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He’ll Tell Us When We’re Ready

By / July 14, 2022

It was an interesting question, especially considering the source – “When was the first mention of Heaven in the Bible?”  I needed clarification from this young woman getting PT next to me for a whiplash injury.  “Do you mean as a place for the afterlife?” I asked.  “Yes,” she replied.

Well, the truth is, we don’t get much about Heaven as a place for the faithful until rather late in Israel’s history.  A few glimpses from David and a few more from the prophets is about it.  But I think some of our non-Christian friends sort of see this as proof that the Bible is inconsistent and therefore irrelevant.

I promise I am not going to get too deep here.  But I think to reach people like my PT friend we need to deal with these types of questions with a broad understanding of God.  And here it is – God gives His people information on a need-to-know basis.  He always has.  He has revealed Himself in burning bushes and fiery pillars; with prophets, angels, and talking animals; through scripture, and through His Son, Jesus.  But He has revealed Himself and His plans as His people have needed to work out those plans, not before, and Heaven, like a ton of other things, is one of those slow works in progress.  But it’s there if we look.* And so, we have Jesus, dealing with the Sadducees, and He makes clear God had revealed Himself as the God of the living, not of the dead (Matthew 22:23-32).  No real mention of Heaven to Moses per se, just an understanding something beyond death is.  It’s fleshed out more in the New Testament – why not before?  Because only through Jesus is eternal life with the Father is finally realized, opening up in ways incomprehensible before how to understand Heaven!  He is the firstborn from among the dead (Colossians 1:18)!  Again, let’s not lose sight of things – Jesus’ position is one of importance as He was the first to actually conquer physical death outright (John 10:18).

But even with all the descriptions in Revelation, I think God still hasn’t told us everything about Heaven yet.  We’re just not ready!  What I do know is this – God has given us all the information we need to know up to this point – He’ll reveal all the rest of it when we finally get there!

*By saying what I say here, I think we also need to be aware we sometimes have questions God is completely uninterested in.  In those cases, we’ll just have to square with no answer at all – and that is okay.

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A Good Return on Our Spiritual Investment

By / July 8, 2022
Spiritual Investment

Financial people like to talk about returns on investment.  People like me want to know what I can expect when I put my money into a retirement account for example.  Of course, we all understand “past performance doesn’t guarantee future success,” but how about returns on spiritual investment?

I got on this train of thought because someone asked me recently if my daughter was dating anyone – they were in a different market for their nephew so to speak.  Problem was, I knew just a little too much about the nephew in question.  Bottom line, he had not made sound spiritual investments.  It called to mind an old turn of phrase I heard long ago about how so many young people sow their wild oats and then pray for crop failure.  But you reap what you sow and this is just as true if not truer in the spiritual realm.  And it got me thinking – it’s never too soon to start your spiritual investment.

What that means for parents is to make sure our young ones are getting spiritually fed.  Singing “Jesus Loves Me” and other such songs to our babies, taking them to church, praying with them and teaching them the Bible is laying a sound spiritual foundation we must continue to build on as long as they are in our house.  They need to see integrity and fortitude in the face of shifting worldly allegiances and values.  This is for the long-term, building a future in eternity.

What this means for young folks is to take responsibility for their future, realizing the earlier they start, the easier time they will have later on.  My friend’s nephew had not shown trustworthiness in his commitment to Christ.  While he now may be sincere in his desire for a Christian wife to spiritually invest with to build a strong Christian life together, the long-term effects of his earlier sins don’t go away.  It’s like the one who starts saving for retirement in his 20’s in comparison to the one who starts in his 40’s.  The effects linger.

That’s the hard news – but we need to hear it.  We need to know the choices we make in regard to discipleship can set us on a sound path or a very difficult one.  We need to know every decision we make is either helping us grow spiritually or stunting that growth.  We need to understand that the world’s patterns are attractive and easy to fall into and difficult to get out of.  And we need to know the consequences of our sins stay with us long after we’ve given them up…

… but they’re not eternal if we are committed to spiritual investment now.  That’s the good news!  No matter where we are in life, no matter what we’ve done, the debt stands forgiven when we start investing in eternity, giving ourselves fully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ!  And here’s the kicker – when we get to heaven, we will find our return on our spiritual investment is the same for us all – I suspect, knowing all our checkered pasts, we will all be grateful!

Texts helping me in these thoughts included Psalm 119:9, Matthew 20:1-16, and Proverbs 22:6.

