Knowing God

The other day, Mitch and I were talking and we began discussing the reality that so many people in evangelical churches today have a false hope of salvation.  So many people hold to the thoughts that, “I’m a good person,”  “I’m better than most,”  I’ve gone to church my whole life,” or “I walked down an isle, said a prayer, and was baptized, therefore I must be saved!”  It becomes scary when you press people in the church, to explain how they know they will go to Heaven when they die.  Their answers often times become vague or muddled.  How is it that a person can go to church all their life, they can even be involved as a leader or teacher in the church, and still not be able to give a clear, biblical explanation of the hope they have of Heaven?  Are people not LISTENING or is the church not TEACHING?

While Mitch and I were talking, I began thinking about what it would be like to stand before God on judgment day and hear Him say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”  My heart became full of dread and panic knowing that it would be too late to make a change but in desperation I would begin listing out all of the things my spiritual life consisted of:  “But God, I was on staff at a church, I dedicated my life to telling others about Your love and forgiveness!  I’ve been all over the world teaching others!  You were my everything!”  But then God would turn to me and simply say, “I never knew you.”  

That day, talking to Mitch, my heart was burdened and broken for the lost people within the church!  We as the leaders and teachers can do such a good job teaching our flocks to go out and serve, love, and disciple BUT I’m afraid we have missed the boat on teaching others how to simply KNOW GOD!  

Take some time today, to run that scenario in your mind.  What would you do or say, if today you were standing before God and instead of Him greeting you with excitement, He simply said, “Depart from Me, I never knew you?”  Would the desperate words of your defense be found in Scripture?  Please don’t wait until that day to discover what, ‘Knowing God’ really means!  

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”   Matt. 7:21-23

LORD, this week I pray that those who read this will KNOW, that they know You, not just know of You!  Change our hearts to look like Yours! Amen

Worn Out Pages

This week as I’ve thought about Father’s Day and family, I had to thank God because He has blessed me with a Godly heritage!  My mom was telling me the other day about a time when she was a little girl and she asked my Papaw why people where at church on a Wednesday night?  He said, “Because they had church then.”  So my mom responded, “Why don’t we go to church on Wednesday nights?”  My Papaw did not have an answer for that, so from that time on, they were at church every time the doors were open.  That fostered a passion for Jesus which has been instilled in my family throughout the years.
When I go to my grandparents house, I love to look through their Bibles.  They are full of worn out pages with notes in the margins and verses that are highlighted.  Some pages are worn so much, there is tape holding them together.  Looking through those worn out pages is almost like seeing my grandparents lives unfold before my very eyes.  I can read their notes beside the story of, ‘Jesus Walking on the Water,’ about a time when God called them to step out in faith!  Or at the 23’rd Psalm, I can see tear stains where they cried at their parents funeral.  I love that some verses are marked with dirty fingerprints, from where they visited and revisited a particular verse or passage which brought them hope!  

The words of Scripture are eternal!  They are the very Words of God which span from eternity to eternity!  And the worn out pages of my grandparents Bibles, they speak of a second story, they tell of the testimony of a grandparent who has walk, stumbled, and gotten back up in their pursuit of a glorious God!  

When we look at our Bible what do we see?  Are the pages crisp and clean or are they worn and marked?  I’m not talking about abused from being thrown in the back seat of the car and forgotten about until the next Sunday when we dig it out and blow off the dust!  I’m talking about do they show the marks of a servant who depends on their Master?  Do they reveal the passion of a lover who reads and re-reads a love letter?  This week, please don’t miss the abundant life that is revealed in the pages of God’s Word!  Start wearing out the pages for future generations to see!  I’m praying for you all!

Your Will Be Done

The Bible is full of verses and passages that raise questions in my mind.  Sometimes when I am reading my Bible, I think, I can’t wait until I get to Heaven to ask God what He meant by that!  And other times, God reveals His meaning to me in unexpected ways.  I think this is one of the reasons why I am drawn to Scripture, it is more than just a book, it is the Word of a living God!  

