homeland hunt

For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

Hebrews 11:14

I am a stranger here, not able to feel quite at home in a world that does not feel like my homeland. Redeemed from a slavery to which I cannot return, yet living so close to my captors that I cannot forget my past, I look for my homeland. But I am still a stranger in this world.

I am an exile… a refugee… a foreigner in a foreign country. This world speaks a foreign language and my accent gives me away as a citizen of heaven. The culture in which I live does not understand the holy call that rests upon me. My customs are out of synch. My dance is out of step. I hear a different tune to which I choose to move. I am an ignored minority in a hell bound culture. I swim against the current. But I know I am not home here. I am far from my true and better home. I live each day seeking to be in that better place.

I am a sojourner. I don’t sit still and try to fit in to a place for which I am not created. I am on a journey through this world to the true world. I travel light. I hold all things loosely. I know that in the end the best stuff will all burn to be remade into a new heavens and a new earth, the home of righteousness. This whole universe is not my home! So this vagabond soul hitchhikes on to heaven… ready to be at that final destination. And this place cannot be my homeland… it is my land of journey. As such, it has a beauty and a purpose. It is scenery. It is journey. But it isn’t home. Jesus awaits to greet me in my home!

May God grant this pilgrim my passage into His kingdom. May the joys of this gypsy journey lighten my soul and keep me knowing God’s care and longing to enter into the joy of my Lord. As I break camp each day, may God help me make more miles toward my homeland. I am hurting for my homeland. I am haunted by and hunting for my homeland. I am happy to be homeless until I am home.

confidence intact

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

Hebrews 10:35

Lord,

This admonition has a particularly deep personal meaning today. And You, my God, know where my soul has been. I reflect back on a season where I was tempted to let my confidence in You wane. I let an unthinkable loss became a seismic soul-shift, and at times I doubted even Your goodness as questions pressed into my pain. I never stopped asking those hard questions of You, and I believe that is how I held to my confidence… my faith… my trust in Your faithfulness… my conviction that Your grace will see me home.

I have learned that asking questions, even if they come out like accusations (see the book of Job and about fifty psalms of lament for precedent), is not a sign of unbelief, but of maturity. I learned from You, my God, that You are a big God Who can answer my big questions. I learned that You are a Sovereign God Who can give and take away and give again… Whose name I can and will still bless. I learned that You are a loving God Whose love and grace carries me all the time… even when I feel like You are absent and I sense no love and spiral down into a self-pitying nightmare of darkness all alone. I never have actually been alone. You’re right here with me. Always!

My anxiety reared up and can still press hard against me in a thousand different ways. Grief can still ambush me in a moment. Yet I know these cannot steal my confidence. And I will not throw it away! You have rewarded me, my loving Savior. I am rewarded with strength. I am rewarded with a peace that accepts my losses and welcomes my new direction with confidence in the God Who in my worst season has been my strength and my song. I have a good Father Who loves me, holds me, and has given to me now a new life from the ashes. You have resurrected my hope as I find confidence in the gospel. I am grateful and confident in Christ.

Amen

on my behalf

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

Hebrews 9:24

On my behalf Christ now appears

in heaven interceding

with His blood my covering

His righteousness is pleading

…on my behalf

For my sake Jesus rose again

my new life God’s intention

now forgiven I will know

my own resurrection

…for my sake

In my place Jesus bore my sin

dying on that cruel cross

bearing my sin, my sorrow, my guilt and shame

and suffering all my loss

…in my place

For my debt my Savior bore

a cross up Calvary

and in my stead He took the nails

that were meant for me

…for my debt

In His steps I will follow

loving, dying, living, victorious Lord

His voice directs me, His hands lead me

I follow truth by His Word

…in His steps

my living Priest

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Hebrews 7:25

Three things that only Jesus does for me… things that bring my soul great peace right now… are found in this verse. They are in my life, fully to be appreciated, right now.

Jesus saves me. To be saved is to be rescued from a threat or peril. This is the case for me. Jesus saves me from the reality of eternal hell. He saves me from the finality of death. He saves me from the control of sin and the kingdom of Satan. My life is no longer in peril but instead is destined for His glorious use and eternal pleasure!

Jesus lives for me. He is alive right now and has His focus on those whom He has saved. His people are His present ministry. Jesus cares for me actively… right now… even as I write down these thoughts. At this very moment He is always for me, with me, and living for my benefit. This is my present reality!

