Spiritual Drill Sergeant

This morning during my prayer time, the Spirit laid on my heart, "Salt is abrasive and light is blinding to those who have been walking in darkness."  The church is in deep apostasy, believers are languishing in darkness and people like me are offensive in a world like this.  But that is exactly what we need at this late hour.  The church needs to be offended.  People need someone abrasive and blinding to snatch them out of their spiritual stupor.  

A drill sergeant doesn't coddle his soldiers because he is making them into warriors.  He is teaching them how to be a formidable force against a very real and very strong foe.  The drill sergeant sets the bar high, impossibly high and he reaches for that standard not only in his own life, but he also pushes his soldiers to reach for that impossibly high standard in theirs.  Throughout boot camp, the drill sergeant is hated, despised, looked upon with disdain and contempt.  Throughout boot camp, the drill sergeant is enemy number one, because the soldiers have yet to engage with their real enemy.  But that is exactly what the drill sergeant is training them for.  

Day after day the drill sergeant exposes weakness, calls out error, day after day the soldiers are pushed to their limit.  Day after day the drill sergeant blares the trumpet early in the morning for his soldiers to rise, and morning after morning the soldiers arise groggy, confused, exhausted from the previous day's training, only to go through it all over again with that God-forsaken drill sergeant that won't shut up.  That keeps barking about their failures and pointing out their flaws.  The drill sergeant is the butt of jokes, the common target of contempt among the soldiers, but the drill sergeant doesn't care because he doesn't see his soldiers for what they are now, but for what they will become.  The drill sergeant looks to what lies ahead.

One of the things that the Spirit laid on my heart early on, was that I can only reproduce what I am.  If I am a mediocre disciple, then I will only reproduce mediocrity.  If I am a half-built tower, then I can only teach people to build half a tower.  Jesus said we are to be perfect, even as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48).  As believers in Christ, our standard is perfection because that is what we are being transformed into.  Paul tells us that we are to forget what lies behind and reach forward to what lies ahead, pressing onward toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:13,14).  Every born again believer is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, giving them the power of Almighty God to be transformed into His image.  Therefore, we are to press onward and upward toward that image, leaving behind all that isn't.

I remember many years ago when I went to my brother's graduation from Marine Corps boot camp, seeing all those young men walking in step, immaculate in form, their eyes straight ahead, completely focused as they moved in total unity.  I remember the sound of their feet as they marched, a low rumble in perfect rhythm, and I remember thinking, "God have mercy on whoever gets in their way."  I remember hearing the stories from his dad about his own Marine Corps boot camp experience.  I remember what both my brother and his dad looked like and acted like before they went to boot camp versus what they looked like and acted like when they came out.  In just a matter of weeks they transformed from boys into men.  They transformed from mediocrity to excellence.  And I remember them both talking about how much they initially hated their drill instructor, but spoke of him with respect, gratitude and honor after it was all said and done.  Salt is abrasive to the soft of skin and light is blinding to those who walk in darkness, therefore only after their transformation could they see what he saw and understand what he understood.

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men." (Matt 5:13)

"Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.  For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'...So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." (Luke 14:27-33)

"Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Luke 14:34,35)

"And He was saying to them all, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.'" (Luke 23-26)

Faith When I Fall

I took my 3 year-old and my 7 year-old to a birthday party at the skating rink after church today.  I didn't wear skates, but I walked beside my 3 year-old as she made her best attempt to stay upright for more than three seconds at a time as we slowly circled around the rink, hugging the wall.  She was determined to skate, you could see the resolve on her face.  Every few moments the skates would spin out of control and she would fall down, but before she even hit the ground she was already trying to get back up, undeterred.  Over and over, she fell.  Over and over, she got back up and tried again.  Each time, before she got up, she anxiously looked up at me to see what my reaction would be.  After falling for the five-hundred-and-fifty-eleventh time, she looked up at me and said, "Momma, are you mad at me?"  As I looked down at her I said, "No baby, I'm not mad.  I'm just trying to help you stay on your feet.  I'm not going to leave you.  As long as you are out here trying, I'm going to stay out here with you and help you."

