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Disciple Life

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

We all have different types of lives. There is thought life, love life, work-life, and so on. We spend a good amount of time looking at and discussing these different lives and for good reason. How we think determines our actions. When we think of the right things, we typically, do the right things. Paul writes in Philippians 4:8 that we should think about good things. In all honesty, a case could be made that Paul talks about our thought life a lot. He says things like, be innocent of evil but wise about good, transform our minds, have the mind of Christ, and on and on. God cares a great deal about our thought life. Our love life is important because it should be healthy and biblical. When a couple has a bad love life, other areas of their life suffer as well. Our work life is important because we spend a great deal of time at work. On average we spend about 1/3 of our lives at work. A bad work-life will spill over to other areas. But what about our life as a disciple of Jesus?

I believe that our life as a disciple is made up of at least 4 other lives just like how our thought life, love life, and work-life create a bigger life. I will not get unto too much detail with them, but they are our Word life, our worship life, our prayer life, and our service life. When we look at what it means to be a disciple of Jesus these are 4 key areas of what we do and where we live (so to speak). Whenever I am counseling someone, discipling someone, or walking through a problem with someone these are the 4 areas that I want to know about first because as disciples as Jesus everything comes from that place.

Our Word life is how much time or devotion are we giving to God’s Word. If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God and that He communicates truth to us through it then it makes good sense to read it and know it. If we are to be transformed in the way, we think then we need to read the Bible and allow the truth found therein to transform us.

Our worship life is how much time or devotion do we give to giving God the praise He so rightly deserves. I will admit as a new Christian I struggled here because I thought of it only as singing. I found more growth from reading the Bible and gaining knowledge and wisdom then I did from praising God. My worship life was weak, but the more I learned about God the more it drove me to worship Him. It is about having an attitude of worship and praise that is directed towards God. He is the Lord of the universe, the maker and sustainer of all things, does He not deserve our praise?

Our prayer life is how much time or devotion do we give to praying to and listening to God. The best description I heard for prayer was to think of it as a currency exchange. In prayer, we take our thoughts, wants, desires, and pleas to God and exchange them for what He has for us. So many times, in prayer we stop short of receiving from God what He would want to give to us because we end the conversation after we list our side. Prayer connects us to the Lord Almighty so why would we not spend time in prayer. I love the song What a friend we have in Jesus. One of the verses says “Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.” I have prayed with people and seen them delivered from all sorts of things because they took the time to bring it to God in prayer. We have to remember that talking about God is different than talking to God.

Our service life is about how much time or devotion do we give to walking as Jesus walked. Jesus came not to be served but to serve and we are called to walk as He walked (1 John 2:6). We are called to emulate Christ and that means doing what He did. Isaiah wrote about this when talking about what an acceptable fast was. We are called to feed the homeless, clothe the poor, love the wounded, care for the sick, and so on. The amount we serve will be related to the amount we love God. James writes that if we send someone away with only a verbal blessing and not actually care for them, we have shown what our faith really is (empty).

When we get our Word life, worship life, prayer life, and service life right we move closer to the heart of God and that is what we are called to do as disciples. We are called to be transformed into the image of the Son and become more like Him. We are called to be mature believers of Jesus and to move forward. So, the question is if we find that we are not becoming more like Jesus then what do we need to do?

Just a thought,

Mike

 

Biblical Treatment of the Poor

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

In this article, I want to look at how the Bible tells us to treat the poor. There are many ways to examine the numerous passages in the Bible concerning the poor, needy, orphans, aliens, and so on. There are also various designations that can be given to the groups who are in need. Each of them carries a different meaning and highlights a different group of people. The poor for example can be a larger category of individuals that have needs they themselves are not able to meet. Foreigners, sojourners, or aliens in the land are a group who by their national identity cannot, biblically speaking, inherit the land and need care for. Widows are those who were more than likely once able to be self-sufficient and now rely on aid. Orphans who can in some senses be considered the lowest group have nothing and no one to provide for them.

The message throughout Scripture is clear that these categories of people and the larger group as a whole (the poor) are in need and those who have the ability to help are obligated and required to assist. Two passages from the Old Testament and one from the new help show why people should help the poor. There are many that can be used but these have been chosen to show there are reasons behind the commands.

Before that examination, it is also helpful to create categories for the Scripture that are found concerning the treatment of the poor and needy. There are perhaps better ways to categorize the verses but this one is helpful in creating lists. It is also important to note that there are some if not many verses will cross-categorical lines.

