to us, but for some reason we allow it to remain because we like it. So being willing to actually be led away from it, yeah, that takes a bit conviction.


Now I want to make it clear that I am not saying we are to judge or condemn ourselves and this is definitely something personal - not something you read and say <so and so> needs this.  But I want you to consider this:  if you do not think you are sick, why would you go to the doctor?  You wouldn't, would you.  The church in Rev 3:1 thought they were well, thought they were healthy...they were wrong. Let us learn from that while we still can.


**A quick Add-On**


So what is the point of this "self examination"? Think of it like checking your own body for lumps, bumps, moles, etc - something that doctors recommend doing in order that any cancerous growth may be detected early.  If you check and find something, it may be nothing but that checking may have just saved your life. If you do not check, and there is something there, you may not find out until it is far, far too late for you.


"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven ... Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me.." ~ Matthew 7:21, 23

("That Incredible Christian" was written by AW Tozer, published in 1964)