One Life

I came across something I painted about 10 years ago while cleaning out some closets that really hit me.  This keepsake box.  Now it isn’t especially important, just a craft I did with a bunch of other preschool moms while our kids were in school one day, a time waster.  The box didn’t really hit me.  It is what I wrote on the front.  Yesterday is gone, tomorrow has not yet come, we are only given today.  Let us begin.

For many of us, me included, it is difficult to remember that today, this moment is what matters.  Not what has happened before or what may happen later, now.  I have heard every one of us sitting here make a comment that indicates a focus on the past or the present that indicates we are not living as we should now.  I won’t call anyone out on it, but I want to show us a few things.

For those of us focusing on the past, let me first say that there is a time and a place in which we should examine the past.  Romans 15:4 tells us - The things written in the past were written for our learning.  I believe this applies to the things written in the past of our lives as well.  We should not forget them, but learn from the things of our past.  However, we should not dwell in the past.  Had Jephthah held a grudge against his brothers in Judges  11 he would not have saved the people of Israel.  He had been one of the sons of Gilead, only his mother was a prostitute.  His brothers forced him away from his home to prevent him from gaining anything from the family.  When the Ammonites attacked Israel the elders came and begged him to not only return and fight as commander, but to lead the people as well. He returned, defeated the enemy and led for 6 years.   He isn’t the only one in the Bible who was done wrong and had to let go of the past in order to do what was right.  Joseph did, David did, John did, Jesus did.  It seems to be a theme that people experience hardship before God uses them to do great things.  If we are living our “now” Are you hanging on to hurts?  Are you hanging on to fears that are a result of things from your past?   Are they preventing you from stepping out and doing what you have been called to do?  Rather than hang on to the hurt, let it go and learn from what has happened.  Allow God to use it to prepare you for what is going on NOW and for what is to come.

Not all of us are hanging on to past hurts though.  Some of us are still living in the past, wistfully wishing that things were now as they were then.  This can be very dangerous.  Look at Lot’s wife, a woman who enjoyed her life and was blessed to have a life she felt was good.  Her husband was prosperous, they had a sturdy home and she had children.  Then she was told she had to give up everything and leave it behind.  She couldn’t do it.  Rather than look ahead of her as she was told to do, rather than look to saving her life she turned back.  She paid more attention to what she had before than what she was doing at that moment.  As a result she was turned to salt.  She became something that prevents future growth.  If we dwell on what was, on what we had rather than what we are doing NOW we can’t grow.  The time for what was past has gone.  We have learned that lesson and we need to move on.  Dwelling there won’t change what has happened.  Lot’s wife staring longingly at what she was leaving, at what her life had been, didn’t stop the destruction, didn’t change the fact that she no longer had that life.  It won’t change it for us either.  All it can do is cause us to become like salt, a place in which nothing can grow. 

There are also those of us that are living in the future.  I realized that this is where I tend to live if not in the present.  The land of “One Day”  One day I will finish my degree.  One day I will get to spend time alone with my husband, one day I will get to go to the bathroom by myself!  This is just as destructive!

The biggest example of how destructive living in the land of “one day” can be is the Jewish nation today.  As a people they have spent thousands of years examining prophesy and looking for the Savior to come.  They had already decided what it would look like, and how it would happen in their version of “one day”.  However, because they had spent so much time and thought about what it would be, they missed what it was when it was happening.  They still miss the gift of Jesus today as they continue to live in their one day land.  When we are so focused on what will be, we easily miss the gift of what is.  We miss the beauty around us, we miss the opportunity to join in on what God is doing.  We miss the miracles He has for us.  Jesus went home to minister to his own town.  They were so stuck in one day thinking that they missed out on what Jesus had come to do for them.  They refused to see what He truly was.  How many times have we missed our miracle because we didn’t see it?  How might our present be different had we been living in the moment in our past?  

Lets look at Mary and Martha, a story familiar to most of us.  Luke tells us that Jesus arrived at the home to visit and Mary sits with Jesus and talks with him.  Martha rushes about trying to make preparations, probably trying to scramble up enough to eat for Jesus and his disciples, find places for them all to sleep.  You can imagine everything that needed to be done when a group of unexpected guests show up at your house.  Martha was focusing on providing for the future.  Martha missed out on the present.  She invited them into her home, they didn’t seek her out or even show up uninvited.  However, Martha couldn’t take the time to live in the moment and be with her guests.  Instead she was stuck in “one day” mode and was more concerned with what happens next rather than now.  Jesus tells her, when she complains that Mary isn’t flitting about also, that Martha was worried and troubled about many things, but Mary had chosen the good thing (to be in the moment with Jesus) and that it would not be taken from her.  Jesus wasn’t about to take away Martha’s worries and troubles for the future, He knew what the future held.  Jesus only wanted Martha to be in the moment with Him, because they only had that moment at that time.  Mary and Martha became close friends with Jesus.  I hope that Martha heard what Jesus said to her and stopped fretting about later and sat down with him.  What we do know is that they must have spent some time together because in John chapter 11 we learn that Jesus loved both Martha and Mary.  How many relationships with family and friends have we missed out on or weakened because we were making preparations for later rather than being in the moment with them?  If we live for “one day” we miss today.

