The Authority of Image-Bearers

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Recently my partner Ted and I learned something about the authority we have in Jesus as God’s image-bearers.

We were co-leading a Bible study for men (post-abortive recovery) at the crisis pregnancy center where we volunteer in Fredericksburg, VA. Ted was on a business trip in Boston. No biggie, we both have iPads, he could just FaceTime in. I’d set my iPad on a box in Ted’s chair, and it’d be just like he was in the room with us.

The night of the Bible study though, we discovered the wifi at Ted’s hotel was really bad. Not just sort of bad, like three-day-old-leftovers bad. But really bad, like rotten-eggs-sulphur-smell bad. We had been trying for like 10 minutes, but the connection was so sketchy it was dropping literally every 30-60 seconds. This was just not going to work, and it was completely out of our control. Or was it?

We prayed, “Lord, by the authority of the blood of Jesus, we take authority over the bandwidth of this connection, and we ask that you line up angels, wingtip to wingtip between Fredericksburg and Boston, and just shuttle the packets back and forth so we experience no more dropouts.” From that moment on, we had a two-hour connection without a single dropout.

When we finished, we thanked the Lord for protecting our connection, and prayed that he could release the angels now with our gratitude. Within 20 seconds we lost the connection.

Skeptics call that a coincidence. But when you see enough “coincidences” you start to believe. I’ve got a graduate-level degree in mathematics, and I know enough about network engineering to know that what we experienced that night was, without the intervention of God, something statisticians call “statistically impossible.” In other words, it takes a lot less faith to believe that God intervened supernaturally in that situation, because we asked him to, than to believe it was just a “coincidence.”

The point of this true story is that we, as God’s image-bearers, have authority over the natural world. We should use it. It’s who we really are.

Genesis 1:26-27 peeks in on God talking to himself as he made people:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

So often we just skip over that without thinking about what it really means. But it’s amazing! God created us in his image, his likeness, with his authority over the natural world. Yeah, we gave that authority over to the usurper, Satan, during the Fall in Genesis 3, but Jesus restored it through the cross. We have authority in his blood. Everything submits to his name.

Jesus clearly had authority over nature, calming the storm in Matthew 8:23-27 and Mark 4:35-41, and walking on the water in Matthew 14:22-33. But that was Jesus not us!

Oh yeah? Peter walked on the water, too. And c’mon, if big-mouth Peter could do it… Seriously.

Jesus himself said that we would do even greater things than he did (John 14:12). And the Bible says of itself that these things were written down as examples for us (1 Corinthians 10:11). Examples of what’s possible. Examples of what we should expect. Examples of what should be Normal Christian Life 101.

Action Step: I’ll be sensitive to when things in the natural world need changing, and realize I’m God’s agent of change in that situation. I’ll take authority by the blood of Jesus and command the change that needs to happen. I won’t let fear of it not working hold me back. That’s God’s problem.

How about you? Tell us your story in the comments. What have you seen happen? What prayers over the natural world have you seen God answer? And please share if this would bless someone else.

How to Experience the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

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We are honored to have a special guest post by Rachel Larkin. Rachel lives in New Zealand with her husband and their three young adult sons. She is the author of Simple Prayer: The Guide for Ordinary People Seeking the Extraordinary. She writes about growing in faith and developing your potential on her website at http://rachellarkin.com/. She is also a practising Chartered Accountant, home schooler for fourteen years and craves chocolate constantly. 

I highly recommend Rachel’s free eBook, available here: The Untold Story: 7 Steps to Seeing God in the Midst of your Real Messy Life. I’m sure you’ll be blessed by it and enjoy it as much as we did. (BTW, these are not affiliate links. We get no commission or anything if you click them or buy from Rachel; it’s just an honest recommendation.)

 

God often takes what is ordinary in life and sprinkles it with extraordinary divine moments.

Look at Jesus’ first miracle while He was on this earth. He took ordinary water at a wedding of a family friend and changed it into the best wine that the guests have tasted. He showed up powerfully in the middle of everyday life!

Jesus was involved in many occasions of adding the extraordinary to the ordinary. The crowd was hungry as they had been following and listening to him all day. The call went out for supplies, and an ordinary boy gave up his ordinary fish sandwiches to Jesus. A prayer of thanks was said over the food. Something divine then took place. Multiplication happened. An ordinary lunch turned into an extraordinary feast for over five thousand people. This kind of miracle wasn’t a one-time event either.

