Children of Light; November 2, 2018

Posted on November 4, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 5:8, 15-16 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

I knew I couldn’t limit myself to just one verse out of this passage! All of this is not simply very important truth, it’s extremely practical as well. Verse 8 brings out the important factor that before Christ, we are darkness. That perhaps sounds overly dramatic but it is very true. It’s not that unsaved people are incapable of doing good, but rather that such things are out of character for them. However, as John declared, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) Once we surrender ourselves to Jesus as Lord, we too become light, or rather”fiber optics” that transmit the light of God. That’s why Jesus could say, “You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14) Here Paul is saying simply, “Live like what you are, not like what you used to be.” In 15 and 16, he is telling us to be careful about it. We need to face the facts: we aren’t wise in ourselves. We need to seek and accept the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit every moment of our lives. If we will do that, we will be wise! Part of that is making use of the opportunities God gives us to act as His agents, destroying the works of the devil and bringing people into life and wholeness. (Luke 4:18-19) If we try to do that in our own strength we will fail, but if we are sensitive and obedient, God will do it through us. Such “divine appointments” are delightful and marvelous indeed.

This is something I’ve known theoretically most of my life, but I’m still learning to live it out consistently. I have trusted in my own intellect far too much, which has kept me from being wise. As James said, “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” (James 3:17) That’s how I want to live! I recognize scraps of darkness still in me, so I need to expose all of me to the purifying light of God. I am in a position where other people look to me for teaching and guidance. I am never to think that I am up to the task myself, but walk in humble obedience all the time.

Father, thank You for this reminder, in keeping with Your overwhelming grace toward me. Thank You for Your anointing as I recorded three messages yesterday for CGN-TV. I pray that those messages would touch each person who sees/hears them. Thank You for all that You have planned for me today, teaching in the nursing school this morning and doing premarital counseling this afternoon. May I be Your agent toward everyone I encounter, leading them to You for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Forgiveness; November 1, 2018

Posted on November 4, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Every sentence in this section is underlined, and I could preach on any of them! However, they all deal with interpersonal relationships, and this verse gives a major key to getting all of that right. I always tell couples that if they don’t forgive each other they won’t be happy, but that actually applies outside of marriage as well. Forgiving is letting go of hurts, while refusing to forgive is clasping hurts to yourself. A heart that does that is soon in tatters. We often have great difficulty forgiving, but the key to being able to forgive others is given right here: realizing how much God has forgiven you. We like to defend ourselves, not admitting our own wrongs, but that’s no way to achieve happiness, much less a right relationship with God. Acknowledging our own faults and sins is so fundamental that salvation is impossible apart from it. Even Jesus said, “Repent and believe the good news.” (Mark 1:15) You can’t repent without admitting you were wrong. When our hearts are open and tender to God, the Holy Spirit will bring to mind those things of which we need to repent, and He will do it on an ongoing basis as we live our daily lives. When that is our lifestyle, forgiving others becomes much easier. Those who refuse to forgive others are actually refusing God’s forgiveness for themselves. We forget that right after He taught us to pray, Jesus said, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15) Forgiving and being forgiven is certainly the path of light and life!

I’m as adept at justifying myself as the next guy, and I’ve had to learn how dangerous that is. It’s not that I’m always wrong, but nursing a grievance is always wrong. Sometimes I have to choose to remind myself of how much God has forgiven me, to enable me to forgive someone else. I never regret doing that, but I always regret it when I hold a grudge. God’s forgiveness is so glorious and unconditional because it is based on the cross of Jesus Christ, who took the penalty for every one of our sins. I’ve got to remember that it was my sin that nailed Him to the cross. When I do that, the sins that others commit against me seem trivial indeed.

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for Your truly amazing grace. Help me allow that grace to flow through me unhindered, so that the works of the devil may be destroyed (1 John 3:8) and people be set free to repent and believe, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Church Growth; October 31, 2018

Posted on November 3, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 4:15-16 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Around the time I was in seminary, and for several years thereafter, Church Growth Seminars were quite the thing. The best ones honestly sought how to implement this passage, but many of them devolved into chasing the latest fad. Growth and reproduction are part of the definition of a living organism, but if the focus is exclusively on physical growth, there is a strong tendency to forget what the purpose of the Church is in the first place. The moment we forget we are the Body of Christ, existing completely for His utility and pleasure, we lose our reason for existence. We tend to focus on organization, when a body is an organism. As such, every part has a function and is an outgrowth of the whole. Just in these two verses we have the expressions “in all things” and “every supporting ligament” and “each part.” No part of the body is immaterial and unimportant. We are all too prone to forget that. Conversely, no part is to be over impressed with its own importance. Many church leaders have fallen when they have forgotten that they were nothing without the rest of their church. It all comes back to the Headship of Christ. Protestant churches proclaim “the priesthood of the believer,” but that comes down to the fact that each of us has personal access to the Head, as well as personal accountability to Him. Many churches grow largely by absorbing believers from other churches. That is indeed numerical growth of that local church, but it is not growth of the total Body of Christ without people repenting and believing so that they are born again. For that to happen, indeed each part must do its work.

