The Lord Appeared in a Dream

Over and over the Bible makes the statement, “The Lord appeared in a dream”. The Lord appeared in a dream to Gideon, to Joseph, to Daniel, to Jesus earthly father Joseph, to Paul, and to prophets. Do you think God still appears to people in dreams? The word appeared could also be translated “showed” or “to lighten”. In other words God revealed His will to them in this unique way. He showed them things they were in the dark about. Rose and I have lost something and looked everywhere we could think of with no avail. A number of times after we asked God to reveal the location, in a dream during the night the places were revealed to us. In the passage of Matthew concerning Jesus earthly father Joseph, again and again the Bible says God appeared to him in a dream. Joseph always responded with instant obedience and God rewarded him with safety and blessing as a result.

“While he was thinking about this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife. For it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived.”

(Matthew 1:20)

A married couple from India moved to Canada so the husband Bhupinder Singh could work for a major bank as an Information technology professional. One night, after praying and reading their Sikhi scriptures, his wife Mona had a dream. In this dream, the Lord Jesus himself came to her and told her about what she has been praying for. At that point, they had never read the Bible or knew much about the Lord Jesus or gone to any church. She immediately realized that the Lord Jesus is the true, real & living God. “That’s why He knows what I have been praying as per my Sikh scriptures. She immediately accepted the Lord Jesus. Bhupinder thought, I have got everything from my own Guru / religion, so why do we need a new God?" Bhupinder began to seek out the truth about his wife¹s new revelation. He called a local church and spoke with a pastor. Bhupinder asked him,"Do I have to change my religion or my dress code to come to your faith?" He was told that Christianity is not a religion but a direct relationship with God and that whatever kind of dress he wore, it was okay. "I wanted some proof that what the pastor told me was correct". So I asked him to give me a Bible. He gave me a copy of New Testament. ”

After I started reading the New Testament, all my questions were answered in the first hundred pages. I soon realized that all the books I¹ve read earlier are just derived from the Bible. Now I am reading the original book.” "My wife and I started studying the Bible seriously," Bhupinder says. "Soon we stopped reading and following other scriptures. We started doing everything according to the Bible. Our entire life has changed. We spend a lot of time reading the word of God. We meditate on it and use it in our day to day lives." "The Lord has also blessed us. He is using us to bring lost souls to Him in our social circle & South Asian Communities”, says Bhupinder. “We are seeing a big change in their life through physical and most importantly spiritual healings, answered prayers and quick resolution of issues by blessings from true & living Lord.”

Whether through dreams or through His Word, God is still speaking to his people. Will we hear his voice and respond with instant obedience like Joseph did? God’s power and presence will flood our lives when we respond in this way to His voice. Joseph was an ordinary man, but God used him in extraordinary ways because of his obedience. When God appears to you and me, will we respond like that? God still used ordinary people to do extraordinary things when we are eager to obey Him.

Selah,

Al Yoder

9/15/2011

Brothers and Sisters Loved by God: Assurance Even in Suicide

For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you.  1 Thessalonians 1:4

Do you need some good news today?  Some encouraging word to get you started in the morning, or maybe something positive to counteract the overwhelming negative attitude that pervades the culture outside of Christ?  How about this statement from 1 Thessalonians.  What better news can there be than that the all-powerful God of the universe loves you?  In fact, not only does He love His children, He has chosen them as His children.  We are not His children because we chose Him, but because He chose us.  That is good news indeed.  If it depended upon my choosing Him, I might fall away during a low time in my life.  I might question my status as a child of God during a time of discouragement.  If it depends upon my complete and unquestioning faith in God, then I'm afraid I'd be in and out of a right relationship with Him depending upon my attitude and ability to think correctly.  But God has made it clear that He has chosen us, and He sustains us even in the worst of times.  His love breaks through any circumstance.  

In Romans chapter eight, Paul lists a whole host of things that we are tempted to think can rock our world and take away all of our hope.  But he says that none of these things, in fact no thing at all, no part of creation, can keep us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.   

He begins His list by saying that neither life nor death can separate us from God.  Do you know someone who has committed suicide?  Have you been taught that suicide is an unpardonable sin?  This teaching is nowhere to be found in scripture.  To be sure, suicide is a sin, it is a terrible sin.  But our sins have been forgiven in Christ.  His sacrifice and atonement are the antidote for sin once for all time.  Christ's one-time sacrifice atoned for sins into the past and out into the future, both to Old Testament believers and into the future to us.  It was a once for all time sacrifice, not one that must be repeated every time that we sin.  When a believer dies, there is not some necessity of a final confession before he passes on.  That is a theology taught by our Roman Catholic brothers and one with which we disagree.  Confession is important in overcoming sin, but it is not the thing which forgives us of our sin.  Christ's atoning work overcomes sin, and that work is complete.  And God chose us for Himself, and neither life nor death can separate us from His perfect love.  Once we are His, we are always His.

