Author: Nathan

Tuesday Devotional: Obadiah 1

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Read Obadiah

We have built into our hearts an unhealthy and disillusioned view of what we have or what we don’t have. There is a perpetual belief in the human heart that what we have is either not good enough or what we have is better than it is.

Originating in our childhood and developing into our adulthood there tends to be this condition of the human heart that makes it nearly impossible for us to simply accept where we are for exactly what we are and to find contentment in that state of being. When most of us have little, it is far too easy for us to dream of having more than we do while entirely overlooking the blessings that surround us at that moment in time. When most of us have been blessed with the privilege of plenty, it is far too easy for us to distort or corrupt this abundance into an impression of inflated strength.

It is this unwillingness to be content or this unwillingness to be realistic that causes most of the stress in our daily lives. Our dissatisfaction in little robs us of the joy that God has truly blessed us with. Whereas, the pride in much separates us from the blessings that God desires for us to receive. Thus, it is no surprise that the one overwhelming promise that Jesus repeatedly makes to his disciples is “peace.” It is fitting for a God that knows our hearts better than we do to promise the thing that we most deeply need. Receiving the peace of God is not a life free of struggle or strife. The challenges of this world will never cease as long as we live. Receiving the peace of God goes much deeper than that. The peace of God is knowing that with Him and in Him we are precisely where we need to be and have exactly what we need. From this place, the contentment is in God and for God. This peace does not crave more and it does not imagine more. It is what it is because He is who He is. He is the great “I am” which means that He is ever in the present and choosing to live in the present without the burdens of past or future allows us to finally be at peace where “we are.”

Candles, Cakes, and Prayers: Heard Before Spoken

Reflections

prayer_sunset

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The act of prayer is always attached to the need for something. Praying to God firmly establishes the foundation that we are in need or in want of something that we cannot attain on our own.  This means that prayer is often “option B,” where we toss our desires into the hands of someone who might, possibly, achieve the impossible.  When we pray we are praying for miracles that are clearly beyond our reach.

When we think of miracles as beyond our experience, our faith in the impossible becoming possible is limited.  Likewise, our understanding of our prayer life is limited.

We see it around us every day: in the world, impossibility is limitless.  We expect the expected and doubt the unexpected.  When we take inventory of the problems we decide to pray about, we see numerous problems with very few answers.  We see limitless obstacles with limited solutions.  With this outlook, when we do pray, we find only enough faith or hope to pray for one or two things at one given moment.  Although God claims to be the healer of the broken and the achiever of the impossible, we buy into the idea that only a few impossible things are possible even for him.  Thus, our prayers, and what we feel the need to pray for, are limited along with everything else.  We might be completely aware of something that needs healing, however, our limited view of possible solutions limits our petitions and we withhold our request.

The Gospels display certain characteristics of the healing nature of Jesus.  While grace and love are constant, we must also consider the foreknowledge he always possessed of the problems he faced.  Jesus always desired more healing than any one person expected, and always thought ahead of the person requesting help.  Even before meeting a particular person face to face, Jesus had already set in motion a chain of healing events that would line up perfectly with one particular person.  Jesus always desired more. When he healed he always achieved more than people expected.  Even more than the person asking for help, Jesus always saw where the healing was most needed and how to maximize that healing in the person’s life, and in the lives of those around them, in ways they would have never expected themselves.  It is then no surprise that this desire of Jesus is a constant trait in the character of God from the beginning.  Being the creator God that he claims to be, he has more knowledge and understanding of our situations than we could ever attain.  This larger effect of healing is similar to the way medication works its way through the body.  As the medication enters the bloodstream and rapidly flows throughout the body there emerges a widespread sense of “healing,” not only restricted to the particular area of pain, but throughout the entire body.

God wants to work in a similar fashion.  We might have one prayer that we most desperately wish to be answered, but God has twenty more that he desires to answer, if only we would have faith and simply trust that he in fact does desire for us to be completely and thoroughly healed.

Our culture makes it easy to take on a limited view of prayer.  While this attitude is understandable, it is not scriptural.  The scriptures do not portray a world of limitless problems and limited solutions.  On the contrary, the scriptures describe a God that came into our world to eradicate the “problems” we face, bringing us into a life of limitless healing.

Tuesday Devotional: Amos 3

Devotional

bibleRead Amos 3

“Ignorance is bliss.”  Why?  Pleading ignorance allows us to be free of responsibility and consequence.  Being free of these things allows us to escape two things that daily burden us, allowing for happiness in the “now,” not regret in the “then” or fear of the “later.”

