Here we get into the details about faith and life

How to tell what your priorities really are

But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God. Acts 20:24 NLT

It is no small task keeping our priorities in balance. We employ planners, and calendars, and schedulers, and reminders to help us do everything that needs to be done in the ever-narrowing windows we have to do them in. Recently, I saw this very thing played out in the 1991 film, Hook, with Robin Williams. He plays Peter Banning, a workaholic mergers and acquisitions lawyer who has no memory that he was once Peter Pan. Early in the movie, sitting at his daughter’s play, his phone predictably rings, and he is talked into yet another meeting. His son protests, reminding him of the baseball he promised to attend. Banning reiterates his promise, “I’ll be there. My word is my bond.” As you might have guessed, he misses the game.

No matter what Banning believed, or wanted to believe, and no matter what he earnestly claimed was his priority, his actions proved what was truly first in his life.

That holds true for everyone. Including the Apostle Paul. The singular focus in his life was telling people about the wonderful grace of God. It was his priority. Nothing else mattered. Not even his health and safety. His actions prove it. “I declare today that I have been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, it’s not my fault, for I didn’t shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know.” (Acts 20:26-27) Read that again. If anyone here dies without Jesus, it’s not my fault because I told them.

Well, he’s Paul.
Well, that’s hyperbole. He didn’t literally mean he told everybody.
Well, things are different now.

But you know, there was a day when I said Jesus was my Lord, and I exchanged my priorities for His. When you say someone is your Lord, that’s what that means. Or maybe I just say that telling people about Jesus is my priority or even one of my priorities. (Is it even possible to have multiple priorities?) It doesn’t matter that I want it to be. My actions prove what’s first in my life.

Why we need the determination and discipline of an Olympic athlete

By Paula Wiseman

But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Acts 20:24

Ah, the Olympics. I admit, I love them. When I’m not trying to remember the rules for curling and hockey, I am amazed at the things the athletes are able to do. All of them bring strength, endurance, agility, and gravity-defying courage to their respective events. Snowboarding is insane. Mogul skiing makes my knees hurt. Ski jumpers leave the ramp faster than I drive most days. Cross-country sprinting is exhausting. Figure skating makes me nervous. (Years ago, I watched a guy drop a girl on her face. That’s always in the back of my mind.)

But there’s something about seeing someone who has dedicated their lives to their sport finally reach their goal. I’ve heard stories of adversity and injury and doubt met with determination and discipline. It’s hard to imagine the joy and the sense of victory and fulfillment the athletes experience. No question, the medal is absolutely worth it.

Determination and discipline. If you’ve ever dieted, or taken a class, or tried to budget, you have a sense of just how difficult determination and disciple can be to maintain. Some of the Olympians have managed that since they were elementary school age. That should be worth a medal in itself.

In Acts 20, Paul is bidding farewell to some dear friends and ministry partners in Ephesus before he departs for Jerusalem. He knows that once he arrives in Jerusalem, he will be arrested and maybe put to death. He says, “None of these things move me.” He is determined to finish his race with joy and fulfill the ministry given to him, which is to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

If you think about it, we have been given the same ministry. Jesus has commissioned us all to tell the gospel story and how God’s grace changed us and can change the hearers as well. Most of the time, we approach that mandate with indifference and apathy.
Maybe we don’t think it applies to us.
Maybe we think it’s not worth the effort.
Maybe we’re resigned to failure before we begin.

The world needs the gospel. The world needs the transforming power and grace of God. People you know need it. Be determined and disciplined. Finish your race with joy.

Crowning the Year with Goodness

By Paula Wiseman

You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance. Psalm 65:11

In 2017, we celebrated our 25th anniversary. I celebrated a milestone birthday. I released a couple of books. I went on a terrific retreat with my close friends. But I will admit, there were many things about 2017 that I am happy to leave behind me. We bought a car in January to replace the one my daughter rolled over the previous December. We replaced a sewer line. And an air conditioner. And tires. And an air conditioner on that car we bought. I have friends who can recite a much more challenging list of things they faced in the last year. Family tension. Job uncertainty. Profound loss. Maybe you can identify.

The psalmist is likely writing at harvest time, watching as the storehouses are filled with the bounty from the fields. Every year, the farmers plowed and planted, but the rain, the growth, the yield was out of their hands. But not out of God’s sovereign hands. And He capped off the year with provision, with abundance, with goodness.

For the psalmist, God’s goodness was as tangible as the bundles of wheat in the barn. But it’s not always that way. And when we focus only on those tangible things, we risk missing Him entirely. Sometimes the goodness of God is best discerned as His presence, His comfort, and His sustaining grace during those hard times.

Through the valley, through the fire, through the flood.

Valleys, fires, and floods are evidence of a broken world, one in which annoyances, heartbreak, and even tragedy happen to good, innocent people. In the midst of it all, though, is His goodness. His compassions do not fail. They are new every morning.

May you be vividly aware of His crowning goodness in this coming year and may Your paths drip with His abundance.

More Like the Shepherds

By Paula Wiseman

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Luke 2:8

Shepherds, in spite of their low standing in society in New Testament times, play a significant role in Scripture. Abel was one. So were the patriarchs. And King David. There were parables told about them. Jesus declares Himself to be the Good Shepherd. The most famous psalm calls the Lord a shepherd and the metaphor is applied to New Testament pastors. So it’s no accident that the announcement of Christ’s birth was made to shepherds, and I think we can learn a lot from them.