And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.  Phil 1:6

Has God begun a good work in you?  The promise is that He will bring it to completion.  Did He begin a good work in a loved one who took his or her own life?  Be assured, be certain because nothing is more sure or certain than the Word of God, that God will bring His good work to completion in that loved one, even though their life may have ended in a tragic way.  There is little that can be said at a tragic time like this that can take away the pain.  We grieve rightly because it is a sorrowful thing to lose someone.  But we must never bring question into a situation in which there is no question.   God loves His children, He has chosen us and He will finish the work He began in us.  Thank God for the assurance we have in Him, that our salvation is sure not because of our perfect behavior and right thinking in the matter, but because God has chosen us, He loves us, and He will not let us go once we are His.  

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.  I and the Father are one.  John 10:27-30

The Whole Picture

Some people read the Bible by opening it at random and without looking point his finger at the page. They look at that as God’s word for them for the day.  Sometimes that works positively, but other times it has a negative effect because it is taken out of context. Such was the case of the man who said, “Lord, show me what you want me to do”…using that method. His Bible opened up to the scripture that said, “Judas went out and hung himself.” He than closed the Bible and reopened it pointing to, “Go and do thou likewise.”  That’s why it is unwise to not compare scripture with scripture to get the whole picture. At times we communicate with people by only giving them a small part of the whole picture. Yet we expect them to understand where we are coming from. It’s not fair to the person who wants to be our friend. It’s also not fair to the Holy Spirit when we try to interpret what he is saying based on one verse of scripture.

“These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

I Corinthians 2:13

A Texas teacher was helping one of her kindergarten students put on his cowboy boots. She could see why he had asked her for help, because even with her pulling and him pushing the little boots still didn’t want to go on. She had worked up a sweat by the time the second boot was on. The little boy said, “Teacher, they are on the wrong feet.” She looked, and sure enough they were.  It wasn’t any easier to pull the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as they worked together to get the boots off and back on the right feet. Then the boy announced, “These aren’t my boots.”  Once again, she bit her tongue and struggled to help him putt the ill-fitting boots off his little feet. No sooner had they gotten the boots off when he said, “These are my brother’s boots. My mom made me wear them.” Now the teacher didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. But she wrestled the boots back on the little boy’s feet again. As she helped him into his coat, she asked “where are your mittens?” He said, “I stuffed them in the toes of my boots.”

Sometimes, like the little boy, we only give people bits and pieces of information. Yet, we expect them to understand what we need from them. If the little boy would have shared more information with the teacher up front, the job would have been much easier for both of them. If we allow God to share more information with us up front, we will see the whole picture and our lives with be infinitely more balanced and meaningful. Comparing scripture with scripture is treating God fairly and it makes our life easier because we see the whole picture.

Al Yoder

9/7/2011

God Sent Me

When life’s circumstances seem to slam us around and we feel mistreated and misunderstood, how should we view these things? Are we just the random product of this world with unexplainable experiences? Or, is there a God who is divinely orchestrating things to make us a more effective part of His vast plan to save people? In Genesis 45, Joseph had been treated horribly by his brothers and unfairly thrown into jail by an angry owner. Yet, when it was within his power to kill his brothers and his former slave owner, he showed them mercy and pled with them to not be angry with themselves. Joseph said “God sent me to save lives”.

“God sent not his son into the world to condemn us, but that the world through him might be saved”. (John 3:17)

‘Then Jesus said to them (his disciples) again, Peace to you. As My Father has sent Me, even so I send you.” John 20:21

Joseph said, “Don't worry or blame yourselves for what you did. God is the one who sent me ahead of you to save lives.”    Genesis 45:5   CEV

