Thought for the week- May 13th, 2009

Deut 6:4-5 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

I’ve been on the edge of some type of revelation for a while now. It has been fleeting, like reaching for a steam cloud and having it disappear when you close your hand around it.

The Spirit of God has been speaking to my spirit, but I haven’t been able to comprehend or hear clearly what He has been saying or trying to teach me. Yesterday during staff, the heavens opened with a bang and I had the epiphany.

The discussion was on the proper priorities that pastors should have. The widely accepted and taught priority list is this-

1. God
2. family (spouse then children)
3. church
4. everything else

Most of us pastors get into trouble assuming #3 directly relates to #1, and in some ways it does. However, it suddenly occurred to me that I’ve had it all wrong. There is no list. I have spent the last day meditating on this, and I believe our priorities should look like this-

All of the problems in life can be traced back to this diagram. Preachers are great for telling people how to live, but often times in an effort to help people live a life pleasing to God, we reduce our relationship with Him to a set of rules and/ethical norms that have to be followed.

Those are important, but we should instead focus on teaching people to have a proper relationship with God. The law is a schoolmaster to point out our sin, but often times we (and I definitely count myself in this) come short and only point out the disease without offering the cure.

The verse from Deuteronomy that I used at the top of this devotional is called the Shema (meaning “Hear O’ Israel) among the Jews. It is their simple declaration of faith. Looking at the Hebrew in these verses, another way to translate it would be “Listen Israel, Yahweh our God is everything/altogether/our complete focus/our number 1 on a list of 1”.

Our relationship with God is not to be number 1 on a list of other things. There is no list with God. Anything else on a list with God is an idol.

All of our problems with sin, all of our problems with temptation, and all of our problems with relationships can all be traced back to this truth. If everything in our lives emanates from God, everything else in life takes care of itself.

Get alone with God and ask Him what is lacking in your relationship with Him. Let Him show you His wondrous riches and the incredible depths that He wants to take you in intimacy with Him.

It’s all about HIM! Let us covenant together to make Him our everything.

Many blessings,

What do we do now???

Prov 21:1 The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. NIV

A lot of attention has been paid to our new president this week and rightfully so. There has also been a lot of angst from conservative Christians about his social programs that promote blatent immorality.

After President Bush (II) was elected, there was a huge push to pray for him as he claimed to being a confessed Christian. That was good and proper, but how much more now should we being praying for President Obama? Admittedly, his claims of being a Christian in the midst of him promoting things like homosexual marriage and abortion leave a bad taste in a biblical Christian's mouth. However, instead of directing words of hatred or sarcasm towards him, we should be lifting him up to God in prayer.

First, we need to pray for him to come to Jesus in repentance. It seems like he "accepted Christ" in a church that preached only a gospel of social action but did not deal with the subjects of good vs evil, or the problem of sin. His foundation is faulty, so everything that comes from that is tainted by him having the wrong view of man, the bible, and God. Social Gospel or "Black Liberation Theology" that was largly taught at his last church deals with the concept that the biblical record records the struggle of the oppressed against the larger and more powerful elite, and that Jesus' mission was to bring freedom to those captives. It ignores the inherant evil found in every human from the fall of man, and limits the incredible love of God to only those who may feel oppressed by someone else, thus leading President Obama to be sympathetic toward social minorities like homosexuals or toward an "oppressed women" whose irresponsiblity lead her to become pregnant (which causes most abortions). He needs God to reveal to him the true gospel- one that exposes the sin in his own life, makes him grieve over it and reach out to Jesus as the only one who can save him from it and it's penalty- eternal seperation from God.

Second, we need to pray that God directs his heart. Irregardless of President Obama's eternal destiny, God can move his heart in whatever way HE chooses if, and only if, the people of God pray and ask Him to do it. 2 Chron 7:13-14 gives us a reciepe so to speak for God to move-

2 Chron 7:13-14
When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (NKJV)

See the if/then statement- if my people (not the world, the church!) humble themselves, pray, seek God's face, and turn from wickeness, then God will forgive their sin and heal their land.

You could put Stalin, Hitler, or any other despot in the White House, and if the people of God are living for God and seeking Him will all of their heart, souls, and minds, he will follow God's will because God always responds to the concentrated prayer of His people.

We need to be focused on God, and not a man. It's so easy to stand and shout down a man instead of kneel before God in prayer and supplication. One is born of the flesh and produces fleshly results- strife, anger, hatred, and division. The other produces Godliness, contentment, and peace. Only one glorifies God, and that is the latter...

Which one will you choose?

The Crushed Life

Isa 53:10- Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer

The old man started awake as a rat scurried over him. The soldier next to him stirred in his sleep, opening his eyes slightly to see if all was okay before drifting back to sleep. It took a moment for the old man to get his bearings, and sighed remembering where we was. He quietly rolled over and planted his face in his hands and began to pray, giving thanks for another day to witness to the hardened young man that was chained to him in this dark, damp, always cold cell. For months he had worked on him, peeling back the layers. For a Roman soldier, prison duty was generally the worse duty that could be pulled, and kept as a punishment for soldiers who were sub-standard in some way. Yet, being with the old man for these months had softened his heart as he kept hearing of a man who did the incredible, raising the dead, making blind men see, and then did the inscrutable- dying for all men.
As the old man poured his heart and spirit into his prayer, the young soldier woke up and saw the old man again praying. It seemed to be all he did besides talking to him and other prisoners about a man named Jesus who he claimed was God. The soldier watched as the man moaned into his hands begging his God to move in the hearts of the other prisoners so that they would believe his words and be saved. Then the old man began praying for him, and the soldier’s heart was moved at the love being expressed by the old man as he begged Jesus to save him. The young mans eyes moistened as he watched the man sway, almost as if he was a women in labor straining with everything that was in him as he prayed. Something in the man’s heart stirred and broke as he watched the love of the old man pour out for him before his God.

“Paul,” he whispered, drawing the old man out of his prayer. “Tell me again about this Jesus…”. The Apostle Paul rose from his prostrate position and smiled at the young soldier, and began to speak the words that would lead him to salvation…

I was struck this week reading this verse from Isaiah- it was the Lord’s will to crush Jesus. Jesus who did not sin, but lived a life of perfect obedience to God, was crushed by a Father who love Him…

God’s ways seem so inscrutable. It’s hard for us to see the how’s and whys we go through difficult times. Paul, like Jesus, suffered for doing God’s will. It’s the exact opposite of what we or the world for that matter would expect God to do. We expect an immediate reward when we obey, but perhaps God has you on a higher road. See, if Jesus hadn’t been crushed by God, we would still be dead in our sins. If Paul hadn’t been crushed by God, we would not have a New Testament and the Gospel would have been a Jewish thing only.

In order to get wine, a grape has to be crushed. Our reaction to adversity shows the condition of our hearts and what truly dwells there. What comes out of you when God even squeezes you a little? (and lets be honest, not many of us have been squeezed as hard as Jesus or Paul!)

Make an effort in the coming year to allow God to squeeze you a little. Decide right now as you read this that you will spend more time with HIM in separated prayer- going away and being just with God. Go to your church, or for a walk in the woods and just commune with HIM. If you do that, when God decides it’s time to squeeze you, only the oil of the Holy Spirit will come forth, and that the true and loving nature of God will be shown to this lost and dying world.

It’s a higher road, but one that is worthy of Jesus if we say we are truly following HIM!

Love and blessings,


John A. Oscar
Evangelism Pastor
Prayer House Assembly of God