Counting the Casualty of Warfare-- The Shepherd’s Pouch: The Heart

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

David placed the stones inside of a shepherd’s pouch. What was a shepherd’s pouch? Simply put it was a purse, or as men would put it today, “a man bag”, only it was open most of the time, easily reached into, and easy to draw out of when David needed something in a hurry, and in the case of Goliath, he needed that stone in a hurry. Another way to think of it was a pocket. It was just a little thing that hung along his side that held what he needed. Yet there’s a lot to be said about that pouch, about that little something, that held that all important pellet of divine retribution. There’s a lot to be said about what holds those weapons we’ve covered in our study thus far: the word, prayer, worship, fellowship, and service. What is it we put those weapons of Christian warfare into? Our Great Shepherd’s pouch, that little thing He gave us to put them in, is our hearts.

One of the things we need to know about our heart is that God made it in the image of His own. Our hearts, like His, were meant to love. He meant it to be free to love Him as much as He loves us, in purity of spirit. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Deut.6:5 He gave us this ability to choose between loving him and loving something else or someone else. Regardless of what we choose to pursue in love, we were made to go after it ‘whole heartedly’.  Free will can be a triumph for God, or, because of the fall, a curse on man.

If left on our own, we will blow it. During the fall we saw this in full display, and we’ve seen it continue to roll upon us like a tsunami ever since. When God called to mankind in the garden “where are you?”, it wasn’t because He didn’t know. It was because He was pointing out positionally where we’d gotten to; to a place where we could no longer reach into the pouch and find the weapon we needed to defeat the enemy who would tear us limb from limb, who was set on destroying what God intended for good. We were created for good. Our hearts were created to be like His heart, but we sinned and use our choice to go after other things, other gods.

Our purses get full of clutter, some big clutter and some fluff like used tissues and old receipts for nickel and dime stuff. Have you ever been in a hurry to find something and been embarrassed by the things that fall out of your purse or pocket? Those items you keep in there that you wish you didn’t have to keep on you, but at the wrong moment out they pop when what you meant to pull out was something innocent like a pen or your cell phone. Somehow everyone in the room finds out what your medication is, or that you forgot to take that movie back to Redbox, the one that your nephew got that you would never have rented, but since you were going that way you agreed to drop it, but forgot all about it…a month ago, and now you own it because you ended up having to pay for it. Or who knows what else comes out. Oh, the humiliation if you should drop your purse and spill everything out!

Such is the case with our hearts. The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?  I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings. Jer. 17:9-10  We fill our lives with these other idols. We think some things are useful to us only to find that in time they turn to rubbish, so they need to be replaced with something newer and shiny that becomes old and rusty. We are never satisfied, because all that we try to fill our hearts with are not what they were created to be filled up with. There’s a song that says there’s a God shaped hole in all our hearts, which is so true, so why do we put so many other things before Him?

The first commandment begins with a prefix, “I AM the Lord, Your GOD.” Exodus 20: 2. It can sound rather demanding if that’s all we read, but the next part of the verse shows the love He holds for us. “Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”  Egypt was a place God originally provided as symbol of the world, to give provision for the house of Israel during a time of famine, but not to live in forever. That was not their intended homeland. Still, He remained faithful. They went in as a family and came out as a nation. He did that. God provided for them amazingly. Yet, while there, because of what He did in blessing them, they were enslaved due to the fear of the Egyptians. Faithfully, He brought them out of their shackles and freed them, bringing them through the parted waters, with signs and wonders of which there was no doubt there was a mighty God in Israel. This was love. His words are not demanding. I AM, is not demanding, it is loving. As you struggle in your times of need you may think, “But who is going to take care of this for me?” The Lord answers, “I AM.”

Our hearts are to be empty until filled by the Lord. Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” If we put the Lord Jesus first, not just first, put optimal in our lives, He will fill us with the desires for our heart that He wants us to have. It won’t be about us doing what we want, but about what God would have us do. David didn’t go to the battle thinking he was going to beat down Goliath. He went in knowing that God was going to defeat the enemy of His people. He knew because of what was in His heart, what was in His Shepherd’s pouch.

