“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.” Exodus 19:5
“Pinkie Swear!??” she asked. “I do!” was my reply. I don’t know where we originally heard about the idea of interlocking pinkie fingers as a sign of a true, no exception or deception, promise. Once committed though, for Katie and I, it became more solemn than a ‘swear on your mother’s grave’ contract. There was never an INTENTION of messing with, or trying to get out of, a pinkie swear.
The Pinkie swear was an agreement that, though it sounded silly or child like, was a call to honor. It was just that simple! We even passed the concept on to our kids, though we rarely required it, knowing kids can be kids. If there was an area where immaturity might get in the way of keeping the solemn oath, I wouldn’t ask for it. Simply put, failure was never an option in a pinkie swear.
As a young teen, my father learned and taught me the concepts of God’s Covenants. Sometimes His promise was given in return for obedience from the one the Covenant was made. “But SOMETIMES,” my dad said, “God made promises that do not require ANYTHING from the receiver… an agreement between unequals.’ Meaning EVERYTHING in the promise, was 100% ALL on GOD!
The Covenant found in today’s verse, was given with conditions… kinda! IF Israel FULLY OBEYED and KEPT their end of the bargain, THEN they would become God’s treasured possession. Unfortunately for the Israelites, they really didn’t quite understand the full depth of ‘The Law’ that they agreed to. Later in the ‘New Covenant,’ we find that ‘The Law’ was IMPOSSIBLE to keep! Hence Jesus Death!
I have found that people are often willing to agree to conditions without fully realizing the implications of what they are agreeing to! The greater the reward for themselves, the greater the chance of them skipping the reading of, and agreeing to, the ‘Fine Print!’ It happens! Thankfully God is not without Love, Mercy and Grace. He gets us. Then gave His Son’s death as the ultimate contract addendum!
These days, I like to say that “Heaven is like a good government job. It’s not what you DO… it’s who you KNOW!” God really only has 1 condition for MY salvation. That is to KNOW and Love His Son!” Do THAT… and He STILL promises I WILL become His Greatest Treasured possession. Do I? ‘I do!’ Pinkie Swear! But… Do YOU?
This article was recommended to me by Randy, our Moderator. It’s too good to miss.
Are You Sailing or Sinking? – A Tool for Diagnosing Spiritual Health
Article by Marshall Segal – Staff writer, desiringGod.org
I have one, and only one, experience with sailing.
In my senior year of college, one of my friends invited a number of us to his family’s lake house near the coast of North Carolina for one last weekend together before graduation. The house sat on a cove tucked just off the ocean shore. Down by the water sat the family’s beautiful (and expensive) two-person sailboat, tied firmly to a post.
The more experienced went out first. Several of my classmates had grown up close to the ocean, and knew how to handle a sail. They raced up and down the cove, making it look easy. When they were done, another first-timer and I stepped up to take the ropes. Once we pushed ourselves away from shore, we swung and tugged, leaned and lunged, stood and sat — and barely moved. The others, of course, took even more joy in our floundering than they had in their sailing. After a while, our titanic struggle left us tired and hungry, so we pulled the boat ashore and went in for dinner.
Early the next morning, a couple of aspiring sailors woke us, asking where we left the boat. “Down by the shore, of course. Where else would we leave it?” “Did you pull it into the grass?” “Umm, no.” “Did you tie it up?” “Umm, no.” “Well, the boat is gone.” Any experienced sailor (or just a man of common sense) knows what I learned that day: the tide rises at night, so you have to anchor your boat or it will drift away. I immediately started counting every dollar I owned. (It didn’t take long.)
A couple of us went out in the motorboat, driving up and down the shore, desperately looking for any sign of the sailboat. Surely it had been damaged, maybe even destroyed, after all these hours. After another hour or two, we’d come up empty. We saw nothing. And no one we saw had seen anything. I still remember the long ride back. I was sick to my stomach.
That boat came to mind again recently when I read Tim Keller describe a tool he used over the years to help him discern the health of a soul (and particularly the health of a person’s prayer life).
