NoblePurpose Blog

      On September 12, 2001, I returned to work. At least I tried to go back to my office. However, what I found was debris strewn everywhere. My books, records, and desktop where covered with a fine, oily soot that had been dumped from the ceiling vent that was directly above my workspace in the Pentagon, all of this was evidence of the chaos the terrorist attack of the day before. People walked around with the heads down, still in shock from the unexpected destruction.  Few looked at one. When someone did look at you, their eyes were wide with panic and confusion. An Army buddy who was a sergeant major ran when he saw me and just hugged me. This battle-proven career-soldier needed a shoulder on which he could cry and find comfort. Friends, where do you run in time of need?

       I am not sure that I have shared this story before. However, the memories came flooding back into my mind as I prepared for October workshops that NoblePurpose Ministries plans to conduct with the Indian Community Fellowship in two regions of Eastern India. The mission statement that we have adopted for this trip is Encourage, Equip, and See. We hope to encourage Christian church leaders through studies of God, the Father; Jesus, the Son; and the Holy Spirit. We plan to equip these leaders with some tools that may make their ministries more effective. We hope to see what the Lord is doing as He accomplishes His purposes in India and throughout the world.

       Where do you run in time of need? The Proverbs writer gives us this wisdom, “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10). The first session of our workshops is intended to encourage one another as we consider the names that GOD revealed of Himself throughout Scripture. This session borrows from Kay Arthur’s devotional study LORD, I Want to Know You and A.W. Tozer’s The Attributes of God. These inspiring works have encouraged many of us by offering glimpses through Scripture into the personality of an omnipotent, immutable, and awesome GOD. Our Creator is beyond our human capacity to comprehend. Paul asks the Church of Rome, ““For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” (see Romans 11:34). The same GOD illustrates who He is by introducing Himself with different names. He takes 6,000 years to introduce Himself to us in ways that encourages us to get to know Him more and draw close to His presence. As Christians, we know a GOD who wants us to be with Him, always! He is GOD of all occasions and needs. He is able!

In Him,

Dan

www.noblepurposeministries.org

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Once again we are knocking on the door of that special day we have set aside to honor mothers. What can we possibly say that will adequately describe and amply honor mothers; our own mothers, the mothers of our children and the mothers who are our children? We have been warmed by their love for us; watched them serve us; been lifted up when they encouraged us; gained strength and maturity as they nourished us and have felt their arms around us to comfort us when we needed it. Mothers occupy that special space in our heart reserved just for them. Whether they are still here to shower us with their love through those crinkled eyes or have gone on to share it with the Lord, their place in our heart is secure. Nothing else and no one else can fill it. Entering that special memory corner will always make us smile and feel loved.

When the apostle Paul wanted to communicate to the Thessalonians the tenderness of his loving service to them he used the universally recognized example of a mother.

“As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children.” – 1 Thessalonians 2:7

When God wanted to assure his chosen people of His enduring care for them He wrote:

“As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” – Isaiah 66:13

And even more powerfully, He expressed the depth of His compassion for them by asserting that it surpasses even that of a mother for her child.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” – Isaiah 49:15

So, Mothers, God has directed our minds to you as the universally-experienced standard of love to convey to us just an inkling of the strength and power of His love for us. We acknowledge the honor God has directed toward you and we join Him in giving honor to whom honor is due.

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Why is it that as you grow older and older; encounter more and more of life’s experiences; spend more and more time listening and more and more time thinking and more and more time praying, that it seems like sometimes you have fewer and fewer answers to the easy questions and more and more difficult questions for which you have no answers? Or is that really the essence of wisdom?
For example, what does God want us to do about the confusing virtual “black hole” of poverty in His world?
“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me …” Mark 14:6, 7
Is Jesus suggesting that poverty is inevitable – that we can just expect there will always be poor people – and so we can “help them any time we want” – but that our relationship with Him is a higher priority?
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“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Deut. 15:11
Is the Holy Spirit suggesting that we can’t expect to eradicate poverty and therefore we should just be as openhanded and helpful as is practical?
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“Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?”- James 2:5

Is James suggesting that there are actually some advantages to being poor? If so, wouldn’t we be robbing the poor of those spiritual advantages by working to lift them out of their deprived material condition?
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“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. – Ezekiel 16:49

“Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” – Luke 14:12-14
“When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” – Luke 18:22

On the other hand, is God’s heart so filled with the needs of the poor that His command to the rich young ruler to give everything he had to the poor is actually a general command for all of us – that like in the early days of the church we should share everything we have with anyone who needs it?

