A CASE FOR LIVING BY FAITH

Yesterday didn’t go as planned. I was supposed to speak at a luncheon in Del City, but it was rescheduled due to the winter weather. I’d been really looking forward to the time and felt kind of low for the rest of the day.

I love to share about all God is doing. I told somebody the other day that if I don’t get those opportunities to share I feel like I might explode! I think I may have scared the poor woman because she took a step back. What I meant was, that everyday Chad and I feel like we have front row seats to watch as God unfolds his plan for our lives and the life of the ministry at Truth.

We are amazed by God, but also have our share of disappointments. The best way I know to deal with the hard times is to remember the faithfulness of God. Writing and speaking is a great outlet for that. So yesterday, instead, I worked at home, kept to myself and started to throw a little “pity party”.  Until . . . Jesus invited Himself to my party of one.

Never forget that we have a Savior who loves us and out of His perfect love pursues us. Yesterday, He started guiding me through all of my time with Him, reminding me of who I am in Him. His Word encouraged me to continue to walk in faith by reminding me of the great plans He holds for our life.

So here is the sermon I preached to myself . . . it is a case for living by faith.

THE GREATNESS OF GOD COMPELS ME TO LIVE BY FAITH

I still get excited when I read Genesis 1:2 “The earth was without form and void. And the Spirit of God hovered over the deep.” WOW! I just want to be in that moment where it’s all about to go down and the Spirit of God is hovering over the vast formless void. That suspenseful moment before he speaks light into the darkness, fixes the moon and stars into the sky, rends the firmament and constrains the oceans. All of the world we continue to attempt to discover and understand, He created from nothing.

Whenever our lives get down to nothing, I just picture the Spirit of God in the midst of that nothing. Think of the endless possibilities when God puts His power behind our nothing! I truly believe God can do anything, and I don’t want to miss out on being a part of His grand plan because of fear or doubt.

Again, in Luke 1:35 the angel was explaining to an ordinary young girl named Mary how it would be possible that she would give birth to the son of God. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of The Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.”

There truly is no end to what God can do which leads me to my next point,

TO LIVE BY FAITH I MUST LET GO OF MY WEAKNESSES AND PRIDE

It is true that God can do anything, but God’s plan and purposes are higher than my own. What God has called me to do is much greater than my own abilities and resources. It would actually not take me very long to rise to my own incompetence, drop one level lower then live out my life in complacency.

On the other hand, my pride warns me all along the way of the possibility of failure and embarrassment. “Think of what they might say . . ." says pride. What if I step out in faith and fall flat on my face? What if walking by faith causes me to be misunderstood, counted out or even shunned! What would that do to my ego?!?

The correct response to self-doubt and pride is to truly humble myself before God. True humility takes my eyes off of self and directs my focus to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

God calls us to big things! In our culture today it is a huge challenge just to set Christ-like examples for our children, lead with integrity in our workplace and treat others with respect. Of course we will lose heart! Failure and disappointment will cause us to want to give up, but the disturbing truth is we never stop worshipping. It is our human nature to idolize and strive. The enemy knows this. He would love for us to lower our standards, turn away and waste our attention, adoration and affections on the things of this world. He knows these things are passing away. At best, we will end up wasting our lives, at worst the worldly things we choose will never satisfy and ultimately they will destroy us.

Hebrews 3:12-13 warns us, “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

Jesus promises us throughout His Word that if we will humble ourselves He will lift us up. If we seek His Kingdom first He will provide. If we lose our life in Him He will give us a life of meaning and purpose that we would never have dreamed possible. A life that is not possible, outside of Christ.

Obedience follows humility. Unshakeable faith comes through humilty. As the Hymn says, “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word. Just to rest upon His promise, Just to know thus sayeth the Lord.”  

I challenge you to humble yourself before Jesus, take Him at His word and follow Him into the lost world around you.

I LIVE BY FAITH BECAUSE THE LOSTNESS OF OUR WORLD CONFRONTS ME DAILY

Thursday nights are kid’s nights at Truth. It’s also “Daddy night” at home because Chad stays home with our kids. It’s become a habit that when I walk in Chad just automatically turns off the T.V. or stops what he’s doing to listen. Even though I’ve only spent a couple of hours with the kids in our ministry, I have to process the things they say. The things they say give me a glimpse into what is going on in their lives and what’s going on in their lives breaks my heart.

