ON A WIRE WALKING OVER THE CANYON OF LIFE

I watched only a few minutes of the live telecast of Nik Wallenda walking across the Grand Canyon on a wire. That was enough anxiety for me. The idea of walking on a two-inch steel wire, fifteen hundred feet above the canyon floor without a safety net or harness is not my idea of a quiet evening at home with a good book. The telecast was a ratings bonanza for the Discovery Channel with nearly 13 million viewers!

I could not help but realize as I watched this “extreme stunt” that this was a great example for all Christians about our life on the tight rope of the troubled times in which we are living.

Over the last nine years that I have written this blog, I have predicted again and again that the times we are living in would become increasingly difficult. Have I been wrong? Did any of us think nine years ago that government agencies would be closely monitoring our phone calls and communications? That the IRS would be mired in scandal or that our nation would have become so violent?

Anyone who believes that the end times will be happy and carefree has little understanding of Scripture. When asked by His disciples what the sign of the end would be, at the conclusion of the list that Jesus gave was the statement that “these will be the beginning of birth pains” (Matthew 24:8, NIV). This means that the end times will be marked by ferocious painful spasms  coming with  increasing frequency . . . just as happens when a mother is about to give birth.

Such are the times we are in! And they will not get better. The days ahead will be more difficult and complex than the past.

Nik Wallenda’s walking on a wire over the Grand Canyon is a metaphor or picture of how a believer can survive and thrive in these troubled times.

As I watched this unusual stunt, three things popped into my mind.

First, I was blown away by the continual stream of verbal praise and prayer flowing out of this child of God. I was also amazed that a secular TV channel would actually broadcast what he was saying; if they put up a disclaimer, I never saw it. What Nik was doing was a demonstration of one of the greatest survival weapons that every believer has in his/her hands. Praise and worship leads the way to victory, disarms and confuses demonic powers, and welcomes the presence of the Lord. Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7, ESV).

I can’t begin to tell you how important I think it is that you learn to “practice the presence of the Lord” by worshiping Him. Psalm 22:3 says that God inhabits the praises of His people, and in these last tumultuous days we are going to need all the presence of the Lord we can get! This is one of the great safety nets God has provided for His people.

Second, Nik Wallenda was totally focused on the task before him. This was not a moment for sightseeing, playing on Facebook or waving at the TV cameras. He single-mindedly concentrated on what he was doing and where he was going. This was an act of faith!

When Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water to go to Jesus, he did just fine as long as he kept his focus on the Lord. The moment he noticed the wind and the waves, he began to sink. Jesus rescued him with these words: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31, ESV). The words “little faith” speak of a faith that is easily distracted and mingled with doubt. Unfortunately, a large portion of the American/Canadian church is a church of “little faith” and is going to be dramatically struck by the unfolding difficulties ahead.

Third, Nik Wallenda was carrying nothing with him that did not pertain to the task at hand. Lest you think I’m about to ask you to empty your bank account, get a cheaper car or give away most of your possessions, be assured that I’m not! That’s between you and God and nobody else.

I am talking about what you are still carrying in your heart and spirit that is weighing you down and keeping you from walking in full victory. Unconfessed secret sin, unforgiveness and disobedience to the Lord weigh us down, distract us, cause us to lose our focus and keep us from moving with freedom.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run (walk) with endurance (focus/tenacity) the race (tightrope) that is set before us, looking to Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV).

I rejoice that God allowed one of His people to demonstrate for us in such dramatic fashion how to survive on the tightrope of life in the end-times!

I'M FOLLOWING JESUS!

What were the first words that Peter heard from Jesus?

            “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19)

What were the last words that Peter heard from Jesus before He ascended to heaven?

            “Follow Me!” (John 21:22)

What were the first words that the other disciples heard from Jesus?

            Matthew 9:9; Mark 2:14; John 1:43 are good examples. All of them were variations of “Follow Me.”

Why are these words important to us? 

Over the last 25-30 years the Western church has shifted away from teaching people to be “followers” of Christ to placing an emphasis on being “leaders” for Christ. I have to confess that I have done my share of leadership teaching in conferences, churches and in consulting roles — and I still do. In this same time period, a whole new industry has appeared in Christianity revolving around those who write best-selling books and conduct big conferences about leadership. There are now thousands of books about how to be a better leader for Christ. Some of the biggest conferences in the church world are about how to be an outstanding leader and are usually hosted by someone whose church has zoomed from nothing to thousands in the blink of an eye.

Is teaching about leadership wrong? No, of course not! Not as long as it is kept in proper perspective. Our priority must always be to teach people, first, to be followers of Jesus. Everyone is called to be a follower — everyone! But very few are actually called by Him to be leaders.