Which Boat Describes You?
Keller paints the nautical picture this way: “Imagine that your soul is a boat, a boat with both oars and a sail” (Prayer, 258). Into that scene, he asks four pointed questions: Are you sailing? Are you rowing? Are you drifting? Or are you sinking? In terms of my story, does your spiritual life resemble my master-sailor friends gliding up and down the cove, or the two first-timers working hard and going nowhere, or the empty sailboat drifting aimlessly away?
The tool’s helpful in two directions. First, it helps us assess and maintain our own boats. How often have we assumed that we’re rowing when we’re actually drifting, or that we’re drifting when we’re actually sinking? Second, the tool gives us a window into the boats of others. It’s a simple, vivid question that cuts through shallow places (where we often prefer to swim in our relationships) to the heart of a person, to how he is really doing.
Keller doesn’t attach particular texts to the four different boats, but the Psalms came to mind as potential examples because they model, with unusual vulnerability and emotion, the highs and lows of the human soul. So I’ve attempted to identify at least a few lines that give voice to each of these four spiritual conditions.
1. Are You Sailing?
When you think about your spiritual life right now, do you feel the wind at your back? Does prayer feel easier and more enjoyable than normal? Does daily Bible reading sparkle like a treasure in the field? Do you find yourself on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday actually looking forward to Sunday morning and the opportunity to sing and serve with your local church? Do you find spiritual conversation natural and gratifying?
If you’re currently in the sweet thrill of sailing, you might pray like King David does in Psalm 16:6–9:
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.
As we’ll see, David didn’t always feel this kind of spiritual high. He often struggled and had to fight hard for faith. At times, he fell into valleys of despair. In these verses, however, we can almost feel the wind lifting and driving his sails. Anyone who’s riding a spiritual breeze can identify with what he’s describing, and anyone who isn’t would want what he’s experiencing.
2. Are You Rowing?
If you’re rowing, you’re still making progress, but it’s a slower, hard-fought progress. You’re moving forward, but you’re really earning each passing wave. “Rowing,” Keller writes, “means you are finding prayer and Bible reading to be more a duty than a delight” (259). They’re chores you keep doing, but they honestly feel like chores. You keep attending worship, and discipline yourself to listen, engage, and even sing, but you often walk out distracted and tired. You want your heart to be in a different place, and you put effort into feeling differently, but you haven’t felt a strong wind in a while.
If you’re currently in the wearying work of rowing, you might pray like David does in Psalm 63:1:
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
In these verses, he’s not praying from the pleasant places of Psalm 16. Now he’s kneeling in the wilderness — “in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” But as the spiritual winds died down and the ground under him dried up, he didn’t give up and lie down in the boat. No, he kept his eyes on God and started rowing: “Earnestly I seek you.”
3. Are You Drifting?
From a distance, drifting may look and feel like rowing, but swim up closer to the two boats and you’ll notice one massive difference: effort. The drifter stops trying. You stop praying earnestly. You stop reading the Bible regularly. You stop paying attention during church gatherings (or stop attending altogether). Tired and discouraged and maybe even disillusioned, you set your oar aside and passively wait for some gust of wind to come along to save you.
This condition is probably the hardest to pair with a psalm, mostly because the psalms themselves are prayers. So even at their darkest, they model what it looks like to row in the dark — to keep praying, keep gathering, keep seeking. But in Psalm 42, dangerous circumstances have prevented the psalmist from attending the temple (“When shall I come and appear before God?” verse 2), so though he’s still able to pray, he’s cut off from other vital means of grace.
When shall I come and appear before God? . . . These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? (Psalm 42:2, 4–5)
The drifter has desires for more, and he can remember times when he experienced spiritual health and community, but he’s lost the will to keep fighting. His soul is cast down, and so his boat wanders aimlessly, from app to app, from show to show, from task to task, from meal to meal, from week to week. He wakes up farther and farther from where he wants to be spiritually, and yet with less and less resolve to change course.
