The Need for Faith when Engaged in Spiritual Warfare

Posted on June 21, 2012 by russellmckinney

A boxer was getting absolutely pummeled in a title fight. His trainer knew how bad things were going, but he felt that it was his job to keep his fighter encouraged. So, when the boxer staggered back to the corner after yet another rough round, the trainer said, “You’re doing great out there, champ. Just keep bobbing and weaving. He can’t hit you. He’s not laid a glove on you all night.” The boxer sat on the stool and listened to the trainer’s praise, but it was obvious that he was confused by what he was hearing. Finally, when the bell rang for him to head back out into the ring, he looked at the trainer and said, “If what you’re telling me is true, then I want you to keep an eye on that referee this round because somebody out there is beating me to death!”

Christian, have you ever felt like that beleaguered boxer? I sure have. And who was it that was beating me to death? Ephesians 6:12 answers that question:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (N.K.J.V.)

There you have it, Christian. You are in the ring against none other than Satan and the other fallen angels. And, unfortunately, the greater the impact you make in serving Christ, the greater their blows to you will be. I realize this isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s the truth nonetheless.

That sixth chapter of Ephesians tells us that the Christian’s best line of defense against spiritual warfare is armor, the whole armor of God. This armor includes: truth (v.14), righteousness (v.14), the gospel (v.15), faith (v.16), salvation (v.17), and the word of God (v.17). Next, right on the heels of all that, comes a word about praying in the Spirit (v.18), being watchful (v.18), persevering (v.18), and making supplication for your fellow Christians (v.18). It all makes for good preaching.

However, I want to draw your attention to one very important but usually overlooked part of that passage. Verse 16 says:

above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked one. (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

Isn’t it interesting that faith is rated above all the other important things on the list of the armor? It is faith, Paul says, that allows the Christian to quench the “fiery darts” (many translations say “flaming arrows”) of the wicked one. And so, it is with this in mind that I ask you, Christian, how’s your faith these days?

The fact is, that simple question might very well determine how effectively the rest of your spiritual armor works. Do you have faith that God is greater than Satan and the other fallen angels? Do you have faith that He will enable you to overcome any roundhouse rights they throw at you? Do you have faith that He will never let the spiritual warfare that is swirling around become more than you can handle? And do you have faith that He won’t let Satan and his fallen angels defeat His purposes for your life? I hope you can answer, “Yes” to each of these questions because those flaming arrows will surely inflict serious damage upon you if you can’t block them with your shield.

Posted in Adversity, Angels, Demons, Discipleship, Doubt, Faith, Faithfulness, Fear, God's Omnipotence, Persecution, Perseverance, Problems, Satan, Spiritual Warfare, The Devil, Trusting In God | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Persistence

Posted on June 18, 2012 by russellmckinney

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. (Galatians 6:9, N.K.J.V.)

At 10:30 one night, a little girl called out from her bed, “Mommy, will you bring me a drink of water?” Her mother dutifully obliged. One hour later, the girl called out again, “Mommy, will you bring me a drink of water?” The mother obliged again, but this time she added in, “Now don’t ask me again tonight.”

Despite that warning, thirty minutes later the little girl called out again, “Mommy, will you bring me a drink of water?” The mother thought, “She must really need a drink because she wouldn’t ask needlessly after what I told her the last time.” So, the mother delivered another cup of water. But this time her warning was more serious and final: “If you bother me about this again tonight I’m going to spank you.” Fifteen minutes later, the little girl spoke up again. She said, “Mommy, when you get up to spank me, will you bring me a drink of water?”

Webster’s defines persistent as: “stubbornly continuing in one’s course in spite of opposing influences.” The World War II generation, the so-called “greatest generation,” knew a ton about being persistent, but I fear that with each generation since we’ve lost more and more of the concept. Maybe fast-food restaurants and microwaves ruined us. Instant gratification is what we’re into now.

The fact is, though, that some things in life will always call for persistence. I’m talking about things such as keeping a marriage together, holding down a job, raising a child, and paying off a mortgage. If you are going to accomplish these assignments, you’re going to have to (as Webster’s put it) stubbornly continue in your course of action in spite of opposing influences.

I write this as a word of encouragement to any reader who is just about to quit on something he or she shouldn’t be quitting. You say, “But you don’t know the problems that I am having!” No, I don’t, but those problems don’t necessarily mean that God wants you to you throw in the towel on what you are doing. Listen, old-fashioned stubbornness doesn’t have to be a bad thing. To the contrary, when you use it to stick to a God-approved task, it becomes a valuable resource to either keep you where God wants you to be or get you to where He wants you to go.

