Mmmm, You Smell Good

April 16, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

Smell is one of the most potent of our five senses. It is strongly tied to memory and emotion. Maybe that’s why a “smelly phrase” appears so often in God’s requirements for the sacrifices the Israelites would offer Him:

An offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord….

As a New Testament follower of Christ, instead of bulls or sheep or goats or birds, I have something more valuable to sacrifice to God: myself.

When I offer myself to God, it’s a powerful aroma that is pleasing to the Lord. Check this out:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1)

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ…. (2 Corinthians 2:14-15)

Offer your entire self to God and you’ll smell really good to Him.

WARNING: In order for a sacrifice to release its full fragrance it has to go through the fire. It’s especially true in the tough times that you can release the best aroma of Christ. So don’t run away from the challenging times—stay in them and release your God-pleasing aroma.

You are the pleasing aroma, so go smell good today!

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Knowing What To Look For

February 23, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

On Sunday afternoon Betsy left our house to meet with our KidZone team. She had only been gone for a few minutes when she called me. “I just had to pull over to the side of the road,” she said. “It sounds like something is dragging underneath my van.”

I quickly threw my coat on and drove to meet her. Sure enough, as I pulled up behind her van I could see something hanging down. I laid down next to the van to look underneath and discovered that the band which holds up the gas tank was missing a bolt. I’m not a mechanic, but even I know that’s not a good thing!

I called a friend at church who’s got a lot of hands-on experience with cars. He said, “I’ll be right there.” He arrived quickly with a metal coat hanger, which he used to take the place of the missing bolt.

We turned around to head back to my house. Jeff was in front of me and had only driven about 150 feet when he jammed on his brakes, pulled to the side of the road, and leaped out of his car. I then watched as he ran across the road, bent down, and picked up the missing bolt!

When we got back to my house I said, “You must have the eye of an eagle to spot a rusty bolt on wet pavement.”

“No,” he said, “I just knew what to look for.”

In Genesis 45, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. Twice he tells them, “Don’t be afraid. God sent me here.”

“Wait a minute,” you might protest, “God sent him to Egypt?! I thought his brothers sold him as a slave. God put Joseph in the position as prime minister of Egypt?! I thought his special dream-interpreting skills did that.”

Joseph went from a prince in Jacob’s family, to a slave in Egypt, to comptroller of Potiphar’s affairs, to a falsely-accused rapist, to a prisoner, to a prison trustee, to a forgotten man, to Pharaoh’s dream interpreter, to Egypt’s prime minister.

Joseph knew what to look for along the way. He knew God had given him a direction for his life, so he was constantly looking for it.

Prayer does this for me, too. I may know verses like…

  • I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
  • Before I was born, God knew me.
  • All things are working together for good for me because I love God and called me for a purpose.
  • I should rejoice in my trials because God is developing something in me.

…but it’s only when I’m praying these verses that the Holy Spirit trains my eyes to know what to look for.

God was placing Joseph and preparing Joseph to be just where he needed to be, at just the right time, and with just the right skills.

God is doing something with me: He’s preparing me and placing me in His perfect timing to fulfill His perfect plan. When it seems my life has become derailed, I need to know what to look for. Prayer does this: Prayer trains my heart and my mind and my eyes to know what to look for.

I can also assuredly tell you that God is doing something with YOU: He’s preparing YOU and placing YOU in His perfect timing to fulfill His perfect plan. Prayer will help you know what to look for too.

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One Of The Most Unusual Stories

February 17, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

There is one of the most unusual stories inserted in Genesis 38. I say “inserted” because it almost seems out of place. In chapter 37, Joseph’s brothers have just sold him into slavery and convinced their Dad that a wild animal killed him. In chapter 39, we pick up Joseph’s story again as he arrives in Egypt.

Genesis 38 has a story that doesn’t fit in Joseph’s story. It’s sort of a giant parenthesis. Not only that, it’s a story of mistake after error after mess up after bad judgment after more mistakes.

Judah, an older brother of Joseph, came up with the idea of selling him instead of killing him. Perhaps being around his co-conspirators was too difficult for him, so Judah left town.

  • Mistake #1: not dealing with his guilt and sin, but running away from it.

Judah married a Canaanite woman.

