Giving Back–To tithe or not to tithe is really not a question

I’m going to address an issue that has caused me much torment especially as of late. Giving. Tithing. Whatever you want to call it. Are we required to give? How much do we have to give? Why do we give? Who do we give to and how often? Before we go any further, let me first state that if you are looking for answers to questions like those simply so you can “pay your tax”, this is not where you are going to find them. Instead, I want to dig deeper into the subject of giving. I want to dig more into the attitude of giving, the heart condition, and the expectations of both us and God. This is a subject that I’ve started to focus on recently, and I really don’t have any answers. So, instead, this “mini sermon” will be more like a “what if” sermon. What if I gave more than I can afford? What if my heart attitude was changed? What if my focus was more on being grateful than on how much I’m putting into that plate each Sunday? How might my life be transformed if I truly learn the right attitude about giving? That is what I’m trying to learn here this time.

First of all, I am learning that when I can’t afford to tithe, I really can’t afford not to tithe. When money is tight and we’re staring down the barrel of a loaded disconnection notice or two, tithing must be our first priority. Why? Because God has proven to us that He blesses us when our hearts and minds are more focused on Him rather than on our situation. We have seen month after month when we’ve made ends meet financially, even though it didn’t seem possible at first. One of my fall-back verses in the Bible on this area has always been Malachi 3:10 where God speaks to the Israelites and tells them to “…”Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “And see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”…” (NIV). God challenges the Israelites to test Him! Now, I do understand that many people seem to get edgy whenever we try to apply an Old Testament statement or verse to our walk, saying that the old covenant was replaced by the new covenant when Jesus came to die. That we no longer need to follow the same laws and traditions that the Israelites did before Christ. And that is true. However, what I see from this verse is not so much a tradition or “rule” that I am being asked to follow. Instead, I see a portion of the character of God being revealed to us and that never has changed nor will ever change. God yearned for the Israelites to test him in their tithes so He could prove to them that He truly did have control over their provisions and blessings. God longed to prove to them that He could indeed take care of them.

And He still longs for us to understand this about Him today.

I witnessed a great example of such “testing” earlier this year. At church, we had a young missionary couple come and speak about their work. They spoke mostly of the local missionaries that were being raised up and trained in the area where they served. They spoke about how hard it was for these locals to raise any funding at all to support their work. When asked what we as a church could do for this couple, they said that they didn’t want anything. Instead, they would rather that if anything were to be given, that it be given to the local missionaries they were training. Our pastor stepped out in a great display of faith and declared that that morning’s offering would be given entirely to these local missionaries through this couple. This meant that our church just gave up a quarter of their monthly income! Now, I’m sure there are many out there that would be scolding our pastor right now, saying he should never make such a decision without discussing it with the board and so on. I’m sure your right. But this step of faith was huge. I suddenly looked at my own life. Could I do that? Would I ever be able to suddenly give 1/4 of my monthly income away? 25%!!! I don’t think I could. And yet, God says, “test me”. Would this not be considered a test of God’s faithfulness if I was able to do something like this?

As I said earlier, so often we view tithe as a “tax”. In fact, if you search online or follow many sermons out there today on tithing, you will find many very inflexible views. Views that state how much you have to tithe. Views that proclaim how often you have to tithe. I am going to step out on a rather risky limb here and say that I find very little in the New Testament where God has laid out such rules and boundaries when it comes to tithing. In fact, the one verse I often think about whenever the discussion about tithing comes up is found in 2 Corinthians 9:7 where Paul states that “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful give” (NIV) Paul does not state here that we must give 10% of our gross income. Instead, he says that we should give what we have decided in our hearts to give. And that we are not to give out of reluctance or compulsion, but cheerfully! I think many of us have been beaten by leaders today and growing up that giving was something we were commanded to do. And for most, it is an act out of compulsion, not an act of their hearts.

Note verse 8 of chapter 9 of 2nd Corinthians. Paul just finished saying that “…God loves a cheerful giver…”, and then goes on to say that “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” (NIV) God is able to bless you abundantly! Again, I see an echo of what God stated to the Israelites some 500 years earlier. If we give cheerfully, God is able to bless us abundantly.

I will have to say, though, that herein lies a conflict of interests for us as I’m sure most of you would agree. We are not supposed to give grudgingly, nor under compulsion. Instead, we are to give cheerfully. However, if we give because we are looking for these blessings, is that not a poor heart attitude? And yet, if we go off of these two passages that I’ve just brought up here, is that not a driving, motivating factor in our giving? Yes, it can be. So how do we follow these scriptures, yet avoid such a motivation in our giving?