I remember a time when we had a young family and very little spare money. I prayed that God would stretch the very little that we had. I ended up calling our car the Elijah car because of an unexplainable situation when the gauge was signaling empty. I went to the gas station to fill the car. But to my surprise the car filled quickly and the cost was only a quarter of what I would normally pay for a full tank! It struck me right there on the pavement of the gas station that something divine had taken place. There didn’t seem to be any other way of explaining what had just happened. God turned up in my ordinary life!

My life is filled with accounting work, home-schooling, keeping a home, writing, loving my husband and raising our children — all ordinary work. But when I pray over my ordinary work God starts to work in the background. I notice moments that have a dash of the divine in them.

  • A conversation with one of my young adult sons turns into something deeper and hearts are affected.
  • A ‘chance’ meeting with a stranger becomes a moment of extra encouragement for my soul.
  • A morning walk generates ideas that can only originate with God.
  • The simple act of driving to work is transformed into a sacred journey of communicating with my Heavenly Father.

Ordinary people with ordinary abilities, possessions and tasks can see the fingerprints of God touch their ordinariness and create divine moments.

Take Action

Change your mind about your ordinariness. Decide to believe that God can use whoever you are and whatever you have. Spend time in discussion with God. Use the ordinary moments of your day to communicate with the Father. Have a mindful attitude about the events and people that come across your path. Look for God in those places. Seek His glory, it’s there.

Have you discovered God in the ordinariness? Feel free to share in the comments below.

The Kingdom of God Is Not a Buffet

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Ever order a medium rare filet mignon, and it comes out warm-red-center perfect, but with mushrooms on it? What made them think putting fungus on my perfect steak was a good idea?!? At least I can scrape off the mushrooms—Janet will eat them. But when I order Jesus’ resurrection power off the menu of my life, I can’t scrape off the suffering God uses to bring me that power.

The Kingdom of God is not a buffet. We can’t take an extra scoop of God’s power in our lives and just pass on the suffering. The power and the glory come through the suffering. If you’re like me, you’re going, “Really, God? What’s up with that?” But Paul said it best:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11)

Do you see the mystery in these verses? In scripture “know” means “experience”. So experiencing the power of Jesus’ resurrection in our lives is tied to sharing in his suffering. Hmmm. Not my idea of a good time. The suffering part, that is.

But I want Jesus’ resurrection power in my life. In my family. Don’t you? I want to see miracles in my life. I want to see my family members healed when they’re sick. I want to just speak and have the natural world obey me. I want to have an impact on this world. A Kingdom impact. I want to live who he created me to be.

There’s just one catch. Experiencing Jesus’ resurrection power is tied to sharing in his suffering. And Paul uses a very interesting word to describe that sharing. Fellowship. It’s in the suffering, not in the miracles, where we experience fellowship with Jesus. That seems really counter-intuitive to me, but thank God—that’s where we need him the most.

Actually, we could pass on the suffering, or try to. And we will live very mediocre, powerless, “safe” lives, and a lot of people do. Or. Or. Or. We could, just maybe, dare to trust God. Chin up, bear up well under whatever suffering and pain he brings us through, and come out the other side living a wild, Kingdom-of-God adventure like we never even dreamed possible.

What do you think? I’ll take the wild ride. Will you? Does this resonate? Tell us your story in the comments or shoot us an email. We want to hear from you. And please share on social media if this blessed you or made you think. (Click the share buttons below.)

Suffering Is A Blessing

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What?!? Dave, have you completely lost your mind? I know that’s what most of us (including me) think when reading that title. But it really is true. The suffering we pass through really is a blessing.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4)

I don’t know about you, but my first reaction to suffering is to certainly consider it something – but not pure joy. What was James smoking? I want some.

We rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us. (Romans 5:3b-5a)

I think Laura Story has it right in her song Raindrops – suffering really is God’s blessing in disguise.

There are two reasons we suffer. One we bring on ourselves, and the other God brings on us. Either way, it’s a blessing.

The suffering we bring on ourselves is the logical consequences of our unrighteous actions. I’ve heard it said that God doesn’t punish sin as much as he allows it to punish itself. He removes his hand of protection and lets us taste just a bit of the stew we’ve cooked. Just enough to bring us to repentance. This is a blessing – God doesn’t leave us in our sin, but he uses its logical consequences to free us from it. He brings us to confession and repentance, getting our attention through suffering the logical consequences.