Posted in Adversity, Character, Choices, Commitment, Disappointment, Faithfulness, God's Will, God's Work, Impatience, Marriage, Parenting, Patience, Perseverance, Problems, Temptation, Trials, Work | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Did the Apostle Paul Miss God’s Will?

Posted on June 15, 2012 by russellmckinney

Did the apostle Paul miss the will of God in one of the most important decisions of his ministry? Such a question might seem ludicrous to those who rate Paul barely a notch below Jesus, but some sincere students of the Bible believe there is a case to be made that Paul got it wrong. See what you think.

The debated decision involves Paul’s last trip to Jerusalem, a trip in which he ended up arrested. Following the arrest, he languished in legal limbo for nothing short of two full years. Finally, he appealed his case directly to Caesar and was transported to Rome for trial. But even that voyage wasn’t without peril as his ship got caught in a terrible storm, foundered, and eventually ran aground on Malta (Acts chapter 27). If you think all that sounds like a nightmarish two years or so, you’re right. It gets even worse, though, when you learn that God had given Paul several warnings beforehand about what would happen to him if he made that trip to Jerusalem. Consider the following passages (all from the N.K.J.V.):

“And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me.” (Acts 20:22-23, emphasis mine)

When we had sighted Cyprus, we passed it on the left, sailed to Syria, and landed at Tyre; for there the ship was to unload her cargo. And finding disciples, we stayed there seven days. They told Paul through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem. (Acts 21:3-4, emphasis mine)

And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. When he had come to us, he took Paul’s belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'” Now when we heard these things, both we and those from that place pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem. (Acts 21:10-12, emphasis mine)

It isn’t hard to see how these passages might lend support to the idea that Paul missed God’s will in forging on ahead to Jerusalem. And it’s because of them that some prominent Bible-teachers have maintained that Paul missed it at this crossroad in his life. Let me name a few of those men and share what they had to say on this subject.

James Montgomery Boice, in his commentary Acts, wrote:

…though Paul was driven by high motives, what he did at this time of his life was wrong. Being wrong, it had unfortunate consequences for him and perhaps also for other people.

John R. Rice, in his Acts commentary entitled Filled With the Spirit, expressed the same view when he wrote:

Those warnings of impending imprisonment and persecution were given only because Paul ought not to have gone…..the warnings of God about Jerusalem meant that he should not go…..Thus he went on to imprisonment, two or three sad and relatively empty years before he got to Rome and before he could resume a large ministry.

Donald Grey Barnhouse, in his Acts commentary, came down even more harshly on Paul’s decision. He wrote:

By this time Paul was an opinionated, stubborn man and was determined to have his own way. It’s a great, yet sad, picture of what happens in the lives of far too many Christians…..Believe me, my friends, God sometimes has to deal sharply with those of His people who defy His will. So, with Paul. He was determined to do things his way, no matter what God wanted.

Similarly, Harry Ironside, in his Acts commentary, also left plenty of room for the possibility that Paul might have stepped outside God’s will in this matter. He said:

Did he make a mistake in doing so? Did Paul really disobey the voice of the Lord? It is hard for us to say. We may be sure of this, that if he did make a mistake, he made it from the best of motives. If he blundered here, he blundered out of an overpowering love for the Jewish people. I am afraid that some of us cannot say of our mistakes that they have always been motivated by love…..we are apt to think of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ as though they were men of a much higher caliber than ourselves, and therefore there is no possibility of our being used as they were. But we learn as we study the book of Acts that these same men were of like passions as ourselves. They had the same fallible judgment that we have. They could be misled as we are misled.

Lastly, Ray Stedman, in his Acts 21:1-26 message Paul’s Mistake, lays out quite a case that Paul should not have gone to Jerusalem at that time. Here are some selected quotes from Stedman’s message:

As I have studied this passage, and worked with it through the years, I have come to the very deep conviction that it was not necessary for Paul to have been a prisoner. I know that the Lord Jesus, when He first called Paul on the Damascus Road, said that he was to suffer great things — but not necessarily as a prisoner. Paul had already suffered many things by this time.

Many commentators have struggled with this passage. I suppose we are all reluctant to attribute any wrongful action to the Apostle Paul…And yet, taken at its face value, this sentence (Acts 21:4) indicates a command of the Holy Spirit which the apostle, for motives we shall examine, chose to ignore.

