Spiritual Renewal

Greetings!

     This week's "thought" is about spiritual renewal.  Its about the power and presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit in our lives.  It comes to you from Jim Cymbala's book, "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire."  Cymbala has been the pastor of the large multi-racial "Brooklyn Tabernacle" since 1971, a church which had only 30 when he arrived that year, but now has over 16,000 members -- which is not, as this thought will show, what he really cares about.

     The Brooklyn Tabernacle is a church which has, by God's grace, broken down many racial and economic barriers, offering in the present a small taste of the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, inclusive body of Christ, where believers of every tribe and tongue, rich and poor alike, will one day gather side by side before the throne of God (Rev. 7:9).  Part instruction, part biographical, his book is well-worth the read if you have the time. Enjoy.

     "Are we not all prone to be a little cocky and think we can handle things just fine?  But let some trouble come, and how quickly we sense our inadequacy. Trouble is one of God's great servants because it reminds us how much we continuously need the Lord. Otherwise, we tend to forget about entreating him. For some reason we want to carry on by ourselves.  The history of past revivals portray this truth in full color. Whether you study the First Great Awakening, the Welsh Revival, the 1906 outpouring on Azuza Street in Los Angeles, or any other period of revival, you always find men and women who first inwardly groan, longing to see the status quo changed -- in themselves and in their churches. They begin to call upon God with insistence. Prayer begets revival and revival begets more prayer.  It's like Psalm 80, where Asaph bemoans the sad state of his time, the broken walls, the rampaging animals, the burnt vineyards. Then in verse 18 he pleads, "Revive us, and we will call upon your name." 

     The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of prayer.  Only when we are full of the Spirit do we feel the need for God everywhere we turn. We can be driving a car, and spontaneously our spirit starts going up to God with needs and petitions and intercessions right there in the middle of traffic. [Eyes open of course!]  If our churches don't pray, and if people don't have an appetite for God, what does it matter how many are attending the services?  How would that impress God? Can you imagine the angels saying, "Oh, your pews! We can't believe how beautiful they are! Up here in heaven, we've been talking about them for years. Your sanctuary lighting -- it's so clever. The way you have the steps going up to the pulpit, it's wonderful..." 

     I don't think so.   If we don't want to experience God's closeness here on earth, why would we want to go to heaven anyway?  He is the center of everything there. If we don't enjoy being in his presence here and now, then heaven would not be heaven for us. Why would he send anyone there who doesn't long for him passionately here on earth?  I am not suggesting that we are justified by works of prayer or any other acts of devotion. I am not a legalist. But let us not dodge the issue of what heaven will be like --  enjoying the presence of God, taking time to adore him, listening to him, giving him praise. I have talked with pastor after pastor, some of them prominent and "successful" who have told me privately, "Jim, the truth is, I couldn't have a real prayer meeting in my church. I'd be embarrassed at the smallness of the crowd. Unless somebody's teaching, or singing, or doing some kind of presentation, people just won't come. I can only get them for a one-hour service, and that only once a week." 

     Is that kind of religion found anywhere in the Bible?  [Gathering to go to] Jesus himself can't draw a crowd even among his own people!  What a tragedy that the quality of ministry is too often measured by numbers and building size rather than by spiritual results. As a preacher myself, let me be blunt here. When I stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ, he is not going to ask me if I was a clever orator. He is not going to ask me how many books I wrote. He is only going to ask whether I continued in the line of men and women, starting way back in the time of Adam's generation, who led others to call upon God." 

     Cymbala is right.  God is not impressed by numbers, attendance figures, technology, marketing skills, architecture, stage presentation, etc.   Rather, what God wants is people who want him.  He wants people who want to spend prayerful time with Him in His presence.  He seeks people who yearn to seek Him (Jeremiah 29:13). He wants us to trust in Him and live a life of dependence on Him (II Corinthians 1:9). He wants us to realize what Jesus said so clearly in John 15:5 in the context of bearing spiritual fruit -- "I am the Vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."   That's what the Christian life is about:  Remaining in Jesus all the time. Abiding in Christ every conscious moment.  Being joined to Him unbroken fellowship.  Dwelling in intimate fellowship in His presence.  Bringing every thought captive to Christ (II Corinthians 10:5).  Communing with Him in ongoing prayer (I Thessalonians 5:16-18). Trusting Him with all our hearts (Proverbs 3:5-6). Living a life of reliance, surrender and dependence (II Corinthians 1:8-10).  If people are not led to call upon God, and seek His face in loving fellowship, earnestly seeking to do His will, all that other stuff matters little.  For "success" in the eyes of the world is much different than success (fruit that God desires) in regard to Christ's Kingdom.