People will get upset if you start living in the moment.  It goes against the world view.  That is nothing new.  Even Jesus and his disciples had to deal with it. In Mark 2 Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees because he and his disciples were living in the moment.  John’s followers and the Pharisees were fasting as was customary, a tradition of the past.  Jesus and his disciples were not.  Now they could have just held up the tradition, or they could have been worried about what people would say later when they found out, but they weren’t.  Jesus tells the Pharisees when he is confronted,

 

“¹⁹ How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. ²⁰ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.”  In other words, the disciples were living in the moment.  There would come a time that fasting would be appropriate for them, but for now, they needed to do what they were doing, they needed to be in the present.  Do you think that God would have been honored or glorified any more had the disciples fasted rather than spend time with Christ?  No.  Had they been focused on anything other than their present they would have missed what it was God had for them to do.  Had they fasted without Christ it would have shown that they trusted tradition more than Jesus.   

I am not saying that we don’t need to think about the future.  We do.  We need to put money aside for retirement, we need to make plans for our children’s future or for dinner later tonight even.  We need to look to the future, to the day Christ returns for us.  We need to learn from our past and prepare for our future, but LIVE now.  It is when our now becomes a less important than the past or the future that we have problems.  When our lives become entangled in the snare of the past or future that we stagnate. 

Galatians 5:17  You have to live by what you KNOW, not by what the flesh feels.  I know that God will use the past for good (romans 8:28) and that He has the future in His hands (jeremiah 29:11).  The flesh tells you to worry about how the past is going to affect now, or to worry about how the future will turn out.  God tells us to not worry about those things because HE will take care of us.  When we focus on and worry about the past or the future WE AREN’T TRUSTING GOD.  Either we don’t believe that He can handle whatever life throws our way, that He doesn’t have plans for us, that He can’t overcome our mess ups and make them good, or that He just isn’t who He says He is.  Are you trusting Him?  Are you living in the moment?

Just Do It

⁹ “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. ¹⁰ Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary. Be strong and do the work.” …²⁰ David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished.  1 Chronicles 28

David wanted to build the temple, he wanted to be the man who created a permanent home for the Ark that was precious to him and his people.  God had other plans and informed David that because he was a warrior and had shed blood the honor of being the temple builder would fall to his son Solomon.  The above advice was given to Solomon by David before construction began.  Solomon spent 7 years building a home for the Ark that lasted about 400 years.  

Today we have no beautiful, elaborately decorated building to “work for the service” of.  There is no longer a physical building to store the ark, for that matter we don’t even know where the ark is currently resting.  However, we do have a temple that we should be building.

¹⁹ Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

So, the advice that David gave to Solomon applies to us as well.  Let us look a little closer at the advice.

“acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind”  I feel safe in saying that all of us sitting here acknowledge God.  I also feel safe in saying that we don’t always serve him with wholehearted devotion and a willing mind.  Do you, without reservation, commit yourself to serving him and His way of life with a willing mind?  I believe I can answer for each of us when I say no.  We have let things get in the way of our service.  Bitterness, other tasks, pride, loneliness take your pick.  David tells us that God searches our hearts and understands our desires and thoughts.  He understands our desire to feel appreciated for what we are doing, to have someone acknowledge our efforts.  He understands why we make excuses to not serve.  But notice that David doesn’t say that it is okay to not serve because of these things, he tells us to seek the Lord.  

Not sure what you should be doing?  Seek the Lord.  He isn’t trying to hide your purpose from you, He is just waiting for you to ask.  It may not be glamorous, it may not be fun, and it may not be what you thought you should be doing.  Then again it may be some or all of those things.  What is important is that once you ask, you listen for a response and then serve with wholehearted devotion and a willing mind.  Notice it wasn’t Solomon who desired to build the house.  That was David’s dream.  Perhaps Solomon had his own dreams of what his service to the Lord looked like.  Maybe he thought he would lead God’s people into a time of peace.  Or maybe he didn’t even want to be king and he hoped that his brother, who traditionally should be king, would be king so that he could sit back out of the spot light and enjoy a relatively worry free life.  God had other plans though, and Solomon was appointed to build the temple.  David tells Solomon to be strong and do the work.  Don’t complain about not getting what you wanted.  Don’t try to get out of it and tell yourself that someone else is just as capable and probably has more time or more skill to do the job.  Don’t let the people that are whispering that you are going to fail affect you.  Just be strong and do the work.