Others say that Paul was right and that it was the disciples who were wrong, that they should not have tried to stop him, because Paul was following an inner leading of the Spirit which they should have acknowledged. But that is to ignore three crucial words — it was “through the Spirit” that they told Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. We must face the full implications of these words. They were recorded by Luke, who was Paul’s friend. He wrote this account several years after these events, and with the advantage of hindsight, he looked back over the whole circumstance that followed. And yet, led by the Holy Spirit in recording this inspired book, he wrote down at this juncture that it was “through the Holy Spirit” that these disciples told Paul that he was not to go up to Jerusalem. The Greek is very strong here — much stronger than our English text. Literally they said, “Stop going up to Jerusalem!”

Okay, so, by now perhaps you are ready to pronounce the verdict “Guilty as charged” upon Paul’s decision. But don’t do that before you hear from some of the noteworthy Bible-teachers who have taught that Paul didn’t miss God’s will in this decision. For example, G. Campbell Morgan wrote in his commentary, The Acts of the Apostles:

My conviction is that Paul was right. His conviction was one resulting from the guidance of the Spirit of God.

Matthew Henry, in his legendary The Matthew Henry Commentary, offers this same opinion as he says of those disciples in Tyre:

It was not at all their fault to think so, but it was their mistake, for his trial would be for the glory of God and the furtherance of the gospel, and he knew it.

John Phillips, in his commentary Exploring Acts, points to the depth of Paul’s spiritual discernment as evidence that Paul made the right decision. Phillips writes:

He was a godly man, spiritually sensitive and guided by the Holy Spirit. It hardly seems possible that Paul’s decision to go to Jerusalem was a case of stubborn, deliberate, and willful defiance of the Holy Spirit. He must have had some inward permission from the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem, or he would not have gone.

Taking a different approach to reach the same conclusion, David Jeremiah, in his The Jeremiah Study Bible, points out the difference between a warning and a forbidding, He writes:

Paul took the words of the believers in Tyre as a warning through the Spirit of what would happen in Jerusalem. Less concerned about his physical well-being than he was with the will of God, Paul did not yield to the counsel of the Christians in Tyre because he knew what God was calling him to do.

W.A. Criswell, in his The Criswell Study Bible, also goes with this interpretation as he writes:

Paul was convinced that God’s Spirit wanted him to go to Jerusalem. Others who were equally led of the Spirit had prepared Paul by warning him that imprisonment was imminent if he persisted in his journey to the Holy City. Paul’s evaluation of the situation is that none of the threats concerning him. Life on earth is no longer a real concern except as it relates to the completion of his mission.

Continuing with the idea that a warning is not a forbidding, Chuck Smith, in his The Word for Today Bible, suggests that those who told Paul not to go to Jerusalem simply mistook a warning for a message. He writes:

There is a question as to whether the Holy Spirit was directly forbidding Paul to go to Jerusalem or whether the Holy Spirit was warning that Paul would be imprisoned and afflicted in Jerusalem. It is quite possible that the Spirit told the disciples at Tyre concerning Paul’s impending imprisonment, and they misinterpreted that warning as a message from the Holy Spirit that Paul should not go to Jerusalem.

Chuck Swindoll concurs with this assessment. In volume 3 of his study guides on Acts, as part of a chapter entitled Man’s Advice Versus God’s Advice, Swindoll offers his opinion regarding that Acts 21:4 verse. He writes:

More likely, the Spirit was merely predicting what would happen to Paul in Jerusalem, but the disciples were misinterpreting those predictions as prohibitions.

Warren Wiersbe can be found in this same camp too as he writes in his The Bible Exposition Commentary:

On the pro side, the prophetic utterances can be taken as warning (“Get ready!”) rather than as prohibitions (“You must not go!”).

And then finally, along these same lines, William MacDonald, in his Believer’s Bible Commentary, writes:

It seems far more probable that Paul interpreted the advice of his friends as calculated to save him from physical suffering or even death. In his love for his Jewish countrymen, he did not feel that his physical well-being was the important consideration.

And so what is the correct answer to the question: “Did Paul miss God’s will in making that fateful trip to Jerusalem?” Well, like the debate regarding Paul’s “thorn in the flesh,” this debate will no doubt continue among Christians until we all get to heaven. As for me, though, in my humble and possibly wrong opinion, Paul missed it.

Since I’ve built this post around various quotes from noted Bible-teachers, let me close with an extended quote from Oliver B. Greene. Frankly, of all the things I’ve ever read concerning this debate, these words make the most sense to me. Whether you agree or disagree with Greene’s assessment, please give a hearing to what he wrote. In volume 4 of his commentary set The Acts of the Apostles, he writes:

We cannot but admire the zeal of the Apostle Paul, the strong determination he had; but his disregard of the warning in this instance cost him two years of valuable opportunities. He was not in Jerusalem long before he was bound as prophesied.