May We Be Moved to Pray and Pursue Him More Passionately, 

Pastor Jeff

The Practice of the Presence of God

Greetings!

This past weekend the men at my church got away on a "Men's Recon"  to a couple cabins in the Pocono Mountains to spend time in quiet contemplation with God.  In doing so we read Brother Lawrence's classic work, "The Practice of the Presence of God."  It was revitalizing time.   I had my own copy of the book which I bought many years ago, so I brought it with me - fragile as it is from being loaned out and read so many times. Over the years I have copied quotes into the many blank pages and spaces in it.  So today I wanted to share some of those quotes with you.  And if you have just a moment, let me know which one(s) hit home the most. Enjoy.

"Whatever we are doing, even if we are reading the Word or praying, we should stop for a few minutes -- as often as possible -- to praise God from the depths of our hearts, to enjoy Him there in secret. Since you believe that God is always with you no matter what you may be doing, why shouldn't you stop for a while to adore Him, to praise Him, to petition Him, to offer Him your heart, and to thank Him?"

Brother Lawrence

"There is nothing but God's grace. We walk upon it. We breathe it. We live by it and we die in it."

Robert Louis Stevenson

"You have no strength but what God gives you, and you can have all the strength that God can give." 

Andrew Murray

"Wonder is the basis of worship."

Thomas Carlyle

"Faith is not an effort, a striving, a ceaseless seeking, as so many earnest souls suppose, but rather, a letting go, an abandonment, an abiding rest in God that nothing, not even the soul's shortcomings can disturb." 

Unknown

"God never asks us to give up anything unless He intends to replace it with something better."

George Mueller

"He who would not die for Jesus will never truly live for Jesus; for to earnestly live for Him requires dying daily to the self-will that we may do His will."

"God insists that we ask, not because He needs to know our situation, but because we need the spiritual discipline of asking."

Catherine Marshall

"When God wants to do His great works, He trains somebody to be quiet enough and little enough, then uses that person."

Hudson Taylor

"Enter into the inner chamber of your mind, shut out all things except God and whatever might aid you in seeking God, and having barred the door of your inner chamber, seek Him." 

St. Anselm of Canterbury

"God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him." 

Martin Luther

"Joy is not happiness as much as it is gladness; it is the ecstasy of eternity in a soul that has made peace with God and is ready to do His will."

Unknown

"Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation."

Elton Trueblood

"Be patient with each other, there are no shortcuts to spirituality. The growing of fruit takes time."

Unknown

"The greatness of a man is not measured by his power or ability, but by the measure of his surrender to God."

Unknown

"The person who insists on seeing with perfect clarity before he follows Christ in the way, will never obey God's call to walk by faith. To Abraham God said, 'Leave your country and your people and your father's household, and go to the place I will (that is, in the future, far down the road) show you." 

"When, as a husband or wife, you are confronted with a very difficult choice, do what is best for your spouse and your children and God will honor it." 

"If you'd ever really gotten inside the mind of Jesus, ever had a single taste of His burning love, considerations of your own loss or gain would mean nothing."

Thomas A'Kempis

"It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving."

Richard Braumstein

"Though we do not have our Lord Jesus with us in bodily presence, we have our neighbor, who, for the ends of love and loving service, is as good as our Lord Himself."

Teresa of Avila

"To do so no more is the best repentance."

Martin Luther

"No one gives himself freely and willingly to God's service unless, having tasted His Fatherly love, he is drawn to love and worship Him in return." 

John Calvin

In His Service, Pastor Jeff

What Does "Revival" Look Like?

Greetings All!

     Last week I sent out some thoughts on revival.  This morning I gathered with some other gentlemen from my church discussed those thoughts.  In our conversation we talked about what a revival is like and if we had ever witnessed or been part of a reviving move of God.  I will not share things from that discussion, but as a follow-up to it (and last week's thoughts on revival) I did want to share part of a message I once preached on the topic based on the text of Isaiah 57:15: "This is what the high and lofty One says -- He who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite."   It contains more thoughts on revival from others (not just mine) and a factual account of the things that actually happened during the First Great Awakening in New England in the 1730's - 40's.  If nothing else, I hope it makes you think.  Better yet, I hope it makes you pray that we might soon see another expression of such divine, holy and reviving grace.  Where water has once flowed, it can flow again.  Enjoy.

