There are times I find myself in predicaments and situations that could bury me if I let it. I can find myself drowning beneath a whole spectrum of things that I can’t control; things that can paralyze me with anxiety and fear; tossing and turning at 3am wondering what’s going to come of it all. These experiences reveal to me my limitedness. I can get exhausted wrestling to change the future or control the outcome of my circumstances. God never made us with those abilities.

Where do we get the idea we can? For the answer to that, we need to rewind the tape to the beginning of Genesis. The “temptation” in the Garden of Eden finds its fingers in every avenue we try to live today… without God, that is. Satan was speaking with Eve in chapter 3:4-6 saying, “‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Why did she believe Satan? He stirred in her the notion that God was keeping something good from her. Bottom line, she desired to be like God (and not in the way we seek to be by the Holy Spirit today). Satan said, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Don’t we all want to be like God in that way? She didn’t want world domination per se, but to be limitless. It is interesting how today we gravitate toward comments like, “Honey, you can be ANYTHING you want to be. You can do anything you set your hands to.” How disappointing it is to learn when you are older that this is simply not true. One drunk driver drifting across the line, one organ disease, one cheeseburger too many will reveal quickly that we are limited. I get the sentiment, right? We want our kids to try hard and to excel. It’s the backbone of America, but this world is broken. Can you see how, perhaps, this has set up generations with the false idea that they can live without God? We are very limited. We only have so much energy, and so much strength; only so much endurance and intelligence, only so much time. Our vitality is on a nonstop conveyor belt downward. If you think you can do anything, go ahead and try to swim from California to Japan. Be sure to wear a beacon so we can find your remains when you don’t make it. When we think that way, we’re confounded when we try to rectify the “I can do ANYTHING!” mentality with Jesus’, “Apart from me, you can do NOTHING.” How do you live in that?

Embracing your limitedness is quite radical, don’t you think? Or maybe you think I mean that we’re to become lazy sloths with ho-hum attitudes. “I can’t do that… I can’t do anything… waaaa waaaa!” Ha! …um, no. What I mean is, it is time to get over ourselves. I am human, therefore I am limited! I know it! And it is totally okay! When we embrace the fact that we are limited it causes us to become dependent. A man in a wheelchair, like my aged father, needs to embrace the fact that his motor skills are limited by his condition. He will need help to change clothes, eat, bathe, or even to use the restroom. He is totally dependent. The difference between us and the man in the wheelchair is that he knows he needs help with everything. Being dependent often gets looked at as a negative attribute, and it definitely should be when capable people manipulate others or abuse support systems to put off living in an independently sustainable way. But now let’s turn that statement over to say we are not capable of our own Christian salvation, holiness, perfection, or ministry. Sure, in our society, you can find a way to live safely. You can find a vocation and even get a sense of purpose from it. You can regiment your time and finances to make a name for yourself in business or in life. You can differentiate a foolish choice from a wise one. (Keep in mind most of us are starting off our lives with an advantage here in the US. Many others are born into a limiting difficulty). BUT you cannot do enough good to make yourself righteous. You cannot lead yourself into ministry. You cannot empower yourself for ministry work. You cannot make God-aligned choices with your own logic. You’ll never, because of your own goodness, inadvertently happen into righteousness and Godliness. You WILL NEVER BE GOD, though you may feel like you can (that’s the Edenic temptation); you can never partake of the divine nature by your own will and muscle. He is eternal; we are created …and there is a huge chasm between us.

When we embrace our limitedness, we’re forced into undeniable dependence on Another; the Eternal One. Paul once quipped, “I CAN DO ALL THINGS!!!!! …through Christ who strengthens me.” From the outside, Paul may look like he, himself, was one unstoppable machine of ministry; a great man of religious integrity. Gutsy. Fearless! But that would be missing the full picture. Paul embraced his limitedness. In fact, he told us that anything from his own strength was something he looked at as dung (Phil 3:2-11). Let me help you with this one. Dung is off-putting and repellent. There’s a lot of it in our backyard, now that the snow is gone, thanks to our dog. We don’t host dinner parties in the middle of the backyard this time of year. It’s offensive. That is how Paul saw his own abilities and strength; off-putting and offensive. Because of that, he knew he was limited and had to become heavily dependent on the Holy Spirit. With his limits fully understood, he called on the limitless one to come. It was the Spirit of Christ at work inside Paul that made Paul unstoppable. It wasn’t Paul’s natural ability and he didn’t just happen to be this type of man. Paul “strove”… he “fought”… he “beat himself into submission”… not to be a better man but to know God; to engage God, who has no limits.

My prayer is that we grow in knowing just how very limited we are without Him; and that when we embrace our limitedness, we would become more and more dependent on God.

-=pastor tom

I have mixed feelings about even speaking the words. I mean, part of me feels like calling attention to such a time of blessing could somehow jinx us and garner the attention of Satan or something. But the flip side of that is I would hate to fail to be thankful for the blessings when they come.  I want God to know we realize how favored we are! It’s the “glory days” around here and it’s God who gets all the glory.