So how did we get to this place where leadership is being pushed as being more important than followership? 

Prior to the mid-’80s, leadership/management in the church was looked upon as valuable but secondary to being a strong and stable follower of Jesus. Pastors and leaders of Christian ministries were largely selected on the basis of their walk with Christ. This thinking began to change when the very popular and sometimes controversial founder of the seeker-sensitive movement began to encourage pastors to study their Bibles, books on theology, and books on secular management with equal intensity. Some of this pastor’s leadership conferences were shocking to the church world because he featured key speakers from the world of secular management and asked them to speak on secular management techniques for the church to use.

I believe this emphasis might have been fine for mature men of God but the emphasis got into the wrong hands. It found its resting place in the hearts and minds of young pastors just beginning their public ministry and most of them had very little experience and were hungry, even desperate, for success. These young leaders did not keep things in perspective. Their immaturity and underdeveloped character pushed through and they adopted, as gospel, the idea that secular techniques were key for the church. And suddenly the contemporary church movement was based more on secular leadership and management than I think Bill Hybels ever dreamed of. Very quickly the emphasis became “how to be the biggest and the most successful.” Lost along the way was the priority and meaning of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus, and God’s purpose for the church became murky, as did the importance of prayer and the purpose of obedience to the Word. As for holiness, well, that word just flat out disappeared from the church vocabulary.

What does it mean to be a follower?

• It means that someone else is leading and I’m following.
• It means He knows the path He wants to take and the follower is not worried because He knows where He is going.
• It means that humility has been embraced. Pride does not like being a follower.
• Followers find that great meaning comes from the Word and great strength from prayer.
• Followers are learners! Jesus said, “[Follow Me], and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).
• Followers both follow and are easily followed, and they do their best to make the path plain to others.
• Followers have no desire to buy too many horses from Egypt (see Isaiah 31:1-3).
• Followers live holy lives because they know that is what pleases Him.
• Followers hand the baton of their life to the One who is the composer and conductor of the symphony of life itself.
• Followers have heard the whisper of God saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”
• “To follow means to follow, not to lead. To point not to our superior moral character but to the dimly seen figure out there that we are stumbling after.” (Fredrick  Buechner)

(Several months ago in a used book store I stumbled across a book by one of my favorite authors, Leonard Sweet. It was an encounter arranged by the Holy Spirit. Dr. Sweet’s book, “I Am a Follower,” is one of the few books I’ve read recently that really challenged my thinking and largely was the inspiration for this brief article. Thank you, Dr. Sweet.)

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT!

I awakened very early one morning, about 3:30 a.m., with a phrase running through my head about “hiding in plain sight.” I thought, “That doesn’t make sense,” but then, what does at that time of the morning? The thought wouldn’t go away and so I got up and went to my desk. “I’ll just write this down and then maybe I can go back to sleep.” Well, I wrote down the phrase I didn’t think I understood and as I wrote, it started to make sense to me. And so I kept writing . . . and now I will let you judge whether it makes sense or not.

It is very possible for us to become so familiar with a specific truth about our life as a follower of Christ that our familiarity causes us to lose sight of just how profound that truth is. For example, most of us have been around the truth of God’s love so much that it becomes like a piece of old furniture; we love it, we appreciate it and we take it for granted. It literally gets lost to us in plain view. It is no longer profound but, instead, has become very familiar and not all that appreciated. I call this “hiding in plain sight.”

It is very much a part of the human psyche to feel a need to look for new truth in places that are hard to find and hard to reach. Most of the really valuable truth we will ever come in contact with in our lives is already in plain sight, but sometimes we lose contact with the importance and impact of it.

In its purest form, revival takes place when the people of the church come into contact again with truth they have already embraced but have lost appreciation for. Revival is bringing to life again what was alive once before. Revival is taking something that is “hidden in plain sight” and reestablishing its value in your life.

“Hiding in plain sight” has a downside, however, which the enemy knows and uses against us. Forty years ago, situation comedies on TV were simple and usually very funny. Slowly over the years, several rather risqué concepts were interjected into the situation comedy world. At first it was the idea of men and women living together . . . rather innocent looking, but the idea of a single guy and two single girls living in the same apartment was groundbreaking. The comedic aspects made it more acceptable to the general public. Homosexual situations in comedies were at first laughed about and then the personalities were changed somewhat and made more likable, and finally they became the stars of the show. Now shows are blatant about sex outside of marriage, and homosexuality is portrayed as a star quality and a normal part of life. The agenda has been to slowly introduce change into the system so that the system’s ability to respond to the change is numbed out and the new is then accepted as being right. This is the downside of “hiding in plain sight.”