Perhaps ignorance can provide freedom of a kind. However, the faith of a believer in ignorance is futile.  The truth is, none of us can be truly ignorant of the responsibilities or consequences that rest at our feet every morning.  We were created to think and we were created to know.  By using the mind God has given each of us, we can find wisdom, and wisdom promises to never mislead.  Pleading ignorance essentially negates what makes each of us so wonderfully made.  It is a resignation to think, a forfeiture of the grace and understanding of others when a mistake or transgression is made.

But the grace and love of God for the people he made has not yet run out.  While his patience has been tested and stretched to limits unfathomable to our minds, and his rebukes have stunned and stung, his grace still remains and his promise to wait still persists.  It is not the easiest task, to listen to others.  It is not the easiest task to change behavior at the insistence of others.  It is not the easiest task to think before acting.  But to be human is to think, and to think is the first step in truly functioning as we were made to. From this sacred and holy ground, bliss is knowing that ignorance is never an option.

Tuesday Devotional: Joel 2

Devotional

Read Joel 2:12-17. bible

So much of religion can be accomplished by the head and the hands.  Religion is a matter of do’s and don’ts; we learn to follow these simply by mental and physical focus.  However, while religion may be achievable through the will power and of man, will power does very little to further the kingdom of God.  In order to receive the blessings and promises of spiritual renewal and transformation found in Scripture, the heart must supersede our mind or our strength.  When we operate out of our own will, we realize not only our strengths but also our limits. The strength of God,on the other hand, becomes unavoidably apparent when our hearts are opened, and we are willing to follow and not lead.  We are hesitant to share our hearts, and this is no different with God.  We view our hearts as our own private space where only we are allowed entry.  But the only way to truly know God is to be one with him, and the only way to be one with him is to give him access to that which is most dear to us: the heart.  By allowing him to restructure and reveal our heart to us, God not only shows us the dangers of our darkest desires but the beauty of his unlimited love.  Once this bond has been shared, the obstacles that once existed in our lives are taken down, and we are free to run with a God that intends to take us places where only he exists and only love of a renewed heart reigns.

 

Candles, Cakes, and Prayers: Spoken but not Answered

Reflections

This is the latest installment in our ‘Candles, Cakes, and Prayers’ reflection series. For previous entries, go here.

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As we talked about a few weeks ago, the reason many people have so little faith in prayer is the absence of results.  We may read in the scriptures that God hears our prayers and is fully aware of our needs, however, with every need that we see go unaddressed or unanswered we lose hope in the process, simply because we have yet to see results.  While our first post concerned the doubt that anyone was at the receiving end of our prayers, this final point of doubt emanates from the perception that the figure at the receiving end exists, but doesn’t care or love.

As answers to our requests fail to appear, resentment toward this “God of Love” grows. When we don’t get answers we feel un-Loved, even foolish. As we see or hear of others receiving answers to their prayers, externally no different than the ones we offered, we may develop a suspicion of “favoritism” in regards to God and his “answers.”  The, “why not me?” question brings everything we once believed about God into question.

This is where we start to see the world in terms of “favorite children,” whose wishes are granted, versus “the other children,” who get nothing back. We begin to judge God, and eventually to absent ourselves from the dialogue of prayer altogether.  Due to the absence of results and the absence of “answers,” we can feel completely suspicious and bitter toward the act of prayer in general.  In the place of peace and clarity that prayer is supposed to provide are doubt, suspicion and anger.  Prayers made from this perspective become nothing more than birthday wishes, without the appeal of delicious cake to follow.

Tuesday Devotional: Hosea 1

Devotional

bibleRead Hosea 1 here. 

There are very few things that we value more than our relationships.  Relationships require us to trust beyond comfort and to make ourselves emotionally vulnerable beyond security.  When a relationship is given a firm foundation of trust, and security to flourish, we will treasure the result more than most things.  These relationships become the closest to home that we will ever find, anchoring us when all other things show signs of weakness.  However, nothing quite compares to the pain when these relationships strain, weaken and eventually break.  The pain of broken trust and safety is something that many people never recover from.  The two things that most often fracture these relationships are indifference and unfaithfulness.  The experience of one’s trust and love not being reciprocated has the power to completely break a once unstoppable heart.  The experience of trust and love being set aside for the pursuit of another love can empty a heart once so abundantly full of endless love ready to be given.  Yet the love of the creator God has extended far beyond our love for one another.  The love of the Creator has broken the bonds of time that so constrict our human relationships.  The creator God has experienced an ongoing cycle of broken “ideal relationships,” yet has continued to pursue the ones he loves.  His love, for all intents and purposes, is “crazy” and “illogical,” beyond our ability to comprehend or duplicate.  But this is the gift: love we all seek, but only God can provide.