Jesus intercedes for me. Jesus speaks on my behalf before the Father. He is my Great High Priest. By virtue of His sacrifice I find ALL my sin forgiven, ALL His righteousness applied to my sinful soul, and ALL His efforts in current intercession for me and for all who believe the gospel. My living God is actively interested in every minute of every day of my life. My every moment has Jesus’ work in it!

Lord Jesus,

I praise You, my living Lord, my Savior, my Great High Priest, and my God! I confess my sins made me unworthy of such care from You, but by faith, Your sacrifice covers it all and now I am seen clothed in all Your beautiful righteousness. I thank You for Your present saving, living, interceding work on my behalf. I am humbled and blessed. Please help me live like one made holy by the work of my living, perfect priest!

Amen

patience and trust

…so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. 

Hebrews 6:12

There is a temptation in my walk with God to be sluggish and slow… to drag my pace. As I think it over, here is why I can become spiritually sluggish:

• I am afraid of what is ahead of me. I don’t know for certain what is ahead and in a lack of trust start to imagine difficulties that I do not want to experience. So I try to stay where I am comfortable. I drag my feet, slow my pace, and stay back. That makes me sluggish.
• I am too content. I’ve perhaps embraced some life experience as too precious to me. God challenges me to let go of it and move on. He will let me continue to enjoy it, but not if it keeps me from Him. And my lazy self just wants to hang back.
• I just don’t understand. The place God wants to take me is so new to my experience that I hesitate to move toward it. In that case I need His encouragement to trust and pick up my pace.
• I am weary. Sometimes my faith is slow simply because I am tired. I may have made myself that way by busy activity that ignored sabbath rest. This is not good obedience. I need to rest and let God carry me at His pace then set me down to continue trusting, empowered to overcome my sluggishness.

The call here is to counteract the sluggishness and activate through obedience both faith and patience. Faith trusts God. Faith repents of fearful unbelief. Faith finds contentment in bold trust in what may seem unnerving at first. Faith seeks to believe promises it can barely grasp and has yet to know. Faith finds strength in trusting God even while weary from life.

And patience trusts God’s timetable. I am at that kind of juncture right now. A huge part of faith is waiting on God. It is always worth it. Notice that faith and patience both take us to a great outcome: “inherit the promise”. Patient faith in the gospel, following Jesus at HIS pace, trusting our God… all of it is really, really worth it!

Listen…don’t just hear.

For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

Hebrews 4:2

There are two responses to the good news of the gospel described in this verse. There were those who had questions about the reason some would be saved and some would not. And the preacher of this sermon to the Hebrews shows us how these two distinct responses came to be. It looks a bit like this:

US

Listened to the message

Benefited from the message

Had faith

Believe the gospel

THEM

Heard the message

Did not benefit from the message

Did not have faith

Do not believe the gospel

What do we draw from these observations? To hear the gospel is one thing. But to listen to it is to heed its message. I can hear a tornado siren this coming Kansas spring and go on about my business and risk death. But if I listen to it, I take cover and am saved. Some will listen to the gospel and find deliverance. Others will ignore what they hear. But the result is truly tragic.

Lord,

I am thankful for the good news… for deliverance from sin, death, and judgment by faith in Jesus Who died and rose again for us all. How I pray that others I know and love will also, listen, believe, and trust You! This world just gets darker by the day! Grant mercy to those who only hear so that by faith they might truly listen! Save now, Lord Jesus!

Amen

affliction’s fruit

I am the man who has seen affliction…

Lamentations 3:1a

Sitting at her bedside

I watched her fade away

knowing there was nothing

I could do or say to change that day

I held her hand

with tears I would pray

until at last heaven’s breezes

took her away

Placed in my heart

affliction’s seed sown

my soul reeling

God giving what I needed then to own

And time went by

with sorrow and a sigh

my prayers God heard

my strength His Word

Standing at his graveside

traumatized mourners wept

yet there was something 

secretly peaceful that I kept

You spoke to hearts as

I shared in grief

I held their hands

begged them to believe

Even affliction can be good

when known in the love of a caring God

Who waters the seed with our own tears

and rescues us from all our fears

From my grief

     To His peace

          To shared belief

               To find relief