This morning I was reading in the book of John and I came to one of those verses that make me scratch my head.  John 19:28-30, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, ‘I am thirsty.’ ... Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

My question was, if everything had been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, then why didn’t Jesus just say, “It is finished!” and bow His dead and give up His spirit?  Whey did Jesus, who knew He was about to go to the Father, say He was thirsty?  He knew He would be given sour wine.  I just don’t know why Jesus drank the sour wine instead of going on to Heaven so He could drink Heavenly wine?  I would much rather have the sweetness of Heaven than the sour grapes of this world!

The answer to this question, was found in Matthew 26, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane with His disciples and He is praying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass...”  Then a second time He prays, “My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.”  (Matt. 26:39-42)  Jesus was saying, I don’t want the sour grapes of this world but if I have to drink them so that the Father is lifted up then I will drink them.  

All of us have ‘sour grape’ times in our lives.  It would be easier to cut a corner, tell a white lie, or simply compromise, so as not to have to choke down the bitter cup in front of us but when we take the easy way out, what does it say about our great God?  Jesus had done everything perfectly!  He had fulfilled everything and the time was at hand!  All the pain, the weight of all our sins, the Father turning His back on Him, all of this was about to come to an end!  But there was still a cup of sour wine that needed to be drunk, so Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”  After He drank the cup, He said, “It is finished!”  He emptied the cup so the Father would be glorified!  Then He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.  

This week, take time to evaluate your life.  This may be one of the worse seasons of life you have ever experienced.  You may be facing the fork in the road of ‘Compromise’ or ‘Integrity’, but I want to encourage you!  You are not alone!  There is one ‘beside you’, ‘in you’, ‘all around you’ and even ‘holding you up’, who knows what sour grapes taste like!  Receive the cup and let God bring you through!  This will not be easy, nor will it be fun!  But it will bring glory to the One who drank the sour grapes for you!  I’m praying for you this week!

What Lies Behind

Now that Lindsey and I have lived in the Elkin area for almost a year, and we live on a small farm and we have our garden planted, we are attempting to become farmers.  At least in our own minds!  So with this in mind, I got a little yard tractor from my brother-n-law so that I could ride it through our garden and sing “Old MacJason had a farm E I E I O!”  The other day, I was going to plant a row of corn, so I got my tractor out, hooked up a plow (I knew that was the wrong implement but it was the only implement I had) and I attempted to plow a furrow in the soil.  Everything was going great, the tractor was moving on just right and I watched as the plow carved a valley in the soil.  I smiled with joy as I daydreamed about eating the corn at a cookout!  This whole gardening thing is no sweat!  I continued to watch the plow blade cut through the ground with ease!  Finally I turned around to see how much further I had to go when I realized I had gotten off course and gone diagonally across the garden!  Maybe I still have a thing or two to learn about gardening!?!

Spiritually speaking, life can be much like plowing a garden.  We were never created to focus all our time on the row behind us.  If we do that, then we lose sight of where we are supposed to be going.  If I had focused on an end point when I was making the furrow in my garden then my line would have been straight but because I was focused on what was behind me, my garden might look more like a corn maze!  

In life it is easy to spend all our time either looking back at the mistakes that we made or to look back at the glory days when we were younger and more vibrant than we are now.  But no matter how badly we want to go back or how much we wish we could redo those days, we cannot!  Yesterday is gone but we have today and it would be a shame to waste it.  

“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:13-14

This week I challenge you to let go of the past, both the regrets and the glory days, then focus on God and He will make your path straight!  (Pr. 3:5-6)

The Marks of Christ

The Lawson house is now undergoing its first major project since we moved in.  When you move, Lowes Hardware is kind enough to mail you a 10% off coupon, so Lindsey and I took the truck to Lowes and loaded it with fence post and wire fencing so we could fence in our backyard.  We even bought us a couple pairs of gloves so we could look like we knew what we were doing!  