A first possible way is to list a verse as compassion. Compassion is to have concern for others. Christians are called to have a concern or care for those who are in need and helpless to help themselves. Those who are poor and needy require compassion partly because they have a lack of honor and esteem. To show compassion is to acknowledge their situation. Job says in 30:25 that he has wept for those in trouble and grieved the poor. Christians should have concern or care for those in need to the point that it drives them to action, but compassion is of high importance.

A second possible category is justice. This will be discussed further below but throughout the Scriptures, there is a constant call to give justice to the poor and needy. The Psalms especially are ripe with commands and verses to either notice the lack of justice or that God will execute justice on behalf of the poor. Psalm 12:5 is an example of God saying that He will rise up to rescue the poor because of their cries. While 82:3 is an example of people calling for God to rescue the needy. Proverbs continue the theme of justice for the poor in 29:7 where it says that the godly care about the rights of the poor. The poor and needy require justice and they are often not able to obtain it on their own.

A third, and final for this list category is provision. This is where the action the stems from concern and justice come out. It is the actual meeting of needs, the providing of goods or relief, the help to better a situation. This too will be discussed further below but suffice it to say there is a clear command from Scripture to meet the needs of the poor. This can be seen in verses that discuss how to clear a field, the year of rest, and so on. The book of Ruth is an example where one can see what it was like for the poor and a foreigner to need the left-over grains.

Now the attention will turn to three Scriptures to see how they show why people should have concern and care for the poor and needy. First, from the Old Testament, Proverbs 14:31 says, whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors Him.[1] The first and most simple reason to help the poor is that it honors God. God is the maker of all and to neglect the poor and needy is to neglect God’s creation. From the Christian perspective all people have the Imago Dei or image of God and to refuse to help or provide dignity to them is to insult the image of God. In the reverse, to care for or be generous to the needy is to honor God Himself. Christ uses the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25:31-46 to highlight this and says clearly that as it has been done to the least of these it has been done to Christ. When the Lord appears to Saul in Acts 9:4 He asks why do you persecute me? The Lord takes the blessings and insults to the poor as actions directed towards Him. The conclusion is that the reason to care for the poor and needy is that it directs honor to God.

The second passage from the Old Testament that explains the reason why one is to care for the poor and needy comes from Isaiah 58:6-7. Here God explains to Israel what true fasting which could also be read as true worship is. This is an important passage as it shows in rapid succession what those who claim to be religious are to do. In this passage, God tells Israel that true worship is to free those wrongly imprisoned. False imprisonment has always been an issue and can come from various sources from unjust laws, mistaken identity, false testimony, and so on. This is a serious issue and needs to be addressed by the community. The goal of this paper is not to examine current laws or the penial system, but the Christian community should be at the forefront of the battle to advocate for those incarcerated unjustly.

The second item in the Isaiah passage is that the people of God are to let the oppressed go free and remove the chains that bind people. This can be seen as tied to the first point, but it can also have other implications. Drug addiction, for example, is a chain that binds people. Drug addiction is not exclusively an issue that affects the poor, but the poor are at a higher risk of substance abuse or becoming poor because of drug addiction. The people of God are to be concerned about this issue.

Another chain that binds people is that of financial ignorance. While poor people often do not have enough to save for large purchases there are issues and ignorances that affect their spending habits. This includes behaviors such as spending money on unneeded items to ensure they do not lose the money. Not understanding the concept of interest which causes them to seek immediate cash for checks or item pawning. This is more of a Western poor issue, but it is still an issue that should be addressed. People in poor neighborhoods are taken advantage of by those who run check-cashing businesses or title loan companies. These fees seem worth the tradeoff to those in the communities but there are often cheaper alternatives. Christians who have should be teaching and helping those in poor communities learn about more affordable options to receive their money. Some have created some wonderful systems to help educate but some of these are not only cost prohibitive due to the price of attending the sessions but aimed at those who have disposable income.

The next three from the Isaiah list are to share food, give shelter, and give clothes to those who need them. This is quite simply the most basic and easiest of people to accomplish. While prison reform or debt repayment for those who are in prison are issues that require some deeper knowledge and rehabilitation for those caught in addiction require skillsets giving material items to the poor are easily done by almost anyone.

