City of Refuge Fellowship

A few years ago when I was reading over the Genesis account of Noah and the building of the ark I came to a startling conclusion: if Noah was wrong and didn’t hear from God, the worst thing that could have happened is that he would have ended up with an arc in his backyard; but if he did hear from God and chose to question and disobey, the worst result would have been he and his family would have died in the flood. I am often asked how one can be sure that they are hearing God’s voice. The answer to that question is usually not easy to hear, Jesus said, “My sheep, they know My voice.” The key to knowing the voice of God is being in loving, intimate, obedient relationship with Him. I believe most of us want to hear from God, but we also want to be sure. We are fearful of taking a chance, of stepping out at the wrong moment, of looking foolish or even worse of having the outcome not be what we had anticipated. Walking with God is not about outcomes, it is about trust. If we follow Him for our perceived benefit we will often be disappointed because our desires rarely line up with His. But if we follow Jesus because He is worthy to be followed then we will never be disappointed because even when the path leads in directions we could have never seen or imagined, it never leads in directions that are not filled with His presence, His peace, His love and His voice.

Oswald Chambers wrote, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it knows and loves the One who is leading.” If I may be so bold as to add to the incredible writing of Oswald Chambers, I believe that “faith” also knows it is loved by the One who is leading. Isaiah 30:21 says, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” The direction is not nearly as important as the Director. If we are focused on the path then we will find ourselves in some positions that will cause us to question the choices we have made, but if we are focusing on God, His love and His guidance then every path will be filled with His presence and in His presence is fullness of joy. Just looking over Scripture we can see some paths that are hard for us to understand: David’s path led to a cave, Joseph’s path led to Egypt; Elijah’s path led to a lonely brook, the path of the three Hebrew men led to a burning furnace, Paul’s path led to Rome and Jesus’ path led to the cross. In each of these examples, looking at the path alone can cause some doubts, but if we look past the path and stay focused on the Leader, then every path ends in joy.

One of my favorite events in Scripture is when Peter walked on water. This is, for me, the greatest example of trusting the Leader more than the path. Jesus is walking on water and Peter asks to come out and join Him. With no hesitation Jesus invited Peter to leave the boat he is sitting in and walk to Him on the sea. Peter summons up enough faith to step out of the boat, he sets his eyes on Jesus and begins to walk on the lake toward Him. As he is walking he notices that the wind is “boisterous” and takes his attention off of Jesus and puts it on the path. At that moment he begins to sink and has to cry out for Jesus to save him. There will be paths in your life that God will call you to that will cause you to question and doubt if you do not keep your attention on Jesus. He leads, He guides, He protects, He provides and He fulfills His promises and His purposes. The path you travel is much less important that the Leader you follow.

When God installed Joshua as the new leader of Israel, the one that would lead them into the Promised Land, He told him three different times, “Be strong and of good courage.” Knowing that strength and courage needed a birthplace, they didn’t just come because they were needed, God first told Joshua, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” And the last thing He told him was “the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua’s courage would not be born in battle, but in knowing that God was with him. There are times in our lives in which we need courage, but the truth is, without the promise of God’s presence courage is hard to find. There are times in which we need more strength that we have ever had before, that strength does not come from our effort, it comes from God’s presence. When God called Joshua He knew that He was going to tell him to walk around the walls of Jericho, that there would be defeat in Ai and that the sun would have to stand still over Gibeon. God did not need to share all the details of the journey, every strategy and every battle with Joshua, He only needed Joshua to believe that He would be with him in every step that He took. If Joshua could be sure of God’s presence then he would always be able to muster up enough courage to obey, to believe and to walk in victory.

We all face events in our lives that require strength and courage. We all face seasons that seem to require more faith than we have had before. We all face opposition and we all are presented with opportunities that we are unsure of. I believe that we need to stop being bogged down in the details of each path and start putting our attention and our affection on the presence of God. The truth is that any path that is not filled with God’s presence, no matter what it promises or provides, is the wrong path. The opposite is also true, any path, no matter how dark or unrewarding it appears to be, if filled with God’s presence is the right path.. A few paragraphs earlier I listed a few unexpected paths from Scripture. David may not have ever expected to end up in a cave, but that cave produced protection, provision and the beginning of his mighty men. Joseph  did not choose Egypt, but going to Egypt was used that many would be saved. I am sure Elijah was lonely as he spent nearly a year drinking from a brook and being fed by Ravens, but the outcome of his journey was the glory of God and the destruction of the priests of Baal. The three Hebrew men could have avoided the burning furnace, but the furnace provided them with an experience with God and brought God glory, even in the nation of Babylon. Paul did not have to journey to Rome, in the flesh he could have avoided it, but his journey and obedience has brought salvation and strength to millions through his epistles and example. Finally, most never imagined the Messiah on a cross, but Jesus’ trust of His Father, His obedience and love opened the doors of salvation and provided victory over death and hell. Your path might not always go the way you had planned. It may even come to a place in which it seems that it must have gone terribly wrong, but if your path is in God’s presence, hold fast, stay strong and focus more on the Leader than path that you are following. Take courage in God’s presence and find peace in His love. The more fully we trust God and His voice the more desperately we will follow and when we follow hard after God we always reach the destination of His kingdom. Today, please, be willing to look away from the path so you can set your ears on His voice.