I don’t know about you but I get bored real quick when it comes to manual labor, so in order to keep me focused, I have to make it into a game.  So I started timing myself to see how fast I could dig down 2 feet.  I’m glad no one was around to see that sight, but I was dancing around that hole and slamming that post-hole digger down into that open ground as fast as I could.  My heart was beating a million times an second and sweat was rolling down my face.  As soon as I could catch my breath I was racing to dig the next hole.  By the end I was getting pretty consistent with my time and my record was set at 2 minutes 22 seconds.  (If you think you can beat that, come on over and I’ll show you where the next post needs to be set!)

That night I sat in a chair and watched my blistered hands shake.  My back was bent in a question mark and I could not move my arms.  Those are the undeniable signs that someone, who is out of shape, has done work!

Galatians 6:17 says, “From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.”  Paul, had just been talking about bearing one another’s burdens and how we are to not lose heart in doing good.  How often do we fall out at the end of the day, our hands blistered, our backs aching and our bodies marked because we have been bearing someone else’s burden?  When was the last time that we gave until it hurt?  When was the last time we served a stranger even if it was politically incorrect?  

It’s fun to go on a mission trip for a week each summer.  When we get home we put Neosporin on our cuts or scrapes and send our dirty, tattered clothing to GoodWill.  We celebrate with those on the team and make scrapbooks out of all the photos.  Then often times we begin to rest the next 51 weeks so we will be ready to go again the next summer. 

The truth of the matter is, if we were to do mission work every week of the year, we would wear out!  Our cuts wouldn’t heal, they might turn into scars!  Our hands might get stained and our faces marred!  When would we have time to do other things like hanging out with friends or playing the back 9?  If we did missions all the time, we might start looking dirty, all our good clothes filthy and torn.  At the end of the day, we might sit there looking at our blistered hands and feel the throb of a tired back, but then again we might understand what it means to bear on our body the brand-marks of Jesus.

This week, don’t wait to serve others, everyday is an opportunity and let the joy of the LORD be your strength! (Neh. 8:10)

The Joy of the LORD

I am willing to admit that there are times when I have, “One of those days.”  You know what I’m talking about, days when you just want to crawl into bed, pull the blanket over your head and wait until tomorrow to start again!  As a child I remember reading a book titled, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,”  That’s what I’m talking about, we all have those days that are just plain, terrible, horrible, no good and very bad!  And I’d be willing to say, it’s ok to have a day like that.  We live in a fallen world, therefore, not every day is going to be peaches and cream.  But lately, I’m afraid those days have been happening a little more often than not.  

I was praying this morning and asking God to fill myself and our home with the Joy of the LORD, but at the same time I was working on a bad attitude.  For me, it seems like I wake up with a song in my heart, the sun is shinning and I take off running through my morning routine when out of no where a brick wall pops up and I run face first into an interruption. (The dog needs to go out in the cold, firewood needs to come in, there are dirty dishes in the sink, the car won’t start, I’m having a bad hair day, etc)  Then all of a sudden, I find myself fighting a bad attitude that can easily stay around all day long.  If we are not careful this can happen day after day, after day.  We lose sight of the 15 positive things that happened that morning and we focus on the one negative thing, then it ruins a whole day.

John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”    Satan must wake up earlier than I do because as soon as I get out of bed, he has already set obstacles in my way to trip me up and to steal my joy of the LORD.  So Jesus came to give us life more abundant and Satan is working overtime to steal it, what is the key to staying on the positive side?

