PLEASING OUR PROFESSOR

I have been so hung up on making sure what I write is perfectly edited that it has hindered me from writing at all. This probably needs editing:

I was half asleep listening to the local Christian radio station one work day morning, about to hit the snooze button, when in between songs they were asking the question of listeners: What is God teaching you right now? What school are you in?

A lady called in and said, “I’m in Abiding 101”
The hostess asked, “What does that look like?”
The lady answered, “Well, God is teaching me that I need to stay close to Him, stay in His word, pray, etc. He is my source. I need to depend completely on Him”
She went on to explain some of what God was teaching her about how to abide.
The hostess replied, “I think you are going to pass with flying colors.”
The lady said, “YOU ARE NOT THE PROFESSOR!”

Let those words hit you like a ton of bricks, like they did me! I was now wide awake. The ladies response to the hostess was shocking and rude. Yet I admired her for the clarity she had about the only One she needs to please. God is her professor and He is the One who will grade her. She will be encouraged by Him when He passes her, if He passes her.

It is so easy to receive encouraging words from people! My response to the hostess may have been, “Thank you”, not even stopping to wonder on what basis she had said it. Probably because it is nice to know how other people are responding to what we say. It is encouraging to see ourselves from someone else's point of view. We need the encouragement sometimes, because it is difficult to see the growth and/or changes in ourselves. We need the feedback. I would not have analyzed her statement or asked myself why she said it.

I am not saying that receiving encouragement is a bad thing. However, we need to think about what the root is for our need of it. How much weight do we put on the feedback from people? Are we seeking encouragement from people because we aren’t intimate enough with God to get it directly from Him? We need to think about where our focus is and whom it is we are truly trying to please! The lady did not share about “Abiding 101” in order to get a pat on the back. We don’t know her motives, but we do know her only focus was on pleasing God and no one else.

The loud point was made, YOU ARE NOT MY PROFESSOR. He is the one I need to please. He will judge whether I’m doing a good job or not. He will encourage me. His opinion about how I am doing is the only opinion I can truly listen to. If I listen to your opinion and believe I am doing a great job when in reality I am not, then I’m in deep trouble with my professor. I will fail the test and have to take it over.

An analogy is if I receive an assignment from my professor at my local university to write a term paper, I also receive the guidelines and the requirements. The “rules” if you will. After the paper has been written I may want you to read it before I turn it in. I may need your opinion, your encouragement, and your corrections. However, since you are not aware of the guidelines that I have received or of the requirements that the professor has laid down, you will read my term paper based on your own guidelines, your own requirements and your own point of view. Also, you may not catch all my grammatical or punctuation errors. You are not able to read what I wrote from the viewpoint of my professor. You are a friend who offers me encouragement from your point of view.

So I turn in my term paper based on your affirmation. My professor thinks it is poorly written, that the punctuation and grammar are horrible. He fails me. Why did I fail? Because my focus was on pleasing you, not on pleasing my professor, even though I knew full well what was expected of me. I made a choice to listen to your valued opinion rather than to follow my professor’s guidelines, requirements and rules for writing as my plumb line.

We can’t compare ourselves to how others are doing either.

The other side of the coin is that we like to encourage other people when we see the changes they are making in their lives due to obedience to their “professor”. When we see growth, we may make a comment about it.

The hostess was just making a statement of encouragement from her point of view. There is another way to look at it. It was arrogant of her to assume that the lady was going to pass with flying colors. On what basis was she able to make that assumption? It was based on what the lady said she was learning, but not by what she was living, because she did not share anything about how she was living out what she was learning. It is very easy for people to talk about what they have learned and quite another thing for them to live it. At the same time, it is very easy for us to talk about what we have learned and quite another to actually be living it.

So the best person to go straight to the reality of what we are living is our Professor, God Himself. He is the perfect judge and His ways keep us on the narrow path. His guidelines are truth.

It is not a bad thing for us to encourage each other, but this situation made me think about making sure my encouragement lines up with what God is doing in someone’s life.

There are many ways to look at this short conversation.
1. Look only to the Lord for approval, encouragement
2. Don’t receive things people say unless you know they are from the heart of God
3. It is sometimes arrogant of us to tell people they are doing a good job, when in fact they are not being obedient to the Lord. We have no way of knowing what God is doing in someone’s life. Our comments may be stumbling blocks to them if they are not in alignment and if the person listens to us instead of to their professor.

What Happened to Gravity?

