We are in a unique condition as we read this material, a condition that is temporary but very significant, a condition that, in all of eternity, we shall only experience once. We are as we are because God has created us to be so. He has chosen to create us to be, at this moment, spirit beings that temporarily inhabit a human body. We will not be forever as we are now. A day will come when each of us will end this human life experience and we will go on to another experience of life called eternal life. But, for the moment, we are living in the human experience of life.

During our human experience we have spiritual experiences because we are spirit beings in our essence. The part of us that really matters is our spirit.

There is now a part of us that says with God, “I AM.” We could go on, but our point today is not to do deep theological exposition on the subject, although we pray to have piqued some interest along the way that may lead to deeper study, but to lay the groundwork for establishing a different way of seeing the mundane of life. After all most of what we do appears to be mundane. Perhaps by lifting our eyes to the infinite we can learn to see the mundane differently. And if we learn to see the infinite in the mundane, then the mundane will never be truly mundane to us again.

Our great need is to see God in the mundane. Our failing is that we tend to only look for Him in the extraordinary or the obviously spiritual realms of life. Because we do, we miss so much!

God uses the ordinary circumstance of life to reveal His extraordinary glory and grace.

Where is He when we spill our coffee? He is there, telling us to laugh at ourselves, that it is no big deal. He is using the circumstance to build the character of Jesus in us, to conform us to His image. Circumstances reveal our inner selves. Our reactions to them allow God to show us our need for Him and to experience our unity with Him, if we will let Him.

Where is God in a demanding customer? Why doesn’t He just handle it when we need Him to? Why does He allow us to hire brothers-in-law who He knows won’t work out?

Can you begin to get a sense of the difference it would make if we could learn to see the glory of God in the moment?

The basis for all discontent and all unhappiness is unwillingness to be content in the present moment.

Joy, peace, contentment, love, happiness and every good thing exist only in the moment. Life in this human form is composed of a series of frustratingly variable trials and problems, interrupted by momentary respites of serendipitous glimpses of grace. No one gets a pass. The rain falls on the just and the unjust and the sun shines on wicked and good alike.  Most days are a combination of problems and trials galore with God always present, and His glory always just a choice away.

Victor Frankl was a Jewish man sent to the Nazi concentration camp at Aushwitz during WW II. He made a profound discovery during the horrible trial of deprivation and torture that he experienced there. He realized that he was helpless at the hand of his captors in all ways save one. They could take away everything material, they could torture his body, and they could kill him if they chose. But they could never take away his freedom to choose his response to what they did to him. He survived, and after the war taught others about what he learned to call the moment between action and reaction. It is in this moment, he taught, brief as it may be, that we choose our reaction. We own that moment. No one can take that moment from us.

Now, if Victor Frankl could use that moment to choose his reactions to the brutality being forced upon him and survive, could we learn to use it to see the glory of God in our moment in the midst of the tests and trials of this human life? We can, indeed we can. And as we do, life is transformed, changed in an instant from mundane to sublime.

Practice taking God into the present moment. For the next week or so, stop in the middle of something and mentally realize that, at this moment, you are One with God. You in Him and He in you. Let His glory overcome the circumstance and capture the moment. It’s all we have and He is all we need.

Panting beneath a load of riches? What’s that? Aren’t riches a blessing?

One of the by-products, and even sometimes the motivating force in striving for success in our careers, is the opportunity to gain financial increase through our efforts. We work hard to improve our performance, to satisfy our customers/supervisors, to learn how to do whatever we do with increasing value and effectiveness, and often we succeed.

Our success brings with it a greater ability to acquire “things.” Things like, well you know, bigger homes, vacation homes, travel, fancy cars, boats, planes, hobbies and “stuff.” Often we take advantage of this opportunity. “Things” start to pile up. They seem to breed all by themselves.