“Like a city that is broken into and without walls Is a man who has no control over his spirit.” Pr. 25:28  So many mornings when we get up, our lives are like cities with no walls around them.  They are exposed and wide open for an attack from the Devil.  If we think we can live our lives without a Spiritual wall protecting us then we are deceived!  Lamentations 3:22-23 says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”  The mercies of God are the bricks and His love is the mortar which builds the protecting walls around us.  But we must daily walk around those walls checking to see if there are cracks or holes.  We need to take time each day to dwell on the goodness of God so as to mend those breaches in the walls.  If we fail to start our day with the Father, then we are opening ourselves up for a “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  But with the mercies of God surrounding us, even a bad day can be a great opportunity to praise the LORD!

I’m praying for you this week and may you know the mercies of God!

Holiness

My wife Lindsey and I were talking the other day about life and spiritual things, when God led our conversation to the topic of ‘Holiness.’  For many of us, myself included, we would have to go to a dictionary to find a definition for the word.  Most of us know the word and we could probably use it in a sentence but we would struggle to define it other than to say, God is holy!  So I looked it up and it is defined as, “separateness or withdrawal.”

I would dare say, the reason we know so little about it, other than God is holy, is who could teach on it?  Any person who would teach that we are to be separate from the wickedness of the world but then they go home and gorge themself at the dinner table while talking about the people they just saw at the church, until they fall asleep watching their favorite TV sit-com or movie about a group of people acting on their lustful desires for acceptance, sex or power, would be a hypocrite!

At this point, conversations usually turn to, “I don’t think God is calling us to dig a hole and crawl in it, after all the Bible tells us to be in the world but not of it.”  OR “I can never be Holy, only God can.”   While both statements sound true, they are statements made out of a desperation to hold on to something in this world!  

When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the temple which separated us from the presence of God, was torn in two, giving us access to the King of kings but the path which led into His glorious presence did not change!  If we think we can stroll up to God linked arm in arm with the world then we are sadly mistaken! 

God calls us to be holy because He is holy! (I Peter 1:16)  It is interesting to note that the Bible does not teach holiness precedes salvation but rather holiness is a response to salvation!  I could never be holy enough to make it into Heaven but because I am IN Christ and the Holy Spirit is IN me, I can be separated from the world! In fact, that is my act of worship!

At this point the conversation usually moves toward, “But if I get rid of my TV and the internet and etc., what would I do?  Life would be like one eternal boring church service!”  Well, to that I would say, maybe churches have missed the purpose of why we come to church.  Revelations 4:8 says, “And the four living creatures,...day and night they do not cease to say, “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY,...”  It is interesting to note, that we do not hear them complaining about being made to worship God day and night.  On the contrary, they are experiencing a ‘Life’ that most people will never know because we are connected to the world!  If we come to church because that is what we are supposed to do OR because we enjoy the experience, then we have missed it all together.  We come to church so that we can walk together as a family into the presence of God and lay our lives at His feet!  That is why we live separated from the world, so that we can come into His presence both night and day and cry out, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD God, the Almighty, and it mean something!

This week, my challenge to you is pray that God would give each of us a heart for holiness!  I’m praying for you all!

Reflecting Jesus

This past Sunday we had the great opportunity to partake in the Lord’s Supper.  Each time I take the bread & the juice, I try to travel back 2000 years ago, and picture what it would have been like to hear Jesus speaking to the disciples, “Take, eat, this is my body which has been broken for you.”  To feel the warmth that was given off by the lamps in the room, to hear the whispers of the disciples as they tried to figure out what Jesus was talking about.  They probably did’t understand it all but I would imagine they felt very loved by the end of it.

Each time I’ve served communion at PRBC, I have done a different task.  One time I helped serve the deacons, one time I helps serve the deacons and the congregation, but this time, I was able to simply serve the congregation.  It allowed me to focus on those who I was giving the bread & juice to.  I prayed for Brett Campbell as he grabbed a piece of bread for the first time, as a new Christian!  I prayed for the students and they reached for the cup.  Every person that I extended a tray to, I tried to lift them up, maybe the same way Jesus did when He passed them to the disciples many years ago.  It was a very humbling moment for me!