From clothing and food drives to buying groceries for someone, it is not difficult to help meet a basic need. Yes, in different places the requirements may be different, but these are not problems that should still exist in society today. The point is that even if someone’s motivation for care is obligation the Bible directs them to what their obligation is. James writes on 1:27 that true and proper or pure and undefiled religion is to visit orphans and widows in their affliction. If some one desires to claim religious obedience than care for the poor and the needy is required.

Moving the third passage and the one from the New Testament. In 1 John 3:11-18 John addresses the topic of how to treat those around you. He writes that Christians are not to be like Cain who killed his brother but are to love. Love is the motivation for the Christian, love for God, and for people. In what could be considered a rhetorical question John asks how God’s love can abide in someone who closes their heart to their brother’s needs (v 17). The answer is implied that it cannot. If love for God is professed, then love for others is required. This is not only required by God but exemplified by Him.

In the incarnation, God in Christ so fully identifies with His creation that He seals the connection between concern and action which was motivated by love. John 3:16 expresses this connection and motivation. The incarnation is the most powerful statement on how the concern for the poor and needy because of what is being said. Jesus read from Isaiah 61 when he began His public ministry and in doing so He was showing that not only does God have a religious standard concerning the treatment of the poor, but He puts feet on the ground to show how it can be done.

Isaiah 61 discusses the year of the Lord’s favor and in that it discusses bringing good news to the poor, binding up or as the HCSB says to heal the brokenhearted, liberty to the captives, and opening doors to those in prison. These are similar to the items in Isaiah 58. Again, here what is seen is that there is a religious requirement to have concern for the poor and needy and that it can be done. Not only this but that the motivating factor was love. There could hardly be a better example of what to do than in Christ.

The New Testament church understood this well and went about preaching the message of Christ. They did not have to command people to sell their goods to give to those who needed but the people did this as a freewill offering because they were motivated by love. Love requires action because it seeks the welfare of the recipient more than the cost to the giver. The church is called to serve in love and act in love. There are always people who may not be motivated by love and only wish to do the bare minimum but as seen even if obligation is your motivation care for the poor and needy is still required. The Bible leaves no room to not take up the cause of the poor and needy. It leaves no excuse to not serve. It gives no out for anyone who claims to have devotion to God.

[1] All Scripture taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.

Fully Human and Fully God

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

One of the things I love so much about Jesus is His humanity. Jesus is God the Bible does not leave room for any other option (see here) but He is also human. One of my favorite theological terms is the hypostatic union of Christ. It a really fancy term but it just means that Jesus is fully God and fully man and these two natures do not diminish each other. Really cool right? Sometimes I am so in awe of Jesus as God that I forget about some of the important human features of Jesus.

When we ask the question WWJD (what would Jesus do) we sometimes think about how He would trust God and have hope or something else. These are true statements but there is also so much more that Jesus would do and in fact so much more that Jesus did do. Hebrews 4:15 says that we have a high priest (Jesus) who can empathize with our weaknesses. He can understand our humanity. He knows the human condition because He while being fully God is also fully human.

This sounds comforting and it should but for it to be truly meaningful we need to look at Jesus’ life to see how He expressed His humanity. Warning this is not for the faint of heart because for some it might shatter your expectations and show you a whole new Jesus, but that’s OK because we are always seeing Him in a new and more glorious light. We move from glory to glory and faith to faith. We need to always study Christ and when we do, we see more of Him that we did before. So, what would Jesus do, and what did He do?

He called His friends dull and foolish. In Matthew 15:16 Jesus tells the disciples a parable and they just are not getting it. Jesus asks Peter if he is still dull. The Greek for the word there is asynetos and can mean without understanding, foolish, and stupid. Jesus was asking Peter how he could still not get it.

Jesus would flip tables and get mad at people who were stopping others from coming to the Father and I think we all know that story.

He asked the Father for another way. In the garden we see Jesus praying, sweating blood, and asking the Father if there was another way to do this. In the end, He accepted the Father’s will but still, there was a moment when His humanity wanted to know if there was another option. He was honest with the Father about His feelings. He chose obedience but He was still honest with the Father about His emotions.

He did His job. This should probably go before the last one, but Jesus did His job. He knew what was coming and in Luke 9:51 it says He set His face towards Jerusalem. Again, here we see Jesus choosing to make the choice to do His job.

