What the World Needs Now Is Love

November 24, 2023 by journeyintolight

I recall listening to a hit song in the early 1970’s by Jackie DeShannon about how this world has achieved about everything but how to love each other. At the time, I was busy helping develop Minuteman Missiles which were the deadliest weapons on the face of the earth. Each missile carried several nuclear warheads capable of destroying whole cities and regions. I was a Development Engineer in the Air Force tasks with helping test the missiles to ensure they would destroy if called upon. I thought at the time there had to be a better way to live. We had the ability to destroy one another. Could we also discover how to love each other?

I have spent the years since then seeking to learn how to live a life that loves others and doesn’t destroy them by neglect, selfishness, and hatred.

I didn’t consider myself a particularly loving person in those days. I grew up with low self-esteem and had spent a good portion of my life self-centered and focused on protecting myself from the hurt inflicted by others.

But then there is God. He knows how to love for he is very loving and giving. Beginning in 1971, he began to teach and strengthen me in how to love others.

In the years since I was in the missile business, I often wondered how the United States, or the Soviet Union didn’t blow the other off the face of the earth. I concluded that it was God’s love and power that kept us from destruction.

Most of my friends in the Air Force were Missile Launch Officers and I saw that they were imperfect and could accidently, even though a remote possibility, set in motion a missile that could have ended the world as we know it.

And what about today? Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. What is going to hold them back from using them to trigger a nuclear war? The answer is for us to act wisely to do what we can to prevent this from happening. The other is to seek God’s mercy and love to hold back Iran and give us all a chance to experience his love before he brings this world to an end.

Those of us who have experienced his love already, have a responsibility to spread God’s love to this world by accepting his love for us daily and giving out this love to others. God says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” in John 15:13. And that is just what Jesus did when he died on the cross. It was to pay the penalty for all of us for leaving God out of our lives and receiving his loving gift of going to heaven.

What this world needs is to find love in a relationship with the true God who is gracious and kind. Until that happens, many of us will continue to be disillusioned by utopian dreams that leave God’s loving presence out. We will continue to strive for a “heaven on earth” experience that refuses to acknowledge and trust the need for God’s love to make this earth a safe and loving place, instead of a nuclear disaster waiting to happen.

Posted in God's Love | Leave a Comment »

Do You Feel Safe?

November 8, 2023 by journeyintolight

We feel safe when we don’t expect harm or hurt from the life around us. To feel safe is one of the most basic needs we have.  

But it is hard to feel safe because we live in a dangerous world. Wars, mass shootings, financial problems, and the difficulties of daily living keep our flight or fight emotional systems in high gear to deal with the challenges we face.

We desperately search for safety in our money, achievements, impressing others. good circumstances, and fantasies. But do these things work? Do they keep us safe? Why do we still feel so much anxiety?

My deepest life-long desire has been for safety. I used to think that my striving for achievements was due to my desire to become important and impact my world. But as I looked closer, I realized that my greater motivation was to feel safe. Achievements were my way to feel safe- safe from criticism, disrespect, physical and emotional pain.

But if we are honest, we will accept the truth that it is a dangerous world and no matter how hard we work at it, we cannot create a perfect world where we will always feel safe.

But the good news is that there is God. He is strong and loving and commits himself to keeping us safe. That is, if we rely on him to help us. The Bible says, “He alone is my refuge, my place of safety (Psalm 91:2, NLT). Faith in him is the key to experiencing his help for “without faith it is impossible to please him (Hebrews 11:6 NAS).

We will always have plenty of problems and things that scare us. But with these problems Jesus says:

In the world you tribulation, but take courage I have overcome the world John 16:33 (NAS)

True safety only comes in relying on the reality of God’s presence and his promises to never desert or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

This is the way God seems to work. He gives us everything we need pertaining to life (2 Peter 1:3) and getting our needs met, but we need to rely on him and his promises to experience them. When we don’t, we miss many of his blessings.

He told Israel that he had given them the Promised Land and now was their time to possess it. They may have thought, If God has already given the land to us, why do we have to risk our lives to possess it?

He told me several years ago, “This is the woman I have saved for you, now go make her your wife.” But I thought, why do I have to work hard to make her my wife if you have already saved her for me?”

These two examples underscore God’s way of often requiring us to walk with him through seemingly unsafe circumstances in trust to fully experience his blessings. When Israel obeyed and trusted in him, they succeeded in gaining the Promised Land. When I trusted and relied on God in the courtship of my wife, he worked miraculously to make it happen. Even though he had given her to me as a gift, I had to trust in and obey him to get her.

So, the surest way to feel safe in this dangerous and uncertain world is to lean hard on God and his protection.  It’s a journey of a thousand miles to learn to trust him in all circumstances. But God is faithful and as we grow in our ability to rely on him, we will experience his supernatural help in feeling safe.

