Why All The Rules?

I left Acton for a very conservative Bible school in the fall of 1985.  It was there that for the young men who attended like myself, our hair couldn’t touch our collar or ears.  We wore ties and dress shirts each day to class.  We all woke up at 6am and by 6:25am needed to be in our room doing our devotions by 6:30am. A bell would ring at 6:55am and we would all head down to the dining hall for breakfast, but for another devotion.  We would have assigned seating with men on one side of the table and ladies on the other side, and a female server who would bring us more juice, milk, toast etc.  There was also mandatory study hall in the evenings and don’t even think about playing music on your  Sony Walkman with headphones as I found out because the demerit points would rack up.  If you had 10 points in a week, it meant you were ‘campused’ for the weekend.  This meant that you were to stay in your dorm room and only allowed for meals! 

The thought process I believe was that self-discipline and a Spirit-controlled life would happen through external modes of discipline and control.  However, here is the crazy thing that happened in me.  As I began to participate in that culture, it produced in me an incentive to rebel.  I got’ campused ‘ a lot! For others it produced a form of self-righteousness.

In my dorm, we had Tony, an older man, who, no word of a lie, created his spiritual top 50 list based on our behaviors around the school from time spent in prayer, devotion, ministry opportunities etc…  Tony’s approach wasn’t very well received and he became the target of many pranks.  As you can imagine it didn’t help our standing on his spiritual top 50.

Let’s look at Romans 7:8 where Paul was describing this very thing. He is struggling with this very issue with his desire to do things that are pleasing to God and yet doing the opposite.

For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting.

The ugliness of human nature is such that being told not to do something actually creates in you the desire to do it.

And on the flipside, we see from the life of Paul that the attempt to observe the law unfortunately produced in him a self-righteousness that was quite ugly as well. 

He made it clear in Philippians 3:4-9

 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

And as Sharon mentioned last week, he considered that all “crap” compared to knowing the freedom of being in Christ.

So, why do we gravitate towards creating rules for ourselves and others when it comes to knowing God?

Rules are safe, they create boundaries to know whether you are in or out.

Rules allow you to create a measuring stick to know how well you are doing. 

“We choose rules because they are a nicely packaged alternative to a relationship with God.” Duane McLean shared in my service on Sunday….so true!

What is the danger in removing rules?

People will become lazy in following Jesus, they may end up just living in sin longer.

Let’s MOVE from following RULES to a deep love relationship with our FATHER

 Sometimes when we live by the rules we qualify that as relationship and we love our spiritual habits more than the person who we are supposed to fall in love with.

The Scriptures were never an end in themselves.  They are intended to lead us to Jesus and greater intimacy with Him.

John 5:39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

I had a professor in Bible School who knew entire books of the Bible by memory and was a walking commentary; however what I remember most wasn’t his Bible knowledge.  I remember an embarrassing moment for a student in his class.  All of us as students had 6hrs of mandatory work to complete in the week to keep our room and board costs down.  Unfortunately for a student by the name of Jared,  his job was to milk the cows at 4am!  One day he fell asleep in class and the professor decided to shame and belittle him instead of really understanding his situation.

So, the point of knowing and reading Scripture, the point of prayer, the point of journaling, the point of any spiritual exercise is not to feel superior or boast, but it is to draw you into a closer walk and deeper intimacy and love for Jesus.

Here’s an example.  If you are disciplined to wake up at 6am to do your devotions, but you are yelling at your kids at supper time… maybe that’s not working for you.

Let’s talk real, practical, out of the box…

What are some simple examples or spiritual exercises that have helped nurture your relationship with God to a deeper level of faith and trust.

Let’s look again at what the Bible says about rules and the law.

Hebrews 10:15The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says: 16“This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put My Laws in their hearts and inscribe them on Ttheir minds.” 17Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”…

This verse is a direct fulfillment of a prophecy that was given in the book of Jeremiah.  It was to be so much a very living and vital part of us.

Jeremiah 3133"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Let’s MOVE from an ACHIEVING SYSTEM to RECEIVING all He has for us in Christ

All of our life, from school to the workplace, there is evaluation and constant correction, approval and disapproval, promotion and demotion.  We live in an achieving system so it is so easy to stay there when it comes to defining our spiritual life by some of the more common objectives.

·         How much time to do you spend in prayer daily?

·         How much time do you spend reading Scripture?

·         How much time do you spend serving in the church?

·         How many people have you witnessed to this week?

