The unguarded moment

The-fight-of-faithFrom time to time as a kid I’d hear the phrase, “the bogey man will get you if you don’t watch out.” Of course, even as I child I knew there was no “bogey man.” Still, there’s kind of a flip side to this here. Because, in actuality, there are a lot of things that will “get you if you don’t watch out.”

Many Christians know what the Apostle Peter said, “Be sober, and be vigilant, for your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goes about, seeking whom he may devour.” (I Peter 5:8) But sometimes we find in our lives is that the “evil spirit” we have the most problem with is often our own personal spirit, our own dull, rebellious, ornery nature. And sometimes this can even be true for the saved. Jesus’ disciples rejoiced that “even the devils are subject unto us through Your name”. (Luke 10:17) But our own selves are often the spirits we have the most trouble with. This is all related to how I incurred the shoulder injury 8 months ago that caused the need for the surgery I had a few days ago. I wrote about this experience recently in “Pain and suffering”.

It was nothing sinister I did and that’s all the more reason why it’s worth sharing this as I think a lot of us may be guilty of such things from time to time. What happened? You’re going to be disappointed. I was taking a heavy grocery bag out of a shopping cart when I took a bad angle on it and suddenly felt a big pain in my shoulder. I thought I’d strained a muscle, something most of us have done at some time. But this just never healed up. I was due to move to Europe in 6 weeks and I thought it would get better but it didn’t. Now it’s turned out to be the biggest injury I’ve ever had, at least in the way of pain, debilitation and time lost for the Lord’s service.

Why did that happen? How can it be that, when the Lord has so protected me in numerous places around the world where legitimate danger was very real, I end up getting hurt pretty bad in a grocery store parking lot? There is an answer to this. It’s called “the unguarded moment”.

unguarded flatFor Christians, the Bible says “We are sealed by the Holy Ghost.” (Ephesians 1:14) “The angel of the Lord encamps about them that fear Him and delivers them.” (Psalm 34:7) For those who are His, there’s a tremendous amount of protection and power that’s ours. But there are at least some conditions. “Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” I wasn’t taking drugs or drunk when this accident happened. But I’ve realized that I was not sufficiently walking in the Spirit of God at the time like I should have been.

Jesus told His disciples, “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) For many of us, we can think that this means, “Oh, if a drug dealer or a prostitute came up to you there in that parking lot, you wouldn’t be tempted by them!” That’s not what happened but still something very serious did happened. “The curse causeless shall not come” (Proverbs 26:2) so what was I doing, or not doing, that brought this on?

Basically I was dull in my spirit right then . I was “entangled with the affairs of this life” (II Timothy 2:4) to the degree that I missed whatever check the Holy Spirit could have given me right then that I was making a dangerous move with the heavy grocery sack. Even with my personal limited knowledge of weight lifting, I should have noticed that my angle was bad in lifting the bag. But I must have been dull at the time, my mind somewhere else and overall being in a false sense of security in familiar surroundings, doing something I’d done so many times before.

Stormy flatThere are always things which must be attended to; we live in a physical world and we can’t be drifting around on some spiritual cloud in perpetual trance-like mediation. But for those who are His, it just doesn’t pay to ever neglect our link with the Lord, even for a moment. We are to “pray without ceasing”. (I Thessalonians 5:17) This doesn’t mean being down on your knees, frantically calling out to God all the time but that we’re walking in an alert spirit, “in all our ways acknowledging Him” so that “He shall direct our path.” (Proverbs 3:6) “You shall hear a voice behind you saying, ‘this is the way, walk in it.’” (Isaiah 30:21) Well, I didn’t hear His voice that day because I was inadvertently dwelling in my carnal mind and the affairs of this life so the Holy Spirit was less able to get through to me and I’ve suffered for it ever since.

Did the devil do it? No, it was my mistake. It’s so easy to be lulled into a false sense of security when we’re on familiar ground and doing things that are so commonplace to us. But that’s when we can suffer some of our worst mistakes, in those unguarded moments when we let down our shield and are dull to our surroundings. So, as it turns out, there certainly are some things that “will get you if you don’t watch out.” It reminds me of what Jesus said, “What I say unto you, I say unto all. Watch.” (Mark 13:37)

 

Pain and suffering

I’ve had an interesting week. On Wednesday I had 5 hours of surgery on my right shoulder to repair a tendon I ruptured 8 months ago. I’d never had surgery before and almost never needed to go to a hospital til now. So it was all very new to me. I’ll pick up with what happened the next morning at the hospital, after the anesthesia wore off.

With my new shoulder sling

Basically I quickly began to experience pain like I’ve never had in my life. For 2 hours it got worse and worse to where I was moaning, crying and asking/begging the nurse to hurry up with boosting the dosage of pain killer. She was doing her job but she had others to attend to. Also I suspect it can get to be with nurses that they become desensitized to the suffering that patients experience after a while. But I was getting increasingly desperate and insistent.

We got to the point where I was asking/demanding that they either give me morphine or gas me out so I wouldn’t experience what was happening at that time. But around then the effects of what they’d been giving me the last two hours began  to work and the pain level came down from “10” to about “6.5”. I was able to bear that enough.