History

Easter marks 29 years this church has been “pounding it out.” Indeed as Charles Dickens said in “A Tale of Two Cities,” it has been the “best of times and the worst of times.” And yet through it all, we are still standing! And certainly we can’t help but notice that in truth we have done more than just “stand.” There appears to be even a lot of dancing lately…at least metaphorically! Growth has continued…people are being saved and people are stepping up to service to king and kingdom. About the time we think He could or at least would do no more, He amazes us with another amazing story! We are told in Psalm 118:24 “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Visitor

We are just coming off our yearly covenant conference, this year with guest speaker Corne’ Platschorre, the director of Shelter Hostel in Amsterdam. It was a dynamic weekend…even through the Sunday service. One thing that Corne’ brought up again and again was how much he loved our “energy.” He remarked that he has never seen a group like ours that is so in love with Christ and zealous to serve the kingdom!

In Ecclesiastes 11:1-2, we read the following: “Cast your bread upon the waters, For you will find it after many days. Give a serving to seven, and also to eight…” The Living Bible gives this account: “Give generously, for your gifts will return to you later. Divide your gifts among many…” I believe that all of you have done exactly that, and as the years have passed the wave of blessing is now returning back to you. Even outside of the fellowship community, you are continually being given great jobs, marriages, children, and the joys of community and God’s spiritual presence. We have tasted of what it must have been like to walk with God in the garden!

Blessing

All of this comes not because you have sought possession or gain, nor did you give and serve with expectation, but I believe God is just wanting to bless His kids. You have “sought first the kingdom of God” and He has indeed kept his promise to add to you “all these things.” Luke 6:38 says “Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full — pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” I am so thankful that you are a giving and sacrificial bunch! For certainly my spirit and calling is the richer for being able to work with the likes of all of you!

Coming

All of this does not mean the way ahead is not without its bumps and bruises! But I am proud of how so many of you have grown up spiritually and are ministers yourselves now and your whole life is a mission. I do not write this with any illusion that we have somehow “turned a corner” and it’s “easy street” from here! No, there will continue to be attacks from the dark side, and there will always be those who will come out from us and prove they were never part of us. Satan will indeed continue to win some battles but our Redeemer has already “won the war.” Satan has “bruised his heel” (Gen 3:15) but Jesus will “crush his head!”

So there will be times of pain yet to come. There will be losses and tears shed for those who turn away. But for those of us on the front lines…like I know many of you are today, “the gates of hell” will never prevail against this church community.

Thoughts

Billy Graham once spoke saying, “I have in my hand a letter written by a Communist student at an eastern university after he had gone to Mexico and become a Communist. He wrote to his fiancée, breaking off their engagement. Here is in part what he said. This was given to me by the minister of the Presbyterian Church in Montreat, North Carolina, where I live. Here is what it says:

We Communists have a high casualty rate. We’re the ones who get shot and hung and lynched and tarred and feathered and jailed and slandered, and ridiculed and fired from our jobs, and in every other way made as uncomfortable as possible.  A certain percentage of us get killed or imprisoned. We live in virtual poverty.  We turn back to the party every penny we make above what is absolutely necessary to keep us alive.

We Communists don’t have the time or the money for many movies, or concerts, or T-bone steaks, or decent homes and new cars. We’ve been described as fanatics.  We are fanatics. Our lives are dominated by one great overshadowing factor, THE STRUGGLE FOR WORLD COMMUNISM.

We Communists have a philosophy of life which no amount of money could buy. We have a cause to fight for, a definite purpose in life. We subordinate our petty personal selves into a great movement of humanity, and if our personal lives seem hard, or our egos appear to suffer through subordination to the party, then we are adequately compensated by the thought that each of us in his small way is contributing to something new and true and better for mankind.

There is one thing in which I am dead earnest and that is the Communist cause. It is my life, my business, my religion, my hobby, my sweetheart, my wife and mistress, my bread and meat. I work at it in the daytime and dream of it at night. Its hold on me grows, not lessens as time goes on. Therefore I cannot carry on a friendship, a love affair, or even a conversation without relating to this force which both drives and guides my life. I evaluate people, books, ideas and actions according to how they affect the Communist cause and by their attitude toward it. I’ve already been in jail because of my ideas and if necessary, I’m ready to go before a firing squad.

Hey JF Believers…the world is watching! Do we have that much dedication to the Lord Jesus Christ? Because Christ demanded no less! He demanded nothing less of those that follow Him. Scripture is replete with verse after shocking verse…calling us to be “all in.” Some have yet to make that commitment and are doing their best to drown out the call with as much noise of the world as they can muster. But many of you…ah! You are indeed “all in.” And God is so blessing us in response! So today, we dance!

Pastor TIM