Posted in Rest | Leave a Comment »

Can You Handle the Truth?

September 19, 2023 by journeyintolight

Facing the truth about ourselves and life can be threatening. Often, we would rather deceive ourselves about looking better or being more important than we are.  It feels better. But isn’t it better in the long run to face the truth?

I have been struggling to face the truth that I may have a blood pressure problem. I take it at the right time of the day, I go through all kinds of gyrations to relax, I take several readings and only record the best ones. And the results show that there is no problem. But is that the truth?

Every month or so I go to my doctor and in his office the readings are usually very high. Thus, he concludes I have a blood pressure problem. But I think it’s more an anxiety problem. What’s the truth? Maybe both are true. Until recently I was reasonably content to believe I had normal blood pressure because it was normal at home. But in a doctor’s office I suffer from White Coat Syndrome, which is usually driven by anxiety, not an actual blood pressure problem.

I finally decided it was better to know and trust the truth than possibly have a problem and not deal with it. Or, not have a problem and over-medicate. So, I began to seek God for some answers.

One thing he has led me to do is to have a conversation with my doctor about what he thinks is causing the high readings in his office and what can be done about it. “Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?” (Amos 3:3). I think I know what his answers will be, but I’m only guessing unless I talk to him.

Then God impressed upon to take some actions that would reduce the readings in the doctor’s office. Some of these actions included scheduling morning appointments (when the blood pressure tends to be lowest), arrange to have two readings (the first one is usually highest), and relax a few minutes before it is taken. Recently, I did this with another doctor and the readings were normal.

So, what is the truth? Do I even want to know the truth?

Truth can be hard to handle as Jack Nicolson said in the movie, A Few Good Men. We would rather pretend that the truth is what we want it to be than to face painful reality.

I plan to continue to seek the truth about my blood pressure wherever it leads. The anxiety of not knowing the truth is too painful to continue in ignorance.

Do you have some possible painful truth in your life that you are running from? Has your pain risen to the level where you are ready to face the truth, no matter how much it may not be to your liking?

The Bible says, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32, NLT). It may set us free from unnecessary anxiety or from a problem that can be fixed with a few lifestyle changes.

May we be strong and let our hearts take courage and trust God to give us the strength to discover and face the truth of our lives. He has promised that whatever that truth is he will give us the strength to overcome the obstacles. “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13, ESV).

Posted in Truth | Leave a Comment »

Do You Want to Be Great?

July 29, 2023 by journeyintolight

Growing up I didn’t feel very important because of a lot of criticism I received and focusing on the wrong things to give me worth. I felt bad not to feel important. So, I devised various ways I could feel important, like getting good grades, being good in sports, looking the best I could and getting my name in the paper. But I still struggled with self-esteem as these idols didn’t give me the greatness I sought.

Most of us believe that we become more important when we achieve, gain power, or make wealth. But do we? We often allow other people to tell us what our value is. But this is dangerous. We could easily pass the test with others and fail miserably God’s assessment of our lives.

We often respect bosses that drive hard those they supervise to gain results. But God is more impressed with bosses who serve those they supervise (Matthew 20:25-26). Who would have thought that greatness to God came from serving?

True greatness comes as a gift from God, not as a payment for making ourselves great in the eyes of others. God says to each of us who has trusted him, that we are precious, honored, and loved (Isaiah 43:4). No amount of money, power, and achievements can get this greatness in the eyes of God.

But it is costly to gain this greatness. I had to give up what little greatness I had earned to accept the greatness that God offered me for free by inviting me to be a part of his royal family. I had to give up control of my life to a God who loved me but had his own ideas about the life I was to live. I had to delay marriage for a few years, and give up two promising careers, one in the Air Force and one in County Government. I lost the approval of my parents and some of my friends.

But it was worth it having a meaningful purpose in life and the hope of living in heaven forever. I sought the greatness that God offered and the rewards he promised to give me one day in heaven.

So, then how do we become great? By serving others and God. This is a big paradigm shift for most of us who have been trained to be independent and the captain of our souls. But God says, “The greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11). What does that mean? It means putting God’s approval above everyone else’s and serving him and others instead of our own selfish desires. But how do we do this? What if we are narcissistic and self-centered and don’t care much about what God or people need?

The secret is that we need to be transformed by God. We can’t genuinely serve God and people effectively without undergoing this gradual transformation. I have been on this journey for 52 years. Big changes that have occurred include a new lifestyle, an intimate relationship with God, and denying some of my needs to serve others and being joyful about it. Areas where God still needs to transform me include trusting him more and worrying less, being a more positive thinker, and seeking his glory more and mine less.

How do we cooperate with God for him to transform us and enable us to become great? Trusting in and obeying him are key to cooperating. And how do we do that? Trust comes from hearing him through reading the Bible and meditating on it (Romans 10:17), Obeying him happens when we cease trusting ourselves to run our lives, and follow him each day as he leads us according to his plan for our lives.

