The Benefits of Exposure

And they have not exposed your iniquity so as to restore you from captivity. Lamentations 2:14

Ever since Adam and Eve tried to hide behind fig leaves, people have tried to hide the issues and sins of their heart. We use many techniques to avoid confronting and confessing the things in our life that are not good. Excuses abound in hopes that somehow we can circumvent dealing with the truth. Many times we forget God’s purpose in revealing those things we are trying so hard to hide.

Two of God’s motives for exposing our sin are for restoration and release. He wants nothing more than for us to be restored to right fellowship with Him. But He also wants us released from the things that have us in their grip. The first step someone must take when trying to overcome an addiction, be it with drugs, alcohol, food, or relationships, is to admit there is a problem. As long as they just keep referring back to the many reasons they have the addiction nothing will happen.

Lamentations is a short five chapter book that depicts God’s people under judgment for their sin and rebellion. While God holds them personally responsible for their actions He also makes it clear that part of the problem has been in the false prophets who did not point out their sins so that they could be restored from captivity. They sugar coated their messages to appease the masses. They said what people wanted to hear rather than what they needed to hear. They actually hindered God’s work rather than helped it.

I see two extremes in our pulpits today. While some pastors never mention sin and warn of consequences others are all too happy to brow beat and shame their congregations. Sitting under the first gives people a false sense of security in the way they are living their Christian life. Sitting under the second causes people to walk in shame, condemnation, and the feeling that they just can never measure up. Both ways leave out the very heart of God. While God does not ignore sin, neither does He expose it for the sole purpose of letting us know how horrible we are. He is a loving Shepherd who wants to woo us back to Himself. His motives are always for our good. May we find a good balance between hiding and harping!

Father, I am learning to trust the exposure of my heart to You. Show me my own captivity and any area that hinders fellowship with You. Amen.

The Antidote For Play Acting

And the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?” Luke 13:15,16

Have you ever had God ask you a direct question about your internal world? Jesus knew how to ask good, heart-probing questions to the people who had learned to play the pretend game so well. He could pinpoint the exact area that stood in the way of any person coming to know Him in a personal way. The religious leaders of His day had become masters at the game of hypocrisy. They used words and actions to attempt to cover up the hidden agendas, motives, and deceptions of their own heart. Their mantra in life was, “I am what I pretend to be.” Apparently they had become quite good at fooling other people and maybe even at fooling themselves. But Jesus wasn’t fooled and He had no trouble in letting them know what He saw. Having been confronted with such truth, what would they choose to do with it?

I ask myself the same question this morning. I am learning the wisdom and necessity of coming to God on a daily basis and asking Him to reveal my own heart to me. For if I do not allow Him to “search me and know me” I will too easily walk through my day in a pretend mode. So I must go to Him and ask Him to show me where I am being a hypocrite, where I am being judgmental, where I am being unloving, where I am harboring hidden agendas and wrong attitudes. I cannot trust what others might say about me. I cannot even trust what I think of myself. God is the only One who knows me thoroughly.

It is very much like exploratory surgery. The purpose is to expose the problem and remove it. God wants to reveal truths to me about myself in order to bring about change. Not behavior modification but genuine transformation. May I stop assuming the role of a stage character in any area of my life and allow God to make me genuine and authentic, so that what is seen on the outside is a true reflection of what is on the inside.

Father, there are things You will show me about myself. I look to You for each revelation and desire change to come. Amen.

Telling Your Story

And Gehazi said, ‘My lord, O king, this is the woman and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life.’ When the king asked the woman, she related it to him. 2 Kings 8:5,6

The Shunammite woman has sought an audience with the king. She has just returned from a seven year absence due to a famine in her home land about which Elisha had warned her. She plans to make a request of the king for the return of her property. But she has entered his presence at a time when Elisha’s servant is actually telling the king about God raising her son from the dead! Upon learning this is the woman, the king asks her to share her story and she does. I am sure it is a story she has already told countless times and has never tired of sharing it. Her story was one of God allowing her barren womb to conceive a son, that son dieing later on, and then that son being brought back to life. Not only must she have enjoyed sharing it but so did God as He had it recorded in Scripture for future generations to read.