Paul was touched by the concern and the entreaties of his fellow Christians. But his love for the Jews was so great that he answered, “I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” This man possessed courage seldom matched in others. He never turned back from his duty as an apostle – but as if often the case with men of that caliber, his unusual strength was his weakness. On more than one occasion the apostle’s love for souls was mistaken for guidance, and his zeal drove him into cities and places where God did not lead him to go.

God called him as minister to the Gentiles, and he was faithful to that ministry; but he could not hide the disappointment of his heart. He obeyed the call to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles, but it would appear that he sincerely believed he was the man to win the Jews to Christ. It was always his custom when he entered a city to go first to the synagogue to reason with the Jews, expounding the Word of God, preaching the Gospel of God’s marvelous grace. When we compare spiritual things with spiritual, we are faced with the question as to whether or not Paul was justified in doing this. His burning passion to see Israel saved led him into many hardships, much suffering, and persecution…..even though I still believe the Apostle Paul was God’s most dedicated servant, in this instance he disregarded the warning, refused to change his plans, and stubbornly held to his determination to go to Jerusalem.

Posted in Choices, Counsel, Decisions, Desires, Discernment, Discipleship, Disobedience, God's Will, God's Word, God's Work, Ministry, Obedience, Rebellion, Seeking Advice, Service, Sowing and Reaping, Temptation, The Holy Spirit | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

The Matter of Uriah the Hittite

Posted on June 11, 2012 by russellmckinney

One night a man got drunk and ended up in a bar fight during which he received several cuts and bruises to his face. When he got home, he stood in front of the bathroom mirror and tried his best to bandage his face, after which he quietly snuck into bed beside his sleeping wife. But when he opened his eyes the next morning, she was standing over him with a scowl on her face. She said, “You were drunk last night, weren’t you?” “No,” he answered. “Well then,” she said, “if you weren’t drunk, who stuck all those band-aids on the bathroom mirror?”

We try to cover up our sins because, let’s face it, we are ashamed of them. Some people seem to be experts in the art of the cover-up whereas others, like that drunk, aren’t so skilled and get exposed far more easily. These are the folks who end up in the news, in jail, fired, divorced, or the talk of the town.

I suppose the Bible’s best example of a man who tried to cover up his sins is King David. The infamous story is found in 2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12. David had an adulterous one-night-stand with the beautiful Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of David’s most loyal soldiers. Not long afterwards, Bathsheba got word to David that she was pregnant with his child. That put David in full cover-up mode. After he tried a couple of shrewd attempts to create the illusion that Bathsheba’s pregnancy was caused by Uriah, he ended up having Uriah killed. Of course, even that was made to look as if Uriah had legitimately died in battle. Following Bathsheba’s suitable time of mourning, David moved her into his home and made her his wife. Later on, she gave birth to his son.

Perhaps David thought that his cover-up had worked. Then again, his words in Psalm 32 and Psalm 51 might indicate that he didn’t. Either way, God had the final verdict on the sordid mess, and His verdict was a stern one. For one thing, the infant son died. For another, God spoke through the prophet Nathan to inform David that the sword would never depart from his house. That meant that death and tragedy would characterize David’s line for years to come.

Didn’t God forgive David of his sins once David confessed them? Yes. But forgiveness wasn’t the issue. The issue was that, despite the forgiveness, God didn’t erase the public stain of what David had done. Even long after David had passed away, the memory of what he had done to Uriah was associated with his otherwise great name. 1 Kings 15:5 says of him:

…David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. (N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if David’s life and service to the Lord hadn’t included that closing thought? With that said, though, let’s not judge David so severely. I say that because if every last cover-up was suddenly exposed today, how many of us would be scandalized by our own “matter of Uriah the Hittite”?

You say, “I’ve never committed adultery or had someone killed.” Okay, I’ll give you that, but chances are that you’ve done other sinful things for which you are quite ashamed. I’ve got such things on my resume, as do most people. So, let’s all step down off our holier-than-thou pedestal and start seriously dealing with these sins. Rather than try to cover them up, rationalize them, or explain them away, let’s sincerely confess them and repent of them. Who knows? Maybe no one but God will ever know about your Uriah. Then again, maybe it will one day become open scandal. Either way, confession and repentance is the only chance you’ll ever have at right fellowship with the Lord.

Posted in Adultery, Backsliding, Change, Character, Confession, Conscience, Conviction, Disobedience, Forgiveness, God's Chastening, God's Judgment, Guilt, Lying, Personal Holiness, Rebellion, Repentance, Sin | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Bread & Stone

Posted on June 8, 2012 by russellmckinney

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:7-9, N.K.J.V.)