I feel sad that so many of us have been fooled by the devil in pursuing greatness the wrong ways. We will fail to achieve greatness as a result. True greatness is found in humbly accepting our limited role in life and doing what the Master tells us to do. May we all allow God to disciple us by whatever means he chooses and transform us into humble servants of others and God. Then we will be great!

Posted in Success | Leave a Comment »

Living Godly from the Heart

March 11, 2023 by journeyintolight

Living godly from the heart begins with carefully reading and meditating on the Bible and listening to good biblical teaching. God then uses it to transform our minds as we slowly gain the mind of Christ. And knowing goes beyond just knowing about God but experiencing him as we learn to trust in him from the heart. The Spirit uses the word to change us to be like himself. And it’s God that changes us; not our beating ourselves up because of a lack of faith or redoubling our efforts to live the supernatural life without connecting to God.

One of the most important things we can do to live godly from the heart is to know what is going on in there. And that is not easy. So much of our hearts are filled with the lies, deceptions and evil from our old lives that still influence us. These things often unconsciously wage war with the truth we know. “The heart is deceitful above all else and is desperately sick, who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, NAS)

We can understand our hearts by inviting the Holy Spirit to search them for any ungodly thoughts, motives, desires, or actions and to reveal them to us. This helps us detect any hurtful ways (Psalm 139:23,24). Only the supernatural power of God can penetrate our layers of deception and defenses that harden our hearts to correction. As God reveals our hearts to us, we can turn the things we can’t change over to him to work out, and act on the things we can change with his help.

The Holy Spirit uses the truth sown in our hearts to enable us to detect the false ways in there. Our role is relying on God and his word to attack the lies when they are exposed. We are powerless to live the Christian life if we don’t do battle with Satan by using God’s word.

For example, a lie I tell myself is that the world is watching to judge me. And that scares me. I meet this lie with the truth that in God’s eyes, I am precious, honored and loved (Isaiah 43:4). And his judgment is what is true. This truth sets me free from being a slave to what others think of me.

But Satan can use our hearts to lead us astray if we let him. We can reduce our exposure to his devious ways if we pay attention to what we put into our minds and rely on to be true. I had to recently cut back on listening to cable news because of its negative bent which violated God’s word about focusing on what is positive (Philippians 4:8). Instead, I watch positive shows that display human nature and reality in a more positive light. But even then, I need to be careful of the messages that come through the story line.

May we all watch over our hearts with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life (Psalm 27:4) and learn to live godly from the heart. What goes on in our hearts determines our destiny. May we all have the wisdom to cooperate with God as he transforms us from the heart out.

Recall an area of your Christian life in which you struggle to be victorious. Ask God to reveal to you any lies or anything else you are relying on that is hindering you from trusting God to give you that victory. Commit this struggle to God and thank him for the victory he will enable you to have (Psalm 37:5).

Posted in Faith | Leave a Comment »

Know Your Heart

February 23, 2023 by journeyintolight

Do you really know what is going on in your heart? I didn’t. For many years I wasn’t aware of my motives, what I trusted was true, and what I was telling my heart through my self-talk. I assumed if the Bible said something was true, I would believe it. But I often didn’t rely on the truth in my heart.

For example, God says that I am precious, honored and loved by him (Isaiah 43:4) because I am his child. But why did I seek accolades so much from others; or have such a sense of inadequacy in so many things; or why did I have so much anxiety since God is always with me to keep me safe. But not being more aware of these motives and false beliefs in my heart, I didn’t deal with these problems.

However, when I got to seminary, I learned better how to access this mysterious world of the heart in a deeper way and was I shocked! I sadly realized how much I didn’t believe in my heart. I discovered I was using the approval of others, and achievements to get many of my basic needs met, instead of who God says I am.

I believed I was a good Christian at that time. Why shouldn’t I? I was an elder in our church, I knew the Bible backwards and forwards, I had a good family and had a daily quiet time. I was a very righteous man! But no. God looked at my heart and let me know that we were going on a long journey of transformation so I would be able to experience an intimate and loving relationship with him in my heart.

Up to this time, I had not watched over my heart diligently as he commands us to do in Proverbs 4:23. In fact, I barely knew I had a heart. Instead, I had watched over my knowledge and behavior and thought that was enough. But I discovered I knew a lot of truth but did not believe it. I did a lot of good things but with the wrong motives. What I needed to be watching over was my heart, and if that was right, then my behavior. and motives would be godly. I needed to be aware of what was going on in my heart so I could cooperate with God as he seeks to transform it.

