Unleashed: As You Go – Pray

God – Faithful for a thousand generations

“Understand, therefore, that the LORD your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands.” Deuteronomy 7:9 (NLT)

Worthy of trust; consistent with truth; accurate; exact – these are words that convey the meaning of faithful. Images of steadiness, loyalty and reliability come to mind when we talk about a person who is faithful. Scripture captures for us the faithfulness of God from Torah to Psalms to the Prophets through the Gospels to Revelation.

Normally faithful is an adjective describing someone but in the case of Jesus, Faithful and True is one of his names, “Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True, for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war.” – Revelation 19:11

Faithfulness “for a thousand generations” is a number we struggle to wrap our minds around.  A number that basically has no end is how the writer of Deuteronomy is trying to capture the unending faithfulness of God. As followers of Christ, faithfulness becomes a source of hope from generation to generation. A.W. Tozer wrote that “The faithfulness of God is a datum of sound theology but to the believer it becomes far more than that: it passes through the processes of the understanding and goes on to become nourishing food for the soul…. Upon God’s faithfulness rests our whole hope of future blessedness.”

A story is told of an old Scottish preacher who was rebuked by one of his deacons for the dismissal results from his preaching. The pastor was reminded that only one boy had been added to the church all year.  The pastor agreed saying, “I feel it all but God knows I’ve tried to do my duty.” On that day the minister’s heart was heavy as he stood before his flock. As he finished the message, he felt a strong inclination to resign but after everyone had left the building, the one young boy added to the church came to the pastor and asked, “Do you think if I worked hard for an education, I could become a preacher and perhaps a missionary?”

The old faithful pastor didn’t live to see the end of the story but he knew “the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations.”  Years later an aged missionary couple returned to London from Africa after spending over 50 years on the mission field.  It is said, “His name was spoken with reverence. Nobles invited him to their homes. He had added many souls to the church of Jesus Christ…. His name was Robert Moffat, the same Robert who years before had spoken to the pastor that Sunday morning in the old Scottish kirk.”

Robert Moffat and his wife Mary’s faithful impact still continues on to the generations that followed. Moffat worked to translate the whole Bible into Setswana to provide ongoing teaching and nourishment of new believers. Moffat would mentor David Livingstone for the ministry and their daughter, Mary would later marry him. Livingstone would become part of the great gospel expansion into Central and Eastern Africa.

Faithfulness is not confined to what we see but of what we don’t see. Moffat wrote that, “We shall have all eternity in which to celebrate our victories, but we have only one swift hour before the sunset in which to win them.”

Thomas Chisholm captured well the awe-inspiring faithfulness of God in his great hymn, “Great is thy Faithfulness.” “A faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love” on us.

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with thee; Thou changest not, they compassions, they fail not; As thou hast been thou forever wilt be.

Great is thy faithfulness! Great is they faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see; All I have needed thy hand hath provided; Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Undoubtedly each of us will walk through periods of pain and suffering, yet as we lament, we are able to identify with the words of Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations: “The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” (3:22-24)

God is great,

Pastor Lynn

 

 

 

Unleashed: As You Go – Pray

The forgotten blush

“Are they ashamed of their disgusting actions? Not at all—they don’t even know how to blush! Therefore, they will lie among the slaughtered. They will be brought down when I punish them, says the Lord.” Jeremiah 6:15 NLT

Remember when the teacher called on you in class and you didn’t have the foggiest idea of the answer? Your face turned deep red.

Remember when you did something totally stupid and everyone turned to look at you? Your face turned fire engine red and you wanted to crawl under the table.

Blushing is a natural response to some action that embarrasses or shames you. It is an involuntary reaction to an event and the bottom line is that you can’t control blushing. Charles Darwin called blushing “the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.” Mark Twain said, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”  I am pretty confident in saying that most of us have even blushed because we blushed!

