Spirit-led Archives

Choose “ye today” for your holiday

If you want a joy-filled, blessed holiday season, there is a choice that you might want to make today.

The rush begins earlier each year. This year, the Halloween candy didn’t even make it to the half-price baskets before the shelves began filling up with green and red merchandise. There is a Thanksgiving shelf somewhere, but it’s probably not front and center. Thanksgiving and Christmas are one season now.

Last week I wrote about not missing your chance to live gratefully toward God, but this week I want to talk about living joyfully with Jesus.

A choice every Christian must make

I first learned the message of Joshua 24:14–15 from a plaque that hung in our kitchen. It said, “Choose ye this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” I grew up with that verse, but I learned the context for those words at some point.

The battles to take the promised land were over and now it was time for the people of Israel to settle into their home and establish their lives. Joshua made a wonderful speech to the family leaders, ending it with the choice he had made that he encouraged all the other families to make as well.

Joshua told them to choose today whom they would serve in their new land. They would either choose to serve God each day or they would end up serving something less. As you consider that ancient wisdom, think about how to apply that truth to your own life today.

Every Christian must choose to serve the Lord, or later they will realize they have come to serve something or someone less.

The most common mistake

Most Christians want to live right with God. We want to make choices our Lord can honor and bless. Most of us make good choices, but often those “good” choices end up being “lesser” choices than we were called to make.

I often say, “Satan doesn’t really mind if Christians are good people. He does mind when we choose to be godly.”

A common mistake we make as Christians is to define good things as godly. How do we know the difference?

When are you making a godly choice?

There is an obvious answer to that question. When we are faced with a circumstance that Scripture speaks to in a direct way, then obedience is our godly choice.

We should remain faithful to our spouses, both physically and emotionally.
We should honor our parents.
We should worship the one true God and live with reverence to his holiness.

Each day we have choices to make that aren’t specifically answered in God’s word.

Should I accept that new job and move to a different city?
Should I speak to that friend about a sin or just pray for God to lead?
Should I spend this money or give it as an offering?
Should I end this friendship or just limit the influence?
Should I serve on this committee at church or be more available to my family?

How do we know when our daily decisions are a godly choice? There is a clear answer, but it isn’t always easy to discern. If we make our daily decisions out of a sense of serving others, we might miss an opportunity to serve God.

Christians often make good decisions that serve other people. In fact, I think Satan tempts Christians to do that. If we stay busy serving our friends, our families, our jobs, and even our churches, we can miss the calling to serve God. How do we know if God has called us to a committee, a project, or any other opportunity to serve him?

The best answer I know is a difficult choice to maintain. It is the message of Galatians 5:25: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” If we want to make godly choices, we will probably need to ignore some good ideas along the way.

What does God want for your holiday season?

Only God can give you that answer. If we understand that one important choice, the other decisions are more likely to serve God rather than something or someone less.

I recently taught on my Advent book for this year, The Gift of Immanuel. Isaiah said that the Messiah’s “name” would be Immanuel but later said “his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). The angel would tell Joseph to name his Son “Jesus.”

Cruden’s Concordance lists 198 names or titles given to Jesus. All of those are an aspect of the one name Immanuel. Immanuel means “God with us.”

When you became a Christian and received the Holy Spirit of God, Immanuel came to be within you. There are several reasons God wanted to give his Spirit to his children. We can’t live godly lives without his Spirit’s direction.

What does God want for your holiday season?

You don’t know until you ask. You won’t know, or know how to obey, unless you “keep in step with the Spirit.”

Choose “ye today” for your holiday

The joy we all look for from our Christmas holiday is one choice away. Joy is the gift of heaven, given to those who walk with God in obedience to his will and word. Today, and every day of the holiday season, will be changed by the choice to “serve God as you walk in his Spirit.”

We can ask God for ears to hear his calling. We can ask God for discernment to serve him before anything or anyone else. We can ask God for the ability to hear his voice, his commands, and his encouragement above all the other noisy moments in the month ahead.

Joy will follow our obedience to his leadership. That is the difference between a holiday filled with good things and a holiday filled with God’s joy.

“Choose ye today” whom you want to serve. Then, make that same choice for tomorrow. Your holiday season can be good, bad, mediocre, or godly simply because you make that daily choice.

Let’s all choose right now to serve God this busy Christmas season. I pray your memories of Christmas 2023 will include a list of his joy-filled blessings as a result.

Why should we seek silence?