If we keep a short tab with God and repent quickly when he allows stuff to catch up with us, we avoid longer-term consequences. The suffering is a blessing – it keeps us from something worse.

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. (Hebrews 12:7a)

The second type of suffering is the type God brings on us for his glory and our benefit. Remember the debate God and Satan had over Job? Who brought Job into that conversation? God did! Twice! (See Job 1:8 and Job 2:3.) “Have you considered my servant Job?”

Often, God brings difficult things, suffering, into our lives to give us something we can endure. Not only to build character into our lives, to make us more like him, but also so he has something he can reward us for. That’s a tough pill to swallow, especially when you’ve suddenly lost a loved one or you’re going through some other tragedy in your life. I don’t want to make light of that or be flip about it. It’s not easy. It hurts. It hurts bad.

But God is in there. I went through a tragedy in my life and was on my face for a year-and-a-half crying out the Lord. He met me in that place, and in the very difficult years that followed. My story is a testimony to his faithfulness and presence through great pain.

A lot of times the suffering doesn’t seem fair. And it’s not. The suffering is only for a season, but the rewards of bearing up under it well and with faith are forever. Totally not fair, but not fair in our favor.

Worship (corporate and private) is the greatest comfort to me in my times of suffering.  How about you? Has the Lord been faithful? Can we stand with you in something while you’re waiting? Tell us in the comments.

Restitution

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A young man went to a wise old guru with a problem, something he just didn’t understand. The young man asked the guru why he can’t take back hurtful words he’d said to someone. He’d apologized, but the relationship wasn’t the same. Why can’t he fix this?

The wise old guru took the young man on a treacherous climb up a tall mountain overlooking a deep gorge. It was very windy up way there. He had brought a feather pillow along with them. The guru took out his knife and slit open the pillow, waving it into the wind, scattering the feathers to the four winds.

Then he turned to the young man. As the guru handed him the now empty pillow fabric, he said, “Your task is to put all the feathers back in the pillow.”

“There’s no way!” exclaimed the young man. “That’s impossible! Once the feathers are out of the pillow, there’s no way to put them all back in again!”

The old guru nodded in agreement. “That’s why you can’t take back your hurtful words. It’s too late. They are already out,” he said. The young man finally got it.

I’m sure many of you have heard this story before. The moral is to be careful what we say. But there’s something else going on here. Turns out there actually is a way to put the feathers back in the pillow. It’s called restitution. It costs you a lot and it’s hard work, but it can be done.

Let me back up a minute. Say Person A wrongs Person B. We’re assuming it’s an accident, not a heinous crime or anything like that. Just normal day-to-day relationship stuff. We’ve all been in both positions.

Say you’re Person B who was wronged. Say Person A borrowed something special to you and lost it or broke it. Maybe the lost a special out of print book, or broke your lawn mower. Maybe they borrowed your car and got in a fender bender. Maybe they accidentally injured you by some careless act on their part. And worse, maybe they acted like it was no big deal. Or maybe they were mortified and replaced it or had it fixed.

Either way, say you’ve forgiven them. But there’s a boundary their now. You’re probably not going to let them borrow something again. Setting healthy boundaries is healthy, and does not (necessarily) mean you’re in unforgiveness. Especially if they act like it was no big deal, and wonder what’s wrong with you that you’re making it one, or they have a pattern of disrespecting other people’s things.

I would totally recommend setting that boundary. It’s not about the item, it’s about honoring, which is the currency in the Kingdom of God. Your boundary forces them to confront the issue in their heart with dishonoring others, which they can choose do to or not. You’re not responsible for their response to a healthy boundary.

Now let’s say you’re Person A, who did the wronging. We’ve all been there. Say you want to repair the relationship. How can you get the other person to remove that boundary? By restitution.

Relationships are like scales. Person B feels like the scales are tipped away from them, like they got the short end of the stick in the transaction. Restitution tips the scales back in their favor. Here are some examples:

If broke your neighbor’s lawn mower, not only do you buy him a new one, top-of-the-line even if his other one was not, you buy him a top-of-the-line weed-whacker as well.

If you lost your friend’s book, not only do you replace it, searching high and low on ebay if you have to if it’s out of print, but you give them a $200 Amazon gift card along with it.

