Are you a Lone Ranger?

Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. (Hebrews 12:14-15)

The process of 'working at living in peace' in the original Greek language indicates there is no point at which we 'arrive' at peace or a holy life - it is a continual process. We live each day with the attitude of finding peace with each other and encouraging each other to live holy lives. If you have ever been the instigator of trouble, you know how easily others will follow you, especially when the 'trouble' you are initiating is kind of 'fun'. You can get some out of their comfort zone, while others just seem to enjoy the folly right along with you. Wouldn't it be great if it was as easy for us to 'instigate' holiness and right choices, getting others to follow along in the joy of living upright lives?

We have a responsibility to make wise choices - to look after each other as we do. If you are a kind of independent sort, you might not see much benefit in others looking out for you - looking after you so that you don't fall into some temptation that might catch you unaware. You kind of want to 'Lone Ranger' it, believing you can live a holy life without the help of anyone else. How's that been working for you? Have you found yourself dealing with the same frustrating issues in your life time and time again? It is likely because you have been attempting to live 'independent' from others. You have no one 'watching out for you' as you 'live life'. The trouble with that level of 'independence' is that we are never meant to live out holiness alone - it is a 'group effort'.

We need to watch out for one another - like it or not. We need the 'friction' of some relationships to show us where we have rough edges that still need a bit of work. We require the 'intrusion' of other relationships to reveal where it is we still focus too much on ourselves. We can think of life together as a negative thing, or we can embrace it as God intended. We 'work' better in community - seeing what others cannot, finding ways to encourage when the going gets tough, and avoiding pitfalls that seem so obvious to us, but are hidden from the view of another. If this is God's plan for living holy lives - we need to move 'inside' his plan and stop trying to live as 'Lone Rangers' in this world. Just sayin!

No denying it

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are. In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. All power to him forever! Amen. (I Peter 5:8-11)

At times, we believe we are the only ones under attack. It as though all the world goes on around us, busy with their business, and there we are right in the midst of the worst kind of attack. We feel alone, like nobody knows we are there, much less that we are struggling to just keep our heads above water. What is one of the greatest tactics in our enemy's arsenal? The feeling that we are alone - that we cannot share the burden we are bearing with anyone else. Our instruction today is quite clear - we will all experience suffering from time to time - but we are not alone in the battle. There are other believers, put alongside us expressly for the purpose of helping us stay alert and stand firm in the midst of what otherwise would be a losing battle. When we realize we are not experiencing these things alone, we might just see the advantage to forming a 'gang' to deal with the attack! We might call this 'gang warfare'. It is when we stand as united force against all the 'crap' our enemy is hurling our way. Our battles may not be identical, but we all have the same enemy! It could just be time for us to unite in our battles. 

God called us to be a 'body of believers' who stand firm against the enemy's attacks, but we oftentimes attempt to do this all on our own. What a foolish maneuver on our part. We won't avoid the suffering, but we might just find restoration coming quicker when we are battling together. If we are afraid, or too prideful to admit we are facing the battle of our lives, we may just find ourselves overwhelmed in the midst of the battle. No single soldier wins the battle - it takes a united front. Perhaps this is why God establishes us in community - so we can form a solid wall of resistance against our enemy. Support is important, but it seldom comes to those too proud to admit they need it. Oh, maybe that is the real issue at hand today. Maybe we find ourselves struggling with our pride - unwilling to allow others to see our flaws and failures. My flaws are out there, my friends - they are no longer hidden. I hide behind whatever I could for way too long. It did me no good - in fact, it actually did me more harm than good. How? The more I tried to deny my faults, the farther away I was from what I needed most for my rescue, restoration, and strength!

The attacks are real. The temptations are never-ending. The moments of weakness come, Words are spoken without thought, Frustrations are allowed to overtake the moment. Before long, we find what we had worked so hard on our own to avoid has come to a full head right there in front of us. Then we have to begin the 'mop-up' and we even attempt to do that on our own! Whatever made us think we'd resist alone, let alone be able to 'clean up' the mess left behind in our lives all in our own power? God gives us good, Bible-believing friendships for a reason. It is time we bring out the 'big guns' to fight the battle. The 'big guns'? Community! We need each other's strength when ours is wavering. We need one another's perspective when all we see is our own limited view. We need the combined learning of each other's experiences and God-given answers to help us sort out truth from our enemy's lies. We cannot, and should not, live without each other. We are not 'we' until we are open to living open lives before each other. Just sayin!

