God Is at Our Elbow

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:5-6 (NIV) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

Often, when Christians hear the biblical phrase “The Lord is near,” they think apocalyptic warning as in: "Oh no, I better behave, Jesus might come back tonight!" That is the case in some passages, but it is not for the one above. If it were, then an eschatological air raid siren would be juxtaposed between some generally encouraging words. How strange that would be if that were the case.

The word translated into English as “near,” literally means “at your elbow.” It can be used as a time reference but can also be used as a spatial reference. Context is key to understanding which way to take it. In this case the verse following is determinant. The thought is clearly nearness, as in a companion being close, "beckonable," and so without the possibility of separation anxiety.

We are being told that God is with us, in fact beside us, literally, at our elbow. Now that is a comforting thought. One that has legs-- it can walk through our entire life with us. When you are in situations which are making you tense, uncertain, or worried, there is someone with you that you can count on. You can tell him about what troubles you and ask him for assistance.

Whether we're at school or in the workplace or even at home, God is never far away, He’s actually at our elbow. 

This article is abridged from a Baccalaureate Address preached at Kutztown Area High School on June 3, 2007. Thanks to Robert C. Owen, from whom I first heard this particular interpretation of the text, and later found viable through my own study.

Good Heathen Counsel

Why are we so willing to devalue the gifts of another? Is it insecurity, pride, the influence of the enemy? Personally, there are times I don't understand the gifts of another, and admittedly, I can be rather quick to pull out my ladder, go up into the tree and start fruit inspecting. Fruit inspection, testing, and mutual judgment are really the only biblical means we do have to deal with the subject, but do we have to do it with such virulence?

Everywhere in the blogosphere, on the radio, in books and magazines, self-appointed judges are holding self-proclaimed prophets' feet to the fire. It ain't pretty most of the time! Isn't there at least a vestige of respect due to someone who calls Jesus Lord? Even if someone is off doctrinally in what we consider a very dangerous way, we should always be mindful of how our response will affect the unlearned and weak.

When we throw ice water on the gifts of others with such gusto, the babes watching decide never to give anyone the opportunity to do that to them. It doesn't make them careful, it makes them timid and silent! If angels disputing over the body of Moses could be respectful of demons, shouldn't we be a little more cautious when disputing those who may well be brothers and sisters in the Lord?

My grandmother was a salty character, not a church lady at all, but I did learn some wisdom from her. In the midst of my adolescent rebellion, I happened to say something disparaging to someone in her presence. She took me to task for being disrespectful. I rejoined that nobody got my respect until they proved they deserved it. She cut my feet out from under me, correcting me with, "Everyone gets your respect until they've proved they don't deserve it!"

She was right, even though she was a heathen! I have tried to live by her advice in this matter ever since. And if we're not willing to follow scriptural instruction on the matter in the Church, I at least wish we had the grace to follow the good heathen counsel of my grandma!

The Ubiquity of Fossils and the Bible

Ubiquity speaks of the commonness of a thing—it’s everywhere. Fossils have that quality, from the peaks of the Himalayas to the valleys of the Appalachians. In fact, fossils are so prevalent in sedimentary rock that the fossils found in it are the metric used to date it.

According to classical, uniformitarian evolutionary scenarios, fossils formed by regular processes of death, deposition, compaction and mineralization. Water, winds, volcanoes, and landslides laid down sediments upon the bodies, tracks, even the excrement of animals, upon plants, and even upon microscopic lifeforms. Those in turn were covered by other sediments, and ultimately, the column of sediments became rock with mineralized fossils embedded.

When things die, especially animal life, there is not much opportunity to preserve it in the fossil record. If a dead thing is not buried completely and relatively quickly, thousands of creatures, microscopic and large, begin a feeding frenzy. What they don’t destroy the elements do. The corpse doesn’t have thousands of days let alone thousands of years to mark its existence for posterity.

It is apparent that fossils only form if the burial process that covered the once living is rapid, as in floods, landslides, volcanism, or sandstorms. Such is demonstrated by those fossils which are like action snapshots-- creatures caught giving birth, eating, even devouring another creature. Suddenly, they were covered by sediment, eventually becoming a freeze frame in the fossil record.

But these rapid mechanisms produce not only fossils, but also sharply delineated, localized fields of sedimentary rock. The fossil bearing sedimentary rocks, however, stretch square mile after square mile in vast fields across the entire planet. About 75% of the land surface of the earth is covered by them to an average depth of over 5400 feet. The scope of these layers is the basis for the geologic column and its ability to be applied to formations across the globe. 

