© Bill McCown | www.myghcf.com The other day we talked about putting on the mind of Christ; that wise, peaceful, kind and loving mind. It sounds so good but it's not so smoothly accomplished. I don't know about you, but when a God thought tries to rise up in me, it kind of gets stuck and caught up sometimes in my "web of worry". Do you have one of those in your head? God says to tithe and you start telling him how you can’t afford it; God says He'll guide you through your crisis but you say it's too complicated; God says to leave something in His hands but you just can't let it go to Him. What that “mind struggle” means is you don't really trust God to do what He's promised. That web of worry is earthly, weak and born in sin… reject it. Why don't you ask God to quiet down your own mind so you can think the God thoughts? Volunteer your own brain to be His servant and not the slave of the thoughts of the world, the flesh and the devil. The renewing of your mind in Him will transform you. Get in His presence frequently and let Him rewire you and reprogram your thinking. We're born with a broken "motherboard", as they say in the computer world. Let God fix it; then, and only then, shall you be able to test and see what God's will is, His good and perfect will (Romans 12:2). Endure the fire...it's producing pure gold!
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© Bill McCown | www.myghcf.com In the military, we sometimes had to go to temporary assignments called TDY (temporary duty). When you were moved to a more permanent station, and that became your home base, it was called a PCS move (permanent change of station). Because of my many years of military duty, God often talks to me in that military language. The other day I was expressing my longing to be in His presence in His kingdom. He said I already had it here but that it was only TDY. He said when each of us PCS to Him, we shall have His heavenly ecstasy forever. But He reminded me, that while on TDY here, not to long too much for PCS because I will miss out on the present-day "ecstasy in Him". Paul expressed that so clearly in Philippians 1:21 when he said, "For to me, to live (TDY) is Christ and to die (PCS) is gain". He went on to lament in verses 22 to 26 that even though his deepest desire was to permanently be with Christ, the work with God's people was just as important so they, too, could enter into the presence of Christ. So don't spend too much time on your “dream sheet” (the list of places you'd like to be assigned). Stay centered on Jesus right where you are. Let communion with Him now be your foretaste of the glory yet to come. (1 Corinthians 13:12). Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold! © Bill McCown | www.myghcf.com "Be careful, you'll shoot your eye out!" Anyone from my generation grew up hearing that as a response to a young boy's query on the possibility of owning a BB gun. The movie, "A Christmas Story" is a hilarious recounting of that more innocent time, when the children received lots of instructions on the do's and don'ts of life. "Wear your hat so you won't get a cold"; "put on your boots to go out in the rain"; "eat your spinach to grow up strong". Heck, they even had a cartoon character named Popeye who showed his arm muscles popping up larger after he ate a can of the green stuff! Those rules weren’t rules for the sake of rules or to keep a parent in control of your life. They were the guidance of a life lived more wisely. Following them, for the most part, brought you a healthier, stronger more stable life. If we do that for the natural life to provide safer, healthier choices, how much more so does God do that for his children? Did you ever look at the Ten Commandments in that light? It really isn't a bunch of "don'ts" but rather a bunch of "do’s". Don't you think that the great Creator God who put us together with all that we see and hear would know best for how it is all to be managed? The Ten Commandments aren't a punishment but rather protection...from yourself. The broken Adam nature we’re born with tends to disrupt, stain, break and wreck most of what it touches. God knows we need boundaries not to restrict us but to rescue us. Integrity, sexual purity, sobriety, service to others, excellence in all you do – these aren't stupid rules from some Providential Prude...they are directions to a path of strength, success, deeper relational bonds, rooted families, thriving businesses, better health, etc. These are helps not hindrances. They bring a very needed order to very disorderly lives. Get so busy doing the do’s that you have no time for the don'ts. Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold! © Bill McCown | www.myghcf.com “Because I said so”. Ever heard that growing up? I surely did. It helped me to discipline my outside behavior, but it never helped my inner motivations. So I ask you, why do you do what you do? Are you morally upright because it is a “rule”, because someone said you had to, because you’re afraid God will squash you like a bug if you disobey Him? Wrong…none of the above! God’s directions are His wisdom for a better life here and a preparation for an even better life to come, not just rules emanating from an egoistic king. If you let Him, God and His wisdom will flow through you like streams of living water. That hints at something a lot easier than those strict, unyielding doctrines to memorize and obey. It’s sad, but our broken Adam nature leans to either rule making or rule breaking instead of entering into rest in the Lord. The old saying “Let go and let God” doesn’t mean you’re a robot or something. No, it just means you let go of your rule and rules and let the clean, Holy Spirit “flow” through you as unhindered as possible. He will always lead you in the morally right way. Lead by Him, you don’t have rules in your head but rather love in your heart for Him. Because that love reigns in you, you joyfully resist all that does not please God (well, at least eventually you will). And you do it from a place of saturated love, not stifling laws. If you do not have an intimate love relationship with the Lord, you are missing out on what He wants for you. He is not a fascist God to fear, but one to love and obey, thus receiving all His unlimited blessings. Why would He do that…well, because He loves YOU! Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold! © Bill McCown | www.myghcf.com When the true, unadulterated teachings of Jesus were still freshly hanging in the air, the people to whom He spoke who took it most to heart were the social outcasts. Many of the religious Pharisees and the comfortably rich mocked Jesus for hanging out with the sinners and the sick. But God, in His inimitable way, was teaching an upside down logic. Instead of being drawn to the powerful and rich and famous, and fawning over them as the world does today, He rather looks to the weak, poor and fragile, not with disdain but with loving desire. Remember, blessed are the poor! God knows mankind's terrible birth handicap...his broken nature. This is a nature once whole and complete with God; a shining example of God's perfection now turned weak and sick and feeble in its moral abilities. This great God does not hate the sinner, but rather with eyes full of grace and mercy, compassionately calls and woos back His lost little lambs. His example of loving the unlovable is one to follow. In the eyes of Jesus, the poor and downtrodden are the heroes; they have nothing and know it. There is no pretense anymore for those who know they are the worthless of the world. So when Jesus told them they could be children of the King of Kings and that He would love them and never forsake them…they flocked to Him, not for His money or power, but His message gave them hope and life in their dark world. For the first few centuries, Christians were the humble models of godliness in their feeding the hungry, visiting the prisons, taking care of the sick and assuaging the pangs of the deprived. Then—BAM, along came religion! Constantine decreed Christianity to be the "religion" of his kingdom. I'm sure he meant well. You can command religion as he did, but you cannot command relationship with God…that is voluntary. So the church, now infused with pagans and pagan ideology, slowly morphed into a system intertwined with politics and the pursuit of wealth and power. Even today, some churches will not allow the ragged and the "smelly" to sit in their front pews. I am glad our little church's doors (both physical and of the heart) have always been open to those in need. We have ministered to those who show up in short-shorts and a "Whiskey Willie’s” T-shirt or those more affluent in the physical but poverty ridden morally and spiritually. The clean, orderly, program-driven, prosperity-seeking crowd filling many of the churches today seems a far cry from the original "motley crew” of dedicated servants of God. I pray that you would truly listen to the radical message of Jesus and not get all "churchy"; that you would hunger and relish the message that you can actually have a relationship with the one and only God who will take you as you are and then lead you and guide you in the way you must go. Endure the fire. It’s producing pure gold! © Bill McCown | www.myghcf.com Matthew 5:30…what? Cut off your right hand if it causes you to sin! You gotta be kidding me! What kind of a God is that? Hyperbole…ever hear of it? Stop and think now, the same God who said not to kill; who said to love your neighbor as yourself, as well as to forgive seventy times seven, is now saying to cut off a hand or two? Do we have some contradictions here? Not if you’re led by the Spirit of God you don’t. Remember, the gospel of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing but life to His children. Led by God’s Spirit you will come to understand the hand thing just mentioned was not an amputation command, but rather a principle of excellence in which you are willing to cut away from you anything that causes you to sin…even the most important things in your life. That is all He is saying. How quick so many people are to disparage others in seeking God or in believing in His existence, all because of their misconstrued understanding of the written word of God. And yet they so easily brush off the reality of the real literal commands of love, forgiveness, generosity and obedience. Well, think on this…if you don’t voluntarily cut off the junk of life, then not only your hand but your whole body and soul shall perish! We, as Christians, may look maimed to others by what we don’t have, but we are whole and perfect by what we do have…Jesus. Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold! © Bill McCown | www.myghcf.com Faith in God…rings a little hollow sometimes, heh? You pray for a job, yet are still unemployed after a year or two. Your brother is diagnosed with cancer, and you pray your head off for his healing; but, instead, end up weeping at his funeral. Maybe you have earnestly prayed, believing God, for a mate and, yet you remain single or are married and pray for the gift of a precious child and, yet remain childless. What is going on? I would like to suggest a slight change in approach here. When you go before God, don’t put your belief in what you want Him to do first; instead, put God first. That is faith, really. Believing God that He will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5); believing that He has a plan for your best interests no matter what shape it takes (Jeremiah 29:11); and believing you are sealed with His Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13) and that you shall be with Him for eternity. That is what we need to believe and in and around that God will shape His plan for us. You need to be very careful when you pray that you don’t “frame up” the answer ahead of time. When you don’t get what you think you need and how and when you need it, you just may either curse God for His inefficiency towards you or go ahead and step out on your own to “help” Him along. Both are dangerous places to be! That delay in getting a job may be God’s twofold move where you learn patience and trust as well as receive the perfect alignment of both timing and opening of a more excellent job. The loss of your brother may be because God was going to do more with the shock of your brother’s death than with the continuance of his life. And that lack of having your own child may be a reserving of your time frames to be available to serve others in a manner not possible as a hardworking mom or dad. Faith is deeper than wishing…it is being bound to Christ, no matter what; knowing that the most excellent results are being formed. Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold! One of my favorite devotionals is Philip Yancey’s Grace Notes. In it, he muses about the caution a Christian must take when all of their Christian experience is garnered from TV and the electronic gadgets of the day. I certainly can agree with that; those souls are who I call the “electronic Christians”. They don’t go to church regularly and, if they do, it is usually for some holiday extravaganza. Their choice in following Christ is the safe and comfortable one…from their living room couch! I am in no way coming against websites, TV ministries or pastoral “tweets”; rather, this is just a warning shot to those who may erroneously think they are following God’s directions of fellowshipping with the brethren through the vicarious methods offered in our electronically-saturated world. I sense that the glitter and glamour of the electronic “tinsel temples” may, when contrasted to the average local church, cause an invalid conclusion though. That conclusion may mistakenly categorize the “in-church” experience as one of lesser importance because it includes quite a few inconveniences like being full of people you may not like, crying babies, candy-wrapper-crackling teens and snoring elders. Ah, the peace and quiet of your living room! Right…wrong! To purposely isolate yourself from face-to-face fellowship is to be lulled into a false complacency in your safe little living room pew. From that comfy little seat, you will never be asked to pick up someone and drive them to church with you, or be asked to make a meal for a shut-in or a repair at the home of someone recently unemployed, or, God forbid, cover the nursery some Sunday morning! Nope, the avowed “church at homers” sit snugly, or maybe even smugly in front of the TV, laptop or iPod, listening intently and dutifully to the message, but never having to live it. But that’s okay, because they clear their conscience now and again by sending in a donation or two. There now, do you “feel” all holy? Sorry, folks, but that TV can’t give you experience in holiness; it can only give you excerpts of someone else’s. I am not saying that you should not watch the TV Christian ministries…they are often a spiritual God-send to the home bound. I am also not saying that going to church makes you better than others. What I am suggesting is to get off the couch, get on your knees and ask God to show you where He wants you to serve Him in faith and fellowship. It’s called the “body of Christ” for a reason; and the “electronic” church can only offer the mouth. So get out there, go to church and experience the real “elbow-to-elbow” fellowship God intended…with Him and with each other. You will grow closer to God when you learn to participate with the rest of His family! Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold! © Bill McCown | www.myghcf.com "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; and may the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace." (Numbers 6:24-26). This isn't just some "Irish blessing" pronounced at a wedding by a questionably sober Best Man. This is a request to the powerful and Almighty God and Creator of the universe to do good things for you and others. Have you ever mused on the seriousness and power of this? It is a call to keep you and bless you and be gracious to you! Have you ever prayed that over your children, your wife or husband? How about asking God to turn His face and give peace to someone? Have you ever prayed that for your coworkers or, dare I ask, your enemies? Whoa – just think of the change in messed up lives that might happen if you call upon God for these things to be given. This is serious stuff but we so often treat the words and truth of God like some "Irish blessing". To so many people these are just soft, sweet words to send some couple off on a dreamy honeymoon. The truth is these are words of life and without them alive in your life you are just a "dead man walking". Wake up and live! Endure the fire...it's producing pure gold! |
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