We have set aside every Tuesday as a day of prayer for our National leaders: President Obama, the Senate and the Congress. Each week we present a specific focus, birthed from Scripture, that we can agree and pray together. This week we pray that:

Our National Leaders will declare, “We will guard our ways, lest we sin with our tongue; we will restrain our mouths with a muzzle, while the wicked are before us.” Psalm 39:1

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules the people groan. Proverbs 29:2

Therefore, I will exhort that first of all supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.  I Timothy 2:1-3

There are times in our lives in which courage must be added to our faith to give us the strength to take steps of obedience. Jarius was moved by the desperation of his dying daughter. He moved in faith and in courage, believing that Jesus was able to heal was not enough, he had to have the courage to step out in faith, to find Jesus, to make his need known and then to trust Jesus to follow him to his child. In the midst of this scene there are other acts of courage that are met by the presence of God, the power of God and ultimately the loving kindness of God. Courage is fed by God’s presence and it is the act of giving our faith legs so that it can run. Believing begins the journey but courage leads to the destination. As God called Joshua to be the new leader of Israel He promised that He would never lead Him and then He commanded courage. Trust God’s presence today and walk in courage.

We have set aside every Tuesday as a day of prayer for our National leaders: President Obama, the Senate and the Congress. Each week we present a specific focus, birthed from Scripture, that we can agree and pray together. This week we pray that:

Our National Leaders will be God’s people, and He will be their God; He will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Him forever so they will not depart from Him. Jeremiah 32:38-40

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules the people groan. Proverbs 29:2

Therefore, I will exhort that first of all supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.  I Timothy 2:1-3

The author of Hebrews tells us to “look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.” Where we set our gaze is very important to measuring the outcome of our given situation. I believe that we reap from where we set our attention. If our attention is set our circumstances, on our difficulties, on our lack of understanding then we will reap from those places; but if we will set our attention on Jesus, on His love, on His Word and on His promises then we will reap from Jesus. His love for us is enormous, His desire for us is that we would trust Him enough to set aside what we don’t understand, set aside what we are afraid of and what makes us anxious and set our hearts, our minds and our hopes on His will for our lives. Jesus was run the race already, He started and finished it, He understands our trials and He has overcome our temptation. We now have the opportunity to look to Him, not as a last resort, not as a far away God but as One that Has already overcome, already finished the race and already won the victory. Look to Jesus, He will always lead to joy, always lead to joy and always lead to truth.

Have you ever been to a party that suddenly went bad? A time that was supposed to be a celebration that out of nowhere became filled with tension, sadness or even strife? After the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem all of the people of Israel gathered at the Water Gate for a celebration that called for the reading of the Book of the Law. After years of captivity and shame, Israel was finally returning to it’s former glory. The Temple was rebuilt, the walls were rebuilt, the people had returned to their cities to rebuild their homes and now, the last but most important step, they were rebuilding their relationship with God by a public reading and respecting of His Word. As Ezra was reading the Law the people listened intently. They started with excitement, they could not wait to hear what the Law said, but as they listened they became alarmed because they did not measure up. The people began to weep. They were touched with conviction but it seems this was more than that, it seems that they began to be consumed by grief. They lost sight of the purpose of the day, they lost sight of the newly and miraculously built walls, they lost sight of their return to their Promised Land, they lost sight of God’s forgiveness and deliverance and their attention was set on their sin, again.

I have begun to learn that there is an enormous difference between our thoughts of salvation and God’s. We have allowed salvation to be less in our eyes than it is in God’s. Most of our concepts of salvation language has become reduced to simply eternal places, heaven or hell.  The reality of salvation is that eternal life has already started, we are not heading for eternity we are living in it now. Jesus’ promise of Abundant Life was not simply for after death, it is for the present moment and extends forever. Paul wrote in Ephesians 2, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. We are not saved for or from some point after death, we are being saved right now. We are seated with Christ right now, He in us and we in Him. I share this because I feel that we have found it easy to believe in a salvation that takes affect after death and ushers us into heaven rather than hell, but it has become difficult for us to believe in a salvation that right now, at this moment, removes guilt and shame, removes fear and anxiety, and welcomes us not only into the presence of God but also welcomes the Spirit of God to come and dwell within us.