The main reason we will want to live godly from the heart is that it is the only way to be godly. We can be godly in our actions, knowledge, and intentions and still not be godly. It is what we believe deep within our hearts that determines the godliness of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

For example, my wife has been a Christian since she was ten. She believed God loved her but still sought the approval of others to feel more loved. God’s love was not sufficient for her. When she realized deep within her heart of misusing the approval of others to make up for what she felt was a lack of love from God, she was able to repent of her lack of faith in God’s incredible love for her. She was set free from her dependence on others as a partial substitute for God’s love for her.

We naturally measure ourselves by outward appearances, by the things we can see and feel. God warned Samuel not to judge by outward appearances who the next king should be, for God looks at who has the most suitable heart (1 Samuel 16:6,7). And that was David’s heart. It was not based on appearances or God may have chosen David’s oldest brother to be the next king.

Knowing our hearts can often be a mystery to us and it must be regularly examined to determine what is going on in there. Recently I went to a clinic to get some help for a minor physical injury. As I entered the building, I noticed my anxiety level began to increase. I said to myself, “What am I saying to my heart that is triggering these fears?” The voice I heard was “You are in danger; you are in danger!” I then asked myself, “Is that true?” Then I recalled God’s promise in Isaiah 41:10, which says that I don’t need to be afraid because God is with me and will keep me safe. As I spoke these words to my heart, my fears leveled out and began to decrease. By paying attention to what I was telling my heart I discovered what lies I was saying to myself and began to speak truth, “I am safe; I am safe”. Without doing this, I would have remained a victim of a deceived heart and remained anxious without knowing why.

May we increasingly learn to be aware of what we trust to be true deep within our hearts. Our destiny depends on it.

One of the best ways to determine what is going on in our hearts is by identifying our feelings and experiencing them. Spend about a minute and experience what you are feeling. Ask God to help you discern what you think is true based on what you are feeling.

Posted in Self- Knowledge | Leave a Comment »

Do You Tell Yourself Lies?

January 18, 2023 by journeyintolight

The person I have had the most difficult time telling the truth to is myself. I was not raised in a Christian home and chose to develop many false ways to get my needs met for love, respect, and acceptance. I didn’t know the truth about a lot of things and lied to myself as a result. I told myself I would be more important if I got good grades. I lied to myself that I was not acceptable unless I was of average height. And I needed to be an engineer to be respected. All were lies.

I suffered a lot of anxiety and pain because of not believing the truth. My life would have been far less stressful if I told myself and believed the truth that I will always be important and respected by God. I don’t have to earn respect by good grades, being tall, or by being an engineer.

In recent years, I have intentionally tuned into my self-talk and have been shocked at how many lies are still embedded there. Some of these lies have been there since childhood. Lies like the world is always watching to judge me, look to other people to tell me who I am, and I have no importance unless I earn it.

I have also discovered many new lies vying for my attention.  For example, I recently went to a medical clinic to deal with a minor injury. I noticed I was feeling increasing anxiety as I walked into the clinic. I then tuned into what I was saying to myself. It was “You are in danger; you are in danger!” No wonder my anxiety was high. But was I in danger? No, for many reasons. The one reason I used to combat Satan’s lies was God’s promise to be present and to keep me safe (Isaiah 41:10). My anxiety began to drop as I repeated to myself, “I am safe, I am safe.”

I am learning to attack these lies with the truth. These truths come from primarily the Bible and verses I have memorized. For example, the lie I tell myself that the world is watching to judge me, I meet with the truth that in God’s eyes, I am precious, honored and loved (Isaiah 43:4). This truth sets me free from being a slave to what others think of me.

My hope is that I will continue to grow in my capacity to tell myself the truth. As I do, I will experience more of the peace Jesus has promised he has given to each of us. My expectation is that this peace will gradually replace the anxiety that I have struggled with all my life as I tell myself the truth that Jesus is my place of safety.

Posted in Truth | Leave a Comment »

Do You Feel Incredibly Loved?

January 4, 2023 by journeyintolight

When I was twelve, I often feIt unsafe and alone. I was adjusting to starting junior high, being at a new school and not having friends, beginning to experience the changes of adolescence and feeling tension in the home. No one in our immediate family of five were Christians. And we were a thousand miles away from any extended family. I did not feel incredibly loved.

I felt anxiety and depression as I entered this new phase of my life. I also did not feel I could confide in my parents or anyone else how much I was troubled within. Then, my parents decided to move our family 2,000 miles to Illinois.

The good part of this move was relocating to the same town where my extended family lived. This included visiting with my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents on a daily and weekly basis. My emotional disturbances melted away within a month of arrival because of the steady and unconditional love I felt coming from my extended family.

Experiencing God’s Incredible Love for Us

Trust in and experiencing God’s great love for us helps us to feel safe and at peace. We sense that God is our place of safety because he is strong and loves us. Our fears begin to melt away. We become less afraid of all the dangers and what could happen, and more confident that God will protect us from the worst-case scenarios we imagine. But how do we know he loves us?