Sometimes it is hard to find time to use them all and also meet the demands of our other priorities as well. You know, you can’t use a boat and a plane at the same time very well, or be at the new mountain house and church at the same time. It’s hard to read God’s Word and play golf or tennis at the same time or to wind-surf and ski. It takes an effort to schedule all the “Things” we have access to when we have so many.

Can it be that every “thing” that glitters is not gold? If so, how can we know the difference?

(Here is a hint – blessings from God never war against God’s priorities!)

What might His priorities be?

First – to grow in intimacy with Him. To learn and do His will. To spend time with Him. If “stuff” gets in the way it didn’t come from Him

Second – To nurture family relationships starting with your spouse if you have one and extending to children, grandchildren, and then others

Third – To use the gifts He has given to build His Church (notice the capital “C”) both within the walls of of our local church and wherever else we happen to be when we are not there. To share in meeting the needs we find as we relate to the world around us from what He has provided to us.

Fourth – To care for ourselves in spirit, soul, and body and continue in learning and health.

If the “things” you have don’t keep you from the things God wants you to be and do, but rather are tools or vehicles that enable you to do “all things well” then they are not the burden that Tertullian spoke about, they are blessings to be shared and enjoyed. It’s great to use “things” but awful when the use you.

So, how’s it really working for us? Do you feel safer, more secure, and more happily prosperous than you did 5 years ago? 10 years ago? 20? 40? 50?  Are we experiencing a “kinder, gentler” culture?

How is our public education system working? 50 years ago we were number 1 in the world. No one would dare to claim that today. Most estimates rank us in the 20s somewhere. Are we getting better?

How about our economy? 50 years ago we were the richest lender-nation in the world. Today we are the world’s greatest debtor-nation, our debt growing every time congress is in session. (Republican or Democrat)

This is progress? How the mighty have fallen! And where will the bottom be? And how did this happen?

Here is my take. It all started in the Garden of Eden and accelerated greatly when in 1960-61 the Supreme Court took God out of our public  schools. This opened the door to resisting ultimate authority and the rebellion against all authority of the 60s, including the sexual revolution fueled by the pill and resulting in the objectification of women. Sexual liberation brought none of the hoped for benefits to women and actually deprived them of the respect of men and severely damaged the integrity of the family unit. Men were freed from the responsibility of parenting children they fathered when aborting (murdering) unwanted children was legalized and amazingly recognized as a constitutional right by the Supreme Court. A society that accepts the killing of babies is not a “good society.” God was not considered to be a part of the decision to grant the right of a woman to murder her unborn baby either legally or morally.

Through the 60s and 70s all measures of societal health trended down leading to the greed and immoral public behaviors of leaders in government, business, and the church of the 80s and 90s which expands and continues to this day. Obscene rappers and immoral entertainers have become our “heroes” and the definers of acceptable behavior. Unwed and homosexual procreation are accepted and our vice-president just proclaimed that homosexual marriage will soon become the law of the land. (Elton John’s having a baby!)

We have lost shame. We have lost extrinsic standard. We are losing hope for a better tomorrow.

This is all the inevitable result of ignoring the truth of a statement made by Fyodor Dostoevsky when he said “Without God anything is permissible, crime is inevitable.” Our Founders knew this to be true.

John Adams said: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

George Washington echoed: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable parts.”

John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence is quoted: “Corruption of morals make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten material together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual.”

Has crime increased or decreased? How many prisoners do we have locked up as a percentage of our population today compared to 50 years ago? What is your chance of being a victim of violent crime today versus 50 years ago?

I could go on but it would be purposeless. The obvious fact is are that, when any honest person looks at the last 50 years they will see serious deterioration in our national moral standard which has led to the devastation of every measure of societal health.

Wonder how we have so lost our moral compass? If you want a clue go to http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/462-six-megathemes-emerge-from-2010 and get a sense of what happened to the church in 2010 and possibly http://buckjacobs.com/think-about-this-two-huge-flaws for a short discussion of the two critical flaws that have contributed mightily to our current situation.