I’m sure many of us have gone through the following situation. It’s Christmas, and you have bought a gift for a good friend, at least someone you think is a good friend. You have anticipated that they, too, will be giving you a pretty nice gift so you make sure that your purchase is top notch. However, during the exchange, things get awkward as the parity of gifts between you is not there. What you get in return is cheap, un-thoughtful and not at all what you expected. What went wrong? Well, first of all, the expectations you set were wrong. The whole point of giving a gift is the giving part, not what you may or may not receive in return. By setting up the expectations that “if I give him/her this gift, I’m sure they’ll give me one similar in return” is a setup for failure and shows a wrong heart attitude. If there had been more focus on the giving itself, for the simple reason to see joy on their faces, it wouldn’t matter if nothing was received in return. The point of the gift was for them.

And a similar attitude is required when giving to God. In the case with giving to God, we are not giving a “gift”, but instead we are acknowledging His provision and His faithfulness in our lives. Because of scripture like we read earlier, however, we do have some expectations in getting blessings in return. However, that is where our expectations should cease. As soon as we start assuming we know what those blessings might be, our heart attitude becomes derailed once again. Often we think that if we give monetarily, then our blessings will be in the same form in return. Sort of like an investment, right? Wrong! In my limited experience, I have seen God bless us by providing for us in areas we never would’ve imagined. God has yet to drop an envelope of cash on our door steps, in spite of my expectations for Him to do so! However, we often have looked back at the end of a month and realized that we made it through, paid our bills, and kept food on the table, when by all rights we were dead in the water. Other times, God has blessed us with material possessions. Still more, God has blessed us with groceries, even Christmas gifts for the children one year!

How God may choose to bless you for giving with a right heart attitude is unknown. For us to focus on these blessings and try to determine what they may or may not be during our giving is wrong. But, we can rest assured that God will bless our giving.

This brings me to my final point. We’ve talked about the heart attitude. Now I want to talk about what we give. Giving is not just of our income. It is also giving of our time, our possessions, our food. Whatever God has blessed us with, I feel that we are to give in return. And yet, this is not something to take lightly. What we give is just as important as how we give it. I’m referring here to the quality of your tithe. Let’s go back to Malachi and look at the first couple of passages, before God challenged the Israelites to test him.

The Israelites offered defiled sacrifices: “It is you priests who show contempt for my name. But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’ By offering defiled food on my altar.” Malachi 1:6,7 (NIV). They even offered lame sacrifices: “’When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?’ says the LORD Almighty.” Malachi 1:8 (NIV) And, not only that, but the Israelites treated their sacrificing acts with contempt: “’And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously, says the LORD Almighty.’” Malachi 1:13 (NIV)

God has had enough of the sacrifices that the Israelites are bringing to Him. He’s had enough with their poor attitude towards sacrificing. Let’s take a minute now to see the response God has towards the Israelites. God would rather no sacrifices at all, and He states that he will accept nothing from them. “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the LORD Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.” Malachi 1:10 (NIV). In fact, God admonishes the priests saying that “I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices.” Malachi 2:3 (NIV).

Later on, just before Malachi 3:10 as we read at the beginning of this message, God states that they have robbed him (Malachi 3:6-9). He states that the whole nation is under a curse because they have robbed Him in their tithes and offerings, their sacrifices. God doesn’t take our offerings lightly. What are you offering to Him?

Are you giving God the first 10 minutes of your morning, when you’re half asleep and can hardly keep your eyes open? Do you tithe based on what you have left over once the bills are paid? Are you robbing God? Have you scheduled your devotion time in such a way that if you’re running late, your devotions get shorted? There are so many ways that we can essentially “rob God” by our giving (or lack thereof). I’m not familiar with all the details of the story, but growing up as a missionary kid I remember hearing a story in our circles of a missionary family that received used tea bags from their supporters! Another more humbling story was a report recently that the pastor of our local church described during a sermon about the giving within our church. I don’t remember all the details, but what I do remember is that the majority of the church, I believe it was about 80%, generally tithed an average of $1000 a year. If we figure out based on the average 10% of giving that most people try to give, that would mean that 80% of the church only makes $10,000 a year? Obviously, that is not the case. Yes, there may very well be a couple of people in that range of $10,000 – $20,000 for a yearly salary. But NOT 80% of the attendees. This is a very discouraging report on the state of giving within our Christian circles. Tithing is becoming more and more of a passing thought than something at the forefront of our walk with God.

How are you robbing God? Left over possessions? Left over time? Left over money? God asked for the “first fruits” from the Israelites. Not their leftovers. It takes more faith to give to God what we long to keep for ourselves then to give just Him our “leftovers”. Giving God our “first fruits” is a bold demonstration that we understand that our possessions, our time, our money all come from God in the first place. We acknowledge that God is our provider, and that He will continue to provide.

Jonah–Not just a Sunday School Story

Recently, the pastor of our church here in Kamloops did a four part sermon on the story of Jonah. As such, I began reading more into the story of Jonah and started having a much greater appreciation for what Jonah went through. A question that my pastor asked during the first part of his series was “Why did Jonah have to stay in the belly of the fish for 3 days?” While there are many ideas as to why, it wasn’t so much the question that got me to thinking, but the reality of the situation. 3 days inside a fish! How on earth was this even possible?

