Words and Hearing; September 9, 2019

Posted on September 11, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 108:1 My heart is steadfast, O God;
I will sing and make music with all my soul.

Someone once recommended this verse to my wife as a faith declaration when she was having heart trouble, because in another translation it is rendered, “My heart is fixed!” It was clear that person had Encourager gifting, rather than Teacher gifting. What David is expressing is firm commitment. The Japanese expresses it as “My heart will not waver.” We too need to make that declaration at times, because commitment boldly spoken is strengthened. It’s like Paul said, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) Actually, the original text doesn’t say, “hearing the message,” it just says, “hearing.” (The Japanese says, “starts from,” rather than “comes from,” but I think that too is a bit of an interpretation.) What we hear really does influence what we believe, which is why the current issue of media and fake news is so huge. Christians have a vital responsibility to run everything through the filter of the Holy Spirit, accepting as true only that which receives His approval. However, all of that is tangental to what this verse is talking about. As David realized, we need to declare our commitment to God and sing it out, in order to strengthen it. It may seem odd, but faith is often strengthened by what we hear from our own lips. I’m not at all advocating “name it and claim it,” or “We must never make a negative confession.” However, saying out loud, “God will get me through this, and His grace is all I need,” is of huge benefit at times. That isn’t hypocrisy, it’s agreeing with what God has already said, and reminding our hearts of it.

I have had some very interesting times of being in prayer and God speaking to me directly through my own words, just as we usually think of prophecy as one person speaking to another. There wasn’t anyone else around, but God was speaking through my mouth! I have learned the joy and power of faith declarations, but I also know that words by themselves can be empty. James goes on at some length about that issue, from various angles. Listening to truth without applying it in my own life is deceiving myself, (James 1:22) and protestations of faith without follow-through are almost totally empty. (James 2:14, etc.) I need to say the right things and also walk them out. Like David, I need to declare my faith in words and in song, and let that faith lead me to faithful obedience to my Lord.

Father, thank You for this reminder. So many of us have trouble doing the things we say. I ask for wisdom in encouraging those who say nice things but rarely follow through. I also need wisdom in dealing with those who are forever negative in what they say, failing to give You glory by trusting You. May I be an example and a coach, so that together we may grow as You intend, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Learning from God; September 8, 2019

Posted on September 11, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 107:43 Whoever is wise, let him heed these things
and consider the great love of the Lord.

After giving such a recitation of how God has rescued people out of a wide variety of situations that were mostly created by their own actions, the Psalmist expresses the point of the whole Psalm. We tend to observe events and not process them in our hearts and minds, and so fail to learn from them. The Japanese translates this verse as, “Who is the person with wisdom? Let him fix his heart on these things, and so grasp the grace of the Lord.” God would much rather not have to teach each of us the same lessons over and over. Frankly, those lessons can be rough to experience, as this Psalm makes clear. What God would like is for us to see and really think about how He has dealt with others, and so receive those lessons vicariously, without having to go through all the mess. That’s a major reason for the historical sections of the Bible, and particularly the Old Testament. As Paul said, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” (1 Corinthians 10:11) Whether we’re reading the Bible or simply watching the people around us, we need to open our minds and hearts to recognize the incredible grace and love of the Lord, as well as the reality that “God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8) Neither legalism nor “hyper-grace” (libertinism) understands the character and heart of God.

This is truth in which I am continuing to grow. I had the huge advantage of parents who were excellent examples of what it is to follow God in full commitment, and I have also seen countless examples of the other extreme. As a pastor I seek to point people to God and help them really think about and assimilate what they have seen and even experienced. However, as someone with Teacher gifting I have a tendency to lecture, and that is seldom the most effective way to go. That’s why I’m grateful for my recent exposure to what is called coaching, as an outgrowth of the Cell Church movement. In coaching, the aim is to help people recognize what God has already spoken to their heart, rather than lecture to them. It is coming alongside, rather than speaking down to them. Between being a school teacher as well as a pastor, along with having a high IQ to begin with, I have tended to feel like it was my job to tell people what was right. I am to do that, but never with the feeling that I am the authority, much less the source of the truth I express. Rather, I am to seek to help people recognize these things for themselves, and so own them to do them, instead of resenting my lectures. I’ve had more than enough of that sort of reaction!