We have adapted our lives to include the constant noises that invade our day. Silence is actually discomforting to some. Phone apps and white-noise machines advertise better sleep to those who listen to a constant sound. Our televisions keep us company, provide us with ideas, and alleviate the quiet with entertaining options. It is less common these days to pass someone on their morning walk who isn’t listening to someone’s podcast that offers ideas, opinions, and information for their life.

We live in a much different world today than Jesus did. Jesus was surrounded by the voices of others and the needs of others, and those voices increased considerably during the second year of his public ministry. His example is an example for all of us.

Why did Jesus seek solitude and silence during his earthly life?

Jesus sought a desolate place

Where do you typically go when you need to pray?

I like to find a quiet, comfortable spot where I can be alone to think and pray. Mark 1:35 describes Jesus’ choice for the chaos of life. Mark wrote, “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”

Why did our all-knowing, perfect, sinless Lord need to pray?

Our Sunday School teacher asked that question and it gave me pause. Did Jesus need to pray or did he just want to? His ministry was at the highest point of public interest. Everywhere Jesus went, the crowds followed him, seeking to hear his words and hoping to witness or receive a miracle. During these most popular months of ministry, Jesus sought to be alone with God.

We know Jesus followed God’s commands while here on earth, but did he need God to tell him what to do? Wouldn’t he have already known?

Actually, that question has been discussed and debated in theology on a lot of levels. When Jesus took on human form, he was “tempted in every way” (Hebrews 4:15 NIV) like we are but did not sin. Satan tempted Jesus after his baptism, and for human reasons Jesus probably wanted to turn those stones into bread. But Jesus wanted to obey God even more. Jesus didn’t want to follow Satan. I’m not going to solve this mystery in a blog post, but as I considered the question, I had another thought.

Jesus loved his Father, his Abba, in heaven. Jesus would have wanted to hear his Father’s voice and talk with him, Father to Son. Could it be that Jesus sought a solitary, desolate place early in the morning so that he could just share time with God and no one else?

Maybe Jesus prayed simply to be with God, to fellowship with the One he loved.

Maybe that should be a goal for each of us as well.

The power of silence

The word of the Lord came to Elijah on the mountain. Elijah was discouraged because the people were ignoring and disobeying God. He needed to be with God and hear his voice. God sent Elijah to the edge of the cave at the top of the mountain. On that mountain, Elijah experienced the power of God in the wind, an earthquake, and, finally, fire. But God did not speak to him that way. Instead, Scripture tells us that after the fire there was “the sound of a low whisper” (1 Kings 19:12).

Why did God choose to speak with “quiet” rather than noise?

There is a spiritual lesson about the power of silence we need to learn. If we have examples in Scripture like Elijah and Jesus, those examples are there for us as well.

When last did you seek a place of solitude and quiet simply to be with God and listen for him to “whisper” his answers to you? God has a voice and wants to speak his word into our hearts and lives. Could it be that we have crowded his whisper out of our lives with chaotic, ever-present noise?

God’s words are more important than any podcast. His words are perfect, pure truth, and everything else we hear must be tested. Do you tend to study or read your Bible with noise in the background? The first step toward God’s whisper might be to seek out the deafening silence which may cause some of us to feel uncomfortable.

Jesus got up very early, while it was still dark. In the first century, people didn’t travel at night because the darkness was something to fear. Animals, thieves, and the need for directions kept people from traveling in the dark. Jesus chose that time to be with his Father.

Why should you seek silence?

It might take us some effort to find perfect silence. I used to lead silent retreats. We literally arrived at a retreat center, went to our rooms, and lived with one another without speaking to one another or anyone else. I led a few directed times of prayer but mine was the only audible voice that spoke into the silence.

It was always an uncomfortable feeling at first, but, by the time we came to the end of the retreat, the ladies would share their thoughts and experiences, and it was such a blessing to our group. Mine might have been the only audible voice, but God spoke into their silence through his word, their thoughts, and often something in nature.

The silence was deafening at first, and then God whispered.

The voice of God

I always provided the people at the retreat with verses to consider about the voice of God. Three of my favorites are:

Isaiah 30:21 – “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.”
Jeremiah 29:13 – “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
Exodus 33:11 – “Thus the Lᴏʀᴅ used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”

God still speaks to people, even as he did in our Bibles. When God gave us his Holy Spirit, we received his indwelling voice of comfort, guidance, and direction. God’s voice is also the voice of acceptance, forgiveness, and pure love.