I did a brief internet search on the possibilities of being swallowed by a whale. There is actually a story about a man being swallowed by a whale and surviving back in the late 1800’s name James Bartley. While the story can’t necessarily be proven, it can’t be dis-proven either. Check out this part of the story where Bartley accounts what it was like:

Bartley recalled being swallowed by a great darkness, then slipping along a smooth passage until he came to a larger space. He felt slimy stuff around him and realized he’d been swallowed by a whale. He could breath, but the heat sucked the energy out of him and eventually he pass out. The only lasting effect of the incident was that the skin of his face, neck and hands was bleached to the color of parchment by the whale’

Consider this for a while. I’m not going to say this story is true, but this is a whole lot worse of a situation than the tale we watched in Pinocchio when Geppetto gets swallowed by a whale. The reality of something like this is mind boggling. How did he breathe? How did the heat not suffocate him? Think about how the acids from the whale’s system must've eaten away at his body, causing unbearable pain. Think about the darkness, the stench, the suffocating…

Suddenly three days seems like an eternity. Now, I don’t want to spend too much time trying to know the “how’s” of God’s miracles, instead I would rather dig into the “why’s”. Why did God choose this rather elaborate method of getting Jonah’s attention? And why did He leave Jonah in the whale for 3 whole days and nights? Imagine a moment if you were Jonah, how long inside that whale do you think it would've taken you until you repented? I am going to assume here that after 2 minutes of being inside the whale, Jonah was most likely begging God to let him back out. In fact, I would assume that most of us would be promising God instantly that we would change, that we would obey, that we would never run away again. Maybe Jonah did, maybe he didn't, I don't know and the Bible doesn't say. What it does say, is that it took 3 days until Jonah finally offered up his sincere prayer of repentance and God rescued him from the whale. 3 days!!!

This got me to thinking about the Christian walk, and my own life specifically. As I look at my own experiences, as soon as I realize I'm in a bad situation, I call to God to help pretty much immediately. Sometimes it's sincere, sometimes it's half hearted. However, many times God does not instantly rescue me from the situation in which I find myself. Many times, instead, God works with me through it. Right now, we're going through a situation with a property that my wife and I own that we are unable to sell. It is costing us each and every month, forcing us to live pay cheque by pay cheque (what else is new?). We have no savings, no back up plans, and many months bills go unpaid due to lack of funds. My wife has taken on an evening job just to help make ends meet. We pray about this situation a lot. And yet, God chooses not to sell the property yet. It has been 2-1/2 years now of this type of living. Why won't He sell this property?

At first, we went through a stage of "where did we go wrong?" We analyzed our steps, scrutinized our decisions. We decided where we went wrong, and we prayed for forgiveness. And yet still the property remained unsold. So we did it again, and again. Each time, trying to be more and more sincere in our repentance. Maybe I haven't repented enough. Maybe I wasn't truly repentant. Maybe I wasn't repentant of the right sin. We gave our best, most sincere efforts and yet still the property remained unsold.

Of course, everyone always seems to go through the "why" stage in situations like this. Why will the property not sell? Why has this gone on so long? Why does God seem so quiet about the whole thing? Why did we do what we did? For us, it wasn't so much a "why don't you help, God" but more of a "why are we in this mess?" and "why haven't we been able to get rid or this property sooner?". So many questions started coming through our minds. We started re-evaluating every decision we had made for the past 2-1/2 years. Decisions we had thought were solid were now in "court" defending their case.

Lately, we have started to move towards a personal faith stretching revelation. Maybe God was trying to grow us in an area of faith. Maybe He wanted us to learn new aspects of our faith. So we focused on that, what did God want us to learn from this? So we tried to focus on our relationship with Him, where can we grow? Where can we learn?

Notice I said "we have started to move..." Yes, we are still in this predicament as I am writing this. I don't know the answer, and I may never know. God might choose to sell this acreage tomorrow. He may choose to never sell it. This is where Jonah comes back into the picture.

Do you not think that he probably went through some very similar stages while in the whale's belly? He most likely did cry out immediately for deliverance. Chances are probably pretty good that he then went into an analytical stage, and maybe even repentance for where he went wrong (don't get me wrong, this is a very important stage and we all must go through it thoroughly). When that didn't seem to work, I wonder if he did start the "why?" stage. Did he start asking God why he was in the belly for so long? After 3 days, I'm sure he was in a lot of pain, and very miserable. Listen to the way Jonah describes his experience. "Deep in the realm of the dead..." (Jonah 2:1, NIV), "...I have been banished from your sight..." (Jonah 2:4, NIV), "...seaweed was wrapped around my head..." (Jonah 2:5, NIV), "...To the roots of the mountains I sank down, the earth barred me in forever." (Jonah 2:6, NIV). These aren't light choice of words used by Jonah. He was in despair. He was beyond hope. I'm sure he hoped and prayed for a miracle, but logistically do you think he really saw a way out of his situation? It would probably not be too far off to assume that Jonah had begun to accept that this was the end of his earthly existence even.

