When serving God, we assume our motives are pure.   

GUIDANCE

Then we look back.  And with the perspective of hindsight, they are usually mixed.  If we're completely honest, selfishness, pride, and other such impurities often contaminate what we do.   

PERSPECTIVE

"For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.  If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.  It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work"

(1 Corinthians 3:11-13 NIV).

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

Father, please help us serve you faithfully.  Following your lead in even the smallest details. So our work for you is pure and lasting.  May we stand before you on that Day and see you smile at what you have built through us, your people.  In Jesus we seek this.  Amen. 

-Tony

Homesickness. When death and tragedy come calling, they often leave us longing for our heart’s true home. 

GUIDANCE

The place where we really fit.  The table set for us.  Loving family refilling our cups, getting us a third helping, and swapping stories about all of us.  Joy.  Laughter.  Harmony.  Warmth.  A place grounded and rooted in Him.

PERSPECTIVE

Jesus replied:  "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.  My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14:23 NIV).

When we feel homesick, let’s remember His promise.  Home is anywhere the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are truly welcomed. 

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

Right now I’m looking at a picture over my desk of two weary travelers joined by a stranger on the road toward Emmaus.  I can hear the longing in their anguished plea as they near the village:  "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over" (Luke 24:29 NIV).

And God Himself graced their table. 

-Tony

GUIDANCE

We rarely give anyone our full and complete attention.  We have short attention spans.  Bound as we are by space and time constraints.  Others are lucky to get our commercial break time. 

PERSPECTIVE

"If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" 

(Luke 11:13 NIV). 

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

"Watch me, dad!"  "Look at what I can do."  "Did you see me jump?"  "Didn't I do well?"

Our Father is FULLY PRESENT to every child He has.  He is NOT bound by space and time, so He can literally focus on each of us all the time.  With His wholehearted, thoughtful Spirit.

And what a difference His Presence quietly re-creates.

Now, if I can just learn to be a little more present to Him...

-Tony

GUIDANCE

Our Father certainly shows us this.  He is Love (1 John 4:8).  So He created everything with heart-filled love.

Including Lucifer. 

PERSPECTIVE

Vulnerability is the price we sometimes pay for loving unconditionally.  Others can pierce us with the very gifts we have lovingly provided for them. 

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

But it can work the other way around also.  The small arms go around the neck and we hear that beloved little voice say for no particular reason: “I love you.”  Friends rally around unexpectedly when you need them the most.  The prodigal returns.

In that moment of joyful gratitude we realize something of why He makes Himself so vulnerable.  Sometime love comes home. 

And a waiting Father opens wide His vulnerable heart to embrace His precious child.

-Tony

A world of suffering.
Interesting how He responds, isn't it?  

GUIDANCE

He dignifies it!

When our Father fully engages in His children's activity, it's a complete "game-changer."  His presence changes the nature, focus, and outcome of everything!

His touch and energetic encouragement resurrect our perspective.  His dignity transforms us!

PERSPECTIVE

So, by entering into our suffering, He gives it dignity by making it His own. 

No longer meaningless misery.  Now, meaningful ministry.
No longer solitary suffering.  Now, shared sacrifice.
No longer the cruel chaos.  Now, creative change.

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

When the Father/King weeps with us, we become different.  We see our worth in His suffering.  The dignity He brings to our pain transforms us.  We begin to see ourselves through His tear-filled eyes.  In the mirror of His loving gaze, we see who we are -- beloved children that have His love in spite of anything the enemy throws at us. 

We experience that His grace is sufficient.

-Tony

Earthquakes and other natural disasters. Famine and war.  Israel about to be wiped off the map.  

GUIDANCE

This was the condition of the world when Jesus gave the Great Commission to His first International Disciple Makers.  Sound familiar?

PERSPECTIVE

His solution to global chaos is that we become increasingly immersed into the will of the Father, life of the Son, and fellowship of their Holy Spirit.  When we do, we live in the safest place that exists:  The heart of God.  We do battle by hallowing of the family name.  A name honorable and spotless from all eternity to all eternity.

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

For soldiers like us, radical obedience is more than compliance.  It is our food.  A way to live in harmony with the deepest networking of the universe.

Obedience to all He commands reverses the abuse, dysfunction, neglect, and ignorance of our prideful rebellion. It's the only way to insure that His children are really loved, accepted, nurtured, and matured.

One day soon there will be a wedding feast in which the Son gives all back into the hands of the Father.  War over.  His suffering finished.  His Great Commission Initiative complete.

His children safely and securely home.  Forever.

-Tony

So many of us self-destruct.  Tragically.  But why???  

GUIDANCE

Lots of reasons.  But certainly at the top of the list is not keeping our relationship with God alive, growing, and dynamic.  We tend to cling to past experiences, imitate the lives of others, or start sliding down the undemanding path of non-spiritual growth. 