They were in the middle of their regular routine when God spoke.
Sometimes God chooses the most mundane moments to do amazing things. In the middle of the regular – our jobs, our family time, our worship services, our devotions – know that God may speak the extraordinary.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Luke 2:9
They had a deep reverence for God, His glory, and His holiness. That fact may have figured into God’s choice of giving them the announcement. We need to maintain that same reverence for God. The relationship He draws us into doesn’t erase the fact that He is utterly different from us.

So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Luke 2:15-16
The shepherds understood the angel’s message was a call to action, immediate action. They didn’t wait until morning, until the weekend, until their schedules cleared, until a less busy season. They immediately followed up on the angel’s message. We have been given a message perhaps even more wondrous than the one given to the shepherds. The Savior has not only been born, He has accomplished our redemption. Salvation has come. The time to act on that is now. Right now.

Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. Luke 2:17
The shepherds had seen the Christ, and they told everybody. Whether people believed them or not, everyone knew the shepherds had seen the Messiah. Do others know first and foremost that we’ve seen the Messiah, that peace with God is possible, that deliverance from the penalties from sin has been accomplished? Have we made that widely known?

Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them. Luke 2:20
They couldn’t go back to life as usual after their encounter with the Christ. Instead, their lives were marked by worship and praise for the experience, for the message and for the reality that God has become flesh and dwelled among them. Usually, after Christmas, we settle into the long, cold gray days of January emotionally, mentally and spiritually. But we don’t have to. We can return, praising and glorifying God for all the things we have seen and heard.

None of the shepherds are named. While guys like Peter and John and Paul get lots of attention, and deservedly so, so much of the kingdom work is done by regular people who encountered Jesus, discovered everything they’d heard about Him was true and they were changed forever. Thank God for shepherds. What can I do to be more like them?

(A very merry Christmas to you and yours. Thank you for everything! You bless me and encourage me more than you know. I’ll be back after the first of the year. Shalom!)

Dwelling Among Us

By Paula Wiseman

And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the LORD their God. Exodus 29:46

It is staggering really. In Exodus, God goes to great lengths to explain to Moses, and by extension, all Israel needed to do so that He could dwell with them. The Tabernacle where He chose to meet with them. The priest who could mediate. The sacrifices that would cover the sins. The Law that would outline the how they were to live as people separated to God. The entire system of rules, regulations, and rituals were put in place so God could dwell with them in all His undiluted holiness.

That was the whole purpose of rescuing them. So He could dwell with them. He would be their God. They would be His people. He provided instructions, patterns and even the craftsmen needed so that His glory would not consume the people as He dwelt with them. In the Tabernacle and later the Temple, a heavy veil separated the people from His glorious presence.

The better we grasp the awesome holiness of God, the more amazing and wondrous Christmas is. The apostle John puts it like this, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

The word John uses for dwelt is a unique one that actually means pitched a tent … or a tabernacle.

Charles Wesley explains:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail th’ incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

God’s great desire to be with His people has not changed. However, through Christ, the sacrifices, the mediation, and the necessary separation have been superseded by His own sacrifice and mediation. The with-dwelling has become the in-dwelling.

Glory to God in the Highest!

D-Day and Christmas

By Paula Wiseman

By Chief Photographer’s Mate (CPHoM) Robert F. Sargent – (NAID) 195515. Public Domain

For they will cry to the LORD because of the oppressors, and He will send them a Savior and a Mighty One, and He will deliver them. Isaiah 19:20

On the morning of June 6, 1944, 160,000 troops landed on the heavily fortified beaches of France. It was the invasion that marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi reign in Europe. The French had lived under Nazi occupation for four years, and even though this invasion would cost them desperately in lives and property, they welcomed it. In D-Day Through French Eyes, Mary Louise Roberts quotes a young member of the French Resistance.

On the sixth of June around 5 a.m., I am awakened by an enormous boom, a sort of cannon firing without end – a ceaseless storm….they are arriving!…Our humiliation was coming to an end. Yes, it was the most beautiful day of my life. The prisoners, the rations, the sirens, the bombs, the Gestapo, Hitler and his team of gangsters…order was going to be rapidly restored.

In spite of the invasion’s success, it would be almost a full year before Germany’s surrender, a year of more fighting, more suffering, more death. But with the invasion on D-Day, the world knew victory would come. The tide had turned.

In some ways, Christmas is like D-Day. For all the sweet peace and quietness we imagine, it was, in reality, a bold invasion of enemy territory, territory Satan had held since the fall of man. Luke tells us when the message of the invasion was first delivered. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: (Luke 2:13). Because of the carols and the paintings and the pageants, we read “hosts” as “choir”. The Greek word for hosts is stratia, an army. The birth of Jesus began the invasion to establish the kingdom under the rule of its rightful King. It wasn’t the end of the war, but the end is fully in sight.

It wasn’t long before the fighting intensified. Within weeks, innocent infants were slaughtered. Believers have been martyred for hundreds of years. Another eyewitness to Normandy said, “I will never forget seeing this soldier who died for us, who had come on our soil, in Normandy, to fight for the lives of others and paid for it with his life.”

But Jesus assured us the war has been won.

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Luke 4:18-19,21

The enemy will be humiliated. The mission accomplished. The King will reign. It’s only a matter of time.

And it all begins with Christmas.