Colossians 2:6

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

We continue on in Christ the same way that we received Christ and that has nothing to do with us.  It has everything to do with Him.  It is all about being  IN HIM, abiding IN HIM,  resting In Him, HIS words abiding in us.   It is His enabling strength,  it is His teaching, it is out of HIS overflow.

We have nothing to give apart from what He has done in us.

There will be fruit in your life, but is it coming from overflow or rules?

Here is a way to know.

When it is from overflow, it really is easy, it’s natural, it’s a way of life.  It isn’t forced, it wells up inside you.

Let’s MOVE from SELF reliance on our own to LISTENING to the Holy Spirit

Ephesians 2:8-10

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  (before ordained in the KJV)

This is incredible strong language.  The word ordained is the same here to the words used to describe our justification and regeneration in Romans 8.  It is all about the foreknowledge of God!

I like to say that God sets us up for divine appointments. 

He puts us in certain situations around specific people for the purpose of sharing His love.

When I want to share with you the most beautiful and amazing story of a friend of ours who seeks to do all things by listening to the Spirit and by the power of the Spirit.

I remember one afternoon being in Costco with Sharon when we got this message from Maggie B. who leads the Father’s Heart Healing Rooms ministry.  She told us she felt led by the HS to ask us to invite Roger C., the owner of the Manor to her “Healing and Prophetic” service.  I didn’t really think she was hearing right.  It really did seem absurd to me in the moment and so I had a choice.  Do I act or “sluff it off” so to speak.

However, I believe that Maggie was hearing from the Holy Spirit, I took a risk to follow through.

Roger has not even stepped into a ‘regular’ church service.  However, I was obedient and simply texted him.  He replied, “Yes, I’ll come…what is the dress code”  Of course I said it was casual, but here is a small example of God’s goodness.

Maggie wrapped a Canadian flag around her to share about her burden for the nation.  When Roger showed up,  he had a Canadian flag on his belt buckle   It was then that I knew this wasn’t a fluke, Roger was meant to be here.

At one point during the 3 hour service, he leans over and asks, “Is there going to be an intermission?”

lol

Can you identify a time when you recognized that God had prepared you in advance for a connection or meeting with someone? 

The TAKEAWAY

Here’s YOUR TEST, this week move

from rules to relationship!

from achieving to receiving!

from self reliance to listening!

Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you in one of these areas.  Remember He is our teacher.

God, Sex and the Song of Songs!

How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
    How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume
    more than any spice!
¹¹ Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;
    milk and honey are under your tongue.

Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
    your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
    are like the halves of a pomegranate.

Your graceful legs are like jewels,
    the work of an artist’s hands.
² Your navel is a rounded goblet
    that never lacks blended wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat
    encircled by lilies.
³ Your breasts are like two fawns,
    like twin fawns of a gazelle.

God created sex and it is most completely understood and expressed within the context of marriage.  Marriage creates the security, the boundaries and most importantly, sexual fulfillment is the bond that is completely fulfilled within that God given covenant.  A Christian marriage has three people in the bedroom and as John Piper has said, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him”. 

Sexual purity is pleasing to Him.

Sexual intimacy is meant to be shameless!

We only have to go back to Genesis to see the way that God designed us – Genesis 2:24,25 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.  25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

I know that many of the people we encounter in our post Christian culture think the Bible is hopelessly naïve on the subject of sex.  However, the message was given in a time when women were treated as possessions, where there was all forms of illicit sex taking place, where there was sexual slavery.

 The challenge for our generation is that we live where the opportunity to see the lowest forms of sexuality are one click away. Our children are being confronted with these issues earlier and earlier in life.

As followers of Jesus, we need to talk about sex and I just have to give a shout out to our pastors Jim and Carrie Gordon who present it in the most positive light at http://www.theintimatecouple.com/

We read in Hebrews 13: 4,5

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;  never will I forsake you.

There’s the challenge…be content with what you have.  In a throw-away culture unfortunately marriages and relationships are quickly given up on much like an appliance that needs to be replaced. 

Proverbs 5:18 Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. 19 She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.

Song of Songs as seen in the following video breaks down the outline of the book into the three major themes of courtship, the wedding and the marriage and does an excellent job of giving the overall theme.

Check it out.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEEXqGg5RME&t=17s

More than anything God wants us to fully experience His intimate love and desire for us as His children.

1 Corinthians 6  For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

I have talked with people who have decided to fast from sugar and the kind of withdrawl their bodies go through with headaches, but eventually they talk about the incredible energy and stamina that they feel and how they don’t feel as tired as they used to.  So, what happens to our spirit once we do this?  I believe it will come alive and have greater sensitivity to the Lord’s leading as well!