PERSPECTIVE

But our God deserves a real relationship from us.  Because He is One.  In fact, everything that is really good began between Them, where love has always lived.  The Father, like the sun, radiating beams of love.  The Son, His glorious reflection, mirroring the Father.  The Begetter and the Begotten.  Eternally.  In the strong bond of the Holy Spirit.  A relationship between the three that is always alive and growing. 

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

It is this loving relationship which birthed you and me (along with all else). We're chosen, adopted into His eternal family.  This family of those who do His will.  God's strong right-hand Word formed us from frail dust, while His powerful left-hand Spirit energized us into being.  We are now sons and daughters of Abraham, called out of Egypt, given the Law and Prophets, the Incarnate Word, the Written Word, His Holy Spirit, martyrs, trailblazers, guides, friends, and witnesses all through the ages.

And that's not all.  Formed by His many beams of love, we are now being transformed into Him.  We're being re-created to live in our heart's true home:  This eternal relationship of love which painted the first supernova, smiled at the first sunrise, and welcomes children home.  This relationship we call the Trinity is our eternal destiny.  And toward Them, we swim like spiritual salmon seeking our way forward to the Holy Place from which we were spawned.

Anything less will destroy us. 

-Tony

GUIDANCE

Oh yes, there is the silence of anger - the "silent treatment."  There can be the silence of confusion.  Or fear - a "silent scream."  Maybe you have been manipulated or harmed by others who kept quiet when they should have spoken up.  Not hearing from a friend is a silence that can eat away the relationship over time.  Much devastation can happen in this type of silence. 

PERSPECTIVE

But there is another kind of silence.  Sunrise devotions with a loving Father.  Holding a hand at the hospital bedside.  Old friends enjoying the sunset together.  Love hushed into adoration.  Quietly experiencing surges of joy and delight gurgling up from His depths.  A simple place of quiet where beloved children are embraced. 

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

"My heart is not proud, O Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me. 

O Israel, put your hope in the Lord
Both now and forevermore.

Psalm 131 NIV 

-Tony

I didn't understand.  I always thought it was giving praise or adoration.  But it's much, much more.

GUIDANCE

Jesus demonstrated it by example and with words, but still I missed it.  Remember when He prayed:  "Father, glorify your name!" (John 12:28), or "Father, the time has come.  Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you" (John 17:1), or "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began" (John 17:5).  But giving God glory here means much more than praising or adoring.  What was I missing?

PERSPECTIVE

Recently re-reading Andrew Murray's book, The Spirit of Christ, the reality jumped off the page to smack me in the soul.  "To glorify is to manifest the hidden excellence and worth of an object" (Murray, p. 75).

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY 

Now the prayer of Jesus for himself and for us in John 17 makes so much more sense to me.  His purpose is simply to point out the obvious excellence and worth of God!  Making the hidden known through His word, work, life, example, and sacrifice.

I've always known somehow that the purpose of my life should be to glorify God.  But never really understood how.  Murray really helped me.  Of course I should praise and adore Him.  But this is more than what I say.

Glorifying God is living so that His excellence and worth is experienced by others with and through me.  In His presence and power, I want my life simply to point people His direction.  And doing nothing to take attention away from Him.

"Father the time has come.  Glorify your Son, that your son may glorify you.  For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.  Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.  I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.  And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began" (John 17:5).

-Tony

GUIDANCE

He was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day (Numbers 15:32-36.)

But let's be honest. Doesn't punishment seem a bit extreme? And why would God make the entire community carry out such a severe penalty? Of course the man had broken the Fourth Commandment.

But stoned to death by family and friends? For gathering wood?

PESPECTIVE

We cannot know entirely why God was so severe. But His reasons must be important to impose such a strong sentence. And a partial answer has to be found in the Ten Commandments themselves.

STRENGTH FOR THE JOURNEY

They instruct us to worship and serve only God.

As a recovering "workaholic," this really challenges me. Is it really true that my work could become an idol? But I serve God! I'm doing His work!!

However, God's severe condemnation of Sabbath breakers remains. Is it possible for me to make the subtle shift from loving Him through serving to loving the serving itself? Taking time to make sure that, no matter how exciting, important, or rewarding service for Him becomes, He is honored first and foremost. "Doing it for Him" while not honoring Him as the highest love of my life. Can ministry activity itself become a disobedient distraction?

I think we both know the answer to that!

The cure is obedience to His Sabbath principle. Regularly withdrawing for deeper fellowship with Him. Giving Him the necessary time to know, prune, and grow us. Thus, the reason for His Fourth Commandment.

One day our work here will cease. He alone is eternal. So it's absolutely critical for us to pursue His primary purpose: Loving Him above all else. Keeping Sabbath with Him now will make it much more likely we will one day hear "well done" rather than "depart from me, I never knew you."

-Tony