I say the same to you.  You are building a temple today.  And when your temple is completed you will be taken from this life.  Be strong and DO THE WORK.  Find the time and the way to serve in the building of the temple.  Study God’s word, pray and seek his plan for you.  Ask to see God’s blueprints for this temple rather than trying to haphazardly put it together on your own.  Quit complaining about it being hard, quit making excuses about why you didn’t do such and such.  It is going to be hard, not going to lie to you.  And you will have periods in your life where your service in building this temple is painful, difficult, and will require you to sacrifice.  But here is the thing.  Your temple, you, are only a piece of the puzzle.

When you are strong and do your work, then others can do theirs as well.  Solomon didn’t single handedly build the temple.  He probably didn’t ever move a stone, weave a cloth, refine the metals, or craft any of the decorations.  It took a LOT of people to build the temple.  If Solomon hadn’t done his work then others would not have had the finances, the materials, the inclination to do theirs.  God is working towards a much bigger temple in this world.  One that involves all of us.  And if you don’t do your part, you may be making someone elses work more difficult.  I won’t say impossible because we know that God will make a way for His will to be done.  However, I firmly believe that we can, and do, put up roadblocks on the easy paths by refusing to do things God’s way and insisting on doing them ours.  That makes the work of others more difficult as they now have to tear down the roadblock we have created.

So what is your service?  Is it a children’s ministry?  Then Do the Work with wholehearted devotion.  Is it music?  Do the work.  Is it cleaning the church? Just do the work.  Is it encouraging others? Do the work.  Is it ministry?  Do the work.  Is it being a wife?  Or maybe being a mother?  Just do the work.  God is with you, and He will be until your temple is built.  He sees what you are doing, even if no one else comments on it.  He sees your struggles, He sees your heart, and he loves you.  You are never alone in His service. 

Masks

I am sure that each of us has been trick or treating in the past.  There is just something freeing in being able to dress up and pretend to be someone else for an evening.  I have been a princess, a girl from days gone by, a devil, a witch and many other characters.  I have always enjoyed make believe and dress up.  

I am sure that most of you, if not all of you can see where this is going.  I would venture to say that everyone sitting at this table is wearing a mask of some sort, hiding something of who they are.  However, we decided from the beginning that we wanted to reach that Lovers stage, to become intimate with God.  We read in 2 Peter chapter one that we should be making every effort to become REAL (make effort to add to your faith goodness, or the state of being good-valid, genuine, REAL) we touched on how that meant not hiding our hurts, our faults, our imperfections.  Then we turned to our relationships with our spouses and learned that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matt 12:24), that sometimes our words unmask our true feelings.  Today, we are going to talk about unmasking our hearts.  

⁸And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”    Genesis 3:8-10

We all know this story.  Eve is tempted by the serpent, eats the fruit, Adam eats the fruit and then they realize they are naked.  Now, when we read the word naked we tend to focus of the physical nakedness.  Before this moment they had no thought of clothes.  But today let us look at a different kind of nakedness.  One definition of nakedness is to be devoid of concealment or disguise.  In other words, to be without a mask.  Adam and Eve were suddenly aware of the fact that they could not hide what they had done, what had happened.  But what did they do?  They attempted to hide anyway.  They both tried to blend into the background and hoped they would be invisible.

Fastforward about 4,000 year and we see Jesus entering Jerusalem.  He goes to the temple that evening but it was late so he went with the 12 to Betthany.  Let’s pick up with verse 12 of Mark

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it…… ²⁰In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"

I admit this story confused me.  Why curse a tree because it didn’t have fruit.  The more I thought about it the more I began to think that not having fruit wasn’t the problem, or at least not the main problem.  The problem was looking like it should have fruit.  Notice it wasn’t the season for figs in verse 13.  It was to early in the year for figs to be in fruit.  In fact, the fig trees should just be beginning to sprout leaves and yet this tree was in leaf and must have looked as if it would have fruit, why else would Jesus have approached it searching for fruit.  It was being deceptive by it appearance, looking as if it had something exceptional (early fruit) when it fact it was all show.  Jesus examined the tree, exposed its falseness and prevented it from continuing the façade.  

The tree was able to fool passersby for a while.  But when examined closely it became obvious that the tree wasn’t as good as it appeared, it was hiding also, only it was hiding in plain sight.

