|City on a Hill - Writings for Refuge

What do I look forward too? I am driven by my appetite...we all are. In the 80s the radio told me everyone was "workin' for the weekend." Since then I have set my sights on a variety of things that would make it all worth it...marriage, a career, pastimes like windsurfing or mountain biking, sharpening a golf game, coaching my kids teams, vacations...the list is so long...but the truth I have stumbled into is that there is only one thing that makes it worth it, there is only one thing I can put all my weight on, all my hope in...only one thing satisfies...it is the God of Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham. Everything else I have ever put my weight on has eventually become an anchor that has tried to drag me down. Those things can't lift me up for long, and eventually I have to lift them up...giving them more and more just to keep the spark alive...but God, the more I give Him, the more He gives back. Pressed down and running over. If I give Him the little love I have, love gr

Sometimes I feel so impatient and restless for what is "next" in my life. I feel like God is giving me a sense of what lies ahead, and I want to rush to it, rather watch Him work it out in His perfect way. This morning He whispered something amazing into my heart: Jeremiah 32: 38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. 39 And I will give them one heart and one purpose: to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants. One heart and one purpose...no matter what station I am in, I can have one heart and one purpose. He told me that when this is the dream of my heart, to honor and worship Him fully, nothing can stop me from moving forward in that dream. There is no waiting necessary to press forward in giving more of myself to Him in the secret place where only He and I meet. I can do this with no limbs, no job, in prison, on a desert island, in an office, or digging a ditch. There is literally nothing that can stop me from attaining t

In the same way a father delights in a son who wants to be like him some day, God delights in every reach you make for Him. Every request to see Him move, every request to help you agree with Him....He savors it. Can you imagine if your child, or even a friend said to you "help me to see things things like you do"...wouldn't that please you? Wouldn't you delight in showing that one what was important to you? God wants us to agree with Him, not because He needs our approval, but because He knows that true insight and wisdom grow out of that...that agreeing with Him is the first step to a truly joyful life....the first step to a truly meaningful life... (Psalms 25:4-5) Show me the right path, O LORD; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by Your truth and teach me, for You are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in You. (Luke 12:31-36) Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and He will give you everything you need. "So don't be afraid, litt

There are a few things I pray for daily. One of those is to see Jesus. Like a vision of Him, or actually Him...there are several accounts in the Bible of His followers seeing Him, not to mention all of the accounts through history of people actually seeing Him. I like praying for this, and I believe I will actually see Him eventually. I know He likes it when I ask Him for this. However, over the last few days He has shown me something about this...He has given me two verses that speak directly to the blessing and consequences of getting what I want: (John 20:29) Then Jesus told him, "You believe because you have seen Me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing Me." (Luke 12:48) But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required. After He gave me these two verses I heard Him in my heart say:

Zephaniah 1:12 is one of the most sobering end-time passages in the Bible. It describes the simple truth that there is no neutral ground with God. As God continues to unfold His plans, everyone has to choose how they will respond. Complacency is not an option..."waiting to see what happens" is considered treason. Neutrality is not the response God has required for those that consider themselves His. I post this with sobriety in my own heart. One of the most common misconceptions is that sincere love for God is the same as wholeheartedness. Sincere love is a feeling, and that is wonderful...but wholeheartedness is measured in the actual response to truth in repentance, or turning of the heart toward God. Agreeing with God is very important as He reveals Himself and His time through the events happening all around us: Zephaniah 1:12 "I will search with lanterns in Jerusalem's darkest corners to punish those who sit complacent in their sins. They think the LORD will do

It's funny to me how good my memory is when it comes to facts, even back to my childhood (my sisters might disagree :-) ), but how dull it is when it comes to faith. God has rescued me from so many seemingly "bad" situations, it would be impossible to list them all. Everything from being late for an important meeting (ok...numerous times) to the saving of my marriage that was about to fall apart because of my own selfishness. Whenever it seems like I am in a scary spot in life, my mind rarely first goes to remembering all the times God has rescued me and turned my bad to good...it almost always first tries to grab onto fear. Imagining the worst of what might happen. Isn't that funny? That my mind would first run to some terrible non-reality, rather than remembering the amazing reality of God's ability to easily change my circumstances to being for me when they looked to be against me?! Fear is not from God: 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear a

The Bible calls our enemy, Satan, the accuser. Accusations get hurled at our minds often, and as a result we are tempted to live in a condemned state...to feel like we are letting God down, not being everything He has called us to be. It is tempting to think we are disappointing God most of the time. This could not be further from the truth. God delights in us. He loves to see the movements of our heart, even as we are working out how to live in agreement with Him. If you have kids, you know exactly what I mean. If you watch a toddler learn to play with other kids, you watch them fight, you watch them act selfishly. You might correct them, but chances are you've had a moment where you actually chuckled in watching them learn how to be a human....even when a toddler is bad, even as a fallen parent, you don't stop delighting in them. And you absolutely feel joy when they realize they are wrong and apologize from the heart. You know they are learning. You know a toddler will event