I often try to do the right thing and I fail.  And sometimes I'm tempted to look up at God and ask, "Are you mad at me?"  I'm tempted to think that He gets frustrated at watching me fail over and over again.  I tend to unconsciously project human weaknesses upon God, such as impatience and frustration, forgetting that His character is the embodiment of perfection.  It's hard for me to imagine someone like that, someone utterly incorruptible, because I am so encased in imperfection and it's all I've ever known.  

I often expect God to lose His patience with me like I do with my own children.  So I often feel myself anxiously looking to God every time I fall down, to see what His reaction is going to be.  And I have to remind myself that God loves me far more than I could ever love my own daughter and His words to me would be far greater and far more loving than my words to her:  "No my daughter, I am not mad.  I'm just trying to help you stay on your feet.  I'm not going to leave you.  As long as you are out here trying, and even when you're not, I'm going to stay here with you and help you.  I will never, ever leave you."

"Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid or terrified of them, for it is the Lord your God Who goes with you; He will never leave you or forsake you...The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." (Deut 31:6,8)

"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My right hand of righteousness." (Isaiah 41:10)

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, and the flames will not set you ablaze." (Isaiah 43:2)

"I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will never turn away from Me." (Jer 32:40)

"...and surely I am with you always, even unto the very end of the age." (Matt 28:20)

Tornado Hands

I took my 7 and 3 year-olds to the grocery store with me today.  When we got in the store, I told them not to touch anything.  As soon as they began walking with me down the aisle, they touched everything they saw.  I call it "tornado hands" because that's what it feels like as a mother to have four sets of hands grabbing at everything in sight and trying to maintain order and keep them from breaking something or shoving random items that we don't need in the buggy.  For this particular trip, I only had to worry about two sets of hands, but they were still tornado hands, nonetheless.

As soon as we were the on the side of the store that is furthest away from the bathroom, my 3 year-old said, "Mommy, I have to go potty."  To which I replied, "Of course you do."  So, we packed a mule with supplies and began our long journey to the other side of the world so I could take her to the bathroom.  When we got into the bathroom, I told her not to touch anything.  When we got into the stall, I told her not to touch anything.  When I put her on the potty, I told her not to touch anything, to just hold onto me because everything else was dirty and could make her sick.  I told her to just hold onto me so she didn't fall.  I stood very close to her, I never left her.  And as soon as she was done, she put both hands on the toilet seat. 

I looked down at her and I said, "What did I tell you not to do?" 

She looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said, "Not to touch anything." 

I said, "And what did you just do?" 

Still looking upwards at me with those big brown eyes she said, "Touched something."

And in that moment, I thought of the Garden and of God and of Adam and Eve.

In that moment, I realized, we are all Eve.

We all hear what God instructs us to do, and choose otherwise.

We are also all Adam.

We have all pointed our finger at someone else and thrown them under the bus to duck accountability for our own actions.

If it had been us instead of Adam and Eve, every single one of us would have done the same thing.

Just like I tell my daughter not to touch dirty things because they will make her sick, God also tells us not to touch sinful things because they are dirty and can make us spiritually sick.  He tells us not to do certain things because He knows that they will only draw us further away from Him.  He tells us to hold onto Him so we don't fall.  He stays very close to us and never leaves us, yet we still try to balance ourselves by grabbing onto things that He doesn't want us to touch.

Lord, cure us from our tornado hands.

"What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.' Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, touch no unclean thing and I will receive you. And: 'I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.'" (2 Cor 6:16-18)

"Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to falsehood, who does not swear deceitfully." (Psalm 24:3,4)

"Then I heard another voice from heaven say: 'Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues. For her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.'" (Rev 18:4,5)

"The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness; He has repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands. For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His rules are before me; I have not disregarded His statutes." (Psalm 18:20-22)

Bungled By A Book Cart

When I picked up my 3 year-old from school today, she ran through the hallways like a total savage.  She skipped ahead of me and then tripped over her own feet and fell down.  She got up, looked back at me while running, bumped into a book cart and fell again.  Over and over I kept telling her to come back to me.  To stop running ahead.  But she wouldn't listen.

As I watched her run to and fro and tumble and fall and get back up and do it all over again, seemingly oblivious to my voice of correction and guidance, I thought, "This is what it must be like for God trying to deal with us."  How many times have I run out ahead of God, only to trip over my own feet and fall on my face?  How many times have I run around aimlessly and looked back to make sure God was still there, only to turn back around to continue along my own path and slam into a wall?  How many times have I acted like a little toddler, stubbornly following my own reason, holding on tightly to the things that I want and refusing to let go?  All the while, God stands patiently waiting, allowing me to wear myself out because even God knows you can't bargain with a toddler.