Ray Crozier, a psychology professor from England concluded that “blushing evolved as a means of enforcing the social codes to which we humans must adhere for our societies to function in a friendly manner. By blushing when we’re embarrassed, we are showing others that we recognize we’ve just mis-stepped socially, and that we’re paying the price for it. Others who see us blushing after an awkward situation understand from experience the unpleasant feelings we’re undergoing at that moment, and blushing may serve as a nonverbal, physical apology for our mistake.”

Greek philosopher Diogenes once remarked to a blushing boy, “Courage my boy, that is the complexion of virtue.” The late Lucille Ball was reported to have said, “The problem with our world these days is that we no longer blush.” Long before Lucille Ball or Diogenes, long before your first blush, God shared how a whole nation didn’t “even know how to blush.”  Awkward social situation blushing is normal and healthy. However, when a culture no longer blushes then you are facing a major spiritual problem.

“Jeremiah, say to the people, “This is what the LORD says: “When people fall down, don’t they get up again? When they discover they’re on the wrong road, don’t they turn back? Then why do these people stay on their self-destructive path? Why do the people of Jerusalem refuse to turn back? They cling tightly to their lies and will not turn around. I listen to their conversations and don’t hear a word of truth. Is anyone sorry for doing wrong? Does anyone say, “What a terrible thing I have done”? No! All are running down the path of sin as swiftly as a horse galloping into battle!” (8:4-6)

Twice the call for spiritual renewal is met with the same response, “Are they ashamed of these disgusting actions? Not at all—they don’t even know how to blush!”  Jeremiah confronts a nation that no longer has the moral foundation that produces blushing in its people. They were a nation where the people no longer feared God enough to blush; a nation of people that no longer had tender hearts to their sins that would cause blushing.

Throughout history, people have decided to go their own path, forgetting God and hardening hearts that no longer blushed at their actions. You only have to read the latest headline or watch the morning news to witness in our nation the accusation that we “do not even know how to blush.” “Shamelessness has pervaded the culture. There is no shame in the vilest behavior. There is no guilt in the most evil act. There is no embarrassment when caught in the most abominable conduct.“– Dr. Daniel Merritt

 

Our generation must choose which path to walk: the ancient path of God or the modern path of evil. Scripture records for us how Ezra felt the shame and embarrassment of a nation that had rejected God’s path.  “At the time of the sacrifice, I stood up from where I had sat in mourning with my clothes torn. I fell to my knees and lifted my hands to the LORD my God. I prayed, “O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors until now, we have been steeped in sin. . . .” (Ezra 9:5-7b)

 

Lord, we need to again feel the weight of our sins until we can again blush in your presence. Give us hearts that are tender, lives that are open to you, minds that are pure and life-styles that are God honoring.  Let us again come to you in repentance.  Let us again seek “the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for our souls.”

 

God is great,

 

Pastor Lynn

 

Unleashed: As You Go – Pray

That was God!

“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it.” Acts 4:16

When was the last time you simply said, “That was God!”  Maybe you had been sick and recovered; maybe you were out of work until one day, out of the blue, you get a job offer; maybe you had been dealing with a problem at work and all of a sudden you had an epiphany.

It is not always easy to explain the unexplainable. Non-believers will try to find a rational answer. Some will call it fate, others, pure luck. Believers will often use the word miracle but more as a good luck term. “The living God, the God Who is God and not a philosopher’s abstraction, lies infinitely beyond the reach of anything our eyes can see or our minds can understand.” –Thomas Merton

IMB missionary George Smith should be dead but he is not! George and his wife Geraldine serve in the country of Uganda. George became sick in January with Covid and had to be medically evacuated to Nairobi, Kenya where he was placed on a ventilator with very little chance of survival. Yet as doctors talked to his wife about the need for end of life decisions, she simply continued to pray. People around the world simply continued to pray. New believers in Jesus who had recently come out of Islam realized the need to pray. George is now home in Louisiana recovering. Is this miracle or medicine?  The simple answer is both, but if I could ask George he would probably say, “That was God!”