The end of King Solomon's story is sad: 1 Kings 11:4 and by the time he was old they had led him into the worship of foreign gods. He was not faithful to the LORD his God, as his father David had been. 5 He worshiped Astarte, the goddess of Sidon, and Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon. 6 He sinned against the LORD and was not true to him as his father David had been. 7 On the mountain east of Jerusalem he built a place to worship Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and a place to worship Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon. 8 He also built places of worship where all his foreign wives could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods. 9-10 Even though the LORD, the God of Israel, had appeared to Solomon twice and had commanded him not to worship foreign gods, Solomon did not obey the LORD but turned away from him. So the LORD was angry with Solomon. Solomon had great revelation from God (even seeing Him twice). Solomon had great wisdom, and great wealth. But none of this

Jesus loves you. God LOVES you. We start teaching our kids this as soon as they can talk. That is one of the most basic truths of our relationship with God, but I think it also the most unbelieved fact before us. I have been wrestling for a few days with this exact issue. I believe God loves me, and I could tell someone else about His love for them in great detail. I could point them to the Psalms, or the prophets, the Exodus story, the story of Noah, the Gospels, the Epistles, or even Revelation and I could flood their ears with the amazing truth of God's love...but do I KNOW it for me?...I think the answer is "not really." But I REALLY need to. This needs to be priority number one. It can't wait any longer for me. If I knew this, really knew it like I know my wife's love for me, or my kid's love for me...If I really knew it, then nothing could touch me. Worry, fear, temptation...no scheme designed to slow me down, or bring me down, could touch me. Perfect lo

There are so many opinions we are concerned about in any given day. Do people think rightly about us, do they notice our efforts, our work, our flaws. What do they think about this or that...most of the time people are driven, and least in some small degree, by how they are perceived by others. This is normal in our culture, and is not all bad. It is good to be aware of the influence, good or bad, you have on those around you. But there is very little truth available to others to have an accurate opinion of you... Only the One who made you really knows you and your secret thoughts. Only One sees the real motives behind your actions and words. Only One knows your true level of commitment and love for Him and for others. Only one see's your secret choices for obedience, selflessness, and truth when no one else is around. The bible says that God has trillions of thoughts about you. He is always paying attention to you. He delights in you when no one else even knows what you have done,

God sent a message to his floundering people through His man, Isaiah. Isaiah was sent to tell God's people that their lack of focus on Him had led them down the wrong path. They had gone their own way and followed their own plan for success. It was about to end in their own ruin. Through Isaiah, God so gently assured them that there was a better plan for them. If they would only lock onto it. It could be summed up in this one verse: Isaiah 26:3 You, LORD, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you. Jesus brought the same message. He insisted that our concern for our own well-being is misplaced. If we could see the reality of the spiritual realm...if we could really set our eyes on the things above (as Paul put it)...then we would connect with the truth: we were made to live with a constant connection with God and that if we would put our effort towards that, everything else we strain and strive for would be simply given to us. Jesus compared

Jesus has a plan to return and drive evil off the planet. This plan has been unfolding for centuries and I believe we are seeing the culmination of it right now. What a blessed, exciting, and trying time to be alive on earth. Jesus gave many parables in the Gospels for the generation that lived in this time. Almost all of them talked about "being ready" either by watching, feeding others the truth about the time, and preparing our hearts for what is coming so we would be filled with endurance for what lies ahead. The parable of the 10 Bridesmaids is an end-time parable about filling our lamps (hearts) with oil (fuel) for endurance for the long night of the Bridegrooms seeming delay. What fuels our heart? Revelation, Wisdom, and the experience of encountering the King who is in charge of the events occurring right now. We fill our lamps before the long night, so we are ready to endure. The foolish ones waited until the night was long to fill their lamps, but it was too late. A

Luke 11:34 "Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when it is bad, your body is filled with darkness. 35 Make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness. 36 If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight were filling you with light." Jesus said this to the religious leaders who had just criticized Him for casting a demon out of a man who couldn't speak. Because they didn't possess that same ability, and they considered themselves God's representatives, they called what Jesus did evil. These words were His response. He was telling them that the gateway of your eye determines the direction your heart is going. Your eye tells the rest of your body where you are going. There is a principle in life that you go where you are looking. If you are driving, and you take your eyes off the road, you will start t

The book of Revelation describes the church as Jesus' "bride.". There is a time in the not-too-distant future that those who have been saved by Jesus will sit down with Him at a massive celebration: Revelation 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honor to him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. 8 She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear." For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God's holy people. When I think about the church, we don't seem all that pure or prepared. The prophet Daniel was given insight into how we get pure and prepared, it is as we walk through the trials of the "time of trouble" that are coming ("the wise" are those who stay close to God): Daniel 11:32...But the people who know their God will be strong and will resist him (Daniel is describing the man of lawlessness, or the antichrist). 33 "Wise leaders will give instructi