If you got in a fender bender, you not only fix the car, but you replace their stock AM/FM radio with a 6-disc CD changer and a premium surround-sound stereo. (Kudos to John Sandford, founder of Elijah House Ministries, for this example.)

It doesn’t have to be monetary restitution, although those are easy examples.

Maybe you’ve said something really hurtful to your spouse. So you get up early and do some chore they do that you know they hate. Maybe you know they clean the bathrooms every Friday, so you get up at 4:00 AM every Friday so you can do it before going to work. How long? Forever. And you don’t say a word about it. Let them discover it.

Restitution is a sacrifice you make, could be monetary, could be effort, from a place or empathy over the pain you’ve caused them. Not because you’re hurting. Because they’re hurting.

You can only do this with the right heart. This isn’t penance. You’re not trying to manipulate them to drop the boundary because you want something from them. You’ll truly broken and hurt, not because you feel guilty over what you’ve done, but honestly because of the pain you caused them. You hurt because they’re hurting, and you want to bless them.

They may or may not drop the boundary and allow the relationship to be restored. That’s on them and their ability to forgive. But you’ve done, and continue to do, everything you can. Depending on the offense, restitution can take years. But it’s worth it.

If you’re the wronged party, you (usually) can’t demand restitution; that can be manipulation. And you’re perfectly justified keeping your healthy boundary in place forever if they never do anything (words don’t count) to show you their heart has changed.

If you did the wrong, you can’t ask the other person what it takes to lift the boundary; that (usually but not always) shows you’re just in it for the benefit to yourself. You’ve got to figure it out, possibly by trial ‘n’ error. But ask the Lord, he knows, and he’s all over restoring relationships. After all, that’s why he went through that whole cross and resurrection thing.

Does this strike a chord with you? Does this resonate? Tell us in the comments a story where you’ve been on one side or the other. And please share on Facebook if you think this would be helpful to someone else (click the “f” button below).

A Godly, Sabbath Rest

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I’m learning to take a Sabbath rest. God’s teaching me about this. I’m learning to take a regular godly rest.

Honestly, it’s not going very well. My spirit gets it. My heart leaps at the idea, but can’t articulate to my brain what it looks like. So my brain is confused. What am I gonna do, just sit and watch the grass grow all Sunday afternoon? Or crash & take a nap? Although the brief Sunday afternoon naps I occasionally take really help me physically, my brain has this nagging feeling that a Sabbath rest is something more.

I heard this teaching from Sheryl Dudek at a recent ARLN (Abortion Recovery Leaders Network). This really has brought me some Sabbath rest clarity and I pray it does the same for you if you’re as confused as I am.

We all know this verse:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. – Jesus, Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

Did you know, in the Greek, the two words translated “rest” in that verse are different?

The first “rest”, as in, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you REST, means “refreshment.” It’s not just the absence of doing anything. It’s doing something that refreshes you. What charges your battery? That’s the Sabbath rest God has hard-wired you for.

The second rest, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find REST for your souls, means “recreation.” What’s fun? Some things are fun but exhausting. What’s fun for you and also energizes you, re-charging your battery?

Wow. That puts a whole, new spin on taking a Sabbath rest for me. It’s not the absence of doing anything, which for me would be incredibly boring and not restful at all, but instead it’s doing something fun that re-charges me.

For me, it’s going on a walk or a hike, especially through the woods. Or playing tennis. Or reading a book for enjoyment or enrichment rather than for information. I’m going to do one of these activities on Sunday.

What activities fall into this category for you? How do you take a Sabbath rest? Tell us in the comments. Your story is valuable to the whole community. And please share on social media if you think this would help someone else.

The Pig I Have

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A rural pastor was out visiting his peeps. In the course of chatting with a local farmer, he asked him, “If you had two cows, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

“Why, of course, Pastor. Absolutely. Wouldn’t even think twice about it,” responded the farmer.

The pastor asked another question. “If you had two sheep, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

Again, the farmer answered confidently and without hesitation, “Pastor, you know I would. I love Jesus and when he blesses me with a second sheep, of course he can have it.”

The pastor asked one more question, “If you had two pigs, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

This time, though, the farmer scowled and said, “Now just hold on a dadgum minute there, Pastor, that there’s not fair. You darn-good-and-well know I have two pigs.”

Sound familiar? Do we do that? Do we promise God what we hope he blesses us with, while withholding what he already has? I bet we do it more than we think, without even realizing it.