It had been pain that pushed me to get a better analysis of what had happened to my shoulder 8 months ago. I’d finally had an MRI done which the orthopedic surgeon used to show me where my muscle was detached from my bone by about 1 inch. That’s why it had been virtually impossible for me to sleep at night for months.

Back home that night, still taking the maximum allowed of pain killers and wearing the shoulder sling you  can see in the picture, I realized I’d have another night of no sleep until my fatigue got the better of my pain. All I could do was wait, pace the floor in my apartment and “draw nigh to God” (James 4:8). And in prayer I thought about a lot.

dad and sonI thought about how many people around the world are in pain all the time. The hungry, the sick, the dispossessed, the refugees, those with no hope. I thought about the Syrians, Iraqis and Kurds I’d talked with on the Macedonian border in December, or in refugee camps in Berlin in January. Women with children, young Syrian daddies who held their little son’s hand, all in the bitter cold of a Balkan winter. How was my pain compared to theirs?

Moscow beggarI thought of the year I lived in Moscow in the 90’s and the beggars I’d see there. Many were not alcoholics but former military officers or older women who looked to come from very distinguished backgrounds who stood with their hands out, a look of sadness on their faces that made me realize how great a personal loss so many had had with the collapse of Communism. Or the middle aged men I met in Aceh Province, Indonesia, after the tsunami disaster there in 2004. It was the men who survived. aceh survivorThey often were fishermen or truck drivers and were away from their families on the Sunday morning when 3 giant waves crashed into coastal communities for hundreds of miles. I remembered the many men I’d met who’d lost their wife and all their children and the utter sadness and profound despondency they had.

And I thought of my own United States of America and the social background I come from: middle aged to elderly, White and middle class. lost my jobWhile prosperity has increased over the last 20 years or so, the demographic I’m a part of has seen basically no gain in their standards of living and it’s been necessary to work all the more just to keep at the level they were decades ago. Alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide has steadily risen for the white middle class in the USA while in other industrialized Western nations, these things have all decreased. You don’t have to talk to refugees to find pain and suffering in our times.

So I hesitate to say I became thankful for my suffering because you might ask, “Oh, would you like some more of it?” And I’d say no. But it was a reality check that I’ve had it pretty good in my life. I’ve had some very strong pain in an emotional sense from personal family-related things in my past. Also decades ago when I was getting close to becoming a Christian, the Lord allowed me to feel severe anguish and torment of soul that helped drive me to salvation. But plain, outright physical pain is not something I’ve experienced so much of.

Around 4 AM my fatigue finally got the best of my pain and I slept 2 hours, sitting upright on my sofa since lieing down was impossible. Now, a couple of days later, things are improving. The worst of the pain has abated and I’m able to sleep in my bed at night with a good deal fewer pain killers than before.

feeling pain flatThe Bible says “in everything give thanks” (I Thessalonians 5:18) and I can say, in some strange way, I’m thankful for this experience. It was a very good reminder of what hundreds of millions, if not billions of people experience every day. Even before I became a Christian, when I was growing up, I wanted to do something to make things better in this world. I’m so, so thankful that the Lord got a hold of me and brought me into a life of Christian discipleship.

Some of us are doing ok today. But if we have food in our stomach, a place to sleep, some friends and we’re pretty much staying above the waves and vicissitudes of this often dangerously raging world we live in, it’s good to remember those who aren’t doing so well and who could use some help.  I think that’s how Jesus taught us to look at these things.

 

Dr. Kosmos

Dr Kosmos fixed flatI was thinking about an incredible incident that happened when I was in university but already on the path of faith in God and in Jesus, only just at the beginning. You may have read were I wrote about how I very nearly died on drugs and went to hell for my sins when I was in university. I wrote about that in “Lucifer and the White Moths.

You’d think an incident like that would be all that it would take to utterly get me turned around and straightened out once and for all. But it wasn’t. I had many rises and falls, many missteps and hesitations, even what could be called backslidings.first road picture-flattened I wrote about one of those in “Lights on the Road”, where I had a car mishap that should have surely taken my life when I was back in sin again. But the Lord saw fit to make things happen otherwise through the intervention of what certainly were angels who manifested themselves.

Tonight I was thinking back to those first weeks and how utterly astounded I was, flabbergasted, utterly mind-blown at the reality of the existence of the God of Abraham. It might be easy for you to think, “if that happened to me, I would so much straighten up and fly right”, as my dad  used to say. Maybe you would but I didn’t. It really took a lot to get me even to the point of receiving Jesus as my personal savior.

In the first days and weeks after I had the incredible breakthrough just before I was 21, I had a strong feeling in my heart that I should just leave everything behind and start traveling with a backpack as so many young people were doing then. I strongly felt that I should travel towards Houston, Texas and then on east towards Atlanta. I didn’t really know why but later I found that some of the Jesus People who led me to the Lord were in those areas at that time. But I didn’t know that.

Dr. Kosmos 2 fixed flatBut I did determine that this was what I should do and I began to make preparations. I had flunked out of university, mostly because of my fallen state through drugs, debauchery and a lack of vision for “useless and pointless knowledge”, as Bob Dylan had described higher education in one of his songs. I was on the right track at last, trying to move with a new impetus from the Spirit of God and a specific leading to travel, going out “not knowing whether I went” (Hebrews 11:8), rather like Abraham.

