Skimming Slag

Have you ever wondered what God might be up to in the chaos of your life?  You can be certain that God doesn’t waste a moment of your life.  You are always in His workshop being made into the image of His Son.  It is so easy to doubt God in the hard times and even easier to forget about Him in the good times, but He never doubts you or forgets about you.  You can take comfort in that promise.  If we loose our faith in God it doesn’t mean that He has become unfaithful to you.  2 Timothy 2:13 says, If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who He is. 

So why does it feel as if God has become unfaithful to us at times?  Why is that we doubt that God even knows our names in the fear and madness of our life?  We doubt because we cannot see Him in action.  The reality is that God is always in action in our lives and on our behalf.

As God is working on us we must understand that there are things in our life that God wants to remove. Those impurities that keep us from reaching our full potential in Him.  So what does God do?  He removes the pollution in the uncomfortable moments of our lives.  Even when we doubt Him because of our pain He is still at work.

I will melt you down and skim off your slag. I will remove all your impurities. Isaiah 1:25.

“Skimming Slag” is actually a silversmith term that means removing the leftover waste from a precious metal after it is melted down. The Message says it this way, “I will purge the junk from your life and clean you up.” There is a  movement right now in our churches that says, “Feel good and stay  positive.” And although God is all about staying positive it doesn't mean that God doesn't use circumstances in our life or take us through seasons of our life to purify and purge us of the things that do not bring glory to His name. 

And if we trust in God’s plan for our life then we must trust in His methods.  In other words we cannot have the Lemonade without the lemons or the rainbow without the rain.

We tend to bristle at the idea of God wanting to make major adjustments and changes in our lives but He always has a purpose in it. And that purpose is to refine His children into pure gold. Jesus tells in John 15 that the Father cuts off every branch that does not produce fruit and prunes those branches that do bear fruit so that they will bear even more fruit.  The reason He cuts off those branches that produce no fruit is because those branches are not productive and can actually infect the other branches from producing any fruit. Spiritually speaking these branches are dead weight that are usually part of the problem rather than the solution. 

 Let me ask you a question.  Are you a dead branch that hinders the growth of the other branches or are you a branch that the Master Gardener is slowing pruning and cultivating into a fruit bearing machine?  In other words, are you apart of the problem or part of the solution? 

Jesus wants us all to be alive branches with the Father’s hand slowly at work in our hearts.  Alive branches bring glory to the Father. Dead ones don't!  Trust His heart as He prunes.

Never are you more close to the master gardener when He is pruning you into His image. 

Philippians 1:6 says, And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue His work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Let Him continue skimming your slag and be certain that He is continuing His work in you even when it’s painful.  You are never alone in the process because God is always faithful.  He cannot and will not deny Himself.

Clothed with Christ

I remember the day it happened.  My brother Tommy, my dad and I were standing around the kitchen (huddled around the pantry, snacking) watching out the window at a lightning storm that was brewing. It was a bad one too.  Lightning was cracking all around us and we were counting the seconds from the thunder.  We were having a ball with it.  We would say, "Oh that one was 2 miles away. Ooooh that one was 1.2 miles away…"

And all of a sudden it sounded like a cannon going off in my ear!  Lighting had just hit a tree right next to the house.  From where we were standing in the kitchen it was about 15 feet away.  All 3 of us hit the deck like a bunch of little school girls.  After we gathered our composure dad asked Tommy and I  to go upstairs and check the air conditioner unit to see if it was running hot, because that bolt hit about 2 feet away from the  unit. 

My brother and I ran upstairs to check it out and the a/c unit was still running cold, but we began to smell smoke.  My brother being a volunteer fireman began rapidly checking around and noticed something.  He looked at me in panic and his eyes led me over to some black smoke creeping out of our storage closet.  Our storage closet was built into the attic and it is where we kept all of our junk, I mean treasures. 

Tommy opened the door of the closet to a raging inferno.  Lightning had jumped from the tree over to the wiring in the house and caught fire.  The fire was eating through the wall and smoke was beginning to take over the upstairs.  In a panicked voice Tommy told me to grab everything I could and run.

He went after his stereo and his guns and his guitar and for some strange reason I ran after my clothes and started pulling them out of my closet.  I was trying to save my clothes!  My clothes?  I thought to myself if the whole house burned down at least I would have something to wear and the only thing my brother would have to cover his nakedness was a 12 gauge and a Fender guitar. I mean it made sense to me.

