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

A Matinee

A Matinee

“And this is the testimony: God has given
 us eternal life and this life is in His Son.”
                                 I John 5:11

The word matinee, which is a drama or musical performance held in the daytime, usually the afternoon, has its roots in the word matins, a morning prayer service held in the Anglican church. It’s something I came across as I leafed through a dictionary waiting for our morning devotion to start at school. But what really caught my attention, that morning, and what I believe God really wanted to speak to me about, was the word “performance”. It was as if the Holy Spirit was shouting to me, “Christianity is not a performance; what you do at church is never to be a performance and your service to me, whatever and wherever that is, is never to be a performance.”

Think of it: people gathering on a Sunday morning or a weekday evening with all too real needs in their lives. Some are desperate to hear the voice of God, others need a touch of God’s power or an answer to prayer, while still more are hoping beyond hope for change in their lives. Men and women trying to overcome hurts and pains and sorrow seated next to sincere believers needing to find the grace to forgive someone who has wounded them deeply. Across the aisle, a woman is waiting to receive a report from her doctor on recent tests, and a man is secretly battling an addiction that he has repented of time and time again.

All that helps to explain why God gets so upset when our service to Him and our worship of Him is nothing more than a matinee performance for others to see. When a brother or sister desperately needs more of God, it’s not a performance. People’s eternity is at stake. When marriages need healing and restoration, when children need to experience God’s love in their lives, and when decisions are being made that will affect a family’s future for generations, our gatherings unto the Lord are anything but a performance. In fact they are quite the opposite; they are real life opportunities to reach out to God corporately to see His power and glory break through where it is needed the most. We are called to press in to His life changing presence every time we meet.

Let’s make sure that a performance mentality has no place in our lives. We shouldn’t even have to know specifics; we are surrounded by hurting humanity who have suffered too long. From this day on, we say no more performances. From this day on, we will fight the good fight of faith in every way and at every time because it matters so much.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

Strategies

Strategies

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known;
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them.”
                                                    Isaiah 42:16

The story of the Stuxnet computer virus, used to set back the Iranian nuclear program by several years, is like something out of a Hollywood movie with manipulated computer displays, secret facilities in the desert, and deeply hidden and disguised  “worms”. But its use provides an interesting look into the varied strategies that are used to deal with problems and to attack an enemy. In this case, unsuccessful attempts were made to stop the import of the equipment needed to build nuclear facilities into Iran. With military options having been ruled out, another way had to found. And the solution was an attack without a uniform, one that couldn’t be tracked by radar, shot at or shot down; it was a computer worm that worked its destructive way into Iran’s most secure sites.

Hopefully, we each realize that the enemy has many strategies to deceive us and to ultimately keep us from fulfilling God’s will for our lives. Getting us to fall into sin is one of the more obvious tricks, often using other people to lure us into traps, situations or relationships where our defenses are broken down opening the door for us to make wrong choices. But especially in the lives of Christians, his demonic strategies are often as subtle as the Stuxnet virus, using deception to lure us into compromise, into settling for second best, and into choosing the world’s solutions to solve the very real problems we face. But even that is not the end of the matter, because to the believer who is walking close to God, the enemy rolls out his strategy of busyness, filling our lives with so many good things that we lose our closeness to God, lose the anointing on our lives, and fall into the barrenness of a busy life.

But thankfully, the Lord has many strategies for His children, “making a way where there seems to be no way”. He sets forth His Word as “a lamp to our feet and a light to our path”. God speaks His word as we spend time reading, through His ministers, and through others around us. But when we don’t listen, He doesn’t give up on us or write us off; He too has other strategies. At times, God will use suffering to draw us back to where we belong, speaking through the circumstances of our lives. The needs in our lives and in those close to us can also drive us to our knees and back to God. And I’ve seen God withdraw Himself from a person’s life, until they come to a place of desperation, and come running back to the Lord. But at the end of the day, all of God’s strategies, in my life and yours, are designed to bring us closer the One who loves us!!

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church

New Life

New Life

“…… in order that just as Christ was raised

from the dead, we too may live a new life.”

                                              Romans 6:4

Reading and talking about something as compared to the reality of it can often produce two very different ideas in our minds and vastly different results in our experience. Take for example skiing: I can still remember my friends filling me in on how to ski the first time I tried it, explaining getting on and off the lifts, the technique for turning and much more. Their instruction left me pretty confident as I headed out but putting their words into practice was a little bit of problem as reflected by my skiing out of control through a class of beginners before hitting the retaining fence behind them. In retrospect, talking about the how-to’s of skiing did not do the experience the least bit of justice.

The same thing can happen when we talk about the new life that the Lord has promised to those who yield their lives to him: reading about it in the book of Romans might paint the picture in one persons’ mind of someone who has been given a fresh start and a second chance in life through the mercy and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. To another, they might focus on the new relationship with the Lord that is possible as they experience the Lord’s forgiveness and restoration. But, as so many of us can attest to, the reality of the new life promised by the Lord is so incredible as to be beyond anything our minds can dream or imagine.

That truth never hit home so much as last night when I got to hold our newest granddaughter, Maya Grace, all 6 lbs and 3 oz of her, and to try to fathom the gift of a new life, so pure and precious and awe inspiring that you are left at a loss for words. The experience made me ask “Is this what you had in store for us Lord? Is this what new life is supposed to be like Lord, a freshness that defies description, an excitement that cannot be suppressed, a joy, a pure joy that leaves us speechless?” The answer came back so quickly I almost wasn’t ready, a quote from part of a verse in Peter: “As newborn babes….” I had my answer; God has purposed so much more for us as we walk in newness of life, a fresh start and more, a joy unspeakable and more, and a restoration and making of all things new that only God could do.

My prayer is that the Lord will use the birth of little Maya Grace to encourage each of us to look to the Lord with a new hope and expectation that we would each experience new life as God truly intended.  For all that God has done and for all that lies ahead, we can only stop and say ‘Thank you Lord’.

God Bless

Pastor Joe

Gateway Church