But then, the Devil entered the scene again. I got a letter from my university. (This is going to be hard to believe but it really happened.) In those days, if you flunked out of university, you were very likely to be drafted almost immediately to go fight in the war in Viet Nam which was raging at that time. And I’d flunked out so I would shortly be eligible to be drafted.

A letter arrived from my university. They told me they were going to give me another chance. I could come back for another semester and try one more time. Sounds good, no? Only, in my case, God had saved me from hell and He had greater plans for me than “finishing my education” at university. He had a whole new life ahead of me, from Him.

But here’s where it really gets good. I was reading this letter, telling me I could reapply to the university. And I was thinking, “I’ve already made a decision to just leave everything and go out traveling in the direction the Spirit of God is leading me, towards Houston and Atlanta. And now I get this letter. Hmm.”  But here it comes, wait for it….

Dr Kosmos 3 fixed flatThe letter from the university was signed by… Dr. Kosmos. Even with my extremely limited knowledge of spiritual things, I knew that “Cosmos” was the Greek word for “the world”. Like the verse that says, “Love not the world.” (I John 2:15) So I nearly dropped my teeth, as they say. I practically could smell the sulfur and see the horns peaking up behind the letter I had received. I’m sure there was a literal “Dr. Kosmos” who had sent me this letter from the university. But I was able to see by the Spirit that this was a message from Satan, luring me back into the world after I’d begun to be set free by God to follow Him.

Good for you Mark! You really recognized the enemy there! And you stood your ground and didn’t yield, right?

dont follow God flatNope, I was weak and fell for it. Even though by the Spirit I recognized this as an allurement of Satan to hinder me from following the Lord the way He was leading, I still didn’t have the faith and strength to go against this back then and I went back to university.

So you failed God! Again, Mark! And He sent you to Hell, right!? You failed Him over and over again, practically at every turn and here you did it again! He killed you that night as you rightly deserved, no?!

Not actually. Back at university in the fall of 1969 I experienced what I wrote about in “Terrorist Infiltrators”, getting to know some of the top revolutionaries in the USA back then, working on SDS demonstrationthe main underground newspaper in Texas at the time and being in the leadership of a major demonstration on my campus. At the end of that semester I was still alive. I had flunked out again, had stopped using heavy drugs, was still reading my Bible every day and praying all the time. Again the Lord led me to just leave it all behind, “forsake all”  (Matthew 19:29), and to journey in the direction He’d originally told me to go. That finally happened. And soon I met those Jesus People and came to the day where I received Jesus as my Savior, beginning this wonderful life I’ve had for so long.

If you get a letter from “Dr. Kosmos”, giving you “one more chance” to make it in this world’s systems of man, as opposed to God’s will for your life, maybe you can remember this story. “You shall worship the Lord you God, and Him only shall you serve.” (Luke 4:8) “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.” (Proverbs 1:10)

Hard Knocks Witnessing

you are wrong flatI’ve often mentioned the subject of witnessing and it’s certainly a huge subject. I’ve never yet been in a church that teaches personal witnessing to its people. But witnessing at times can be tough. Everyone probably knows that and it’s one reason so few people do it.

I was on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California decades ago, witnessing to young people when I was a young person myself. Then, off to my right and striding down the sidewalk in the early evening was someone decked out in a full Satan costume, red cape, horns, mask and all. As he walked by he was repeatedly saying in a deep voice, “I’ve come to see my kingdom”. This was many years ago and I’ve been told it’s much worse there now.

While witnessing is really like sowing seeds, it also can be like a battle. Some folks just have their standard lines they throw back at Christians since most Christians don’t know how to answer tough questions. I remember one that really stumped me when I was about a year old in the Lord. This guy in Los Angeles told me that Jesus never actually said that He was the Son of God. That really got me right then. I’d been studying the Word and had memorized a lot but I just couldn’t think of anything right then that absolutely proved the guy wrong.

But it really got me into the Word about it. Later I found what I figure was the best place where Jesus said He was the Son of God, John 10:36b, “…do you say of Him who was sanctified and sent into the world, ‘you blaspheme’, because I said I am the Son of God?

Actually, when you think about it, Jesus didn’t go around all the time telling everyone He was the Son of God. He called Himself “the Son of Man” over 70 times  but the specific places where He said He was the Son of God were rare. So that guy back then long ago sort of won the conversation I was having with him that day. But then I knew what to answer the next time someone pulled that one on me.

Weapons to Pakistan 1-flattenedMaybe that’s another thing about witnessing that most people just don’t want to experience. You just might meet your match, ha! The only thing is, it may be your match but not the Lord’s. Like anything, you have to hone your skills or, better yet, let the Lord teach you how to witness and share your faith. You may have your stumbles or bumps in the road but you keep taking it back to the Lord, learn your lessons, Weapons to Pakistan 2-flattenedand do better next time. A little like what happened to me years later in New Delhi, India when I was witnessing door to door there and a woman almost immediately, upon opening her door, yelled at me, “Why are you selling weapons to Pakistan!” I wrote about that experience here.