My grandmother best modeled God’s love for me. She was a Christian and deeply loved God and as a result he lived through her in a powerful way. She was safe to be around. No fear of being hurt by her in any way. She accepted, enjoyed and respected who I was.  I felt loved especially when she gave me big hugs. I could relax and be myself. No need to be on my toes to avoid criticism or punishment. This is what Grandma’s love felt like and is a microscopic representation of how God loves us.

Imagine what it would feel like if we could comprehend and rely on God love for us that is “as great as the height of the heavens are above the earth” (Psalm 103:11, NAS). As I grow in the experience of this immense love, this is my reasonable expectation of the benefits for me:

  • Much more peace and less anxiety
  • Expecting more of the positive to happen rather than the negative
  • Much less dependence on demanding good treatment from others
  • Much more content with my circumstances in life
  • More capable of loving others deeper
  • More pleasing to God because loving others is the top of God’s list of what pleases him
  • Less turmoil as I focus my attention on giving love rather than just receiving it
  • Less fear of people as I depend on God’s stable and overwhelming love rather than my ability to impress others to get their love

Why it Is So Hard to Comprehend this Love

It’s impossible to fully comprehend God’s incredible love for us. His love flows from who he is, not who we are. He loves us because he chose to love us, not as a reward for being good little boys and girls.

We experience his love in his patience and kindness with us, and his protection (1 Corinthians 13). But we have a hard time accepting this love because it is so radically different from the way the world operates. We have been programed by our parents and society to earn love through our performance. Often, we do not experience love when we fail but only when succeed and please. Because our need to be loved is so strong, we will do almost anything to earn this love.

But God is different. He doesn’t require us to earn, please and impress. Just trust in him to give us incredible love by just accepting it as a gift. That’s why many of us reject it. It doesn’t make sense.

In my childhood home I was a busy beaver looking for ways to be safe, important, respected, and loved. What do I have to do today to feel safe? To do nothing, relax, and be myself felt suicidal. I would be crushed by criticism and sometimes much worse. To be loved was something to be earned.

Not so with God. He us loves because we are ourselves, not the gushy up self we present to our parents and others- but the real us with all the weaknesses and sin we practice daily. Jesus took care of that messy stuff we try to hide.

But many of us lean too much on our understanding and reject this truth. Instead, we get busy trying to obey the Bible in our own strength. We miss the grace he offers us to be treated as prince and princess and instead try to be workers who are worthy of this status.

It is stunning and unbelievable to realize that Jesus loves us so much that he died for us. He did not do it for himself when he went through the most agonizing death devised by man. His only reasons were to save us from going to hell, qualify us to live with him forever, and to see his glory. That’s love! As Jesus said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13, NAS). And that’s what he did.

How To Experience God’s Incredible Love for You

Because our understanding and experience of unconditional love is so limited, we need to rely on God for the capacity to comprehend it more. We need to live in the power of the Spirit. Paul knew this when he prayed for the church in Ephesus.  He asked God to give them “the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is (Ephesians 3:18, NLT).” He further prayed that they “may experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully (Ephesians 3:19, NLT).”

Another way we can experience God’s great love for us is through godly mentors. I came from a childhood in which I experienced conditional love. If I pleased and achieved, I felt some form of being loved. But that is not the way God loves. Through a godly mentor I had as a young Christian, I felt unconditionally loved. He was like a loving father who answered my questions, was interested in me, and cheered and showed me the way to live in this new world of spiritual warfare. This experience helped me to get a taste of how God loves me.

Another way we experience God’s love is through the love of a godly spouse or other person who is close to us. The woman God led me to marry is tenderhearted, kind, affectionate, gentle, fun, and loving- all traits of God and gives me a daily experience of his love which is flowing through her life throughout the day.

Thankfulness gives God the credit for the daily ways he shows his love to us. His wisdom to make a good decision, his protection from injury and disease, the courage he gives us to face our fears and grow stronger and listening to us whenever we talk to him. These experiences help us to grow in realizing that God really does love us.

Another way to comprehend God’s love for us is to compare it to the love we have experienced from the world. Reflect on instances when we felt loved by the world and then on the love we know and experienced from God. What differences do we see? It is important to lay aside the understanding of the world’s kind of love and accept the truth that God loves us differently. There is no pressure and no end to God’s love like there is in the world. We are safe in never fearing losing it. As Paul says, “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love” (Romans 8:38, NLT). It is important to lay aside our preconceived experiences of being loved by the world or we may fail to grasp God’s much different and deeper love for us. We may project onto God the world’s way to love and think that God’s love is the same.