Today, let’s consider the example set by Jesus and Elijah. Jesus sought solitude to be with God, and Elijah heard God in the quiet. I can honestly say that when I seek answers from God, I seek solitude first. There is something about the deafening quiet that allows God to speak. Our Lord deserves our wholehearted attention, and he deserves to be honored as the One we love. It is into the silence and solitude that God can whisper.

If you are uneasy or skeptical about these thoughts, don’t worry. Everyone feels that at some point. Just don’t let your uneasiness hinder you from seeking solitude and the chance to be with your heavenly Father. Quiet the world for the sake of his word. The Lord will take it from there.

God speaks. It is my experience, but it is also the promise of God’s word and the example Jesus set for us.

Be still and you will know God’s voice. Be still and you will know God.

He is waiting to whisper. He wants you to know his voice.

Is it good or is it God?

I worked through Henry Blackaby’s classic study, Experiencing God, as a young pastor’s wife and it made a tremendous difference to my spiritual life. Truthfully, it didn’t happen right away. God allowed some tough circumstances to use the spiritual truths I had learned as a way to remodel my spiritual choices.

In one chapter, Blackaby wrote, “We don’t choose what we will do for God; He invites us to join Him where He wants to involve us.”

I’m not sure if I thought that message was for other people or if I thought being married to a preacher meant I had already done that, but I heard those words a couple of years before I actually received them as truth for my own walk with the Lord.

That one lesson, once learned, changed the rest of my spiritual journey.

A good life isn’t necessarily a godly life

I really wanted to be a good preacher’s wife, a good mom, and a good person. I thought if those things were my goals, at least I would be going in the right directions. I stayed busy working hard and volunteering for service. I tried to attend as many things at the church as I could, believing that to be my ministry. I was faithful to go to a ladies Bible study each week because I knew I needed to learn more Scripture. I went to bed tired but feeling like God must be pleased with what I was attempting to do.

Then we moved to Atlanta and I found I was very allergic to some things out there. That October, allergies led to sniffles, then a bad cough, which I was “too busy” to worry about. I had promised to step into my son’s third-grade class one day so his teacher could go to her daughter’s school program. I taught the class and was walking home when I realized I didn’t have enough air to get up the hill.

I eventually made it, called the doctor, and asked for a prescription. He told me to get to the hospital as soon as I could. As it turned out, I had the same pneumonia that had killed Jim Henson a few months earlier. The doctor told me I probably only had a few days left before the medications would not have worked.

It took a month to get well but, as it turned out, it was one of the best months of my life. I learned a lesson that has carried me ever since.

Our spiritual journey is not measured by the good things we decide to do for God and others. Instead, it is about knowing God’s plan and calling and living in obedience to that.

The knowledge that makes all the difference

I sat in my recliner for almost a month trying to allow my lungs to heal. Atlanta was beautiful in October. The leaves rained down with brilliant color, and I watched them and thought about God. After a lot of thinking, praying, and listening, I realized that this life of busy attendance wasn’t because I was obeying God’s expectations. I was honoring others’ expectations instead.

I was grateful to God for saving my stubborn life. I watched the beauty of this world float by outside my window and realized that all I thought about serving God hadn’t worked out very well. I could have died and left Jim with two young boys to raise. I could have harmed others while all the while I thought I was “helping.”

At the end of a month of recuperation and spiritual regeneration, I finally came to understand that Blackaby’s words weren’t just a lesson to hear. I needed, as Blackaby would say, to adjust my life to what God had planned it to be. I made a commitment to God to do that.

If you want to experience God

I pulled my Experiencing God workbook off of the shelf and reread it. I realized that I had written the right answers on the lines and had added important thoughts from others in the margin. But I just hadn’t made the choice to allow the knowledge to alter my choices.

I needed to experience the Holy Spirit in my life.
I needed to hear the Bible speak God’s voice into my life.
I needed to tell some people no in order to tell God yes.
I needed to learn to notice what God was doing in the world and “get in on it.”
I needed to obey God’s word so that I could know God and completely trust him as my King.

That is just some of what the Lord taught me during those days and months that followed. Sanctification takes a lifetime, but it only begins when we realize it isn’t about what we do; it’s about allowing God to do his work in and through our lives.

If we want to experience the reality of God, we must step fully into the knowledge that only he is God and everything else is only an attempt to become a god in our lives. (By the way, that is the work of Satan.) We don’t know how to serve God and others until we come to learn the value of simply being available to God so that he can serve others through our life as we are yielded to his Spirit.

Is it good or is it God?

The lessons I learned during that season of my spiritual life led me down roads I would never have imagined.