I’ll tithe once I can pay my bills. The truth is, you will never be able to pay your bills until you tithe.

I’ll spend time with the Lord once my schedule settles down. You will never be able to spend the time you don’t have with the Lord until you spend the time you do have.

I’ll take a Sabbath with the Lord once I get everything done. You will never get everything done until you start taking Sabbaths.

God doesn’t want the cow or the sheep we don’t have. He wants the pig we do have. God doesn’t want the 2 hours a day we don’t have to spend with him. He wants the 15 minutes a day we do have to spend with him but are choosing not to.

So often we take for granted what we have. We think, “Oh I’ll serve God when ________.” Fill in the blank for you. But he doesn’t want our promise to serve him later. He really doesn’t. He wants our obedience now, with what he’s already given us.

Jesus put it this way. “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much” (Luke 16:10). And remember the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30)? The servants who were faithful with little were given more, and the servant who was not faithful with little, even what he had was taken from him.

So it’s really an opportunity to bless ourselves. Out of God’s great grace and mercy for us, he will never be give us more if we’re not faithful with what we already have. If we aren’t faithful with what we already have, more would destroy us, so out of his great love for us, he withholds it.

Ask the Lord, Is there anything I’m unconsciously withholding from you? Is there anything you’re consciously withholding? Will you go on this journey with us and offer it to the Lord, take the chance, and see where he leads it? It may not go where you expect, but it’ll be good.

So what do you think? Will you give the Lord the pig you have? Tell us in the comments and please share on social media (convenience buttons below). We look forward to hearing from you.

God Teaches Life Like A Physics Class

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Being a math guy, I was rather upset about this. Most subjects are similar to mathematics. The teacher gives a lecture, and then you go practice what you were just taught in the homework. Safe. Predictable. Totally not how God works. God teaches life like a physics class.

In physics, you go into the lab first, blow something up, and then get the lecture explaining why it blew up. The lecture is very similar to the mathematics lecture (although in unrecognizably different notation). But because you’ve had the experience, the lecture makes a lot more sense and you learn the material at a deeper level.

I wish God would prep me each day for what I’m going to face that day. Give me the lecture. Then, when the thing happens, I’ll handle the situation right. The problem with that, from God’s point of view, is I could handle it without him. And out of his great love for us, he just won’t have that. He wants to do it with us.

So every day life is a lab. Something unexpected happens, things don’t work out. We don’t “get it right.” We mess up. Then he gives us the instruction. And we have to walk through it with him to keep from totally burning down the lab. He teaches us as we go along because he wants to live it with us.

So what happens? I “get it right” a lot less than if God would just do it my way. And I care about “getting it right.” He is healing me from Performance Orientation, the (often unconscious) belief that we have to earn love by performing. This is epidemic in the church today. We struggle and strive to earn by hard work what we already have by inheritance.

But fortunately for me, God is less concerned about my “getting it right” than I am. He’s more about the process, less about the goal. Being God, he can snap his fingers and accomplish the goal anytime he wants. But he knows we need the process.

This isn’t very efficient. But God’s not into efficiency. Being an engineer, that first time I heard that, I was convinced it was heresy! I am all about efficiency. But it’s true – God’s not. God’s about the process. He doesn’t care if it takes longer to get us where he wants us; he’s got all the time in the world.

Now if not “getting it right” means falling into sin, God cares a lot more about it. And he has given us a textbook that, if we read and follow it, will spare us a lot of smoke alarms going off in the lab. But if we’re determined not to, God will let us blow up the lab, and then come back and show us why that was a really bad idea.

However, a lot of “getting it right” isn’t outright rebellious sin. Making a mistake is not sin. Here’s a free hint: If you’re afraid of making a mistake, or get angry when others do, you have Performance Orientation. God wants to heal you. God would much rather have us try, fail, and learn, than never try. See the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30.

Does this resonate? Please share it on social media. And tell us your story in the comments, or shoot us an email. What “failed labs” in your life has God used most powerfully? Your story is very encouraging to others. Tell it here.

Mountaintops and Valleys

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I’m trying a new blog format today. Let me know how you like it (or not) in the comments. I may do this every 6 weeks or so if it blesses the community. This post is longer than normal, but it’s a story I wrote that I think will bless you and make you think.

 

Mountaintops and valleys. The terrain of life, he mused.