He wept with those who were weeping. Every child’s favorite verse to memorize is John 11:35 “Jesus wept” but this is a huge statement. We do not need to get into why Jesus was weeping right now but what we can see is that He wept. I think it was Charles Spurgeon who said, “a God who never wept could never wipe away my tears.” Jesus can comfort us in times of crisis and pain because He felt crisis and pain. Jesus knows what it means to cry. He knows what sadness feels like. He knows what it is to be broken-hearted. He understands. That is huge, and it gives me great comfort.

He knows what it feels like to be alone. I could talk about the disciples fleeing but instead, I would say look to the cross. In Matt 27:46 Jesus does not say “My God my God why have you forsaken me” He cries out in a loud voice. Those are two very different things. I cannot even express how important that is. Jesus in the middle of His pain and suffering cries out God, where are you? He is feeling alone, and, in His pain, He yells out. This is huge and should give all of us comfort and hope. I don’t care how big you are, how tough you are, or what a fake face you can make, at times we all feel alone and confused. Jesus says Yes, I get it! He knows that feeling and when you feel that He is right there with you saying it’s OK to let it out.

We could go on, but the point is that Jesus expressed the full range of human emotions. He gets it. He understands. He empathizes with us. Because of this, there is nothing you cannot take to Christ and have Him help you with. He is fully human, so He gets it, but He is also fully God, so He is present with you. He is able to understand and be there.

Back to the question. What would Jesus do? He would be honest about how He is feeling. He would be straight with the Father and say I am scared, I am hurt, I am feeling alone, I feel abandoned, I would prefer another way. Whatever it is He would be honest about how He is feeling. That is the Savior we have. We have a Savior who can completely understand what we are dealing with. We have a God who can relate to us because we could never relate to Him. We have a Comforter.

The world is crazy, and people will hurt you. Dreams and people will die but Christ gets it. He knows what you are feeling so do not go to Him, run to Him. Do not say God where are you, let it out and cry out God I need you!

Just a thought,

Mike

 

Dreams and Service

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

What do we do when we are faced with opposition to the dream God has placed in us? We have a lot of options but not all of them are right. Today I want to take a quick look at Joseph because Joseph had a dream. In Genesis 37 Joseph has two dreams and while we can debate on whether he communicated those dreams to his family properly the point stands God gave Joseph a dream. God gave Joseph a dream and he was excited for the dream God gave him. The dream, in essence, was that he was going to be over his family. He had no idea how this was going to come about and I can only imagine that in his foolish youthful mind he wanted to see his brothers literally bowing down before him. He was one of the youngest, so it is not like he had the opportunity to lead the family.

Joseph has this dream in him but how will it play out? How will God fulfill it? When will he see it come to fruition? Will he reign in the land he is in? Where will it happen? Will he know it is starting to come to pass? These are only some of the questions I imagine young Joseph thought about. But none of those thoughts matter because Joseph is thrown into a well and then sold into slavery. From there he is brought to Egypt and sold again. Joseph at this point has this dream but now he is a slave. A slave in a new land. So, what does Joseph do when he is faced with opposition to the dream God gave him? He sees an opportunity to serve and honor God.

That went well for a while but then Joseph is framed for rape and thrown into prison. His situation goes from bad to worse so what does Joseph do when he is faced with opposition to the dream God gave him? He sees an opportunity to serve and honor God. While in prison he is able to interpret dreams for two other prisoners. He asks the cupbearer to not forget him but as you can imagine he is forgotten. Two whole years pass, and Joseph is still in prison. How many times have you and I felt like our dreams are in prison?

Joseph finally gets the opportunity to stand before Pharaoh and interpret his dreams. Finally, he is put into a position of authority. After years of suffering, he is put in the place where the dream God gave him can come out but now, he is different. Not only is it time for the dream to come out but Joseph is not the man who he needed to be for the dream to come out. In the waiting, in the difficulty, Joseph always chose to see an opportunity to serve and honor God while waiting.

So, my question is this, has God given you a dream? Has God places something inside of you? Has God given you a calling? I know God has placed something in me. God has given me a dream to tell everyone about who He is and how wonderful this God I love and serve is. I want to see the whole world fall in love with my God. I want people who are hurting, lost, broken, and confused to see that God is there for them. That they can have a relationship with the one who holds the universe. How will that play out? I have no real idea. I have some ideas and I can see doors God has opened but the situation in the world confuses me right now, but I hold on to the dream of telling everyone about this amazing God I love and serve. That is the dream.

