Will Jesus do many miracles among us?

A few years back I met a missionary from Africa who was here in Tennessee sharing the gospel with Americans.  I was fascinated (and convicted) as he shared the heart he and his church back home has for the lost here in my own backyard.  One thing he said to me I’ll never forget:

In Africa, we witness miracles all the time because we depend on them.  Without God meeting our daily needs, we would die.   The reason you see so few miracles here in America is because you’ve learned to depend on technology and modern medicine to meet your needs.   God is not so necessary.

I don’t know about you, but I want to live a life where God is absolutely necessary, where I am increasingly dependent upon him to meet all my needs.   This is true of me less than I care to admit.

March Madness is right around the corner and you’ll no doubt hear many players and coaches reciting a line I remember hearing often during my brief time playing ball in high school:

Leave it all on the court.

After this game, don’t be the one who looks back with regret that you didn’t give it your all.   I wonder at times whether I will one day look back on my life and be satisfied that I left all behind for the sake of Christ, who left all to give me life.   I wonder if I will one day know all that could have been accomplished by God’s power working through me had I believed the impossible.

Or will it be said of me that Jesus could not do many miracles with Chad because of his unbelief (Matt. 13:58)?   I’m sure he’s done and will do some.  But many?   How much is many?

When I moved into Church of God country I witnessed for the first time in my life the gift of tongues and interpretation in full display.  Growing up a Nazarene I had never seen this gift.  I didn’t believe it was still in operation.  But churches in Cleveland, Tennessee proved otherwise.  Why is the gift of tongues a dominant gift in the Church of God but rarely if ever heard in the Church of the Nazarene?  Maybe because people growing up in the CoG have faith that this is a gift for them.

Why do so many preacher’s kids grow up to become pastors themselves?  Maybe because they saw their imperfect parent rising to the call and had faith that maybe they could, too?

Maybe miracles happen where people come to expect and believe that they will.

This may seem like I’m stating the obvious, but what we believe about ourselves comes to pass.   If you and I believe we can do something, than we will, or at the very least, we will die trying.   And if you and I believe we can’t do something, we won’t, nor will we try.

When I was floundering in my sexual addiction there were numerous things I believed wrongly, but two are pertinent to this post:

1. What I’m experiencing isn’t sin, but addiction.
2.  I’ll always be an addict

The turning point for me in my life was when I came to my senses and saw how my behavior was not due to me being an addict but due to me being a sinner.   I was a slave to sin.

The distinction is an important one, I believe.    My experience has been such that when I saw myself primarily as an addict, I did so to my detriment.   My identity as an addict put a veil between myself and a miracle working God, causing me to place my trust in a program to provide at best a daily reprieve from my addictive behavior.

But when I saw myself as a sinner, a person who has become addicted to sinning in a particular way, there was a seismic shift in my spirit.   Naming my condition rightly opened up the door for the Holy Spirit to minister to that condition.  It tore the veil separating myself from God and helped me to see that there is indeed a remedy for sin – the blood of Christ – and that in his grace and mercy he has provided wonderful tools (such as the steps, a group of brothers, a sponsor, and most importantly, his Word) to enable me to walk in the Spirit rather than the flesh, one day at a time.

There is so much brokenness in our world today.  So much that is outside of God’s intended design for us.  I see it in my own heart.  I see it in my family. I see it in our churches.   And the world cannot be healed or saved when the church is sick.  I believe God is aching to heal us of our brokenness, that this has always been the case, yet we are so often unaware or unwilling.   Jesus is calling out to us still, like a mother hen, longing to bring us under his wings.  But so often we reject the message, and the messenger (Luke 13:34).

Whether the issue be pornography, divorce, homosexuality, greed, lust, anger, racism, etc., it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the church and the world.   And this is to be expected.  For when the body of Christ ceases to name these things (and more) as sin, it ceases to avail herself to the One who died to destroy the work of sin (1 John 3:8).    We see so little victory over these sins because we do not believe victory is possible. 

It is imperative that we get our thinking – our hearts – right and aligned with the Spirit of Truth if we are to experience the joy and freedom Christ purchased for us with his blood.   It is imperative we do this for the sake of our mission to the world which has not seen, nor has it heard, nor has it entered into their hearts what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor. 2:9).