This is something I have known in theory for a long time, but I’ve not been very good at putting it into practice. My tendency has been to do everything myself, and by myself, and that has not been good at all. Because I am able to do each of the functions required in the local congregation doesn’t mean that I am actually supposed to do them all, except in particular emergencies. I think I would have greatly benefited from someone telling me to cut it out, but as an independent congregation we didn’t have an accountability structure in place. I’m not sure I would have listened, anyway! I have long stressed “speaking the truth in love,” but that has been from the standpoint of me doing the speaking. I need more “hearing the truth in love!” I am realizing that even at 70 I have plenty of room and need to grow, and my failure to do so has kept this church from growing. As our Verse for the Year proclaims, nothing is too difficult for God, (Jeremiah 23:27) so I am to look forward to how He is going to change me and this church, for His glory.

Father, thank You for this reminder and encouragement. I pray that each person, each member of this church, would indeed fulfill exactly the functions You intend for them, not usurping those of someone else but being bound together in love, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Gifts; October 30, 2018

Posted on November 2, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

This theme is mentioned repeatedly in the New Testament, elsewhere by Paul (1 Corinthians 12:7, Romans 12:6) and Peter (1 Peter 4:10). Different words are used for “gifts” in the Greek, and various books have been written on the subject, but the point that echoes in me most strongly right now is that everyone has been gifted, and it’s all grace. I find two major errors in people’s thinking on this subject. The first is self-deprecation: “Oh, I’m not really gifted in anything.” That causes people to devalue themselves and fail to be good stewards of what God has given them. Everyone has things they find rather simple and/or easy to do, that other people find much more difficult. That’s a sign of gifting. Satisfaction and accomplishment in life come only when we exercise those gifts as God intended when He gave them to us. Those gifts may be evident to others, and they may not. The point is for us to recognize and use them, not only for our own good but also to bless others, as both Peter and Paul said. The second big error relating to gifting is the failure to recognize that it is all grace. Human beings in general have a real tendency toward pride. “This is my gift. I can do this.” Since most such gifts are encoded into our DNA, they are hardly something we choose ahead of time! (That’s one of the bigger problems with “designer babies,” with parents choosing what traits they want for their children. That was strictly science fiction just a few years ago, but now it is all too possible, and is even being practiced to eliminate genetic defects. That is an ethical and legal “can of worms” that poses huge dangers.) When gifting is for the most part something we are born with, why are we proud of it? We are responsible for what we do with the gifts we have received, and God will indeed multiply His gifts to the faithful, but we must never forget that it is all grace. We are all too prone to think of God’s gifts as “merit badges,” when that will virtually guarantee misuse of those very gifts.

This is probably so big in my awareness because God has been absurdly gracious to me. I’m no athlete, but in other areas I have found very little that I cannot do. Frankly, pride has been a major issue for me. I have had trouble empathizing with others who have struggled with things that came easily to me. Over the years I have gained an increasing appreciation for God’s grace, not only for how He has gifted me but also for His refraining from squashing me for my stupid pride! The most dramatic moment of that was when I was 24, and He tapped me on the shoulder, figuratively speaking, and showed me a mirror to see the blackness of my own soul. I was devastated. I wish I could say I’ve had no pride issues since then, but that would hardly be true. Now, as a pastor my task is to help believers recognize, develop, and use the gifts they have been given. (Ephesians 4:12) I find so many are blind to what God has done in them, and so fail to let Him exercise those gifts through them. I don’t have sufficient wisdom to nurture believers on my own, but I know that God can do it through me, so I must not draw back. He will build His Church (Matthew 16:18) for His glory.