God makes no secret about his great love for us. It’s all over the pages of the Bible. Meditate on these verses and passages where God makes clear how much he loves us. He loves us so much he died for us (John 3:16). He delights in us and calms our fears (Zephaniah 3:17). He will never abandon us (Deuteronomy 31:6). And he loves us just the way we are (Isaiah 43:4).

Also, we can repeat to ourselves how he views us until the truth moves from our heads to our hearts. Truths like “I am precious and loved” (Isaiah 43:4), “I am the apple of his eye” (Psalm 17:8) and “Nothing can stop God from loving me” (Romans 8:39,39).

A difficult way to grow in experiencing and understanding how much he loves you is embrace challenging times that encourage us to lean hard on him. We often make idols out of safe and good circumstances that keep us from trusting in his love to get us through. We cling to this world and its benefits instead of abandoning ourselves to his tender and faithful love and care. And because we don’t have to, we often don’t. But when our backs are against the wall, we must trust and rely on his love or else.

I experienced one of those “or else times” soon after I became a Christian. This is a time in which my back was against the wall, and I had no other choice but to depend on God. The job was as a Development Engineer in the Air Force, and it was overwhelming. I had so many projects on my plate that I couldn’t even think about projects in the next week. This worked to some degree, but one night I had to develop next year’s $25 million budget in one night to present the next morning. The night before was as soon as I could make time to do it. And it was a disaster the next morning!

I also led large meeting of engineers in developing improved missile systems even though I had to rely on the competence and honesty of the engineers because of my limited expertise.  God was who I depended upon to enable me to meet the demands of this impossible job. I had no other choice. And he came through miraculously for me enabling the projects to be done timely and in a quality manner that resulted in me receiving a Commendation Medal for meritorious service. How do you figure, if not God? He loved this new child in the faith by enabling me to succeed.

We are saved by an act of faith, but we grow through living a life of faith. We need to be connecting with God’s life throughout every day by practicing spiritual disciplines that help us to access his life. Disciplines like praying Scripture, praying for our needs and for others, reading the Bible, meditating on it, making applications, and committing our problems to God as they occur. We are in a partnership with God and practicing disciplines is part of the light load we carry to have the power to experience his awesome love for us at the heart-level.

It is also helpful to identify the substitutes or idols we use to not depend on God’s love for us. We can be too reliant on the approval from others, the love of a spouse, conforming to popular opinion, and not being real with others. When we get a measure of satisfaction from these substitutes we are not as likely to lean hard on God’s love for us to free us from our fears (1 John 4:19).

Application Questions and Exercises

1. Meditate on John 15:13. As you think about what Jesus says in this verse, what feelings do you have? Any thoughts come to mind that would cause you to doubt Jesus’s love for you despite dying on your behalf? Are these thoughts true?

2. Visualize a person who is or was in your life that has made you feel loved the most. What are your feelings and thoughts? Now, picture yourself in God’s presence and experiencing his love for you which is “as great as the height of the heavens above the earth” (Psalm 103:11, NLT). Are your feelings and thoughts different?

3.  Imagine how your life would be different if you lived throughout the day in comprehending his awesome love for you. Describe some of the differences. What is your response to these differences?

4. What makes it hard for you to live in the experience of his great love? Ask God what is one change he wants you to make that will help you grow in relying on his love for you more.

5. Think of some of your weaknesses and sins. Imagine presenting the worst of these to God. What does he do? Does his imagined response support his incredible love for you? If not, what does the Bible promise is his response to your sins and weaknesses?

6.  Describe the love you experienced growing up in your childhood home. Compare that love to God’s love that you have experienced. In what ways is God’s love for you deeper and richer?

7. We know God loves us because the Bible says he does. Do you trust and rely on this truth to live your life? What evidence in your life reveals you live in this reality? What shows you do not fully depend on this truth?

8. Reflect on your life and recall situations God put you in in which your back was against the wall. How did you grow in faith through these situations? Thank him for each situation and what you experienced from each one that helped you trust that he loved you.

Posted in God's Love | Leave a Comment »

Living a Powerful Life

November 24, 2022 by journeyintolight

What It Means to Rely on the Spirit

When we become Christians by relying on what Jesus did for us when he died on the cross, we are given God’s Spirit as a pledge of our salvation and to enable us to live a powerful life. However, we often don’t lean on him and instead try to muscle our way through the Christian life in our own strength. We must choose to rely on this Spirit to help us to love the unlovely, serve the needs of others sacrificially, and let others get the credit instead of us seeking it for ourselves. We often think we can do all these good things just by trying harder. But we can’t.

As a Christian, we have “become a new person. The old life is gone: a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NLT). But we don’t become a new person in our experience if we continue to rely on our human efforts and not the supernatural power of the Spirit. We don’t want to try to live the Christian life without Jesus’ help. For our Christianity will be fake and powerless.