I was a smart-alecky 18 year old atheist in my first semester of university  when a young Christian student at the university was going door to door in the dormitory, witnessing for the Lord. I gleefully welcomed him in to have a talk, like a spider to a fly.

The thing is, I’d never before met a Christian like that. I tried all my old lines I usually used to mock Christians. I laughed long and heartily at him. He stood his ground with a friendly smile and just kept sharing his faith with me. I rejected the witness he shared with me but that experience changed my life.

Jesus said, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin.” (John 15:22) Up till that time, I’d never really been witnessed to by a strong Christian. But after that event I was much more accountable and two weeks later, having rejected the messenger of God, the messenger of Satan was allowed by God to come to me in the form of a hippie on campus who sold me my first marijuana. For the next 2 years my life gradually went downhill till I very nearly died on drugs and went to hell, an event I told you about in “Lucifer and the White Moths”.

delivered your soul-1 flatBut it was the faithfulness of that young Christian student at my university to share God’s message with me, even though I rejected it, that was part of God’s plan in bringing me to Him. And I share this here to show how that, even if you have a “negative” witnessing experience, as that dear brother had with me that day back then, “nevertheless Christ is preached” (Philippians 1:18) and it was an integral part of God’s plan for my life. Even if someone gives you grief while you’re out witnessing, it is still your faithfulness that counts and you have “delivered your soul” (Ezekiel 3:19), as the Lord wants us to do.

Zeal and Hard Sayings

ChurchillI was thinking about Winston Churchill, one of my heroes. A movie that made a huge impact on me was “The Gathering Storm” about Churchill in the 1930’s. He was already old and pretty much out of favor in Britain. In the British parliament he just kept up his “rant”, if you will, against the dangers of Germany and Hitler’s rise. But it wasn’t what people wanted to hear and he was pretty much “a voice in the wilderness” (John 1:23), going against the wind and the tide of the times. But he was right, very right. And ultimately, as that movie shows, the nation came to see that he’d been right all along in his warnings.

It can be a lonely job at times to tell truths that are unpopular and go against popular opinion. It can be tough to be tough. And sometimes, actually, it can be God’s will to be a little tough. Jesus was. Yes, He was, at least in some sense. You don’t usually hear about this from the pulpit but in John 6 Jesus gave His “cannibal speech”. Today we have sanitized the whole thing and understand it by the Spirit. But back then it was very, very rough.

hard saying flatSo rough that it says that some of His disciples said, “This is a hard saying, who can hear it?” (John 6:60) The Bible goes on to say, “From that time, many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.” (John 6:66) What happened? Well, Jesus told them, “Except you eat the flesh of the son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life within you.” (John 6:53)

That doesn’t bother you because you’ve had it explained to you and you know Jesus was not speaking of cannibalism. But the ones who heard Him say it that day really didn’t get it. And it gets worse. In Luke 14 “Great multitudes followed Him and He turned and said to them, ‘If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children, yeah and his own life also, He cannot be my disciple’.” (Luke 14:26)

So there you have it in the Gospels, cannibalism and hatred. Of course we now know and understand what we feel those things mean. But the point is, there are some relatively hard sayings in some places in Scripture, even in the four Gosples. And if we’re following the Lord and letting the Lord speak to us and through us, at times there are still hard sayings today.

Maybe it’s like the phrase people use nowadays, “tough love.” That’s how it can be. Solomon said, “Rebuke a wise man and he will love you.” (Proverbs 9:8) Let’s face it, most of us are not that wise and don’t love getting rebuked. Still Solomon was right; being shown a better way than your own can be tough but it also really helps.

I guess I’ve been a little concerned because I know that recently I’ve put some things in my posts that may have been “hard sayings” to some of my friends. I hesitate to apologize because I just know and feel that there has to be a time in each life where difficult things need to be said in order to make things better. It’s certainly not a matter of hate or, hopefully, of self-righteousness. It’s just that in order to help each other, we have to say things that are difficult, things that call us to a serious appraisal of ourselves and even to repentance for our slackness and an urging to great commitment to Him.

You told me the truth-a-flattenedThis can not only be difficult to receive, it can be difficult to share. But I’ve often been on the receiving end of some rather strong but Godly council from Christian brethren who were trying to help me see the error of my ways and the areas I needed to make Christian progress in. It was not easy to receive and sometimes it wasn’t even shared with me in all that sweet a lovey-dovey package. Nevertheless, the Lord’s truth was there and I needed “to see the lightning without feeling the bolt”, which was not always easy.

So when I share things in some of my posts that may come across as challenging or almost extreme to some, I hope I’m sharing these things in love, often as lessons I myself have experienced and gone through. Richard GereAgain, going back to movies many of us have seen to be an example of this, “An Officer and a Gentleman” is an incredible movie that shows these things so well. Staring Richard Gere and Louis Gossett, Jr., Gere is in basic training to be a navy pilot and Gossett is his hard-as-nails drill sergeant and instructor. It basically seems like Gossett hates Gere and is doing all he can to get him to fail. But the movie brings out that the drill sergeant has to be that way in order to get Gere to be a completely remolded man and to know if he will be of the meddle that can have what it takes to be at that level of the military.