I want to challenge us today, you and me to see the opportunity to serve and honor God in the midst of challenges to the dream. To choose to believe that God sees the end and whatever situation we find ourselves in today that we have the opportunity to choose to serve and honor God. I want to challenge us, you and me, to see adversity not as something that stands in opposition to the dream God has placed in us but as an opportunity to serve and honor God. I find it amazing that Joseph is not living out his dream. He is a slave and a prisoner but during that time he is helping others understand their dreams. His dream is deferred but that does not stop him from helping others understand their dreams. He became so focused on serving and honoring God that he forgot about his dream as we will see later.

Maybe the opposition we see is not opposition but an opportunity that forms us into the people we need to be in order to allow the dream to come to pass. Maybe the delays are not delaying but opportunities for growth. How we respond could very well determine how many more so-called delays we have. Do we respond with service and honor to God or something else? I am sure Joseph cried at times, maybe when he was in that well, or in prison but in the end, he chose to see an opportunity to serve and honor God. What about you, what about me?

I think a big part of the key for the dream to come about was timing. Yes, there is the obvious part that the famine needed to come on the land but there is also the timing for Joseph to be ready. In Genesis 42:9 it says that when Joseph saw his brothers, he remembered his dream. He was just doing what he needed to do. He was honoring and serving God in the midst of his situation and he finally became the man that he needed to be for his dream to come about.

Today, let us choose to honor and serve God so we can become the people we need to be to have the dream come about. Let us be so fixated on Christ that we see nothing else but Him and His ways. Let us become the people we need to be.

Just a thought,

Mike

Praying to the God who sees

/ Mike Farley / 1 Comment

There is so much craziness going on right now. We can look around and see panic, fear, and uncertainty. If you watch the news for a few minutes and you would not be faulted for feeling like the world is a scary place. Not only this but if you wait just a few minutes it can look even scarier. So, what do we do with this? How do we combat the panic, fear, and uncertainty? What can we do in the face of all we see around us?

There are of course many things we can do but only a few are worthwhile. We can respond in fear. That is a natural response. We can see the chaos and turn inward in fear and let the uncertainty make us feel helpless. We can withdraw and let the fear dictate our response. This is not a good response. Fear will make us do all sorts of crazy things. We can let that fear grow and start to see new scary things. When we do this, everything becomes scary. We can give in to the fear and start to be overly concerned with ourselves. We can start to hoard things and feel like we have to make sure we have enough even if this comes at the expense of others who are in need. We can start to think only about ourselves and our needs forgetting that there are some who have nothing. Those who have little or nothing are especially vulnerable in times of crisis because they do not have the means to turn inward. These are things we can but should not do.

Then there are things that we can and should do when we see the chaos and uncertainty. We can reach out to those in need and provide comfort, hope, and support. We can see the chaos and choose to love. This can look like a lot of different things and yes there may need to be cautious but we can still choose to love and provide hope for the hopeless. But there is also something else we can do. We can pray.

Christians talk a lot about prayer, but I am afraid, and I speak from experience, that we do not always pray as we ought to. I would like to propose that because we can see everything going on, we take the time to pray.

In Genesis 16:13 we get the story of Hagar after she runs away. I have read this story many times and it always gets stuck in my head. There are a few reasons for this, but one is that Hagar names God. This is the only time in the Bible that a human names God and it is a pretty big deal. In the Bible, God gives many names for Himself. He self-identifies in all sorts of ways but here Hagar names God the God who sees or El-Roi. She makes this great declaration that He is the God who sees her and that she sees the one who sees her. It is just beautiful.

We can look around at the world and see the panic, fear, and uncertainty and start to worry and become fearful, but we must be like Hagar and remember that God sees too. God sees the world and everything going on and He does not see if from a distance. He sees and cares, but He also wants us to see Him and that is where prayer comes in.

When we pray, we put our eyes on God and focus our attention on Him. We take our eyes off the chaos and fix them on Christ our King. We take the worry and give it to Him. We take fear by the collar and drag it before the King. We take panic and submit it before God in submission. We pray because God sees, and we need to see the one who sees.

If you are on some form of social media, you are aware there is also some new challenge or another going on so here is one; a prayer challenge. I want to challenge you to pray for an hour. Why an hour because it will take work, sacrifice and it will restructure your thinking. I know what you are thinking, and an hour is a long time. Yes, yes, it is. Thankfully there are some great tools to help. One we use and I just finished doing is the prayer wheel or prayer cycle.

