Oxygen Masks

Oxygen Masks

“Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from
the fire and save them, to others show mercy ….”
                                  Jude 22-23

Four flights, four sets of instructions that we are all familiar with: “your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device in the event of a water landing”, “please note the location of exits in the event of an emergency evacuation”, and “oxygen masks will drop down if we lose cabin pressure”. None of these were very comforting considering our flight’s route was over northern Canada, Alaska, the Bering Strait, and the uninhabited frozen wilderness of Northern Russia before we landed at Japan’s Nagoya airport. But a magazine I read while away helped me to see one aspect of these instructions, putting on the oxygen masks, in a new light.

The instruction to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs contains a lesson for each of us in our quest to make a difference in the lives of others. Are we the one God wants to use to encourage someone else to trust the Lord? Maybe we even quote a scripture or two in our effort to stem the tide of worry and anguish in a friend’s life, something life “commit your future to the Lord; trust in Him and He will act on your behalf”. But we have to put our own oxygen mask on first; we have to have that trust worked out in our own lives to effectively minister trust to another.

Name an aspect of Christianity that you would like to see the Lord use you in and you will find that your message is effective only to the degree that you are walking in that truth yourself. Encouraging someone to walk more closely to the Lord, stressing the importance of faithfulness in the Christian life, pleading with a family member that God, not the world, is the answer to their problems, and teaching on a host of subjects from holiness, character, and love to forgiveness, humility and seeking the Lord – our own oxygen mask has to be on first. One by one, we have to make sure that these traits are a part of our Christian walk, or our words will be empty words, likely to have little or no effect on others.

The Christian life is a series of choices that define our lives and mold our future. Some define the hope, the confidence, and the life we have in Christ while others affect our ability to minister to those around us. Because our lives matter to God, and because so many others depend on what we do, the time to live out our Christianity fully engaged, totally surrendered, and with a willingness to sacrifice for the cause of Christ has never been so great. May God’s life overflow from you to many others in the days ahead!

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Clouded from View

  Clouded from View

    “I pray that the eyes of your heart being opened, you
       would know the hope to which He has called you.”
Ephesians 1:18

Looking out from the veranda of the Bible school one morning this week, the city of Manila, an expansive metropolis of 15 million people, was entirely clouded from view, enveloped in a thick cloud of black smog that covered the city like a blanket. The many skyscrapers which on a clear day dot the skyline were invisible on this morning, the victims of many years of aging vehicles pouring out diesel fumes in a third world country fighting to modernize. The scene had taken over my morning devotion and caused me to ask the question: What is clouded from my view Lord, about you, about myself and about the way I look at others?

The tendency to see ourselves in a better light than we look at others with is well documented. Other people’s faults, weaknesses, and problems take on a life of their own in our minds and cause us to shrink back from them, while our own similar issues are understandable, excusable and tolerable. I think it was Jesus who said that with the same judgment we judge others with, we will be judged ourselves. It is time for each of us to take off the rose colored glasses that we use when we look in the mirror, and begin to see ourselves more honestly and clearly. In so doing, the goal of becoming more and more like the Lord will become a greater possibility than might ever have been realized.

The second benefit to doing that, seeing ourselves as we really are, is that we will look at others with new mercies and understanding. We won’t be any different and they won’t be any different but we will have a new willingness to accept others and pray for them because we see in them the same weaknesses and struggles, in different forms, that we ourselves face. If God has already given us a breakthrough in an area, it should cause us to be compassionate, trusting Him through prayer for the same victory in our brother or sister’s life.

When it comes to God, He is not to be the product of our imagination but the God revealed to us in the pages of the Bible. Our God is a God who loves to show mercy, to forgive, and to pour out His grace. But He is also a God who is looking for a people who will serve Him on His terms not their own, a people who will love Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. And I wonder if we sometimes convince ourselves that we are giving God our best when the reality of our Christian walk is clouded from our view. I pray, therefore, that the Lord will cause each of us to serve Him with a vision that is clear, a heart that is open and a life that is being changed.