Generally, sediments are laid out flat, kind a like a college student during holiday breaks. If you examine an outcropping in the Appalachians it may not appear that way, but the curvy strata there were caused by folding after sedimentation. In other places where sedimentary rock is present but not horizontal other geotectonic mechanisms can be forwarded to explain its tilt.

The rule is that sediments are laid horizontally: the physics of particles precipitating out of solution or suspension demand it. Even if the floor they are settling on is serpentine, sediments settle in the low spots to a greater degree than the high spots until things are more or less evened out. When sediment fields stretch square mile after square mile in relatively uniform strata, a single body of murky water over the entire sediment field must have been responsible.

How that occurred simultaneously with all manner of flora and fauna being rapidly covered by those precipitates presents some serious problems to the uniformitarian geologist, and most certainly to the evolutionist. It seems to me they don't actually have a plausible mechanism for the ubiquity of fossils.

There is, however, a biblical answer:

For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

Genesis 7:17-24 (NIV)

In my mind, it's a better answer.

The Holy Hunch

What does inspiration feel like? How do you know you're receiving it? Jesus described what he experienced as inspiration as seeing the Father act and hearing the Father speak. We may be at a loss to understand exactly what that meant, but we would have to say he was sensing something in real-time. So much for the teaching that experiencing spiritual "feelings" has no place in trying to be like Jesus.

The evangelists occasionally describe Jesus as being moved in the bowels (i.e. with compassion) just before he began miraculous ministrations. I know there is a scholarly assumption that sees that as nothing more than an idiomatic expression basically equated with "he felt their pain." I think there was more to it than that, I think Jesus was "feeling" inspiration. He certainly felt virtue go out from him when the woman with the issue of blood touched him.

Speaking of what would be our experience in the Holy Spirit after the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus said rivers of living water would flow out from our bellies. A metaphor, or more? How about a physical analog for a spiritual experience: the action of the Spirit causing sensible repercussions in our corporeal beings. I'm not saying every bit of indigestion is God speaking, but I am most certainly saying that God speaks to those that believe and that his voice reverberates in the soul of man.

There are those who would naysay this interpretation of things, but I ask, where are their greater works, their miracles, their anything that Jesus modeled, the Apostles emulated, and that the early church reproduced? Jesus never implied that the church following him, regardless of the passage of time, would do lesser works, see fewer miracles or have a more distant relationship with the Father than he did. In nothing less than unbelief, naysayers say those things passed away, yet charismatic folks daring to believe produce those things even today.

When one has faith and is open to the inspiration of God, the Holy Spirit, even today, flutters within the soul and stirs up a recognition that something supernatural is about to happen. Hardly ever does such an awareness come on the heels of bomb blast or lightning bolt, but somewhere in the consciousness of the willing the dove flutters and the believing experience a "holy hunch." In that moment, the believing and sensitive have the opportunity, if they will grasp it, to step into the supernatural and perform the miraculous. 

Faith or Feeling

It seems to me, if we're not going to trash a decent portion of the New Testament, we have to assume the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which inspired the first church is meant to inspire any church thereafter. The works that Christ did, and the Apostles did, and the church at Corinth did, we can do, and even greater works than they did. That is a promise from Christ, it was the experience of the church in scripture, and nothing but bad exegesis of I Corinthians 13 could make it an unexpected experience for the church today. 

But how does one experience such inspiration? Somehow that inspiration must be discernible to the person inspired or nothing inspired could happen. Since inspiration, generally, is not by fiat, something felt must trigger the action which is being inspired. It has to be felt, perceived in some way, or there would be no way to initiate the supernatural. 

That makes some folks nervous, especially those who have had it rammed into their heads that Christianity is a matter of faith and not feelings. On one level that is most certainly true: becoming a Christian is about buying into an historical record, accepting certain facts by faith. Walking as a Christian thereafter is a matter of trusting God's promises, not depending on feelings. Feelings don't impact facts, and yet, even accepting facts by faith requires the conviction of the Holy Spirit to be present and that is the very definition of inspiration!

Inspiration happens in the present rather than the past. The past can set a pattern to gauge present experience by, but inspiration itself is experienced in the now. One must feel something in the moment in order to move by and with it. Without such an impulse, Spirit-inspired manifestations would not have occurred in the past, and they definitely won't happen now. 

Where manifestations of the Spirit are not happening now, and where they ceased happening in history, they ceased not because God stopped inspiring them but because believers ceased paying attention to the inspiration that produces them. Inspiration is not a matter of will or decision (they operate quite easily enough without inspiration), but Spirit-initiated impulse does have to be acted upon by discerning, willing Christians or nothing happens.