Eventually, I knew God wanted me to teach a ladies Bible study.
Eventually, I came to recognize the silent but audible voice of God’s leadership.
I began to do some public speaking based on what I had learned.
Eventually, I wrote a book and titled it Content to be Good, Called to be Godly.
Now I am serving at Denison Ministries as the Lord continues to lead.

Please know, I don’t say any of that from a place of pride. The list above is what God accomplished, not me. I would have filled my life with good things that I wanted to do for God. I learned that my life was simply to be a conduit for what God wanted to do through his Holy Spirit within me.

Now, I just want to share with others one of the most important lessons God ever taught me. Truthfully, it took a bad bout of pneumonia to get me to listen. Maybe this blog post can save someone else from learning this the hard way.

Is your life filled with good things, or is your life a list of things God has done through your obedience to his Spirit-led call in your life?

Blackaby wrote, “We don’t choose what we will do for God; He invites us to join Him where He wants to involve us.”

Are those words something you believe or the truth you live?

Your answer will make all the difference in your spiritual journey.

The Mind of Christ, Given to You

Every Easter I struggle to comprehend how Jesus was able to wait in the darkness, watching the torches descend from Jerusalem, knowing those soldiers were coming for him. When I am in Israel, the Garden of Gethsemane is the place I most often struggle with tears. I can see the gate in the city wall the soldiers used. Jesus could have escaped, but he chose not to.

Jesus experienced a struggle between his mind and his earthly body, so he prayed for the strength to remain in the garden. His mind, strengthened by God’s, enabled Jesus to wait. That process in the Garden of Gethsemane may be one of our most important lessons of Easter.

According to 1 Corinthians 2:16, “We have the mind of Christ.”

The mind of Christ gives a new perspective

Paul was writing to the church in Corinth. Let’s just say that those early Christians struggled to think and act like Jesus. The culture of Corinth was similar to our own, only worse.

Paul taught the Corinthian church one of the most important lessons in Scripture about the Holy Spirit. He said, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).

When we think with the mind of Christ, we won’t think like the world. We will see things from a spiritual perspective and our views will change. We will understand things like Christ would and perceive situations with his thoughts.

When last did you watch the news and view those stories and images as Jesus would?

The mind of Christ authors our words

All of us have conversations that feel above our spiritual pay grade. I still get caught off guard sometimes. Someone is in great need, and God has given me an appointment to answer. There is a verse I try to lean on and teach others to lean on as well. It should be our prayer and our purpose in every spiritual conversation we enter into. Paul taught, “We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:13).

This is a whole sermon, but I will teach that verse like this:

We don’t want to speak our ideas. Human wisdom will not lead people to know God.
We do want to pray for, and yield our minds to, the mind of Christ, his Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will author our words, be our wisdom, and teach the truth that person needs to hear.
The key: Those who think with the mind of Christ will be able to interpret spiritual truths to someone else. And “you have been given the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Christ doesn’t always change people’s minds

Sometimes your Spirit-led conversations don’t change a person’s mind. That doesn’t mean you didn’t speak the thoughts and words God authored. If you were prayerful and allowed the Spirit to empower your mind and author your words, then “well done, good and faithful servant.”

You aren’t responsible for a person’s response to God’s truth. You are only responsible to speak the truth, led by the mind of Christ, his Holy Spirit. Paul taught the Corinthian church, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one” (1 Corinthians 2:14–15).

Jesus couldn’t convince the Pharisees he was their Messiah. We won’t convince everyone either.

The Easter story doesn’t end with the empty tomb

It may seem like Easter is over and it’s time to move on to other subjects. Christians rarely celebrate Pentecost as a holiday, yet it is the real ending to the Easter story.

The tomb was empty; Jesus was resurrected. But Jesus returned to teach his followers until his ascension. The ending of the Easter story was the beginning of the Christian movement in the world. At Pentecost, the disciples of Christ received his Holy Spirit. They received the mind of Christ.

You can think, talk, and walk with the mind of the Lord

It’s easy to feel like Jesus ascended to heaven and then left his work to his followers. He didn’t. Jesus didn’t leave his work to us; he went to heaven so he could do his work through us. The body of Jesus was resurrected, but then his mind, his Spirit, returned to indwell those who would believe in him.

Human beings don’t teach spiritual truths, speak spiritual words, or love people as Jesus did. Jesus teaches, speaks, and loves through the person who will yield his or her mind to the Holy Spirit.

Paul said, “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

This week, maybe today, Jesus will give you a chance to speak to someone, or treat someone, like he wants to. Before you say a word, pray that Christ’s mind will do the talking and caring instead of your own. It could make all the difference.