It’s not just in poverty areas either. Our city, our world needs Jesus! So much ground has been lost to the enemy, so many families and lives of children influenced and destroyed by sin. At times it just seems hopeless!

It is not hopeless! If you know Christ, if you are a follower of Christ, if you are living by faith then you are a dangerous weapon against darkness! Jesus calls us to be salt and light. We always assume that our lost friends, neighbors, co-workers don’t want to hear us witness to them. Guess what? That’s true! They want to know why you have patience with difficult people, how you have joy when things aren’t going your way. Living by faith will produce genuine fruit in your life and the power of Christ at work in you will become your testimony.

When Chad and I were living in the apartment complex I spent just about every evening sitting on the steps in breeze ways, counseling with young mom and sharing Bible stories with kids while they played with David, Sean and Ruby. If you were judging by our circumstances, there wasn’t much difference financially. I didn’t have anything of any material value to offer. What I had to share was the hope of Jesus Christ. I had and still have the hope that His Holy Spirit is at work in my life making me new, giving me boldness, power, strength and joy. I pray that through living by faith He will give me the endurance to run the race He has laid out for me as a wife, mother, missionary, daughter and friend.

“So, you see, without faith it is impossible to please God. 

 Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God 

and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.”

Hebrews 11:6 NLT

A Legacy of Faith

The sermon was emphasizing international missions, the music was worshipful and uplifting; still three weeks ago as I sat in church, an unexplainable wave of emotion came over me. The speaker kind of reminded me of the way my father used to preach. He mentioned that his wife had battled cancer. Anytime I hear someone characterize their experience with disease as a battle, I think of the pain my father endured for years on a daily basis. As soon as I started thinking about Dad, it was like the enemy leaned over my shoulder and whispered, “God could’ve answered your prayers and healed your dad, but He didn’t.”

Right there in church the tears began to flow. I can’t think of anything in my life I spent more time praying for than for my father to be healed. I was just fifteen when he was first diagnosed with liver failure. He was successfully transplanted my senior year in High school. We looked at every day he lived after his transplant as a gift.

He lived to see his grandchildren, celebrated graduations, preached weddings and even baptized one of his grandsons. The summer after I graduated from college he took mom and me to the mountains nearly every weekend so we could see the town and he could conquer impossible mountain trails in his International Scout.

Dad cherished the second chance at life he’d been given and went right back to the work God had called him to do as a young man, the work of faithfully preaching the Gospel. Just a few months after his transplant the Doctors released him to go home. Dad and Mom came back to our home in Amarillo, Texas. With a new passion to serve, Dad went to visit the neighborhood he grew up in as a child and found children still living in physical and spiritual poverty. To him this looked like a great location to plant a church!

That same year our family started a church in downtown Amarillo where Dad began preaching again. His desire to serve so faithfully inspired many others to give their lives to preach the Gospel. For years he drove a lunch route in his old neighborhood telling the children who lived at his old address about Jesus and invited their families to church.

While he had a new liver, the disease that had destroyed his old liver was still in his blood. There would be days when he felt great and days when he was so weak he couldn’t get out of bed. The medication he took to fight the disease was a monthly injection that would bring on severe flu like symptoms.

Even though he battled illness, Dad used his testimony of faith to point others to Christ. He made the most of the good days and still pressed forward on the bad days. Many times he would say that God has been able to use him more in times of weakness than in times of great strength.

Yes, I prayed that God would heal my father. Every day. Still, four years ago this month, he passed away. Is it true that God ignored my prayers? Did God turn a deaf ear and a cold shoulder to my request? Was my faith not strong enough for God to release His healing power?  That Sunday, despite all the attempts to fight the lie with the Truth, I was left with a heavy heart.

This morning Chad left the house early. It was quiet and I couldn’t go back to sleep so I opened my Bible. There in John chapter 11 I found Martha saying to Jesus, “Jesus if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”

It brought me great comfort to see how Jesus responded to Martha. Jesus knew Martha did not have the same understanding He had of eternal matters. Through her grief she could not see how Jesus would use the death of her brother to bring glory to His name. Still, Jesus wanted her to understand! He wanted the faith of Mary and Martha and everyone else who was witness to the death and resurrection of Lazarus to be strengthened. Jesus comforted these sisters, showed compassion and shared in their loss; then He brought the victory!

In my father’s case, there was no instant healing, but through brokenness he lived a life of eternal significance. He believed and taught that there is more to life than what we experience here on earth.