So what kind of feelings are we talking about? Anyone involved with Pentecostalism or the Charismatic Movement for any amount of time can recount stories of folk doing bizarre, even the harmful things, because of a feeling. On the other hand, they would also be able to recount stories of people not doing what is clearly commanded in scripture because folk didn't "feel" led. Either of these extremes CANNOT represent the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

That still leaves plenty of room in between those extremes for the experience of legitimate inspiration from Holy Spirit. Such would have to fall within bounds (at least generally) of what is described in the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul's epistles. The Old Testament isn't germane, because the experience of the Holy Spirit is different in the New Testament than in the old. To dismiss out-of-hand the possibility of biblically described and promised experience is to harden in unbelief and miss out on the legitimate and miraculous.    

The Spirit of God inspires and the willing believer senses an awareness-- perhaps an urge, maybe a sudden certainty, even being provoked in spirit, but something. Something rather than nothing. The feeling should be validated (at least generally) by the scriptural precedent, but it's a false dichotomy to say that our experience as Christians is by faith or it's by feeling. The fact of the matter is: if one wants to live out the biblical promise, it's both.

Faith Is the Currency of Heaven

What if there was one medium of exchange that could get anyone everything needed and desired in life?

Money is fairly well established, but it can’t buy you love, and it can't come close to saving your eternal soul. The satisfaction of a job well done or a life well lived lasts for the fleeting moments that the memory is fresh. It might get someone a cup of coffee from a stranger, but that's about it. Promises from human beings don't fare well at all-- look at what the native Americans got from European Americans, or what Gen-Xers will get out of Social Security.

What about faith?

The Bible declares that God has given everyone a measure of faith, so it is widely available. Jesus said: “be it unto you according to your faith,” “if you have faith... nothing will be impossible to you,” “whatever you ask... you will receive if you have faith,” so it is effective. The Bible tells us that we are saved by grace through faith and that we await the hope of righteousness by faith, so faith is the ultimate answer!

Faith is a vector, directional, it inherently points toward something. For faith to work it must be directed at the right thing. Lots of folks have some type of faith in something, but is it capable of getting all that is needed or wanted? Can it save the soul? Faith in Jesus Christ can.

When one believes Jesus is at the right hand of all power and authority, that everything has been given to him by the heavenly Father, that all prayers prayed in his name are heard and answered, that he is capable of doing all things, that his work on the cross as verified by the resurrection is capable of making one eternally right with God…when one believes in Jesus Christ for who he is, for what he’s done, and in what he’s said, that one has the currency of heaven and the means to everything necessary and desirable under God.

But we are, pitifully, more often than not those of little faith! Thankfully, less than a mustard seed is a sufficient measure for most purposes. So what is your mustard seed growing? Is Jesus who he says he is to you? In your mind does he have the power he claims to have? Are His words reliable according to your value system? Does he have the goods, in your estimation, or not? 

These are the distilling questions that assay faith, and their answers are of utmost importance, because faith, and faith alone, is the only currency of heaven.

What's Your Story?

Never underestimate the power of your personal testimony.

I would say that our own heartfelt story of how Jesus changed our life is one of the most attractive lures in our evangelistic tackle box. I know that signs and wonders and conviction are absolutely essential too, but more fundamental to the fulfillment of our commission from Christ is our personal witness. Telling people from a first-hand perspective what Christ has done for us is the persuasive key that unlocks personal evangelism.

See this great story of the power of testimony. 

Now you may think that story is only stellar because it deals with a star. It would be hard to contend that it did not have something to do with the results, but let's not miss the point-- the proclamation of the life-changing power of the gospel by a life changed by the gospel has fantastic, alluring effects.

In just a few days, trout fishers will line every brook, trickle and drip around these parts. They won't wading through frigid water, mucking around slippery banks, and fighting their way through branch and bramble to waste their time fishing with empty hooks! They'll offer what they consider the best bait they have. Evangelizing Christians have some mighty fine bait in their personal testimony. So, why not get out there and tell your story and see if you aren't more successful in fishing for people?

A Test Any of Us Can Pass

Not long ago, I experienced an unexpected shock when I preached about God testing the faithful. It seems there were some in the audience who did not believe that God would ever test his children. The thought that He would led to a minor dust storm. To bring a clearing breeze, and to shine some biblical light on the subject, let me offer the following thoughts.

The biblical concept of God testing his children has nothing to do with entrapment. God does not tempt us to do evil, only to say "gotcha!" when we fail. The process of testing is actually one of love-- God searching for that which most delights Him. It is most akin to assaying or refining, or even panning for gold. When God tests us He is attempting to uncover and reveal the best that is in us, our delightful streaks.