Father, thank You for this reminder. Last Monday You gave me a message on “Saints” for today, before I entered the hospital on Tuesday. Keep me from coming across as though “I’m a saint and you aren’t, so get with the program.” Help me be an accurate channel of Your grace and truth to all who hear, so that together we may indeed grasp Your grace and love, and so be transformed. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Evangelism; September 7, 2019

Posted on September 10, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 107:1-3 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures for ever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say this—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
those he gathered from the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.

This whole Psalm is a recitation of things that people had done in turning their backs on God, and then what He did when they turned back to Him. This first statement encompasses all such people, and says what they should do: proclaim that the Lord is good, and His love/mercy/grace (the Hebrew has many shades of meaning) endures forever. This was written presumably after the Babylonian captivity, but it seems to apply even more today, when God has literally gathered Jews from all over the world to reconstitute the nation of Israel in the Promised Land. However, this truth isn’t limited to Jews. As Paul tells us, all who live by faith in God are children of Abraham. (Romans 4:11-12, and others) Anyone who has turned to God and discovered His deep grace and mercy needs to talk about it! We get tied in knots thinking about personal evangelism, but it is really nothing more than what this is talking about. We create all sorts of systems and train people in them, wondering why we don’t get many converts, when the Biblical pattern is far more simple: live your life in gratitude for what God has done for you, and when people ask about it, tell them. (1 Peter 3:15-16 Some translations separate the verses differently.) The problem is, few people seem to grasp just how much God has done for them, and so fail to live with a radiant hope and joy that draws others to desire it for themselves. Part of the problem is that we think we deserve an easy life, when nothing could be further from the truth. All of us have effectively spat in God’s face and participated in nailing Jesus to the cross. Failing to realize that gives us the wrong attitude right from the start. We don’t appreciate God’s grace until we understand how much we need it, but once we do, our gratitude overflows and we indeed proclaim, “The Lord is good, and His loving, gracious mercy endures forever.”

This of course applies to me as much as it does to anyone, but it didn’t really click until I was 24. When God showed me how black my heart was with pride toward Him, I was devastated, because I was raised to love Jesus and thought I was a good Christian! In the almost 50 years since then I have learned more and more of the depth and height and outright magnitude of God’s grace and love, and I expect to learn even more when I am before His throne. (Ephesians 3:17-19) Evangelism is difficult in Japan for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that it is a “shame culture” rather than a “sin culture,” but I am never to draw back from sharing the goodness of God, not as one who dispenses it but as one who has received it and wants others to do likewise.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the people who came to see me yesterday, and for guiding our conversation so that we ended up giving quite a testimony to the other three men in my room. I pray that what they heard would pique their interest and draw them to learn more of You, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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The Character of God; September 6, 2019

Posted on September 9, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 106:47 Save us, O Lord our God,
and gather us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name
and glory in your praise.

This whole Psalm is an extended confession of the sins of the Jewish nation. It is honest to the point of being blunt, which I think God appreciates, since He can’t be surprised by anything. Right at the end, the Psalmist gets around to this prayer. There is no pride in it at all, which is why God has been pleased to answer it. God has indeed gathered the Jews from the nations and created one of the most vibrant countries in the world, and the only full democracy in the Middle East. However, many of the Jews are secular, and still few acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah for whom they have prayed. God isn’t through with Israel by any means, and as Paul wrote to the Romans, there is yet going to be a huge harvest.

I haven’t done all that the Jews did, but I have certainly done things that, had I been making the rules, would have disqualified me. I am to proclaim that God is a God of grace, righteousness, and holiness, and none of those aspects are to be overlooked. Throughout the history of the Church there have been some who have focused on one aspect or another, thereby slighting the others. Today we have the “hyper-grace movement,” and it too is a sad deviation. Grace means nothing if there are no rules! I am to believe and teach the whole Word of God, not putting Him into any sort of box, so that His Word may be fulfilled in and through me.

Father, thank You for the nation of Israel as a demonstration of Your character. Thank You that I was born the same year as the current state of Israel! May Israel, and I, be increasingly obedient to You in every area, so that the works of the devil be destroyed and You alone glorified. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Praising God; September 5, 2019

Posted on September 9, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 106:2 Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord
or fully declare his praise?

The answer to this question is obvious, and is implied in the very asking of it: nobody. We can’t even know all that God has done, so how can we proclaim it to others? The point is to have our eyes, ears, and hearts open all the time to recognize what God has done and is doing, and give Him the praise for it all.