We need more than a deliverance from sin, we need a deliverance from everything that was attached to us through sin. We need a deliverance from shame, from guilt, from fear, from worry, from judgment, from the power of the flesh and from the worldly images and concepts of God that have built up in our minds. Consider all of the miracles that God had done for Israel. Some timelines state that on the day that they gathered at the Water Gate, it had been over 140 years since they were originally taken captive to Babylon. The same timelines say that it had been 70 years since Zerubbabel had returned to begin rebuilding the temple and 15 years since Ezra had returned to re-establish the Law of God among the people. Generations had lived and died, kingdoms had been raised up and torn down, and yet God was present, true to His promises, faithful to His love and generous in His gifts. This was not a day to be ashamed of the past but to celebrate and give God praise for the moment. This was not a day to weep, it was a day to rejoice. I believe that Nehemiah and Ezra stopped the mourning of the people because this day was not about them, it was about and for God. You see, being forgiven should not make us sorry again for our sin, it should make us grateful to God. Being set free should not make us ashamed that we ever needed deliverance, it should make us aware that even when we were sinners Christ died for us. Seeing the blessing of God should not remind us that we are not worthy it should overwhelm us with the truth that God has loved us with an everlasting love.

Repentance is necessary. Some 23 days after this scene in Nehemiah the entire nation gathered again and this time they came together for one purpose, to fall on their faces and repent of their sin and the sins of those that had come before them. God desires and requires that we repent of our sin, but once He has forgiven us we must then walk in freedom. We must not allow the past to hold us with it’s long arms of shame and guilt, we must tread boldly as sons and daughters of God, birthed by the death and resurrection of Christ, grafted into the Vine not by works but by His love. I believe that today is a day to be delivered from sorrow, delivered from guilt, delivered from shame and delivered from the wrong notion that says that we must prove our worth and earn God’s forgiveness. We have been saved by grace, forgiven by mercy and set free by love. May we put our faith in God’s grace, our hope in God’s mercy and our lives in His love. As Nehemiah and Ezra raced through the crowd exhorting Israel that day thousands of years ago, I share with you today, “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

We have set aside every Tuesday as a day of prayer for our National leaders: President Obama, the Senate and the Congress. Each week we present a specific focus, birthed from Scripture, that we can agree and pray together. This week we pray that:

Show our National Leaders Your ways, O Lord; teach them Your paths. Lead them in Your truth and teach them, for You are the God of their salvation; on You they wait all the day. Psalm 25:4-6

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules the people groan. Proverbs 29:2

Therefore, I will exhort that first of all supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.  I Timothy 2:1-3

As Jerusalem gathered to hear the book of the Law read after they had rebuilt their walls an amazing thing happened, they realized that they fell short of the Law that was being read and they fell on their faces and began to weep and mourn. At that moment, Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites ran amongst the crowd and began to stop their weeping by proclaiming, “Do not sorrow, the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Conviction is an important thing, it gives us the ability to know when we are nearing or have fallen into sin, but sorrow is not God’s objective for our lives, joy is. A return to joy is a return to God; a return to joy is a return to relationship; a return to joy is an astonishing realization that God is good, that His love is everlasting and that we can find saftey, strength and refuge in His joy.

When I was a senior in high school I went to my Father to try to negotiate a later curfew. At that time my curfew was earlier than that of all my friends and so I went with that as my one argument. I had made an assumption that this would be an easy win, he would hear how everyone else stayed out later and that he would quickly relent giving me the same curfew that they had. I sat down, made my argument and his response was, “I am not concerned about what anyone else’s curfew is, they are not my responsibility, you are and I believe that your curfew is what it should be.” At the time his response and the reasoning behind it was frustrating, it seemed unfair, too rigid and unfair (at 17 you use that word a lot when you don’t get your way). Now that I am a father I have come realize that my Dad was not being overly protective of me, he was being faithful to his responsibility of being my Father. He set a standard for my brother and I. He set it by the way he and my Mother lived their lives, he set it by the way he treated us and others, he set it by the way he served God and he set it by the expectations and boundaries he set for us. What I called unfair at the time I am grateful for today and I look forward to the days when my boys will also be grateful for all the things that they consider unfair now.

God has set a standard for His people. Israel was led by the Law of Moses. It was much more than a book of rules and standards but it was a recording of the heart, mind and truth of God. The Law was not merely a list of do’s and don’t but it was a standard of heart and of living, it was a revelation of the goodness of God and the expectation to walk in that goodness to such a degree that Israel would become priests, doling out the same goodness to all of those around them. In the time of the book of Amos, Israel and Judah had fallen far from the standard that God had set for them. The interesting thing about this time is that they continued to fulfill their religious duties, but in the exact same instance had moved far from the spirit, goodness and heart of God. God spoke through the prophet Amos and declared that judgment was being sent to the nations of Israel and Judah because they had not responded to God’s calls for repentance, they had chosen to become like all the other nations around them and they had chosen to become oppressors of the poor for their own gain. In chapter 7, verse 8 God says, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore.” A plumb line is a simple tool used to determine whether or not something is perfectly vertical, upright. God declares that He is bringing Israel back to the standard that He had set for them but they had abandoned, no longer would He give them room for their own interpretation of what was fair, right or just, He would now hold the standard and He would do whatever was necessary to bring them back to it.