What Does "Revival" Look Like?

     “John Babcock, writing of a service in his church during the revival that swept through Virginia in the 19th century could say:  “The death-like awe of silence and solemnity sometimes seemed as if it were the hem of the robe of His glory waxing all but visible in our midst.”  It’s an unfortunate misrepresentation to suggest that all revivals result in outbursts of excited fervor.  They do not.  When the presence of God comes upon a congregation, what often pervades it is a sense of His holiness and majesty.  One feels the eerie sense of a spiritual presence that is so awe-full, so holy, so Other, that a quiet hush comes over that place and people are glued motionless to their seats.  They can hear themselves breathe. They listen to the beating of their hearts.  Even their thoughts seem loud.  Soft weeping throughout the congregation is often the only sound heard.

     When the Spirit comes in power people often begin to weep as the God they have often maligned, taken for granted, and dishonored by their sin, apathy, and unbelief, enters the sanctuary in a tangibly sensed way.  The people feel it.  Many are overcome by a fear of the Lord and a deep conviction of sin as God fills that place with a conscious sense of His holy presence, power, purity, righteousness an soul-exposing light. That’s one of the ways you can tell when “God shows up” and His manifest presence fills a room to convict, convert, comfort, or bring people to earnest life-changing repentance.  It gets really quiet.  Things becomes very still.  Everyone is motionless.  People stop coughing, clearing their throats, and shifting in their seats. Why?  Because they sense the presence of God in a way they don’t (or haven’t) at any other time.

     And don’t get me wrong.  God is always present – at all times, and in all places, whether we sense it or not.  But sometimes, for reasons known only to Him, He chooses on certain occasions, or for certain seasons, to make His presence so tangibly known to us that we actually sense His presence in our midst in an undeniable way.  That’s what revival is.  A powerful visitation of the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity and whose name is Holy (Isaiah 57:15).  God, so to speak, rends the heavens and comes down to visit His people (Isaiah 64:1).

     George Whitefield on one such occasion wrote:  “I was so overpowered with a sense of God’s love, that it almost took away my life.”  The experience of God’s presence - His Holy Love was so powerful it almost killed him.  D. L. Moody testifies of a similar experience.  Jonathan Edwards called them, “special seasons of mercy” or “extraordinary effusions” or “outpourings of the Holy Spirit.”   That is the essence of revival  God comes in a new and fresh visitation of His presence, sometimes in unspeakable holiness resulting in a hushed death-like stillness; other times in love so consuming and overpowering that a person nearly loses consciousness; and still other times in joy so euphoric and captivating that we feel it will carry us up into paradise that very moment (and we wish it would)!  A joy so freeing, peaceful and pleasurable that the soul is enraptured - feeling spiritually ravished by God.

     “When people,” writes Iain Murray, “burdened with a sense of guilt, come to complete deliverance through faith in the atoning work of Christ, and when the love of God fills the hearts of believers, then joy is irresistible.  The greater his knowledge of the benefits purchased by Christ, the greater the degree of joy, liberation, and gratitude to God he receives.”  And what causes it?  The Holy Spirit comes upon a person and convinces them that the Gospel message is really true!  Not that it would simply be nice if it were true, but that it is true!  Christ purchased it all.  He lived the perfect sinless life we could never live, and died in our place as the substitute who took our punishment upon Himself, and on the basis of trusting in that Gospel and that Saving One, we are freely forgiven and put in right standing with God (Isaiah 53 & 55)

     Jonathan Edwards recorded this account of the revival that swept through Northampton, MA, at the start of the first great awakening in America in 1734.  He writes: “The Spirit of God began to set in in an extraordinary way... The news of it seemed to be almost like a flash of lightning upon the hearts of young people all over town... In time, a great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world became universal among persons of all ages and degrees.  The noise among the dry bones waxed louder and louder.  All other talk but about spiritual things and eternal things was soon thrown by.  All the conversation, in all companies, and upon all occasions, was upon these things only, except for what was necessary to carry on ordinary secular business.  People’s only concern was to get into the Kingdom of God, and everyone appeared to be pressing into it. The work of conversion was carried on in a most astonishing manner, and... souls did, as it were, come by flocks to Jesus Christ...  In 1735 the town seemed full of the presence of God - never was it so full of love, nor of joy, and yet so full of distress (in the unbelievers) as it was then.   There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house...  The Lord’s day was a delight.  Worship services were beautiful.   The congregation was alive... and every hearer was eager to drink in the words of the minister.  From time to time people were in tears as God’s Word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love; and others out of concern for the souls of their neighbors.”