Having had hernia surgery under general anesthesia yesterday, I’m not in good shape at this point. But whatever shape I’m in, I can choose to keep my focus on my Lord, and give Him the praise and glory that He alone deserves.

Father, thank You for getting me through the surgery. Thank You that You are going to get me through the recovery period, however long it takes and whatever is involved. May I be Your agent through it all, that those around me may be drawn to You through me, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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God’s Dominion; September 4, 2019

Posted on September 8, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 103:22 Praise the Lord, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the Lord, O my soul.

This verse echoes the first verse of this Psalm, but whereas the first verse focuses on the private, the internal, this verse expands to all creation. I like one phrase in particular here: “everywhere in His dominion.” We talk about, and pray about, “God’s kingdom,” but we have the persistent tendency to think of that in terms of territory. God created everything, so if it’s simply a matter of territory, everywhere is the Kingdom of God. However, it’s actually much more pointed than that. God’s kingdom is where His will is honored and obeyed. That’s what “dominion” is all about. “Domain” is used in various ways in science, from computers to biology to whatever, and it always means authority, where certain rules are followed. In the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come” and “Thy will be done” are completely inseparable. When we are unwilling to do God’s will, we are taking ourselves out of His kingdom, His domain. By following “everywhere in His dominion” with, “Praise the Lord, O my soul,” David is including himself in God’s dominion, under His authority. As David demonstrated later in his life, this is a commitment that has to be maintained and renewed. If we think, “Oh I’ve done that,” we lay ourselves open to all sorts of temptations. We need to live constantly in the awareness that “Jesus is my Lord.”

I made an honest commitment to Christ at age seven, but that commitment didn’t get renewed the way I’ve just mentioned. I had some times of real worship along the way, but God had to bring me up hard when I was 24, showing me the horrible mess I had allowed my heart to get into. Recently He has encouraged me to use the faith confession, “I serve the Lord of Glory.” When He first gave me that phrase, “glory” was what stood out to me, but I see now that “serve” is just as important. I don’t get to boss God around! Being allowed to serve the Lord of Glory is a huge privilege, since it carries authority and many other things that can be had no other way, but I’ve got to remember that I serve, I don’t dictate. Yes, I’m a child of the King, but I am also His servant. I may ask freely, and am encouraged to do so, but it must always be as Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but Yours be done.” (Matthew 26:39) Only then will His perfect plan for my life be fulfilled, for my greatest blessing and His glory.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You that I’ll be having hernia surgery this morning, and for all the preparations that have been made. Thank You for all the people who love me and are praying for me. I ask that You bless them abundantly as they pray for me, so that You may receive all the praise, honor, and glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Father God; September 3, 2019

Posted on September 8, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 103:13-14 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.

I have every line of this Psalm underlined, and it is rich indeed. I could preach for days on it! However, right now I’ll limit myself to these two verses. Right off the bat we encounter something that is problematical in modern society, because many men seem to have forgotten – or have never learned – how to be fathers. Biologically it is very simple to become a father. A few years ago I read of a man who had 17 children by almost as many different women, and he wasn’t about to support them all. He certainly didn’t have compassion on his children, as this talks about. Even in what are called “intact” families, many fathers struggle to relate rightly to their children, not only because of the pressures of modern society but because they weren’t raised with a valid example to follow. That has produced what has been called a “father wound” in very many people today. We are born with an innate need for not just a mother to birth and nurture us, but a father to “raise us up in the way appropriate for us.” (Proverbs 22:6) We need a father as a loving authority figure to give us boundaries and stability, and far too few people really have that. It is downright astounding when a person with such a father wound really discovers Father God and allows Him to heal them. All sorts of things are turned around and bondages are released. That said, there is one more thing here about Father God specifically, and that is what it says in verse 14. Human fathers can know their children only to a degree, because every human is an individual, and besides, we don’t even know ourselves perfectly. However, God is our Creator; He has our original blueprints! He knows us better than we could ever know ourselves, and He treats us accordingly. He certainly knows our every weakness and He will not over-stress us, unless it is an area in which we specifically need to be broken. (1 Corinthians 10:13) We may not have a human father we can trust fully, but God is more than worthy of our total trust, and then some.