There was one moment though that took my breath away!  After we had passed out the bread, the deacons and I all stood at the back of the sanctuary, waiting to walk forward together.  Finally, everything was in order and in unity we began to walk.  I was trying not to walk too fast and run over Dicky Luffman, nor walk too slow and be stepped on by Steve Martin.  But as I walked, I looked down into the chrome plate of bread, and as I did, I saw my reflection in it.  There it was!  Among the pieces of the broken body of Christ was my reflection!  I handed Mitch my plate and then went and took my seat but my mind was still fixed on seeing my reflection.  

The bread represents the body of our Lord Jesus, broken on Calvary, as He was nailed to a cross with every single sin I have ever done or will ever do hung around His neck.  At that moment, God the Father turned His back on His only Son because He could not bare to see my evil, wicked, and selfish sins!  Three days later, the stone that was placed over Jesus’ tomb, which was placed there to keep Him in, was rolled away and Jesus, alive and well stepped out!  He no longer had my sins around His neck but His righteousness in His outstretched hands!  He was extending His beautiful gift to you and me so that if we would bow before Him, He would clothe us in His righteousness!  Now when God looks at me, He does not see me, He sees His Son!  

When I looked at my reflection in the communion plate, I couldn’t help be see, ‘the bread!’  The broken, righteous body of Jesus, covering my face!  No longer am I Jason Lawson the sinner, now I am Jason Lawson the REDEEMED!  I have been saved by grace through faith!  My reflection is now that of Jesus!  Praise God!  

When you look in the mirror, what do you see?  Someone who is broken, tired, troubled, or dying?  Or do you see the One who stepped out of Heaven and came to earth so we could be redeemed, restored and reborn?  That’s the God we remember in communion!  

  I’m praying for each of you this week!  May God lovingkindness & Holy presence always surround you! 

The Sun is Shining

Almost 10 years ago, I had the great opportunity to travel to Honduras for a mission trip.  This was the first time that I traveled out of the country by myself.  This was a big step for me because I am a mama's boy and so I had never ventured far from mom and dad.  I can remember that morning, I had to wake up at a very ungodly hour and get my luggage to the airport.  My heart was in my throat as I walked out of the house and then to top it off, when I opened the door, I could hear the unmistakable sound of rain.  So I was blurry eyed from waking up so early, I was freaking out because I was traveling without my parents, and then I was wet because it was raining!  

Finally I boarded the plane and buckled up.  Looking out the small window of the plane all I could see were clouds and rain, even the sun had better sense than to be out.  It was just a dreary day!  The plane taxied out to the runway and then the engines revved up and we took off!  Take up is always an exhilarating experience!  It blows my mind how something as big as a plane can get off the ground!  

I watched the ground below us fade into the clouds until there was nothing else to see, it was like someone had thrown a grayish, white blanket over my window.  My head tilted back against the head rest as I started to fall asleep when all of a sudden a bright light started to break through the clouds.  I watched as the plane ascended above the clouds and we entered into a majestic new world!  The sky up there was a brilliant blue and the clouds were now a pure white!  But the best part of it was the sun was shinning so bright!  On this day when things were scary, dreary and wet on earth, I found out that above the clouds it was a glorious day!

I guess that is a lot like life!  When all of life seems dark and confusing, it is important to remember that, this means something is blocking the light.  There is a cloud between me and the Spiritual Son. At that moment I need to fall to my knees and pray for God to open my eyes to see past the clouds of this life!  God can still the storms, stop the rain, move the clouds and cast a rainbow over the sky!  But even if He chooses to let it rain, storm and stay cloudy, we can rest in the wonderful truth that He is with us!  We are never alone!

This week, no matter what the weather of life you are in, take some time to bask in the restoring presence of God!