     It was a move of God’s Spirit so powerful it spread from Massachusetts to Connecticut and then clear down the east coast - all the way to Georgia.  Everyone sensed the presence of God as the High and Lofty and Holy One who inhabits eternity broke in upon the consciousness of people in a way so real and tangible that even unbelievers felt His presence in their midst.”

     I would love to share more historical accounts of revival. Like the Moravian revival of 1727, the Wesleyan revival in England around the same time, the revival among the Indians through David Brainerd, the 2nd Great Awakening in America, and many others, including the Azusa Street Revival and two others in more recent years at Asbury and Wheaton colleges. But time and space do not permit it.  That will be up to you to research n your own!

With continued prayers for you all, Pastor Jeff

Three Prayers to Feed the Soul

Greetings All!

     I believe in spontaneous and heartfelt prayer.  I'm skeptical of pastors who only "pray" (or read) written prayers during a service of worship (as I witnessed every week in church in my childhood). It's not wrong if it's prayed in earnest and expresses what the heart craves, I simply prefer the more spontaneous type.
     Yet I must confess that God has also used written prayers to feed my soul.  Books like "C. H. Spurgeon's Prayers," or "Luther's Prayers," or "A Diary of Private Prayer" by John Baillee, "Prayers Ancient and Modern" (published in 1897!) and "Valley of Vision - A Collection of Puritan Prayers" by Arthur Bennett, have often been a great aid in my own prayer and devotional life.
     So today I offer you three prayers to consider. Two come from "Prayer's Ancient and Modern," and the third from, "Valley of Vision," by Arthur Bennett.  Enjoy.

"Father, calm the turbulence of our passions;

Quiet the throbbing of our hopes; 

Repress the waywardness of our wills; 

Direct the motions of our affections; 

and Sanctify the varied activities of our lives.

Be all in all to us; and may all things earthly, 

while we bend them to our growth in grace, 

and to the work of blessing, dwell lightly in our hearts -- so that we may readily, even joyfully, give up whatever you might ask.

May we seek first your kingdom and your righteousness; resting assured that then all things needful shall be added unto us.

Father, pardon our past ingratitude and disobedience; and purify us -- whether by your gentler or sterner dealings --till we have done your will on earth, and you take us into your own presence, with all the redeemed in heaven.

Amen."

Mary Carpenter

"O God our heavenly Father, renew in us the sense of Your gracious Presence,

and let it be a constant impulse within us to peace, truthfulness, and courage on our pilgrimage.

Let us hold You fast with a loving and adoring heart, and let our affections be so fixed on You, that unbroken communion in our hearts with You may accompany us in whatsoever we do, through life and in death.

Teach us to pray heartily;

To listen for Your voice within, 

And never to stifle it's warnings.

We bring our poor hearts as a sacrifice unto You, come and fill Your sanctuary...

O Thou who art Love, let Your divine Spirit flow like a river through our whole souls, 

And lead us in the right way till we pass, by a peaceful death, into the Land of Promise.

Amen."

Gerhard Tersteegen

"Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly, You have brought me to the Valley of Vision, 

where I live in the depths, but see You in the heights.  

Hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Your glory.

Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, 

that to be low is to be high, 

that the broken heart is the healed heart,

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,

that to have nothing is to possess all,

that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,

that to give is to receive, 

that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells, and the deeper the well, the brighter Your stars shine.

Let me find Your light in my darkness, 

Your life in my death,

Your joy in my sorrow,

Your grace in my sin,

Your riches in my poverty,

Your glory in my valley.

Amen."

May the blessings of renewed communion with Christ be yours, Pastor Jeff

The Promise of the Spirit

Greetings All!