This is very applicable to me right now on a physical level, as I will be entering the hospital today for inguinal hernia surgery tomorrow. I have had x-rays and CT scans and other tests, but God knows exactly what the situation is, not just with my body but with every part of my being. The surgeon is young, but God is the Ancient of Days, and He certainly has no lack of either wisdom or skill. Likewise, Cathy isn’t used to being here without me, and she has anxiety about how to do various tasks. Not only do we have the convenience of cell phones, God certainly knows how to do everything, and He can guide her even in things I don’t know how to do! He has given us both this time as training in how to rest, relax, and rejoice, trusting Him with every detail and being fully obedient to everything He tells us to do.

Father, thank You for this encouraging Word this morning. I pray that Cathy and I would both walk in it fully, not just in this period of my hospitalization but for the rest of our lives, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Spiritual Pride; September 2, 2019

Posted on September 3, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 101:1-2 I will sing of your love and justice;
to you, O Lord, I will sing praise.
I will be careful to lead a blameless life—
when will you come to me?
I will walk in my house
with blameless heart.

I see this Psalm as the perfect setup to David’s sin with Bathsheba. To me it reeks of spiritual pride, and that is the perfect invitation to the devil to come in and do his thing. As it famously says in Proverbs, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) In this Psalm David seems to be focused on how much better he is than other people, or at least some people. As Jesus pointed out in His story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, (Luke 18:9-14) that is very dangerous indeed. The things that David insists he does are not bad to do, the problem is in his patting himself on the back, especially in contrast to others. The last part of verse 2 here seems especially ironic, because it was as David was “walking in his house” that he spotted Bathsheba on the roof of her house. (I have always wondered whether she chose that location deliberately, aiming for exactly what happened.) As Paul warns us, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12) All pride is dangerous, but spiritual pride is most dangerous. It blinds us to our own weaknesses and opens us up to just about any lie the devil wants to tell us. We see it all the time, with respected church leaders feeling the rules apply to others but not to them. The results of that are tragic. A parenthetical comment in the book of Numbers is actually very important: “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.” (Numbers 12:3) That was an essential requirement, as much power and authority as he had been given. As Jesus said several times and other New Testament writers echoed, in His kingdom, the way up is down.

Pride has been a snare to me all my life. Gifted in many areas, I have tended to take God’s gifts for granted, as though I somehow deserved them and they made me better than others. I realize now that attitude could have led me to become a sociopath! I have learned the hard way that I am as sinful by nature as anyone else, and without God’s grace and mercy I am hopeless. The tricky thing is, the devil tempts me to be proud of being humble! I’ve got to recognize his tricks and stand against them, on the firm foundation of submission to God. (James 4:7) God in His mercy has allowed various things to remind me of my dependence on Him. I have been proud of my good health, so tomorrow I enter the hospital for surgery for an inguinal hernia! In a number of ways that’s a good thing. Yesterday I was forced to leave setting up for lunch entirely to the men of the church, because lifting heavy things is definitely not a good thing at this point. I am to be grateful for all that God has done and is doing in and through me, while taking personal credit for nothing, but knowing that it is all His grace.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me indeed walk as You intend, in total obedience and gratitude toward You, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Eternal God; September 1, 2019

Posted on September 3, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 100:5 For the Lord is good and his love endures for ever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

We don’t worship a flash in the pan! In a world where the rate of change has gone up to the point that it has triggered a sharp increase in mental illness, it make a huge difference to know the One who is the very definition of permanence. After all, even this planet we live on is going to be destroyed someday. The Bible has many reminders like this one, because even though people back then didn’t have to deal with the rate of change that we do, things still changed constantly. It is interesting that the more we have to deal with the reality that we ourselves are impermanent, the less tolerance we have for external change. A viral political moment recently was when a 92-year-old woman told a presidential candidate, “Don’t mess with my health care!” That’s why it can be very difficult to persuade older people to move into facilities where they can get the care they need. It’s not that their current situation is ideal, it’s that it’s familiar, and change is both scary and fundamentally distasteful. The thing is, we have to deal with both growth and entropy, whether we like it or not. Growth is quite literally part of the definition of life itself; to the day we die, we are growing new cells and sloughing off or absorbing old ones. And then there’s entropy, the scientific principle that everything runs down in the direction of chaos. Aging is actually one of the many demonstrations of that, but the very fact that the universe exists is proof that there is One who is greater than entropy, and He is who we have the incredible privilege of worshiping and getting to know. He is outside of time, since time is defined by matter, and He created matter in the first place. Accordingly, it stands to reason that “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8) The good news is, as this verse states, that God is good. If He weren’t, we’d be totally up the creek! However, as this says so clearly, He is not only totally reliable, He is totally worth relying on. The apostle John called Him light (1 John 1:5) and love. (1 John 4:8) He is the rock, (a very common Old Testament metaphor for Him) the stability, that we crave.