One writer has said:

The Lord’s answers to our prayers are infinitely perfect, and eternity will show that often when we were asking for a stone that looked like bread, He was giving us bread that looked like stone.

I, for one, know what it’s like to ask for some version of “bread” in prayer only to have God send an answer that seemed to be some version of “stone.” At some point during Tonya’s pregnancy with our first child, Ryan, it dawned on me that someone was going to have to babysit the kid. At that time, Tonya was teaching middle school and her income was necessary for us to pay our bills. So, either she was going to have to quit her job and become a full-time mother, which would also have meant selling our house and downsizing, or some other arrangements would have to be made. But neither one of our mothers could help out because both were still working at the time, and we couldn’t afford to pay a babysitter, either.

And so, we put our house on the market for a reasonable price and I began praying that God would send us a buyer. I thought, “If we can sell and get this mortgage off us, Tonya can resign from teaching and we can buy a smaller house that we can afford on my pastor’s income. Even if we don’t buy a smaller house, maybe God will send me to a church that offers a parsonage as a part of their salary package.” Either solution made sense to me, and I devoted a ton of prayer requests to the situation.

However, as the months passed, it became increasingly obvious that God wasn’t going to let us sell our house. Despite the fact that we had plenty of people look at it, no one was serious enough to buy it. Then, on June 17th, Ryan was born.

Since school started back the first of August, we had a window of six weeks or so with Tonya at home with him. After that, the inevitable came to pass as the first day of school rolled around and Tonya headed off to her job. That left you-know-who to step up to the plate and babysit. I was available because we pastors, for whatever it’s worth, have the option of setting our own schedules.

Did I want to take a crash course in tending to the needs of a baby? No. Did I want to become a Mister Mom? Of course not. Was I a little ticked off at God for not letting us sell the house? Yep. You see, in my mind, I had asked for a piece of bread and God had sent a rock. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Ryan. I just thought Tonya would have made an infinitely superior babysitter for him.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I kept Ryan every day, from morning until afternoon, for all the years until he started kindergarten. Tonya took over on weekends and during the summers, but the rest of the time the responsibility was mine. My daily routine consisted of fixing his meals, bathing him, cleaning up his messes, making the beds, tidying up the house, and doing the laundry. If I had any spare time, or if Ryan took a nap, I worked on sermon preparation. Any pastoral visiting I needed to do had to wait until Tonya got home from school. Trust me, all that wasn’t how I would have chosen to carry out my life and ministry during those years. It was, however, the answer God sent.

And do you know what God did a few years later when Tonya became pregnant with our second child, Royce? He kept that exact same plan in place. So, right on schedule, I served as Royce’s babysitter until he started school, just as I had done for Ryan. I did get a slight reprieve with Royce because he attended preschool for a couple of years before he started kindergarten. Other than that, though, my years of keeping him looked a lot like a rerun of my years keeping Ryan.

Oh, and guess what happened along about the time Royce started school. That’s when a guy called me out of the clear blue and asked if we would be interested in selling our house. I answered, “Yes,” and a few weeks later the papers were signed. I remain convinced that if Tonya and I had had a third child, we wouldn’t have sold that house until I had babysat that child as well!

Well, all of that seems like another lifetime ago now. But you know what? I’ve actually reached a point where I miss my babysitting era. I think about the fact that back then I could still protect the boys from life’s heartbreaks. Surely, friends like Barney, Bear In The Big Blue House, and PB and J Otter meant them no harm. Also, there was such a sweetness to those days, an innocence that children get robbed off, little by little, as they grow up.

Sure, I understand that it’s all a part of the ebb and flow of life. I also understand God wants little boys to mature into fine young men who serve Him out in the real world. But don’t blame me for sometimes longing for those simpler years. The fact is, they allowed me to forge an intimate relationship with each of my two sons, a relationship that continues to grow deeper all the time.

I’ve heard more than one pastor bemoan the fact that he missed out on his kid’s childhood because he spent so much time doing church work. As for me, though, I’ve now accumulated enough wisdom to realize God was doing me a loving favor by seeing to it that such a thing didn’t happen to me. There I was, thinking all the time He was being mean by sending me stone, when in reality He was sending me some of the best bread I’ll ever know in this life.

Truth be told, it’s bread I wouldn’t mind tasting again if such a thing was possible. Unfortunately, the best I can do now is catch a whiff of its aroma by looking at pictures or watching old videotapes. That fleeting smell always brings a smile to my face and reminds me again just how wonderful that bread was, and it makes me question how in the world I could ever have classified it as stone.