We have been given the mind of Christ. In gratitude for Easter, let’s use it!

You’ve Been Upcycled

Football season has come to a close and, chances are, you have a little more free time on Sunday afternoons. Next Sunday, you should check out a show called Flea Market Flip.

People compete by shopping for things at a flea market and then upcycling those items into a new and more relevant table, chair, lamp, or whatever. It’s an interesting show, but I don’t blog to give television advice. (Although it can be a side benefit!)

The point is this: in many ways, Flea Market Flip could serve as a parable for each of our lives.

God’s in the restoration business

A lot of people visit a flea market and only see a bunch of unwanted junk. Maybe that stuff was nice in the beginning, but, over the years, it has been dinged up, broken, rusted, faded, or just used up. Most people look at those piles of discards as useless.

But God visits flea markets and sees the potential.

In one episode, two women bought a couple of rusted patio chairs with dirty cushions. The chairs were sitting off in a field, covered by dirt and only worth a few dollars to the seller. By the end of the program, those chairs had been soldered together to become a brightly painted bench with a fancy new seat cushion. Those two old chairs were upcycled and then priced at a much higher value.

Do you ever feel like those rusted chairs?

Maybe the hard moments of life have made you feel useless or less valued. All of us have to weather our share of storms. But God is in the restoration business.

Israel became a world power under King Solomon’s leadership. They had prominence, power, wealth, and wisdom. But later, after most of the nation had been decimated, Jeremiah wrote these words to the remnant in Judah: “For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast” (Jeremiah 30:17).

Judah would be taken captive by Babylon, and the once beautiful and opulent city of Jerusalem was reduced to ruins. God’s people were enslaved and called outcasts. But God knows how to upcycle what has been cast aside. God restored his people, not to their former glory, but to rebuild something new, with greater potential.

A new creation

I am amazed at the creativity of the people who transform their purchases on Flea Market Flip into things I never could have imagined.

Two women took an old ladder and a few old frames and turned those things into a shelving unit to display photos.
A husband and wife took an old chicken coop and created a beautiful coffee table.
A mom and daughter duo took an old door and two rusty stools and created a kitchen table that could hang on the wall of a small kitchen and then transform into an eating area when needed.
And two men turned an old, wooden wheel into a beautiful clock.

Paul was teaching the church in Corinth that Jesus could transform their lives. Corinth was known for their decadent culture and immorality. I’m sure some of the people in that Corinthian church thought they would never belong in a group of “holy” people. But Paul taught them that Jesus had given his life for everyone and could forgive every sin. Jesus is able to upcycle any life into something new and amazing.

Paul wrote: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Do you ever wonder what your life would look like if you had lived it without Jesus? Do you ever imagine what the lives of those outside the Christian faith could look like if they chose to make Jesus their Lord?

Jesus would love the chance to continually upcycle our lives and the lives of those around us.

Jesus turns our junk into treasure

At the end of every episode of Flea Market Flip, one of the competing duos receives $5,000. That prize goes to the people who make the highest profit on their upcycled items. Most of the time it is a close race. On one episode, the difference was just a penny, but, occasionally, the difference is several hundred dollars.

The $5,000 prize is the same, regardless.

Every Christian is a child of God and has been given the same promise. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” (John 5:24).

That prize is yours, regardless.

You’ve been upcycled

Maybe it’s time to take a fresh, new look at your life.

Do you notice the battle scars of your life, or do you see yourself as restored? You are a child of God, upcycled to a person of great value to your heavenly Father.

Maybe you haven’t fully recognized your potential. When Jesus came into your life, you were given a new purpose and a new usefulness. You have been upcycled by the Holy Spirit as a gifted disciple of Christ. You are a new creation. Jesus can transform junk into treasure.

And, finally, you are guaranteed to win the final prize.

The apostle John was an elderly man who had developed an amazing ministry in Ephesus. He was captured and exiled to the prison island of Patmos. I imagine he wondered if his life and ministry had been discarded as well.

Instead, he started a church there and began a brand new ministry in his older years. And Jesus appeared to him on that island and said he wanted John to write a few things down!

We call those words the book of Revelation.

Our ultimate purpose

All of us will need to be constantly upcycled on this side of heaven. This life is a journey, and, let’s face it, our witness gets a little dinged up and rusty along the way. But, Jesus told the apostle John that all of us would be winners in the end.

In Revelation 21:1–5, John wrote: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”

In heaven, no upcycling will be needed. There is never anything that looks like junk.

Everything and everyone is eternally made new!