Sanctified – positionally it is being set apart for God and practically it is a progressive act of becoming more and more driven by our appetite for the Lord and His righteousness than our own selfish desires.  ‘they that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled’

 I believe the greatest person who is able to control the body is not us but the Holy Spirit as we see later in the paragraph.

Immorality is like that. It always cheats someone else—usually someone you love very much. Just ask any wife whose husband left. Just ask any parent of a child who has had an affair. Just anyone who has been to a church where their pastor fell into sexual sin.

Perhaps the saddest thing about lust is that it never satisfies. Someone has said that lust is “the craving for salt by a man dying of thirst.” It promises everything and delivers nothing. No great release. No lasting satisfaction. Not even any swift punishment.

“The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.” Sometimes he punishes the body, sometimes the mind, sometimes our speech, our eyes, often our health, and almost always our memories. Lust produces that inward deadening that is both unexpected and inevitable.

Pornography is like cocaine…you can be addicted the first time.  Pornography is just like that, you can be addicted to it the first time you open the door to it.  That is why 1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us to flee …RUN

 The most likely judgment is that God will simply leave you alone to suffer the natural consequences of your sin.

It is often the fallout and consequences to families that unfortunately more are affected and punished by the decisions of a few.

Don’t take advantage of your brother in this way.  He is putting this challenge out in the context of a brother to brother relationship.  The decisions that are made don’t just affect those caught in sexual sin, they ripple out and affect families, children, churches.

 “Every man is our ‘brother’ and to be politically correct every woman is our sister and when we engage in sexual immorality we are hurting our brothers or sisters.”

Remember if you are tempted to watch that movie or look at that image, that is somebody’s daughter, that is someone’s sister and they are precious in God’s eyes.

I have personally been crushed by the devastating effects of immorality and have seen the consequences of sin in the loss of trust and respect and fractured relationships that are still affected many years later.  I have seen it in a previous church ministry where I served when a pastor and our worship leader had an affair.  I saw a vibrant and growing church become a place that would go through disillusionment and take a number of years to recover.  

It’s not worth it.

Finally I need to share that if this is an area of regret, failure, pain, remember that our God and Father heals, He redeems, He can restore the years that have been ripped away from us, He can heal our past, our memories and give us a new, fresh and living hope. There is forgiveness, there is always forgiveness when we confess and He is the Father always waiting with open arms for us to return home.

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten  Joel 2:25

Be encouraged, God wants you to experience His incredible love for you and display it through you no matter what you have gone through.

I Got Fired...thank you LORD!

Today is thanksgiving, a time to remember, recognize and reflect on being thankful, having a heart filled with gratitude.  I know it’s easy to come up with some quick and meaningful expressions of why we are thankful… but what about when our health is failing, our family is broken or when we find ourselves out of work.

Four years ago, I was a lead pastor in Guelph of a church of about 300 people.  I had just returned from a missions trip to Lesotho, Africa on Thanksgiving Sunday where my faith and my love for Jesus was reignited!  

I had team members share about the trip and we shared the highlight video, but I never had a chance to preach what I learned during my trip…time ran out and I thought that I would preach it the following Sunday.  However, that never happened because the next day two members of my leadership team met with me to let me go.  It was a difficult moment, but the LORD prepared me for it.  It’s never easy to hear that you don’t measure up to expectations or fit with the needs of an organization.

James 1 

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Perseverance – it is an active endurance, likened to a person completing a marathon.

Often our prayer is LORD remove me from this situation…NOW; however often there are huge lessons to be learned through the process of perseverance.

In the parable of the sower, we also are given a picture of the importance of letting our faith draw from roots that go deep down.  It begins with a seed of faith that is planted in our heart; however these experiences can uproot us, scorch us or drive us down deeper into what we have to know and understand about God

I honestly believe that the hard and difficult times forge our faith and mold us and enable us to grow even more in our reliance on God or it can reveal the lack of roots.

Facebook is a great place to discover where people are at.

We had someone at the Manor Church and as soon as she went through a huge trial, she shared “I don’t believe in God, my faith is gone.”

So, what’s our choice in the hard times? 

We can choose to remain thankful or choose to rant on our social media platform.

We can say, OK, this is a test of obedience.  I will choose to walk this out in faith instead of moving forward in fear.

I listened to a great message this week on this very attitude of joy.

Isaiah 54

Sing, barren woman,
    you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
    you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
    than of her who has a husband,”
says the Lord.

1. Choose to express  JOY.

The truth here is that I can choose to express joy even though I haven’t received the answer.  Understand that this passage is speaking to the nation of Israel and is certainly applicable to the church. 