As you struggle in your times of spiritual warfare you may think, “But who is going to take care of this enemy for me?” The Lord God answers, “I AM.”

The Special Ops Team- We never leave a man behind- Service to God Is Service to Others.

“Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” James 2:17-18

Last week I asked you to consider two things. We all have the capacity to do good, but more often than not we do it out of selfishness, not godliness. Also, people confuse the capacity to do good with having the ability to BE good. It’s NOT the same thing. This week we look at the final stone of spiritual warfare, Service. Now, let’s be clear, I’m not talking about the social gospel of the nineteenth century in which works overtook the faith aspect of Christianity to the point where the church began to define itself by the number of converts it reached and the amount of giving. It might sound good, but then it becomes about the numbers and not about the quality of the fruit produced. Jesus did say, “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” Matt.7:20

Jesus was the example of one who was completely motivated to serve others. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,  but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Philippians 2:5-8 There is no greater example of service than that, to be so selfless as to be sacrificed for the salvation of others. So, how can we who are called Christians become Christ like?

It comes down to what motivates us to do things. Jesus said that our first priority is to love God, and our second is likewise, to love our neighbor. In the same exchange of conversation, it was asked of Him who our neighbor really is, that is, who is it we’re supposed to view as deserving of our love. Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37. The interesting part of the story is that he’s talking to a Jewish audience about a person they consider to be unclean and less than them in importance. Yet He asks who acts neighborly in the story, those in their society they consider to be godly or the one they consider to be less than human. The answer is obvious, the Samaritan is more the soldier of godliness than the priest and the Levite, even though they had the crown and the title of worldly church goers. They had the numbers, but they also didn’t have the heart because they weren’t willing to consider the injury of their own country man and take the time, especially when it came to breaking their schedule and dirtying their hands. They excused their own behavior in some way. Maybe they thought someone else will come along and help out. Maybe they didn’t want to get involved, or it was too much of a personal risk because the robbers could still be around. The Samaritan didn’t hesitate. He got involved and made the sacrifice, even though the man wouldn’t have done the same for him. His motivation was that he saw someone in need and he could meet that need, that was it. That made him a neighbor.

Many years ago I was teaching on this scripture in a prison ministry pod. A girl I had known in High School was one of the inmates. She sat beside me. What a turn of events for us. There I was, able to walk out of the jail, and she was imprisoned. I knew her story. We had both grown up in similar families, big Hispanic families. We both had siblings that loved us, and parents that prayed for us and taught us about God. She married young and had a son, and so did I, but that’s where our lives changed. I gave my life to Jesus, and she gave hers to drugs. Yet, there she was, sitting beside me, and we talked like old friends. Then she asked me what that world meant, “neighbor” as I went over the Greatest Commandment. She said, “When we were kids, you were my neighbor at school. We were partners in doing projects and scooted our desks together, but I never thought of loving you. So what does that mean? Neighbor?” I went on and told the story of the Good Samaritan. She suddenly looked at me and said, “So your neighbor is just the person next to you. It doesn’t matter who they are? We’re just supposed to love them?” I told her yes, we are supposed to love them. She was quiet for the rest of the study. When the evening ended she came to me and said, “I never thought about it before, but now I think it would be impossible to love someone who isn’t right next to you, so God made it easier, not harder. Love comes easy to love someone when they’re the person right next to you, no matter who they are.” I was so blessed by her words. How wise she was.  

We now know who we are to serve, but now the question comes as to how to serve them. God has blessed all of us with gifts and abilities. I love writing, and communication through speaking and teaching. Others have the gift of hospitality! Wow, am I blessed by them. Others are soothers, they just make us feel comfortable. Others are blessed with the gift of song, or artistry, or design, or logistics, or like my friend Stevie-organization. I used to covet other people’s gifts, but not anymore. Now I rejoice in their abilities because we are all members of the body, and the body needs all its members. “If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body?  And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body?  If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?  But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?” 1 Cor.12:15-19

