The Inattentive Bride

As the church, we are the Bride of Christ. Are we acting like a bride typically acts? Are we consumed by the groom and our desire to be with him?

My son is getting married in two weeks and the bride to be is very attentive to the groom. She has been separated from him for the past several months by almost a thousand miles. But she is attentive and desires to know what he is doing and what he needs. Through out the day her thoughts are about the groom and how she can please him. They are both anticipating the day when they can be together without restraint. She tries to keep in touch and her heart breaks when they cannot connect in a meaningful way. She is not distracted by other guys and or by interests of any kind that don’t involve the groom. There is not a day that goes by without her attention being centered on the groom.

Ephesians 5:31-32 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
Isa. 54:5, “For your Maker is your husband— the Lord Almighty is his name...”
Rev. 19:7-9, “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear..." Then the angel said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!'”

Let us keep ourselves pure anticipating the day we will be together with our Lord and Savior. Let our thoughts and heart be with HIM even now as we prepare for that great day.

Hope & Obsession

These days there is a lot of talk about hope especially in politics. Personally, I don’t have much faith in the political hope some people are touting.

Hope is a very important emotion. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is the essence of things hoped for. Ted Dekker in his book, “The Slumber of Christianity” suggests that hope the greatest emotion. I think, 1 Cor. 13:13 would disagree by because it lists faith, hope, and love and then saying the greatest of these is love. However, 1 Cor. 13 does show the immense importance of hope.

According to The American Heritage Dictionary, hope is: (1) to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment (2) to look forward to something with confidence or expectation (3) to expect and desire. Hope is a strong emotion or desire. It can even become an obsession.

Obsession is: a persistent preoccupation with a somewhat unreasonable idea or feeling.

The human family tends toward being obsessed with something. We don’t necessarily like that fact. We would like to believe we strictly follow logic and are above obsession. But we are made in God’s image and He is obsessed. God is obsessed with you and me. He went to unreasonable lengths to draw us to himself. He chases us down even when we rebel against him. He forgives us over and over again. When you look at it logically, it is unreasonable how much he loves us.

So if we are to be obsessed, what should we be obsessed with? Ted Dekker believes we should be obsessed with the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matt 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all that he had and bought that field.” The man in this parable was obsessed with this treasure. He sold everything he had to obtain this field and it’s hidden treasure. Was this a reasonable thing to do? I guess it depends on the treasure that was hidden in this field.

What if this treasure was mostly about some way off future hope that showed very little financial benefit over the next 100 years? What if you lost out on opportunity after opportunity because you were sitting on this field and unable to cash in on this treasure?

Our treasure is in heaven and it is well worth anything we can invest while on this earth. Our hope is in heaven and in the unreasonable idea that God loved us enough to send His Son to the cross in our place. We should be obsessed with heaven. Are we?

July 4th

It’s official; I’m a grandpa! I am very thankful to have been on the scene. I was able to hold my daughter’s hand while she was having contractions at least for a little while. I am very proud of my daughter (Jessica) and her courageous 22-hour battle with those contractions. I am proud of her husband (Chris) because he was so gentle, loving and patient with her the whole time. He was a rock. Deb was there for 10 hours and was a much needed help. I was mostly a bystander but very grateful for the opportunity to be close by.

After all that work, the doctor made the decision to do a C-section because of some complications. Everyone was extremely disappointed but mother and baby Noah are doing great. Noah James Ocker was born on 7/04 at 7:04 PM. For the rest of his life Noah James will have fireworks to help celebrate his birthday.

I am thankful to have been there twenty minutes after Noah James was born to see him look at me with alert eyes, which followed me when I moved. He is 6Lbs. 14 oz. He seemed very happy to be set free on Independence Day. He was very active and alert. He often stretched his arms out wide not comprehending his newfound freedom. Jessica’s quote of the day after this was all over was precious. She said in a surprised voice, “I don’t have a lot of good things to say about this labor thing.”

With all that I am thankful for, the following is the thing for which I am most thankful. I walked through the day praying and enjoying fellowship with the Lord. I believe he was telling me he had a plan for our Noah’s life just as he had a plan for the life of Noah in the Old Testament. I wondered what kind of plan he had for Noah so I asked the Lord to show me how to pray for Noah. I wanted to agree with God’s plan and pray it over Noah. The Lord seemed to be telling me that as the old Noah saved the lives of others because he was obedient, so our Noah would save lives through his obedience. That is something I can get behind and pray through. I believe this by faith. I am not sure how all this will work out but I don’t have to have all the details. I will just claim it by faith for our Noah. Praise be to God!

Faith & Emotions (Part 3)

The Bible does command us to have some emotional responses. The Bible tells us to delight in the Lord. The Bible tells us to rejoice and to give thanks. The Bible commands us to love others, which involves action and emotion. My friend, Greg, spoke last Sunday about the Good Samaritan. He pointed out that the two religious people passed by having convinced themselves through some kind of reasoning not to get involved. However, the Samaritan “had pity on him.” That is an emotional phrase not just logical reasoning. Jesus often had compassion on the crowd.

Let’s look at some other emotions the Bible commands us to feel. We are to hate evil. Something we are not very good at doing rationally or emotionally. We are to hope for an eternal future. These are not just rational words but words that involve an emotional response.

I do not want to put down anyone who has taught that the Bible doesn’t command us to feel any certain way because as I said I was one of them. There is some truth to that idea because the Bible doesn’t tell us how to feel without telling us what truth to believe. God gives us the context in which to feel these emotions.

For those who are in Christ:

• God tells us to feel hope because our eternal destiny is assured.
• God tells us to take joy in trials because he knows the spiritual growth that will result. (Don’t think rational joy like I guess some good will come out of this, think real joy, emotional joy that puts this teaching on a whole new level.)
• God tells us to love because he first loved us and he will love others through us.
• God tells us to hate evil because it is out to destroy and devour us.
• God tells us to be thankful because our sins have been forgiven and we have been blessed beyond measure.
• God tells us to feel confident in Him because he will supply all our needs.
• God tells us not to worry because he is for us and it doesn’t matter who is against us.

Sometimes I lack faith and don’t believe what God says and then my emotions are out of whack. In that case I shouldn’t ignore my emotions I should ask, “Why am I feeling this way?” I need to listen to my emotions to find the lie I am believing.

I once counseled a woman who at 64 years of age had not forgiven herself for having an abortion more than 40 years earlier. In the years following she had 12 children as a kind of penance. As a Christian she knew about 1 John 1:9 but emotionally she could not accept the forgiveness of sin for herself. She was not only listening to her emotions but also letting them control the truth she believed. God’s Word is true regardless of what we believe or how we feel. The truth of God’s Word needs to set us free and that includes our emotions.

There is a difference between being controlled by our emotions and listening to our emotions. If we listen to our emotions can teach us many things about our faith and about our walk with God.