Who Are You Seeking For?

My spouse and I went on a whale watching tour boat one day.  We were excited at the thought of the possibility of being able to see one of God’s largest creatures swimming freely.  We had heard so many great stories about others who had gone out to do the same.  We eagerly waited in line to get on the boat and then once let on found what we would hope would be a great place to watch from.  There was a storm coming in and the wind was blowing strongly very icy air at our bare skinned faces.  We buttoned up our coats and put on gloves to try to fight the cold.  The gray skies almost blended with the ocean.  We diligently kept watch.  We had our camera ready.  We waited for ripples on the water that were different from the sea’s stormy waves.  We were seeking sight of a spout of water to appear.  The Captain kept on seeking signs from the watchers on his boat.  He would seek those who would raise their hands and point.  He would listen for gasps of awe and words like, “I see a spout!”.  He would count the minutes between appearances of the whales.  So he could forewarn us of the next appearance.  He would point the boat in the right direction and chase after the whale.  I don’t think I had ever done so much vigilent seeking in all my life.  I was excited, alert and watchful with my eye on the horizon.  The time, energy and money spent was all well worth it.  My diligence paid off.  I was rewarded by being able to spot multiple whales multiple times.

Thankfully, Jesus views the people of this earth the same way.  He is excited and eager to spot those who would come to know Him.  He diligently seeks the lost sheep to bring them home to safety in Him.

Luke 15: 1- 7

1 All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes were complaining, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!” 3 So He told them this parable: 4 “What man among you, who has 100 sheep and loses one of them,does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, 6 and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’ 7 I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance.

It is just common sense to realize that if Jesus was willing to suffer and die for us, that He would seek us out at whatever place we might be at in our lives.  We may be the most extremely wicked people around, but God loves us and is looking for us.  He doesn’t want us to be perfect when we come to Him as Savior.  He wants us to come to Him as soon as He calls.  He will help us to make our lives right once we have accepted Him as Savior.  Our sins will be forgiven and we will start a new life being protected and provided for by our Shepherd.  If we let Him, He will fight off the wolves that will come against us and He will make sure we have everything we need for life that fits His plans for our life.

Once Jesus becomes our Savior, then we are to grow and mature in our relationship with Him.  We are to endeavor to be like our Savior.  Just as He sought the lost sheep, we, too, are to seek the lost sheep.  We are to keep a watchful eye out.  We are to endure the cold wind of life that may come against us as we seek His sheep.  We are to be diligent as we seek.  It takes time, energy and money sometimes to seek His sheep.  We are to be eager and excited to spot those who will be saved from eternal separation from God.  We are to be as loving and caring about everyone as Jesus was for us.  We are to meet them where they are at in life and show them God’s love.  Who are you seeking for?

The Ultimate Speech Making Fear

Many people are afraid to speak in front of other people or large groups.  We all become shy when presented the opportunity to make a speech.  Teachers start trying to break us of this fear by teaching us speech making skills and forcing us to speak in front of class mates while we are in high school and college.  I, myself, have this problem.  I took several speech classes and I don’t think it has helped me much.  I get so nervous that I forget what I have said while I was standing up in front of everyone by the time I have sat back down.  The fear comes from the concept that those we are speaking to will reject us or not like us.  We place so much importance on everyone liking us.  When in reality, especially as Christians, that is not even something we should be worrying about.  We, as Christians, are not here to please man, but to please God.  Jesus warned his disciples and us, that there will be times when people don’t like us because of representing Him.  He warns us that we may even be taken in front of groups of people that want to harm us for our beliefs.  Read Matthew 10:16 -20.

¹⁶ “Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. ¹⁷ Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. ¹⁸ You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations. ¹⁹ But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour, ²⁰ because you are not speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you.

Can you imagine being in that situation.  How frightening.  That makes saying a speech in front of a class not so scary.  What would you say in that situation to protect yourself or calm the crowd?  The truth is you are there because of your faith.  So in reality you are not to be protecting yourself.  You are to stand firm and defend your faith, not yourself.  In no way should you say anything that would make you look like you are go back on your stand for your Lord.  We see examples of that from Stephen and Paul in the Bible.  They never defended themselves.  They spoke about God right up until the end. 

Jesus gives us some great encouragement in this scary passage.  He tells us that if we are in that situation we will be given what to speak.  The Holy Spirit that lives in us will speak through us.  That’s really the best thing that can happen.  I know if I were to prepare the speech I would just mess it up and end up looking like a fool.  What an encouragement to know that I don’t have to make the speech.

 

Handed Over

Sometimes we think that as Christians that we probably represent niceness and goodness to those around us.  We think that they will naturally be drawn to us because we represent Heaven and God.  Kind of like a “Touched by an Angel” episode.  Monica the angel would suddenly have a job somewhere and be accepted automatically by those around her.  If there was someone with a tough shell that she had to deal with she would speak some soft and sweet words of love to them and their exterior shell of hardness would melt.  Unfortunately it does not happen that way too frequently in real life.  It would be wonderful if it did.  Reality is we will face difficult people and difficult situations.  Sometimes it will be to the point where those people will be threatening our life.  Read Matthew 10:16 -20.

16 “Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. 17 Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. 18 You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations. 19 But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour, 20 because you are not speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you.