And so it is with us. The Lord loves us but wants to make us into something useful and fruitful for Him. I’ve been through the fire, the flood, the anvil and the ice at times in my life. It was rough, sometimes really rough, but I’m still around and I’ve profited from those tough experiences. If you find things in my blog posts that push you, challenge you or make you feel uncomfortable, hopefully it will not be something you take personally. Instead you’ll see it as my trying to share what I’ve learned in my life with you and my trying to help all of us to go further up the mountain of His will, further along the road of the cross, further along the road of commitment and fruitfulness.

Jesus said, “Blessed is he who is not offended in Me.” (Luke 7:23) My hope and prayer is that what I share in my posts, although they may be zealous, will be a blessing to you, even if some things are hard to receive or understand at times. God bless you, your friend, Mark

Enemy at the Gate?

enemy at gate 2A movie I really enjoyed was “Enemy at the Gates”. One reason is that I lived over two years in Moscow and in the Russian-speaking part of Ukraine. Knowing that part of the world, the people, the history and their sufferings, made it all the more moving to me. The subject of the movie is the battle of Stalingrad and I have Russian friends from Stalingrad, now called Volgograd.

It’s based on a true story of one of the bloodiest, heart-wrenching battles of World War II. The movie shows that the Russians were so bad off that two soldiers were given one gun and a handful of bullets each, enemy at gate 3the idea being that when the first solder was shot, the second one was to pick up the gun and keep going. But the hero of the movie, played by Jude Law, grew up as a hunter with his grandfather and was a crack shot with a rifle. Lying motionless among his dead comrades in the battle of Stalingrad, Law uses his rifle skills to pick off Nazi officers at a distance during the battle. He actually gets pretty good at it.

It’s an amazing story but then another layer is added. A fledgling writer of propaganda for the Communists finds out about Jude Law’s beginnings of success. And it’s not just the battle in Stalingrad they’re losing; the whole Russian nation is utterly defeated and afraid spiritually at that time. They need heroes. They need to hear about a victory. So the writer begins to write up what the young sniper is doing to turn the battle at least somewhat towards the favor of Russia. And soon the nation is taking heart as they hear of a common soldier picking off the Nazi officers in the battle there.

trojan horseIt’s not meant to be a parable but today it became like a parable to me. “The enemy at the gate.” How many times have we heard something like that in reference to the current refugee crisis in Europe? “They are sent here to invade us, to defeat us! They are the very forces of Satan, every last one of them! It’s a Trojan Horse. We’re doomed; it’s the end of civilization! The enemy at the gate!

Pardon me but that’s a lot of hooey. It’s sensationalist propaganda from folks often not even from Europe who have a political agenda. I’ve written about this in “Merkel’s Call” and “Come, I Will Send You”. I will send you 1 flatBut right or wrong, many millions of people are very afraid, just as the Russians were over 70 years ago. Back then, just a tiny handful of sharp shooters had a major hand in turning a loosing battle into a victory, rather like the British aviators did in the Battle of Britain.

Is there any parallel to this today? Well, first, we aren’t talking about sharp shooters, airplane battles in the sky and killing people. And we’re not talking about Nazis battling Communists. crowd scene trainWe’re talking about millions of poor souls who’ve had it so bad in their home countries that they’ve risked their lives to cross land and sea, hoping to find refuge in Europe. What can any of us do? I’ve been with these people personally several times recently; here’s a post about when I was on the Macedonian border with them a few weeks ago, called “Encountering Refugees”.

In this case, I think what Angela Merkel has said is just incredible. She’s said her people should show kindness, hospitality and love to these refugees.refugees at tables And some are doing that, I met and worked with them last month; this is what I wrote about in “German Refugee Camp”.

How can those so many view as “enemies at the gate” be met today? By snipers? If you’re a Christian, what’s your greatest “weapon”? It’s love. Wouldn’t that shock and invigorate Christendom if a few brave souls plunged into the events of today and found that these “enemies”, many of them at least, turned out to be our friends? Turned out to want what we have? Not just the material wealth of the West but the truth that the West was founded on long ago? That the Love of God in Jesus was and is all that it’s said to be. That might alter the mood of whole nations to hear some good stories of the love of God and the love of our neighbors actually wining out over the hatred and fears we’ve been taught. That’s what I was personally seeing and experiencing last month at the refugee camp I was in in Germany.

“Mark, do you really believe that? Do you think love is going to win out in all this and that everyone will put down their antagonism and love one another? Come on; get real!”

Maybe not; maybe all of Europe is not going to come around to love and accept this flood of refugees. And probably not all of them are going to be humble and thankful for the help they are receiving.

But I know some will. Some will find that there are good and kind Europeans, even ones who come with the love they have from God. And there will be changes of minds and hearts; there will be miracles of love because that’s happening already. For some, this is their hour. How it all will play out, I don’t know. But if ever there was a time for Christians in Europe to show love to those who need it so much, now’s the time.

In Stalingrad, it only took a few. But it changed the course of history and invigorated the Russian nation. May God in heaven today find those in these times who will answer His call in this hour and turn this crisis into a mighty victory of His love and truth.

