God’s Gifts

November 30, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This is the time of year for gift giving. Everyone is out looking for the perfect gift to give to a loved one, co-worker, or friend.

Can you imagine going through all of the work of finding the right gift, paying your hard-earned money for it, wrapping it up, delivering it to the recipient, and then watching them set it aside unopened?!

Or how about the one who opens the gift, but doesn’t show any gratitude at all?!

Or the one who says a sincere “Thank you!” but then puts the gift on the shelf and never touches it again?!

Christmas is the time we think about the greatest gift of all—God’s gift of His only Son. But this isn’t the only gift God gives. In fact, He is a lavish Gift Giver. So the key questions are:

  • Are you opening His gifts to you?
  • Are you showing Him how grateful you are for His gifts?
  • Are you using His gifts?

I’m starting a brand new series this Sunday, and going all the way until Christmas morning, looking at God’s Gifts. We’ll see what the Bible says about these gifts, including how to show our gratitude, and how to use them in a way that honors the Gift Giver.

I hope you can join us!

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Ready? Or Not?

November 30, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

A few weeks ago I shared some thoughts about the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Or I should say: some thoughts about the donkey’s owners. I was struck by the ease with which those owners gave up their donkey when they heard the simple phrase, “The Lord needs it.”

There’s another small story in the midst of the activity just prior to Christ’s crucifixion, when He shared the Last Supper with His disciples. The disciples ask Jesus where He would like to have this meal, and He gives them unusual instructions: When you go into town, you’ll see a man carrying a jar of water; follow him. Go to the owner of the house this man enters and say, “Where is My guest room?” (Mark 14:14)

Just like the owners of the donkey, this homeowner was waiting for Jesus to call on him. The room was ready and waiting.

So I’m asking myself:

  • Is my life reserved for my Master’s use?
  • Am I saying “Yes” to other offers that would keep me from saying “Yes” when Jesus calls on me?
  • Is my life kept in readiness for my Master?
  • Or do I have to ask Him to wait while I prepare myself?

My heart is His. My mind is His. My talent is His.

I must keep all of these available only for His use. So when the call comes, “Where is My guest room” I can quickly answer, “Everything is furnished and ready for Your use.”

Are you ready? Or not?

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Still So Much More To Learn

November 22, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

I was thinking about the disciples of Jesus. Can you imagine the things they heard and saw! With their own eyes they saw those jaw-dropping miracles. With their own ears they heard His profound teaching. They watched and heard Him pray. No one ever had the kind of access to Jesus than these men.

And yet, they were still so spiritually dull…

  • They couldn’t grasp what Jesus was teaching, even when He explained it to them privately.
  • Their faith was sorely lacking.
  • They argued among themselves over such petty things.

If these men—with their almost limitless access to Jesus—were still struggling in their faith, what would make me think I have ever “arrived”?

There is still so much more for me to learn about Jesus.

And I do want to learn more! I want to press in—closer and closer, deeper and deeper! I never want to stop learning my Savior’s heart and will!

What about you? Do you want more?

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Thursdays With Oswald—My God Came Down The Stairs

November 17, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

My God Came Down The Stairs

     It is not our earnestness that brings us into touch with God, nor our devotedness, nor our times of prayer, but our Lord Jesus Christ’s vitalizing death; and our times of prayer are evidences of reaction on the reality of Redemption, so we have confidence and boldness of access into the holiest. What an unspeakable joy it is to know that we each have the right of approach to God in confidence, that the place of the Ark is our place, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness.” What an awe and what a wonder of privilege, “to enter into the holiest,” in the perfectness of the Atonement, “by the blood of Jesus.”