 This week's "thought" comes to you from a superb yet not-so-well-known book by William Barclay.  It is entitled: "The Promise of the Spirit."  Barclay is known mostly for his popular "Daily Study Bible Series" covering the entire New Testament. Yet the "Barclay Prayer Book" and this volume about the work of the Spirit, are also good resources to have around on your shelf.
     Today's selection has to do with the power and work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. It focuses on His moving in both extraordinary and everyday ways. I trust his words might challenge and encourage you.  And for those who may be put off by the exclusively "male" language, please remember it was written in a time (1959) when no one really gave it much thought, and the terms "man" and "men" had a more generic "person" or "people" connotation.  Enjoy!

Men of the Spirit

     "No man who asks for, and receives, the guidance of the Spirit can ever be an irrelevant teacher or preacher. The Spirit of God is always looking for men who will be messengers to their day and generation. There is no moment without its message from God, there is no crisis without its word -- if a man can be found by the Spirit to bring that message and that word...  It is the conviction of the Old Testament that no man can prophecy without the Spirit. No man can teach others unless he himself is taught. The Spirit is God's witness in any human situation.  It is through the Spirit that with the need there always comes the power. And it is the Spirit who gives the prophet the strength and courage to bring to men the message of God, whether that message be consolation or condemnation.

        Great as the work of the Spirit is in creation in the Old Testament, still greater is the power of the Spirit in the lives of individual men. The great leaders of the Old Testament are all men who possess the Spirit, have been possessed by the Spirit, and in whom the Spirit dwells... When God has some great task to give a man, He gives it to a man whose equipment for the task is the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The conviction of the Old Testament is that no man can do the work of God without the Spirit of God, and that no man can lead his fellow men unless he himself is led by the Spirit of God...

        In general the work of the Spirit is connected with the extraordinary and the abnormal. The work of the Spirit is not so much a daily power and presence as it is an abnormal phenomenon and manifestation.... It is not everyday life with which the Spirit is connected, but with the unrepeatable moments.  Even in the case of prophecy, the prophecy in early times tends to be ecstatic and abnormal... The manifestations of the Spirit are wonderful and miraculous. [Dreams, interpretation of dreams, visions, prophecies, miracles, tremendous feats of strength, victory over enemies, etc.  Such things begin to happen when, or after, it is said: "The Spirit of the Lord came upon him..."  Gen. 41:38  / Numbers 11:16-17 / Numbers 27:18 / Judges 3:10 / Judges 6:34 / Judges 11:29 / I Sam. 11:6 / I Sam. 16:13 / Isaiah 42:1...]

     Yet, as we shall see, it is not always so... It is possible to over-stress the element of abnormality in the idea of the working of the Spirit in the Old Testament, for the Spirit also stands for the universal presence of God. The Spirit stands for the fact that it is neither possible to lose God in trouble, nor escape God in sin (Psalm 139)...  In Exodus 31:1-3, God told Moses to set Bezaleel aside for the work of building the tabernacle, because, “I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in sliver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.”

     Here is something new.  Craftsmanship is the gift of the Spirit.  Here is something which in an illuminating flash transfers the Spirit from the realm of theology to the realm of life, from the stillness of the Church to crash of the hammer and the buzz of the saw and the noise of the chisel on the stone in the workshop.  Here the Spirit is indeed in the midst of life and living.  We do well to remember that, whatever gift a man has, of mind or heart, of brain or eye or hand, that gift is the gift of the Spirit.  It is not only the theologian in his study, the priest in his church, the prophet with his message, who is working in the power of the Spirit.  The man at the bench and at the machine, the man in whose hands wood and metal become obedient, the mechanic, the engineer, the carpenter, the fitter, the mason, are all men of the Spirit, and can, and must, serve God in the Spirit."

     Anyone who has been in ministry for any amount of time knows that apart for the power, presence and unction of the Holy Spirit attending our words and efforts, there is little or no lasting (and definitely no eternal) transformational result. As Spurgeon once said in all earnestness in regard to the task of preaching: “We might preach till our tongues rotted, till we should exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless there were a mysterious power going with it—the Holy Ghost changing the will of man.  Oh Sirs!  We might as well preach to stone walls as preach to humanity unless the Holy Ghost be with the word, to give it power to convert the soul.”  To believe otherwise is to miss the point of divine grace and the indispensability of Spirit's work in the hearts of people.