However, something in Jonah's prayer seemed to trigger God's action of redemption. Through Jonah's prayer, he seems to shift from desperation to praise. I can't say what it was about Jonah's prayer or where his attitude was transformed exactly, but I did notice a couple of things that made me think about my own attitude.

First, he has a transformation of focus. Jonah begins focusing God and his holiness. "...yet I will look again toward your holy temple." (Jonah 2:4, NIV). And a little bit later on he says "...I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple." (Jonah 2:7, NIV).

Secondly, he is grateful for his experience and in the following two verses he says "Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you." (Jonah 2:8,9, NIV).

"And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land." (Jonah 2:10, NIV).

What was it about Jonah's prayer that signaled God's action to rescue him from the whale? While I don't want to venture to know God's intentions, I do notice here Jonah's focus on God's holiness and his grateful heart while still in the belly of that whale seemed to trigger his redemption.

Where is my focus? Is my focus on God's holiness? Do I have a grateful heart? It's not that I have forgotten my plight, or that it isn't important to me anymore. It's that I am more focused on who God is than where I am. Jonah had his issues. In fact, even after he was rescued and he delivered the message he still struggled with his own agenda versus God's. And yet in those 3 days he learned how to focus on God and not his situation. He learned to be grateful, to praise God in spite of what was going on, and to me that seems to be what God truly wants us all to learn while we battle our own "whales".

Look at your life. Look at all that you have to be grateful for and all that God has blessed you with day in and day out and praise God for it all. Can you focus on being grateful? Can you focus on God's holiness? I'm not saying that once you do that God will rescue you from your "whale", but I am saying that your "whale" will suddenly be a lot less worrisome. And don't forget, I'm learning and discovering this as I write this post, so I can't begin to pretend I have all the answers. Only that this is something I can pull out of what used to be a simple Sunday School story to me. God hasn't forgotten us while in our current situation. He isn't ignoring us either. Instead, I believe He simply wants us to lift our heads up. To take our focus off of where we are and to shift it up to who He is. And be grateful.

I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.

Holy Is the Lord

We are selfish.

 

I don’t think I really need to embellish that thought, I would assume that almost anyone reading that would probably agree. We, by our human nature, are selfish. My wife was saying just the other day how so much of what is wrong with our world can be broken down to a simple case of the “Me Me Me’s”. Do you disagree with that statement?

 

Take the seemingly increasing cases of road rage on most of the world’s streets and highways, can these cases be attributed to selfishness? Sure they can. I need to be first. I need that lane. I need to get out ahead of you. I need... I need...

Or, how about something simple such as the cost of living skyrocketing? Well, can this be attributed to selfishness? Sure it can. I want to make more money, so I need to increase the price of my products. I want more “stuff”, I want a bigger house, I want this I want that. Therefore, I need to increase the price of what I am selling to achieve this. No thought to maybe making the product better so it sells more. No thought to maybe just working harder. No, it is generally raise the price to make more profits. Cut spending on things that actually matter to make more profits.

 

How about obesity? Yes, I’m a bit hesitant to include this in here, and I do understand that there are many cases of obesity out there that are medically caused and cannot be helped. However, there are many, many more cases where obesity, even in its slightest form, can be attributed to selfishness. I can personally attest to this. I don’t want to exercise, it’s too much work. I want something to eat now, so I buy a burger and fries. I’m thirsty, but instead of water I drink a pop or a milkshake because I like it better. Yes, obesity can be blamed on selfishness.

 

I think most of our problems can be blamed on selfishness.

 

And as such, I believe God is trying to reveal to me my selfish ways. This weekend, during the praise and worship singing at church, I realized how much focus I put on my life and my problems and how little focus I put on God and who He is. I started to realize how selfish I truly am. I’ve always thought of myself as selfish, but to what degree?

 

The situation my family is going through right now I know we’re in it because of my selfishness. I saw something I wanted, and I wanted it now, so I took it. I have recognized my failure in this area, and repented of it, and yet God still has not relieved me from this situation. So I started to go through the “why” stage. Why haven’t you helped us out of this yet, Lord? Why haven’t you moved this mountain? And God seemed to tell me that the mountain He’s trying to move is me. The mountain is my selfishness. My focus on “me”.

 

Throughout this whole ordeal, I’ve been so focused on our situation. God, help us do this. Help us do that. Please remove this burden, please relieve this struggle. While that’s all fine and well in moderation, I feel that my focus on the situation is the exact opposite of where God truly wants me to focus. Yes, God wants to hear about our struggles, he desires to hear our desires. But he truly wishes for us to focus on Him, not on the problems we’re trying to leave at His feet. So often, I lug an armful of problems with me before God, tell Him about them and why I need them to be taken care of for me, and then I gather them all back up and walk back out with them still. My focus is so often on my problems, that I simply seem to “forget” to leave them behind!