There is only one possible recourse to reverse our slide from a culture of hope to a culture of ever increasing despair – repent and turn to God. And if we who claim to follow Jesus won’t or don’t lead our culture to a better place – who will? (II Chronicles 7:14)

Money isn’t anything like air. I can live a very long life and experience all the really important qualities of life without money, but I can only live a few minutes without air. In God’s economy of sovereign abundance He has made all the most important things for the abundant life the easiest to obtain and most freely available.

Air is first on the list, followed by water, food and shelter. Money never appears on God’s list of important things. Money is utilitarian at best, not essential. God is our source. He is sovereign  and He can and will provide all we need to do all He wants - with or without money. Money is never the limiting factor in doing what is most important to Him.

I know that this sounds like radical thinking but it really isn’t, in fact it is eminently logical and Biblically provable. Let’s take a couple of simple examples.

Perhaps the most obvious is God’s total and sovereign sustenance of the nation of Israel in the desert for 40 years. He didn’t use money or any other medium of barter or exchange to care for them.  He just supernaturally provided all they really needed to live. He doesn’t need money to care for us either.

When Peter asked Jesus how they they would pay the temple tax Jesus told him to go catch a fish. The money for the tax was to be in its mouth. I call that fish God’s bank.

Did you ever notice that when Jesus taught His disciples to pray He told them to prays “Give us this day our daily bread” not, “Give us the money to buy our bread?”  Money was used while Jesus was here. He knew about it. He knew all about it.

How about this; there is no mention of money in the garden of Eden. It wasn’t needed. It’s not mentioned in any description or discussion of the New Jerusalem either. Adam and Eve worked, but not for wages, they tended the garden as stewards and God provided all they needed to do all He asked.

Here’s a really radical thought about money; it is an alternative to trust in God provided by Satan as part of an alternative worldview that he has been promoting since he appeared to Eve as a snake. What he did then, and all he really does now, is offer plausible sounding but false alternatives to trust in what God has said to man. It is true that the world system that has developed and is the result of the first sin of disobedience does need money, and also that as He does with all things, God does use money, but He doesn’t need it. Neither do His children although they may use it too. God uses everything but He doesn’t need anything.

What we need is faith… Faith to trust God and to take Him at His word…First, faith that He loves us so much that He sent His Son to take the punishment that we deserve for our sins… faith to accept that gift.

Next, faith that His written Word is true, all of it. In it He promises over, and over, and over again to provide all we need to do all He asks and to take responsibility for it. Think about it friends! If God can’t or won’t do this He isn’t God at all and our faith is a joke!

If God has a unique plan for each of our lives, which He says he does in His Word. (Ephesians 2:10)

And, If He will judge our performance within that plan, which He says He will. (II Corinthians 5:10)

And if there will be consequences, both reward and loss, based on that judgement, and He says there will be. (I Corinthians 3:11-15)

Then how can He judge us unless we have the ability to do what we are being given to do? Is the God of the Universe just? Is He?

Yes! He is just! And that’s how I know – I WILL ALWAYS HAVE ALL I NEED TO DO ALL GOD WANTS. If you trust Him you will too!

Take it to the bank!

There is a hooker though, it’s the phrase that says “to do all HE wants.”

                                                                                                Galatians 6:9

 “Let us not grow weary….” Do you ever feel weary? Tired, wornout, burned out? Does the burden of being somone chosen by God to deal with the particular frustrations and difficult people that make up your life and relationships in its environment ever make you wonder if it is all worth the effort required? Do you ever feel like just chucking the whole deal and simply taking a walk? I do.

One thing is for sure, if you answered “no” to any of the above you will lie about other things too! We all grow weary at times. If life were easy we would never need God. He would be irrelevant. God is never irrelevant.

No one gets a pass from the challenges of life, everyone has a piece of the action. A perfect life without trail or pain doesn’t exist, yet. But the Bible quote that we started with tells that we shouldn’t “lose heart.” Have you ever lost heart? I have. When I take my eyes of the reality of life and look through the lens of wrong expectation it’s easy to do. Let’s ask ourselves some probing questions and reflect on our answers. Jot down your rresponses to:

• What is the “good” that we are called to do in our roles as Christ-followers? And who calls us to do it?

