Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Lost People Matter

Let God Dislocate Your Heart With His Love For The Lost

SYNOPSIS: Every time you look into the eyes of another person, you’re seeing a soul God so loves that He sent his Son to die for them. So if lost people matter to a missionary God that much, then crossing borders—the street, the railroad tracks, the ocean—to reach them with his love must become our driving mission as well. Now that will require the realignment of our priorities, it will take our focus, and it will demand our sacrifice, but it will be worth it because it will put us squarely on mission with God.

“The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.”

So if getting more intensely missionary means getting closer to Jesus, and if getting closer to Jesus requires getting more intensely missionary, then sign me up!

How about you?

But that’s easier said than done. You see, if you’re like me, your fallen nature is self-centered. We focus on ourselves … we put our wants, our needs, our preferences ahead of everything else.

So being on mission with God requires the realignment of our priorities and sacrifice and focus. It requires fierce conviction that becomes our driving force for being fully on mission.

Bottom Line: Lost people matter to God, so they must matter to us, as well!

Click below to hear an inspiring story of a woman in East Africa who has given her live to take the Good News of Jesus to her own people.

I invite you to partner with me today to tell the whole world about Jesus, one unreached village at a time.

Did you know that when you partner with Petros Network it only costs $3600 to plant a thriving reproducing church in a difficult, hard-to-reach place through an indigenous missionary?

Check out the different ways you can give today and join me in being intensely missionary at petrosnetwork.org/donate.

Posted on Monday, May 9, 2022

Time Flies

Teach Us To Number Our Days Aright

SYNOPSIS: Are you as amazed as I am with the speed of time? What once seemed interminable when I was a kid—school, chores, the preacher’s sermon, winter—now seems to rush by like a speeding locomotive. I blinked and suddenly this sixteen-year-old kid panting to get his driver’s license is now older than dirt and panting just walking up the stairs. Watching my wife-to-be walk down the aisle has turned into the new adventure of grandparenting—overnight! Time flies, doesn’t it! I guess the best advice we will ever get as it relates to the speed of life comes in the form of this prayer Moses offered: “Lord, teach me to number my days soberly, so that I might live each of them wisely.” Great idea: soberly assess the number of days you’ll likely have—then live them well.

Time flies. Lord teach us to number our days.

Moments With God // Psalm 90:10, 12

True story: Kermit the frog was once heard saying, “Time’s fun when you’re having flies.” Okay, not true, but you get the point. Kermit got his idiom a bit garbled, but that is quite understandable when Miss Piggy is stalking you!

Kermit was on to something! The truth is, time does fly—whether you are having fun or not. Moses, who didn’t have the full New Testament picture of life after death, was reflecting on how relatively brief life was when he said in Psalm 90:3-6, 10,

You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered…
The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

How true that is! Are you as amazed as I am with the speed of time? What once seemed interminable when I was a kid—school, chores, the preacher’s sermon, winter, life—now seems to rush by like a speeding locomotive. I blinked and suddenly this sixteen-year-old kid panting to get his driver’s license is now older than dirt and panting just walking up the stairs. Watching my wife-to-be walk down the aisle has turned into the new adventure of grandparenting—overnight! Staring in amazement at the mystery of life as our daughters were born seems like only yesterday. Now they are successful in their own careers, making their way in the world—quite well, I might add, and having an impact in this world.

Time flies!

You could certainly add your own experience to the narrative. And those of you who are older can definitely add an urgent witness to the speed of life even more than I can at this stage of life: Suddenly, the grandkids are getting married; great-grandchildren are arriving; the body is not working quite like it used to even though the mind still thinks of yourself as a youngster, full of vim and vigor; you are facing life without your soul-mate—and something you never dreamed possible is now a gritty reality.

Time flies!

I guess the best advice we will ever get as it relates to the speed of life comes in the form of this prayer Moses offered: “Lord, teach me to number my days soberly, so that I might live each of them wisely.” Great idea: learn to number your days aright, and therein gain a heart of wisdom.

Take A Moment: Perhaps it would be a good idea to follow Moses’ lead and pray that prayer today—and every day: “Lord, teach me to number my days soberly, so that I might live each of them wisely.”

Posted on Friday, May 6, 2022

Life Lessons

Early and Often, Impart Your Wisdom to Your Kids

SYNOPSIS: Parents, start early and do it often. Don’t abdicate the impartation of wisdom to your children’s teacher, youth pastor, their friends, and especially not to pop culture. It is your job—so you do it! Do it out of love. Do it out of your own reservoir of Godly wisdom. Take responsibility for shaping their lives. Do it because next to the Word of God, you are the single biggest influence for good and godliness your child has.