Each of us have stories living in us. Many of us will never stand before audiences to tell of God’s intervention, provision, and power in our own lives but there will be opportunities to share our stories with individuals. What God has done in us can restore hope to another person’s situation. As we share, we are saying in essence, “The God of the universe is personally involved in not only my life but in yours as well.” God does not mean for us to keep the stories to ourselves. Each time we tell them they come alive and infuse truth into another person’s life. I cannot tell you the number of times I have listened to a person’s story only to walk away and say to myself, “If God can do that for that person, He can work in my life as well!”

The stories recorded in Scripture are meant to reveal truth to us about God. They show us who He is, what He is like, what He can do, and how He works. Today, God wants to use each of us who know Him to continue to reveal Him to others by telling our stories of His involvement in our life. May we do so with gratitude and passion!

Father, I love to tell the stories of my salvation and finding freedom in Christ. Right now You are writing a new story that I don’t know the ending of yet. As people come across my path may those stories live with power as I share them. Amen.

Taking a Hard Look at My Prayer Life

It may be the LORD thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which the LORD thy God hath heard; wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left. 2 Kings 19:4

Does prayer really make a difference? Look at this verse and see the challenge that lies before us to lift up our prayers on behalf of others! I compare this verse to Ezekiel 22:30 & 31 where God says He looked for someone to intercede in prayer on behalf of His nation so He would not destroy them but He found no one. The result was destruction instead of deliverance. How different the story would have been had someone stood in that gap and lifted up their prayers for God’s mercy.

Hezekiah took the challenge and the results were incredible! He went to God with acknowledgement of who God is and what He had done, acknowledgement of who his enemy was and what he had done, and then got very specific as to what he wanted God to do on their behalf. The result was that God sent an angel to kill 185,000 Assyrian soldiers and thwarted their plans to attack His people! Did prayer make a difference? You bet it did!

My own prayer life is being challenged this morning. I am asking myself some questions that are uncomfortable but necessary to answer. Do I pray for myself and others believing it will make a difference? Does the idea that God is sovereign cause me to think it is useless to pray because God is going to do what He wants anyway? Do I come to God with expectancy, boldness, and confidence? Do I take the challenge to pray seriously? Do I spend more time thinking about the need to pray instead of actually praying? Has my prayer life been reduced to such general phrases that are so hazy that I am not only unsure of what it is I really want God to do but can’t begin to know how they have been answered?

None of these questions are coming to my mind as condemnation but rather as a realization that God wants me to have an effective prayer life. He wants me to interact with Him and see how my prayers can move Him to act in mighty ways on behalf of myself and others. It is time for a change!

Father, my prayer life needs a radical over haul! I see the problem and I turn to You for help in this area of my life. Amen.

What It Means to Stay

The Lord was my stay. 2 Samuel 22:19b KJV

Let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God. Isaiah 50:10b KJV

We often hear words but don’t fully grasp their meaning or significance. One thing I have come to appreciate about God’s Word is its richness and depth. When I read a verse and understand where it applies to my life, situation, and circumstances, it infuses within me a confidence to move forward with renewed strength, joy, and resolve. Such is the case with the word ‘stay.’

When God is referred to as my stay, it means He is my support. He is the One who holds me up and gives me strength. He is the One who keeps me on course and establishes my way. How assuring and securing it is to realize God is the One who will protect, hold, bear, carry, prop, sustain, maintain, shore up, keep up, back, provide for, confirm, and affirm me. No wonder David often referred to Him as his rock, strong hold, shelter, and tower! He is our stability in a world that can seem like anything but stable.

Once we see God as our stay, we can heed the words of Isaiah when he says to stay upon God. Who better to rely upon, lean on, lie in, rest upon, take hold of, and stand fast in? Like a trusting child in the arms of a loving parent, God woos me into a restful relationship with Himself. He knows that any relationships I look to for security will leave me wanting. He knows that all the external things of life that I would attempt to draw strength and support from would fail. He loves me too much to allow anything or anyone to take His place or give me what He offers.

So when I am faced with disappointment, discouragement, confusion, uncertainty, or doubt He invites me to stay on Him. When there is a vagueness to my journey, valleys to walk through, or trials to endure He welcomes me to stay on Him. And even in the times when things go my way, joys abound, and life feels good He still whispers, “Stay on Me.” That is why the song writer so eloquently said, “Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed. Finding as He promised, perfect peace and rest.”

Father, I rest in You because You are my stay! No one else can hold me, assure me, or comfort me like You can. Thank you for offering me the shadow of Your wings to abide under. Amen.