"Submit to God and be at peace with Him; in this way prosperity will come to you.

Accept instruction from His mouth and lay up His words in your heart.

If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored:

If you remove wickedness far from your tent and assign your nuggets to the dust,

Your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines,

Then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you.

Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty, and will lift up your face to God.

You will pray to Him, and He will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows.

What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways.

When people are brought low and you say, 'Lift them up!'

Then He will save the downcast.

He will deliver even one who is not innocent,

Who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands."

(Job 22:21-30)

Mount Moriah Moment

As a person grows in their relationship with God, they will encounter many forks in the road.  The number of forks which are encountered are directly related to how much of God you want in your life.  How much of God do you want revealed to you?  There is a poem written in 1970 by Wilbur Rees entitled, "$3 Worth of God." 

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,

But just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.

I don't want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant.

I want ecstasy, not transformation.

I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth.

I want about a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.

I'd like to buy $3 worth of God, please.

This is the tragic state of the Western Church.  We want God, but we want Him on our terms and at our comfort level.  We don't mind asking God for revival, but not very many people want to invest their personal time at the prayer meetings that are required for it.  We sing, "Show us your glory Lord!  Show us your power!" utterly failing to realize that God only reveals His glory through sacrifice and suffering, and He never works His power through anyone who has yet to prove that they are trustworthy to wield it.  I prayed for Christ to reveal Himself to me as He truly is, and what I found at the end of the path was a rejected cross.  I found suffering and personal torment.  I found the loss of my heart's desire.  I found that I must be broken from my own understanding of myself.  I found the true meaning of Paul's words at Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me."  True knowledge of self can only come from the One Who created you, all other perceptions must die.

When we look at the life of Abraham, we see a man whose heart's desire was to have offspring.  He longed for children and God finally gave him his heart's desire, then asked him to give it back.  Why?  Why would God do such a thing?  Because He cannot allow us to hold on to anything tighter than Him.  God asked Abraham to sacrifice the very thing that gave him hope and his identity-- his son Isaac-- because Abraham's hope and identity could only be found in God alone.  And God will do the very same thing with us to the degree we allow it.  And the more we surrender, the more we will grow in knowledge of Him and the more He will work through us to accomplish His purposes.

As we grow spiritually, God will strip things away from us in order to purify us.  He will examine our hearts over and over, sifting through them to find any impurities, anything that would be a stumbling block, temptation, or hindrance to us.  And one day, we will find ourselves on our own Mount Moriah, tightly gripping the very thing we love most and God will ask us for it.  He will give us the choice to hand it over and prove our loyalty and to example the purity of our heart towards Him.  And it will be excruciating.  And on that day you will die.  But in such a death to self, you will find new life.  You will know and trust God in a way that you would have otherwise never been able to do.  It takes an inordinate amount of faith to die to the thing you love most, to die to the person you think you are, to die to the things you think you deserve or are entitled to.  But without faith, it is not only impossible to please God (Heb 11:6), but it is also impossible to see Him as He truly is.

You see, for us to know Christ as He really is, for Christ to reveal Himself to us in all His glory, we must know suffering.  We must be intimately acquainted with loss and torment of soul, because that is what Christ experienced while here on this earth.  That is Who He truly is.  He is the God Who suffered, thus that is how we ultimately come to know Him.  When we ask for God to reveal Himself to us, we want to jump straight to the image of the glorified Christ, failing to remember that His suffering and torment came first, because that is what God used to bring Him to glory.  So the question remains for all of us, how much of God do we want in our life?  The more of God you have in your life, the more of Himself He reveals to you, the more you will know torment of soul and sacrifice.  There is no other way.  Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matt 5:8)  Unfortunately, purity of heart only comes from passing it through the furnace. 

"Then God said, 'Take your son, your only son, whom you love--Isaac-- and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you." (Gen 22:2)

"But we see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting for God, for Whom and through Whom all things exist, to make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering." (Heb 2:9.10)

"I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Phil 3:10,11)

"And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ-- if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him." (Rom 8:17)

"For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." (2 Cor 1:5)