  • Mistake #2: inter-marrying with a non-God-fearing culture.

Judah gave his son Er in marriage to Tamar.

  • Mistake #3: allowing his son to inter-marry with the Canaanites too.

Er sinned. The Bible doesn’t say what it was, but it was so offensive that God put him to death.

  • Mistake #4: sin against God.

Onan (Judah’s second son) sinned. He had a familial responsibility to his brother and sister-in-law’s family line, but he snubbed them both.

  • Mistake #5: more sin against God.
  • Mistake #6: disregard for family.

Judah promised Shelah (his third son) to Tamar. But he procrastinated in following through on that because he thought Tamar was a black widow.

  • Mistake #7: deception.

Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and waited along the road for Judah.

  • Mistake #8: more deception.

Judah slept with his daughter-in-law Tamar (yuck!), thinking she was a prostitute.

  • Mistake #9: fornication.
  • Mistake #10: incest.

Tamar became pregnant, and Judah wanted to have her publically punished for her infidelity.

  • Mistake #11: hypocrisy.

That’s a whole lot of sin and error and lapses in judgment and mistakes for just one family. What a mess this family had become! So, why in the world is this story inserted here? Because Tamar had twins: Perez and Zerah. In listing the royal, kingly genealogy of Jesus, Matthew writes…

A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar.

Perez is listed in the genealogy of Jesus. God took all of those mistakes and made something great come from it!

It doesn’t matter how many mistakes you’ve made. It doesn’t matter how many times you think you’ve blown it. It doesn’t matter how many lapses in judgment you’ve had. God still has a plan for you. He wants to do something great through you. Will you let Him?

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Don’t Fight It

January 18, 2010 — Craig T. Owens

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about some unique insights I gathered from taking a trip with my wife’s TomTom GPS unit. Well, I was taking another trip with TomTom the other day, and I got really annoyed!

I was running late. I grabbed my laptop and my cell phone, fired up the TomTom and hit the road. I got about a mile down the road and realized I forgot something for my meeting. So I turned my car around and quickly headed back home. All of a sudden a voice was reminding me…

  • “At the first possible place, make a legal u-turn.”
  • “Turn right at the next road and turnaround.”
  • “To return to your entered route, make a legal u-turn.”

This voice was still just as sweet and even-keeled as before, but it was really getting on my nerves. I knew I was heading in the wrong direction, but I wanted to get this taken care of quickly, but the voice kept reminding me. I tried to tune the voice out—tried to ignore it—but it didn’t work.

I turned the voice off.

When I wrote about TomTom earlier, I equated it to the moral GPS of the Holy Spirit. And that analogy still stands:

The Holy Spirit does convict us. He warns if we’re on the wrong path, and He lovingly and persistently keeps reminding us to do a u-turn. Those who listen and respond are fully restored. Those who don’t listen—those who switch off their moral GPS—can have their conscience permanently seared.

Are you listening to the Holy Spirit? Do you hear Him encouraging you? Do you hear Him challenging you? Do you hear Him reminding you to turn around? Stay tuned in—He only has the best in mind for you.

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There’s A Puppy Curled Up On My Lap

December 21, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

Some of you may know that my puppy Grace came to me on National Be Kind To Craig Owens Day. (What, you didn’t know about that holiday?!?) What a joy she’s brought to our family!

I’m trying to get some work done at home right now, and she insists on curling up on my lap. If I get up to get something from another room, she will follow me into that room. She loves going in the car with me or hanging out with me at my office. There’s no doubt that I’m her human.

So I was thinking today about how Grace just simply wants to be where I am. I sort of think this is what the Bible means when it says, “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, ‘Abba, Father.’”

Do you just want to spend time with God?

Do you simply want to be where He is?

Just to feel close to Him?

To go where He’s going?

And do what He’s doing?

To call Him “Daddy, God”?

Your Heavenly Father is calling you today to come closer to Him. Will you answer that call?

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Objective Beauty

August 17, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

Do you ever doubt Scripture? I don’t mean doubting its inerrancy, but its application to real life. You know what I mean: “Okay, that sounds interesting, but I’m not sure that’s for now or for me. C’mon, that can’t mean me!”

Here’s the verse that got me thinking: “He has made everything beautiful in its time….”