 

On Sunday, we sang a song that we’ve sung a hundred times, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. So much so that my voice was actually cracking while I was trying to sing it. You probably all know it pretty well.

Alleluia, Alleluia.

For the Lord God Almighty reigns.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

Holy! Holy! Are you Lord God, Almighty!

Worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the Lamb.

You are Holy.

 

Pretty basic lyrics, and yet what they meant to me this Sunday was astronomical. God is Holy, worthy is the Lamb. What does my earthly problem matter in the grand scheme of things? When I meet God, will we talk about these issues? Will we debate them, will I demand an explanation as to why I had to go through these times? No! I am certain that at that time, I will become so aware of God’s holiness and my utter unworthiness, all I will be able to think about is what an awesome God! We, as Christians, will spend eternity worshipping God! Eternity! If that doesn’t even lend itself a little bit to the fact that God’s majestic holiness is so vast and so great that we will never fully comprehend it I don’t know what will.

 

Yesterday, I had my wife paint “Holy Is The Lord” on the handlebar of my mountain bike. I will now see that phrase for a full hour each morning and another full hour in the afternoon as I ride to and from work. Holy is the Lord.

 

Maybe you have financial problems that seem insurmountable.

Holy is the Lord.

Maybe your relationship with your spouse is on the rocks, and seems irreparable.

Holy is the Lord.

Are you sick and are asking for healing?

Holy is the Lord.

Are you hurting?

Holy is the Lord.

 

I’m not saying that these issues shouldn’t be brought to our Saviour’s feet. Quite the contrary. We should immediately bring these to His feet. We probably need to lay these issues at His feet daily!  But then, we must acknowledge who God is. Holy is the Lord! Regardless of what I’m going through right now, holy is the Lord! When we are done with our time here on this earth, when all withers away and “dissolves as snow”, one thing will remain. God! Holy is the Lord!

 

Who is God to you? Do you tend to focus more on your problems, your issues, or on God? We are selfish by nature, so it is natural for us to focus on us, on our problems. We selfishly expect God to wipe away our problems, to give us a more comfortable life, a life of freedom! Freedom from financial constraints, freedom from pain, freedom from arguments or harsh words between loved ones. But when did God ever promise that? Why are we here on this earth? For ourselves? Far from it! We are here for God, to worship God, to adore God! HOLY IS THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY!

 

Less focus on inward and downward things. More focus on upward and outward things. Who is God? Who is the Lord? He is Holy. Worship Him. He is worthy. Adore Him. Bring your problems to His feet, leave them there, and worship Him.

 

Holy is the Lord.

 

Persistence and Faith

Well, I don’t really have much of a ‘sermon’ today as this is something I’ve just been working through as of yesterday and today. This is not a spiritual truth that I have mastered or completed, but one that was revealed to me yesterday and one that I am trying to know and apply. The sermon yesterday was on persistence and faith, using Luke 18-18 as the passage, which reads as follows:

 

“1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

 4"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

 6And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"” (Luke 18:1-8, NIV)

So what does this mean to me? How can I be persistent, basically “pester” God about our current situation?

 

Right now, we have two properties. I know, in a time where many of this nation and the USA are struggling to find work in order to pay their bills, my problem is that I’m stuck with two mortgages. Things could be worse I know. But, as it is, we absolutely cannot afford both of these properties. To make a long story short, we moved out to BC about 2 years ago and thought we had sold our property back in Alberta. Unfortunately, after about 1-1/2 years of extensions and what have you, the sale in Alberta was cancelled. So now we’re stuck with two mortgages.

 

Well, we’re trying to sell the property in Alberta again from a distance (everyone knows that long-distance relationships are very hard to do). We can’t afford to drive out to the property to show it, to clean it, or even to meet with a Realtor. We can’t afford this, because we’re already about $400 short every month due to having this property in the first place! It’s a nasty catch-22 if I’ve ever seen one.

 

So, interested and potential buyers have gone out to view the acreage, but nobody has called or emailed back after seeing it. Why not? We prayed about it, but not “persistently”. Rather, it was more of a time-of-the-month prayer, when we realized that the finances for that month were short again, then we’d pray about everything.

 

Now we had someone view the property this weekend, and he at least called back. Not to say he was interested, but to say that they were going to walk away due to some damage on the house. This was news to us. What damage? Apparently, he stated that one of the foundation piles was sinking and had caused the house to be sitting off level. On top of this, there was now a crack in the ceiling drywall that ran from one end of the house to the other, with water damage seeping through.

 

Needless to say, we were less than pleased to hear this. While we have yet to confirm his statements from a friend of ours, this news is devastating. Basically, if this is true, then chances are we can only sell this for land value. Which isn’t even as much as our mortgage is due.

 

How can things possibly go from what was seemingly the bottom of the barrel to even lower?