May it be said of all of us one day that we left it all on the court, and within our midst, Jesus did many miracles.

I’m not hurting anyone (One of the lies we believe)

My friend James-Michael Smith has written a well-argued rebuttal to a post by a retired Methodist pastor that went viral through UMC social media.  In that post, Rev. McCormick argues that we need to be careful when using the Bible as a source for morality.   Below you’ll find the links to the article, and JM-Smith’s excellent response, and I encourage readers here to check it out.

One of the things you’ll find in this article, and what I find most instructive for myself (and, I presume, for most of my readers here), is an argument used by Rev. McCormick that what is moral or immoral is determined by the extent to which something is helpful or harmful to myself or others.

Isn’t this the lie every one of us who have been addicted to something have believed?

Whatever your drug of choice is, I am sure you, like me, have used the line, “I’m not hurting anyone!”   So deluded we become that we are convinced that we are not even hurting ourselves.  In fact, just the opposite:  We need our drug of choice.   We can’t live without it.   Those who are trying to take it from us are the ones harming us.   We are convinced that without this, we will be left with nothing to fill the void.

This is the sinister, conniving, baffling and powerful pull of sin.  We are led astray not by something that is ugly and obviously harmful, but by our own desires (James 1:14).   What seems right and good to us – that which we desire – is the bait Satan uses to cloud our judgment and eventually enslave us to something contrary to God’s will for our lives.

Who are we to judge what is helpful or harmful?  Jeremiah would remind us again today that our hearts are ever deceiving us (Jer. 17:9).

Francis Chan, when asked about his thoughts on homosexuality when ministering in San Francisco, points us to something else that I find helpful no matter your struggle, and I’ll paraphrase it here (watch the YouTube link though):  The Christian walk is not about being moral (however you want to define it) but about surrender to and obedience to our Creator.   If this God asked us to stand on our head, would we do it?  If this God asked us to not marry, would we do it?  If this God asked us not to eat a fruit that looked delicious, would we do it?

My desires – my heart – is fickle.  We are surrounded by a culture, a world drenched in sin, which does a fantastic job of making anything seem OK so long as we aren’t hurting anyone.   The world will tell me, and my fickle heart is easily persuaded, that my desires are good and deserve affirmation.  This is the morality of the world.   But that is not the standard of our holy God.

The way out of habitual sin – addictive behavior – begins with acknowledging that I am the creature, not the Creator, and my way of doing life may seem right to me, but is one that leads to death (Prov. 14:12).

Check out JM’s blog HERE

Or his Facebook Note HERE.

The missing element in our gospel

Yesterday I wrote about the virus infecting the UMC (which is actually in every church, and every person).   Addressing pride will go a long way in healing our churches and ourselves, but there is something essential about the gospel that I think we’ve collectively forgotten, or at least diluted.

When I was in the pit of my addiction and everything around me was unraveling, a trusted friend and mentor asked me over dinner,

Chad, do you believe in the power of the Gospel?

I responded by saying I do. After all, shouldn’t pastors and seminary students, of which I was both at the time, believe that?  But today, years later, I realize I didn’t know what I was really saying. I didn’t understand the power behind the question nor what would be required of me to access such power.

I am still very much a work in progress, but here I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned about that power and how it’s made available in your life and mine.   My prayer is that it will help you, as it’s helped me, to live free from whatever is holding you hostage or restore the joy of your salvation.

If when you hear the phrase “the power of the Gospel” you think of Easter, you are thinking about it the way I did when initially asked that question.  If you think first and foremost about resurrection, new life, freedom from addictions and failed relationships, healing, redemption, an eternal home in heaven, or anything of the sort, you are not alone, but you are believing in only a partial gospel.

It’s easy to do.  Who wouldn’t want all of those things? And when you are in the pit, you certainly want out.  The problem with it though is that this partial – yet hopeful – gospel obscures the real power behind the gospel.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church which was plagued with living a defeated Christian existence (sexual sin, relationship issues, church division, etc), he reminds them where the true power of the gospel rests:

“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).