We are like this today also.  We are ALL hiding sins, whether by trying to be invisible and lost in the background of the garden, or hiding in plain sight trying to appear to be something we are not.  These sins keep us from becoming close to God, from being Real.  You can choose to continue to wear your mask, or you can take it off and begin to be real.  That is your choice when it comes to dealing with others.  However, you can’t wear the mask with God.  He is El Roi, the God who sees.  Even the depths of death and destruction are known by the Lord. How much more does He know the human heart! (Prov 15:11)  Just like Jesus saw the fig tree for what it was, He sees us for what we are also.  He sees us putting on our mask and because He loves us He provides us opportunities to take it off, to claim our sin and accept the gift of forgiveness.  He tells us in James 5:16 to confess these sins to each other so that we can pray for each other so that we may be healed.  I am not going to force anyone to confess openly.  But I am going to ask that if you feel led to, tell us how we can pray for you. 

What is it like being married to ME!

There are a lot of books and programs out there that try to tell us what marriage should look like, what our spouse should be doing for us, how to reach marriage perfection.  That is all well and good, but what marriage ultimately comes down to is a relationship between two people.  We can’t change who our husband is or what he does.  Reality is that he isn’t perfect, he doesn’t do everything right, and he may not even be trying to live up to his end of the deal in some situations.  Does that mean that it is okay for us to lay the blame of marital problems on him?  Not by a long shot!

Most of us here have seen Fireproof, we have heard of or participated in the Love Dare.  We have at least heard that in order to have a good marriage we don’t try to fix him, we address ourselves.  Marriage is a BIG part of our lives, and it should be.  It is important to God.  Creation culminates in marriage between Adam and Eve, everything built up to it.  First God creates a world, then a beautiful garden, animals in pairs, then Adam.  He calls on Adam to name the animals.  Adam keeps seeing pairs coming to be named.  Then God tells him that it isn’t good for Adam to be alone and creates Eve and they are joined together.  Then God rests.    God compares marriage to the relationship between Jesus and the church.  Jesus loves the church so much that He willingly lays down His life.  The church in return shows respect for what He has done by following His commands and serving Him.  

Now it’s easy in that last example to get stuck on the picture of our husbands needing to be like Christ and loving us so much that they are willing to make great sacrifices for us.  But we are called to be like Christ and we aren’t called to judge whether or not our husbands are living up to their end of the deal.  We are called to be like the church.    Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:24  Submit in this day and age is an ugly word isn’t it?  But when we take a moment to examine this, submission to our husbands is a reflection of submission to God.  God uses our marriages as an illustration of a Christians relationship with Christ.  When we submit to Christ is it an ugly thing?  Nor should we feel that submission to our husbands is an ugly thing.  

Now I am not going to spend this meeting talking to you about submission.  To be honest, we hear that one a lot.  We know we are to be submissive, we know that our marriage is an illustration, and if you don’t know this yet, stick in a church long enough and you will hear it.  It IS important, it is a BIG part of a happy marriage, and it is a decision you will have to make if you want your marriage to work.  You don’t submit because he deserves it, because he is good to you or because he is a good leader, you submit because that is what you agreed to do when you married him and because that is what God expects and tells us to do.  

What we are going to talk about today is an aspect or a demonstration of submission and is also a command.  Lets read Ephesians 5:33   However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband  Let me repeat that, THE WIFE MUST RESPECT HER HUSBAND.  That is a command.  God knows how we are made.  Women generally need to feel loved.  We want to know that our husbands love us with all of their hearts and that they would lay down their lives to protect us.  We want them to love us enough to come to our rescue just like the prince in the fairy tales.  Men however, according to a 2003 poll, would overwhelmingly rather be alone and unloved (73.8%) than feel inadequate and disrespected.  (http://www.forwomenonlybook.com/BooksStudies/ForWomenOnly/Survey/tabid/178/Default.aspx)   God created men to NEED respect, and He created us to give it to them.  So what is respect?  Respect is simply to consider someone to be of high regard, to be worthy, to have value.  To show respect is an act of submission.  Notice that respect is used as a verb, and that verb means action.  It doesn’t mean that the husband has necessarily earned our respect, we aren’t commanded to give him respect when he deserves it, we are commanded to consider him to be someone of high regard, someone worthy and valuable.   What are some ways we can show our husbands respect? 

One of the big ways we can show respect to our husbands is in how we talk to and about them.  Let’s look at a few proverbs concerning wives.     