4. Are You Sinking?
Is the boat within you quietly taking on water? You drifted for a time, but then you hit something hard — a job loss, a breakup, an illness, a death — and water started trickling in. Now, weeks or months later, your faith is gasping for air. You’re not longing for former days of stronger, more satisfying faith. You’re questioning whether it was ever real. You’re not thinking about restarting your prayer life, or looking for a Bible-reading plan, or joining a small group. You’re looking elsewhere for answers (or you’re avoiding the questions altogether).
Again, even psalmists dealt with sinking moments in the soul. Listen to the heartache and despair in Asaph’s voice when he thinks back on a dark night in his own soul:
All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. . . . But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. . . . When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. (Psalm 73:13, 16, 21–22)
He remembers a time when he was living in spiritual peril. Do you feel your heart slowly growing embittered to God? Has your pain crystallized into self-pity? Has confusion mutated into bitterness and resentment? Have your doubts ripened into apathy? Is your boat filling with water?
Obviously, any boat that’s sinking needs some serious attention. One of the blessings of a tool like this is simply putting a sinking boat on someone else’s radar. How many souls sink without anyone ever knowing, at least until it’s too late?
Drifting and Sinking Alone
Later that long day, when we had nearly given up hope finding my friend’s sailboat, a neighbor from down the cove phoned. It had landed on their shore. Amazingly, no damage. The boat had drifted more than a mile.
For all our failures aboard that extraordinarily expensive piece of fiberglass, my first-timer friend and I did one thing right that day: we went out together. When it comes to our spiritual health and joy, the vast majority of drifters and sinkers drift and sink alone. And the vast majority of rowers and sailors row and sail with others.
Keller ends his book on this note:
Those who enjoy sailing might find these nautical images helpful. However, a metaphor used more often in the Bible to describe fellowship with God is that of a feast. . . . Eating together is one of the most common metaphors for friendship and fellowship in the Bible, and so this vision is a powerful prediction of unimaginably close and intimate fellowship with the living God. It evokes the sensory joys of exquisite food in the presence of loving friends. The “wine” of full communion with God and our loved ones will be endless and infinite delight. (260–61)
The image of the feast gets at the satisfying fullness of sailing. It also gets at the togetherness, though. Somebody might eat alone, but nobody ever feasts alone. And, spiritually speaking, nobody sails alone either. Richer communion with God requires richer communion with other souls, in the church.
So, if we feel ourselves drifting or worse in our walk with God, our first step to righting the ship will be to steer our boat into more crowded waters, where the sailors and rowers live.
‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ Matthew 22:8-9
“WhadayaMEAN I can’t come in?” was the question I asked of the doorman. “I’m sorry sir, but your name is not on the list… and you are not wearing proper attire!” I was disappointed and a little hurt. But peering into the large room, I had to admit, I didn’t match the occupants of that room. I hadn’t bothered to RSVP when I got the invite, because I didn’t take it seriously.
It looked like it was a fun soiree… from the outside. In fact, I hadn’t really figured my workmate to be that fancy of a guy, as I’d never really seen him all that serious before. His jokes and stories made me feel comfortable, like family. I didn’t really bother with the RSVP, and the Black tie thing… I thought that was a joke! But hey, we weren’t all that close anyway.
It wasn’t until I was rejected that I seriously thought about how enjoyable the evening MIGHT have been, had I taken the time to prepare. I COULD have asked more questions to clarify, but I’d never really seen David as a ‘stick to the rules’ kind of guy. I also had to admit that I didn’t really know him THAT well. Heck, I didn’t even know he could AFFORD such a party!
O.K., I’m embellishing. That event didn’t take place. But it combined 2 events that actually did. Once I took my bride to a restaurant that required coats and ties. Not knowing, I was dressed nice, but not nice enough. Luckily, the Maitre D offered me a jacket and tie, which surprisingly was acceptable to the establishment, even though it didn’t match my clothes!