Leslie Perrott tells about an experience that made her appreciate the power that grace had on her life when her husband showed her mercy. “We all have those days where things go wrong. Like the day I was on my way to the grocery store when I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw my five-year-old had fallen fast asleep. My mind sifted through the possibilities . . .I could wake John up when we get to the grocery store . . . but then he’ll be really crabby, and once he’s awake, he won’t go back to sleep. Or I could just turn around, take him home, and tuck him into bed since Les is working there. I could grocery shop just that much faster. I knew Les was hard at work on a book deadline, but it was more likely that John would sleep at home than in the grocery cart. So I returned home, carried John into the house, tucked him into bed, and told Les that he’d be in charge of our little one for a while. I sped back to the car with the kind of urgency that only a mom trying to fit in multiple tasks during a child’s naptime can entirely identify with. I jumped into the driver’s seat, and as I backed out . . . the open car door smacked against the side of our garage completely ripping the door off the car. I’d forgotten to close the door when carrying John into the house. The ripping and tearing sound brought my husband Les flying down the stairs out of his study, which is directly above the garage. He was wide-eyed as he saw me crying, sitting there behind the steering wheel. The cause of this one-car accident was obvious. I gripped the wheel, bracing myself for what Les was about to say. But he didn’t yell. He didn’t lay blame. He kissed me on the cheek and said, “I was thinking we needed a new card door, so this is perfect.”

Of course I didn’t deserve that kind of grace in that moment. My thoughtlessness not only cost us money, it meant we wouldn’t be driving the next day on our long-awaited ski trip. But instead of guilt, condemnation, and anger, I got grace. Why? As Les said that evening over dinner, “If I were in your shoes in that moment, the last thing I would have needed from you was to be scolded.”

Can we see how God sends us into difficult circumstances to help people we would have never reached out to in any other way. Les was sent into the garage where her wife had just ripped the door right off their car to reassure her of his love.  Joseph was sent to Egypt where he experienced rejection and prison in order to save his family & many other people. What painful experience have you and I been a part of? Can you see that God perhaps sent you there to equip you to help many other people?

 God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn us; but to save (heal) us.  Jesus told us as his disciples ”… as my Father sent me,  so I send you.” That means we have a divine mandate to stop condemning and to begin helping people heal. When this truth gets a hold of us, we can say with Joseph…GOD SENT ME.

Al Yoder

8/23/2011

Smarter, Not Harder

Early yesterday morning I picked up my chainsaw and began cutting a very large hickory stump that stuck up in the middle of my lawn. After mowing around it for twenty years, I decided it had to be taken to the ground. It didn’t take me long to discover that the stump was very hard and my chain was very dull. Sweat was pouring from my red face to the ground, so that it was hard to even see well. Wisdom told me that it would be better to sharpen the chain three times, rather than break my back by trying to save time and cut with a dull saw.

How many times have we tried to overcome a spiritual problem in our lives the same old dull way? Though it never worked well for us, we keep trying the same old way…hoping for different results.

What do we call it if someone keeps on flipping the switch when a light does not come on, hoping maybe the next flip will make it work? We call that crazy, right? Wisdom would cause that person to try something else. In my reading through Ecclesiastes, I came on this verse with some very practical advice.

“If your ax is dull and you don't sharpen it, you have to work harder to use it.

It is smarter to plan ahead.”

Ecclesiastes 10:10  GNB

I would jump off the haymow of a barn to the floor without climbing the ladder, because it was quicker. Granted the landing was a fairly hard jolt on my feet and back, but it saved me the time it took to take the ladder. One day my dad saw me jump and told me, “you may save some time right now, but you could very well pay for it with back and joint problems for the rest of your life.”  How wise dad was. It pays to plan ahead and not just live our lives for the immediate pleasure of the moment.

A good gardener would know to keep his shovels and hoes sharpened. Working with a dull hoe would amount to pounding weeds rather than slicing through them, and a blunt spade will stop at roots and hard soil, whereas a sharp one will cut right through them.

Are we walking around with dull axes?  Are we less effective than we used to be? Are we simply going through the motions of serving God because of being near burnout and total exhaustion? That is not the way God intends for us to live. Of course, there are times when more work is required, more energy is spent, and you will be tired. How do we avoid this rut? Is it possible to have a great marriage, a strong sense of purpose, a successful job, a ministry that pleases God, and still enjoy life? I believe we can. The secret is found in keeping a sharp ax.
That is exactly what needs to be done with our relationships with God and people. It is far more effective to invest time and effort into these relationships before we feel the need for any help; rather than expecting our friends and family members to help us at a moments notice when they haven’t heard from us for a very long time! Sound familiar anyone? How many of you know it is harder to restore a broken relationship than it is to maintain one. I believe one of the keys to keeping our spiritual axes sharpened is by reading God’s Word.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword…”  (Hebrews 4:12)

So, let’s work smarter…not harder, by daily reading God’s Word. Life will not be dull when we are sharpened by the word of God.
Al Yoder

Blessed By Vision

Proverbs 29:18

Butch, a brother in our church family recently had a knee replacement surgery. He said it would have been so much more difficult if he did not have a church family loving and caring alongside his physical family. He said “having people lovingly praying for me, helped me trust God with whatever He did with me” He had a vision of what Christ’s purpose was for the church. Pastors have the responsibility to impart the vision Christ has given for His church. God has a plan and purpose for us as a body of believers, a vision. We are fulfilling the will of God when we actively participate in the local church body.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he who keeps the law, he is blessed.”