Moments With God // Proverbs 4:1-2

Listen, friends, to some fatherly advice; sit up and take notice so you’ll know how to live. I’m giving you good counsel; don’t let it go in one ear and out the other. (The Message)

“Listen up!” People who know me will hear me say that with some regularity. It’s my way of getting people’s attention. It means that I’m fixin’ to say something that’s extremely important—at least in my humble opinion.

I think it’s especially important for parents to be giving those kinds of “listen up” talks to their children. It may not be as frequently, but now that I am a grandparent, I plan to have those kinds of talks with the grandkids, too.

Parents, start early and do it often. Don’t abdicate the impartation of wisdom to your children’s teacher, youth pastor, their friends, and especially not to pop culture. It is your job—so you do it!

Do it out of love. Do it out of your own reservoir of Godly wisdom (which, if you don’t have it, means you need to quickly get to the Source and start filling your own tank). Take responsibility for shaping their lives. Do it because next to the Word of God, you are the single biggest influence for good and godliness your child has—or at least you should be.

My fear is that far too many parents have left the business of molding their child’s intellect and character to the winds of fate. Perhaps that’s why, as many of us are convinced, our country is morally and intellectually adrift—fast approaching the shoals of a once-great nation. But I’m not ready to abandon our culture to second-rate status; I believe we can quickly reverse our spiritual-moral-cultural drift one child at a time by parents simply doing what parents are supposed to do: Having those “listen up talks” with our kids.

When my older daughter graduated from a leading business school with her MBA, during a break in the commencement activities, her mother and I were having one of those “listen up” talks with her—at her invitation (by the way, the ratio of unsolicited to solicited parental advice obviously decreases as the age of your child increases—and at a certain point, you get to have those talks only as they invite you into their world). I found myself sharing with her my list of life lessons—humorously couched in “Life Lesson #…” language. But I was seriously sharing from my reservoir of life experiences as filtered through God’s Word—and she was listening.

Fast forward a few years and I can tell you she has done just fine because that wasn’t the first nor the only “listen up” talk we had. We still do from time to time. And now I have the joy of watching her give the “listen up” talks to her children. I am convinced those children, my precious grandkids, will do just fine, too.

Maybe it’s time you had the first in a series of many “listen up” talks with those special people in your life.

Take A Moment: Make a list of your ten most important life lessons. Over the course of the next 90 days, find ways to slip them into conversations you are having with your children or grandchildren. The younger they are, the more assertive you can be. The older they are, the more creative and Spirit-led you will need to be.

Posted on Monday, May 2, 2022

I’m Still Standing

God Stands Forever, And You Belong To Him, So You Will, Too

SYNOPSIS: I doubt that you will ever have a “hit” taken out on your life, like David, but chances are there will be people in your life from time to time who will try to assassinate your character and ruin your reputation. When that happens, you can hearken back to David’s experience and, if nothing else, remember this one thing: Though people can kill your body, assassinate your character, and ruin your reputation, they can never silence your song. David wrote about his near-death experience and how God delivered him, then put a tune to it. Maybe you should do that, too! At the end of the day, evil people will be no more, but your integrity will keep you in favored standing with the only One who has the power of eternal life as well as eternal death. God stands forever. Since you belong to him, so, too, will you stand forever! And that’s worth singing about!

Moments With God // Psalm 59:16-17

But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble. O my Strength, to you I sing praises, for you, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love.

David was in trouble—due to no fault of his own. He had been a model citizen. In fact, he had proven himself a true national hero during a military crisis when Israel’s warriors had failed to step up and demonstrate courageous leadership. As you know from I Samuel 17, David had unintentionally made a name for himself on the battlefield by killing Goliath of Gath—the champion-giant of Israel’s archenemy, the Philistines.

As a result of this heroic act, David, still a young man, was recruited into King Saul’s army, and fast-tracked right to the top as captain and confidant to the moody and maniacal king. He was even given Saul’s daughter, Michal, as his wife. But things turned bad when the unstable king began to show signs of irrational and insane jealousy toward David. It got so bad that he took out a hit on David’s life.

David wrote this psalm when he got wind of Saul’s plan, and he was forced to leave his wife, abandon his home and flee for his life. As you can see from the title given in the Psalter, “When Saul had sent men to watch David’s house in order to kill him,” Saul henchmen were assigned to stake out David’s dwelling in order to carry out their immoral and illegal plot (Psalm 59:3). And according to David’s song, they were doing more than just trying to murder him: They were attempting to assassinate his character in the eyes of a nation that had come to adore him as their warrior-hero (Psalm 59:10, 12). So, David writes about them and puts a tune to it—a song that immortalizes their evil and invites Divine destruction down upon their heads.