So at a split second in time I had to make a decision on what was most valuable to me and I decided on my clothes.  

The truth is...our clothes are important to us.  They cover our bodies and allow us to be fashionable. We value them.  That is why we have huge malls slam full of stores that are full of clothes.  When you go shopping most of the time you are going shopping for clothes.  What did our boys get for Christmas… clothes!  After Adam and Eve did their thing in the garden all of sudden they needed clothes.

But these are the clothes of our outward appearance. And although our outward appearance matters our inward appearance matters even more!

Galatians 3:26-27 says, For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on the character of Christ, like putting on new clothes.

Being followers of Christ means we are clothed in Christ.  We wear the inner robe of Christ, and as we grow, that inner robe begins to shine as our outer garments.  So when people look at us they see something different.

They see an outward glow rooted in an inward appearance. 

If you are clothed with Christ on the inside it will eventually show on the outside.  On the inside we are brand new. Let the inward appearance of Christ in your life shine as an outward glow to the world. 

You are clothed with Christ!

Living in His Lap

One of my favorite things to do as a child was to crawl up into my dad’s lap and watch television.  As a matter of fact I have a picture of me as a little boy in my fathers lap and it is one my greatest treasures.  I enjoyed it right there more than anyplace else.  Why?  Because I felt safe. I knew that nothing could happen to me there because I was as close as I could possibly be to the one person who would give his very own life to save mine.  There were so many qualities of my father that I loved.  He was tall and strong and flew airplanes and played college football. But the one quality that sticks out most in my mind is the genuine love that He had for me. He truly loved his boys with all of his heart and I knew it.  And in the safety of his lap is where I felt his love the most.

Our Heavenly Father’s greatest desire for us is not that we serve Him with reckless abandonment or perform moral duties in His name.  His greatest desire for us is that we trust Him enough to crawl up into His lap and let Him love on us the way only He can.  It is so easy for us to get lost into the religion of tradition. It can be a very dangerous place to be because it limits us from the Father’s love. It diminishes the power of the cross.  Wayne Jacobsen says it this way, “By viewing the cross as the offer of a get-out-of-hell free card rather than an invitation of friendship with a gracious Father, we empty it of its power.” 

I believe Paul says it best in Romans 8:15.  So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, “Abba, Father.”

His greatest desire for you is that you live in His lap and through that intimate relationship the righteousness  He desires will flow from your heart like a wellspring. 

Perfection is not what He is after. He is after your heart to rest in Him.

Trust His love for you enough to crawl up into His lap and simply say, Abba!

Cross Examining Christ

I was talking with a pastor friend of mine a few weeks ago and he had asked me if I had seen the previous night’s episode of a popular television show.  I told him that I missed it because I was busy either reading my Bible or in a state of prayer or feeding the hungry or something. 

He began to tell me how furious he was about this particular episode.  The last scene was in a courtroom with a Rabbi on trial.  The defense lawyer began asking the Rabbi about the “ridiculous stories” in the Bible.  “Do you really believe that Moses parted a giant sea?  Do you really believe that Jonah was swallowed up by a giant fish? Or are these just made-up stories to help your faith?”

I asked my pastor friend why he was so upset.  He said, “Because they are lies that create disbelief in the minds of people.”  I told him of course they were. What else would he expect from the father of lies?

The trial of Jesus didn't end in the worlds eyes at the midnight hour in the Pharisees makeshift courtroom 2000 years ago.  The world is constantly putting Jesus on trial day after day for two reasons:  To discredit His message and to create doubt in the minds of all people. 

If Satan can create skepticism in your mind then he’s got you right where he wants you.  Because skepticism leads to disbelief and disbelief leads to giving up. 

Belief is birthed only in the intimacy of you being with God.  Disbelief is birthed everywhere else. 

Don’t ever look to the world to try and prove if Jesus is real.  Jesus will always be on trial in the eyes of the world. 

Make no bones about it. Jesus is who He says He is and He will forever be the King of kings.   Stop trying Jesus and start trusting Him. You know who He is deep down in your heart. That is why it is so valuable for you to guard it.  Remember it is the wellspring of your life.

It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.  Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said.  He was buried, and He was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. 1 Corinthians 15:3-4    

The only way Satan can defeat you is to steer your mind in the opposite direction of God the Father.  Don’t let him do it. Stay close to Him and stand firm in your faith and God will show how real He is!

You cannot cross examine the truth and win.  Satan knows that. He knows his future.  The world cannot stand up to the power of Christ in you.