• Why do we get “weary” even doing what God asks us to do?

• When that happens, what or who would you suppose is the most likely cause?

• What do you think might be the most powerful cure for weariness?

• What can we do to avoid getting weary?

• Who determines what “due season” is?

• What shall we reap if we remain faithful and don’t lose heart?

Take your time and think through these questions and then ponder this statement; “The circumstances of life don’t make me what I am, they reveal who (whose?) I am.” Only by accepting and adopting the true eternal perspective on life abundant”can we have any chance of not growing weary and losing heart and, even then, to maintain perspective we need the encouragement we gain by association with other like-minded Christ-followers to sustain it.  

So, how’s life workin’ for you?

The good news is…IT DOESN’T MATTER!!!!!!

For Christians it doesn’t matter because our God, not our government or any world power or economic system, is our source! It is He who promises to supply all we need to do all He asks… period! What God asks of us is faithful, dependent, obedience to His Spirit moment by moment. If the sun shines or it rains, in good times or bad, in sickness or in health, in democracy or totalitarianistic socialism – our call is to trust Him for all we need to do all He asks AND HE WILL!!!

There is no need for weeping and wailing or gnashing of teeth! IT DOESN’T MATTER!!! Don’t waste time or energy!

This is like the endless and wasteful debate over the return of our Lord, whether He will come before, during, or after the tribulation! IT DOESN”T MATTER! It is just a distraction! What matters is moment by moment trust and obedience now, in the moment. He will come again for each of us and when He does, whether that is before, during, or after the tribulation, all that will matter will be our trust and obedience. He has a plan for each of our lives and He will always provide all we need to fulfill it! No power in heaven or on Earth can stand against Him. Jesus isn’t dependent on any form of earthly government or economic system. He is the absolute sovereign and infinite power of the Universe.

So, don’t be discouraged. Of course we have preferences concerning our government and who is best qualified to lead it, and we need to be informed and vocal in support of candidates who represent our values and views. But no matter who leads the country this is not our home and it will never be perfect or even really close, and it will never change our Source or what we need to do to receive all we need to live abundantly from Him. We are here for a short term as Ambassadors for Christ and then we’ll go home. Faithful Ambassadors don’t look to the country where they are sent to serve to supply their needs, they look to home. Press on, the Bema awaits!

I have been asked to briefly give a couple of keys to what we have found to be a way to do marriage that works. There are so many things that God has used and is using that it is hard to pick just a few. For me, not to try to over-spiritualize, but it starts with understanding, and accepting God’s role for me in our relationship. The basic concept that I am to love Bonnie as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it is where it all started. I had failed in marriage twice before coming to Christ. I know how to fail at marriage, and I’ve learned, I should say I’m learning, how to succeed. There are three things that we have done that have really helped us and that I would encourage others to do in some form without question.

FIRST, from the get-go we committed on our knees together that we wanted, and would strive for, God’s best in our marriage – no matter what! We knelt before Jesus and promised that divorce would never be an option. But, more than that, we said that we wanted the marriage that God wanted us to have. Not to just stay together, but to know the joy and “oneness” that He wanted for us.  We didn’t know at the time that there would be a thousand challenges that would test our commitment, and there have been, but so very often, when it has hit the fan, we are reminded, and remind each other, of our promise to Jesus and our commitment to His goals for us as husband and wife. Somehow that always breaks the problem down and reminds us that God is able to bring resolution and healing to whatever it is that we have let slip in.