Father thank You for this reminder. Thank You for all that You are doing in this church in these days. Help me fulfill the part that You have for me in that, not drawing back and not running ahead, so that Your purposes may be fulfilled on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Faith; October 29, 2018

Posted on November 2, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I have heard the first part of this quoted many times, and I have quoted it many times myself, but we still have trouble grasping the reality of it, precisely because it is literally true; God is able to do things we can’t imagine. Since we can’t imagine them, we can’t grasp that He can do them ahead of time! This is intimately tied in with the description of faith that is given in Hebrews: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) Not only can’t we see it, we can’t even imagine it! There is a very moving, and beautiful, song about heaven called I Can Only Imagine. I like it very much, but Paul is reminding us that however much we can imagine, what God has planned is even better! This statement and doxology come at the end of Paul’s prayer for revelation to his readers of the magnificence of God’s love for them. That love is the basis for all that God does for us, and we must never forget it. As has been said, “Everything God does is love, even when it doesn’t look like it.” We tend to operate with a very shallow, materialistic definition of love, tending much more toward eros than agape. Parents sometimes have trouble understanding that loving their children includes disciplining them, because indulgence isn’t love. That happens because the parents themselves would rather be indulged than really loved! We often can’t imagine the good that God is going to bring out of difficult circumstances, but that is precisely what faith is all about. When we trust even when we can’t imagine, then our faith grows strong and glorious.

I didn’t expect to receive this message this morning, but then I didn’t expect the events of yesterday, either. I still have no idea of the details of God’s plan, but yesterday gave me a glimpse of the reality that God really can do far more than I can imagine. I am not to try to make things happen, but I am to walk in consistent, expectant obedience, looking forward to whatever God is going to do next, never doubting that His plans are wonderful. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Father, You have blown my mind, and I’m still trying to take it all in. Keep me from trying to be in control. Rather, help me rest, relax, and rejoice in You, just as You have been telling me to do for years, so that all of Your plans may be fulfilled on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Gifts; October 28, 2018

Posted on October 30, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 3:2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you.

This theme comes out again and again in the Bible: “given to me for you.” God’s gifts are seldom if ever given for just the immediate recipient. Paul was an enormously gifted individual, acting as God’s conduit for half of the New Testament, but the point is, he was a conduit, not the sole beneficiary. God Himself is Trinity, and so is in constant community, so to speak. He did not create us for isolation, but to be interrelated to one another and to Him. American culture has made something of a shrine to the individual, and the rest of the world has copied that to a great extent. The thing is, God does love us individually, and we are individually accountable to Him, but He designed us to be in community, to learn to serve Him through serving each other. That’s why He gifts each person, not so much for their own sake as for the sake of those they touch in various ways. If we look back over history, those we acknowledge as great are considered so because of how they impacted others. This should eliminate the pride factor, because whatever God has given you, or done through you, it is for the sake of others, and not to puff you up. We see that as a paradox, that God would love each of us individually and intensely, but at the same time gift us only in relation to others, but that’s just how God is. As Peter said, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” (1 Peter 4:10)

This has always been an issue for me, because I have been called “gifted” all my life. Much if not most of that has been squandered for my own satisfaction, rather than being used and developed for the benefit of others. That is something I will certainly have to answer for to God. I am enormously grateful for the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ! I have discovered what a blessing it is to bless others, but I don’t feel I have been at all consistent in doing that with all that has been poured into me. I suppose you could call it a “mid-life crisis,” though at 70 it’s quite a bit late. Given my current good health and the general growth in life expectancy, I expect to be around another 20 years or so. Since I can’t change the past, my focus is to be on the task and the people at hand. I am to seek to allow God to touch and bless others through me, fulfilling His purposes for me, knowing that every one of those purposes involves other people. My focus must not be on myself, but first on my Lord and then on those with whom He brings me in contact, for their blessing and His glory.

Father, this is something You bring me back to again and again, because I’m so slow to learn it properly. Thank You for Your patience with me. I pray that in the service today I would be an open, effective conduit for all You want to pour through me, whatever that might be, so that everyone would be blessed and strengthened and drawn closer to You, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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Political Correctness; October 27, 2018

Posted on October 29, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 2:12 Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

We are very blessed that political correctness doesn’t seem to have been invented in the 1st Century! At least, if it was, none of the Biblical writers paid any attention to it. It’s very important that they were able to “call a spade a spade,” and not consider words as “dog whistles” to special interest groups. The reason that’s so important is that to effect meaningful change, you have to acknowledge the present situation and not dress it up with pretty words. That’s why the first step of any “12 step program” is to acknowledge that you have a problem. Sadly, the pastor of the biggest church in America today consciously never uses the word, sin, because he doesn’t want people to “feel put down.” The Bible, in contrast, makes no bones about the fact that we are all sinners in need of repentance and the atoning work of the cross of Christ. What Paul says here, for example, would today be denounced as “racist.” Imagine, he’s telling Gentiles that they aren’t Jews! The thing is, he had to do that to make it clear that whereas at one time his readers had no connection to all the promises in the Old Testament, in Christ they have been brought into the family. Around 1980 a book came out titled, I’m OK You’re OK. It was great for self-esteem, but it was rotten for meaningful change, and it is still echoing through society. I suppose you could call it a pillar of the “political correctness” movement. Just recently a TV personality lost their job simply for giving an accurate description of how things were in their childhood. If facts offend us, we’ve got a BIG problem!