Proverbs 29:18

In the past 53 years, I have watched many people come and go from church, and the majority left because they had no vision or a very small one at best. God's highest purpose for us is much more than to fill a pew every time the church doors are open. His plan for our life involves more than just attending church and listening attentively to someone preach a good sermon. God wants us to be actively involved in the church.

The church isn't a building or facility; it is not the walls, chairs and carpet. It is not an organization to better our society, though it will do that.  The church is much more than that. She is a living organism, called a Body in the Bible. It is made up of people who are born again, growing and maturing into the image of Jesus Christ. When there is a project to be done, we ask the question “who is heading this up?” We want to know who has the authority to get the job done. Christ is the only head of the church. The church represents Christ on the earth continuing the ministry Jesus began 2000 years ago.  (Eph.4:11-13, Rom.8:29, Acts 1:1)

 Proverbs 29:18 says that without a vision, people perish. The Hebrew word for vision used in this passage is "chazown" and it means sight, or vision. So, according to our text, God wants us to see something. God wants to reveal His will to us. The church does not gather to escape the fires of hell, but to find out what God wants us to be doing in our world. The text verse says without sight or vision, people perish. The Hebrew word is "para" and it means to loosen or dismiss.

The Living Bible:"Where there is ignorance of God, the people run wild"
New American Standard:"Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained"
New International Version:"Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint"

Soren Kierkegaard told a story about a wounded goose who landed in a barnyard with some chickens. He played and ate with the chickens. After a while that goose thought he was a chicken. One day some geese flew over the barnyard migrating to a warmer climate. They honked as they flew overhead, and the goose heard them. Suddenly something stirred within his breast. Something called him to the skies. He began to flap the wings he hadn’t used, and rose a few feet into the air. Then he stopped and settled back again into the mud of the barnyard. “He heard the cry, but he settled for less."

If we hear God’s vision, why settle for less?   Proverbs 29:18 ends by saying “blessed” or happy are those who do these things. So, go ahead…flap those wings and get blessed by God’s vision.

Al Yoder

Free Indeed

Many Americans don’t know what Independence Day really means. What we celebrate is the day we were set free from the dominance of the country of England in 1776.  That was the time we were set free as a people to worship God as we understood Him. We no longer needed to be in bondage to a foreign government to take away our income with heavy taxes and our freedom to worship as we pleased. 

One evening Rose and I hosted a young man for supper. As we visited together about his work and his children, he responded that it was a positive time for him. We then asked how his relationship was with his wife, to which he responded “very difficult!”  We tried to be helpful to him, but suddenly we discovered that we were not doing well in our own communication with each other.  The harder we tried to rectify the problem with words, the less we understood each other. It was discouraging to know that we might have caused this young man’s evening to be ruined. After he left, Rose and I tried again to talk about what had happened to the two of us, only to still feel like there was a breach in our spirits. It was at that point that God spoke to me saying, “Why don’t you ask me for help with this challenge?” I felt rebuked for not thinking about asking Him sooner. The moment we finished praying, there was a huge change. It was as though we had been set free of the invisible bars that had kept us from understanding each other.  It is a wonderful experience to live in a free country, but it is even more powerful to be set free from the spiritual warfare that hinders our oneness with each other and with our God.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”

John 8:36

Harry Houdini, the famed escape artist issued a challenge wherever he went. He could be locked in any jail cell in the country, he claimed, and set himself free quickly and easily. Always he kept his promise, but one time something went wrong. Houdini entered the jail in his street clothes; the heavy, metal doors clanged shut behind him. He took from his belt a concealed piece of metal, strong and flexible. He set to work immediately, but something seemed to be unusual about this lock. For 30 minutes he worked and got nowhere. An hour passed, and still he had not opened the door. By now he was bathed in sweat and panting in exasperation, but he still could not pick the lock. Finally, after laboring for two hours, Harry Houdini collapsed in frustration and failure against the door he could not unlock, and it swung open! The door had not been locked, but in his mind it was locked. All he really had to do was lean against the handle and walk out of the jail cell. 

We, like Houdini, sweat and get frustrated by our sincere attempts at overcoming a difficult situation in our life. Then when we get to the “end of our rope”, we cry out to God and Jesus sets us free, and we are free indeed!

Al Yoder

7/4/2011