Did you hear that?  Or better yet, did you hear what Paul doesn’t say?  None of the things I thought was the power of the gospel back in the day.  Paul says the power of the gospel is not in resurrection, but in crucifixion.  It’s not an empty tomb, but a blood-stained cross.  Not Easter, but Good Friday.

A partial gospel – one that emphasizes Easter over the Cross – can be used by the enemy to rob you of ever knowing the power of the full Gospel, thus keeping you in perpetual disappointment and defeat as you seek a resurrected life without crucifying the present one.

This was the predominant truth I was missing in my life.  I did not know or understand (it was foolishness to me) the power behind the blood of Jesus Christ and the reason why the Cross must take center stage in my life – even more than an empty tomb.   For when the cross gets diluted in my thinking and in my life, the tomb of my life gets repopulated and polluted.

Paul stresses this just a bit further on in his letter when he writes that he desired to know nothing among the Corinthian church “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).   It was the cross that dominated Paul’s thinking, not Easter.

Because Paul put Good Friday first, he lived an Easter life.   The paradox of putting the cross at the center of our lives is that it leads to a reality only God can produce in us: resurrection.

Tragically, far too many of us want the new life without dying to the old one.  We love the promise of resurrection and cringe at the prospect of crucifixion.  Can’t we just be bandaged up a bit and go on with our lives as we have come to know them minus these “bad behaviors”?

Not if you want to experience the power of the Gospel.   For the power of the Gospel knows nothing of making men and women better people and only of making men and women new.    God’s program of redemption, then, requires we go the same way of Jesus, which knows resurrection only as hoped-for promise of a life crucified to God.   It requires that everything we know dies.

Death to our dreams and hopes for how our lives should be. Death to our past, our present, and our future.  Death to our desires and preferences.  Death to our plans for how we intend to recover ourselves or others.  Death to our rights.  Death to our pride and place and prestige.  Death to our intentions for where we want to live, what we want to do, what we desire to be, and how we can carve out a “life” for ourselves.

Every time I experience a rift in my spirit, or sense a shift in my relationship with God or others, or feel as though the future is scary or the present suffocating, I can usually identify something of my crucified self that is rearing it’s defeated, yet greedy, head.   There is something within my flesh that I must hand-deliver to the Cross of Jesus Christ and crucify once more so that I might be able to experience the life of the Spirit in which I, and I imagine you, desire to walk.

The paradox in all of this, and perhaps the reason why Paul called this fixation on the Cross “foolishness to the perishing,” is that every time I do this I find God a more-than-ready and trustworthy steward of my crucified self and where my sin abounds, His grace abounds even more.   When I live to know nothing except Jesus Christ crucified I receive a life that is not my own, but Christ in me, who is new and alive and full of Easter promise and power.

The thing I thought was missing from the recent United Methodist General Conference, and I would contend in most American churches today, is a proclamation of this cross-bearing life which always precedes the resurrection life.   Jesus did not go to the cross to affirm our natural state but to inaugurate our supernatural one.

If you have been missing out on the fullness of the power of the Gospel my advice to you would be to prayerfully ask God to give you a heart willing to take everything to the cross.   Pray this every day until it becomes a reality in you.   Then, and only then, after you have been to the cross, will you experience the gracious gift of Easter and the power of the Gospel which makes men and women new.

There is a virus in our #UMC church

In 2008 I was a seminarian and student pastor serving a rural United Methodist Church.  I began a blog around that time with the intent of taking the theological discoveries I made at Duke Divinity School out for a test drive with the public.   I discovered quickly that the more radical my ideas, the more provocative posts, the more hits my blog received.  What began as a hobby devolved into my primary pulpit, and pixelated “amens” took precedence over the parishioners in the pews.

The topics that got me the most views were homosexuality and hell.   I was one of just a handful of vocal allies in the UMC at that time, urging the denomination I expected to ordain me, and the “bigots” around me, to change.   I remember being cautioned by well-meaning church leaders that my blog posts could negatively impact my future as a UMC pastor, particularly in the south where I served.   I blew off such counsel, convinced my cause was just and that I was right.   Imagine it!  Me, a second year seminarian still so green behind the pulpit being utterly convinced I knew better than all the witnesses to a faithful sexual ethic and theology of the body who have gone before me.