What is your take on it? Share your wisdom.

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“To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe …”

These words by Don Quixote in “Man of La Mancha” ring in my heart as I struggle once again to join the battle against my obesity. I’m not yet sure how I’m going to tackle the problem this time. I have tried and eventually failed at every tack I’ve taken. I’ve tried “Weight Watchers”, “Protein Power” (a variation of the Atkins Diet), “Spirit-Led Eating”, portion control, eating slowly, “Weight Watcher’s” (again), counting calories,… and on and on. I’ve always prayed for God’s help and I’ve probably lost 500 pounds in my lifetime – but always after days, weeks or even months of bitter battle, I have ballooned back up to where I was – or beyond. So here I sit in front of my computer, 125 pounds overweight, struggling for words to express my frustration and searching vainly for some ray of hope as I look for another windmill at which to tilt.
There’s an old saying, “If you do the same old thing in the same old way you will get the same old result.” So I’m wondering, “Have I always failed because in my great wisdom I decided on a course of action and then asked God to help me to be successful?” On the other hand wouldn’t it have been more God-honoring, smarter, and ultimately successful to have taken the problem on my knees to my Father who knows me inside and out and waited patiently for direction from Him.
Henry Blackaby once said something like “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plan.”
I think I will take Paul’s advice: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 4:6, 7

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When I was a little boy I had a puppy. I named him Coke because I thought he was the color of Coca Cola. I loved Coke and Coke loved me! If mom and dad had let me, I would have let him sleep with me. I think I would even have brought him up to the dinner table and let him eat off my plate with me. As you can guess, that wasn’t allowed. But what I did do was that when we had all finished eating I would go around and scrape into his bowl all the scraps from all our plates. Then I would go out on the back porch and whistle and shout, “Here Coke, come and get it!.” And Coke would come bounding up to happily gobble up the scraps.
The other day I was thinking about the frenetic pace with which so many of us scurry through life. We jump from one urgent task to the next one, frequently not “having time” to take care of the genuinely important needs either in our own life or the lives of those all around us.
At times I think we Christians act toward God like I used to deal with my puppy. When we have done everything we want to do, have exhausted all of the time we think we need for the “important” things; and have spent everything we think we need to spend, we scrape together all the scraps of our time, our energy and our money, go out on the back porch, whistle and shout, “Here, God, come and get it.”
This is so unlike the spirit of gratitude and faith God worked to grow in the people he had recently brought out of slavery and was forging into a mighty nation. (Exodus 34)
The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest … an offering made to the LORD … You must not eat any bread, or roasted or new grain, until the very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live.
Is it really “progress” we have made over the last 3500 years?

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“I long to see you … that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” Romans 1:11, 12
These words of the apostle Paul to the Roman Christians express my feelings as I think about my sister who has been with the Lord for nearly three years now. Marge was two and a half years older than me and once we got past the sibling rivalry of our teen years we became best friends. For fifty years I was privileged to share with her the joy of her faith in God. That faith that was planted in our home, was nurtured by our church family, was tested repeatedly by the challenges of life and continued to grow throughout her days.
Marge knew well both grief and the peace-giving embrace of God’s Holy Spirit. When she was thirty years old, our father had a fatal heart attack. Two years later Mom succumbed to breast cancer. The year after that Marge rushed to Abilene to be with Allen and me when my first wife, Carolyn, (Allen’s mother), our sister, Penny, and my daughter, Cindy, were all crushed by two drag-racing drunks. Six years later she flew to be with her eldest son, a missionary in Belgium, after his two-year old son (their first grandchild) had fallen into a cistern and drowned. Less than a year after that she drove to be with us when, Karen’s sister, Debbie, was taken by a brain tumor. Meanwhile during these same years her husband’s mother, father and two of his sisters had also died.
Through all of these battering storms of life, Marge calmly dealt with her own grief by taking it to God and remained a rock-solid comforting, faithful support for those of us around her. I remember our sitting side by side after the triple funeral in Abilene while people came by and offered us their condolences. One couple, who had known our sister Penny when she had worked with the church in Paris for two years stopped, remembered Penny to us and finally said, “Poor Penny. She was so looking forward to completing her University education, getting married and having a family. I feel so sad for her.” After they left I remember Marge turning to me and saying with a bit of a smile, “Poor Penny?? She’s in the presence of God! Poor us!!”
By the time she was 65 Marge had needed an arthritic hip replaced, had developed diabetes and an accompanying diabetic heart with so many arteries plugged up that nothing could be done. The next year she lost consciousness and collapsed when her heart stopped. Her husband found her and performed CPR on her for several minutes until the emergency medical team arrived. The doctors did not expect her to live but after a couple of days she began to regain consciousness and was out of hospital and back to normal in about a week. She lived another seven years before her continuously- weakening heart finally stopped for good.