Why It’s So Hard to Rely on the Spirit

My background emphasized knowing the Bible. But it did not emphasize as much relying on the Spirit to live the Bible. To some extent, I was left on my own to figure out how to obey it from the heart. As a result, my spirituality had a lot of legalisms in it, which is trying to live the Christian life without relying on the Spirit.

I realized this about myself 17 years ago when I started seminary. I seemed to think that all I needed was to know the biblical principle and then I could do it. However, at that time I began to trust in a deeper way that apart from God I could do nothing of eternal value (John 15:5). Nothing? Are you kidding? That’s right. Nothing of eternal value.

So, I was motivated to learn how to do live more with Jesus instead of just for Jesus. I had to humble myself and learn to let Jesus into my day to help me with whatever came along. But where’s the glory in that? If God and I are doing life together, how can I take credit for what happens? I would have to die to myself (John 12:24)– and that is one major reason few of us walk in the Spirit because we are too proud to live in the reality that apart from Jesus, we can do nothing that counts.

Another reason we often choose to live without God’s power is it is hard to live by faith. Up until the time we became Christians, we always relied on something we could see. That was usually us or good circumstances. If we couldn’t see it, it didn’t exist. And this bent carries over into our life after we become a Christian. We like to see, feel, and touch what we put our faith in. But in the case of trusting God, we never see him, feel him, or touch him directly. But through the eyes of faith, we experience his love and power through a loving wife, compassion living through a godly person and wisdom through a Spirit-filled teacher.

Many of us are high-control people. We don’t feel safe unless we control our circumstances. It is very difficult for us to trust others. Instead, we strive to understand so we don’t have to trust an unseen God. But God says, “Trust in Me with all your heart and don’t lean on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge me and I will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5,6, NLT). But that is scary. We have less anxiety when we trust in something we can see. But the truth that often escapes us is that our circumstances are never under our complete control.

As a result, many of us opt for a safe Christianity that lacks God’s presence and power. We miss the exciting adventure of allowing God to transform us and use us to make this a better world. We fail to live life in the Spirit, in God’s power. We miss much of the joy and peace of living in partnership with the living God. We refuse to pay the price. It takes work, perseverance and trust in God. It can be uncomfortable and painful and not for cowards. Few Christians live this way.

One of the shocking things I learned when I became more aware of my thoughts, feelings and motives of my heart through spiritual formation disciplines was how depraved I was. For example, I was trying to earn worth by serving God. Being a leader in the church sometimes was more about trying to be important to church people than pleasing God and doing what he wanted me to do for his purposes. I pretended to be what I thought would get the approval of others, instead of what was right for me. And trusting in good circumstances rather than a good God to keep me safe.

A reason it is hard for us to rely on God is that we often want to rely on lies more than the God of all truth. We don’t want to believe that we can’t do anything of eternal value without God doing it through us. We don’t want to believe that God’s plan for us is better than our plans for ourselves. We don’t want to believe that what others think of us has no value in who God thinks we are. We want control and we want to cling to the fantasy that we have it. But in order to rely on the Spirit, we need to be trained to turn away from lies that contradict God’s truth and promises. We need to develop the skill to identify and validate the accuracy of what we depend on.

How to Rely on the Spirit

To rely on the Spirit, we must trust what the Spirit says is true. It’s not something to file way on the bookshelf of our minds, but something to be used today to live our lives. Unless we step out and depend on the Spirit to make his promises active and alive in us, they are powerless. “And without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6, NAS). God wants us to be a doer of the Word and not someone who knows but doesn’t trust or do.

When God says to us, “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely, I will help you, surely, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10, NAS), he doesn’t want us to go on acting like we are at the mercy of our wits and wisdom. No, he wants us to act on the truth that we are never alone, and God’s powerful and faithful help will get us through whatever challenges we are facing.

Meditation on God’s word helps us to stay focused on God’s truth instead of Satan’s blizzard of lies. For example, I recently had a delicate procedure done by a vascular surgeon. The procedure did not go perfectly when he made an error in judgment on the size of the stent and left a pinhole leak. He also let the incision get infected and prescribed an anti-biotic that I was allergic to. After a couple of other expectations that were not met, I began to feel like I wasn’t safe. Then God reassured me through meditation on Isaiah 41:10 that he was with me and was my reason to feel safe. He impressed upon me that all the human errors were under his control, and he still would work these mistakes together with other things for my good. Without relying on Isaiah 41:10, I would have been much more anxious than I was listening to Satan’s lies that I was in danger.

Final Thoughts

Finally, the dirty little secret is that we can’t live the Bible by just knowing it. We can know and want to do but still not do. God must live his life through us to live according to God’s incredibly high standards. Standards such as loving our enemies, forgiving those who have hurt is, and loving our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.  We can’t do this through human strength. We always must lower the standards to make our Christianity work when we refuse to depend on the Spirit.