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Pray Without Ceasing

By / July 7, 2022
I Thessalonians 5:17

In Bible class Sunday we came to that passage in I Thessalonians that says, “pray without ceasing” (5:17).  I never hear or read that verse without thinking of my first few months in Prague.  I was living alone in a country where I didn’t yet know the language and was probably in various stages of culture shock.  I was so out of my element that things I had spent years doing as habit just dissipated.  Like praying before my meals.  I also realized I was talking to myself – a lot!  This just wouldn’t do, so I decided I would switch out talking to myself with talking with God.  It wasn’t long before I was doing little else.  Yes, I still went to language class, yes, I still met with my missionary teammates, yes, I tried to go out and meet people.  But I still had huge swaths of time to myself, even in crowds, and I filled them with talking to God.  It wasn’t as if I had my eyes closed kneeling with hands folded.  I was rather just walking to the tram stop having a conversation about a blooming tree I smelled.  I was cooking dinner on the stove talking about seasoning.  I was on a run beside the Vltava River wondering to Him about a bird sitting on a limb.  I talked to Him about people I saw and about what they were doing.  Sure, there were moments of silence where my mind was shut off, but then I would think of something or He would show me something and I discussed it with Him.  Sometimes it was deep, sometimes funny, sometimes just a passing thought.  Where was the “amen?”  There wasn’t one because the conversation didn’t end. And it dawned on me – I had come to a spot where I was constantly aware of God’s presence, talking, not talking, waking, sleeping, eating, whatever.  It was almost physical and I Thessalonians 5:17 was real.

Now I think I got the immersive crash-course on this, but I know plenty of people who have come to the spot where they are constantly aware of God’s presence and live in that awareness every second.  It’s certainly harder in our distracted world to foster and maintain this, but with some intentionality, it happens.  For some, a prayer journal works.  For others, it’s prayer walking and then carrying that over into other areas of life, ever growing in the realization that prayer is relational, not formulaic.

That’s just how I got here.  I’d love to hear how you do it, so leave your thoughts below and I’ll try to okay the comments as quickly as I can so we can all grow from one another.  God bless you today!

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Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of God in Christ Jesus

By / June 29, 2022

I’ve had opportunity to think about Romans 8 this week as I was preparing for a talk at Camp Manatawny.  Romans wasn’t my main focus, but who can help but get drawn into how in Christ nothing can separate us from God’s love?  That’s verses 37-39.  So I found myself exploring more about the extent of that bond we have and focusing on life and death; angels and demons; present and future; powers; height and depth; and, well, everything in all creation – but mostly death.

I think as long as we’re breathing, we kind of have this attitude that we’ve got enough fight in us to withstand a lot of what life throws at us.  Our sense of self-preservation kicks in and we tend to avoid a lot we believe could undo us.  Even the penultimate demonic fear really pales in comparison to the ultimate; after all, I can resist the devil and he’ll flee from me (James 4:7).  It’s the death thing that gets us.  We don’t get out of this life alive.

But I think we misunderstand on several fronts because if I’m not recognizing the dangers presented in that list I may live my life a bit too cavalierly, not recognizing the true power of being in Christ – and as Christians, we are in Christ.  But death calls us to attention.  So let’s break it down.

When we’re baptized into Christ, we are in Christ.  He is our actual life according to Colossians 3:4.  We enter into the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (Romans 6).  So how accurate is it for us to buy into the idea that ultimately, we all die alone?  Do we really?  Because we have so many passages like John 5:24 that talk about having passed from death into life, present tense.  Present tense – not as some future reality, but now.  Or how Jesus is now our life (Colossians 3:4).  So, when Romans 8 talks about how death cannot separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus, it makes me think….

…And this is what I think – When Jesus hung on that cross and cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried out those words so that no one would ever have to cry out those words again.  In Christ, we have already been united with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection, and since death no longer has mastery over him (Romans 6:9), it really has no mastery over those in Him.

I don’t know how all of this will play out when I finally lay my body down – but I have God’s word, faithful and true – nothing can separate us from His love in Christ – not even death….

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Taking Stock

By / June 16, 2022
room of requirement

This has been a week of taking stock at the Harrill household, otherwise known as spring-cleaning.  All the furniture is moved away from the walls so they (and the back of the furniture) are wiped down, polishes are applied to various surfaces, things that have been lost for a number of months are found, and minor repairs are done.  This year we added carpet cleaning to the mix, so everything is taking a bit more time.  But the finished rooms look, feel, and smell great!