From the Philippines,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Non-negotiable

Non-negotiable

“Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed,
giving thanks to his God, just as  he had done before.”
                                       Daniel 6:10

The question is ‘Just what in your walk with the Lord, in your personal set of beliefs, is absolutely non-negotiable?’ What is it in your life that you would absolutely refuse to compromise on or negotiate with anyone else about, no matter what the circumstances or consequences involved?

In Daniel’s day, moved by jealousy, the other leaders had a law passed that forbid anyone in the kingdom to pray to any god or man for a period of thirty days, except to the king. And the penalty for anyone who broke the new law was being thrown into the lion’s den, a fate that meant certain death. For Daniel you would think that this would be a big problem. Here was a man who made it his habit to pray three times a day, with windows open no less, to his God. What would he do in the face of the consequences of continuing to pray? What would God realistically expect of one of his followers? God wouldn’t really expect someone to risk their life, probably lose their life over prayer, would He?

For Daniel, this area of his life was non-negotiable. After the law was passed, Daniel went home, opened his windows, got down on his knees and gave thanks to the God who had shown Daniel such mercy, favor and protection. His time of communion with God and of acknowledging God in his life was non-negotiable, even at the risk of the lion’s den. We talk about being radical in our faith and commitment to the Lord; Daniel lived it out in real life. God meant far too much to Daniel for him to compromise and dishonor God by stopping his prayer and devotion time for thirty days. If it meant being thrown into the lion den, then so be it.

For Joseph, committing immorality with Potiphar’s wife, and sinning against his God in the process, was a non-negotiable area; at the expense of his position and the risk of prison, Joseph fled as fast as he could, lost everything and ended up in jail. John the Baptist lost his life because he spoke the truth to Herod. For him, speaking the truth and obeying what the Lord called him to do was absolutely non-negotiable. And so we return to the opening question, ‘Just what in your walk with the Lord, in your personal set of beliefs, is absolutely non-negotiable?’ Daniel’s refusal to compromise his values spoke volumes about what God meant to him. My prayer is that your stand for Christ, your list of non-negotiables, will do the same.

From the Philippines,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Preparations of the Heart

Preparations of the Heart

“The preparations of the heart in man, and
   the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.”
                                         Proverbs 16:1

While some shopping has been done, and my office floor is disappearing with bibles and other supplies for the Philippines, last minute preparations will begin in earnest as soon as service is finished later this morning. Stops at the Christian bookstore, Kroger and Target are already on the list. The scale will be needed to attempt to get under the 50 lb limit per suitcase. And “making a list, checking it twice” will take on a whole new meaning so that nothing is forgotten, not clothing or a toothbrush, not Bible notes or our passports, and certainly not the cookies that are essential for late night studying.

But the Lord spoke to me this week from the King James Version of Proverbs 16:1 about the most important preparations needed in each of our lives, and those are “the preparations of the heart”. If we are hoping to be used by God to touch other lives and to fulfill the things He has called us to, then nothing compares to having hearts that have been prepared under the watchful eye of the Lord. We are to serve the Lord with humble hearts that realize “there go I except for the grace of God” and with tender hearts filled with compassion for the hurting and needy. Pride has to be worked out of our hearts so that we are brought to the place where God gets all the glory, for anything and for everything that is accomplished in us and through us.

The refiner sits and watches carefully as the fire causes the impurities to come out of the silver and gold and rise to the surface. We too have a Refiner and He too is watching carefully as we go through the fires that reveal areas in our hearts to be cleansed and purified. The Lord’s goal is to be able to say, at progressive stages of our lives, that we are ready for the plans and purposes He has for us. Our job is to acknowledge the process and yield to the preparations so necessary in each of us.

Coming into God’s presence is never one-dimensional; we have so much to thank Him for and so much that we still are hoping to see Him do in our lives. But there is the God side about being drawn into His presence, what He wants to do in each of our hearts. God doesn’t just go through the motions; He has a plan and He is purposefully at work in your life to accomplish his good purpose. He is preparing your heart because He has so much more ahead for you, a future that is making you ready for even today.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church