God tries to persuade us to try his Spirit out to live by his standards of perfection. We need to get out of the way and let God live his life through us. We need to rely on the fact that Jesus has rendered powerless our sin nature. When we rely on this reality, God gradually makes it true in our experience as we follow and trust in him. When we don’t depend, we continue to not be transformed and fail to connect to the life of God and his joy, peace, and love. May we all persevere, never give up, and try again even if we fail a thousand times. To experience God’s intimate love for us and his power, makes it worth the effort.

Application Questions and Exercises

1. What about you makes it difficult to rely on God to do his will? What are some reasons you think you need God’s help? What is one lie you believe that keeps you from trusting God to live through you?

2. Ask God to help you see some alternatives you have trusted in instead of placing your faith in him to meet an important need. Why did you do this? How did it work?

3. Imagine what this week would look l like if you lived it in God’s power. What are some differences you see in your feelings and actions from your usual week?

4. What has helped you to live by reliance on God? Why? What has hindered you? What action(s) are you going to take?

5. Think of a truth you sense the Holy Spirit is wanting you to trust God to make real for you in your experience. Picture what it would look like in your thoughts, feelings and actions if you acted and trusted God to provide what he has promised.

6. We are given God’s precious and magnificent promises so that our life can become supernatural as we rely on Jesus to make them real in our experience. Ask him to show you one of those promises to rely on today. How do you expect your day to be different as he keeps his promise to you?

7. Do you passionately desire to live a supernatural life experiencing daily God’s power and intimate love for you? Why would you want this? Why wouldn’t you want this?

Posted in Faith | 2 Comments »

How Then Are We to Live?

October 28, 2022 by journeyintolight

My wife and I were taking our usual morning walk when we noticed a neighbor who seemed to be upset. We found out that she was agitated about how crazy our world was and how it seemed to be falling apart. She told us, “I am sure glad I’m 65 and don’t have to stay here much longer.”I agreed that there seemed to be overwhelming pressures that are attacking the stability of our world and our capacity to live quiet and peaceful lives.

So, how are we to live in this ever-changing and chaotic world? The first thing that comes to mind is where do we go to find safety, guidance, and truth. Is it politics? Good circumstances? Alcohol and drugs? Religion? Ourselves? Or is it a strong relationship with God?

Where we go to find answers will make a big difference in our future. If we choose foolishly, we will suffer the consequences. If we choose wisely, we will be richly rewarded. So, where do we go to become wise and learn how to thrive in this world we live in?

When I was a young man, I decided to invest considerable effort in trying to find out what made life work.Although I had earned a degree in engineering, my education did not prepare me to live well on my own. I had to learn quickly, for example, about how to do a job well to avoid getting fired again, like what happened in my first job out of college. I had to abandon some of my parents’ ways and embrace the ways that were right for me. This search involved seeking for a compelling vision of a purposeful life. I had tried career success, finding a good woman to marry, becoming popular, and getting a good education. As I gradually reached these goals, I discovered they didn’t satisfy me. They did not fulfill my desire for meaning in life. “Is that all there is?” I said to myself.

A few years later, I found that the missing ingredient was faith in God. I learned that he was the one who ruled over the nations. The Bible teaches that to God,”all the nations of the world are but a drop in the bucket. They are nothing more than dust on the scales. He picks up the whole earth as though it were a grain of sand” (Isaiah 40:15, NLT). Now, that’s power!

When I was in the Air Force, I was an engineer working for an organization that designed and tested the Minuteman Missile System that carried nuclear bombs. Our unit’s primary responsibility was the testing of the missiles and other weapon systems to ensure they would work in time of war.

I would worry at times about either the Soviet Union or the United States accidentally launching their missiles that could destroy the world. I finally found peace by putting my trust in God working to protect us from mistakes or evil intentions by either country. I certainly did not put my confidence in the launch officers always acting wisely, since many of them were my friends, and I knew they were all too human and imperfect.

We all yearn to live quiet and peaceful lives. But how? By chasing some utopian dream that may not be true, such as the belief that people are basically good and can always be trusted? A Roman leader 2,000 years ago asked,”What is truth?”

We need to constantly ask ourselves this question. For me, I have found a good source of truth is the Bible, which claims that it is the truth (John 17:17). Another source of wisdom and insight is a close relationship with God that can enable us to follow him.

Where do you go to find truth that will help you to overcome these difficult times? There are many voices who claim they have the truth. Many of these voices try to deceive you into taking roads that will be dead ends for you.

My hope is that you will choose to follow Jesus, who says” I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6, NLT). If you do this, you will be taking the most important step in learning how to live.

Questions to Ponder

To what or whom do you go to learn how to live?

Is this a wise dependency to have? Explain.

How is having this dependency working for you? Any changes needed?

Posted in Truth | Leave a Comment »

Older Posts »