The miracle for George is not necessarily the recovery, but the story that he will be able to tell. Miracles have a purpose which always point us to God. Jesus performed many miracles that always told a story – a story that pointed people to God, a story that changed lives, a story that led to redemption. “What makes it a miracle is that God performed it specifically to make Himself known, to communicate with human beings. When God pokes into our world through the miraculous, He is communicating with us, otherwise we cannot appropriately use the term “miraculous” to describe the event.” –Eric Metaxas

Peggy Noonan thought miracles existed “in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see.” We live in an age when people are looking for clues that there is something more than the life they are living. It could be that God will use miracles to point people to Him because you would think miracles would be a sure-fire way of drawing people to Him. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Jesus performed miracle after miracle yet faced increasing opposition and rejection.

Mark tells the account of when Jesus was in his hometown of Nazareth. “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.” (6:5-6) If Jesus couldn’t perform miracles in his own hometown, how can we expect people to be moved by miracles today?

Moses stood on the shore of the Red Sea and watched the hand of God split the water. That was God!

Queen Esther stood before the king to save her people. That was God!

David stood at the edge of the battlefield having faced the biggest giant of his life. That was God!

Jesus hung on the cross and said “It is finished.” That was God!

Today you may be standing at the edge of a hospital bed praying for healing of a loved one. Today you may be pouring out your heart for a wayward child. Today you may be pleading for mercy. The miracle you need more than anything is God himself. At the end of the day you are able to cry out, “That was God!”

“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” Acts 4:29-31

That was God!

God is great

Lynn

 

 

 

Unleashed: As You Go – Pray

“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.” Psalm 69:1-3

Turn on the TV! These were the words I heard shouted as I answered a call from Connie. We had just moved from Nairobi, Kenya to Richmond, Virginia to take on a new assignment with the International Mission Board. September 11, 2001, a day forever etched in time. Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 which is still as fresh in our memory as if yesterday.

We joined that night with other believers at our church to pray. Across America, thousands of other churches opened their doors for prayer. For the next several Sundays there seemed to be a spiritual awakening as churches were filled to capacity. Millions were looking for hope, assurance that everything would be OK. People sought the fellowship of others in the midst of tragedy. The words of William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury after World War II, said it well, “The church is the only organization that does not exist for itself, but for those who live outside of it.” It was those from outside that also sought the comfort of the church.

Yet as quickly as our nation turned to God in fear and confusion on that bleak night, just as quickly people went back to their pre-9/11 lives. R. C. Sproul wrote that the very last sermon that Martin Luther preached was on people departing from the power of God. “Luther preached with passion about his concern for Germany. He observed that after the gospel had been rediscovered—after light had dawned and pushed aside the darkness that had eclipsed it during the Middle Ages—people were now becoming somewhat jaded to the gospel. They could hear it from virtually every pulpit in Germany, but it was no longer something that ignited fire in their bones.”

As our nation commemorates the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we find ourselves deeply divided, less respectful of others, civility forgotten, fear increasing and anxiety prevalent. Instead of our nation focused on God, we find an increasing number rejecting the church. Janet Denison writes that “People will continue to blame “religion” for what is wrong in the world. It’s the job of every Christian to glorify God for all that is right. If we will take the time to “be prepared” and use every opportunity to share the “hope” that we have with “gentleness and respect,” we will change the culture one conversation at a time.”

