4SpiritualSecrets

“For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God …  eternal in the heavens.” (2 Corinthians 5:1)

A dragonfly is a marvel of aerodynamics with its two sets of wings that enable it to hover like a helicopter.  The dragonfly actually spends the first one to four years of its existence at the bottom of a body of water.  This underwater creature is equipped with two respiratory systems.  It has a respiratory system that enables it to inhale water through its long narrow body and derive oxygen from the water, as many underwater creatures do.  It also has a second respiratory system that will one day equip it to breathe air when it enters into its second dimension of life.

When the underwater, first existence of the dragonfly has been fulfilled, it rises to the surface of the water, climbs up on the land, dries its wings in the sun, spreads those two magnificent sets of wings and gloriously begins the second dimension of its existence.

The dragonfly is obviously designed by God to live out its existence in two dimensions. We have that in common with the dragonfly.  According to Paul, we, also, were designed by God to exist in two dimensions. God issues us an earthly body to live out our life here on earth, and God is going to issue us a heavenly body that will equip us to live forever in the second, eternal dimension of our providentially planned existence in heaven.

This is why Paul writes those profoundly devotional verses in chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians telling us that we should welcome, accept and embrace anything that grows our eternal inward man, preparing it for heaven.

“Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”  (2 Corinthians 4:16)

Some of the most profound devotional thoughts ever written are found in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.  For example, he writes of the outward man and the inward man.  He declares the value that the inward man is a greater value than the outward man because the outward man is temporal, but the inward man is eternal.  He labels the outward man a little clay pot, a perishable container, a common earthenware jar, and a tent that is folded up when we die.

When he writes these verses, Paul gives great consolation to those of us who are older and to those who are suffering the ravages of illness. Old age is not for wimps.  Neither is a long debilitating illness like being a bed fast quadriplegic for decades. However, by personal experience, I can resonate fully with what Paul has written here.  I have learned to be grateful for anything God directs or permits in my life that grows my eternal inward man, which is a greater value than my temporal outward man.

C. S. Lewis believed that “The clergy are those particular people within the whole church who have been especially trained and set aside to look after what concerns us as creatures who are going to live forever.  Life was not meant for pleasure only, nor for ease, but for discipline. Not for temporal, but for eternal values.  Not for the satisfying of a life here on earth, but for the development of a life for heaven.”

Hold in perspective the reality that God is continuously shaping us down here so we will fit in up there.

“…  When I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

Paul opens a small biographical window into his life when he tells us about what he calls his “thorn in the flesh.” He explains that he had so many supernatural experiences that to keep him humble, God permitted him to have this “thorn.” Paul asked God three specific times to take it away.  Even though he had an extraordinary ministry that brought healing to many, three times God’s response was essentially “No!  But My grace will be with you and that is all you need to cope with the challenge of your thorn.”

Although we’re not certain what this “thorn” was he wrote to the Galatians that when he first visited them his eyes were so hideous to look at it made them want to vomit.  He reminded them that they said if they could have, they would have taken the eyes out of their heads and placed them in his. The book of Acts reports that at the same time his physician Dr. Luke joined him so he could treat him. This “thorn” was accompanied with severe chronic fatigue.  He mentions weakness so much in his writings we know that every day of his extraordinary ministry Paul had to cope with this extreme chronic fatigue.

Paul explains that his physical weakness was a showcase in which God could exhibit His Own supernatural strength.  In the Living Bible Paraphrase of this chapter God tells Paul, “My strength looks good on weak people …” And Paul confesses, “The less I have the more I depend on Him.” All of this is summarized in these words: “…  When I am weak, then I am strong.”

Will you let your weakness showcase God’s strength and grace today?

“…wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?…” (Matthew 2: 1-2)

When we begin reading the Old Testament we find ourselves facing the question: “Where are you?” When we begin reading the New Testament we read that wise men asked the question: “Where is He?” The Old Testament shows us where we are and when it does, the New Testament makes sense to us because we are looking for the same Savior those wise men were seeking.

Where is He?  If we want to find Him we should look where the love is, because if we live in the love that He is we will live in Him, and He will live in us.  As we seek for clues to His reality we are given another answer by the Apostle John:

“God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship…” (1 John 1: 5-7).

The aged apostle tells us that God is light and if we want to fellowship with Him He will not come live with us in our darkness.  No, we must join Him where He lives in the light.  Then we have fellowship with Him and a unique fellowship with all those who are in fellowship with Him.

The light of which John writes is truth – the truth this world saw and heard when the Light became flesh and lived with us full of truth and the grace to live that truth.  So, if you want to know where He is, look where the light is.  Then become a conduit of that light.

“Jesus replied, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 22: 37-40)

In this profound passage from the Gospel of Matthew we hear Jesus say that two commandments are the essence of the whole Bible.  Jesus was the greatest Teacher this world has ever heard or will ever hear.  He astonished the theologians of His day especially by how He took the complex and made it so very simple.

With great wisdom and insight someone has written:

“I sought my soul but my soul I could not see.

I sought my God but my God eluded me.

I met my neighbor and I found all three.”

When people use a gesture as they speak of God they often raise both arms above their head.  If we understand these two commandments that express the essence of the entire Bible we would be more likely to spread our arms horizontally when we speak of God.

In my opinion, the most dynamic truth in the Bible is that we can know God and that God knows us. If you want to know God, my sense is that you will not find Him by climbing an ivory tower or by withdrawing from this world of people and become a monastic.

I believe it is not either/or but both/and.  You can seek Him and find Him in solitude but not without becoming a conduit of the love He has for the people of this world – all the people of this world.  Seek to know Him in both these directions.

