Happy Thanksgiving

We're off to Boston on Wednesday to spend Thanksgiving with number one son and his family. He works in high tech and has been laid off more times than he can remember, so he doesn't have a whole lot of sympathy for my plight. We're looking forward to seeing our two granddaughters (both in their 20's); they both speak Spanish fluently, so I guess their parents will be left out of the conversations.

Comunidad, our latino church, is growing. Each of the last 3 Sunday nights it's been packed out and we have had to get more chairs to seat the people. A lady who had headaches worse than migraines for 7 years was delivered from them; her family is now on fire for God. They were all coming to church before that but now they have a fresh zeal and desire for God.

Pat has started a ministry for the latino children during the Sunday evening service. They really enjoy it and it frees the main meeting up so the parents can focus on the Lord.

I'm off work this week. I'm enjoying the weather with the leaves falling and the wind blowing - real fall weather that brings the holidays with it.

On Thanksgiving, remember - you are what you eat!

The King Is Dead

In chapters 1 through 5, Isaiah declares woe on the nations round about. In chapter 6, he changes his tune. He has had a revelation of God.

"In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and lifted up ..."


Uzziah was Isaiah's benefactor, mentor, and patron, so his death must have impacted the prophet greatly. Gone were his support, his inspiration, his encouragement. When he was at his lowest, Isaiah lifted up his eyes to his only remaining support and saw the Lord of Glory in all His majesty, His train filling the temple.

Defeat and discouragement are never the end. When we get down low enough, when we can go no lower, it is then we look up and it is then we see God. The God of the mountains is still God in the valley, the God of the day is still God in the night.

It has always been thus. Job came to the end of himself and the beginning of God (if God has a beginning). Moses' great calling seemingly got blown away with the desert winds when he saw the burning bush. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were in the midst of the flames when they saw the fourth man. Joseph was rejected and in prison for so long a time when he came into the fullness of God's plan for him. Our Lord Jesus was crucified, dead and buried but raised to newness of life and glory for ever.

There are no sad endings, no dead ends, for the child of God. Our King is not dead - He rules and reigns and He carries us with Him on His great journey to Zion. I want to go with Him, and I shall. We shall see Him as He is.

Still Human

This is Oswald Chambers for November 16. This is wonderful. So often we equate success with God as ministry, when really it should be a life lived for Jesus.

. . whatever you do, do all to the glory of God
—1 Corinthians 10:31

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In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.

We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, "What a wonderful man of prayer he is!" or, "What a great woman of devotion she is!" If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.

We want to be able to say, "Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!" But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life "hidden with Christ in God" in our everyday human conditions ( Colossians 3:3 ). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.

At All Times

So much of our conception of praise is oriented around the public meeting - we have a worship time with a worship team where we sing worship songs. That's all well and good, but does our thinking become structured around that event and not encompass all of life?

The same God I draw close to in those intense times of worship is the same God in the rough-and-tumble of daily activity. My circumstances are not uncontrolled events or happenstance but come directly from the hand of my all-wise, all-knowing, and all-powerful Lord; praise is as much in order at 8:00 on Monday morning as it is at 10:30 on Sunday morning.

Perhaps I don't feel as comfortable stuck in rush hour traffic on I-485 or South Boulevard as I do in a worship service, but God hasn't changed any. Maybe - just maybe - He arranged that situation to show me my impatience and my short fuse (I'm sure you don't huff and puff and pound on the steering wheel in a traffic jam, but I do). At that time I should praise Him for loving me enough to reveal my true self to me so that I can bring it before Him and ask Him to change me. Instead of asking where the driver in front of me got his license, I could be praising God for sending him my way to bring out this side of me.

Every circumstance is an opportunity for praise. Let's praise Him at all times and in all places, because He is worthy. Let every complaint be cut off before it leaves our lips - even before it can form in our hearts. Let God be justified and glorified in every situation, for He certainly deserves it.

BTLAU

(Back to life as usual.)And now I'm back from vacation and back in the regular day-to-day happenings of my life, which are, if you're interested: work, sleep, eat, and church. I don't sleep enough, I eat too much, I don't do church enough, and I work too much.

I'm looking forward to the Johnny Cash movie coming out Nov. 18. I grew up listening to country music, and he was one of the best. He toured for 38 years. He came to know the Lord and even made a movie called "The Gospel Road."

One of my favorite songs is his recording of "I Saw A Man," written by Arthur Smith, another country music legend who lives right here in Charlotte. (Smith also wrote "Dueling Banjos.") The song touches me because the character in the song says a man came to him in a dream, and it was the Lord. When he awoke, the Man was still there. "He said 'If I be lifted up I'll draw all men to me;' and then I saw the nail-scarred hands that bled for me. I touched the hem of His garment that fell 'round Him there; my heart, my life, my soul are in His care."

Many years ago I worked with an inmate in a prison for insane criminals; he had asked for ministry, and a friend of mine who was a guard there brought me in to speak to him. Turns out the man had seen two lights at the foot of his bed several nights before; he told me "One of them was Jesus, and I didn't care who the other one was."

He was saved, and his life changed, and the Lord blessed him to the point where he was released within a year and went back home to live with his mother. I had the privilege of sharing the love of Jesus with him for his remaining time in prison.

He sets the prisoner free.

He's Still There

I've been away at the beach for a week so I haven't been able to post anything. But I can report that the ocean's still there, the waves still break on the shore, the sand still feels good between my toes, the gulls still circle and wheel in the sky, the pelicans still dive for fish, the sun still feels good on my face, sea shells still look pretty, there's nothing quite as good as a cup of coffee on the beach watching the sunrise, the smell of salt and sand is worth a million bucks, and God's still in His heaven and all's right with the world.