Just to repeat what I wrote on my Facebook status line: I am wondering if anyone feels the shaking going on? In your emotions it feels uncomfortable; unsettling.You may feel fear, insecurity and unstable about life, your job, your future, your savings, mortgage, retirement, IRA, etc.
I have been feeling the shaking and though it is affecting me on an emotional level it is really a spiritual issue. Do you feel it too? Do you also feel like you are being shaken to the core of your being? If you have not or are not feeling the shaking yet, then think of this blog as a prophetic word, because the shaking will touch your life.
We can see the shaking going on in our country which will eventually affect all of us on a personal level. I believe that it is going to get worse and that is why we need to depend on something that can not be shaken; something that is so solid and firm that no matter what goes on in the earth (earthquakes, tornado’s, tsunami’s, floods, fires, wars, H1N1, bird flu, epidemics, diseases, financial disaster, etc) we will not have any fear, but will be in perfect peace.
For example, right now I am going through a personal “shaking” (again)that feels like every part of me has been tossed up into the air and I am no longer standing on solid ground. (What happened to gravity?) It’s like threshing & winnowing harvested wheat by hand.The seed heads are crushed and then laid out on a bed sheet and tossed into the air in order to be “set free” from the chaff. The wheat falls to the sheet, but the chaff is blown away by the wind.The tossing continues until all the chaff has blown away and the only thing left is the wheat.
Whether you know Jesus Christ personally right now or not, His desire is for you to depend on and trust in Him in every area of your life. He loves all of us totally, completely and unconditionally. It is important that we discover those things in us that need to be crushed, threshed & winnowed, which I am condensing into the word “shaken”, because this process actually reveals to us those areas of our lives where we do not trust Him fully. The world is being shaken as well, so that everything that is not built on Him will be removed and only the things founded on Him will remain. It will affect us personally, since we live in the world. However if we surrender to Him and allow Him to shake us, we will have a strong foundation that can not be shaken and the things going on in the earth will not even faze us. We will abide in perfect peace and joy. This is His desire for all of us. It’s important to understand,because He is the King of Kings and His Kingdom is not of this world. His Kingdom can not be shaken no matter what happens on this earth, so as we surrender our lives to Him daily we become unshakeable as well. I am not saying that if we do this that life will immediately become easy, because there will always be something in us that needs to be crushed, threshed & winnowed. It is called sin. However, it is His grace on us to teach us how to surrender to the process right now. He wants to shake us free of everything that is not of Him, so that only the things that are of Him will remain. Anything that we have built our lives on other than Him will crumble beneath our feet. Building our lives on Him is like building on solid rock that cannot be shaken, blown away or destroyed.The more dependent we are on Him, the more unshakeable we become.
If you have not accepted Him as your personal Savior now is the time.This blog was not specifically about salvation.However it is important that you know how to receive Jesus right now, if that is what you want to do.This is just a brief explanation.
The chaff in our lives is sin. Every way in which we fall short of perfection is “sin”. Our sins separate us from God and there is no way to be forgiven or to be reconciled to God and get to heaven except through Jesus Christ, God’s Son. But Father God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die for our sins. Jesus also loved us and was willing to take all of our sins, to suffer and die on the cross for us. He took the punishment for our sins so that if we choose to believe in Him, we would not have to be punished.It is through His shed blood on the cross that we are saved and set free from the bondage of sin. It’s through Him that we are forgiven when we turn to Him and repent. It is totally up to us what we want to do with this truth. If you want to accept Him as your Savior then ask Him into your life, repent for your sins, receive His forgiveness and then live for Him. To live for Him means total surrender to His will and to be obedient to Him. Please let me know if you want to do this or if you have any questions.

Tiny Splinters

A few days ago I had the tiniest of splinters in my baby finger and it hurt a LOT! So I had to remove it. Then today I had a tiny splinter in another finger that did not hurt at all, but I removed it anyway. I thought of sin - sometimes we feel the conviction and sometimes we don't. Either way we need to repent and remove it.

Along the same theme: I was reading 1 Sam 24: 4-22. I never used to understand why David felt such remorse over cutting off a corner of Saul's robe. It didn't seem like sin to me at all. 1 Samuel says that David's heart troubled him. I understand it now. When we are abiding with the Lord the tiniest of sins, bad attitudes, mean words and/or thoughts bring conviction and our hearts are troubled. David had such a wonderful, soft heart toward God. His intimate relationship with God is a great example for us. He was quick to repent and humble himself when later in life he committed adultery with a married woman, got her pregnant, had her husband killed in battle to keep it all a secret, then married her. Perhaps you have not committed sins "that bad" (I have) yet if God loved David and called him "a man after My own heart" then we know that God loves us too. God forgives the big stuff and the small stuff, our part is to repent.