They say we stand on the shoulders of the saints who have gone before us.  The weight of my pride would have crushed and silenced them.

The recent special General Conference of the UMC where the church voted to retain it’s position regarding same sex relationships has caused me to marvel at how much has changed in just a decade in American Methodism.   Ten years ago a United Methodist pastor could lose their job or at least jeopardize their future (as a candidate or member in full connection) for being a vocal ally supporting full inclusion.   Today, any trepidation people may have once had is gone.  Today in America, those holding to a traditional, orthodox view on sexuality and gender are more likely to be called bigots, close-minded, unwelcoming viruses infecting the church, distorting and thwarting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.   Today in America, I find myself again to be in the minority, just as I was only a decade ago.

The testimony I wish to share today to the Church, if I may be so bold, is that what I see happening, and what I saw happen at #GC2019, is that indeed there is a virus infecting our Church, but it’s not that which was proposed at the General Conference.

This virus’s name is not Orthodoxy, but Pride.   And perhaps those of us who have been so infected and destroyed by this virus have been given eyes, by God’s mercy and grace, to see it.

My concern for the progressive wing of the church, of which I was once a rabid advocate, has less to do with the position you hold but the arrogance with which you hold it.   The Church’s theological arrogance on the issue of homosexuality seems to be a mirror image of the World’s sexual arrogance insisting on complete autonomy.   It is virtually impossible to distinguish today’s cultural sexual ethic from the sexual ethic of the Church, insofar as you don’t abuse anyone.   So long as you “do no harm” all is well in both church and culture.

Sneers are to be expected when preaching to the lost that God owns our bodies, that our fleshly desires and impulses are not “good” just because we have them, but must be surrendered to a holy God who desires to make us born again in the Spirit.   The spirit of this world causes most to recoil at such a “traditional” notion.   But this same spirit has infected our Church and Christians now mimic the world, insisting that God affirms their sexual identity.  Anyone who does not is unloving and unlike Christ.

Our collective hubris has ascended the peak of Babel.   Is it any wonder that we are now a scattered people, each with a different language for love?

Pride is the virus most infecting our churches today.  The way I understand God to deal with pride (which he hates more than our sexual sin, by the way) is by blowing up the status quo, destroying our ivory theological towers, and scattering us far and wide.   But as I also understand God, his judgment is meant to wake us, and if those of us called by His name would but humble ourselves, and pray and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, then He will hear from heaven and will forgive our sin and heal our land (2 Chron.. 7:14).

 

The Sin of Self-Gratification: Taking on the “M” Word (Part I)

“I’m not hurting anyone.” I have offered this as justification for my own sexual sin, and have heard it repeatedly these last few days at the United Methodist General Conference.

I felt God nudging me to share something I wrote several years ago after finding victory over another “harmless” sin, masturbation, the most private and culturally acceptable sin. The truths found here are easily forgotten or ignored but are essential, I think, for any ongoing debate or conversation around sexuality.  This is in large part because we have forgotten that our bodies are not our own to do with as we please.   Coming to a shared understanding of this is crucial before building something new as a church.

Please read and share: “The Sin of Self Gratification.”

via The Sin of Self-Gratification: Taking on the “M” Word (Part I)

Getting the power behind the power of the Gospel

When I was in the pit of my addiction and everything around me was unraveling, a trusted friend and mentor asked me over dinner,

Chad, do you believe in the power of the Gospel?

I responded by saying I do. After all, shouldn’t pastors and seminary students, of which I was both at the time, believe that?  But today, four years later, I realize I didn’t know what I was really saying. I didn’t understand the power behind the question nor what would be required of me to access such power.

I am still very much a work in progress, but here I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned about that power and how it’s made available in your life and mine.   My prayer is that it will help you, as it’s helped me, to live free from whatever is holding you hostage or restore the joy of your salvation.

If when you hear the phrase “the power of the Gospel” you think of Easter, you are thinking about it the way I did four years ago.  If you think first and foremost about resurrection, new life, freedom from addictions and failed relationships, healing, redemption, an eternal home in heaven, or anything of the sort, you are believing in only a partial gospel.