Not a solitary existence any longer

Wind...stop for a bit with me today to consider the power of the wind around you. The passage I chose today deals with a prophesy given to the prophet Ezekial about an entire valley of dry bones - parts and pieces of life, scattered all around and in great mass. Skeletal remains all over the place, totally picked clean, dried up by the sun and time - bleached white because of how long they have been there. God leads him around the valley and then through it, experiencing the full vastness of both the expanse and the multitude of bones contained there. We probably won't experience anything like this in our lifetimes, but there is significant meaning within this prophesy for God's people of that time. I also think there could be a lesson or two for us - there is power in God's Spirit!

Then God said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they’re saying: ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there’s nothing left of us.’ “Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says: I’ll dig up your graves and bring you out alive—O my people! Then I’ll take you straight to the land of Israel. When I dig up graves and bring you out as my people, you’ll realize that I am God. I’ll breathe my life into you and you’ll live. Then I’ll lead you straight back to your land and you’ll realize that I am God. I’ve said it and I’ll do it. God’s Decree.’” (Ezekial 37:11-14)

In order to get as much out of this as possible, I am going to take you on a little "word journey", so bear with me! A huge valley filled with DRY bones. No signs of life - DRY. If God were to look at our lives, would he see staleness, a lack of freshness, dryness of sorts - people no longer communicating warmth, enthusiasm, or tender feelings? Bones without FLESH. The flesh may have rotted away by time, circumstance, or the lack of no longer being fed. I wonder what the impact of time passing has done to us? Or perhaps the involvement in circumstances spinning beyond our control, or the simple lack of taking time to feed upon that which maintains life? These bones may have been picked clean - by the predators all around them. How many of us suffer the impact of "predators" without even realizing we are being "picked clean"? 

No APPEARANCE of hope for resuscitation. In the eyes of man, there seems to be little hope as the bones are dry and without any sign of life. They are dead by all of man's estimation and human understanding. But...when God sees them, his estimation of each bone and understanding of how they fit within his plan, he sees life. Perspective is everything - life or death! Hear the WORD of the Lord! The word of God will always bring a commotion, a stirring, and a rattling of our "dry bones". Sometimes this stirring is not enough because it just rouses us into action - we still are nothing more than revived corpses! We might have "new flesh", but just looking "new" on the outside is no assurance there is something "new" on the inside! BREATHE that they may live! It is the breathe of God that brings them alive on the INSIDE - not just the outside! They rise as a multitude - an army of warriors - warriors succest strength and vitality. Alive because of the moving of the Holy Spirit over their lives. We are made alive in the same manner - through his movement within and that affects our movement without. It is his "giving of breath" which revives.

Sometimes we are no more than unrelated parts - dry bones scattered to the far corners of the earth. We can remain as dry bones - disconnected, unrelated, scattered and dry. When we do, we live very bland and "disconnected" lives. As a result, we lack the strength and capacity of what I will refer to as "corporate" unity. In this state, we are prey to the predators of our lives - sin, evil, distraction, deception, and the list goes on. The winds of adversity will likely take us down. The circumstances of life will drain us of life even further. The trials will leave us absolutely defenseless. We are open to being carried off by our predators because we aren't connected and alive! We can settle for a week-to-week existence. You know the kind I mean - come to church each week, get a touch of life, then be drained by the time the week is even over! Or we can know the vitality of life - as God intends it - a living, breathing organism of grace.

Wind rattles what it touches - the WIND of the Spirit of God rousing us from our slumber. Sometimes we don't even know we have lost our alertness to the things of God. It is the breath of God's Spirit moving over our lives which rouses us. Maybe we need a little "wind" in our sails again! It shakes - stirring again feelings long left untouched. The wind has a way of stirring whatever it touches. In fact, this is how we know the wind is actually there - we see and feel its movement across our lives. There are areas of our lives which have not been "moved upon" in a long time. Maybe today is the day for God to "move us" - opening us to new possibilities in him. It moves - causing us to change our position, if even just a little bit. Watch the wind sometime and what you see is the effect of it upon that which it touches. There is much to be said about the wind bringing a change of position. Sometimes it is the movement which uncovers that which has been hidden for a long, long time!

Wind draws, pulling us out of the "crannies" of apathy. Things have a tendency to get stuck in the recessed places, don't they? We get apathetic to the stuff we become the most familiar with, don't we? It is the wind of the Spirit that actually "unsticks" us. It drives - moving us forward when nothing else will. Sometimes the influence of the wind is to move what has been stationary for far too long. Things which have been rigid and unchanging will yield to the pull and push of the wind. We all need a little "nudging" sometimes, don't we? The Spirit is what gives dead bones (and dead lives) new life. The purpose of the bones was the formation of a vast army - not a solitary existence, out there alone in a vast place. The army was not sparse, weak, or ill-equipped. In fact, it was vast - numberless, large, great in number! This type of army will make its presence known. It is not easy to hide an army such as this! Just sayin!