The other time I was expecting to get into a private party. I knew the people well. When I showed up as the invited officiant of the wedding, I hadn’t realized that attending ‘The Reception’ was not a part of the deal! I felt silly. But all these occasions prove the point that there are places I cannot go because I have not met a particular criteria for the event.
Jesus has invited EVERYONE to His Personal Wedding party. In fact, it is not really a party as much as it is an ENGAGEMENT! He wants ME to be part of the main event! The invitation to HIS party though, requires a LOT of preplanning! I must agree to HIS terms and conditions if I want to be a part of the greatest event of all time… “The Marriage Supper of the Lamb!”
Are YOU part of the wedding AND the reception? Are you SURE? Are you prepared?
“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:12-13
“Brrrrrrr!” I said. Then added, “Baby it’s cold outside!” to my bride. I really didn’t have to tell her. She was wrapped in a blanket and saying the same thing! Curious, I looked outside the window where my thermometer hung. It laughed back at me… ‘it’s 46 degrees, ya big baby!” The same thing YOU might be thinking now! But hey! Cold is RELATIVE! Right?
When we were first married and living in Cleveland, Katie used to sneak her feet up to the back of my my legs, while under the covers, to get warm. “AAAAAGH!” was ALWAYS my response. Back then, I was warm and she was cold. Now it seems reversed. While driving in the car, she adjusts her side to ice… I adjust mine to ‘balmy!’ Today, we’re BOTH cold!
How I ‘feel’ is conditioned upon more than 1 thing. I notice that 46 in the Florida humidity is WAY worse than 46 in the dry mountains. Wetness added to cool, makes cold! Humidity added to warm, makes hot! It’s the condition of the air that can make the difference. Like wickedness, added to societal contentment, leads to evil! Yup! It’s getting colder outside!
The last Church in Revelation is the one that makes Jesus most want to throw up! The Church at Laodicea finds its parishioners neither fired up for Jesus, nor frozen against Him. Jesus finds them ‘lukewarm.’ His statement makes me think he would prefer complete evil more acceptable than apathetic care-less-ness! A title not fit for describing a Church!
As the world grows more evil, men’s hearts are growing colder. I can find myself shivering beneath a heart that can easily become frozen to the good actions. ‘Eh.. what’s the use? They’re never gonna get it anyway!” mixes with “no sense kicking that snowman, he can’t feel anyway,” leads me toward a ‘do-nothing’ kind of attitude. Shivering wakes me up!
I am reminded by The Spirit that the temperature of my heart can be deeply affected by evil that surrounds it. If I let evil set in without resistance, love can easily escape to a warmer climate. Sometimes the best way to get warm, is to become active in some action for doing good! Jesus said, “Go into the world and spread the Good News!” In other words… DO IT!
In what condition and temperature do you find YOUR heart? What can YOU do today to make your world better for Him? Cuz He’s watching!
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
It was a JOY-FILLED church service. One that I had ever been to, or done before. But this one was special! Having looked over the kids in our church a week before, and having learned from a man who had spoken God’s Word over his children, I felt led to pray for and speak over OUR Church’s special group of kids that attend every week. And OH how special they are!
Having asked the parents for a word or 2 describing each of their individual children, an amazing truth popped out that should have come naturally. Parents had 2, 3 and even 4 children between them. But of all the children standing on that altar area… ALL of them were DIFFERENT! Even if they had the same parents and were the same gender and God!
The thought hit me, remembering my own children as they grew. We found that what worked for our oldest, didn’t necessarily work for the other 3! Each reacted and responded to learning and growing differently! That thought alone, in my own mind, proved that God exists and that HE is the one who creates personality. It is HE who gifts each of us with ability.
Looking at the picture today, I noted that almost every grape looks the same as the other. They all come from the same vine, and probably taste exactly the same. But when it comes to people, that vine formula doesn’t work! I have the opportunity to stay connected to the vine, which is Christ, or go it alone. But what Jesus grows within me is HIS choice. All are special!