God never sets out to prove our unworthiness; instead, he is highlighting what's good about us. Why would God do such a thing? It's not like he doesn't already know! Since he is omniscient and does know, our testing must be directed at some audience other than God. Who could that be? Angels, why yes, but also... us.

Our hearts are so contorted, we don't even understand ourselves. In moments when we honestly see ourselves (any of us not blinded by pride that is) we feel the painful awareness of our own multiplicitous failings. When God tests us he is allowing us to see something beyond that, something that he sees-- that in him we are becoming something more. Sanctified, and truly something wonderful to behold.

That God tests his children along these lines cannot be denied. It is attested to by scripture: Exodus 15:25; 16:4; 20:20 Deuteronomy 8:2,16; 13:3 Judges 2:22; 3:1,4 I Chronicles 29:17 Psalms 7:9; 11:5; 17:3; 26:2; 66:10 Proverbs 17:3 Isaiah 28:16 (even Christ was) Jeremiah 11:20; 12:3; 20:12 Daniel 12:10 Zechariah 13:9 I Thessalonians 2:4 Hebrews 11:17 James 1:2-4, 12 I Peter 1:6-7; 4:12 

So God absolutely tests his children, but don't let yourself get anxious about it, it's a test any of us can pass.

Why Leave A Church?

We live in a mobile society. Folks are shifting from one place to another constantly. I wouldn't think, given such a circumstance, that it would be unexpected that folk would be shifting churches in the shuffle. That's fine, it goes with the territory, but folk are also leaving churches they otherwise would not have to, and it raises the question: "Is OK to leave one's church?"

People leave their churches for all sorts of reasons and in all kinds of conditions. Some leave churches wandering out of a fog bewildered, some surf the edge of the blast wave after a big blow-up, some leave at the end of the left foot of fellowship, and some lose motivation or faith and fall off more than they depart. Some leave because they find another place more attractive, and some just want something new. Everyone that leaves has their reasons, I'm sure.

I doubt that many are legitimately motivated when they choose to leave a church, but I do think that leaving a church can be the right thing to do...

If that church doesn't uphold the Scripture as the infallible rule of faith and conduct;

If that church embraces universalism;

If that church becomes libertine or antinomian; 

If that church adopts legalism...

You get the point. There are practical and doctrinal issues that are so fundamental and non-negotiable, that if a line is crossed there, then we must cross ourselves off the roll. Even if this is the case, I don't think one should leave such a church without a fight. Not that one should seek to win an argument or engage in a turf war, but that one should contend for the faith and for the souls in that body. Don't let them wander off to hell without an effort to save their souls! However, if they won't hear, and won't stand on sound doctrine, then one must leave!

At times, a bone of contention arises between folk that, given the nature of the personalities involved, cannot be resolved. If continuing together in mission is impossible, separating unto mission is acceptable.  It is still unfortunate in the grand scheme, but as long as it is done on reasonable terms and doesn't result in an unending grudge it may be the preferable course of action. We can disagree without being disagreeable, even if it means one going one way and the other going another.

At times, folk are being appointed in the body according to the wishes of the Spirit of God, and leaving one congregation and going to another is precisely what God wants! It's easy to discern this if one is moved to a distant place; it's not so easy if this change takes place in the same town. Regardless, each of us is a gift to the body and we must understand that God gets to place us where he wishes. Actually, I wonder how much dissatisfaction people feel in church is actually just the dissonance in their souls caused by not discerning where God wants them.

There are acceptable, justifiable, and quite spiritual reasons to leave one church and go to another. 

And then there are reasons which are neither expedient nor justifiable.

It is not justifiable to leave a church for selfish reasons. Church is about Jesus being Lord, not about the churchgoer getting what he or she wants. Christians are not customers, the church is not a business and spiritual ministrations are not consumer goods. To treat this God-ordained endeavor as if any of these things were true is an insult to grace. And leaving a church for greener pastures is unacceptable for clergy or laity.

It is not expedient for those who have been appropriately corrected, or who have been properly spiritually directed, to leave a church rather than humbly submitting to that which has been rendered for their spiritual development. The flawed natural constitution of humans beings means that we grow as Christians only to our lowest level of incorrigibility. That cannot excuse a lack of obedience to the Word or to the brethren. Escaping correction or rejecting direction in one body doesn't give one a blank slate to start in another (regardless of whether one is clergy or laity).

There are occasions where the godly will be justified in leaving a church. At times it will be the absolutely right thing to do. Even if it is, it's never something left merely to our discretion or preference. Jesus is head over the body, so he gets to plant us where he wants. 

As for us, we need to stay where we're planted, grow and blossom.