Sometimes you were on a mountaintop, where the air was clear and cold, and just breathing was exhilarating. Everything was crisp; everything seemed fresh and new and exciting. And you could see for miles.  For miles. You could see your whole life mapped out before you. God’s Divine Plan, and it all seemed so obvious and so simple. From the mountaintop.

But most of life was spent in the valleys. In the humid, dense, sweltering air, where just breathing seemed like so much work. You couldn’t see very far at all from down there, barely to the next mountain, and sometimes the daily haze blotted that out. The confusion and the noise drowned out the Divine Plan, and you had to follow it from memory and by faith because you sure couldn’t see it.

These were his musings, as he sat in a prison cell in Rome waiting to die. Today he was going to be crucified upside down. He didn’t feel worthy to die the way his Savior died, so he asked them to put the cross in the ground upside down. This definitely counted as a valley. But Peter smiled wide and laughed to himself as he remembered a mountaintop experience with Jesus decades before that only two others shared…

 

It was almost the end of Jesus’ ministry, but the disciples didn’t know that. He had just begun to teach them about his upcoming death and resurrection, but as usual they didn’t get it at the time. He was talking to them through a time-warp; he knew they wouldn’t understand at the time, but the Holy Spirit would bring his words back to them in the future when they needed them. Much the same way parents talk to children.

So, knowing he would die in Jerusalem at Passover, Jesus began an informal farewell tour, visiting everywhere he’d been one last time, although the disciples didn’t know it. Caesarea Philippi. Capernaum. Galilee. Samaria. Judea. Bethany. And finally Jerusalem. It was early in this Final Farewell Tour, in a remote place between Caesarea Philippi and Caperaum.

About a week earlier, Peter had just been highly praised and then severely rebuked by Jesus. Highly praised when he confessed Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, when Jesus had asked his disciples who they thought he was. Jesus said the Father had revealed this to Peter, and changed his name on the spot from Simon to Peter, The Rock, and said that on this rock he would built his church. Peter was flying high.

For about 10 minutes. Then Peter was severely rebuked when he tried to convince Jesus he really didn’t have to do this whole suffer and die thing. Didn’t fit with the Savior persona. Jesus actually yelled at him, “Get behind me, Satan! You’re a stumbling block to me! You don’t have in mind the things of God, but the things of men!”

So Peter’s his head was still reeling trying to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory experiences, when Jesus called him, and James and John, to take a walk with him up a mountain. Just the four of them.

When they reached the top, Jesus got all white and shiny. He and his clothes and face and all became white as light. And suddenly, Moses and Elijah, just as shiny, were standing there talking with Jesus about the salvation he was about to accomplish when he got back to Jerusalem.

Score! They had arrived! Experiencing Jesus in all his glory. Oh. My. Word. This was it. No need to go any further. Just stay right here. In this experience. Forever.

So Peter, recovering quicker than the others and his own brain, walked right up and said to Jesus, “Lord, it’s great to be here! Let’s put up three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah, and we’ll all just stay right here. Yes!”

But while he was still speaking, a cloud suddenly covered them all, and the voice of Father God said, “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” Needless to say, Peter, James, and John hit the deck in terror. Nobody got in a cloud with God that close and lived to tell about it.

But Jesus tapped them on the shoulder. “It’s alright, don’t be afraid. Get up, let’s head back down.” When they looked up, they saw only Jesus, looking normal again. No Moses, no Elijah, no cloud, no voice. And then, on the way down, Jesus told them not to tell anybody.

“Ah, man,” thought Peter. “We can’t tell anybody! I was so looking forward to rubbing this is in Andrew’s face. What is the deal, anyway? Why couldn’t we stay on the mountaintop? We had it made up there – Jesus in his glory! What’s better than that? Everything else will seem rather dull now in comparison.”

When they got back down to the valley, they discovered the other 9 disciples had got themselves into a bit of a pickle. They were trying to cast a particularly stubborn demon out of a little boy, and they just couldn’t get it. Jesus, of course, did it easily.

That night, Peter couldn’t sleep. He was chewing on all this. He still wished they hadn’t come down the mountain. I mean, my gosh, after what we just saw, how could Jesus possibly expect us to return to the ordinary? But on the other hand, if they hadn’t, that precious little boy would still be tortured by that nasty demon.