Brakes and Gas Pedals

Command Isreal flatGod told Moses, “Command the armies of Israel that they go forward.” (Exodus 14:15) That’s what we should be looking to do; we should be determined to go forward for the Lord. He said to go forward for Him and with Him, through the Holy Spirit. And they did. Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) “Go therefore and teach all nations…” (Matthew 28:19) And gradually, through fits and starts, His earliest disciples did that. So going forward for Him and His cause should be our default position, our basic vision.

This is why, when I was writing “The Stand”, about the stand of faith, that I got a little concerned. Because perhaps the majority of Christians need more encouragement and admonition to use their “gas pedal” than to use their “brakes”. Using our brakes is certainly necessary and a matter of life and death at times. But maybe it’s like the little girl said about the purring cat, “Oh look, mommy! The kitty has gone to sleep and left its engine running!

We’re not supposed to go to sleep and leave our engine running. We’re not supposed to sit around with our foot on the brakes in some kind of defensive, “hold the fort” attitude. If there’s been a bane of organized Christianity in our times, it’s been this. And it’s now gotten to where virtually everyone thinks that this is Christianity. “Go to church on Sunday. Be good. Don’t be bad.”

Did Jesus say flatJesus didn’t tell His disciple, in the 40 days He was with them after His resurrection, “OK guys, this has been great! Now everyone go back to your old jobs, go back and join a good synagogue, blend into society. It’s all over! I’ve done what I came to do so you guys can relax. Enjoy life!” Umm, no.

Of course many churches do teach the Bible and even salvation, faith in God and in Jesus. But often at some point it just doesn’t go any further. How many churches really instill in each individual member that they can and should witness their faith and win souls? Paul said, “Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel!” (I Corinthians 9:16) To which the standard reply is, “Oh, we can’t all be Paul!”  Or “Oh, I’m not a preacher! That’s what we pay Reverend Smith for.

Lord help us! Has human nature changed in the last 2000 years? Nope. “They all began to make excuse.” (Luke 14:18) Or as Solomon said, “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the council of God stands assured.” (Proverbs 19:21)

Tell them I need them flatSo let’s answered a couple of those things that our hearts often throw at us. “Oh, we can’t all be Paul.” Right. But we can do what we can. And so often that’s a good deal more than we are doing. Maybe you can’t be a missionary right now. But you can witness to the circle of people you come in contact with. Virtually everyone can do that. This is the message the Lord gave me for the precious Christians I spoke with in Bulgaria back in March, that I wrote about in “God Needs You.

Hardly any church anywhere puts their membership under conviction to lead others to Christ. Virtually no church I know really instructs their members in how to personally witness and win souls.  That’s why I’m so glad I was born into a soul winning, discipleship Christianity. Because if the Devil can’t stop you from being a Christian, then he’ll try to stop you from being a disciple and  serving the Lord. He may not be able to stop you from having your engine running, but he’ll sure try to stop you from putting your foot on the gas. And I think that must sadden and perhaps even anger the Lord.

The only Christianity I’ve known has been one that endeavored to be based on the book of Acts and the Early Church. “They went forth and preached everywhere.” (Mark 16:20) “But Mark! I’m not a preacher! What do you want, Mark? For us all to go stand on some street corner and preach?!” Nope. But you could pass tracts to people you meet. You could be “always ready to give an answer of the hope within you.” (I Peter 3:15) You could be “instant in season and out of season.” (II Tim. 4:2)

Paul on the road to Damascus

Maybe it’s like something else Paul said, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” (II Cor. 5:11) Paul really knew what it was like to be found utterly wanting and under the partially judgment of God. He was blinded for 3 days by the hand of God. He knew what it was like to be utterly blinded spiritually and even physically. Maybe that helped him have the compassion and drive that he had the rest of his life.

Many have been Christians all their lives. They’ve never really known what the horrendous torments of hell are like and so they don’t have the driving motivation to help those still in those straights.But one way or the other, each Christian needs to put their foot on the gas, not just the brakes.

We have the answer, we have the Lord, we have salvation and we are charged before the Lord to share that with others. “He that withholds it tends to poverty, but he that scatters abroad it increases.” (Proverbs 11:24) “He that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17) Step on the gas.

The day of small things

Day of Small things flatDuring my devotions this morning, I listened to a short talk given years ago about common place things. I was surprised how it spoke to me as, I have to admit, at times I can chafe at the work and ministry I have presently, Lord forgive me. But as this message brought out, it’s a sad condition of human nature that we all are tempted to bemoan our lot, no matter what it is and find it drudgery.

The teacher can grow weary in the well doing of training the precious ones they instruct. The mother can faint under the continuing housework and monotony of the care she shows to her family. The father can trudge back home after a day of work, feeling unappreciated and that his life is going nowhere. This mindset is there probably for ever person on earth.

But God’s Word asks “who has despised the day of small things?” (Zach. 4:10) We are to be “content in whatsoever state we are in” (Philippians 4:11). “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” (I Tim. 6:6) Of course, as I wrote about recently, I’m not advocated a resigned, fatalistic capitulation to whatever life seems to throw at you. That’s not according to God’s Word either. I’m talking about the kind of contentment we have and need to hold on to when we know we are in the will of God but we are tempted to “be weary in well doing.” (Galatians 6:9)

Condemnation-flattenedThe devil just loves to belittle us. If he can’t get you lifted up in pride, then he tries the other direction of belittling us, making us feel small, foolish and insignificant. It reminds me of what Solomon said, “He that justifies the wicked and he that condemns the just, even they both are an abomination unto the Lord.” (Proverbs 17:15) Perhaps more people have a problem with walking in pride but some have a real problem with condemnation. They perennially are under a cloud of condemnation, whether of their own making or the devil’s.  “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” (I John 3:20)

What’s the solution to all this? “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2) We’re to walk neither in pride nor condemnation. In fact, the less we have our eyes on ourselves, the better off we’ll be. I think it was the famous song writer Fanny Crosby who said, “There is joy in self-forgetfulness”. Boy, that’s the truth. Otherwise it can certainly happen to any and all of us that we “despise the day of small things”.

So many nowadays fully know of the humdrum drudgery, zombie treadmill and rat race that modern employment and making a living can be. It’s a sad day for a poor man. It seems most middle class people have to be going full speed and flat out just to stand still in so many modern economies.

happy peopleAt least for us Christians, those who are serving the Lord, we can have a glory in the things we do, if we are doing it for the Lord. “Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (I Corinthians 10:31) You’re a school teacher? A busy mother? A businessman supporting your family? A missionary on some far flung field? Then if you have the Lord, you have that infinitely greater motivation that you’re doing what you are doing in service to Him. And you have His abundant grace for the job He’s given you.

For me, I can find it slightly tedious and monotonous to be spending many hours at my computer, mainly working on real minuscule details in getting out these foreign language videos of the series I’ve done on the prophecies of Daniel. It’s so much brain work, so many various facets that go into the final product that it’s almost numbing sometimes.

But for me, this is my “day of small things”. This is where things are for me right now and I just have to keep the vision. “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18) and I have to continually remind myself that the seeming sacrifice in all this right now will be worth it when folks in these countries get to have these classes on Bible prophecy and the endtime that so few know anything about.

And I’m sure it’s that way for many now. I don’t know many people presently who are working together with other Christians in some great endeavor for the Lord, like it was here in east Europe in the 90’s. It seems like for many it’s a time of “every man to his tents” (II Sam. 20:1) , a time of abatement, loneliness and low tide spiritually, rather than the great united forces of the Lord, “knit together as one man” (Judges 20:11) that have been at other times

But we all can still be wary not to “despise the day of small things”. We can keep the vision for our callings during these times when life can seem tedious and hum-drum, when we can seem insignificant to ourselves, falsely thinking we are unknown, unappreciated and forgotten. We’re not. His eye is on the sparrow and He sees every sacrifice, ever deed we do as unto Him. “In due season you shall reap if you faint not.” (Galatians 6:9)

The Swelling of Jordan

refugee marchThis month-long road trip around Europe to do recordings, visit friends and work with refugees has been great. But also at times it’s pushed me near to my personal frontiers of endurance and strength. It’s reminded me of what the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Israel long ago, “If you have run with the footman and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace in which you trust they have wearied you, what will you do in the swelling of Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5)

For a few days last week I was at a refugee camp of about 1000 people, serving lunch there. My fellow food servers were from Tikrit and Kirkuk in Iraq, Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza. We had a pretty good conversation about life and God when we had lunch together afterwards. I gave out Gospels of Luke in Arabic to the ones of them who hung around and with whom I had deep conversations.

One of my goals in being at the camp has been to do as I did on the Macedonian/Serbian border 3 weeks earlier, to mix and mingle there and to find ways to pass out Gospels of Luke in Arabic to these ones.refugees at tables After serving lunch a few days ago, I was later sitting at a dining table, talking to some Syrian refugees. One young man told me he’d graduated with a law degree from a university in Damascus and he asked how it could or would work out to use this in Germany. I told him I didn’t really know but it would take time and patience for him to be able to do that here. The young lawyer told me that his brother had been shot dead by ISIS troops and that he himself had been shot twice but survived.

Sometimes when there are 5 or 6 Arab men you’re talking to, it’s not perhaps the easiest and best time to pull out Gospels of Luke and give them out. On the other hand, maybe your confidence would run that way and you’d have the faith for that. My experience is that when there’s a group like that, they react differently than when you’re in a one-on-one conversation with someone. So as much as I wanted to turn things more towards the spiritual, it just didn’t work out. But I determined to remember their faces and see if I could find some of them later when they were not all together.

And I was feeling tired, really tired. So often “the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmities” (Proverbs 18:14) and the Lord just keeps you going by the Spirit long after the flesh would like to stop. On the other hand, it can happen that you just run out of steam and the Lord in His wisdom pulls things back a little as you really are at the end of your resources. For me, the days and weeks of living out of a backpack and moving from place to place a lot during winter in Europe have been catching up with me a little. And I just could really feel it yesterday that I needed to pull back a bit and “quit while you’re ahead”, as they say in some places.

Gosple of Luke

The Gospel of Luke in Arabic

But also I wanted to do a little more to get out the Gospels of Luke I’d brought. Then, as I got ready to go, I saw one of the Syrian men who’d been sitting at the table with me earlier. He was an older guy and spoke no English. But he was sitting by himself now and he just kept looking at me. So I took that as sign from the Lord and went over and gave him a Gospel of Luke. He took it in his hand, looked up at me with a deep look and then put it in his pocket. I felt better.