Suffice it to say, spring cleaning is not a weekly event – it is taking stock – getting us out of routine and allowing us to determine if maybe our routines need a little tweaking.  “Perhaps such and such would stay cleaner if we did such and such,” or “This isn’t really serving us well,” or “Why in the world are we holding on to that??”  Of course, “take stock” events are important, and not just in the area of house cleaning.

You probably know where I am going with this.  In our spiritual lives, if we’re serious about our daily walk with God, it’s critical to take stock and to think about what is working and what is not.  Sure – maybe I’m reading my Bible and praying regularly.  Maybe I’m going to church every week.  Maybe I’m reading devotional material.  And surely all of that is good.  But am I really letting the Spirit transform me daily?  Do I find myself more open to service?  Am I allowing God to speak to me through my brothers and sisters for my betterment?  And as we take stock, we can clean out those habits that are not bringing us closer to God’s heart and replace them with those things that will.

Below are some links that remind me to take stock:

James 1:22-25

Matthew 7:3-5

Romans 12:2

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Late Thoughts on Uvalde

By / June 14, 2022

The world is broken.  It broke in Genesis 3.  Most of the time, the world limps on, not noticing the injury until something comes along and smashes the broken bits to shards.  Like Uvalde.  We use words like “shattered” and “devastated” to talk about the lives that are affected.  Then we move on, leaving the grieving and wounded to themselves as just another fracture in the broken world we live in.

I thought about this a couple of days after my middle daughter’s graduation from high school.  Eight years from now, those who survived the Uvalde massacre will walk across a stage and pick up a diploma.  Nineteen families will not participate.  The thought made me sick.  What made me sicker was the large swath of our society that is willing to allow for such casualties to fight against a non-existent threat to a perceived right.  But what can I do?

I can remember this – God is especially interested in justice for those who are the weakest of society.  Widows, orphans, and children are held tightly in His heart, and He expects His own to hold them in their hearts too – and protect them.  There is no room or excuse for negligence in this area.  A society that fails this responsibility is under God’s judgement.  While it’s true we Christians live in the world but are not of the world, we have an obligation to the world – to hold out the truth and to be a prophetic voice if necessary; to call people to Jesus’ exclusive Lordship; to stand for the weak in the face of the strong.

Speaking this way, or marching, or signing petitions and writing to congress to call for God’s justice to be done is part of what a college professor I had centuries ago called “messy forays” into the world.  I can’t just shut up and say, “The world is thus, I’m not of it” and walk away.  I can’t neatly compartmentalize Caesar’s part of the world and God’s.  In no sense is faith ever to be a private affair where my church life is separate from the rest of my life.  We stain the world with marks of eternity when we get involved.

This website is called “Daily Faith Walk.”  I’ve explained before why, but it merits stating again.  Our faith is to be active.  It is not simply nor primarily a mental exercise.  It requires action.  It is a walk.  As children of God, let’s get to it.

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A Defense of Thoughts and Prayers

By / June 9, 2022

Sometime within the last couple of years the onslaught against “thoughts and prayers” became oppressive.  It’s almost dangerous to say such a thing out in public or social media these days, with anecdotes of venom against those who dare.  As Christians, however, I don’t think we need to be afraid, as long as we keep some things in mind.

First, many of those who take offense to offerings of thoughts and prayers seem mostly to come from the unbelieving set.  It should not surprise us at all that such a one would take offense.  While we affirm the power of prayer, an unbeliever has no set anchor to prayer or to our God to whom those prayers are addressed.  In their minds, joy and hardship are not rooted in anything spiritual and our affirmation otherwise is the offence of the gospel.

What is far too obvious in their minds, however, is the second point I want to make.  Unbelievers see action and inaction very clearly – and, let’s be honest, many of those who have so cavalierly offered their thoughts and prayers to the suffering, especially in the public forum, also don’t seem to have much faith as it is biblically defined.  I am mindful of James 2:14-17.  James writes, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says they have faith but not works? Can that faith save them?  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is it? So also, faith alone, if it does not have works, is dead.”

That’s what I think the main complaint against “thoughts and prayers” really is.  Unbelievers see too much talk and not enough action among those who profess to be God’s children.  When folks offer these and chose not to act, they are, in essence, abandoning their duty to serve by kicking it up to God when all the while God wants action.

And that leads to the third point.  It is very true that sometimes situations are so out of our ability or understanding of how to help that all we can do is pray.  But besides that, as a believer, I know prayer should come first and foremost, even before situations develop.  We should swim in prayer, knowing God holds answers to questions we haven’t even thought to ask.  When we do that, we won’t be caught off guard by the world’s madness and will have a much greater chance of knowing exactly what needs doing when it needs done.  Now imagine; What do we think the impact will be when non-believers see us acting in justice, mercy, and humility, speaking to their pain in actual work, and not fearing to sweat when trouble comes?  What happens when we then tell them we’ve been praying all along?  The world will then covet our prayers indeed.