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It is pretty simple and straight forward. You set a timer for 5 minutes and pray through 12 different steps. After the 5 minutes of 12 steps, you have prayed for an hour. I have an image below but also a quick breakdown with some thoughts.

  • Praise – Praise God for who He is and what He has done.
  • Waiting – this one can be hard for some people. I like getting on my knees but do what you need. Sometimes I lay down. Just wait on God.
  • Confession – this is not just confessing any sins you might need to but confessing who God is. Paul says that we confess that Jesus is Lord (10:9). Confess sins if need be but also confess faith.
  • Read the Word – pretty simple and straight forward. For 5 minutes read your Bible. I recommend out loud. I also caution against reading off your phone as there can be distractions.
  • Petition – this is asking God for what you need. Be honest and bring things before the King who sees you!
  • Intersession – this is praying for others. You will run out of time before you run out of people and things to pray on behalf of.
  • Pray the Word – this is finding prayers in the Bible to pray. I like Psalms because it is a prayer book. Pick a Psalm and then read it like a prayer. Psalm 23 is a good one but so is Psalm 31. If you finish before the end of time keeps praying the Psalms.
  • Thanksgiving – do we have any shortage of things to be thankful for? Thank God for all that He has done, is doing, and will do.
  • Singing – just praises for 5 minutes. I use music but whatever works for you.
  • Mediate – think about the things you have read and who God is. Think about Him and who He is. Paul tells us to meditate on the good things of God. Mediate means to think deeply on.
  • Listen – this is like waiting. You are expecting God to speak. Maybe He does or maybe He does not but how will you know if you are not listening?
  • Praise – we end where we started because God is worthy of praise! Praise God for His goodness, power, love, and so on. Give God the praise He rightfully deserves.

That is it, if you do that then you will have prayed for an hour. You can do a lot of things in an hour but are they all worth doing? I would challenge you to do it today. Take the time today to spend an hour in prayer. Take your eyes off the things in this world for just an hour and see the God who sees you. If for some reason cannot pray for an hour today, then do it tomorrow. Do not wait, do not think you will make time later. Be so determined to pray for an hour and turn your gaze to God that nothing will stop you or hinder you. Be so determined to seek God that you are willing to wake up an hour earlier if you need, whatever you need to do then do it. I beg you to turn your eyes to God and see the God who sees.

A Lesson from Laundry

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

It might just be my perception as an American but I find the pace in France to be a little slower. A little more relaxed. A little more laid back. This is of course except for the drunk man on the bus last night being obnoxious to a young man. At first, and sometimes, this is a challenge. I am a go go, doer. Most things close at 7:30 or 8:30 at night and they don’t open again until after 8. I get up at 6 and am up until 11 or so. I need stimuli. I need movement. I need… to slow down. Right now we are without a washing machine at the house. We should be getting a new one next week because almost nothing in France happens on the same day. So I can either walk to the laundry mat or hand wash. I chose to handwash because I need to slow down. I need to match the pace of France and ease up off the throttle. I still have classes, chapel, language, family, and so on but I still need to breathe. I still need to rest.

I enjoy going slowly because I can talk to and listen to God in the mundane but when I am too busy I miss that. Brother Lawrence said, “There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.” It is hard for me to make room for slowness and ease. It is hard for me to relax. But it is necessary. Today I will try and take it a little slower. I will try to move a little easier. I will try and remember what is important.

Just a thought,
Mike

God is on the move

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

I think encouragement is a big gift. When you are feeling frustrated, run-down, confused, or tired encouragement is like cool water for your soul. It comes in and brings life to what is withering and suddenly you are ready to continue. Encouragement can come in all sorts of forms too. Sometimes it is a phone call from a friend, a note from a co-worker, or maybe even a smile from a baby. Those are all good but encouragement from the Lord God of heaven and earth is by far the most encouraging thing we could ever get. When God encourages you, it sticks. Other types of encouragement help and boost us up for a time but encouragements from God get down deep and cling to your innermost parts.

Isaiah 42:10-16 is one place in Scripture that I think has incredible encouragement. This is because it is one of those sections of the Bible that talks about what God is going to do. There is a sense that God did this but there is still a part that is to come. Not only does it talk about what God is going to do in a grand worldwide way, but I think it teaches us a bit about who God is. Anytime we can read about who God is and understand His character better we are better off because we get to see Him in a deeper way.