      As Barclay states in his introduction of this book: "It is my prayer that those who read this book will by their own study come more and more to know the Holy Spirit, not as a doctrine, but as a Person, and that they will thereby experience more of His power in their own lives."  That is my prayer as well.

In His Service, Pastor Jeff

"Being poured out like wine," and "The need for confession."

Greetings All,









This week's thoughts' come to you from two different devotional books: Devotions for the God Guy - A 365 Day Journey," by Michael DiMarco,










and "Simply Sacred" by Gary Thomas.

The first has to do with "Being poured out like wine," and the second with "The need for confession."  I trust both will speak truth into your heart. Enjoy.

"But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad to rejoice with all of you."  Philippians 2:17 

     "When God uses you, he pours you out like wine and he breaks you like bread.  But what does all that mean? How can you become wine? How are you broken? Well, it's really an amazing analogy.  Wine is made from grapes. But before grapes can be drunk, they have to be crushed, smushed, turned to nothing but juice. Their former shape is destroyed and their very being translated from one essence to another.

        Have you ever felt crushed, squeezed, out of all your energy -- even to the core of your being? Don't be so quick to complain. It's very normal for the God guy to be crushed. But it's for a very good purpose: so that you can be poured out as part of the sacrifice of service.

     Okay, you can almost handle the idea of being broken by God. But what about when you are crushed by someone else? What then? Can you look at the crushing and still say, "Thank you for pouring me out, dear God."  Or do you buck against the torment and turn away from the strain?  When you are being crushed by someone other than God, don't start to wonder what you're doing wrong but think about how wine gets made.  You can't be poured out as a drink offering until you've been squeezed.

     So if you want to be turned from bitter grapes into beautiful wine, then you've got to accept the fingers that are squeezing you even when they aren't God's.  If God chooses to break you by letting you be squeezed and smushed by life, then don't start to worry that you've been forgotten or abandoned by God -- quite the opposite is true. When the pressure comes, don't sin because of it, but stand in the face of it -- and then you will be ready to be poured out as a part of the sacrifice."

-----------------------------------------------------------

The Need For Confession

     "Dietrich Bonhoeffer shocked the [Protestant] theological world when, as a Lutheran theologian in the early part of the twentieth century, he began advocating that Protestants reinstate the practice of confession.  He did so not because he felt confession to a fellow human being was necessary in order to gain forgiveness from God [the point the first Protestants initially rebelled against], but because human confession has a practical purpose -- it makes our sin seem more real to us. 

        If you question this, ask yourself: "Why is it much easier to confess sins to God than to your pastor? Why is there more shame when another sinful human being observes my weakness than when I pronounce them before an all-holy God?"  Could it be because God's presence is so weak in our lives?  If we truly understood and cherished the beauty and holiness of God, we would shake a bit more when we approaching him.  But his invisibility often creates a buffer, thereby softening the impact of his presence.

     In and through another person God becomes real to us in human form. There is a flesh-and-blood person sitting next to me who flinches when they hear or see what should make me flinch, but doesn't -- and I see my hard heart exposed by their soft one."

        We might say that when it came to the Catholic sacrament of confession the Protestant Reformers, "threw the baby out with the bath-water."  It is one thing to reject confession to a priest as a sacrament that earns us salvific merit; it is another thing altogether to see confession as a helpful and healing practice for our spiritual growth and well-being.

     After all, if we take James 5:16 to heart, and realize it is spoken in the imperative or command form, we will see that it's really not optional for our growth in godliness. The thought that I can keep all my struggles secret, or worse yet should, simply stunts my spiritual growth, impoverishes me spiritually, keeps me in bondage to the sins I hide, and leads to self-deception regarding my true desire to move beyond that sin as well as my need for others in the body to hear me, love me, encourage me, offer me godly counsel, be firm with me, help me see past my blind spots, and hold me accountable.

       As Bonhoeffer also said (and I'll paraphrase): "Sin is like mold in a dark, damp basement.  Keep it hidden in the dark and away from the light and it grows and festers. But open the windows, and expose it to the direct sunlight, and it will soon shrivel up and die."  Too many believers feed their sin by keeping it hidden from the brothers and sisters they should be confessing it to as part of the sin-killing process of sanctification.

Just a little food for thought!  In His Service, Pastor Jeff