Gold Fever

This past Sunday, Aaron Simons was teaching the youth Sunday School class about “Why We Believe Jesus is the Son of God?”  While he was teaching it was evident that he had spent time with Jesus the week before.  Not just studying about Him in a book but he had actually spent time at the feet of the Savior. He was in the middle of a battle to find words great enough to express the majesty of the Son of God yet at the same time make his words understandable to teenagers.  Passion overflowed from him as he taught and it was inspiring to watch as he challenged the students to spend time getting to know Jesus!

While I listened to Aaron speak, I began to think about spending time with Jesus.  I had a mental picture in my mind of a little creek.  I imagined what life would be like if word got around that someone had found a nugget of gold in the creek worth several thousands of dollars!  Then a few days later a couple more people found gold worth more than that!  I imagine that, if this happened, we would all be down at the creek panning for gold!  

Though after a few days, if no one else found any gold we would probably head home discouraged that we were not one of the lucky ones.  But if we were to find a chuck of gold we would catch “Gold Fever,”  We would spend long hours down at the creek searching for more gold.  It would not matter how cold or hot it was or how tired we would get because with the gold you were finding, life would never be the same!  In fact many people could actually get to the point where they would stop taking breaks to eat because every moment spent doing something other than looking for gold could result in a missed opportunity.  If that were to keep up, a person could actually die because of lack of rest and food.

This mental movie that was playing out in my head ended with God revealing a truth to me.  He is the gold and His Word is the creek.  When we go to church and hear about the pastor finding some terrific nugget of truth, we get excited and we begin to read our Bible’s on Monday.  But when we get bored and lose focus we put the Bible away and move on to other things.  But if we were continue to search until we found that golden nugget we would get an unquenchable thirst to spend more time with God!  In fact if we continued to search and to dig deeper into the Word of God then we could very well get to the point where we ‘die to self.’  Our life would no longer revolve around ‘ME’ but around spending time with Jesus!  What a great God we serve!

This week don’t put your Bible away just because you get bored or lose focus, dig deeper and prayer harder!  “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all you heart!”  Jer. 29:13

Obedience School

If you talk to me much at all, you will probably find out quickly, that I am the proud father of two crazy dogs!  Ellie and Sam are the driving force of insanity in the Lawson house as well as the leading producers of scratched walls and ripped pillows!  Needless to say, Lindsey and I have been pulling our hair out trying to learn how to train our two bundles of endless energy.  So, finally we broke down and paid for obedience school at the PetSmart in Winston.  So for six weeks we would pack Ellie into the car and make the journey to Winston so that we could hopefully learn the ‘magic word’ which would bring us a little peace in our house.  The instructor would come in and load Ellie full of treats while talking to her in the best baby voice, then she would say, “Have a good night,” and class would be over.  Let me tell you I was more than a little bit skeptical about this whole thing.  But then one night in class we learned the “magic word”!!!  The word which would bring peace to our home!  The word which we paid all that money for!  “PRACTICE!”  That was it, ‘practice’ was the magic word.  I felt like my hard earned money was being flushed down the drain.  But then the teacher explained that we could come to class and the dogs would preform beautifully while we were there but would then go home and do the same old things unless we worked with them, practicing everyday, teaching and reteaching.  The truth of obedience school is, the teacher does not teach the dog, they teach the dog owner how to teach their dog!  Now that’s a truth worth paying money for!

The same principle applies in the church.  If every Sunday morning you pack your family into the car and make the journey to church just to watch everyone learn new spiritual tricks and then go home only to be faced with the same old lifestyle, then you are missing the point of church.  Our goal, is not to pump you full of enough spiritual food to last until next Sunday.  Our hope is to teach you how to feed yourself!  But just like Ellie, this will only come through ‘practice.’  Day after day, chapter after chapter of Scripture.  There will be no peace in your home until blood, sweat and tears are poured out as you seek God with all your heart!  Jer. 29:13  This week, pick up your Bible and start reading.  You may be clumsy at it and it might be more difficult than you thought but keep practicing and before you know it, you will be the healthiest Christian you have ever been and you will know God like you have never known Him before!