Everything?! Really? Everything?!

My viewpoint is subjective. That’s a fancy way of saying, “Things should be the way I want them to be.” I see some things as beautiful, but about other things I say, “This is a pain, or this is ugly.” But if I believe God’s Word, in God’s timing everything is beautiful.

I think the second part of the verse illuminates the problem of my subjectivity. “…He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Eternity—my soul’s longing for God—is in me, yet I cannot grasp it. Not naturally, at least. God knows how everything will end beautifully because He made everything beautifully.

Even me.

My life might seem like a mess at times: ugly, scared, scarred, even worthless. But God sees beauty. And we know that in all things [even the ugly stuff] God works for the good [the beautiful] of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28). God gives His beauty to replace my ashes.

With subjective thinking, this doesn’t seem very likely. It’s hard to subjectively see how God could turn my ugliness and my pain into anything beautiful.

That’s why Scripture also contains this prayer: A prayer that will change my subjectivity (seeing only my ugliness) to objectivity (now seeing God’s beauty). If you struggle to see everything as beautiful, pray this prayer right now:

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit. Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Amen!

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Doing Thinking Doing

June 18, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

To think or to act? That is the question. Or maybe the question should be, which comes first: the thinking or the acting? Do I think about something and then go do it? Or do I do something first and then think about what I’ve done and how I could do it better next time?

The answer, I believe, is yes.

You could be the most creative thinker in the world, your thoughts could be off on another plane, but if you do nothing with what you’re thinking, all of those great insights are wasted.

On the other hand, many people hold to the axiom that experience is the best teacher, so they just do and do and do. But experience is not the teacher; we only learn when we stop to think about what we’ve done.

William Wilberforce was already a rising star in British politics when he experienced a deeper understanding of his relationship to God. Suddenly this man of word and action wanted to do nothing more than meditate on the greatness of God. Wilberforce believed that he could best serve God by withdrawing from society and simply thinking about God.

His good friend and future prime minister William Pitt disagreed. Pitt wrote to Wilberforce, “Why then this preparation of solitude which can hardly avoid tincturing the mind either with melancholy or superstition? … Surely the principles as well as the practice of Christianity are simple and lead not to meditation but to action.” Or as the line from Amazing Grace has it, “We humbly suggest you can do both.”

I love Oswald Chambers’ counsel—

“God will never allow us to divide our lives into sacred and secular, into study and activity. We generally think of a student as one who shuts himself up and studies in a reflective way, but that is never revealed in God’s book. A Christian’s thinking ought to be done in activities, not in reflection, because we only come to right discernment in activities.”

Whether it starts with thinking or starts with action, successful thinking-doing must include both. Think about it → act on it → think about your results → do it again better than last time.

Paul wrote to the Romans how thinking and action work together when he said, “for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right” (Romans 2:5 NLT). The Amplified Bible renders this phrase, “their consciences (sense of right and wrong) also bear witness; and their decisions (their arguments of reason, their condemning or approving thoughts) will accuse or perhaps defend and excuse them.”

Think about it → do it → think about it → do it = the pattern for success.

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Get Your Mind Out Of That Rut!

June 16, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.” —Apostle Paul (Romans 12:2, The Message)

It’s important to think about your thinking—to analyze why certain thoughts are swirling through your mind. But after you identify unhealthy thoughts, you need some creative thinking to be able to move your life in a new direction. This requires a whole new set of thinking skills that are called critical thinking.

Stephen Brooking described it this way, “Critical thinkers are continually exploring new ways of thinking about their lives…. Critical thinking is complex and frequently perplexing, since it requires the suspension of belief and the jettisoning of assumptions previously accepted without question.”

  • What have you accepted without question?
  • What have you become so well-adjusted to that you simply accept it?
  • Are there things you do just because it’s always been done that way?
  • Are there some things that you won’t try because it’s never been done that way?

Two warning signs in your thinking are always and never. With the exception of God, everything changes. So when you start thinking in terms of always and never you are essentially saying, “Nothing changes. And I’ve got everything figured out.” This is mind-in-the-rut thinking!

You’ve probably heard this before but it is valuable enough to be repeated—If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you always got.