The passage is taking the natural principle of childbirth and turning it into a spiritual reality.

We are being called to SCREAM, SHOUT and be so exuberant in our worship!  It is a SCREAM of anticipation.

Shout for JOY while you can’t have kids.  Take a moment right now and think about the thing that you have the least breakthrough in, the most barren area of your life.  It may mean someone in your family who hasn’t come to know Jesus yet, it could be a family member who is battling a disease and you could be out of work right now…and what’s on the horizon doesn’t look good.  It could be a number of things.  SHOUT with extreme celebration before the answer comes.   Now this isn’t common sense and from a human perspective seems maybe presumptuous or pretentious.  However it totally makes sense from God’s perspective.

Why does it make sense?  

It is an expression of faith.  It is a deliberate choice to believe the promise and better, the Promise Giver.  Emotional expression is necessary.  This is not just an intellectual ascent that we are climbing to.

Romans 14:17 The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy. As followers of Christ, we should experience a real sense of peace and joy.

Who believes the good news is actually good news??

When we came to know Jesus as our LORD, it wasn’t just so we could have a ticket to get out of hell.  It is to become married to the FATHER and as His bride to experience fruitfulness in our greatest area of barrenness.

Also recognize that worship expression can look real weird to those who are not part of it.  Just ask Michel, David’s wife, who saw David dancing in a linen garment before the LORD when the ark returned to Israel.  She despised him in her heart.  She has issues and he said I will be even more undignified than this!  2 Samuel 6:22

Don’t judge those who are worshipping God in your midst.  Give freedom for all kinds of expression.  It will look different for all of us.

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Joy is always within reach for us.  He would not command it of us, if it wasn’t in the reach of our will to do so. 

2. Choose to accept the PROPHETIC

² “Enlarge the place of your tent,
    stretch your tent curtains wide,
    do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
    strengthen your stakes.

So, now, the desolate woman being described here is being called to express huge faith. The desolate woman is essentially being called to build the nursery even before she is pregnant.  It is that kind of faith that the LORD rewards.

The challenge being given here is if you are living in a one bedroom home, start building the addition, build the nursery.

“You need to create the room for God to fill it!” Bill Johnson

We can choose to recognize the power of the prophetic or write it off. 

So, in my exit interview, something really positive was said and I held on to it.  They expressed my ability to create things out of nothing and said that I had a pioneering spirit.

I came home and shared the good, the bad and the ugly, but when I shared those words about a pioneering spirit with Sharon, she said you’re not going to believe this but our friend Wendy had a picture while we were praying as a group before we left for Africa.

I had to leave early for another meeting so I didn’t hear the following… She shared how she saw us all in pioneer clothes and we were in a wagon.  We were heading out on a paved road that was full of turns but on each side of the road were large green trees.  She also shared with the group that the pastors from my church were waving goodbye at us!

Right away my heart was settled, I had peace and knew that God had a new adventure for us

We can make deliberate choices that show belief or not.

For me, a deliberate choice to choose joy was to take our family on a missions trip to Lesotho Africa for a month at the end of my severance package. 

The logical choice would be to find a job, but it was important to us that our children were not bitter about this situation and instead chose to see it as a great opportunity for us as a family.

We were also trusting God to show us where we would be pioneering.

3. LEARN TO WAIT and don’t give in to FEAR

Isaiah 54:13 All your children will be taught by the Lord,
    and great will be their peace.
 In righteousness you will be established:
Tyranny will be far from you;
    you will have nothing  to fear.

Sometimes we try to answer our own prayers.

In that moment following my dismissal at my previous church, I could have scrambled, quickly whipped up my resume, chase down churches looking for pastors.  I could have run to the District Office and told them to put in a good work for me…but I didn’t.

When we give in to fear, it is the gateway for the enemy who comes to steal, kill and destroy to gain a foothold in my heart and life.  It can be very crippling to our faith!

Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil…

Here’s the thing, we weren’t meant to set up camp in the valley, we were meant to walk through it!

Isaiah 40:31 KJV But they that wait (hope) upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Exodus 14:14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (at the moment Pharaoh changed his mind about letting the Israelites go)

It is easier said than done especially when you know the finances are running out and you have a family to look after.

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted  and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose.

Proverbs 3:5,6  Trust in the LORD with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.

The Takeaway

Take the most barren area of your life and hold it up to God.  As we pray, open your hands to God as an act of faith.

God, I pray that you would take this _________ area (name it) and help me find joy in the most unusual areas this week.