It’s easy to do.  Who wouldn’t want all of those things? And when you are in the pit, you certainly want out.  The problem with it though is that this partial – yet hopeful – gospel obscures the real power behind the gospel.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church which was plagued with living a defeated Christian existence (sexual sin, relationship issues, church division, etc), he reminds them where the true power of the gospel rests:

“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).

Did you hear that?  Or better yet, did you hear what Paul doesn’t say?  None of the things I thought was the power of the gospel back in the day.  Paul says the power of the gospel is not in resurrection, but in crucifixion.  It’s not an empty tomb, but a blood-stained cross.  Not Easter, but Good Friday.

A partial gospel – one that emphasizes Easter over the Cross – can be used by the enemy to rob you of ever knowing the power of the full Gospel, thus keeping you in perpetual disappointment and defeat as you seek a resurrected life without crucifying the present one.

This was the predominant truth I was missing in my life.  I did not know or understand (it was foolishness to me) the power behind the blood of Jesus Christ and the reason why the Cross must take center stage in my life – even more than an empty tomb.   For when the cross gets diluted in my thinking and in my life, the tomb of my life gets repopulated and polluted.

Paul stresses this just a bit further on in his letter when he writes that he desired to know nothing among the Corinthian church “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).   It was the cross that dominated Paul’s thinking, not Easter.

Because Paul put Good Friday first, he lived an Easter life.   The paradox of putting the cross at the center of our lives is that it leads to a reality only God can produce in us: resurrection.

Tragically, far too many of us want the new life without dying to the old one.  We love the promise of resurrection and cringe at the prospect of crucifixion.  Can’t we just be bandaged up a bit and go on with our lives as we have come to know them minus these “bad behaviors”?

Not if you want to experience the power of the Gospel.   For the power of the Gospel knows nothing of making men and women better people and only of making men and women new.    God’s program of redemption, then, requires we go the same way of Jesus, which knows resurrection only as hoped-for promise of a life crucified to God.   It requires that everything we know dies.

Death to our dreams and hopes for how our lives should be. Death to our past, our present, and our future.  Death to our desires and preferences.  Death to our plans for how we intend to recover ourselves or others.  Death to our rights.  Death to our pride and place and prestige.  Death to our intentions for where we want to live, what we want to do, what we desire to be, and how we can carve out a “life” for ourselves.

Every time I experience a rift in my spirit, or sense a shift in my relationship with God or others, or feel as though the future is scary or the present suffocating, I can usually identify something of my crucified self that is rearing it’s defeated, yet greedy, head.   There is something within my flesh that I must hand-deliver to the Cross of Jesus Christ and crucify once more so that I might be able to experience the life of the Spirit in which I, and I imagine you, desire to walk.

The paradox in all of this, and perhaps the reason why Paul called this fixation on the Cross “foolishness to the perishing,” is that every time I do this I find God a more-than-ready and trustworthy steward of my crucified self and where my sin abounds, His grace abounds even more.   When I live to know nothing except Jesus Christ crucified I receive a life that is not my own, but Christ in me, who is new and alive and full of Easter promise and power.

If you have been missing out on the fullness of the power of the Gospel my advice to you would be to prayerfully ask God to give you a heart willing to take everything to the cross.   Pray this every day until it becomes a reality in you.   Then, and only then, after you have been to the cross, will you experience the gracious gift of Easter and the power of the Gospel which makes men and women new.

5 Ways to Battle Your Most Deadly Enemy

Uzziah was only 16 when he took the throne as king over Judah.  In the beginning, this young ruler “continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah and as long as he sought the Lord, God prospered him” (2 Chronicles 26:5).    As God blessed him, Uzziah’s fame increased throughout the land.  And then this happened.

But when he [King Uzziah] became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense (2 Chron. 26:16)

A few verses later we are told the fate of Uzziah.  His pride prevented him from heeding the correction of the priests and rather than humble himself he grew angry with them.   The Lord struck him with leprosy, and this once obedient, God-fearing king who could do no wrong died a leper, “excluded from the house of the Lord.”

Pride is not just ugly, it’s deadly.  It’s no wonder God hates it so much, and it’s no wonder all of Scripture seems to shout in various ways and means “Stay Humble!”