Posted in Children, Complaining, Desires, Disappointment, Family, Fatherhood, God's Love, God's Omniscience, God's Will, God's Work, Husbands, Marriage, Ministry, Parenting, Pastors, Personal, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Priorities, Service, Trusting In God | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Don’t Let Yourself Be Stopped

Posted on June 5, 2012 by russellmckinney

A missionary society in South Africa wrote to David Livingstone, the legendary Scottish missionary who blazed trails in Africa for over thirty years. The letter read:

Have you found a good road to where you are? If not, we want to know how to send other men to join you.

The reply Livingstone sent back was classic Livingstone. It read:

I don’t know what you mean by asking about ‘other men’ joining me when none have come as yet. If you have men who will only come if they know there’s a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come even if there is no road.

The strongest man of God might be injured by Satanic opposition, as Job was. He might be wronged by others, as Paul was. He might become discouraged in the work, as Moses and Elijah did. He might temporarily succumb to sin, as Noah and David did. He might even lose his way for a while, as Peter did. But such a man will never be truly stopped. At some point, he’ll right himself and get back on with his purest ambition in life: serving his Lord. As I once heard a preacher say, “The test of a man is what it takes to stop him.”

Christian, perhaps you are reading this right now and you are currently experiencing some difficulty in serving the Lord. Maybe you are to blame for the difficulty, or maybe someone else is, but either way the result is that your service has been slowed down considerably. If this describes you, let me encourage you to start afresh and anew right where you are and get back to your purest ambition. If your sin is the problem, confess it and repent of it. If the action of another is the problem, seek God’s wisdom for how to deal with the situation. The point is, whatever it takes to get you moving forward again, do it! Keep in mind that God doesn’t have an abundance of workers to build His roads.

Posted in Adversity, Commitment, Confession, Courage, Depression, Disappointment, Encouragement, Faithfulness, God's Work, Leadership, Ministry, Missions, Pastors, Persecution, Perseverance, Priorities, Problems, Repentance, Service, Suffering, Trials | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Do Your Building with God

Posted on June 1, 2012 by russellmckinney

Psalm 127:1 is one of my favorite verses from the book of Psalms. The first part of that verse reads:

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it… (K.J.V.)

The Bible’s best illustration of these words is the story of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), from which I’ve got a sermon entitled “Building A Babel.” In the sermon, I talk about how impressive Nimrod’s (Genesis 10:8-10) city of Babel was, especially its tower, which was its centerpiece. How impressive was it all? It was impressive enough that no less an authority than God Himself said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them” (Genesis 11:6, N.K.J.V.). Think about that. God said, “If humans can work together in the necessary way to build this city and tower, they are now capable of doing anything they set themselves to do.” That’s quite a statement!

But what was the great problem with Babel and its tower? It was the fact that it was all built a million miles outside God’s will. You see, in that early post-flood era, God didn’t want people gathering themselves together into a centralized city. To the contrary, He had told Noah’s descendants to go out and, “…fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1, N.K.J.V.). Therefore, Nimrod getting a large group of people together and building a city was a direct disobeying of God’s command. Oh, and don’t think that the people didn’t understand perfectly what they were trying to accomplish. They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower…lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4, N.K.J.V., emphasis mine). Furthermore, they built the city to make a name for themselves, not for God (Genesis 11:4).

Of course, most of us know how the story ended. The whole endeavor was relegated to the scrap heap of history when God confused the peoples’ one language (Genesis 11:7-9). Yes, this was the beginning of different languages being spoken upon the earth. The language confusion forced the people to cease their building project long before they got it finished (Genesis 11:8). In other words, a whole lot of time, energy, and resources totaled up to a very unsatisfactory result.

So, how does Babel’s story speak to our lives today? It reminds us to do our “building” in God’s will. Whatever we are “building” (a career, a marriage, a home life, a social life, etc.), we should seek God’s direction and guidance and follow His instructions to the letter. Perhaps today you are plotting, planning, scheming, and scheduling something for which you haven’t consulted God. If that’s the case, you’d better watch out. You might just be building your own little Babel. And if you are, God won’t be any more pleased with it than He was Nimrod’s. For that matter, when it is all said and done and all the books are closed, my guess is that the end result of the building won’t be to your liking, either.