Being raised by a father who held absolute honesty as one of the pillars of his life, I’ve been somewhat inoculated against political correctness. However, that’s not at all to say that I am to be needlessly, carelessly, hurtful with my words. I’ve done far too much of that! Actually, Japanese society is very big on the “socially correct lie,” which could be another description of political correctness. I must always speak the truth in love, and never allow “truth” to be a cover for malice, jealousy, or the like. My words are to bring healing, but sometimes healing calls for a scalpel. I am to speak the very words of God, but not color them with my own failures.

Father, this is a major issue. I find myself at a loss for how to tell people they are sinners headed for hell, without chasing them away. That said, if they don’t know they are headed for hell, they won’t change direction. I have demonstrated very clearly that I don’t have the wisdom nor the skill to do it right on my own, but nothing is impossible for You. I offer myself totally to You, so that You may overcome all the linguistic and cultural barriers and get through to people’s souls and spirits, convicting them of their sins and drawing them to repentance and faith for their salvation. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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Faithfulness; October 26, 2018

Posted on October 29, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians is incredibly loaded with vital, deep truth. The first part of this verse is something that every human being needs to get worked into their awareness, their very soul. We sometimes use the term, “self-made man,” but Paul is stating that’s an impossibility. We cannot create ourselves! What we are when we are born is God’s gift to us, but what we become is our gift to Him. Many people rebel at that idea and claim to be atheists, but my very strong impression is that there are few if any people who are genuine atheists by conviction. Rather, people convince themselves there is no God because they don’t want to acknowledge a Creator. That’s why “atheists” get upset when people proclaim God to them: they don’t want their fantasy bubble disturbed. Interestingly, that’s precisely what they accuse devout Christians of! The same mechanism is at work in agnostics, those who acknowledge that there may be a Creator but say that all religions have an equal chance of being true, so why choose? They too don’t want to face the absolute standard of a righteous God who loved them enough to die for them. I have a lot of “Facebook friends” who fit in that category. However, this verse doesn’t let Christians off the hook, either. Paul makes it very clear that each of us was created for a purpose, to accomplish things in line with God’s will. Far too often we forget that, and try to plan our lives without ever consulting God as to what His plan might be. As the previous two verses so famously proclaim, this isn’t at all “salvation by works,” but it is a declaration of purpose; we aren’t put here for no reason. Many people struggle with a search for meaning in their lives, and even despair of finding any. This verse makes it clear that what we need to do is search first for our Creator, and let Him show us what our purpose, our meaning, is.

I have a solid foundation of faith, but even I struggle at times with a sense of purposelessness, of futility. That is perhaps a particular pitfall of ministry in Japan, where the rate of return for effort invested is so low. The devil wants me to give up, to stop trying, but I need to resist him by seeking, and doing, whatever good works the Lord has prepared for me today. They might not be, and probably won’t be, “great” and “earth-shaking,” but if they are things that God has prepared for me to do, then doing them is enough. I do not know, I cannot know, the eventual repercussions of each thing I do, and in God’s plan those repercussions might indeed change the world. However, my focus is to be on step-by-step faithfulness, doing the task at hand with the abilities He has given me, for His glory.

Father, thank You for this reminder. I needed it! You know the attacks I am under, and I know that You are more than able to overcome each one, and that in Christ, I can too. Help me indeed rest, relax, and rejoice in You, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!

