Weekend Screensaver: Psalm 20

Continuing my Book of Psalms art project...



This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible: Psalm 20 v 4 - May God give you the desire of your heart and make all of your plans succeed.

Erin Daily Devotions: Ambitions

Sometimes our ambitions to succeed can become idolatrous monsters to feed.

I have never really been comfortable around ambitious pastors. I’m of the old school that believes if you want a bigger church to lead, then grow the one that you’re leading right now. I’ve been in ministry for 22 years and in that time I’ve only led two charges. The average time that a pastor spends with one church is about four to five years, so by this time I should be leading my fifth or sixth congregation…if I was truly ambitious.

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It’s not that I don’t have ambitions and dreams for the congregation that I lead, or that I have jettisoned all my hopes and goals for the future. I just think that stability and dependability in pastoral leadership are more important than paper credentials and scholarly works. Those pastors who want to reach the top of the ladder are driven by a worldly view of success. For me, success is listening to God and trying to do what He wants for His Church and its people.

Matthew 20:22 "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?"
"We can," they answered.

When the mother of James and John approaches Jesus about having her two sons sit beside Him in His glorious Kingdom, she is being ambitious on their behalf. Like any mother, she wants the best for her children, so she asks Jesus to grant her sons this ambitious request. James and John don’t ask this of Him directly, probably because they understand that Jesus isn’t big on power struggles within His chosen band of disciples. Sheepishly, they get their mother to petition Christ on their behalf. If they were truly ambitious, they would have personally asked Jesus to grant the request.

I like how Jesus answers them. He lets them all understand that He is also working under a Higher Power and that such a request is not His to give. He makes them aware that in order to be worthy of such a high honor, they would have to be willing to sacrifice themselves for the Kingdom. They answer this positively, in the hope that Christ will give them these positions of power. Jesus accepts their willingness, which has more to do with ambition and greed rather than service and loyalty. They will be required to sacrifice themselves for the cause, but it’s still up to God to allot the appointed thrones on the right and left of Christ.

Sometimes we allow ourselves to be overcome by our ambitions and in our zeal to fulfill our dreams, we lose a precious part of ourselves. James would be martyred for the cause and John would be exiled for many years. They both would pay a heavy price for their ambitions. If we also become obsessed with greatness and glory, then we can lose our humility and honesty, our faith and fidelity. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be better in our lives, but when we sacrifice our families and friends, our church and our charity, then we have taken the wrong path and have turned our ambition into an idolatrous monster that feeds upon our greed.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, keep us from grandiose schemes and ambitious dreams that would ruin the precious things in our lives. Help us to maintain a sense of balance, so that our desire to succeed does not become an idol of our greed. Allow us to seek to please You with our faith by placing our goals and dreams into Your hands. May we also use our successes to resource the eternally glorious work of Your Kingdom. In Your Holy Name, we earnestly pray. Amen.

Daily Devotions: The Comancheros

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For me, New Year’s Day wouldn’t be perfect without watching a John Wayne movie. Today I’m enjoying “The Comancheros” with John Wayne, Stuart Whitman, and even Lee Marvin. Wayne plays a Texas Ranger who keeps getting outwitted by a Mississippi gambler, who is his prisoner. Eventually, the two of them get together to break up and defeat a community of outlaws who are terrorizing the region. It’s the usual John Wayne epic cowboy movie. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a perfect start to the New Year.

Acts 12:6 The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance.

Today’s passage from Acts 12:6-10 is all about the apostle Peter escaping from jail. I love this story. Just like the Wayne movie, it’s exciting, intriguing, and even comical in some parts. For instance, Peter can’t believe what is happening around him. He’s sure it’s either a vision or a dream. At some point, I think he wants to pinch himself to make sure he’s really awake. God is providing a miraculous escape for Peter, but he cannot believe it.

There have been times in my life when I have experienced something similar. Decades ago, New Year would have meant getting drunk for me and partying non-stop for three or four days. I was on a path to self-destruction, but the Lord took a hold of my life and changed me. Today I feel like pinching myself to see if it’s real. I thank God for turning my life around and giving me a miraculous moment to escape from the addiction that was destined to kill me.

New Year’s Day can be a time of new promises and the start of new dreams. Asking God for guidance and placing our lives in His hands can present new possibilities and opportunities that will enable us to overcome our troubles and realize our goals. It is my hope and prayer that this will be both a Happy and Prosperous New Year for all of you.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for Your presence in our lives and for the many opportunities that You give us to fulfill our dreams and realize our hopes. Grant us the faith and strength to overcome our problems and to accomplish all that we can to glorify and honor You. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

Drive By Devotions

Seeking guidance from the Spirit of God can affect the outcome of our plans and goals. Sometimes we have daft notions that go nowhere because we don't put God first.