The talent, fruit and flavor of each of us is different. Even among those within the same family. Some are extroverts while others introverts. Some go on to be teachers, while others become givers and helpers. But ALL of us can be connected to the same vine and used by the same Savior. The key to Fruiting is REMAINING in Him. NOTHING fruits otherwise!
Today I am going to rest in my Savior and ask Him to show me how I can be the sweetest and loveliest fruit ‘He’ wants me to be. I don’t need to look around and compare myself with, or judge other fruits. That is the Master’s job. I just want to remain connected to The Vine to fruit with Him. How about YOU? Are YOU discovering and bearing the kind of fruit He wants?
“But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.” Matthew 13:16
DO you see? Or DON’T you see? This type of picture is called a Stereogram. It’s a plane image or pair of two-dimensional images that, when appropriately viewed using both eyes, produces an image which appears to be three-dimensional. And yes… it’s plane… not plain! Confused? Well that’s actually the point! And in today’s world, confusion is satan’s goal!
God made our eyes and mind to work together. More powerful than any supercomputer, even MY human body defies explanation! Seeing is only ONE of many miraculous systems that man cannot even begin to generate or create. When I close 1 eye, I see 1 image that is mostly 1 dimensional. 2 eyes bring lots of calculations together to form a 3d image.
Looking at that picture, I had NO idea what it was trying to show me. I had to actually UNFOCUS, or stare right past or through, the image before the hidden picture could be revealed. And it’s not unlike the world we are living in today. Jesus told us to go out into the world and SHOW OFF The Good News to the lost and confused. A tall order for the confused.
I know confusion tends to take me out… mentally that is. It is very easy to become so overburdened and troubled that I can’t see the forest for the trees. But Jesus doesn’t come into, and make my life EASIER! In fact, His presence often causes even MORE difficulty than I previously experienced. That is because I cannot look at both worlds at the same time!
The Be-attitudes clearly show that Christ can ONLY help the weak, meek, mournful, hungry and lost when I REALIZE I CANNOT see things through on my own. It takes giving MY life and MY problems to Him… and then stepping back… focusing on HIM and NOT the problem. Trust lets go and leans in! Do YOU see that? Are you stepping back and letting Jesus help you see?
“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:18
“Did you see it?” It was a texted question posed to me about an hour after ‘the event.’ Our Sign ministry team had been on ‘The Corner,’ a major intersection in our little town, holding Gospel signs to passers-by. Suddenly, someone pointed south and skyward! “Look at THAT!” he said! Sure enough, down south and very high, a man in a plane was writing a message!
“What’s he doing?” one asked. “I think he’s writing a message,” said another. “What’s it say?” I asked. “Another responded… I think he’s writing ‘LOVE!’” And sure enough… that’s EXACTLY what it said! I smiled at the message because we too were holding about 16 signs telling travelers about God’s love and grace. While above us, God was working overtime!
Standing on the corner with Jesus signs is very encouraging. Fellow Jesus people honk at us all the time! We’ve come to laugh at the folks who make the turn, or start at the green light by pushing the gas pedal to the floor. The sound comes out something like… “GRRRRRRR”! But they had to read first, in order to respond. READING God’s Word is step number 1.
I don’t know what it’s like to fly a plane and write a message in the sky. There’s no doubt that skywriting, which takes a plane, skill and money… is a unique ministry. The pilot is probably alone, just doing his thing. At the corner, we can at least hear honks of encouragement that he doesn’t get! But the pilot isn’t doing it for accolades. He’s doing it for Jesus! Just like us!
There was a connection in our ministries… and it wasn’t just space. We had mutual purpose and love for our Savior, Jesus Christ. I looked up a story online and I’m guessing that the man responsible for the skywriting was an old guy out of Orlando, who Jesus told to “put your talent to use!” The question we ALL have to answer is, of what use can I be… to Jesus? Why not ask Him?
“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” Ephesians 5:11
He was WAY down the road when I saw him! Which gave me time to think about what to do when I caught up. A man wearing a backpack was riding a bicycle, while pulling another one along. The closer I got, the wavy-er he rode. Approaching him carefully, I lowered my window and asked… “Is that your bike?” The toothless man, wearing a Marine ball-cap, got angry, then said, “who are YOU?”