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The Word of God; October 25, 2018

Posted on October 28, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 1:17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

With the magnificence of all that Paul writes about in Ephesians, it’s only appropriate that he asks the help of the Holy Spirit for his readers. It is a book that is more than worthy of being read over and over, savoring each thought and idea and letting it percolate through our awareness, changing the way we think and live. I could probably preach for a year from this book and not exhaust it. (I might exhaust my hearers, though!) This is simply an illustration of the richness of the Bible as a whole, because there are many places in it like this. It is ironic that we tend to focus on historical tales, like those of Noah and Jonah and Daniel, and skip over books like Ephesians that are so packed with life-changing truth. It’s not at all that the historical tales are unimportant, but rather that they are no more than the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Any time we read the Bible we need to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit, just as Paul does here. We are no more able to grasp all of God than a dog is able to grasp quantum physics, but even a dog is able to grasp that his master loves and feeds and cares for him. We need to start there, on the foundation of God’s love, and let Him reveal to our hearts and minds all that He wants us to know about Himself. That is more than a lifetime’s work!

I was given a huge head start over most of the people in the world, being immersed in the Bible from before my birth, courtesy of parents who were totally dedicated to God, and reading through the Bible for myself for the first time by the time I was ten. I’ve been given a mind that delights in words, savoring them and playing with them, and I have had a firm habit of taking in the Word every morning for over 40 years now. Even so, as I continue to read the Bible morning by morning I am daily touched by God’s truth, not only being reminded of things I’ve known for years but even receiving fresh revelation. There is no exhausting the Bible! It is indeed the Word of God, and since God Himself is infinite, it stands to reason that His Word has limitless depth. One of the many things I’m looking forward to in heaven is “knowing as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) I delight to know things, and there is nothing more worth knowing than God. As a pastor, I seek to give others the same hunger for the things of God that I have, but it’s obvious that I can’t do it on my own. I need to pray for God to pour out His Spirit of wisdom and revelation, just as Paul does here, so that every member of this church may be transformed into the the disciple, the child of God that He wants us to be, for His glory.

Father, I do pray that. Just yesterday I was reading a description of what went on at the Azusa Street Revival almost a hundred years ago. I can’t even imagine what it would be like for You to do that right here in this day, but I desire it desperately. Help me desire it desperately enough for You to break me out of everything that has bound me, to be and do all that You desire, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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God’s Blessings; October 24, 2018

Posted on October 26, 2018 by jgarrott

Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Paul was addicted to long sentences, which is extremely awkward for translators because Greek doesn’t use punctuation. Actually, my maternal grandfather was the same way (but with punctuation, since he wrote in English). One summer when my mother was in college she offered to transcribe his latest book, typing it before it would be sent to the publisher, and asked if she could divide some of his sentences for clarity. He trusted her enough to agree readily, and when it was published, one of the reviews said, “The most readable Carver yet!” Frankly, I have the same tendency, which is why I let my wife edit my devotions before they are posted as a blog. Not only does she catch typos, she also lets me know when I’ve written mud. God always knows what I mean, but if I’m sharing it with others, they need to be able to understand it too! This first chapter of Ephesians (which happened to be my grandfather’s favorite book in the Bible) is particularly notorious for long sentences, but thankfully this verse separates out fairly easily, and in a way it expresses the content of what is to follow. Here, the difficulty in understanding doesn’t come from the words used, or even the grammar, but rather from the magnitude of the truth expressed. We can’t grasp all that “every spiritual blessing” means, much less that those blessings are accomplished “in the heavenly realms!” Paul goes on from here to try to express some of those blessings, which is why the sentence gets so long and complicated. Our human minds really can’t wrap themselves around the magnitude of God’s love and grace toward us. He has to reveal that to our hearts, and only then do our minds have any hope of grasping it, though it is beyond words. Both Paul and Peter mentioned that what God does for us is beyond human words. (2 Corinthians 9:15, 1 Peter 1:8) One thing that helps is to remember that there’s always more. We may think we’ve been blessed incredibly, and we have, but there’s always more. That’s one reason this verse mentions heaven, because heaven is as infinite as God is, and the lack of limits is the very definition of infinity. The difficulty with all of this is that in our current, very finite condition, our gratitude and obedience don’t really keep up with all that God has done for us. As the chorus says, “All that I have, all that I am, all I will ever be, cannot repay this love-debt I owe. I surrender to Thee!”

I perhaps have a greater appreciation for God’s love and grace than many, but I am still struck with my own inability to respond fully. The point for me is to ask and allow the Holy Spirit to remind me, so that I won’t forget it in the press of this temporal life. As a pastor I seek to help others grasp more and more of the goodness of God, but there too I am dependent on the Holy Spirit. I am to keep speaking the truth in love at all times, and allow God to use His words through me to accomplish His will in the hearts and lives of those who receive those words.

Father, words indeed fail me to thank You enough for all that You have done for me in Christ. May every part of my being be a living sacrifice to You, (Romans 12:1) for Your pleasure and glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!

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