Proverbs 21:19  better to live in the desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife    

Proverbs 19:13b   a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping      

 Proverbs 27:15-16     A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand             

Proverbs 21:9  and 25:24  better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife    

Quarreling is not respectful, and as you can see, it definitely doesn’t help build a strong marriage.  Notice that a quarrelsome wife is twice referred to as a constant dripping, a constant annoyance, a waste.  If the water is dripping it isn’t serving any purpose, it isn’t quenching thirst or being used for cleaning, or any beneficial thing.  It is simply an annoyance.  Twice we are also told that it is better for a man to be on the corner of a roof than in the house with such a wife.  It is better for him to be out in the elements, subject to wind, rain, hail and anything else the weather can throw at him than to be in that house.  Why? Because a quarrelsome wife doesn’t help solve problems, she creates them.  A quarrelsome wife isn’t helping her husband, she is disrespecting him, she is not being submissive. 

I thought I knew what it was to quarrel…it is to argue, right?  Wrong.  Quarrelsome is defined as “apt or disposed to finding fault in an often petty manner”.  You can be quarrelsome without an argument.  So take a moment and consider the definition as it applies to your relationship with your husband.  Are you a wife who looks for faults in her husband?  I know I was very prone to this in the past and I still do it today on occasion.  Think about this, have you ever thought to yourself something along the lines of, “so and so’s husband does dishes.  My husband should too!” or “if only he would______ then things would be better or different”?  That is quarrelsome.   Have you ever been chatting with your girlfriend or friends at church or co-workers and said something like, “I just can’t leave the kids with him, he doesn’t put them to be right”?  That is being quarrelsome.  

But showing respect in our speech is more than just not looking for their faults, it is also in how we talk to and about them.  ?  Most of us have read Proverb 31 which details the type of woman that King Lemuel’s mother wanted him to marry.  Whether she based this on an actual woman or if these were just characteristics that a woman should possess I can’t say.  What I can say is that the author spends the first 15 descriptive verses telling us what she does before getting to Proverbs 31:26 when she finally says something.  For me that indicates that this woman is demonstrating her love and respect for her family through actions.  Love is a verb.  But when she does speak, “She opens her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness”.    Ever heard the expression think before you speak?  This is it.  She doesn’t just blurt it out, she considers what she is saying and says it with wisdom.  Not only that, but she says it in kindness.  It is easy, especially with our husbands, to just blurt out what we think or feel because we feel safe in that they will still be there for us after we have vented.  Will he still be there, probably.  Have you disrespected him and caused damage to your relationship and to his heart?  Definitely.  

James 3:9-10 tells us, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”  Not only has our husband been made in God’s likeness, but through our marriage he is a part of us.  We should not be saying disrespectful things to or about our husbands.  Again, that doesn’t mean that you agree with them about everything, but it does mean that rather than attack them, dishonor them, disrespect them, we talk to them in a manner that lets them know we are on their side.  That we want to come to a solution and not force them to see or do it our way.   We want to talk about them in such a way that others see the husband that we find worthy of respect as truly being worthy of respect.  Have you ever been somewhere and overheard a woman talking about her husband in such a way that you have wondered why she married him?  We all have.  Now think about whether or not you have ever been the overheard woman?  I venture to say that most if not all of us have at one point or another.

Matthew 12:24 tells us that “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks”    That is Jesus talking there.  What we say is a reflection of our heart.  Think back over this past week.  What if I told you that there has been a microphone hidden in every room of your house recording your conversations with your husband.  Would you be comfortable with me announcing that we are going to be playing those conversations as an example of a respectful wife?  I know I wouldn’t.  I am currently praying for God to change my heart into one that is less quarrelsome and more respectful.  I am asking that you spend some time in prayer and ask God to reveal any areas of your heart in which He needs to work in you.

So, for the next 2 weeks I want you to make a conscience effort to say nothing quarrelsome, disrespectful, or negative about your husband, when speaking to your husband, or to anyone else.  I don’t care if you are having a bad day, or if he has been an inconsiderate jerk.  NOTHING!  And I want you to take it a step further.  I want you to find something positive to say every day about him and say it both to him and to someone else about him.  You can say it to a co-worker, a friend, or someone else in the family, but you HAVE to say it.  In addition, I will give you some Bible verses for you to read and consider over the next two weeks.  It is my hope that this activity will help each of us to become more deliberate in showing respect to our husbands through our speech.

Ephesians 5:33            

Matthew 7:12                        

Prov 31:11-12    

Prov 12:18                           

Ephesians 4:29                    

Prov 17:14

James 1:19                           

Proverbs 26:20                  

Col 4:6a                               

Psalm 34:13                        

Proverbs 10:19 

Proverbs 21:23                   

1 Timothy 3:11

Song of Solomon 5:16b