Oh, long and dark the stairs I trod,
With stumbling feet to find my God:
Gaining a foothold bit by bit,
Then slipping back and losing it:
Never progressing, striving still,
With weakening gasp and fainting will,
Bleeding to climb a God: while He
Serenely smiled, unnoting me.
Then came a certain time when I
Loosened my hold and tell thereby.
Down to the lowest step my fall,
As if I had not climbed at all.
And while I lay despairing thereby.
I heard a footfall on the stair,
In the same path where I, dismayed,
Faltered and fell and lay afraid.
And lo! when hope had ceased to be,
My God came down the stairs to me.

From Christian Disciplines

I am so grateful my God came down the stairs to me!

I am so awed that I now can come into His presence with confidence!

I am so humbled that God would save a sinner such as me!

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Groaning

November 14, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

I’m a list kinda guy. I love making To Do lists, and shopping lists, and even prayer lists. These seem to work well for my temperament, helping me stay on task and feel like I am accomplishing something.

But I’ve noticed a danger built-in to these lists. I can use the lists to remove all emotion from my activities. I suppose that might be a good thing for my To Do lists and shopping lists, but it’s a bad thing for my prayer lists.

Many times when Jesus was moved to touch someone in need, the Bible says that Jesus groaned. Look at this:

  • Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him. He took the man off by himself, put His fingers in the man’s ears and some spit on the man’s tongue. Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, “Ephphatha!—Open up!” And it happened. (Mark 7:31-35)
  • When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. (John 11:33)
  • Now Jesus, again sighing repeatedly and deeply disquieted, approached the tomb. (John 11:38)

I love the words of G. Morgan Campbell:

“No man can pray for the world unless the Spirit interpret to him the world’s agony, and the Spirit cannot intercede the world’s agony to any man unless that man live in the midst of the world’s agony. Not by retirement from the world, not by hiding away within a monastic institution, not by seeking to develop my own spiritual life by removing myself from the agony of the world, can I ever pray for the world; but because I live every day in the midst of its busy life, am close to it and know it, and because the Spirit of God in me leads me into the secret deepest meaning of the world’s agony and pain so that I no longer treat it as a superficial disease that can be dealt with by the nostrums of humanity, but as a great heart trouble that needs blood and sacrifice to deal with it, am I able to pray. Out of that revelation of the meaning of the world’s agony created by the Spirit in the hearts of believing men they are able to pray. The Church of God in the economy of God was created an institute of prayer.”

Are you close enough to lost and hurting humanity to hear them groan?

Are you moved by their groans?

Can you groan on their behalf? That’s how we should be praying, and then the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express (Romans 8:26).

Don’t just pray for the hurting around you; groan for them!

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Thursdays With Oswald—Love Comes With Hatred

November 10, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Love Comes With Hatred

     Love to be anything at all must be personal; to love without hating is an impossibility, and the stronger and more emphatic the love, the more intense its obverse, hatred. God loves the world so much that He hates with a perfect hatred the thing that switched men wrong; and Calvary is the measure of His hatred. The natural heart of man would have argued—“God loves the world that of course He will forgive its sin”: God loved the world that He could not forgive its sin.

From Biblical Ethics

God had to allow Jesus to become all of your sins and my sins, so that those sins which He hates so much could be nailed once for all to the Cross. Without the Cross, there could be no forgiveness.

Because He hated sin so much, Jesus chose to personally identify with us, and carry our sins away from us. God could not merely look away from our sin, so He allowed Jesus to take away our sin.

Such perfect hatred … such wondrous love!

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Love For A Traitor

November 9, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

Just a couple of hours before He would be arrested and so cruelly mistreated, Jesus had one last meal with His disciples. The meal began after Jesus had assumed the lowest of all positions, and washed all of His disciples’ feet.

Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.” (Matthew 26:27)

Do you realize that this “all of you” included Judas the traitor?

Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, was there. He ate the bread and drank the wine of the first Communion. Jesus washed Judas’ feet. The traitor was right there when Jesus said, “This is My Body broken for you. This is My blood spilled for you.”

But it’s even heavier to think that He also said to me, “Drink of this cup, Craig.”

For Jesus surely saw my sin and my betrayal before He went to the Cross. I was the traitor, and He washed my feet. I betrayed Him by my sin, and He told me to eat and drink the reminders of His suffering for me.

How can I ignore such wondrous love?

How could I ever treat lightly such a sacrifice?

How could I ever hang on to my betraying sins in light of the forgiveness He purchased for me?

Jesus loved me—the traitor, the betrayer—and died for me. What a beautiful Savior!

My friend Dilip has released his debut album The Great Reversal (I hope you will buy this amazing CD), but I love the words of his song Beautiful Jesus:

All my words cannot describe just how beautiful You are
Earthly love cannot compare to the Perfect Love that bled and died
Beautiful Jesus, I stand in awe of You
Beautiful Jesus, I’m captivated by Your wondrous love
So I bow my knee, humbled by this mystery
How can it be? King of Majesty, You rescued me
You gave it all for me
More than I could ask for
All I ever need is You, Jesus, Lover of my soul
 
►► Would you please prayerfully consider supporting this ministry? ◀︎◀︎

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Watch Your Prepositions

November 7, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

Prepositions are interesting words: they tell us the position of something relative to something else. Changing just one small preposition changes the whole meaning—“I left my wallet in the car” or “I left my wallet on the car.” In the first case, you can probably find your wallet again. In the second case, your wallet could be anywhere along the side of the road!

There’s a well-known story in the Gospels where a woman anoints Jesus with an expensive perfume. Some people are upset that she would “waste” something so valuable. But as Jesus corrects their incorrect view of this, notice the preposition He uses:

She has done a beautiful thing TO Me. (Matthew 26:10)

Most of the time we think we do things for Jesus. But He really doesn’t need us to do anything for Him, does He? After all, He is all-sufficient, all-powerful, all-knowing.

But Jesus loves when we do something beautiful TO Him!

We often praise God because of what He has done; that is, we praise Him for His deeds. But what if we praise God for Who He is; that is, give praise TO Him?

For is good, but TO is best.

I’m going to be watching my prepositions, to make sure I’m not only doing things for Jesus, but to Him as well—not just giving praise for what He’s done, but praise TO Him for Who He is.

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Thursdays With Oswald— Publicly Holy

November 3, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Publicly Holy

     Try and develop a holy life in private, and you find it cannot be done. Individuals can only live the true life when they are dependent on one another. …

     In the early Middle Ages people had the idea that Christianity meant living a holy life apart from the world and its sociability, apart from its work and citizenship. That type of holiness is foreign to the New Testament; it cannot be reconciled with the records of the life of Jesus. The people of His day called Him “the Friend of publicans and sinners” because He spent so much time with them.

From Biblical Ethics

Jesus never told us to stay, but to go.

He didn’t tell us to separate, but to season and shine.

We cannot influence people from a distance. We must live and work and interact where they are.

Jesus taught us: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

Jesus prayed for us: “My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. … As You sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world. (John 17:15, 18)

I must be around people who need to see The Light.

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Is ‘Mine’ Loose Enough?

November 2, 2011 — Craig T. Owens

Most people who have read the life of Jesus know about His triumphal arrival in Jerusalem, where the people waved palm branches and shouted, “Hosanna!” But there’s a little backstory tucked in this major event.

Jesus needed to ride a donkey into Jerusalem. So He sent two of His disciples into town, and told them where to find the donkey He would ride. He said, “If anyone asks you why you are taking this animal, just tell them, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

The disciples went, and found the donkey just like Jesus said. And, sure enough, the people there asked what they were doing. This story is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. After the disciples said, “The Lord needs it,” here is everything the donkey’s owners said: .

That is: they said nothing. Not a single word.

That got me thinking:

  • Could I do that?
  • If Jesus needs something of mine, do I ask for clarification?
  • Do I bargain when He asks me to give something of mine up for His use?
  • Am I holding on too tightly to mine?

What about you? Is your mine loose enough?

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