The number one reason people relapse back into their old sinful habits and addictions is because they fall prey to the lie that they are doing great.   They may in fact be “doing great,” at least in the eyes of the casual observer, but the moment they see themselves as well and in control, look out.   A fall is coming.

After reminding the church in Corinth (and us today) that Israel’s blunders and missteps were recorded to serve as warnings to us (like Uzziah above), he writes,

Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor. 10:12).  

Satan is waiting with outstretched arms and chains made of re-enforced steel to welcome back the one God had prospered and blessed who now thinks they can take the wheel.     Friends, whenever pride whispers it’s seductive lie that you can take it from here you need to crank up some Carrie Underwood or something, anything that will help ensure Jesus takes, and keeps, the wheel!

I have found in my own life that freedom is a daily choice and the choice is this: Will I live in my own strength and power and might, or will I turn my will and my desire over to God.    I must daily die to my self so that His strength, His grace, His power, His mercy, His spirit can manifest itself in me.    Left to myself, on my own, I am a mess.

So how do we do that?  What are some practical ways you can keep from taking the wheel back and do battle with this most deadly enemy called PRIDE?

1.  Pray, pray pray.    There is no other way.   Print out the Mercy Prayer which is HERE and keep it in your back pocket or purse and read it and pray it every day, all the time.   Pray it over others, yourself, your wife, your children, those who offend you, those you lust after, those you despise and those you cherish.     Praying mercy for others kills the root of bitterness and strife within us which pride thrives upon.

2.  Pray for humility.  Pray not just for humility, but pray that you would love to be humbled.  Andrew Murray, in his excellent book “Humility” (which you must read), taught me that I needed to pray for this queen of virtues.  It does not come naturally to any of us, and must be sought.    Jesus said we should seek the kingdom and his righteousness, and that blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.   Humility is to live rightly before God and neighbor.    Do you hunger for this?   Pray that you will.

3.  Read.  In addition to staying in God’s word daily, read books about pride and humility.    Murray’s book mentioned above is a great one.   The book I’m re-reading now, Irresistible to God, is another.   Going through Fenelon’s  Seeking Heart as a daily devotional is another excellent practice.

4.  Seek out ways to go low.   “Going low” is the opposite or “rising up” in pride.   Throughout the day there will be numerous opportunities where you can go low.    When someone says something that offends you, you can choose to ignore it and pray for them.  When you really want to ensure you get in line in time to get one of the few pieces of cake left, choose instead to hold the door open for others.   When your spouse has sinned against you and you just know you didn’t do anything wrong, be the first one to say you are sorry.    The more  you practice going low the more this virtue will grow within you and become part of you.   Every fiber of your being will resist it at first (and throughout your life, most likely), but press on by repeating # 1 above.

5.  Consider Jesus.   I have probably preached or mentioned Hebrews 12:1-3 more than anything else this past year apart from 2 Cor. 5:17.  It reads,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

Whenever you feel like rising up inside (or presently are doing just that!), consider Jesus who, like a silent lamb who did nothing wrong, went to the cross for your sins and mine.    I’ve yet to be faced with a situation where just one glimpse of Jesus suffering on a cross for me hasn’t helped to diffuse.  It makes all my prideful assertions over my “rights” seem petty and cheap and gives me the strength I need to be obedient in humility.   Does it sometimes hurt?  Of course!   But count it joy that we get to share in the sufferings of Christ! (Rom. 8:17)

Practice these 5 things on a regular, if not daily, basis and avoid the trap into which Uzziah and so many before and after him have fallen.  Pride is not just serious, it’s deadly.

I’ll leave you with these words I have written in the front cover flap of my bible given to me by a great teacher on humility.  Feel free to put them in yours, too:

Chad, you leave your first love and lose the filling of the Spirit by a judging, critical heart which refuses to pass on to all others the mercy by which you alone live.   The love of lowliness and mercy defeats and destroys that spirit of emulation which is the love of achievement or place or plans.

 

My Name is PRIDE

My name is Pride.  I am a cheater.

 

 

I cheat you of your God-given destiny…

because you demand your own way.