Jesus said that He did not come to condemn the Law but to fulfill it. He was not simply a man coming to live by an already existing standard, He was God, coming as a man to show us an even greater standard than had ever been known before. Jesus came and did not merely do the right things, He lived in righteousness. He did not merely keep the Law, He lived by the spirit of it. He did not merely obey His Father’s Words, He followed His Father’s heart. Jesus came not to show us the way, He came to become the Way. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” He is now our standard. If it sounds like a large task to be like Jesus, it is, but not a task for you to find a way to fulfill. Not only have we been given the command, “Be holy as I am holy”, but we have also been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to live in us, dwell in us and lead, guide, direct, remind and empower us. Paul wrote, “The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you.” We have not been given a behavioral code to follow, we have been given the God of the Law to lead us, if we will choose to be willing and obedient followers.

I believe that there is a very important prerequisite to becoming a good follower, you have to trust the one leading the way. David wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” David’s words are a declaration that He trusts God, but he is also declaring that he is willing to be a sheep, to be dependent and to trust the path that God will lead Him on. Without trust in the leader we make our own path, we set our own standard and we become willing to abandon that which we don’t understand or consider fair. This is where Israel missed the mark in Amos’ day and where many of us are missing it today. We can not truly accept the standard of someone that we do not know intimately. Going back to my high school curfew (should I mention that the curfew did NOT change when I was in college), I honestly did not like the time I had to be home, but I can say I trusted my father. I knew that he was setting a standard that he believed was right, was best for me and would keep me safe while also fulfilling his responsibility to guide me. I also knew that there was a price for breaking the standard, but, in all truth, I did not keep curfew out of fear of consequence nearly as much as I did out of trust in my Dad’s love.

I have often thought of Jesus’ prayers in Gethsemane the night he was betrayed and arrested. Many of us are very familiar with them, Jesus prayed with passion, Luke says that he prayed with such emotion that he actually sweat drops of blood and that angels were sent to minister to him. He prayed His desire, He asked, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” He was not afraid to bear His heart to His Father, but His next words show the extent of their relationship, “Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done.” Jesus’ prayer is not nearly as much about God’s will as it is about His trust in God’s love. Earlier in the same night Jesus had told His disciples, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” Jesus was confident of this one thing, His Father loved Him. Every step, every sermon, every miracle, every rebuke and every word of grace, they were all directed by one thing, He was sure that His Father loved Him. Jesus was willing and able to fulfill the standard of the Law and then set a new standard of His love because He was unwaveringly sure that He was loved by His Father. This is the step that leads to fulfilling a standard, being sure of the love of the one who has set the standard in the first place.

Again, going back to Jesus’ night of being arrested, He told His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” God is still holding a plumb line up for His people, He is still setting  a standard and leading us to fulfill it, that standard is Jesus and His love. Jesus does not command us to do our best, to do what we think is right or to do as much as those around us are doing. He has given us a new commandment, a new way and a new opportunity, to love as He has loved, to trust as He has trusted, and to obey as He has obeyed. The standard is not to push you down so that you see how low you have fallen, it is to lift you up, to bring safety, guidance, love and trust, to propel you to being what you could not be without His Spirit and guidance. There is still a plumb line, it is still in the hands of God and today it is not to bring you to judgment but that we would all believe in God’s love and come to understand that God has chosen to live by His own truth, “mercy triumphs over judgment.”

One last thought as I close. I am writing this on my Dad’s birthday. I grew up not always understanding the rules, ways and standards of my household, but I grew up never wondering whether or not my Dad loved me, loved God and loved my Mom. There are so many things I fought against back then that I am grateful for today, so many lessons that he probably thought were going unlearned, but I learned them, so many words that he thought were unheard, but I heard them. I am so grateful today for my Dad, for the standard he set and lived by and for his love that gave me the ability to follow his example, knowing that he would never harm me, never desert me and never lie to me. I love you Dad, thank you for holding up a plumb line, even when I wanted to be anything but upright.

We have set aside every Tuesday as a day of prayer for our National leaders: President Obama, the Senate and the Congress. Each week we present a specific focus, birthed from Scripture, that we can agree and pray together. This week we pray that:

In all things our National Leaders will show themselves to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that can not be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of them. Titus 2:6-8

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules the people groan. Proverbs 29:2

Therefore, I will exhort that first of all supplication, prayers, intercessions, and giving thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.  I Timothy 2:1-3