Throughout the pain of all that heartbreak and suffering, Marge’s trust in God never wavered. She was happy and she continuously shared her joyful faith with her husband, her six children, and the rest of us in the family along with countless friends. Though Marge and I were often separated by half a continent or more I cherished our extended telephone conversations that always gravitated toward spiritual discussions and the sharing of our common faith in God. She was the resident family counselor and via countless prayers and chats she urged her children, the rest of our family and her many friends to bring their problems to God and to experience the joy and peace of faith in God. Her last seven years following her resurrection were some of her most fruitful. She often said that God must have given her those seven years because He still had something for her to do. I think she was right.
It’s been three years now since she flew her cage and though I still miss her immeasurably, I don’t for one second begrudge her the joy with which I know she is filled as she sings with the heavenly chorus praising God.
Though she never met most of you here is the message I know she would send you.
“This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” – I John 5:3, 4

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The other day my wife, who is a pastoral counselor, had a visit from a woman who was in the process of preparing papers to effect a legal separation from her husband. Both the woman and her husband are committed Christians. There had been no infidelity and no abuse. She was just fed up with the careless way he treated her with silence. She had talked with her pastor. She had consulted another Christian counselor and basically had simply been asked, “Are you sure this is what you want?” Then because she had counseled with my wife a couple of years ago on another matter, she just wanted to touch base with her before she finalized and filed the papers.

After listening to her, my wife asked her a couple of questions.
First, “Have you talked about your plan to take legal action with your husband?” She replied, “No, but he will learn all about it when he is served with the documents.” Secondly, “Have you considered whether or not this action is God-honoring and pleasing to Him?”

To make a long story short, the woman went home, shared her anguish with her husband and discovered that he was horribly shocked and distraught to realize that she was hurting so grievously. He expressed his genuine love for her and was eager to do whatever it would take to alleviate her distress. Soon he began courting her as he had done so well when they first married. In a later joint counseling session the couple asked my wife, “Why did no one else even question if the proposed separation would be God-honoring and pleasing to Him?” They are now on a second honeymoon and I can see God smiling.

Well, men, setting aside whatever deficiencies and offenses we might focus on in the actions of this wife, I think there is a message here for us. Is God pleased and being honored by the way you care for your wife? I think sometimes we men can be pretty thick between the ears when it comes to understanding our wives’ basic needs – in spite of the fact that God has clearly expressed how he “wired” our wives and how he wants us to nurture their lives.

Paul wrote; “Husbands, love your wives ….” (Eph.5:25) The Holy Spirit directed him to write that because it is the most basic need of our wives – more than food, clothing and a nice house. Note that this word from our Lord is not optional. It is not just a recommendation. It is a clear command. God doesn’t just say “I think this would be a nice idea for birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine’s Day.” He said, “This is how I want you treat my daughter – always.”

Furthermore, the instruction is not conditional. It does not say “Love your wives as long as they respect you and treat you with kindness.” However, the Holy Spirit did say, “… love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Eph.5:25) And we all know how that went. Our Lord didn’t wait until we loved and respected and submitted to him, rather, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Men, a marriage to our wife is a holy gift from God. He has placed one of his daughters in our care and we need to hold her in our hands, caress her gently and treat her with the grateful love and respect due such a priceless gift from God. God cherishes marriage so much that he used it to illustrate the intimacy of his relationship with the Israelites. (Ezekiel 16) God’s concept of marriage is so holy that He uses it repeatedly throughout the New Testament to model the close connection between Christ and His church. So it is imperative that we accept this precious gift seriously and determine to care for it in the same way that Christ cared (cares) for the church.

I challenge you to find out how your wife is feeling about your “husbanding”. Sit down with her and ask her these two questions.

“Do you feel connected to me?”

“Do you feel loved and cherished by me?”

Then close your mouth, open your ears, sit back and listen intently to what she has to say.