Common sense is to know that you will not be liked and will face trials because of who you represent.  Jesus warned the disciples of this.  If we love the Lord and are walking in His ways and representing Him in the world as we witness to those we meet, they will not necessarily like us.  We remind them that they are not living the way they should.  We remind them that they are in sin or in rebellion to God.  We remind them that they have to make changes.  Changes are never easy.  Who wants to give up what they are comfortable with?  Pleasure usually comes with sin, and we lovers of pleasure and self-indulgence.  It is easier for those living the way of the world to get rid of you by being mean to you, or threatening you or even finding legal ways to get rid of you.  From Jesus time until now men have been making laws or twisting laws to fit their needs of the moment.  Even Jesus was drug through six illegal trials.  The leaders were so against him that they twisted what they could twist and broke what laws they could break.  The same thing goes on today.  The public passes a proposition that is on the side of God and a few men who want to live their lifestyle use another part of the system to stop the proposition from happening.

So don’t be surprised at what you might face as a Christian in your work place, neighborhood, town and government.  It’s just common sense that if they didn’t like God himself, they won’t like you.  Just keep plugging along doing what God wants, and He will take care of you the best way that is needed.

 

Act Like An Animal

Going to the zoo can be a fun experience.  The bigger the zoo the more animals there are to look at.  You can go to the zoo to study animal habits and see animals you have never seen in person before.  Visiting the zoo is one of the simple pleasures in life.  When you go to the zoo you tend to look for the pandas, bears, lions, giraffes, etc.  They seem like more interesting or exotic animals to watch and learn about.  Throughout history man has used animal characteristics they have learned about to describe characteristics in man.  This can be a very good visual effect.  You find it in artwork, stories, mythology and even the Bible.  Jesus many times tried to explain things to his disciples and the people with things from their everyday lives.  In Matthew 10:16 -20 Jesus uses 4 different animals (some of which you wouldn’t necessarily go to the zoo to learn from) to make some very important points to the disciples:

16 “Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. 17 Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. 18 You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations. 19 But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour, 20 because you are not speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you.

Jesus uses these animals to give us some very important instructions.  In this passage he tells us to “be shrewd as serpents and harmless as doves”.  You can find many places throughout history where serpents have been used to symbolize wisdom or evil.  Serpents are known for being sneaky.  You sometimes don’t even know they are there.  They are known for their slow and deliberate preparation for attack.  They are known for the speed of their attack.  They are known for the deadliness of their attack.  You can’t see their fangs until they attack.  We need to understand that those who are of the world and not a part of the Christian family will not go out of their way to make life easy for us.  They will most likely seek ways to attack.  We need to understand that they can be dangerous and can quickly and successfully attack us.  We need to know they will find ways to sneak up on us and strike when they are ready.  We need to use our knowledge about how serpents work to protect ourselves and our testimony.  Be aware that you might have a serpent sneaking up on you and waiting to attack.  Don’t let yourself walk in to traps.  Be wise.  Don’t let your testimony slip for one moment or it might be used against you.  We are also instructed to be gentle or righteous as a dove.  When you think of the two animals, you tend to think that most people would kill a serpent first and would leave the dove unharmed.  After all they are just a gentle bird and a serpent can kill you.  So if we are righteous in our actions or gentle in our actions people will be more likely to listen to us or leave us unharmed.  They will have less ammunition to attack us with.  The soft cooing of a dove will get us further than the hiss of the snake when it comes to our words.

Take time to study the four animals Jesus used in this passage to see what Jesus was trying to teach you about your walk with Him through this world.  Take His instructions serious.

Go Where?

Can you imagine giving up everything you are familiar with?  Like family, friends, career, home.  Its kind of like joining the military.  They literally take you from your parents in most cases and put you in another state in a very barren set of barracks with nobody you know.  They deprive you of sleep and work you to death.  They assault your personality with abusive words.  The military do this in hopes of bringing out the true you and the best in you.  They try to weed out those who won’t be able to handle tough situations they might face as military men.  They try to take out your stubborn streaks and put in some obedience and military skills.  They have good reason for what they do.  It is just difficult to go through the process.  The disciples were not verbally abused by Jesus, but they did give up home, family and careers to follow Him.  They did spend three years in training.  They received instructions, life lessons, demonstrations and real life practice.  In Matthew 10:16 -20 we learn about what lay ahead for them if they continued to follow Jesus after their training ended:

16 “Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. 17 Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. 18 You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations. 19 But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour, 20 because you are not speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you.

Jesus tells them that things will not be comfortable, because He is sending them out on a dangerous mission.  This is much like what many of our military men face.  They end their training and they go out to do what they have been trained for.  Jesus wants them to understand that they are not going in to the midst of men like themselves, but rather out in to the midst of wolves.  They will be out in the middle of those who would harm them.  For the disciples and for us as followers of Christ, it is important to start with this piece of wisdom.  We are in the world and Jesus expects to go out in it.  To go to those who don’t know Him, even to those who are against Jesus and would harm us as a result.  With this piece of wisdom we will be wiser in how we proceed in the world.  We will watch our testimony knowing full well the wolf pack is waiting to pounce on us when we stumble.  We will be wiser in our choices of words and actions.  We will be wiser about who we befriend.  Remember you are a sheep and should act like one.  Remember you are a sheep and are therefore prey to the wolves.  Remember you have a shepherd who will take care of you.