His Heartbeat for ours

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James 1:2-4

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

John 16:33

Why do we tend to run away from trials? Why do we run away from discomfort? Why is it so easy to preach that God wants to bless you and God wants to bless your business and your family, etc etc. But I wonder at the same time if we even take the Bible seriously. I have been asking this myself. Everyone talks about how the Old Testament and the New Testament are so so different. The New is all about LOVE and happiness, etc, etc while the Old is all about Justice and eye for eye. While this can have some truth in it, it's really not the whole truth. The problem with half truths is that they have whole lies in them.

Actually, when most pastors read about blessings, it comes from the Old Testament. Meanwhile, what these blessings are really saying is, "if you do this, I will bless you with this" They are throughout the Old Testament. His promises to Abraham and Isaac for example. But if you read them in it's entirety it says that He will bless them if they keep Him first, if they do this and this, etc. And also think about what was going on in the OT. Israel was His Chosen people. He blessed them because everyone else around them was following pagan ideals and practices. He blessed them to overflowing to show to the pagans nations that He was the one true God. Yes His love is brimming over for His chosen people, but we must do something in return, we must give Him our lives. Now in America, things are different. Everyone is "blessed" so God blessing us in the same way wouldn't work the same way for His name to be glorified. Which brings us to the NT...

Meanwhile, in the New Testament most people think of it as all about God's grace, mercy and love. It is ALL of those things! But a lot of Christians today have also mistakenly seen this as a free ride to get blessings. Maybe it's the Western Culture, it probably has a great deal to do with it. If you listen to radio stations, magazines, christian tv, it's all about what you can buy to help you in your walk, weight loss ideas and programs to become a better you, lessons on how God can bless you and your family today! It all seems so glamorous in our Western Christian bubble. And in Churches all you hear about is how God wants to bless us and how I was lost but then I was found and my finances improved, my business boomed, etc etc.

Now some of these may not be necessarily bad in themselves, but again half-truth. I do not want to believe this but sometimes I feel that this is true. We become so absorbed is being relevant and not offending and the leadership/blessings we need from Christ that we tend to skip over the verses that talk about persecution or trials, or even just about taking up our cross. Or we briefly talk about them then move on. Or possibly we believe that persecution won't come to us Christians because we live in America, home of the free where tolerance is a must, even at the stake of people's souls.

But I don't believe persecution and frankly trials was just for the old Church or the OT. I believe that the Lord wants to bless us, but our focus can't be on how He can bless us outwardly. I believe what He is talking about is that He wants to bless us inwardly and meet our needs outwardly. With the fruits of the spirit for instance. The song "So Good to Me" by Cory Asbury caught me off guard today. It's title is "So Good to Me" but in the song it spoke nothing about outward things or even in his family, etc. It was all things like love, joy, peace, and righteousness in the Holy Spirit...beauty for ashes, joy for my mourning, and life forevermore. It was all internal...especially in the hard times.

I believe that once our focus is not on us but on God and His pure love for us then it becomes not about ourselves. We begin to have a heart change. Christianity begins to wear us and we don't "wear" Christianity. It's not something outward but it's from the inside out.

And we ARE a blessed land! There is no denying it. But let's get out of our Christian bubble where God wants to bless us so we can go out to eat with family and where we can be blessed in clothing and buy all these books about becoming a better you, etc etc. I don't want to see my brothers and sisters in Christ become like that - almost with an "air" about them - I don't want to become like that.

We are blessed not for ourselves. We are blessed for others. And maybe you have to give away your worldly possessions - ha, actually you have to! :

• Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Luke 12:15
• Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. Luke 12:33
• All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. Acts 4:32
• "All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?" Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. "When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Matthew 19:20-22

The World is so much bigger than the United States. While people are getting their lattes and riding their nice cars to their thousand dollar built churches, there are millions dying not only physically but spiritually on the other side of the world - heck, right down the ROAD!

What I am trying to say is, once we begin to see the big picture of what God is trying to do, we begin to understand our purpose: to be the will of God to this world. And giving our possessions and food and support to the world is amazing, but it CAN'T stop there and it can't only be for that. Humanity to the world can be good, but what profit a man to gain the world but lose His soul?

Better then stopping world hunger, putting a shirt on someones back, finding a solution to AIDs or any good humane thing, it is essential to tell them about the One that can give them eternal salvation. That is what it all comes down to. We don't stop talking about how God can bless us so that we can feed the hungry, the root of it all is simply that people need life eternal.

Our primary focus for third world countries can't be to provide food for the hungry or education for those dying of AIDs...that is good and can prolong their life, but our primary focus needs to be Christ for them. Being the hands and feet of Christ doesn't always mean physical needs, just like He blessing us isn't necessarily physical. Being the hands and feet of Christ means loving the least of these and providing Spiritual Water even if we can't provide physical.

This is going in a completely different direction then where I was originally going with this, but that's how God works, isn't it?

Bottom line: My heartcry for the Body of Christ is to simply go back to reading the Word and being that to the world. What Christ gives us we give to others. Not only do we give but we give with our words...How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" Isaiah 52:7

This cannot start externally - this is an outpour of what is going on in the heart. He wants to first match our beating hearts with His. Discipleship begins when we get to know the person we are following. A heart change begins when we spend time with Him and find out what makes His heart beat. And it may start with simply asking for a revelation on why proclaiming Him is so important! I never want to forget the urgency of that statement. So let my eyes never leave Yours - if that means I have to say no to the world then so be it, I want You.

And one last thing, going back to the beginning. Trials and tribulation will come in this life. Either in the moments where we realize tolerance won't always work and we must take a stand (I am not talking about burning Korans, though that was his choice to make a stand like that) or in things that are out of our control. We can't always assume that blessings (outwardly) will come our way, but what we can be sure of is the joy and peace that will come from Him in the hard times - and that He has our every day and our every need in the palm of His hand. He guarantees it because He will hold us as His glory is being shone. We store up treasures in Heaven not on Earth...