Posted in Choices, Decisions, Desires, Discernment, Disobedience, God's Will, Obedience, Priorities, Prosperity, Temptation, Trusting In God, Work | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Good Versus Best

Posted on May 30, 2012 by russellmckinney

It’s easy to understand that “bad” is the enemy of “good.” But have you ever considered that “good” is the enemy of “best”? Abraham thought of Ishmael as a good blessing, but God wouldn’t stop talking about Isaac as the best blessing (Genesis 17:15-22; 21:1-21). Moses felt that living in Midian, being a husband and father and tending to his father-in-law’s flocks, was a good life, but God gave him instructions for his best life, which meant returning to Egypt and leading the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage (Exodus chapters 2-14). Jude had a desire to do a good thing by writing a letter to his fellow Christians on the subject of salvation, but God knew that the best letter he could write at that time dealt with the subject of contending for the Christian faith (Jude v.3-4).

I once had the misfortune of needing to pull up a pump from the bottom of a well. The pump was attached to the end of a long, black, plastic line, and the only way to retrieve the pump was to take the cover lid off the well and start pulling up the line. My boss at the time, a man named Billy Pitman, graciously volunteered to help me with the job. He said, “As I pull up the line, you keep taking the excess line down through the yard to keep it out of my way.”

And so, Billy began to pull up line and I began to walk the excess line down through the yard. He pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled. As a matter of fact, he pulled up so much line that I started running out of room in the yard to put it! Finally, when he was near total exhaustion, he said to me, “You come pull a while.” I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t look forward to taking hold of that line and getting my dose of a job that had left Billy’s face blood red and sweat pouring off him.

It was my turn, however, and so I walked over to the well, got a firm grip on the line, and gave my first pull upward. No sooner had I done that than the pump came flying up out of the top of the well. I actually had to stagger backward to keep my balance when the resistance vanished so suddenly. What had happened? The answer was obvious. Billy, with all of his pulling, had brought that pump right up to the very top of that well. If he had given just one more pull, he would have earned the wonderful feeling that comes from the completion of a task. He had quit, though, just when he was on the precipice of success.

Bless his heart, I felt for him. But that didn’t stop me from bursting out laughing at the absurdity of the moment. After a second or two, even he had to laugh. It was all just too funny for him to get mad about it.

Now, could it be that I’m writing this to someone who is just about to settle for something “good” when God’s “best” is still available? Maybe you are like Billy, right at the brink of getting in on the best, but you are about to give up on the whole endeavor. Listen to me when I say, “DON’T QUIT PULLING!” If Abraham had settled for Ishmael, history would never have known the Jewish race. If Moses had settled for life in Midian, no one would remember his name, let alone revere him as the “giver of the law.” If Jude had settled for writing a nice, pleasant letter on salvation, his letter wouldn’t have been preserved as a part of God’s inspired word. You see, “good” is always the enemy of “best,” and you don’t want to make the mistake of giving up too soon. I’m not trying to sound hopelessly optimistic or naive, but the truth is that God’s “best” for you might be just one more pull from happening.

Posted in Adversity, Choices, Commitment, Encouragement, God's Timing, God's Will, Impatience, Patience, Perseverance, Problems, Temptation, Trials, Waiting | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

“The Ball’s in Your Court, God”

Posted on May 24, 2012 by russellmckinney

Anyone familiar with tennis, ping-pong, or volleyball understands the words, “The ball’s in your court.” If I speak these words to my playing partner, it means that the match cannot continue until he hits the ball back to me. Thus, the line has become an idiom for, “The next move is yours.”

There have been times in my walk with the Lord when I’ve gone as far as I could go on my end. At that point, the ball was in God’s court. If the situation was going to progress any further, He would have to hit the ball back to me. In one sense, it’s comforting to get to such a place. It’s comforting because the pressure and responsibility is off you for the moment. In another sense, however, such a place is frustrating. It’s frustrating because you can grow impatient waiting for God to hit the ball back to you. Honestly, there have been times in my life when I felt like God had stopped playing the point altogether, walked over to the sidelines, toweled Himself off, and was enjoying a cool drink while I stood out on the hot court waiting for Him to return the ball to me.

As we study the Bible, we find numerous examples of this post’s topic. Noah could obey God’s instructions to the letter by building that ark, but he couldn’t make it rain (Genesis chapters 6 and 7). The rain was a ball in God’s court. Moses could obediently return to Egypt and confront Pharaoh about freeing the people of Israel, but he couldn’t create the ten plagues that would eventually break Pharaoh’s will (Exodus chapters 3-12). Each one of those was a ball in God’s court. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego could refuse to bow down before Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image and allow themselves to be thrown into the fiery furnace, but they couldn’t keep themselves safe in that fire (Daniel chapter 3). That was a ball in God’s court. Peter could remain faithful to the cause of Christ and allow himself to be thrown into prison by Herod, but he couldn’t cause his miraculous release from that prison (Acts 12:1-19). That was a ball in God’s court.