And again, literally going towards the door leading out of the camp, I saw another Syrian man who’d sat at the table with me. I was able to give a Gospel of Luke in Arabic to him also. And again I felt better. I was pretty exhausted as I walked back to my place here. But like Solomon said, “The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul”. (Proverbs 13:19)

This morning I feel better physically. And I was thinking about that verse, “the swelling of Jordan”. That’s how it is now, the swelling not only of Jordan but much of the Middle East, fleeing the terrorist insanity of their lands, looking for refuge here. And like the verse says, “what will you do in the swelling of Jordan?”

Angela MerkelI’ve been really surprised by the response of the Germans, both their Prime Minister (I wrote about her in “Merkel’s Call”) and the people themselves. Even with all these refugees who’ve come here, they took in 1.1 million last year, they say the number of those who’ve volunteered to help in Germany is more than equal to the need. I’ve had to “eat crow” a bit with some of my thoughts about Germans that I’ve said in the past. They’ve shown a Godly civilization and compassion that in some ways astounds me in this day and age.

As weakened and fragile as Christianity and humanity have seemed to be in our times, some at least are responding with vigor and empathy to this great event and opportunity now happening. Hopefully it won’t only be with food and blankets but also with the saving truth of Jesus Christ and God’s Word which is the only thing that can really reach down and bring a new, transformed life to all those in direst need.

1 AM in Sofia, Bulgaria

sofia night 1My bus was delayed on the border so I didn’t get into Sofia, Bulgaria till after midnight. I was expecting my friends to meet me at the bus station. But as I looked around the nearly empty station, I had a bad feeling about how I’d not really made sure to completely be definite that they’d meet me there. I tried to phone them from the station but my roaming service on my phone was not connecting so I couldn’t get through. Things were getting bleak pretty quickly and it didn’t immediately get better.

There were some ominous looking taxi drivers hanging around who wanted to drive me somewhere. But I didn’t know where that would be. I asked someone at a food stall that was still opened if they could phone my friends. But they didn’t speak English. I was rapidly realizing that I was in a real fix and a potential dangerous situation.

There were 3 young guys standing around at the food stand in the bus station. I say young; I guess they were around 19. They weren’t grown men but they weren’t really kids. They heard me speaking English and said they could phone my friends on their phone. They did but there was no answer. I noticed that they were friendly, willing to talk and be helpful. So I explained to them what had happened and took the step of faith to ask them if they knew of any hotels in the area. It was past 1 AM and it was looking like a hotel was about the only alternative as I was not getting through to my friends and it was getting real late.

The three young Bulgarians said they knew some hotels in the area and could take me there. Needless to say, I was sure sending up some prayers during all this. The thought did cross my mind several times that I probably looked pretty vulnerable to any late night denizens of the deep who were looking for some soft target and easy pickings.

As we went out to their car, I’ll admit I thought about how these guys could just drive me off somewhere to kill me and rob whatever I had with me. But I was checking in with the Lord and also trying to get the witness of the Spirit on the whole thing. And I was not getting any checks in the Spirit against the way things were going.

sofia nightWe starting driving around downtown Sofia and soon found a hotel that was nicer than I was figuring to stay in. Two of them went in to check the price and it sounded surprisingly low to me. But they wanted to see if they could find something for less. At length, after trying a few other places, I told them that the nice hotel they checked out would be fine. I was also telling them how much I appreciated their help, that I’d come to Bulgaria to speak in churches and that I prayed that God would bless them for their helping. They continued to just be kind hearted “good guys”, for lack of a better term.

I checked into the hotel with their help and was finally up in my room for the night when the phone there rang in my room. It was my friends in Sofia who I’d been trying to reach earlier that night from the station. They had gotten the call from the young men and phoned the number back. Those guys told my friend where I was so she got in contact with me.

End of story, I guess. But I can tell you I was mighty glad to be safely in a hotel at that hour of the night in a foreign city where I didn’t speak the language and knew hardly anyone. I was very aware that it all could have gone much worse. And it really stood out to me that those 3 young men were there at the bus station at that time and were able and willing to help me. I certainly saw it as the Lord’s love and hand, getting me through a potentially very dangerous situation.

It reminded me of the verse, “…underneath are the everlasting arms.” (Deuteronomy 33:27) I’d failed to be diligent in making sure of my contact and meeting with my friends in Sofia. But in spite of my failure, the Lord came to the rescue in bringing along those young men to help me. It reminded me of another time I wrote about in the blog post “God’s Little Miracles” where a similar but even more supernatural thing happened to me late one night in Austin, Texas.

God-is-chanceSome folks will say, “This is all chance.” That’s certainly how I used to look at it in the past. In fact, one time before I was a Christian I blurted out one day to my friends like it was a revelation, “God is chance!” And the Lord proceeded to get a good deal of mileage out of my saying that. I wrote about that in the blog post “God Is Chance.

I’m just really thankful that the Lord was there to rescue me that night in Sofia. It could seem like a little thing or a “coincidence” that those young men were there and helped. For me, I recognized that it was again the Lord’s mercy on my life. I’m so thankful for that.