Monthly Archives: January 2008

Keeping Secrets

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There is a lot that people don’t know about one another.  That’s not likely to change no matter how much each of us will ever be willing to share.  The sheer volume of data, combined with the emotional energy it would take to process it, would eventually send the most compassionate listener on earth into information overload.  Still, we should always strive to be better at compassionate listening.

God has a real advantage here.  He knows everything already.  Our deepest darkest secrets are as plain and obvious to Him as the bright light of day.  We see this in the New Testament Greek word for “confess” (homologeo), which literally means something like “same say” or “say the same as another”.   When we confess anything to God, we are only admitting what He already knows to be true.  We are finally saying what He has been saying all along.

Which brings us to a deeper problem, namely that of keeping secrets from ourselves.  There can be areas within our lives or beings that we don’t fully understand.  Sometimes that’s a willful ignorance; sometimes it’s more inadvertent.  In either case, the effect is the same:  We don’t know what we’re like or who we are.  It’s not that we won’t admit our fatal flaws or inner conflicts; we don’t even fully understand them.  We’ve yet to accurately identify these concealed culprits that hold back our personal and spiritual growth.

What a blessing to have an all-knowing Helper – a loving know-it-all who truly knows it all!  David came to grips with his self-ignorance and it led him to this useful, yet beautiful, prayer:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties; 
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.”
          – Psalms 139:23-24 (NKJV)

Let’s follow his example by praying it, letting the Lord reveal our secrets to ourselves.

Dull-Hearted Shepherds

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Only occasionally do people rise above the level of their leaders.  It happens now and then, to be sure, but not often.  This is especially true in the area of personal character.  Thus, lousy leaders produce pathetic people and together they share the unhappy effects of their common corruption.  This was the problem in the days of Jeremiah and it was the cause of great calamity.

For the shepherds have become dull-hearted,
And have not sought the Lord;
Therefore they shall not prosper,
And all their flocks shall be scattered.”
     – Jeremiah 10:21 (NKJV)

The remedy, of course, is that leaders must lead well.  They must lead with integrity, always setting a good example, and tending to the deepest needs of the people entrusted to them.  Simon Peter understood this and he offers the following counsel.

The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed: Shepherd* the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd** appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. – 1 Peter 5:1-4 (NKJV) ***

May all of us who in any way lead God’s people take the apostle’s advice and see the satisfying results multiplied in many hearts and lives.  

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For those who like to study words, I offer the following tidbits:
* Jesus used this verb form of shepherd when He said to Peter, “Feed My sheep,” in John 21:16
** The noun Shepherd is translated “pastor” in Ephesians 4:11.
*** This passage is one of two in the New Testament that bring the three terms shepherd (pastor), elder (presbyter) and overseer (bishop) together, placing them in the same context more or less as synonyms.  The other passage to do so is  in Acts 20; see verses 17 & 28.

True Worshipers

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It’s far less important where we worship than that we worship – and it’s also important how.  A Samaritan woman once brought up to Jesus the issue of location.  Christ responded as follows, de-emphasizing place altogether:

Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father … But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth‘” – John 4:21, 23-24 (NKJV)

The fact that worship may be valid in all places at all times does not automatically mean that we can worship in any old way we want.  God gives us two prerequisites:

  1. The first is worship in spirit:  This excludes all worship in the flesh.  Every church musician knows what it’s like to focus more on his music than on his Maker, more on the sound than on the Savior.  Examples like these touching all of us could be multiplied.  It’s really rather easy to focus on the creature more than the Creator during praise, but this we should never do.
  2. There’s also worship in truth:  This implies that there is such a thing as false worship – worship that is fake, make-believe, hypocritical.  And since Jesus is “truth personified” (John 14:6), true worship also excludes all worship that excludes Him. 

Worship the Lord often today, wherever and whenever you can.  And may the Father find a true worshiper when He looks at you.

God’s Plan for You

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Finding God’s perfect will for our lives is not an exact science.  Many people seem to constantly spin their wheels seeking “His Will”, all the while pursuing what amounts to a search for the Holy Grail or the Lost Ark of the Covenant.  In the meantime they are accomplishing very little, as anyone observing them can often see much more clearly than they can.  I know, because I’ve searched for this pot of gold myself, but never quite made it to the end of the rainbow. 

The message the Lord has for Jeremiah seems instructive:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” 
                                                     – Jeremiah 1:5 (NKJV)

God had made His plans for Jeremiah well in advance.  One day, however, He decided to reveal to him that special calling, that role this young priest was to play in the unfolding intentions of the Almighty.  There is no indication that Jeremiah was really seeking this.  In fact, He argues the point a little, implying that God’s ideas were all wrong. 

Here’s where we find a great lesson – visible in Scripture and frequently reinforced by our own experience:

We don’t discover the “Will of God” by directly pursuing it. 
He reveals it to us through daily submission to Him. 

Some days that will seems pretty ordinary: You get up, get to work, and dutifully fulfill your duties.  This is God’s will and you can rest in peaceful contentment with it.  At other times it’s more dramatic: The whole course of your life can be altered through a career change, relocation, a death, a birth or a marriage.  But each of those big things normally happen step-by-step, or through something you never, ever had the opportunity to control. 

A balanced, daily combination of the Bible, prayer, examining your own desires or circumstances, and a bit of godly counsel will usually do the job.  If your heart’s desire is truly to become and remain submitted to God’s desires, God’s will cannot remain elusive for very long.