Perhaps you are reading this right now and you’ve done all that God has told you to do about a certain situation, but things seem to be at an utter standstill. That’s okay. It just means that the ball is now in God’s court and He is taking His time with the return. Trust me, you’ll know when He has hit the ball back to you, after which the next move will be yours. That might be today. It might be next week. It might be next year. But whenever it happens, you’ll know it.

Oh, and by the way, I should also mention that God never hits a “winner” that you can’t return. His goal with you is to always keep the point going, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You see, He absolutely loves playing with you, and He doesn’t want the game to ever end.

Posted in Adversity, Discipleship, Faith, God's Love, God's Timing, God's Will, Impatience, Obedience, Patience, Perseverance, Personal, Problems, Trials, Trusting In God, Waiting, Worry | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The Right Tool for the Job

Posted on May 21, 2012 by russellmckinney

For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them… (Romans 12:4-6, N.K.J.V.)

One night a few years back, three different storms brought booming thunder, streaks of lightning, and a deluge of rain to our little town. It was the rain that created the biggest problem for me as a rushing current dumped a lump of old leaves and pine needles onto the top of a drain cover at the bottom of our outside basement steps, right in front of the basement door. It didn’t take long for that clogged cover to create a dam that caused the water to mount up in front of that door and begin to seep into the basement rather than exit the premises by way of that drain.

Thankfully, I was still up at the time and had the good sense to check the basement in the midst of all that rain. That allowed me to fix the problem before the entire basement ended up flooded with water. Of course, I must have been quite a site out there at 12:30 a.m., in the midst of a downpour, trying to clear that drain cover. At least the lighting strikes every five seconds allowed me to see what I was doing!

Well, the next morning was cleanup time, which meant that I needed one of those wet/dry vacs to get the water out of the basement. I called my brother Richie, who had one, but he had already left his house to go to work. He offered to make the trip back home to get the vacuum, but by then I had another plan in mind.

As it just so happened that morning, one of my church members, a fellow named Chris, was doing some renovation work around our house, and he had a small wet/dry vac with him. I figured his vacuum would be big enough to handle the job since there didn’t seem to be that much water in my basement. I soon found out, however, that I was mistaken.

For one thing, there was more water in that basement than I realized. For another, that little vacuum had to be emptied about every thirty seconds. I was wearing myself out walking to and fro emptying that thing, and I hadn’t even gotten to the deepest part of the basement’s water yet. Clearly, it was time for a better plan. So, I got into my car, drove out to our local Sears, and bit the bullet to buy a shiny new sixteen-gallon wet/dry vac. Now I had the right tool.

Once I got the new vacuum back home, the battle with the basement water didn’t last long. Whereas I had been making numerous trips to empty that small vacuum, the sixteen-gallon one kept pulling up water and storing it until the basement was dry. As I was emptying the vacuum for the one time afterwards, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “There’s just no substitute for the RIGHT tool.”

Have you ever used a shoe to drive a nail in a wall? Have you ever used a knife to turn a screw? Have you ever used a pair of scissors to prune a bush? Speaking from experience, I can tell you that using the wrong tool might be one way to get a job done but it will never be the best way. For example, if I had kept working with that small vacuum, I could have eventually gotten that basement dry but it would have taken me half the day!

As I consider all this, I honestly feel for the Lord as He tries to get His work done in this world. What do you do when a nail needs driving but your hammer won’t report for duty? You use a shoe who will report for duty. What do you do when a screw needs turning but your screwdriver is a.w.o.l.? You use a knife who is present and willing to work. What do you do when a bush needs trimming but your pruning shears are off doing their own thing? You use a pair of scissors who will do whatever you ask them. Such is God’s plight. He has to make do with what He has available to Him, and so many times that just isn’t the best tool for the job.

Please understand that I am in no way criticizing anybody who is out there doing any work for the Lord. Much to the contrary, I praise each one for his or her willingness. As the old saying goes, God is more interested in your availability than your ability. I’m merely pointing out that God’s work gets done so much more efficiently and proficiently when the exact tool for a job is yielded to Him and willing to do it.

You see, small wet/dry vacs can do certain jobs far better than large, cumbersome ones, but drying up a fair amount of water from a basement isn’t such a job. And so it is with God’s work. That’s why He needs all different kinds of tools at His disposal. Oh, and by the way, that includes the tool that you are. So the question is, are you letting Him use you to do the jobs for which you are specifically designed or is He having to use the wrong tools to do those jobs because you refuse to report for work?

Posted in Faithfulness, God's Will, Individuality, Ministry, Obedience, Personal, Service, Spiritual Gifts, Talents | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment