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Here I Am. Send Me!
I have found, through trial and error that anytime my wife says “can I ask a favor?” I need to ask follow up questions before I agree to the unsaid favor. Initially I wouldn’t ask follow up questions, only delighting in an opportunity to serve my wife. I would come to find out the task could be something as simple as getting her a glass of water or as complicated as installing flooring in the front room.
After a while I learned that before blindly agreeing to whatever the forthcoming favor it may be, it is in my best interested to ask some qualifying questions to understand the scope of the favor beforehand. What is the favor she is asking for? Am I qualified, do I possess the necessary skills? I found that more often than not, I do not have the necessary skills and may need to obtain them.
Now this is sage worldly advice in how to handle requests from people. We need to count the cost before we commit to a task so we can ensure we are able to complete it and meet the expectation of the people asking for the help.
This applies to our business and personal lives, but not with God. In fact, we need to eliminate this line of thinking when the Lord asks something of us.
read moreBe Prepared To Give An Answer
As followers of Jesus, we are His ambassadors charged with the responsibility of representing Him to those with whom we come into contact and especially those within our sphere of influence. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20a).
What a marvelous privilege this is that Jesus would choose the likes of us to continue with the sharing of the “message of reconciliation” to a world in desperate need of being reconciled to God. And not only a privilege but an awesome responsibility. A responsibility that we should not take lightly.
The apostle Peter offers some insights into how we can prepare ourselves to carry out this calling. In chapter 3 of his first epistle the practical apostle lays it out in a way that forces one to think in terms of application. Chapter 3 and verse15: “But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence…”
read moreBECAUSE HE SAID SO… (Luke 5)
Simon Peter knew fishing. It was his trade, expertise, and his comfort zone. When Jesus approached him in Luke 5, Peter had already spent a long exhausting night doing everything he knew to do – and caught nothing. Jesus told him, “…Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch” (v 4). Humanly speaking, the timing was inconvenient, the conditions were wrong, and His request made little practical sense. And Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at Your bidding I will let down the nets” (v5).
Obedience beyond understanding
The miracle did not happen when Peter understood; it happened when Peter obeyed. When he acted on Jesus’ word, the same nets that were empty hours before suddenly contained a great quantity of fish – so many that the nets began to break and both boats started to sink. Peter’s response was not pride in a successful catch but humility and brokenness; he fell at Jesus’ feet and confessed, “…depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (v8). Obedience to Christ’s word reveals both His power and our true condition. When Peter followed Jesus’ command “because He said so,” he discovered that Jesus was not just a wise teacher but the Lord over creation, over his profession, and over his future.
read moreRepentance From Mercy
“The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. And the Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up” (Jonah 1:1-4).
Jonah is most associated with the whale, or huge fish, depending on your translation. We can have a tendency to see the whale as a disciplinary measure toward Jonah. I would argue the whale is actual a sign of God’s mercy.
The account of Jonah starts very simple: God told Jonah to “Go to Nineveh” and “cry out against it.” God told Jonah exactly where to go and what to do. Despite direct contact from the Almighty Himself, Jonah decided to go in the opposite direction, instead boarding a ship headed to Tarshish. That was not the correct response.
read moreStaying Your Mind
“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3).
All men desire peace in their lives. The world defines peace as the absence of calamity and turmoil. However, as we look at the Scriptures, there is a different type of peace that the Lord offers the Christian.
For the sake of this article, we will label these two different types of peace as WORDLY PEACE and BIBLICAL PEACE
Jesus references this BIBLICAL PEACE, in John 14:27 and provides us some descriptors of this BIBLICAL PEACE when he says “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”
read moreFearing Man
The Bible has much to say about fearing God. In fact, the command to fear God is mentioned over 100 times throughout Scripture. But what does the Bible say about fearing man?
“And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).
In 1 Samuel 15, we see an example of what happens when we fear man instead of God. In the beginning of the chapter, God gives King Saul clear instructions to “strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have” (v3). Saul was not to spare anyone or anything – no person, no animal. Saul and the army of Israel do in fact defeat Amalek, but they took King Agag alive rather than killing him and they took the best of the sheep, oxen, fattened calves, and lambs.
In v. 11, God speaks to Samuel and says that he regrets making Saul king because “he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” When Samuel confronts Saul the next day, Saul speaks first and says that he has performed the commandment of the Lord. When Samuel questions him, Saul defends his actions by saying that it was so they could offer sacrifices to God. Samuel reiterates the clear command that God gave to Saul – destroy everything. Once again, Saul then defends his actions as to why he did not obey God’s instructions.
read moreTwo Lives
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life “(John 6:63).
God has structured our existence with two lives: 1) the one that finds our hope in what we see, feel and experience in this lifetime and 2) the life of the Spirit, one characterized by a hope in the unseen.
The first is a temporary hope because all that is seen eventually vanishes or rots away. As a result, it is a hope that cannot be fulfilled. Ironically, it is embraced and encouraged by the world and claims to reward those that seek it.
It has an end. It is dead (spiritually). It leads to death (physically). It is used by Satan to entice us and to deceive us. It seems right but does not satisfy—It leaves us always wanting more.
“There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12).
In the end, this temporal life disappoints. It is empty, void of any legitimate hope and meaningful purpose. Ecclesiastes describes it as vanity, it is like a wasteland. It promises much, but delivers only enough to keep you pursuing.
read moreHumility and Gentleness
“Walk in a manner worthy of the calling” is the call to believers out of Ephesians 4:1-8. We have a duty to uphold, being adopted sons of God and imitators of Christ.
Humility is freedom from pride and arrogance. However, it is not thinking poorly of ourselves. Instead, humility is the recognition that everything we have comes from God, that we are sinners saved by grace, that we are not superior to others, and that God is the ultimate authority—not us. Humility must be learned, because our natural instinct is often to exalt ourselves.
Philippians 2:3–8 gives a clear example of this humility in Christ. Paul tells believers to do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but to regard others as more important than themselves.
read moreCease Striving
For most of my adult life, I have been a striver. I wanted to excel at work. In leadership. In health. In every measurable category available to me. If there was a scoreboard, I wanted to be winning. Success was tangible. It could be tracked. And over time, I accumulated some wins. But with each win came reinforcement of a definition of success shaped more by the world than by Scripture. I believed the gospel. I believed salvation was by grace.
Yet I often lived as though approval—God’s and everyone else’s—still depended on my performance. Paul’s question to the Galatians challenges me: “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3).
Much of my striving wasn’t ambition. It was fear. Fear of failure. Fear of letting people down. Fear that if I stopped producing, I might matter less. Striving feels noble when people depend on you. As men, we are called to work, to lead, to take responsibility. Those are good and biblical callings.
read moreInsincerity and Lying (by Walt Henrichsen)
But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, ‘The first.” Matthew 21:28-31
In the closing days of our Lord’s ministry, prior to His crucifixion, Matthew records this parable given to the Jewish religious establishment. The Savior follows the parable with the following application: “Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you. that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it. repented not afterward that ye might believe him”(1)
As you can see, the application centers on the response of the second son. He said he would obey his father. but did not. Was this son insincere, or was he lying?
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