If you need a change in your life, start with a change in your thinking. Ask God to help you think in new ways. In talking to His people about what He had done for them in the past God said it was time to think in creative ways—

But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18-19 NLT)

Don’t let your thinking stay stuck in a rut. Allow God to help you jettison the old ways of thinking and expand your horizons. God will give you greater creativity if you ask Him.

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Still Learning

May 26, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

I live by the axiom, “If you’re through learning, you’re through.” So I try to learn something new every day.

I just finished a class called New Testament Survey: a quick overview of the 27 books that compromise the New Testament of the Bible. Here’s a couple of interesting factoids I picked up from my studies:

  • The earliest-written book was James. Interesting, because at one point James thought Jesus (his half-brother) was nuts.
  • Only Matthew uses the term kingdom of heaven; all of the other writers use kingdom of God.
  • Mark uses the word immediately more times than anyone else. Perhaps because his source (Peter) was always doing things so quickly… sort of a ready, FIRE!, aim kinda guy.
  • Luke wrote what is called “the global gospel” for everyone, so he included 45 teachings/events that no one else records.
  • John doesn’t record any of Jesus’ parables.
  • John uses the word believe nearly 100 times— way more than any other writer.
  • Luke talks about the Holy Spirit nearly 60 times in the 28 chapters of Acts.
  • Romans is the longest of Paul’s epistles with 7101 words; Philemon is the shortest with just 355 words.
  • With the exception of the pastoral epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus) Paul’s letters are arranged in the Bible from longest to shortest.
  • In 1 & 2 Thessalonians (only 136 verses) Paul refers to God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, or a combination thereof more than 150 times.
  • Paul gives Timothy seven word pictures to describe the kind of pastor he should be: son, soldier, athlete, farmer, workman, instrument, and servant.
  • Hebrews is called “the book of better things” so better is used 13 times. This word is used only six times in the remaining 26 books of the New Testament.
  • James wrote 108 verses but issues 50+ direct commands.
  • In John’s three short epistles he uses the word know 33 times, and the word dear ten times.

Keep on learning! There’s a lot of good stuff out there. What have you learned lately?

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Do-Over

May 14, 2009 — Craig T. Owens

In our backyard kickball games, the competition is sometimes intense. Given the fact that our field is unusually shaped—a big rock for first base, a third base (the middle tree of a group of three trees) is closer to home plate than first base is, the neighbor’s fence jutting out into right field—there are sometimes disagreements. Imagine that!

Of course, the quickest way to resolve some of these disagreements is to call, “Do over!”

But do-overs never work out well. One team might be happy with the results while the other team still feels they got an unfair advantage to get their way.

So, too, with God. He does not allow do-overs. Ever. Nor would I want Him to allow me to have a do-over. There are things I have learned from painful episodes that have made me stronger, wiser, more empathetic, and more merciful than I would have been if I missed out on those experiences. If I could have called “do-over” I wouldn’t be the same person today.

In 2 Kings 6, the king of Israel wanted a do-over. He had an opportunity to kill some Aramean soldiers, but Elisha said, “No, give them dinner instead.” The entire Aramean army returned later and blockaded the capital city of Samaria, making for horrendous living conditions in the city. The king said, “If I only I would’ve rejected Elisha’s advice and killed those soldiers I wouldn’t be in this tough spot now. I want a do-over!”

But here’s what the king—and all of Israel with him—would have missed out on if they got their do-over. If the king got a do-over only a few Aramean soldiers would have been killed. But by not getting his do-over, the entire Aramean army was disarmed, defeated, and disgraced as they ran home scared and naked (see 2 Kings 7:5-7, 14-15).

NOT getting a do-over led to a greater victory! Not getting your do-over will also allow God to do something greater in you and through you. If you got your chance at a do-over for something in your past you wouldn’t be as strong, wise, empathetic, or merciful as you are today.

Check out what God says—

  • I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. (Jeremiah 29:11, The Message paraphrase)
  • And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God. (Romans 8:28, The Living Bible)

Don’t ask God for a do-over; instead, ask the Holy Spirit to show you what He’s doing in your life because you didn’t get the do-over. I promise you that God is doing something far, far greater—instead of defeating a few enemies, He’s defeating whole armies!

Feel free to share what lessons you may have learned by NOT taking a do-over.

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