The older I get, the more aware I am of this issue. As a much younger person I was always up for something new. I still enjoy new things, but the familiar is very comfortable, and new things can be somewhat scary, which is a strange thing for me to realize. The good thing for me is that I indeed know the One who is eternal, and I find my rest and my stability in Him. (2 Timothy 1:12) I don’t have to fear new stuff, because my eternity is already determined. Right now I’m facing hernia surgery in a few days. I know that’s not so serious, but it will be my first experience of general anesthesia since I had my tonsils out at age 4, which I don’t remember. My wife has had multiple operations, including brain surgery, and anesthesia has never been a problem for her, but it’s new for me. This will give me a new point of contact and empathy with her! A more important point is that the church needs to change and grow, and I must not fear that change either. There’s a song that I translated from the Japanese that has the line, “Even though the earth may be shaken, mountains may be cast into the sea, I’ll not fear, because I put my trust in Thee.” That is true, whether the mountains are literal or figurative.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help Cathy and me both continue to grow in faith, trust, and obedience in the days ahead. May we both accept whatever changes You have for us with peace and joy, knowing that You never change, and we need to. Thank You. Praise God!

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God’s Holiness; August 31, 2019

Posted on September 2, 2019 by jgarrott

Psalm 99:5 Exalt the Lord our God
and worship at his footstool;
he is holy.

Three times in this Psalm, here and in verses 3 and 9, the Psalmist says that God is holy, as a reason to praise and worship Him. In terms of poetic structure, I get the impression this may have been something of a “call and response,” with the leader intoning or singing the first part of the verse and the choir, or perhaps the whole congregation, coming in with, “He is holy.” We tend to pay very little attention to the fact that God is perfectly holy, and even less to the fact that He calls us to be holy! (1 Peter 1:15-26, and many OT Scriptures) However holiness is one of the essential characteristics of God, and we ignore it to our peril. It is because God is perfectly holy that He cannot simply excuse sin; it must be dealt with. I often use the illustration of matter and antimatter, from physics. Every form of matter in the universe has its mirror image, which physicists call antimatter. (Why they can’t detect more antimatter is one of the mysteries that has yet to be solved.) When matter and antimatter come in contact, both are destroyed by being converted totally to energy, in a reaction more violent than a nuclear bomb. Using that as an analogy for God’s holiness and our sinfulness breaks down at only one point: God is not destroyed, only we are. It was to avoid our destruction that God gave His Son to deal with the problem of our sin. (John 3:16-17) However, we have to receive Christ’s work on the cross in faith in order to become holy, and that is the whole process of salvation. Those who want to “be saved” but don’t want to live holy lives miss the whole point of it all. I love a song written by a friend of mine, Makoto Iwabuchi, that he allowed me to translate. In English the first line says, “Spirit, flow from the throne of God and cleanse me and fill my heart and make me holy, like You.” That is a prayer God loves to answer! We focus on the power of God’s Spirit sometimes to the point of forgetting that He is the Holy Spirit. We need to have a grasp of the holiness of God, and respond appropriately.

This of course applies to me as much as it does to anyone. I am quite guilty of having taken the holiness of God lightly far more than I like to think about. I am very aware of the Biblical tension of being and becoming, now/not yet. God has made us to be holy in Christ, (1 Corinthians 1:30) but we are far from living it out fully. The Japanese term for “saints” is “holy people.” Paul’s usage makes it very clear that every believer is a saint! Not only am I to live as a saint, a holy person myself, as a pastor I am to teach, encourage, and admonish all those in my care to do likewise. A few years ago we used 1 Peter 2:9 as our Scripture for the Year: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” And of course we sing that verse, in a different translation. I need to grasp what that means myself, and lead others to do likewise.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Help me indeed walk more and more fully in Your holiness, leading others to do likewise, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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