"WHAT IS TRUTH?"

I was reading John 18 a couple of days ago and part of it is the story of when Jesus was being questioned by Pilate before He was crucified.

John 18:37-38, "Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?"

Jesus answered, "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."

38 Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, "I find no fault in Him at all.”

The words, “WHAT IS TRUTH” jumped off the page at me. Can you picture Pilate’s reaction in this scene? Truth was not something real to him. He heard what Jesus said, but he did not comprehend it. Earlier in His life Jesus had said He was the truth*. So if we do not know Him, we can not know the truth. It remains an enigma, something hidden and unreachable. In fact, we could say that the amount of truth we know is in direct proportion to the level of intimacy we have with Jesus Christ. It would be worthwhile for our personal advantage to evaluate our lives and determine how personal our relationship is to Jesus. How well do we know Him? How much time do we spend with Him? Have we surrendered our lives to Him and made a decision to die to our own selfish desires to allow His perfect will to be done in our lives? Do we hear and recognize His voice?

Since Jesus is the truth and is the very foundation of it, we would want Him to become our plumb line, our guide for all of life. He is a like a lighthouse shining its light on the rocky places of life. John 8:31-36 says this, “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

“They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, 'You will be made free'?

“Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

We can only know the truth if we abide in His word. Abide is a small word, but it packs a powerful punch. It means to continue in a particular condition, attitude, relationship; to remain, continue, stay. We must not just say with our lips, I believe in Him. We can believe in a lot of things without giving our lives for them. Therefore, being a disciple of His requires much more than just believing. It is abiding with Him, having intimate (emotional and spiritual) relationship with Him, it is being grafted in to Him who is the life source. When we are His disciples, we do not just know the truth, but the truth shall make us free.

* John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” NKJV

To be continued.

CHOICES

A friend of mine just asked me what I sense the Lord is telling me right now. (July is a sabbatical month, so we have been spending a lot of time with the Lord Jesus Christ and learning how to rest in Him.) My answer is that we need to get close to the Lord, to really know His heart, because we are not going to make it through the days ahead unless we do.
The days ahead are going to be more difficult than we have ever known, however, if we will get close to the Lord and stay close to Him, then we will not get “lost” in the hardships and confusion, the loss of jobs and financial crisis. We will not give in to fears.
On 7.1.09 the Lord gave me Jeremiah 17:5-8 which says, "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. 6 For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. 7 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. 8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” NKJV
In response to vs. 5 & 6, what or who do we depend on to get us through the difficult times in life? Take time to think about it for a minute. Sometimes we go to a spouse, a friend, a counselor, a teacher or someone in authority when we need help. Other times we depend on ourselves, believing that it’s a crutch to need other people or God. There may be times when we use various methods of escape from reality which could include any number of things from reading a book to taking drugs.
It seems easier to depend on, trust in, and rely on anything and everything except God. But these verses are clear that we are cursed when we choose those other paths and allow our own hearts to depart from the Lord. What that means to me, based on what I know about God’s love for each of us, is that when we make a choice to depend on anything besides God, the decision causes us to be cursed in that the results of our decision bring us situations of dryness, i.e. lack of hope, growth, fruitfulness, etc. The list is endless. We will be like a shrub in the desert and we will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness. We won’t even see when good comes, i.e. we will even be blind to the good things when they come our way. God does not want our hearts to depart from Him. He does not want us to be cursed. He loves every single on of us too much. He wants to pour out His blessings on us, exceedingly abundantly, beyond all that we could ask or imagine.
So, if we make the choice to put the Lord first, trust in Him, and place our hope in Him, then we will be blessed. We will be like a tree planted by the waters, whose roots go very deep. There will be no need to fear when things get “hot”; nor will we get anxious in the times of drought, i.e. the times when life is throwing us curve balls and we don’t know how to hit the ball. We will still have those times of difficulty, but as we choose to trust in & rely on the Lord, not on ourselves, we will continue to be fruitful. There will probably not panic or freak out. We can be calm and at peace, resting in Him.
The relationship that we have with the Lord grows more intimate over time. As we get to know Him, we trust Him more. Daily we are faced with the decision to surrender to His will or not. Jesus’ attitude throughout His life on earth was to do whatever His Father told Him to do, even when facing death by crucifixion. His prayer in the garden was, “not My will, but Yours, be done." It was not easy for Him. He told His disciples in the gospel of Matthew that His soul was “exceedingly sorrowful”. When He prayed He asked His Father if it was possible to “let this cup pass from Me”, which meant, do I really have to go through with this plan of Yours? Even so, His first desire was to do His Father’s will. We are faced with this struggle over things much less serious than death! However, He has died to give us the victory over sin. He has given His life so that we could have abundant life. Let’s go for it! Every day let’s make a choice to get closer to Him, our life depends on it.