In the first part of Mark 8, Jesus feeds the crowd of 4000 with just a couple of loaves and fishes. A little later in the chapter (in verses 15-19) the disciples think Jesus is teaching the way He is because He is mad at them for forgetting to bring any bread on this part of the journey. Then Jesus says the following to them: “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?” (verses 17-18).

The word “hardened” that is used in verse 17 means to form a callous, to make tough. It is used here to speak metaphorically of spiritual deafness and blindness. It speaks of seeing a truth and being dead to its importance and value. 

Jesus goes on in Mark 8 and rehearses for the disciples the two great miracles of provision, the feeding of the 4000 and the feeding of the 5000, to “revive” in them the great truth of God’s supernatural ability to perform His miracle provision for us. The disciples had physically participated in these great displays of God’s power and had lost sight of what they meant. They seemed to be unable to make the application of the truth to their daily lives.

My prayer for each of us is that we will never become “hardened” to the truths of God that should be a part of our lives and our walk with Him. I pray that a personal revival happens in you today!

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite'” (Isaiah 57:15, ESV).

A SURPRISE FROM FATHER

I love the way the Holy Spirit directs my attention to a verse of Scripture He wants to open up to me. What happens usually is quite unexpected and I have learned to treasure these moments. 

A few days ago I was preparing to have my early morning time with the Lord. My devotional pattern is quite simple: I spend 30 to 40 minutes reading the Word and then at least that much time in worship, prayer and quietness before the Lord. 

I like to do my devotional reading with my Bible and my computer in front of me. I always have my Bible open to the portion of Scripture I will be reading but I do my actual reading from my computer screen. Bible Gateway is one of my favorite resources because it allows me to have at least two versions of the same chapter up on the screen, and a slow mind like mine needs that, as it helps me to clarify difficult passages.

I was just about to type in the name of the book of the Bible where I had been reading when I casually glanced at the “Verse of the Day” on the Bible Gateway home page. Suddenly everything about my disciplined pattern went out the window (at least for that day). The “Verse of the Day” was 1 John 5:14-15: “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (ESV).

This passage of Scripture didn’t hit me like a thundering freight train. No, it simply gripped me and surprised me because I wasn’t expecting it. But the moment it hit me, I knew that the Holy Spirit was opening this passage to me and it was a joyous understanding. When the Holy Spirit does this, and this is not the first time it’s happened and I pray it’s not the last, it is like a father who wants to give his child a gift and decides to surprise him with it. The father puts the item somewhere he knows the child will discover it and then he waits for the moment of discovery with the joy and love of a true father.

When we “stumble upon” the surprise and begin to unwrap it, I believe it brings joy to our Father’s heart and puts the smile that only a loving father can enjoy on His face. I love it when the Spirit of God surprises me and smiles at me.

Just a few thoughts about these two verses

·      I refer to these verses as “My Prayer Manifesto.” They establish our authority to ask with confidence. It’s okay to remind God of what He has promised in His Word but to be alert to the fact that He has not forgotten nor will He nor can He. Our reminding Him is more about us than it is about the possibility that He will forget.

·      The word confidence used here refers to the absence of fear; cheerful courage; boldness.  It does not refer to presumption or arrogance but to knowledge and humility. This is the humble boldness of Hebrews 4:16: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (ESV). This confidence comes from spending time with Him and maturing as a believer.

·      “Toward Him” is speaking of the freedom of access that we have to the Father, the freedom to come freely into His presence and make our requests known.

·      “According to His will.” How do we know we are praying according to His will? This is answered first and foremost by what is clearly laid out in His Word. Is what you are asking for in clear alignment with His Word?

A person who is living fully as a Spirit-filled believer and is filled with the Word of God, who prays in the name of Jesus, who is in complete harmony with Him, is never desirous of praying contrary to the will of God.

The most challenging prayer for some is, “I want Your will, not mine.” I remember hearing a well-known pastor say, “Only immature believers insert the words, ‘If this be Your will’ into their prayers.” He had it backwards! In the Garden of Gethsemane just hours before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42, ESV). And Jesus was not immature.

·      “He hears us.” I am constantly amazed that out of six billion people on the planet, God knows who I am, where I live, what I am doing, and when I pray He hears me! If that doesn’t thrill you, then jump in a hole and let them pile dirt on you because you are dead.

“But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him” (Psalm 4:3, ESV).

·      “If we know” that we have prayed according to His will then we know that “we have the requests” that we have asked of Him.

What a great way to be surprised by the Father. He is smiling at you right now as you receive the truth of His Word.