SECOND, and following from the first, after about 12 years of marriage and two children, we realized that, while we were investing a tremendous amount of time and energy into their lives, we weren’t investing much at all in building our relationship. We had forgotten why we were attracted to each other in the first place and the romantic portion of our relationship had slipped drastically into “yesterday’s mashed potatoes.” After the realization and some thought and prayer, we decided to take one weekend a month and get away for at least one over-night. We found reliable sitters for the girls and committed to get away and do something “fun” every month. There isn’t space or time here to list all the benefits that this practice brought us. The planning and discussion around it brought out all kinds of issues and helped me see how I had neglected my responsibility as Bonnie’s husband to nurture the part of her that needed to feel feminine and wanted. We explored Bed and Breakfasts and “antiqued” together. (Guess whose idea that was?) I learned to enjoy Bonnie’s enjoyment, and yes, sometimes we played golf. After the girls left for college we had no “empty nest” problems, we enjoy being together.  Since then we try to have a weekly “date” for the same reason. It takes time and some money, but it is more than worth it. I’m 71 years old today and I’m still romantically attracted to my wife and she to me. Romantic love doesn’t have to die but we can kill it by neglect. I don’t do as well as I would like to, and writing this will help me to press on, but even a little effort over time is a whole lot better than none.

FINALLY, and simply, the most important thing we do, is to have quiet time with the Lord each morning and to finish it by holding hands and praying aloud together for our family, friends, ministry, and each other. There are many other things we do, but none more powerful, meaningful or helpful. It’s really hard to have a hard heart toward someone you pray with every day. And somehow hearing my wife pray tells me more about what’s going on in our lives than tons of general conversation. We spend about an hour at it each day, the last 10 minutes or so, depending on what’s going on, in prayer. We also hold hands and close every day in a short prayer of thanksgiving before we go to sleep each night. We’re not really Bible students or prayer warriors by any means, but we do a little everyday. There is nothing that I know of that helps more, and, if all Christians would do just this one thing, the statistics concerning Christian divorce would change dramatically.

There you go – three simple things. I hope that someone who reads this might just give them a try and, if they do, that they will be as blessed as we have. God is more than good. He’s the source of all that’s good. And marriage was His idea in the first place. Committing to His best, nurturing our love in His, and talking about it all with Him all the time really helps!

We are in a unique condition as we read this material, a condition that is temporary but very significant, a condition that, in all of eternity, we shall only experience once. We are as we are because God has created us to be so. He has chosen to create us to be, at this moment, spirit beings that temporarily inhabit a human body. We will not be forever as we are now. A day will come when each of us will end this human life experience and we will go on to another experience of life called eternal life. But, for the moment, we are living in the human experience of life.

During our human experience we have spiritual experiences because we are spirit beings in our essence. The part of us that really matters is our spirit.

There is now a part of us that says with God, “I AM.” We could go on, but our point today is not to do deep theological exposition on the subject, although we pray to have piqued some interest along the way that may lead to deeper study, but to lay the groundwork for establishing a different way of seeing the mundane of life. After all most of what we do appears to be mundane. Perhaps by lifting our eyes to the infinite we can learn to see the mundane differently. And if we learn to see the infinite in the mundane, then the mundane will never be truly mundane to us again.

Our great need is to see God in the mundane. Our failing is that we tend to only look for Him in the extraordinary or the obviously spiritual realms of life. Because we do, we miss so much!

God uses the ordinary circumstance of life to reveal His extraordinary glory and grace.

Where is He when we spill our coffee? He is there, telling us to laugh at ourselves, that it is no big deal. He is using the circumstance to build the character of Jesus in us, to conform us to His image. Circumstances reveal our inner selves. Our reactions to them allow God to show us our need for Him and to experience our unity with Him, if we will let Him.

Where is God in a demanding customer? Why doesn’t He just handle it when we need Him to? Why does He allow us to hire brothers-in-law who He knows won’t work out?

Can you begin to get a sense of the difference it would make if we could learn to see the glory of God in the moment?

The basis for all discontent and all unhappiness is unwillingness to be content in the present moment.