Huntington Beach, CA

Huntington Beach! My home for 25 years. My husband & I visited Surf City last July 2008 and pretended to be tourists from South Carolina. Talk about weird. We really are from South Carolina now, but keeping quiet about the fact that we lived in Huntington Beach for almost half my life was difficult. We checked into Hotel Huntington Beach right there at Beach Blvd and Edinger, on Center Ave parallel to the 405 Frwy. Our room looked out toward the office buildings where I used to work and we had a terrific view of the freeway. It was very helpful in the morning when we could see the morning commute traffic first hand. No need to turn on the radio! So Hotel Huntington Beach is across the street from what used to be the Huntington Center, but now it's the modern fancy dancy Bella Terra complete with restaurants and a huge Edwards movie theatre. We hung out at the fountain, watched the kids run around and waited for our movie to start. The center was unpopular at one time because everyone shopped at the Westminster Mall. The renovation was amazing! It's beautiful now. I was thankful that Islands (fine burgers and drinks) was still there. We walked over there after the movie and pretended we were in Hawaii. The atomosphere is as fun as the food is good. (They don't have Islands restaurants in SC, that is South Carolina, not Southern California. AKA as Cali to southerners, but don't ever call California "Cali" in my hearing, unless you are referring to Cali, Columbia. It is a pet peeve with me for some reason.) We needed to see the ocean again, so the next morning we headed out, avoiding the freeway and drove up Beach Blvd to Main Street to take the local short cut to the downtown Huntington Beach area. The Honda US Open of Surfing was going on so it was more crowded than a subway in New York. We knew where the good parking was though. We parked and walked past the Sugar Shack toward the famous Pacific Coast Highway, PCH. We enjoyed watching the surfer competition. Bethany Hamilton was one of the competitors and she is still an amazing surfer. We never attended the US Open of Surfing when we lived there, but while on vacation the crowds were not annoying at all. In fact, it was quite enjoyable. The picture above was not taken the day of the Surfing competition. It was actually taken in November 2007 when the waves were so small the Atlantic ocean would have seemed wild. I was extremely disappointed. So in July 2008 I took a hundred pictures of the ocean, the surfers and the huge waves. I had never done that before either. There was no need. Sometimes you don't realize how much you love a place until you leave. And you certainly don't take pictures of something you see every day. So enjoy every moment where you are and don't be reluctant to take pictures of the fun every day things in your life. For lunch we headed up to Five Points to revisit Baja Fresh, which is the best Mexican "fast" food. It also has an amazing salsa bar and I am in to salsa. We didn't have time to visit Acapulco's on Beach Blvd up in Stanton or the one in Costa Mesa on Adams or the one on PCH in Long Beach, which are all good. But we did go to the one in Burbank while visiting my son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. It would be outrageous to visit So Calif and NOT visit Acapulco's. Why it would be downright unforgivable! It's a great place to celebrate a birthday. My daughter and son-in-law drove all the way from Escondido to Burbank to join us. We had a great time, as always. Well speaking of dinner, I need to stop writing about it and start fixing it - for today, right here, right now.

Difficulties in Life

Actually written on May 30, 2009 and posted at 5:55 pm on my Facebook..

Regarding the economic downturn I was inspired by a note one of my friends wrote and got to thinking that it's a great time to get rid of material possessions we aren't really using anymore, to live life more simply yet with increased wisdom, etc. God is taking us through a pruning process physically, emotionally and spiritually. I believe it is to prepare us for the greater things that He has promised us. If we have already been living our lives allowing the Holy Spirit to put us through the fire and pruning process, it's not AS difficult right now. (I'm not saying it is not difficult, just that it is not AS difficult) If we have procrastinated or resisted His process in us, then these times will be much more difficult. Either way - He is faithful to get us through it and His grace is on us. We just need to surrender to the process. I don't know who said this: "Don't waste your trials." but we may as well learn everything God wants to teach us through the process!
I have done both! I have surrendered and resisted. It all depends on the trial. But mostly my attitude has done a 180, in recent years. I look at the difficult times now as a stepping stone for further growth and relationship with my Lord Jesus. I think that if we are looking at the difficulties of life from the perspective that God loves us and He is with us it makes it easier. Plus, it doesn't matter the source! Whether it is a pruning from our Lord or a trial from the devil, we can still learn a lot. I am proposing that all difficulties can lead us to a deeper more intimate relationship with God and that it is all in our attitude about it.