Besides employing our gifts we should also look to serve in the common ways. The Samaritan didn’t serve by doing anything more than anyone else could have done. He met a need. We are all Samaritans. As Christians we are like Christ in one important way, we all are called to sacrifice our lives for others on a daily basis. We are called to take the stripes and give up the comfortable for the cutting. Yet the world expects it from us. When disaster strikes it’s the Christians who come to the rescue, and it’s the godly who rush to serve. They know it. When we don’t come they point the finger not at us, but at our Lord. “I thought you were a Christian,” they say when we fall short. Why would they say that? Because even the nonbelievers know that Jesus went the distance, and they expect no less from His followers. We need to do the simple things for people too. A mile is not walked in one stride, it’s walked one step at a time. Every race is run in the same way, regardless if it’s a sprint or a marathon, it’s run one step after the other until we reach the finish line. We just need to be faithful in whatever it is He’s given us to do moment to moment, whether it’s to clean your baby’s nose, or to perform CPR in an emergency room. One might seem more heroic than another, but it’s all what each of us called to do as a member of the body.

David was called to sling a stone, and the rest of the army was called to give a shout. The victory didn’t belong to David, it belonged to God. Since the victory was assured that day by the God of Israel, there was no loss of life on the side of Saul’s army. There was no man left behind on the battle field. All of the Israelites went home at the close of day victorious.   

Leave me a comment. I’d like to know something from you, my readers. I wrote a novel called, “Thirty-Seven:Four”. It’s the story of four women who go after their desires only to find that when they delight in God do they find what really makes them content. What is it that you feel God has for you and how do you feel it lines up with the gifts He has given you and calling He’s placed on your heart? You can leave it here, on this Blogspot, or on the Facebook page. Next week we’ll look at the Shepherd’s pouch…the heart. God bless and be armed with the weapons of spiritual warfare.

Survival Training- Hand to Hand Combat- Fellowship

Last week we looked at the Worship of God as the stone thrown at the enemy. I truly believe that when God’s people are in worship nothing can stand against that weapon, and it is as if a nuclear bomb has gone off. So what would be left to wage war with? When referring to nuclear war, Albert Einstein said, “I don’t know how the World War 3 will be fought, but I know World War 4 will be fought with stick and stones.” If we, as a church, could so engage in the worship of God with each other in unity, then we will have defeated the enemy. This week will look at the need for survival training as we study Fellowship.

 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25

Do you remember the children’s nursery rhyme played by holding your hands clasped together? “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door and there’s all the people.” Do you remember being amazed by the people which were really just your own fingers? Did you notice they were all different looking than when they were on the outside of the church? I do. I remember thinking that my fingers looked so different all bunched up like that. I wasn’t sure if they looked better or worse, just different. In a way that’s what being in the church does to a lot of people, it makes them look different. Fellowship is the most difficult form of warfare to wage, because it’s usually hand to hand combat, up close and personal; and it means seeing the face of the enemy…in the mirror.

I want to encourage you, gentle reader, to hold on tight, this week is going to be a bumpy ride. We’re dealing with a subject that is going to be both convicting and offensive to most of us, fellowship. It would seem that it would be a wonderful subject to talk about filled with church potlucks and choir practices, but in reality the issue with fellowship is all the fellows in the ship. In dealing with human beings I’ve found that people have a lot of problems, mainly they stink. They literally stink. If you put a lot of people together, working hard, the smell that permeates from them can become terribly offensive. That’s why I avoid gyms all together.  I’m being a little tongue in cheek here, a little, but also being very honest. The problem with the church today is that it’s full of sinners, a lot of sinners, very bad, ugly, defeated, sinners. So go ahead and open the doors. There are all the people, and you’re one of them, and so am I. We look different in the seats on Sunday than we do on the outside. But the enemy is not what’s making us appear different on the outside; it’s what’s making us different on the inside.

We’ve all been there with our accusing Eliab attitude. You know that sister that you’ve been told is gossiping about you? You know her? Or that woman that said that mean thing about your friend? What about that guy in the parking lot on your way into service that made that comment you didn’t care for while he thought it was funny? Stink, stink, stink! You were in great mood until you got to church, but now you feel the pressure of those hateful eyes boring into the back of your head. Whatever message the pastor gave has escaped you, but why should you listen to him anyway? He’s probably the biggest sinner of us all! Everybody knows his testimony. Stink! Stink! All of us have Eliab saying to the David inside of ourselves, “Why did you come down here? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and the insolence of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.”(1 Sam.17:28) We forget who we are, and what we are there to do. We didn’t come to watch, we came to wage!