As to “thoughts,” maybe that’s not so defensible after all….

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The Source of Spiritual Resilience

By / June 2, 2022

I am honored to be with you tonight as we honor the class of ’22.  This is about you, a celebration of your accomplishments and we are so very glad to share in your joy tonight.  Resilience.  That is the theme for this evening, and for this class, I can’t think of a much better one than that!  I want to go to Judges 6 as a jumping off point to address this theme.  What we find recorded there is a truly pathetic situation.  It has only been a hundred years or so before that God had led His people into the land of promise, having delivered them from Egypt with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, passing them through the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan River (at flood stage) on dry ground.  God fought for them and had given them houses and vineyards they hadn’t worked for in the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  But now, Judges 6 has them fearing for their lives, impoverished by oppressors, living on the margins in caves and under the clefs of rock.   Now, I’m not the biggest camping fan – but even the biggest fan probably wouldn’t like this kind of long-term living arrangement, dragging out for seven years without the comforts of home.  Israel cries out to God, who makes it clear this has happened because of disobedience.  But that’s not really what to focus on – I’d rather focus on the plan.  Because God has a plan, like He always does, and goes to visit Gideon.  And the plan is this – Gideon, you are my mighty warrior.  You’re going to save my people.

Gideon has some objections – yes, he’s heard the history of deliverance from Egypt, but he’s living a different reality.  He’s been camping out like the rest of his people for the past seven years.  He’s seen the hoards of enemies swarm down like so many locusts and take everything.  Even their camels are as uncountable as sand on the seashore.  The Midianites are overwhelming, powerful, wealthy, superior in technology, and ruthless.  He answers God, “This is where we are, and God, you put us here.”  God ignores all that and simply tells him, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel from Midian’s hand.”

Yeah.  About that strength thing.  You see, there are a couple of other pieces of information you may have overlooked.  I’m from the weakest clan in Manasseh and I’m the least in my family.  Go in the strength that I have?  I haven’t got much.

I think I know what Gideon was looking for.  Moses was looking for it to when God told him to speak to Pharoah.  Elijah in I Kings 19 when he fled to Mt. Horeb also had the issue.  But God answers.  He makes clear – “Go in the strength you have.”  Outnumbered?  Go in the strength you have.  Desperate living conditions?  Go in the strength you have.  Overwhelming odds?  Go in the strength you have.  A global pandemic?  Go in the strength you have!  The worst political divisions in our lifetime?  Go in the strength you have!  Gas as $4.70?  Go in the strength you have!  A major land war in Europe?  Go in the strength you have!  Hostile spiritual environment?  Go in the strength you have!  Do we honestly think God doesn’t see the challenges?  He knows them all, intricately!  Gideon – weakest in your tribe, youngest in your family – Go in the strength you have….

And Gideon.  One other thing. You have forgotten.  I already said it when I greeted you at first, but I’m going to say it again… Yes.  Go in the strength you have….

….and I will be with you!  Oh boy.  That makes all the difference.  That’s what Gideon needed to hear, and let’s be honest, that’s what we need to hear!  If God says to do something, He will be right there with us while we’re doing anything He’s telling us to do!  And it is precisely this knowledge that has empowered God’s people for millennia!  It is what allows David to sing in Psalm 3, I will not fear the tens of thousands who have set themselves against me – why?  Because you, O Lord are a shield about me and the lifter of my head.

How about this?

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing greatness is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.  II Corinthians 4.

Or this?

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8.

Now we made a shift there from Old to New Testament and Gideon didn’t understand it all fully, welcoming things more from afar (Hebrews 11:13).  He constantly needed reminders of God’s presence, that’s what that fleece thing is all about, and that’s not something we need anymore as vessels of the Holy Spirit – but that’s not where I’m going – we’re shifting from the Old to the New Testament and we’re talking resilience.  And resilience, like most good things, ultimately has its roots squarely planted in the Gospel!  And what is that Gospel?  Simply the thing that Paul declares is of first importance, the thing that is the bedrock foundation for all our faith, that which without we are to be pitied above all people, and it is this – that Christ died for our sins according the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day….

Death – burial – resurrection.