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Zechariah 4:6 So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.

I love this verse. It reminds me that when I’ve used up all of my own strength, energy, and patience, I need to come to the Lord for renewal. Far too often, I try to do things my way and end up becoming frustrated when I cannot produce the results that I want. Instead of submitting to the Lord and giving myself over to be influenced by the Spirit, I wish that the Lord would do what I desire.

For example, many years ago when I was pastor in Dunure, Scotland, I dreamed up the idea of opening the church at 7.00am on a Monday morning, so that commuters could stop and pray before they went to work. The church was on the main road and scores of drivers passed by at that time in the morning.

I envisioned that many drivers would stop and take time to be in the Lord’s House. I got to the church real early, put the lights on and had a tape playing devotional hymns and choruses quietly in the background. I sat in one of the choir seats, read my Bible and prayed for the church. It was quiet and peaceful, and every now and then, I would hear a car passing by.

I think that I did this for about four months. In all of that time, only two people stopped by. Nobody really wanted to take or make the time to be there. I guess they could say their prayers from the comfort of their own cars as the drove by the church. I wanted it to be successful, but God was teaching me a lesson. No matter how hard I wanted it to happen, without His Spirit, it would never work. Instead of relying upon God’s Spirit, I was trying to make God support my ministry. It made me realize that it wasn’t my ministry at all. It belonged to God – what I had to do was to discover where His Spirit was leading.

I still have some daft notions at times, but I usually petition the Spirit first for direction. This ministry belongs to God – I am merely a servant of His Kingdom. The power and the glory, success and honor all belong to God. My role is to submit to the Spirit and seek God’s will.

Perhaps like me, you’re wrestling with God and want Him to make something successful for You. There’s no harm in asking, but ascertain whether it is something for Your sake or the Spirit’s. Knowing that will make all the difference in the world as to whether or not it will be accomplished. As the old preacher once said, “Sometimes we have to let go, in order to let God.”

Prayer: Holy Spirit, we all want to make a difference in the world and do something special with our lives. Grant us patience and endurance, discernment and understanding of what You want us to do with our lives. Open our heart and minds, souls and spirits to Your holy bidding. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.

Preaching Heresy - Mega Churches & the Prosperity Gospel

Luke 12:31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. (NIV)

A lot of Americans are buying into what has been coined as “the prosperity gospel.” Its message goes something like this: God will be good to you, if you believe in His promises; God will make you successful, if you ask Him. It ties up the American dream with the Christian faith, and a lot of mega-churches are promoting this rags-to-riches, gospel-to-glory type of message.

It sounds like a good idea and certainly makes for great marketing, but it’s not what Christianity is all about. The promoters of the ‘prosperity gospel’ are actually peddling a heresy. In other words, they’re twisting the truth of the gospel into something that it was never meant to become. I mean think about it: can you imagine Jesus telling the folks of His day that their debt would be taken care of, just by giving money to His Galilean ministry? Do we really think that Christ, who told the rich young man to give up all of his possessions, would preach a message saying that God would supply everything we ever wanted? If we all read the Gospels properly, we find that Jesus talks more about giving than getting.

It’s very easy to get caught up in a cycle of fulfilling our desires and meeting our wants than it is to sacrificially give and be content with what we need. The world tells us to fulfill our goals and not to deny our dreams. Jesus, on the other hand, tells us to seek God’s kingdom and find all that we need in Him. Instead of a prosperity or property gospel, Christ preaches and teaches an uncomplicated, uncompromising message about self-denial, self-sacrifice, and selflessness. The old adage of “God helps those who help themselves” was never spoken by Jesus. You won’t find it in the Bible either; it was first uttered by Benjamin Franklin.

The danger of this prosperity heresy is that we can become envious of those who succeed in life by applying this false teaching. And that in itself becomes a subtle temptation to give up on what we know to be the truth, and turn to populist teachings to fulfill our lives. If you take time to read all of Psalm 73, you will discover how one person goes through this temptation, but eventually turns away from it and seeks God’s presence instead.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, there are many who preach Your words today and use them for their own profit. Help us to discern between those who remain faithful to Your lessons for life, as opposed to those who peddle Your Gospel and Holy words for their own wealth and success. In Your Sacred Name, we pray. Amen.