In this section, God speaks through Isaiah and tells us that there will be a time when the people will rejoice and lift up their voice in a shout of praise. He says that every place will shout for joy and sing praises. The deserts, the coastlands, those in villages, and those on mountains will rejoice when God moves. Then as if that was not enough, and this is the kicker, He says that although it has taken a while, He will not keep Himself restrained. He will lead the blind and they will walk on flat ground.

In case you missed it all of this is encouraging because God is saying that He will do this and that sometimes the delay in life is because He has paused the movement. He is the one who is waiting for the time to be fulfilled. Habakkuk 2:3 talks about this as well and says that sometimes there is what feels like a delay, but we just have to wait because God is moving. I have said before that one of my favorite movie scenes is when Beaver says “Aslan is on the move.” In the movie, the children don’t know this is a huge deal, but it is because it means that things are about to change.

I am not going to say that God is going to change things in your life today or even tomorrow. I don’t know when it will happen, but I know this; Jesus is on the move. He is working behind the scenes to do things that will blow your mind you only need to wait for it. Keep the course and stay steady. Wait for the Lord to move and you will see great things. Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes. We don’t get to know when it will happen, and we don’t get to know the outcome, but we do get to know that Jesus is moving and that He is working things out. That is the encouragement; Jesus is on the move. He is Lord and He is God and He will redeem everything in its time. Trust the process, stay the course, know that Christ is in control. Oh, it is going to be good.

Just a thought,

Mike

Casting Burdens or Chuck the Junk

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

I think it is almost mandatory that if we look at 1 Peter 5:6 then we have to look at 1 Peter 5:7 because it is the natural outcome of humbling yourself before God. Maybe outcome is not the right word though. Maybe it is not an outcome, maybe it is more of a logical next step. As a reminder 1 Peter 5:6 says that we should humble ourselves before God and then He will exalt us. This means that if we place ourselves before God then He will lift us up. The next part of that is we need to cast our cares upon Him. We have to take our burdens and give them to God.

The idea of casting our cares (anxieties) is a pretty simple one. At first, I thought it was like a faith thing. Something like sitting in a chair or plopping down on a couch. You know you just trust that the chair or the couch will sustain you with no effort on your part. Yeah that would have been pretty cool and there is an element to that but it so much more. The idea behind casting is more like throwing. It is not a laying down of your burdens before God in a symbolic act of submission that looks like something from a movie about a hero who needs a little help. No, it is more like throwing. It is not making an appointment with someone who can help you, so you present your concerns or problems in a way that hopefully gets help from them. No, it is more like throwing.

The idea is taking your burdens and anxieties and throwing them before God in a way that says I cannot carry this, and I need your help. It is taking what you have and chucking it before the King of the universe, the Most High God and not even caring. There is a freedom in the throwing because you are not worried that God will look at your stuff and cast you out for bringing it to Him. We can throw it on God because He cares for us and because He can handle it. God is not weighed down by our burdens or anxieties. He does not reach a point where He needs a break or already has too many things going on. He does not need a minute. He is ready to go at any moment and we just need to cast.

I think it is interesting that the other time this same word for casting is used is when the disciples put their coats on the donkey before Jesus rides into Jerusalem. When the disciples were putting their coats on the donkey they were not worried that the donkey would buckle under the pressure of the coats. They did not even think about it, they just put their coats on the donkey because they knew it could carry the load. No, clearly God is not a donkey, but I think we can get the picture. There is not a weight God cannot take. It is like when my kids come to me with a complaint. They are not worried I cannot handle their issues. They know that daddy has dealt with other things, so they come to me and just let it all out because they know I am able to help, and I care for them.

We have to come to God with the same abandon. We must come to Him knowing that He can handle it and that He cares. If we don’t then we will never actually cast our cares on Him. We will gently hand Him little things and hope He reacts well. We will be scared of how He will respond. We do this because of our wrong image of Him. That is on us, not Him. God says come to me in faith and throw those burdens down. This can also be a test for us. If I look at my life and see that I am not really casting my cares on God, then I get the opportunity to examine my trust in God and I get the chance to make a change. That is exciting because in that I get to not only cast my burdens on Him, but I get to grow in my relationship with Him.