As a firefighter was sorting through the rubble and remnants of the south tower he made an unbelievable discovery: A Bible fused to a chunk of steel. Pages from the “9/11 Bible” remained with a portion of Jesus Sermon on the Mount showing, as if God was speaking to America, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” (Matt 5:38-39)

Joel Meyerowitz, the photographer assigned as record keeper of ground zero, after receiving the Bible, said, “It totally mesmerizes me that amidst the burning destruction of 9/11 and the remaining rubble, this fragile yet powerful piece of parchment was able to endure and send a lasting message to us all: Our fleshly nature urges us to repay evil for evil, but God calls us to press on in forgiveness and love, while leaving vengeance to Him.”  (To view a short video showing and discussing the 9/11 Bible click here)

On this 20th anniversary of 9/11 I hope we set aside a time for prayer and reflection. Let it serve as a renewed time of prayer for our nation’s citizens to again be humble and willing to return to God. Pray that our nation would be used of God to touch the world for good. Let our churches be a place of healing and spiritual renewal. “When the unchurched, the lost, and those away from God enter our churches, they need to see us believing in the power of prayer and the power of God.” — Ronnie Floyd

 

“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40:8

God is great,

Lynn

 

Unleashed: As You Go – Pray

“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.” Psalm 108:5

Driving in Senoia the other day I noticed a local church signboard with the words “Prayer Moves God.” I am certain the person putting up the sign simply wanted passersby to know the power of prayer which I agree with wholeheartedly. It is a nice little pithy saying, but it started me thinking. Does God only move when we pray? This simple sentence makes prayer the subject and God the object. It makes God the inanimate object to be controlled by the pray-er.

If not careful, you can make “Prayer Moves God” seem almost as if we see God as the friendly mall Santa Claus at Christmas just waiting to hear the little girl’s request for a bike or the little boy asking for a new Lego set.  “We shall not rise in our practice of prayer above our perspective of prayer.”—Jack Taylor

You can make “Prayer Moves God” be more like parents of teenagers trying to wake them up, it takes repeated shouting to get them out of bed. However, you don’t have to wake God to get Him moving because He didn’t go to sleep on you. The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 121, “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.” God is moving even before we know we need to pray; morning, noon or night. Mary Crowley wrote, “Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He’s going to be up all night anyway.”

“Prayer Moves God” because God is intently listening to us. Parents of young children know the minute their child hits the floor the “Why?” questions begin. According to child psychologist Paul Harris, a child asks around 40.000 questions between the ages of two and five. If parents listen to their children’s “why” questions, you know God is so ready for our prayers.  “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24)

“Prayer Moves God” because He loves us completely. “See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children….” (I John 3:1) “But God proves his love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

“Prayer Moves God” because God was already moving. “Remember the things I have done in the past…. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens.” (Isaiah 46:9-10) “Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.” (Psalm 139:4) “True prayer moves in a circle. It begins in the heart of God, sweeps down into the human heart upon the earth, so intersecting the circle of the earth, which is the battlefield of prayer, and then it goes back again to its starting point, having accomplished its purpose on the downward swing.”—S. D. Gordon

“Prayer Moves God” because prayer moves us. The life of prayer is a critical part of our soul journey. Our prayers of intercession allow us to be in partnership with God in healing the world. Our prayers of intercession for Haiti, Afghanistan, and Louisiana have an impact because prayer moves us. Jack Taylor sums up well the lack of a life of prayer in our lives.  “We are in desperate need of a return to personal and prevailing prayer. We shall not be saved from our spiritual doldrums by more programs and better strategy. God’s chief method has always been people and prayer!”

During the time that Connie and I lived in Bophuthatswana we served in a small Batswana church that often prepared for a time of prayer by singing the words, “Be still and know that I am God; I am the Lord who saves and heals; In you, O Lord, I put my trust.” These simple lyrics became a calling for us to be still and know God:  a time of worship and prayer, a time to focus on God moving prayers. The voices singing together with one heart in this small African church with no electricity, no ceiling, dirt floors and brick walls knew the One who could truly make a difference.

Though the link to the song, “Be Still and Know” is not quite the same as how our church in Bophuthatswana sang, I invite you to take a couple of minutes to worship in prayer. (click here to listen)

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

“Prayer Moves” because our

God is great!

Pastor Lynn