I cheat you of contentment…

because you “deserve better than this.”

I cheat you of knowledge…

because you already know it all.

I cheat you of healing…

because you’re to full of me to forgive.

I cheat you of holiness…

because you refuse to admit when you’re wrong.

I cheat you of vision…

because you’d rather look in the mirror than out a window.

I cheat you of genuine friendship…

because nobody’s going to know the real you.

I cheat you of love…

because real romance demands sacrifice.

I cheat you of greatness in heaven…

because you refuse to wash another’s feet on earth.

I cheat you of God’s glory…

because I convince you to seek your own.

 

My name is Pride.  I am a cheater.

You like me because you think I’m always looking out for you.  Untrue.  I’m looking to make a fool of you.  God has so much for you, I admit, but don’t worry.  If you stick with me, you’ll never know.

 

~ Beth Moore, “Praying God’s Word,” pg. 60.

 

Over the next few weeks I will be re-reading Steve Gallagher’s book, Irresistible to God, which is about the sin of pride and the blessing of humility.   Pride is the cancer which if left untreated will stain everything in this life and keep us from the next.  So serious is pride that Augustine wrote,

There is hardly a page of Scripture on which it is not clearly written that God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.   (City of God).

 

I plan to blog about some of what I learn from reading again this wonderful book on the subject, and pray it will help challenge, convict, encourage and enable you in your walk with Christ.    If you have not subscribed to Desire Mercy that is an easy way to be sure you get future posts.   Blessings to you!

 

Mercy Wins

Have you ever been offended?  Ever feel as though someone wronged you, misunderstood you, didn’t treat you with the respect you thought you deserved, looked at you funny, ignored you or responded to you in a way you didn’t like?

Every one of us should be nodding yes right now.

What do you do when that happens?    Maybe you respond by ignoring it as though it never happened, just smile and walk away.  Or perhaps you retaliate with a zinger of your own.   Maybe you seethe over it throughout the day and into the night, reliving the event in your mind’s eye and wishing you had said this or that to defend yourself.    Maybe you cry.

In this post I want to give you something better to do.  I want to teach you a prayer that changed my life and the way I respond to almost everything, including being offended.  It’s called the Mercy Prayer.

I’m teaching through the book of James at my church and this past Sunday we were in  James 2:1-13.   Here James calls out those of us who would show favoritism to others based on their wealth or status and calls such favoritism sin.   The scene has two parties:  the ones doing the offending (those showing favoritism) and the ones being offended (the ones being told “sit over there“).    In both cases, judgment happens, does it not?   The easy one to point out is the one looking at how someone is dressed or how much money they have is judging by appearance.    Most of us will intuitively hear that as wrong on some level.    The other case where judgment happens, the one we are less likely to see (or not want to see), is the one perpetrated by the offended.    This is the judgment we cast upon those who wrong us in some way or another, where we secretly revile them in our heart of hearts while we are being told to go “sit over there.”    It’s the easiest sort of judgment to justify because we feel an injustice has been done to us, and if we don’t execute some sort of judgment (even if it is in the scenarios we live out in our thoughts) then who will?

James levels all of us in this passage by calling all of the judgment we cast upon others as sin and reminds us that judgment is without mercy to those who show no mercy.   Mercy, he says, wins over judgment (James 2:13).

So how do we do that?  How can we start winning with mercy rather than losing in judgment when we find ourselves being judged unfairly by others or offended by everyone else?

What has worked for me and many others is learning and praying this prayer by Rex Andrews called The Mercy Prayer.    Over time I have learned to say this prayer, in whole or in part (one or two lines of it), over myself and over others, almost without ceasing.    Here is the prayer in it’s entirety:

Lord, I thank you for _____________
I thank You for saving him. Thank you for what You have done and are doing in his life

Make __________ to know Jesus (more)
Help him to increase in knowledge of God. Destroy speculation and every lofty thing raised
up against the knowledge of God, and help him to gbring every thought captive to the
obedience of Christ

Make __________ poor in spirit
Bring him down Lord; but please do it gently. Help him to see his neediness. Help him to
see himself in light of You. Put him in his rightful place Lord.