Joy, peace, contentment, love, happiness and every good thing exist only in the moment. Life in this human form is composed of a series of frustratingly variable trials and problems, interrupted by momentary respites of serendipitous glimpses of grace. No one gets a pass. The rain falls on the just and the unjust and the sun shines on wicked and good alike.  Most days are a combination of problems and trials galore with God always present, and His glory always just a choice away.

Victor Frankl was a Jewish man sent to the Nazi concentration camp at Aushwitz during WW II. He made a profound discovery during the horrible trial of deprivation and torture that he experienced there. He realized that he was helpless at the hand of his captors in all ways save one. They could take away everything material, they could torture his body, and they could kill him if they chose. But they could never take away his freedom to choose his response to what they did to him. He survived, and after the war taught others about what he learned to call the moment between action and reaction. It is in this moment, he taught, brief as it may be, that we choose our reaction. We own that moment. No one can take that moment from us.

Now, if Victor Frankl could use that moment to choose his reactions to the brutality being forced upon him and survive, could we learn to use it to see the glory of God in our moment in the midst of the tests and trials of this human life? We can, indeed we can. And as we do, life is transformed, changed in an instant from mundane to sublime.

Practice taking God into the present moment. For the next week or so, stop in the middle of something and mentally realize that, at this moment, you are One with God. You in Him and He in you. Let His glory overcome the circumstance and capture the moment. It’s all we have and He is all we need.

Many friends have agreed with the concept of journaling over the years but most have struggled to find a consistent format that helps to keep the practice coherent and on track. In the hope that some may find it helpful I will share a very simple but effective journaling practice that I have used, and that has made it work for me for years.

1- For my journal I use a simple three ring notebook with a clear cover and dividers because they are so readily available and cheap. I slip my personal Mission Statement into the clear cover where I see it every day. I use the dividers to separate my journal and prayer list which is also pretty simple. (Consistent prayer over a few things is much better than occasional prayer over many things)

2. The way I set up each page is like this:
a) The first thing I do is write the day, date, time I get up, and my weight (I have been on a diet for 40+ years!) in the upper right hand corner.
b) Next I write the chapters of scripture that I will read (minimum) on the first line – center of the page. (Always one from the gospels and another usually from the New Testament.)
c) Next I drop down to about three lines up from the bottom of the page and write Blessing #…. I started with 1 and today was #7766. I then stop and reflect on what I am thankful for that God did in my life the day before, the previous 24 hours. I list as many as I can think of. I start this list by writing “Thank You Father for…..and write them down. (You will be amazed at how quickly we forget God’s blessings and kindnesses.)
3. Then I proceed with my reading, study, and reflection, beginning always with Scripture, and always including a chapter from the Gospels as I always want to be under the direct teaching of Jesus,  but also including other works that I feel God leads me to. Some sacred, some secular that will help me develop in the calling God has placed on my life.
4. The last thing I do is write a letter to God. Mostly they are just one page and are a combination of thanksgiving and praise for His Grace and questions about what He wants me to do. Sometimes I think He answers directly and I note what I think He has said. Sometimes I ask questions, sometimes I confess sin. Nothing is off limits! I write what I think His Spirit leads me to write, period. He doesn’t seem to mind how I do it or what I ask!
5. Every Saturday I review all that I have written during the week before I write to Him. This is an awesome practice and I highly recommend it. I keep tab markers handy and when something appears that I want to remember or review I tab it and go back over the tabs at the end of each year, or earlier if I am looking for something. Each January I spend part of the time reviewing the previous year, again, an amazing exercise. We forget so much of His grace and goodness!
6. Finally friends, and again, the thing that makes it all work is that the first hour of every day belongs to Him. This is the non-negotiable commitment that I made 7766 days ago. In all the years have missed three times to the best of my knowledge. These caused by red-eye flights or other unavoidable travel intrusions.

If you are serious about growing in your faith and have struggled to have a consistent and quality quiet time with God and want one,  try this; make it the first hour and non-negotiable and try this format for journaling for 90 days. You’ll never regret it and you life will never be the same.