Then a thought occurred to him that he’d never thought before. What if it wasn’t about him? I mean, what about Jesus? If that’s the glory he had with his Father before he came here, how could he ever lay that all down to come to live with us—the poorest of the poor, in an oppressed, occupied little country? But Jesus did leave it all, all the glory, the ultimate mountaintop, and here he is with us. So what if the purpose of the mountaintop experience wasn’t to stay on the mountaintop? What if the purpose of the mountaintop experience was to enable mountaintop living in the valley, and to pass it on to other valley-dwellers? After all, isn’t that what Jesus spent the last two and half years doing?

 

That day so many years ago had rocked his world. Hanging out with Jesus had a way of doing that, but That Day more than usual.

Peter remembered everything he’d seen and been part of since that day. The pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Starting the church in Jerusalem. Seeing it spread like wildfire, through persecution of all things, across the whole Roman world. Led out of prison by an angel. Turning the leadership of the Jerusalem church over to James. Miracles beyond count. Decades of leading precious little ones, young and old, out of the darkness and into the light.

Peter wasn’t sad or afraid about dying today. He was actually kind of excited. And awed at his Lord all over again, that Jesus had considered him, this little fisherman from Galilee, worthy of the privilege of participating in his sufferings.

He’d never understood why Jesus loved him so much, but each day he was floored more and more by how much He did. And even now, on the last day of his life, he knew he still didn’t understand the breadth of how much and how intensely Jesus loved him. That knowledge floored him all over again.

He’d finished the race, like Paul used to say. He knew the darkest valleys led to the highest mountaintops. Like King David sang, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me…” He hummed the melody; it was one of Jesus’ favorites. Today, the deepest valley would lead to the highest mountaintop, the one that you never had to leave. He would see Jesus again like He looked on that one special day so long ago. And Peter would be shiny, too.

– Based on Matthew 16:15 – 17:18.

 

So what about us? Do we get stuck on the mountaintop? Or try to? Do we hoard it? Are we stuck in the valley? Has the valley swamp made us forget our citizenship on the mountaintop? Let’s pledge today, in the middle of the sweltering valley humidity, as mountaintop citizens, to point other valley-dwellers the way up the hill, where our precious Savior awaits them.

Did this story bless you? Tell us what you think in the comments.

What Fast-Tracks Inner Healing?

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Our inner healing often takes a season, just like physical healing. God, in his great mercy, only goes as fast as we can handle. Certainly our unwillingness or wrong motivations can slow it down, but if we’re willing and our motivations are right, is there anything we can do to speed it up? Is there something we can do to fast-track our inner healing as much as possible?

It turns out there is, and it’s illustrated best by buffalo and cattle. This analogy may seem way off-topic, but hang with me and I’ll bring it home.

When a herd of cattle on the plain see a thunderstorm coming, they run away from it. They are naturally afraid of it, and they quite logically run the other way.

Buffalo, on the other way, run toward the storm. They don’t fear the thunderstorm any less cattle do, but they’re just smarter about how to deal with it. They run directly through it. Since they are running the opposite direction the storm is moving, they minimize their time in the storm. Pretty smart, huh? They exit the storm as quickly as possible and get to the freshly watered, tender grass and clear weather on the other side.

The cattle, meanwhile, can’t outrun the storm. And by running away from it (that is, the same direction it’s moving), they actually maximize their time in the storm. The storm passes them by very slowly. They spend a lot more time it in, and get a lot more wet, cold, and uncomfortable than the buffalo.

What about us? John Sandford, the founder of Elijah House, which is one of the key ministries that taught the Church how to do inner healing, said, “We must embrace the fireball of pain.”

What?!? Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s a buffalo strategy. God doesn’t need us to re-live the pain and re-traumatize us all over again, but we need to get in touch with it so God can open it up enough to heal it. He’s the great physician, and any surgeon has to open the wound in order to heal it.

When we embrace the pain, when we trust him enough to go there, we fast-track our healing. Be a buffalo.

I can testify that embracing the pain, letting God open me up like a Christmas turkey, really hurt. But it was over really fast, and I made progress in one or two sessions that could’ve otherwise taken years. And this was for big-deal stuff, life-wrenching stuff, like a marriage falling apart. I feel so much better now than before being healed. The freedom I gained was so worth it!

Does this resonate? Can you think of a time where you either embraced the pain or in vain ran from it? Which worked better for you? Are you still running? Share your story in the comments or shoot us an email. And please give this a share if you think it would help someone else. You can click on the Facebook button below (or the other social media buttons) to share really easy and fast.