Yes, it’s true, if you put your faith in man, man will let you down every time. All those fellows in the ship with you, well, they think you stink too. We all do. Go ahead and take a whiff of your own arm pit. It isn’t pleasant. And if it is then it’s because you’re not pulling your weight in this boat with the rest of us. This isn’t a pleasure cruise. We’re sinking here and we need help keeping this vessel afloat! We are sinners, all of us. We need to stop fighting each other and turn our attention on the real enemy of the church.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Eph 6:12

 No human being is your enemy, either in the church or outside of the church. Those in the church are your brothers, and like any family you might have disagreements with them. Like any family there are ways of fixing things because ultimately love wins out. We need to see that sister that gossips as maybe someone you wouldn’t want to confide in, or listen to, but pray for, and maybe even confront in a loving way. The guy that thought he was funny might just be socially awkward; maybe he just needs more practice being around people,  so maybe you should take him to lunch and tell him when something isn’t funny, but in a kind way. As for the pastor, well, maybe he’s human after all. I’m not saying there isn’t times when you don’t have to part company with a brother or sister, but don’t leave angry. Leave the relationship in good standing so that when you run into each other you can greet each other warmly and in the love of the Lord. If you can’t do that then stay in communication until you can, if possible. (See Matt. 18:15-20)

If someone is outside the church you should view them as a potential brother, as someone you should be sharing the message of the gospel with. The message of the gospel wasn’t one of hate, but one of love and sacrifice. Jesus said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”  His was a message of salvation from sin, not condemnation to hell. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t tell people that they’re in sin, that would be foolish, because honestly they usually already know that, and if we don’t they could end up in hell. We don’t stop the message at the repent part, but finish up with the Kingdom of God part, or it’s not the good news. It’s just news. So like any news it’s “okay, got it, thanks for letting me know” for a lot of people. It’s like telling them the economy is crashing. It doesn’t matter to them unless their heavily invested or until they see it actually take effect in their lives, which could be a very long time if ever, and by then it could be too late for them to do anything about it. That would be tragic.

Back to the boat analogy for a moment…if you’re not gifted in the field of evangelizing the lost, that’s okay. But please, don’t go swinging the oars around willy-nilly in the name of political causes, hobbies, or some other temporal agenda item you have on your mind. This vessel that we’re all in, it has a mission here; it’s a rescue vessel. We’re here to pull survivors out of the shark infested waters, so please, don’t go bonking them on the head before we can get to them, and please don’t knock anyone out of the boat either. We need all hands on deck! We’re all here to do a job, to row, to bail, to pull the people in, maybe to patch them up once they’re in, or just keep the rest of us going with by being the coxswain and yelling out orders so we keep going. We’re going to sink unless we can all get our focus on our Captain and do as He commands!

“Let brotherly love continue.” Hebrews 13:1

Next week we’ll look at Service, taking this message even one step further as we have to step out of the boat and put our faith in action. Until then consider this: We all have the capacity to do good, but more often than not we do it out of selfishness, not godliness. Also people confuse the capacity to do good with having the ability to BE good. It’s NOT the same thing. Let me hear your comments on that. 

Going to DefCon1- The Worship of GOD!

Last week we left off with the stone of prayer. I hope that you’ve been praying, and during that time you’ve happened to glance upon our next stone within the shepherd’s pouch, Worship.

Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; Worhsip the Lord in the beauty of holiness." Ps. 29:2

            There is no greater weapon than worship, for when we worship God, and we truly enter into that oneness with Him, nothing can stand against us.

“And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked?’” Gen. 3:11

Worship of the LORD GOD is akin to dropping an atomic bomb on the enemy. There is nothing like having total intimacy with God that makes the enemy flee. The issue with the worship of God is that it is also the point of attack that the enemy goes after time after time because no one wants to be obliterated, so sin has to take out our most powerful weapon, our cohabitation on the most intimate level with God. In Genesis three, when God asked Adam who told him he was naked, it wasn’t because God didn’t know the answer, it was because it got to the heart of the matter. In that question God said, “Who destroyed our intimacy so that you would be ashamed of it? How could you allow anyone to make you feel shame about what we have together?”