What could be more resilient than passing from death to life?!  What could be more resilient than resurrection?!  And it is the living out of the risen Christ and being daily filled with the Holy Spirit that allows us to mount up on eagles’ wings, running without growing weary, and walking without being faint!

Good ol’ Ben Franklin famously said the two things in life that are sure are death and taxes.  Well, Jesus took care of death.  But we will face our Midianite army, we will face the tens of thousands, just like we have faced them the last couple of years as a group.  That is certain, straight from the mouth of Jesus – “In this world you will have trouble” But what is the next part of that verse?  “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  So.  In whatever step we take tomorrow.  Go and live the resurrection!  Go in the strength you have!  And go in the knowledge that we serve a God who will never leave you or abandon you, a God who says, as you live out my will, “I will be with you!”

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Sowing Peace in an Angry World

By / May 26, 2022

Nothing can make sense of what happened in Uvalde, Texas yesterday.  There was no reason behind it – explanations, maybe – reason, no (I addressed that here).  Events like this make me terribly concerned about the violence around us, the disregard of life, and the frequency it happens.  I was still processing Buffalo, NY when I heard about Uvalde.  My head is spinning.

I won’t wade into the debates about what we just witnessed but something is crystal clear to me – in this very angry world, it is crucial for God’s people to bring peace and to shun anger.  Maybe that sounds weak.  But I’m saying this because more and more I see people wearing the name of Christ (sometimes literally) giving in to the rage our country is steeped in – and to do so is to enter the realm of the senseless.  Proof?  Jesus equates anger at someone with murder (Matthew 5:22-23).  Let’s take a few moments to let that sink in….

…. Are you angry?  What are you angry about?  Who are you angry at?  Where is all that leading?  Not to the righteousness God desires (James 1:20), that is certain.  To unrighteousness then….

So, to be brief – what happened yesterday came from a very angry place.  In our attitudes, in our lives, Jesus doesn’t want us anywhere near that.  Rather, we should strive to reap a harvest of righteousness by sowing peace everywhere we go (James 3:18).

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Caring for What God Cares About

By / May 20, 2022

The other day, while I was relaxing in a hammock a few feet from one of our bird feeding stations, a catbird came and entertained me with his antics.  I love birdwatching.  It’s fascinating and fires up the part of my brain given over to wonder.  It is absolutely marvelous to watch a bluebird fly – delicate, almost magical, and completely different from a red-breasted woodpecker, which seems to launch itself hazardously into the air daring gravity to bring it down at every upstroke of its wings.  They all swoop in on our feeders – woodpeckers, bluebirds, catbirds, hummingbirds, nuthatches… you get the idea.  But we feed them so we can wonder at them.  They would be harder to find if we didn’t.  God’s feeding station is huge.

I’ve thought about God’s care of the birds and flowers as expressed in Matthew 6 several times – but as we have fed birds for a number of years, I found myself wondering – what would they do without us?  By feeding them ourselves are we somehow negating God’s care for them?  “Don’t be silly,” I’ve told myself.  And it is silly to a point – but the question has led to some interesting and perhaps valuable conclusions….

I believe God loves it when we interact with His creation.  He created – our interaction with it is, in many cases, re-creation.  When we work in the dirt with our hands or landscape our yard or replant trees along a creek – when we set up feeding stations for birds or create ponds for fish or rescue baby robins (a specialty of my youngest) – we often find ourselves invigorated and God rejoices in that.  It’s like parents seeing their children do what they’ve seen mom and dad do a thousand times and the joy parents take in that initiative.  I can hear God saying, “I take care of the birds – you want to help?  Great!  See how I made the juncos to forage on the ground while the hummingbirds suspend themselves in flight to drink flower nectar?…”

We are mistaken if we think this is a distraction – God isn’t into distraction.  There is real meaning to it all as God gives us the responsibility to steward wisely what He has made.  In this, God is also observing if we care about what He cares about.  And, “If that is how He cares for the birds of the air, will He not much more take care of you?”  Ah.  Let’s pivot here.

I’m not negating God’s care of anything by getting involved in the things He cares about.  He is joyously letting me share in the work – and the scope of His work is vast.  But homing in on Matthew 6, consider – He takes care of the birds; He makes flowers beautiful; but He cares for us more.  So… as a matter of emphasis… if I care about the things God cares about at the intensity He cares about them, there is no way we are going to see someone in need and say, “I wish you well, be warmed and fed” (James 2:16).  To those in doubt, we will show mercy and will strive to snatch from the fire those needing salvation (Jude 22-23).  And by all of this we will boldly witness to the world the truth of God’s care for us all.

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