When we trust Jesus with our life, we are trusting that while we may suffer and though we may not understand our circumstances, God can use our lives to bring glory to His name. So nothing, not even death, can destroy us when we are in Christ.

This is my response to the lie. Yes, God had the power to answer any one of my prayers and heal my father. No, there was no instant healing. Instead God did something much greater. He used the life of Don Lane to spread the hope of the Gospel so that many could be saved alive and his legacy of faith goes lives on in my life.

The night of my father’s funeral, after a full day of preaching, worship and talk of Heaven our oldest son David started asking questions about Salvation. Chad and I talked with him for a while then sent him to bed. A little while later, David came into the living room to tell us God had been talking to his heart and he prayed to accept Jesus.  We prayed with him again and thanked the Lord for the hope we have in Jesus. The next Sunday David was baptized.

I am so thankful that even in the face of death we were able to tell David about how he can trust Jesus and have eternal life. We will continue to teach our children and strive to follow the example set by generations of true Christ followers before us, that nothing we face in this life can separate us from the love of our faithful God.

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish. Do you believe this, Martha?” John 11:25

I do believe! Thank you Jesus for this great HOPE! 

The Thousand Hills Cattle Company

It was September 2005 and our country was struggling to respond to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Chad and I were living and serving in downtown Amarillo, Texas at the time and had just received word that our city would be a major hub for refugees from Louisiana.

As is typical in disaster situations, everyone was on stand by and no one was sure how many refugees would be coming. In preparation for response, the city began calling on the resources of local churches and relief organizations. At the time, one of my jobs was managing the kitchen. We were used to feeding lots of people and had a pantry that never went empty.

The Mayor held a meeting to coordinate resources, and it was determined that Citychurch would be providing the meals over the next few weeks as traffic came and went from the staging area at the Amarillo Civic Center. This meant we would be feeding local emergency workers and volunteers as well as children and their families who would have made the long bus trip after facing such a crisis.

When we had the staff meeting to plan for these meals, we didn’t really have a lot of information to go on. The number of people who would be landing in Amarillo kept fluctuating from 300 to 3000. Basically, the plan was to start buying food, cooking it and catering it over to the Civic Center. We would also be feeding people around-the -clock as the buses would arrive.

After we discussed the amount of food the church had on hand and the amount of food we would need to purchase, my dad looked at the numbers and said, “Well, we know who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. We’ll trust him to provide.” With that, we prayed to God for provision and everyone went to work.

I gathered up my shopping list and headed out the door for Sam’s. As I walked down the sidewalk to my car, I saw a man standing on the curb looking up at the church sign. He seemed a little confused, so I stopped to ask if I could help him. He explained that he was a pastor and his church wanted to help with all the relief efforts in Amarillo. “One of my members came to me and said he has a bunch of ground beef they want to donate to you guys since you’re providing meals.” When he told me that I laughed and explained, “I’m sorry, I’m laughing because we were just talking about how much food we would need and my dad said he’s not worried about it because he knows who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.” The pastor got a real stunned look on his face, and I was really afraid I’d offended him. Then he opened his wallet and pulled out the business card of the man with the ground beef. My voice started shaking as I read the name on the business card aloud, “The Thousand Hills Cattle Company!”

The pastor and I laughed and praised The Lord right there on the sidewalk as both our hearts were stirred to see the hand of God moving to provide for this unexpected need. He later invited me to come share this story with his congregation so that their faith might be strengthened as well.

I’m convinced that God uses our weakness and our needs to draw us closer. When we learn to trust and we finally lay all we don’t have on the altar, it’s like He says, “Now, watch what I can do!” Boldness to move forward in obedience comes when we have experienced His glorious faithfulness firsthand.

What are you trusting God for today? Whatever the need, the Heavenly Father is big enough to provide. 

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

How Not to Raise An Ostrich

When I lived at home in Amarillo, Tx my family would eat dinner at Granny and Pa’s house once or twice a week. On one particular night, my dad, mom and brothers were over and some other uncles and cousins. My Pa took his place at the table and became unusually quiet.

Our big family was crowded around the little dining room table while some of us stood at the bar to eat. After enjoying the meal everyone started visiting until Pa abruptly announced, “kids, y’all come on. I wanna show you somethin’” 

We stood up and waited for him to turn either to the basement or the garage. The basement was where he kept his collection of Avon trucker cologne bottles, and the garage was where he kept his rock tumbler and metal detector collection. We couldn’t imagine what else he might have accumulated and where, but this time what he wanted to show us was in the basement. The dark, brown shag carpet lined, basement.