Jesus brought us back into relationship with God thru His death and resurrection so that we could once again enter into worship, and we can answer before God, “No one, Lord, I am undone before you.” We have just moved the enemy’s camp to DefCon 1. And why shouldn’t we worship Him when we consider the depth of that great a love for us. Our love for each other is so conditional. The closest we come to unconditional love is the love we have for our children. A parent’s love for a child can temper through a lot of trials, but even it has been known to have its limits. As painful as it is to tear that relationship, there have been times when a parent has had to release a child in order to guard their lives, or the lives of others around them. Maybe that is love, but it doesn’t seem like it to the child. God is a lot like that. He risked allowing us to go off and decide we would rather not have His unconditional love in exchange for having our complete and devoted love. It’s call a free will creation. I was once asked what God was thinking when He created us to have a free will. I honestly answered that He knew that without our free will we couldn’t love Him with the strength necessary to carry even a small amount of the love He holds for us.  Jesus took the cross for us, the least we can do is choose Him.  

We can worship in many ways. Most people think of worship as singing in church, and that is a definite form of worship. Psalm 66:4  All the earth shall worship You And sing praises to You; They shall sing praises to Your name.” Music is a great form of worship. Who doesn’t love a good serenade? As corny as it sounds we all like having Happy Birthday sang to us by people we love, or to hear ‘our song’ sang into our ear as the one we love dances with us. Since we are created in His image we probably get that desire for those sweet songs of closeness from God.

Other than music, there is the melody of your life and how you live it. Worship of God isn’t limited to those moments in which we have to be alone with Him without others around. God adores corporate worship as well. When His children come together and glorify His name together. How we live with others is a definite act of worship. Putting a smile on the face of another person is Worship before the Lord. Taking the hand of someone who needs to have his or her hand held is an act of worship. In other words, doing the Jesus things is worshiping God. As the formerly blind man said when called to explain his healing, “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.” John 9:31 We need to worship God by being the vessel of Christ for others. What better form of worshipping our Creator could we be than being what He created us for?

Aside from the corporate side of worship there is when we worship God by just sitting with Him. Over one summer I spend a lot of time alone with the Lord. I read through His word in order to draw close to Him. It took me 70 days to read through the 66 books of the Bible. During that time, I had a doctor’s appointment. I went into the doctor and he asked me what I was reading. I lifted up the Bible as if he should read the title. Then I said, “I plan to read the 66 books this summer.”

            He answered, “Oh, and what’s the next book?”

I realized he didn’t notice I was reading the Bible, so I told him, “I’m reading THE 66 books,” and handed it to him.

His eyes widened and he said, “I’ve never read the Bible, only parts of it. I don’t know if I’d want to know God on that level.”

I replied, “He knows you on that level, and He still loves you.”

He answered, “I think maybe you’re right. I should try to get to know Him.”
            I said, “Better make it soon too, because you never know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow.” He asked me if that was in the Bible. I told him yes, it was in Jeremiah 29:11. We went on with my examination. Seed planted- mission accomplished.  It was my act of worship toward God, to not fear man but to acknowledge God.

The worship of God does require one major sacrifice on our part. To truly enter in with our heavenly Father we must really empty ourselves of worldly desires, of selfish ambition, and the distractions of the flesh. It’s extremely hard to do that without having the other two previously discussed stones in play. We must have God’s word firmly planted in our heart so we can hear his voice as He speaks to us. We must also have the communion of an unceasing prayer life. To hold these open conduits of worship it is essential to make God not just first place in your life, but the center from which everything else spins out. You don’t have to be an over the top obnoxious person to have that come out of you, but it should be something attractive that other people notice. So worship God, through your smile, through that unexplainable joy that permeates everything around you. Lift your head up and walk like you know that all eyes are on you and it’s your wedding day, because you are…the Bride of Christ—Church! And He is worthy of our praise:

“The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying: "Holy,holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!' Whenever the living creatures give glorth and hontor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who loves forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:; 'You are worthy, O Lord , To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”  Rev. 4:8-11