“… for he who would come to God must believe that He is…”      ..(Hebrews 11:6)

Do you know God?  I do not mean do you know a lot about God, but do you know God?  Do you want to know God?  In the fragment of the verse quoted above we find a prescription that can help you know God.

The prescription is that we must believe that He is, and we must believe that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.  My passion to know God led me to confess:  “I believe that He is.”  But what is He and where is He?

A very helpful answer came through a verse in the first letter of the Apostle John where he wrote: “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them” (1 John 4:16).  After studying the quality of love God is, the prescription above led me to ask another question: “If God is this quality of love, where is He likely to be doing His love thing?”

At that time I was a social worker.  Responding to a call in the middle of the night, I prayed something like this:  “God, I have an idea that You are loving where people are hurting.  That’s where I’m going, so when I get there pass this love You are through me and address their pain.”

As the love of God passed through me to them I touched God and He touched me. That night I found out where God is and where I wanted to be for the rest of my life.

If you want to know God, place yourself as a conduit between His love and the pain of hurting people.

“Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him. Children …are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.” (Psalm 127: 3 -4)

In our culture today it is obvious that we do not have the values of God in many areas of the way we live.  In this magnificent little psalm Solomon declares that children are a gift from God – we should be filled with joy when we realize we are going to be parents.  Although millions of people do agree with God on this value, there are many millions who do not.  That is painfully obvious as many, many millions of children are aborted every year simply because they are not wanted.

In this beautiful psalm Solomon gives us an inspired metaphor.  He writes that children are like arrows and their parents are like bows from which they are thrust out into life.  This means that being parents is a solemn and serious responsibility.  The way some young people are thrust into life makes me think of the poet who wrote: “I shot an arrow into the air; it fell to earth I know not where.”

As David faced the giant Goliath, he said magnificent and wonderful things.  The king was watching from the top of a hill.  The king asked his general “Whose son is that young man?” When David reported to the king with Goliath’s head, the king asked the same question.  It is as if he was saying to David “You are a beautiful arrow, but I want to meet the bow from which you were thrust into life.”

If you are a parental ‘bow,’ rejoice and trust God to make you more than the best bow you can be.

“And a great windstorm arose…but He said to them, ‘How is it that you have no faith?’…and there was a great calm.” (Mark 4: 35-40)

If you read the story recorded in the verses referenced above you will see that Jesus directed the apostles to get into their boat and cross over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  On this sea crossing a great storm fell upon them.  They woke Him with the question, “Don’t you even care that we (including Him) are all going to drown?” After turning the great storm into a great calm He asked them the great question, “How is it that you have no faith?”

Jesus had been teaching them that He was the King of the Kingdom of God and they were subjects in that Kingdom.  Did they really think all of this was going to come to an end at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee?  One translation renders His great question “Do you not even yet believe in me?” Another puts it “When are you going to get some faith?”

Before we are too hard on the apostles, let’s apply the essential truth of this story personally.  Jesus has promised us that He will take us to the other side of this life to the next dimension called heaven.  While we are on that journey if a great storm falls upon us, do we believe that storm declares all His promises to be null and void?  Or do we have a quality of faith that can turn that great storm into a great calm?

This story teaches us that storms in our life are a classroom in which God wants to strengthen, grow and authenticate our faith.

“But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles…” (Isaiah 40:31)

The Golden Eagle in the Mediterranean referenced in the Bible likes to build its nest at least ten thousand feet above sea leve, preferably in a Craig near the top of a cliff.  From that elevation the eagle can see a storm approaching while the storm is still far off.  With great patience the eagle waits until the winds of that storm reach a very high velocity and engulf the eagle and its nest.  The eagle then leaps fifteen feet from its nest directly into the adverse wind of that storm.  This adverse wind gives the eagle the lift and aerodynamics it needs to soar over that storm.

When the prophet Isaiah exhorts the people of God to mount up with wings as eagles do, he is referring to this storm strategy of the eagle.  When a storm comes into our life, our reflex response should not always be to ask God to deliver us from the storm.  We should consider applying this exhortation of Isaiah.  We can wait on the Lord until He shows us it is the right time.  Then we can leap into the adverse winds of that storm and find in them the spiritual aerodynamics to soar over that storm.

When the Church was born at Pentecost the great miracle happened after the apostles had waited on the Lord for forty days.  The apostles found miraculous spiritual aerodynamics by moving out against severe persecution, obeying the Great Commission,and making disciples for Jesus Christ.

When God permits or directs a storm into your life and mine, are we willing to wait on the Lord until He gives us the power to soar over that storm?

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”

 The way we see things can be the difference between a life filled with light, or happiness, and a life filled with darkness, or unhappiness and depression. Jesus and the entire Word of God will consistently challenge our mindset and show us how we should see things.

Have you as a believer ever found yourself in a funk and realized that you needed to have an attitude adjustment?  I certainly have and I have learned there are times when an attitude adjustment can pull me out of what I have come to label a “pit fit.”  The two letters “AA” represent many things.  But let them remind you to make regular attitude adjustments when you need to make them.

There are times when the best defense is a good offense.  That is especially true when it comes to attitudes.  Instead of erecting a strong defense of attitude adjustments, the better part of wisdom is to put in place a strong offense of God ordained positive attitudes that will raise us above the devastating effects of “stinkin thinkin.”

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught us that if we want to be part of His solution, the salt of the earth and the light of the world, we must begin by having eight attitude adjustments.  In your Bible turn to Chapter Five of the Gospel of Matthew and study closely what we call the eight blessed attitudes or beatitudes of Jesus.

When you understand and apply them they will make your life the light of the world!