I was still trying to figure out what I was seeing, so I answered HIM with a question… “Who are YOU and is that your bike?” With all hands and feet rather busy, his anger got the best of him. “Well you just wait right there, and I’ll show YOU who I am!” With that, he tried to get off the bicycle without crashing both! With his angry demeanor, I knew the bike wasn’t his!
I’ve had bikes stolen from me before. Like any theft, there’s a negative feeling of hopelessness and vulnerability that was left in the bike’s place. Losing something by theft makes trust in others harder to find and reveals that life on Earth… is a battle that evil CAN win! Hating to feel like a victim, I usually stand up for righteousness when I see something out of whack!
Suddenly, the man’s anger arose and I had a decision to make. I could pull off to the side of the road and take him up on his challenge. Or I could just press the gas pedal and move on. Not wanting to ‘make the news,’ urged me to ride off into the sunset. But in my exit from evil, I sent off a warning of my own to help him rethink his life… “I’m going to go call the police!”
Today’s verse is very clear. Paul tells us that seeing evil, and keeping quiet about it, are not bunk-mates! We are told to avoid evil. But also commanded to expose it when we see it. We have kids in our land who need to see, and avoid, evil for what it is. Bike guy may have gotten away with something, but he now knows that not everyone will just ‘let it go!’
Are YOU a member of God’s Anti-evil team of warriors? Do you stand against it when evil is seen coming your way? My Dad taught me that, ‘saying nothing makes ME guilty!’ God’s Word must be where he learned that lesson! I’ve learned that I do not want evil riding alongside me, steering my direction! Thanks Dad’s!
“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” James 4:14
Though I really had no reason to, I’d just talked to him a week ago! A blast from the past, his name had popped into my head, leaving impact enough to make me pursue the nudge. That I was able to even remember his name, then miraculously find a phone number for him, was a miracle. We talked… his situation? Bad, but improving. He made a promise. Now he is gone!
It had been YEARS since we last talked. Things weren’t really good back then either. But I encouraged and pushed and warned… doing it all in the Name of the Jesus who called me to do just that! When money was stated as a problem, I hired him to do a job for me. He did it well and I paid him. But nothing seemed to click. After several months… he left!
Look… I don’t have an exact, detailed answer to ‘WHY’ any more than anyone else. Too often I can’t even phrase the question well enough to deserve an answer. But I have learned WRONG answers for a LOT of stupid excuses that people fall for, far too easily! ‘NO!’ God did not take your loved one! ‘NO!’ They’re NOT looking down on you from heaven to help guide you now!
Forrest Gump used the line in a movie by the same name. In it he said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” It’s a line that should be found in the Bible under the authorship of David, or his stupid son Solomon! Solomon, the WISEST man ever to live on earth, ended up specializing in stupid so well, that he lost his kingdom. So who am I to think that ‘I’ am exempt from it’s clutches?
I’ve seen this kind of sadness too often. It comes with the business. People are born… people die. People rise up… people fall. And everybody dies! The only thing ‘stupider’ than death, is our living life as if it really won’t happen to US! I’ve intervened in many lives, giving God’s Word and my experience as warning ‘if’ lines are crossed. I even have photos, after stupid shows! ‘Maybe if ‘you’ would have said it nicer…’ people have added.
I write this to remind myself. Katie HATES the word stupid, but I like it. Because it CLEARLY defines deliberate disobedience. “DO NOT TOUCH THE FIRE.. YOU WILL BE BURNED!” TSSSS! I’ve learned that, when it comes to consequences, there are many accidents. God had whispered His Spirit and sent warning through word and people. Not obeying… is a choice!
I generally know what God wants me to do, think or believe. Acting on it usually meets distraction in the form of a stupid excuse, reason or personal benefit outside of His counsel. Today, I am going to review the potential consequences BEFORE I make my choice. May God help us ALL hear Him… VERY clearly! And DO what He says!