Before I go any further, I need to share with you my limited knowledge of ostriches. Did you know that the ostrich is the largest living bird in the world? A baby ostrich grows 10 inches per month and can weigh 100 lbs. by the end of its first year. Full-grown male ostriches can grow as tall as 9 feet.

The natural predators of the ostrich are cheetahs, lions and leopards. To keep from becoming lunch, God created the ostrich with the ability to run at sustained speeds of up to 40 miles per hour. To raise Ostriches it is recommended to allow ¼ - ½ acre of land per pair. Now, back to the basement we go.

Slowly we descended down the stairs, filed into the small space to find ourselves hovered around an oversized incubator. Pa flipped on the light switch, pointed to the incubator and stood back with pride so we could all see. Contained in the incubator was an ostrich egg the size of a pee-wee football. We all looked at each other, somehow not surprised, but shocked all at the same time. This egg was glowing under the light and you could almost see it vibrate as the life of the largest known species of bird in the world formed beneath the thin translucent shell.

“What in the world, Dad?!? What are you going to do when that egg hatches?” asked my dad. “I’m going to feed it milk with a bottle, son. I’m going to raise it!” To which someone astutely responded, “IN YOUR BACK YARD?”

In the book of James we see the progression of sin laid out for us. James 1:14-15 says first we are tempted. When we are tempted we are being drawn away and enticed by our own evil desires away from following God. When desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin and when sin is fully grown it gives birth to death.

I am thankful for my Savior Jesus everyday. John 10:10 says, “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come that you may have life and life more abundantly.” This is a promise, that through Jesus we can be forgiven and live an abundant life in Christ.

Thinking about growing an ostrich in your basement? It’s about as good an idea as following temptation. James 4:7 gives us some guidelines to avoid having full grown sin in our hearts, 

“Therefore, submit to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, 

and He will draw near to you.”

Why Are You Still Here?

Chad and I may or may not have gone on a date to see the movie “Jobs” this morning while the kids were in school. Let’s pretend we did. Okay, we did. The movie was inspiring for many reasons, but one part in the movie got me all stirred up.

Steve Jobs had been betrayed and lost his position at Apple. Years later when the company began taking a nose-dive the new board invited Steve back in as a consultant. He began visiting each department and in the movie they showed him standing in the design department staring at rough drawings on the wall of what would become drawings of the first iMacs.

Even though the drawings were in the rough stage, Steve could see the passion behind their inspiration. He turned around to the design team, looked at the design leader and asked, “Why are you still here?”

The artist, looking stunned, refused to skirt around this very direct question, so he stammered until the truth came forth. “There are still some of us who believe in what you stand for.” He said. To which Jobs replied with a snicker, “And what is it that you think I stand for?”

Steve Jobs was looking to overhaul the company with people who were as passionate about his vision as he was.

In John Chapter 6 Jesus was giving a graphic description of what would be required of those who truly followed after Him. He said that unless his disciples eat of the flesh of the son of man and drink of His blood they will not have eternal life. Of course Jesus was not speaking literally; however, to the Jews who were ridiculing Jesus, He was making a clear admonition that unless they fully embrace
His death on the cross as complete payment for their sins then they could not receive eternal life.

Jesus was thinning out the crowd of those who were following Him for personal gain, notoriety and power to find those who were passionate enough about the work of the Father to persevere with Him until the end.

Many of the disciples responded to this call by saying, “these things are hard to understand.” When they couldn’t get Jesus to back down, many who were following turned away that day.

Jesus stood before “the twelve” who were left and asked “Do you also want to go away?” Basically, Jesus asked, “Why are you still here?” To which Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of life.”

That’s passion! Simon Peter saw life in the words of Jesus where everyone else was consumed with dying flesh. “We have come to believe and know that you are the Son of the living God.” Peter testified.

Jesus calls His followers to selfless and challenging work!  I am always inspired to to see how others respond to the call. Some feel called to open their home to foster care and adoption, some mothers dedicate their lives to home educating their children, some plant churches and others travel thousands of miles to train and educate pastors. Some give their life to be teachers, nurses or doctors. Still others serve faithfully in the nursery, or teach three- year-olds in Sunday School.

If you asked these followers, “why are you still here?” they would point you to Jesus. They know what it means to find a life of purpose in Christ. The passion of their service to His glory testifies that they believe in what He died for, and should inspire us all to run the race!

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1-3