 

And yet the sermon on Sunday was about persistence. It was about coming to God day and night with our pleas, begging Him to intervene. Not sporadically when I feel like it, but ALL DAY. And not just “pester” God, but bringing our problems before Him with the belief that He WILL step in. Having the faith to know that He will NOT leave us stranded.

 

I have no idea what might happen. I have no idea if God will have us sell our BC home and move back to Alberta. I have no idea if God will provide a buyer “as-is”. I have no idea if He will provide the funds to just fix the place. I really do not know what He will do. But the key to this, I’m thinking, is that I believe he WILL. I don’t know what, but I know He WILL.

 

And so I keep presenting my case.

 

Every time I think about this, I pray “God, help us. Help us through this.” I don’t even know what to ask for anymore! But I do know we need help, and for that I am begging. I am pleading. God, help. And I will not stop asking until this is worked through.

 

I realized that God has allowed us into this situation for reasons beyond this world. I also realize that I may never actually know why. But I do know that when God is finished, we will be closer to Him. We will come out of this with a stronger heart for Him, with a faith that will guide us through such circumstances. With man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.

Pride, cockiness and confidence

It was my freshmen year of Bible College in a northern Saskatchewan town called Nipawin. I was the missionary kid from Mexico. I was the one that not only didn’t know what a block heater was, I didn’t even have one in my ’85 Volkswagen Jetta! But I had lived in Mexico, so regardless of my other eccentricities, there were expectations on me.

Expectations that I knew how to play soccer.

I did play soccer. I played defense. A no-frills, solid type of defensemen. I was tall, so I couldn’t run as fast as that little guy with all the fancy moves, so my only hope was to stay on my man and let him make the mistake. Let him twist and jump and twirl, but I would still be there waiting when he was finished, ready to knock his shot away. Try and shove me aside, you’ll soon be looking up at me as your sitting on your backside. Get around me? Possibly, but not likely. Get through me? Not a chance.

And if I had the ball? Well, look out, cause my shot is going to knock your skinny little shorts right off. I’ll score on you from my half of the court just to save the time of having to bring the ball all the way down to your end.

And if you believe all that, I have some ocean front property in Nipawin, Saskatchewan to sell you…

That’s me being cocky. I was an average soccer player, nothing more, nothing less. Sure, I made some great plays, scored some clutch goals, and stopped some great players. But I was average. I made some stupid mistakes. I let shots through and passes go by that I should’ve had. As great as I want to make myself sound, I was just an average player.

I don’t know when it was, or which tournament we were playing in, but I was part of the Nipawin Bible Institute’s A-team, proudly playing defense. The competition was always fierce in these tournaments, as schools from other Saskatchewan Bible colleges would come as well as a team from the big, secular college called SIAST Kelsey in Saskatoon. There were no easy games in these tournaments, and due to the shortness of them, each game was life or death for us.

I remember we were resting in between games. I can’t remember what the outcome was of the game we had just played, but I know that I hadn’t played a very good game. Guys ran around me like I was a pillar holding up the gym ceiling. I was sitting in the bleachers in a pool of self-pity, wondering if I should play the next game when my brother came up. He was in his third and final year, one of the surly ‘veterans’ of the team. He knew I’d just had a horrible game, and I figured he was going to come up and tell me that I did Ok, and I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and it’s just a game. You know, useless but comforting words.

But he was my brother. Why would he say that?

He made no excuses for my play, didn’t even acknowledge my bad game. He just sat beside me and said, “You’ve gotta play cocky, Scott”.

I looked at him questioningly, “What?”

He said, “You play your best game when you’re cocky. You can play better than that. When you play cocky, nobody’s getting around you.” And that was it. No “It’s Ok” speech, no “You did good, no really you did!” line out of the side of his mouth. Just a quick little piece of advice that I have remembered to this day. He knew I had the skill in me, but he also knew that I wouldn’t play up to my potential unless I played with confidence.

Ya gotta play cocky.

So I did. I still don’t actually remember the outcome of the tournament, but I do know that I had some of my best games after that. No, I wasn’t perfect, but I played hard and I played cocky, in other words, confidently.

So what am I trying to say from all of this? How does my confidence in soccer translate to your spiritual journey? I want to focus this book around a couple chapters that Paul wrote in the book of Romans. First of all, let me quote Paul in chapter 8 where he tells us to “play cocky”.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man…The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 

Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.

For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs —heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Rom 8:1-17)

Paul says to be cocky! There is NO condemnation! Jesus set me free from the law of sin and death. I am NOT controlled by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit! My body is dead, but my spirit is alive! I have an obligation to God, because I was NOT given a spirit that makes me a slave to fear, but the spirit of SONSHIP. I am an heir of God. If that’s not enough to make you spiritually cocky, I don’t know what is! We have the power within us to be confident through Christ.

But confidence has to be properly placed.