Fill ____________with Your Holy Spirit
Immerse him in Your Spirit Lord. Come to him in power and in might. Baptize him in fire Lord.

Life ___________
Life him according to Thy loving-kindness. Pour out Your life giving mercies into his soul.

Bless __________ Lord, bless him in everything he touches
Bless him spiritually, physically, and financially. Bless his loved ones.
Do for him Lord, instead of me

Mercy __________
Flood him with need-filling mercies. Pour them out in super abundance.
Find and meet every need in his life as You see it Lord.

 

I encourage you to print it off and memorize all or at least part of it.    I pray this prayer when I don’t know what else to pray (if you ask me to pray for an unspoken request, or for someone you name).   I also pray it when I feel wronged or offended or hurt.  I pray it over others instead of (on my good days!)  thinking evil about them (Matt. 9:4).

I admit that it does not come easy at first.    As I told my congregation on Sunday, you have permission to pray mercy over somebody through gritted teeth!   The battle for our heart is not one that is so easily won without some perseverance, where we learn to wage war against our flesh.    I have prayed “Lord, bless him or her” or “Lord, have mercy on him or her” hundreds of times in a row until my feelings began to line up with my faith.     I have been in the grips of temptation before and prayed this mercy prayer till I was exhausted, but the joy that comes from hearing “well done, my good and faithful servant” at the end of a long fight is well worth it.

How will you respond the next time you are offended or wronged by someone?    How will you respond to your spouse, your boss, your children, your fellow church members, your neighbor, your enemy?   Will it be with judgment or mercy?      Don’t forget….

Mercy Wins.

 

 

 

 

How to Be Set Free From the Sin of Self-Gratification

This Sunday, November 3rd, marks the 2 year anniversary of the beginning of the end for Chad Holtz.   This was the day of my youngest son’s birthday, but even more importantly, it was the day a friend dropped me off at Pure Life Ministries and, though I didn’t know it at the time, the beginning of my new life.    In a very real way, me and my son Brody now share a birthday.  

Since that time I have come to know freedom over sexual sin and it’s bondage in a way that 20 years of effort never provided.   This freedom has changed everything for me, from restoring my family, my dead marriage, my ministry, and most importantly, a real, authentic, abiding relationship with Jesus Christ.   

It’s my desire to see other men and women set free – truly free! – from “every weight, and sin which clings so closely” (Heb. 12:1) so that we all can bring honor to the God who has made this freedom possible, and experience the refreshment that only Jesus can bring to our souls when they are his (Acts 3:19-20).  

The greatest hindrance to your freedom, as it was to mine, from sexual sin is hanging on to the lie that masturbation (self-gratification) is OK.    This is the door which if left cracked open, Satan will always find a way to lure you out.   It is imperative that this door be slammed shut, and sealed off for good.   

I used to laugh at this because I thought it not only impossible but unnecessary.    And yet, even as I mocked, I did not know freedom.   In my defense of gratifying myself I was unwittingly admitting that I was bound to something, or idolized something, which I could not and would not surrender!   I could not say with Paul, “I discipline my body, and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27).

How well do you discipline your body?   

For the sexual addict, to not do something first about masturbation is akin to the person with unhealthy lungs saying they will alter their diet and exercise while continuing to smoke.  

So on this week of my anniversary of experiencing nearly 2 years of freedom from self-gratification, I want to share with you how you can do it, too.   On this blog is a series of 4 posts which address this issue, and I’m sharing them all here in one easy-to-find post for your ease of reference.   Parts 1 and 2 deal with answering the question: Why is this wrong?    Part 3 offers practical steps to eliminate temptation in your life and part 4 offers practical steps for adding Christ to your life.    You don’t want to “put off” without “putting on” something which will strengthen and nourish you.  

While these post deal specifically with self-gratification, the principles at play here would suit anyone struggling with other hang-ups and habits.   You might need to adjust some of the practical steps to suit your struggle, and I pray the Holy Spirit will guide you in that process.  

I pray this helps you as it has helped me and others, and may God grant you the strength and the will to do His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). 

Part 1: The Sin of Self-Gratification 

Part 2: The Sin of Self-Gratification 

Part 3: Putting Off the “Old Man” 

Part 4: Putting On Christ