Now you might be wondering what all this has to do with you. Perhaps you’re asking if there is anything in this psalm that elevates it to the status of good devotional material meant for your edification today? That’s a good question—I’m glad you asked. You see, although I doubt that you will ever have a “hit” taken out on your life, chances are there will be people in your life from time to time who will try to assassinate your character and ruin your reputation. And when that happens, you can hearken back to David’s experience and, if nothing else, remember this one thing:

Though people can kill your body, assassinate your character, and ruin your reputation, they can never silence your song.

At the end of the day, evil people will be no more, but your integrity will keep you in favored standing with the only One who has the power of eternal life and death. Powerful people may try to bring you down, but he is true Strength. They may try to force you out, but you belong to him whose name is Fortress. They may make your life miserable, but you are held in the loving care of one who is your Refuge.

Evil people and unfair times will pass, but God stands forever. And you belong to him, so you will stand forever, too! So go ahead and sing.

Take A Moment: I normally wouldn’t recommend Elton John songs for worship, but you may want to sing one of his: I’m Still Standing.

Posted on Friday, April 29, 2022

You’re Not That Impressive

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us!

SYNOPSIS: Your biggest worry today is not the economy, inflation, the threat of another world war, climate change, or an enemy. It is you! But if in things big and small you will run to God and run from evil, you will be on the way to a life of success, satisfaction, and significance.

Moments With God // Proverbs 3:7

Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

“We have met the enemy, and he is us!” That’s the famous line from the long-running Pogo comic strip. And that is pretty much the truth about us, isn’t it? We’re our own worst enemy. And the sooner we come to grips with that, the sooner we can get on the road to a satisfying and successful experience of life.

For that very reason, King Solomon said that we shouldn’t “assume that we know it all” (Proverbs 3:7, MSG) because you know the old saying about what happens when we “assume”. Rather, Solomon says we are to do two things:

We are to run to God—that’s what it means to fear the Lord, which is a recurring theme in these early chapters of Proverbs.
We are to run from evil—that’s a big part of what the Bible calls wisdom. As Paul exhorted Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2, “Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”

There it is: run to God and everything that is good and run from anything that would steer you into the ditch of foolish and immoral living.

The more famous verses that go before and come after Proverbs 3:7 are important to note here. Proverbs 3:5-6 instruct us as to how we can “run to God”: We are not to rely on our own smarts—we’re not that impressive anyway—we are to make God the first, continual and final source of authority in our lives. If we do that, God himself guarantees to direct our decisions.

When God directs the daily decisions of our lives, then he also takes responsibility for the outcome. Proverbs 3:8-10 tells us that a God-directed life will produce a body that is lean and mean with a healthy sheen and a wallet that is fat. For real, just take a look at verses 8 and 10 from The Message

Run to God! Run from evil! Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life … [and] your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over.

That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it! If that is the outcome of running to God and running from evil, I’ll take that God-directed life over the me-directed life any day. How about you?

So, my friend, your biggest worry today is not the economy, inflation, the threat of another world war, climate change, or some enemy. It is you! But if in things big and small you will run to God and run from evil, you will be on the way to a life of success, satisfaction, and significance.

Take A Moment: Practice stopping throughout the day to talk to God. Before you make a decision, for sure, but even when you are in a quiet moment of contemplation, when you are watching a television show or listening to talk radio on the way to work, or after you have had a conversation, be sure to include God. Ask him what he thinks, what he wants, and if he will help.

Posted on Monday, April 25, 2022

Core Curriculum in the School of Resurrection

Everybody Gets Cave Time

SYNOPSIS: Easter has come and gone, and Christ is still risen! But perhaps you’re in a tomb-like experience — you’re in ‘the cave” — and you’re wondering where his resurrection power is for your life. Perhaps you’re complaining to everyone else but God about your cave. If you are, you’re missing a great opportunity to pour out your heart to the only one who can do something about it—the One who conquered death and rose from His cave. So, try talking to the Resurrected One — and be patient, He does His greatest work in caves.

Moments With God // Psalm 142:1

A maskil of David. When he was in the cave. A prayer. I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.

We all prefer to live in the sunshine of God’s grace, but from time to time we get the “cave” instead. “Cave time” is just core curriculum in the school of spirituality maturity. Call it whatever you want: the pit, the prison, the desert, the wilderness—the cave is basic training for believers.

Joseph had a prison; Moses had the desert; Jeremiah had a pit, Daniel had a den, Paul was in and out of jail so many times, like Motel Six, they “kept the light on for him.” Even Jesus had a wilderness. Oh, he got a cave, too. He once spent three days in one. If Jesus had “cave-time,” the cave won’t be optional for you. Every believer gets “the cave.”

What is the cave? The cave is a place of death, it’s where you die to self. The cave is the place of testing; it’s the blast furnace for moral fiber. The cave is where your mettle gets tested, your maturity gets revealed, and your heart gets exposed! Put a person in the cave of distress, discouragement, or doubt, and true character will show up. And if you are brave enough to open up to the truth about yourself, the cave will reveal just how much work God still has to do to get you ready for great things.