When I was in grade 10 or so in Mexico, I got a mountain bike. At first, my buddy Shawn and I just rode our bikes around the city and through the mountain trails just outside of the city limits. We had a lot of fun, but it was just casual weekend rides. That’s when we started thinking about racing. Mountain biking was just catching on in the city of Chihuahua, and they were starting to hold races in various locations near the city. We decided to enter our first race which was held in a national park called “Majalca” about two hours north west of the city. We trained diligently, and even went out to Majalca a day early to learn the course (which, if you know anything about Mexican culture, was a mistake as the race officials themselves hadn’t even figured that out yet!). Come race day, Shawn and I told each other that we were just here to have fun and whatever happens would happen. We crammed in near the starting line and bang! We were off! In a matter of seconds, Shawn and I both were near the front of the pack. Before even 20 minutes, the pack had thinned out and I was pretty sure that I was actually in 2^nd place! After 3 hours of riding hard through the trails, pulling stunts I’d never even dreamed of before, I saw the finish line coming. I stood up and pushed as hard as I could, flying through the finish! I had placed 2^nd in my very first race! I was so excited! Not only that, but shortly thereafter, Shawn came barrelling through placing 3^rd! We were hooked on racing, and soon started to sign up as much as we could. I raced a couple other races, placing 3^rd and 4^th in both of those. Then, one day, there was a race being held right in our city, on the same trails that Shawn and I had biked on for years.

I didn’t even spend 20 minutes training, not even one lap as I was so positive that I knew this course so well. We lined up, and bang! We were off again, but this time I wasn’t as fast as I thought I should be. I felt like there was a 200lb weight dragging behind me. I pushed as hard as I could, but the guys in front kept pulling away. Not only that, but a couple guys passed me, including Shawn! I panted and wheezed as I climbed the hills, bounced like a pop-can behind a newlywed’s car down the hills. I finished my first lap sure I was in 20^th place, and I had two laps to go! How did I get this out of shape? Soon, I coughed and wheezed my way up a hill and around a corner when I saw my buddy Shawn up the trail ahead, standing beside his bike. His chain had broken. I pulled up beside him, hardly alive, to see what had happened. He was still doing well physically, but his bike would not allow him to finish the race. Doing what I tried to convince myself was the noble thing, I gave Shawn my bike and let him finish the race on it, as I walked his bike back to the start. Was I sacrificing for a friend? Not really! I was so exhausted; I didn’t believe I could actually finish the race, so I simply withdrew.

I quit the race, I didn’t even place!

What happened to being cocky? I was so sure of myself, so proud that I could place in the top 5 without even trying, without even taking a practice lap the day before! And boy did I fall. I fell hard. It was embarrassing to walk across the finish line and admit defeat in front of all the spectators. It was embarrassing to let everyone know that I had been beaten by the course. It was embarrassing to know that had I tried, had I trained, I could’ve still placed in my top 5.

Do you think the rest of those top 5 finishers sat around before race day? No, they were there because they had trained. They didn’t take the race for granted, they wanted to win. If you’ll notice, I was sliding before the race I quit. I took 3^rd, then 4^th, then nothing.

Was I getting worse? No, the rest were getting better because they worked for it.

They were training, they weren’t happy with 5^th place, or 3^rd place, they wanted first! Me on the other hand, I was satisfied with 2^nd, and figured I could easily place 2^nd whenever I wanted too but I was greatly mistaken.

Oh how the mighty have fallen!

Empty pride and and mis-placed cockiness can only lead to one thing: A fall.

King Solomon said in Proverbs 16:18 that “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” He also states a few chapters back in chapter 11 verse 2 that “When Pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

When it comes down to confidence, we have to be very careful where we place it. I am referring to the confidence that we can have in Christ, not in ourselves. Confidence in yourself can only go so far, as you can only be as confident as you are skilful or you are headed for a nasty fall. However, confidence in God’s power through you is limitless.

We are sinful creatures. By nature, we are sinners. Jeremiah said “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9) In chapter 7 of Romans, Paul says “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.” (vs. 18a)

We can do nothing in and of ourselves to please God. We deserve death. Try as hard as we might, we will never make ourselves worthy of God.

What a wretched people we are.

In and of ourselves, we cannot be cocky because we have nothing of which to be cocky! But, with the Holy Spirit within us, we have unlimited amounts of confidence that we can draw from in our daily battles. Sure, by myself, I can never defeat Satan. I couldn’t even defeat one of Satan’s measly little minions! But with Christ, Satan and his whole army has already been defeated.

As a child, I’m sure most of us experienced the “my dad is bigger than your dad” phase, or something similar.

My Dad could swing that big sledge hammer when I couldn’t even lift it off the ground. He drove a big Mack® Truck, and I could hardly see over the dash of our Citation sedan. One of his arms was bigger than both my legs put together, and there wasn’t anything that he could not do. He was my Dad.

I, on the other hand, was lucky if I was able to drive my wagon successfully to the bottom of the hill without killing myself.