Mobile Word’s Next Step

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It is exciting to share with all of you the next chapter that lies in store for my wife and me.  After living 5 years in South Korea, my wife Colleen and I have felt called by God to return to the United States!  More specifically, we’ve felt called to plant a church in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Currently we are waiting on the Lord to reveal his plan for specifically where and with whom we should look to plant a church. However, we are confident that the work God has done in our lives in South Korea was in preparation for this gigantic next step.  We could not be more excited to take our experience with God in South Korea to California and continue to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to all people.

As South Korea was an unexpected  call for both Colleen and me, so is the call to San Francisco.  Thus, we have few connections in the area and are still unsure where we will work and live, but we know that God will provide as he did overwhelmingly in South Korea.  With that in mind, we would love to hear from any and all of you readers of this site concerning our next step.  We know how necessary it is for us to learn from others and we are excited to learn from those of you that know the area, are currently connected to that area in some way, have planted a church or feel called to share your thoughts or support for this upcoming move.

Over the next several months we will be revealing more information as we receive it regarding our church plant vision, beliefs and progress.  Stay tuned!

Also, if you would like to support our next chapter in San Francisco through financial tithes or offerings, we’ve added a “Support” page on the website where you can support our mission via PayPal.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support and God bless all of you.

-Nathan

 

ASK: Jeremiah 33

ASK

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This update is from a recent meeting of ASK Daegu. Each member contributed something to the message that follows. We pray that our group encourages you in the same way that it encouraged all of us.

READ JEREMIAH 33

God pleads with us to call on Him. But do we? God promises to provide us with answers to our deepest questions and concerns, but do we listen? Our understanding of God is revealed in how we call on Him and how we listen. Why do we call on Him? If we call on Him with an expectation that he will remove the most present obstacle in our life, then we have reduced His promises to be as temporal as the world we live in. If we measure His power in how effectively He removes the particular trouble in our lives, then we fail to grasp the depth of His promise and are left abandoned by a rescue He never actually vowed to make.

Emptiness does not necessarily mean godlessness. Emptiness in this world is a result of the fallen nature of this world. However, God’s promises are real and they are ever-present. They are now. They are working. The wickedness and destruction of this world should not cause us to need God less. On the contrary, it should reveal in us a greater need for Him. The suffering in this world does not prove the absence of God. Suffering reveals our need for a savior to rescue us from the suffering in and to which we all actively participate and contribute. We need His heart and we need His words.

In the end, the answer to our call does not manifest itself in rescue now. Rather, it rescues us spiritually in the present in the promise of Jesus Christ to rescue us completely in the future. Jesus Christ is God’s answer to our plea for help. Jesus Christ IS hope. He provides us the hope that all is not lost and what we have lost is not the end. Jesus does not help us get to the end. Jesus IS the end. To find Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is to find the answer we sought from the beginning. We are lost in this world in one way or another; Jesus Christ comes to find us. We have been hurt or are presently hurting; Jesus Christ comes to heal us. We are afraid of the finality of this world; Jesus Christ tells us to find peace in Him as the beginning and end that encompasses all that we have been, are and will ever be. He is life, and God’s answer to all of our questions is Jesus Christ.

 

Candles, Cakes, and Prayers: Spoken but not Believed

Reflections

prayer-in-the-dark

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Check the first two installments here and here. 

In most instances, when we made birthday wishes, there was always a flavor of impossibility to the wishes being made.  This was a moment to seize something that on any other day of the year would be truly out of reach.  This was the moment to wish for the most outrageous and most impossible dream.  No one ever wished for the cheapest pair of shoes. No, the correct wish was for the most expensive pair.  Don’t forget, these are birthday candles we’re talking about!

Making birthday wishes was the moment to request the unthinkable and most radical request imaginable.  However, over time we discovered that the reason that these wishes and dreams were out of reach in our minds, and why we chose to wish for them, was that they were out of reach in reality.  Although within us was the hope that something we wished for would come true, there eventually grew an acceptance that this dream would most likely never amount to more than a dream.

The Bible presents many instances where the impossible became possible through the power and will of God.  We read stories where people survived being thrown into fire or a lion’s den, and where entire bodies of water became separated upon the command of God. While these stories present great moments for awe and entertainment, the utter impossibility of these stories resign them, in our minds, to legends that could never and will never be seen in today’s world.  They are so unlikely that to hope in them is one thing, but to believe in them is something altogether different and altogether foolish.  Therefore, we continue to voice our desires and make our wishful prayers to a God up there, somewhere, while accepting that most desires and wishes will be out of the reach of even a God who claims to be able to do anything. So we find people mouthing prayers with no faith or belief in their fulfillment, or in the God whom they claim to address.