Do you remember how the Lord led you through the wilderness for all those forty years, humbling you and testing you to find out how you would respond, and whether or not you would really obey him? (Deuteronomy 8:2)

Likewise, the cave is a place of separation. Not only does God reveal the true you in the cave, but he also strips you of every misplaced dependency. In the cave, God separated David from everything he had once depended on, and all that was left for David was God himself.

Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to both you and your ancestors. He did it to help you realize that food isn’t everything and that real life comes by obeying every command of God. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

The cave was perhaps the most frustrating period in David’s life—but in hindsight, it turned out to be the most fruitful. That’s because the cave is also the place of forging. The cave is where God breaks you down in order to build you up.

For all these forty years your clothes haven’t grown old, and your feet haven’t been blistered or swollen. So, you should realize that, as a man punishes his son, the Lord punishes you to help you. (Deuteronomy 8:4-5)

That’s what God does in the cave. And by the way, God does some of his best work in caves. It was there in the cave of Adullam that David wrote three of his most moving psalms—Psalms 34, 57, and 142, including our key verse:

I cry aloud to the Lord…I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.

If you are in a cave and you are complaining to everyone else but God, you are missing a great opportunity to pour out your heart to the only one who can do something about it. Good things always happen when you get honest with God. So, try talking to him—and be patient, God does great work in caves.

If you doubt that, just remember that empty cave on the outskirts of Jerusalem. For three days, it held a crucified body. But God does great work in caves—the best of which is resurrection. Perhaps that will change your mind about caves.

Take A Moment: If you are in a cave experience, I would encourage you to pray the prayer of Scottish hymn-writer George Matheson, “My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorns. I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorns. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross: but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross: teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.”

Posted on Friday, April 22, 2022

(Un)Common Sense

How To Develop Your EQ

SYNOPSIS: There are plenty of people in every age, including this one, who don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain. They’re not stupid, mind you. Some are even very intelligent, well educated, and in some respects, quite successful people. IQ is not the problem; it’s EQ—they lack emotional intelligence: They don’t do very well in relationships, mismanage emotions, lack impulse control, fail to master delayed gratification, and habitually steer into the ditch with decision-making. But you don’t have to be one of those, because the Bible promises that God grants a treasure of common sense to those who are honest, live out integrity, display fairness, and are faithful to him.

Moments With God // Proverbs 2:7

Lord grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity.

The 18th-century French philosopher Voltaire wrote, “Common sense is not so common.” I wonder if he was thinking of our age when he offered that social critique. Probably not! My guess is that every age could claim that title.

Unfortunately, common sense has rarely been all that common.

The thing is, there are people aplenty in every age, including ours, who don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain. They’re not stupid, mind you. Some are even very intelligent, well educated, and in some respects, quite successful people. IQ is not the problem; it’s EQ—they lack emotional intelligence.

These are people who don’t do very well in their relationships, mismanage their emotions, lack impulse control, have not mastered delayed gratification, and habitually steer right into the ditch in their decision-making. Again, they lack common sense.

Do you know anyone like that? I’m sure you do; images are probably flooding your mind right now! So how about you? How’s your EQ? In reality, there’s not a whole lot you can do about how others do life, but you can work on your own emotional intelligence. How? Go to God. That’s what Proverbs 2:6 says:

For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

That’s where you start. The Bible says God is quite liberal in doling out wisdom to those who lack it and are willing to ask him for it. James 1:5-8,

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

Now, asking alone doesn’t guarantee a continual supply of Divine wisdom. God expects your cooperation in the attainment of emotional intelligence. The very next verse, Proverbs 2:7 says,

Lord grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity.

That means the spigot to God’s wisdom will stay fully open to you if you will walk in honesty—with others, with yourself, and with the Lord, and if you will walk in integrity—the congruence of what you believe and how you behave. Furthermore, Proverbs 2:8 adds that God expects you to treat others fairly and to walk faithfully before him,

He guards the paths of the just and protects those who are faithful to him.

As those conditions are met—honesty, integrity, fairness, faithfulness—the Lord himself has promised to not only give you wisdom but to wrap you protectively in that wisdom. Among other things, and most importantly, that means his wisdom displayed in you will protect you even from yourself.

I like what George Barnard Shaw said: “Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.” When enough of God’s wisdom gets absorbed in your core to where common sense becomes your natural response to all of life, you will be known on earth and celebrated in heaven for the best kind of genius—your uncommon sense.

Take A Moment: For the next seven days, discipline yourself to stop before every decision, every response to people, and every emotional reaction to first ask, “what would wisdom have me to do?” Then do it. It might be clumsy at first but stick with it until good sense becomes common for you.