In and of myself, I didn’t have much ability to do anything. I could play, I could hang out with my friends, I could ride my bike. But life things? I was pretty helpless. I couldn’t bring food to the table, pay the bills, or defend our home against an intruder.

Did I worry about these things? Not in a million years.

I didn’t worry about those things because my Dad could take care of it. I was confident in his abilities to take care of us, his family, so I could live my life as a child should. I was confident, not in what I could do, but in what my Dad could do.

Confidence in our own abilities can only lead to failure in our spiritual journeys. However, confidence in God, our Father, will lead us to victory.

He that knows not

A neat proverb I came across today:

 

"He that knows not, and knows not that he knows not is a fool.
Shun him

He that knows not, and knows that he knows not is a pupil.
Teach him.

He that knows, and knows not that he knows is asleep
Wake him.

He that knows, and knows that he knows is a teacher.
Follow him."

- Arabic proverb

 

What category do I fall into? Hopefully mostly the pupil. Sometimes maybe the teacher. But too often the fool. How can I remain more a pupil than a fool?

 

But this is JERICHO!

The Israelites must have really annoyed God. I mean, how many miracles needed to be done in order for them to finally stop complaining and worrying and just to trust and believe?

There was no chance that they would ever get out of Egypt. But God worked, and they were released. But then, Pharaoh changed his mind and now the Israelites were trapped between his army and the Red Sea! Jeepers, they all thought, why didn't we just stay put? At least we were alive in Egypt, better than dead in the desert!

Wait, what??? So, God performs all sorts of miracles that basically proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is in control, he gets them released from slavery, and just a few days later they have all forgotten and want to go back! But, God in his infinite patience and wisdom, parts the Red Sea, lets the Israelites cross on dry land, and then drowns Pharaoh's army. Wow! Ok, if you didn't believe before, you sure would now, right? Right?

Well, fast forward a few years, decades even. Now the Israelites are standing at the door to the Promise Land, Jericho. And what do they do? They whine and complain, we cannot defeat these people! We should've stayed in Egypt! At least we were alive in Egypt, better than dead in the desert!

Wow, these people were so thick headed! How on earth could they forget the countless miracles that God gave them? How could they forget the daily and nightly provisions God gave them for sustenance? How could they forget?

How on earth can we forget?

Are we really all that different from those Israelites? Are we really any different at all? You're broke and can't afford food, has God never provided for you before? Your child is in sick in the hospital, has God never taken care of you and yours before? Your vehicle has broken down again and you just do not have the time or money to get it fixed, so how on earth will you get to work? Has God never stepped in before?

Why do we forget? Type that phrase into your favorite search engine online and see what comes up. You get link after link of studies and research and ways to improve your memory. Better organization, more imagination, less this more that... But, regardless of this data, we still forget.

Anyone who has lost a loved one, or even a pet, can attest to the fact that once that person or pet is gone, you quickly start to forget the headaches and annoyances they had, but you hold fast to the good traits, the joy they brought, the happy experiences. Things never seem as bad as they really were.

Why does the brain do this? Well, I'm no scientist or surgeon, so I won't even attempt to give you a grand and well researched solution. However, in my limited 32 years of experience on this earth, I will say that something that is good will be remembered simply because we tend to "replay" that event more in our minds afterwards. Something that is bad, we will often try to stop thinking about it. Who wants to dwell on bad and negative events?

So what does all of this have to do with the Israelites? Well, every event they went through, and that we go through, seems insurmountable at the time. It is as if it is the biggest mountain we've seen yet. It is not necessarily the biggest mountain, but it seems that way. Why? Well, partly because we have forgotten how big the last struggle was, and really only recall the good times afterwards. The struggles we had quickly fade, and any new struggle that comes up seems so much bigger.

If God can free the Israelites from Egypt, is the Red Sea really that much harder? No. How about Jericho? God defeated Pharaoh's army, a world power. What is Jericho? But, when faced with the imminent danger that was Jericho, the people saw it as their biggest hurdle yet.

Just like the struggles you are facing now seem to you to be the biggest yet. Sure, God helped you through your own 'Red Sea' a few months or years ago, but this is different. This is worse. God was good then, but can he still be good today, in something much worse?

How annoying we are! Is it really that much worse? Even if it is, is God really that helpless that he can only help out in one situation, but not another because it is far worse? Are we really that faithless that we can even think of such a thing?

God is the same today, yesterday and forever. We say that, we hear it in church, but do we believe it? The same God that parted the Red Sea, the same God that freed the Israelites time and time again, the same God that brought down the walls of Jericho, that same God is watching over you and me right now. That same God knows of our situation.

Hebrews 11:6 says "...without faith, it is impossible to please God." (emphasis mine) Impossible. If we do not trust, if we cannot have faith in every circumstance, we have absolutely no hope of pleasing God.

The situation could be 100 Jericho's in our path. With faith, anything is possible. Stand firm and remember what God has done and believe in what God will do.