Friends this reaches far beyond the borders of our homes. God hopes to use the marriages of His people to model to the world his connection with his people and the relationship of his Son with His church. So it is vital that we fulfill his hope. We must be certain we don’t share the condemnation God made of some of His people in the first century when he said through the apostle Paul, “My name is blasphemed amongst the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:24)

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The other day the following thoughts struck me during the Communion and I decided to share them with you. Jack Close

There is this little hill located on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

I staggered up the path to the crest of that hill and I could see two crosses with their human cargoes already in stark relief against the late morning sky. As I reached the summit, I saw a third roughly hewn cross lying on the ground – waiting for me. Forcefully I was thrust down on top of it. Two soldiers pinned down my arms while a third sat straddle my legs making any struggle useless. Frantically my mind flashed back to the screams of anguish I had heard while I was struggling up the hill when the other two criminals were being nailed to their crosses. Their screams had been followed by muted thuds and tortured groans as each cross had been raised and dropped into its anchor hole

What had brought me here flashed through my mind: the lies, the bitter, caustic words hurled in anger, the selfish choices, the hidden dishonesties, the secret blasphemies, the silent mental adulteries, the carelessly procrastinated or ignored acts of kindness, and all the other sin that had accumulated during seventy-three years of my self-centered life.

Then I felt the point of a cold iron nail pressed cruelly against the softness of my flesh. My stomach knotted. Every muscle in my body tensed. And as the executioner raised the mallet to drive in the nail, a cry froze in my throat.

But hazily through the sweat seeping into my eyes, I glimpsed the form of a man in a dazzling white robe. He stepped forward, gently grasped the upraised arm of the soldier, and whispered something quietly in his ear. The soldier stared at him in disbelieving bewilderment. Then he just nodded his head, dropped his arm and stepped back.

The man in the white robe reached down, took my hand and lifted me gently up from the rough timbers. After a tender love-filled hug He guided me reeling back into the arms of my family who were sobbing among the crowd of onlookers.

Dazed and shaking, I glanced back over my shoulder and saw my rescuer purposefully taking my place on the cross. I looked down into his eyes and saw tears of inconceivable sadness – for me – and a consciousness of the scope of his love for me swept over me like a tidal wave.

I watched the nails being driven first into and through his wrists – and then his feet. I could almost feel the anguish that I knew should have been mine. While the brilliant crimson blood gushed from his wrists and feet, I noticed the dazzling white of his robe had faded to a dirty gray. His cross was slowly raised and then plunged violently into the remaining hole between the crosses of the two criminals.

Immediately, silently a formidable darkness began to creep over the whole land and for the next three hours it hung there, bearing down on us with an oppressive heaviness. After what seemed like an interminable pause during which time seemed to have stopped an anguished cry from his parched throat sliced through the uneasy silence. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Finally, his head dropped to his chest and he murmured, “It is finished”

At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead. They left the cemetery after Jesus’ resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people. The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!”
(The New Living Translation: Matthew 27:51-54)

Sunday morning His tomb was empty. But my mind will never be empty of the images of that Friday morning on that little hill outside Jerusalem.

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Have you ever reflected on the feelings of God?  Have you ever been pained by His pain?  Has your heart ever longed to bring a smile to His face in contrast to what He must feel so often when He is faced with the disdain of the atheist, the futile worship of His creation by the ignorant pagan, or worse yet, when He contemplates those of His own declared followers, his adopted children, about whom the Holy Spirit anguished in Romans 2:

 “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” 

For most of my life (On May 10 I will have been a Christian for 62 years.) I have thought about myself and my challenges and my feelings and my successes and my failures in relationship to God. It’s only in the last few years that I have begun to contemplate the feelings of God in our relationship. At first that may seem to be rather presumptuous, to think one can know how God feels about anything, yet God often shares His feelings with us. It seems to me He wants us to know how He feels. Listen.

The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.  (Gen. 6:6)

Therefore this is what the LORD Almighty says:
       “See, I will refine and test them,
       for what else can I do
       because of the sin of my people? (Jer. 9:7)

“A son honors his father and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the LORD Almighty.  (Malachi 1:6)

“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” declares the Sovereign LORD. “Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?” (Ezek. 18:23)

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  (Matt. 9:36)

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! (Luke 13:4)

“Father, forgive us for our insensitivity to your pain and grief.”
-JSClose

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A good friend and wonderful pastor sent this to me and it seemed appropriate to share.  Especially today.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

In HIm,

Dan

www.noblepurposeministries.org

George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor — and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks — for His kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation — for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of His Providence which we experienced in the tranquility [sic], union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed — for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One [capital O] now lately instituted — for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions — to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually — to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed — to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn [sic] kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord — To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease [sic] of science among them and us — and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York
the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789
George Washington

 http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/thanksgiving/intro.html

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