Just a thought,

Mike

Identity and Freedom

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment

Paul has a very interesting way of framing the idea of freedom. He talks about it a lot but specifically in Romans 6:18-20. This is just verse 18 but you should go read the whole thing “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” In the Roman world where Paul lived if you were a slave, you had no personality. There was even a special phrase for this idea: Servus non habet personam. A slave had no past, no future, no property of their own, no family name, and no personhood. They were just property. It was possible to buy your freedom but that was typically not until you were old enough to not be of any value to your master. Some were treated better than others but they were still slaves. If you were a slave, you wanted freedom but generally, there was little to no hope of obtaining it. You were personless property. You did not belong to yourself. That is the idea behind the meaning of what Paul talks about when he talks about being a slave.

With that in mind, we can add in that Paul says we are either in Christ or in Adam. It’s a clear either-or scenario.  There is no in-between we are either in Christ (sometimes called Spirit) or we are in Adam (sometimes called the flesh). You cannot be in both. This is important because Paul is framing an argument throughout all of his writing that says we exist as slaves one way or the other. The question is who the master is. What is unique is that Paul says we get to choose our master. Now by default, the master is sin or flesh.

Before Christ we were slaves to sin, we were slaves to our sin nature. We belonged to it. Sin was not something that we did as much as it was part of who we were. It owned us. We had no identity outside of it. Some of us embraced that more than others but true to the reality of the situation we all belonged to sin. Our natural default position was self-focused. Being controlled by sin means you are free from the requirements of righteousness. You belong to one master and do not need to listen to the other.

After you come to Christ the whole thing changes. We move from this position of self-focused to Christ and Spirit focused. We transition from one master to another. It’s like the old Bob Dylan song Gotta Serve Somebody says “yes Indeed you’re gonna have to serve somebody, Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, But you’re gonna have to serve somebody” and yes I just quoted Bob Dylan while talking about the Bible. You don’t get a choice in whether or not you serve but you do get to choose whom you serve.

When we accept Christ as Lord and Savior, we chose to serve Him, that’s the Lord part of the equation. We now not only have the power to stop being self-focused, but we have new requirements for service. Before when we served the sin nature the requirements were to do what feels good. Do what you want. Lookout for you. Now we are bound to the requirements of righteousness. That means we are outward and upward focused. We are called to seek the kingdom of God and let Him rule and reign in our lives here and now. We are called to walk as Jesus walked. We are called to love the Lord God with all of being and love one another.

The amazing thing is that as slaves of righteousness we are also adopted as sons and daughters of the Most High. We are no longer just slaves and servants but children who are promised an inheritance. We get something we did not have before. We get a future.  We get personhood. With the change in masters comes a change in identity. This is an amazing and glorious thing. We went from slaves with nothing to servants who are adopted by God. But that is not cause for bragging. On the contrary that is a call to surrender. In Philippians 2:6, speaking of Christ, Paul writes that Jesus did not consider equality with God something to used to His own advantage. Instead Jesus, fully understanding who He was laid down His rights and served.

That is our call. We are called to now understand our rights and lay them down. We say, yes, I am a child of God, and yes, I will one day see heaven but until then I have work to do. We place ourselves under the authority of Christ and do like He did. We submit ourselves and find our identity in God just as Christ did. We do not use our freedom for our own good but seek ways to serve and love one another. When we do this, we can rejoice that we truly know who we are.

We need to understand our identity and when we do, we can go out and do the things of God and for God without fear and with less hurt because we know who we are. We can move from a position of being a child and serving as obedient slaves and servants.

Just a thought,

Mike

A Base of Love

/ Mike Farley / Leave a comment
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Working from a base of love is a funny thing. Sometimes life is stressful and confusing. Sometimes life is great and easy. Regardless of what life is like at any given moment, we are called to operate from a base of love. This means that when life is stressful and confusing we are to look past our circumstances and move from a position of being loved and loving others. This can be hard because our stress and confusion attempt to demand our attention. They should be given attention but they cannot have it all.
When life is great and easy it can be hard because we don’t have something pressing us towards the Father in prayer, there is nothing requiring us to look past our own situation. We should enjoy the many blessings we have but we should not forget to love others. Operating from a base of love means embracing the love of God and intentionally looking past our situation to see the image of God in others. It is not always easy but it is best.
Today I challenge you to work from a base of love. First, embrace the love of the Father. Bath in that love. Let it roll over you like waves. Let it drown you like the sun. Soak it up. Then go out and find ways to express that love to others. Find someone, find a few people that need that love and drown them in it. Give them the water of life that flows from within you like a mighty river.
It’s going to be awesome!
Just a thought,
Mike