FEBRUARY 2015
CULTURE SHIFT
In this issue
6
11 3
What God Wants from You charles r. swindoll
6 While I was Watching phil callaway
What are the Keys to Answered Prayer?
8
11 Cultured Company dr. terry boyle 14 The Gist: Culture Shift steve johnson
8 Living Hypothetically steve johnson
Insights is published by Insight for Living Canada, the Bible-teaching ministry of Charles (Chuck) R. Swindoll. Chuck is the senior pastor-teacher of Stonebriar Community Church in Texas. His international radio program Insight for Living has aired for more than 35 years. We hope this publication will instruct, inspire, and encourage you in your walk with Christ. Copyright Š 2015 Insight for Living Canada. All rights reserved. No portion of this monthly publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the publisher. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture passages are taken from the NLT. Unless otherwise noted, photography and illustration by Laura Vanderwel. IFLC is an autonomous ministry and certified member of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities. Printed in Canada.
by charles r. swindoll
The new year is only one month old, and already the pressures of life have returned.
S
ixty-hour workweeks. Razorthin balances in the chequebook every month. Children and/or grandchildren who call for unending, boundless bursts of energy. Sound familiar? As we peer into the pages of the Bible, tucked away toward the end of the Old Testament, we discover three qualities that give us practical direction for these days of pressure. The prophet Micah taught that God wants His people to do three things: “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly” with Him (Micah 6:8). When you think about it, many of Scripture’s most memorable characters powerfully demonstrate these qualities in the midst of their hurried and harried lives. Let’s take a look at three individuals for some encouragement and inspiration. To Do Justice Like Paul Consider the Apostle Paul. Standing in chains before two Roman officials, falsely accused, and well aware of his judges’ lack of moral character, Paul determined to do what’s right and to speak the truth in a gentle, sensible manner. He began by hiding nothing about himself from his regal interrogators, explaining his bloodstained history and resisting the temptation to sugar-coat his past. He painted the canvas realistically for all to ponder—grit on display. But he didn’t just expose his past. Paul added grace to the grit and recounted his vision of the risen Christ, who had called What God Wants from You continued from p. 3
him to a new life. Although Paul was once engaged in persecution, his mission now consisted of proclamation (Acts 26:12-16). And proclaim he did! Paul powerfully embraced Micah’s directive to do what’s right…even in the face of a hostile audience. To Love Kindness Like Joseph Of all of the rough beginnings in the Bible, Joseph’s may have been the roughest. His brothers, tired of his visions of grandeur, threw him into a pit, sold him into slavery, and told their father Jacob that his favourite son had been killed (Genesis 37). How’s that for a dysfunctional family? The next few years brought Joseph a series of highs and lows: from a slave block in Egypt to the chief servant in a prominent household… from a filthy Egyptian prison to second-incommand of all Egypt (Genesis 39-41). And when Joseph’s brothers travelled to Egypt for food during a famine, his high position afforded him the opportunity to repay their evil deeds with a boatload of revenge. But Joseph did just the opposite. He not only forgave them, he provided them food, and on top of that, he moved them to the choicest land in Egypt. Joseph understood that God sent him into Egypt to sustain his family during the famine, so he extended maximum grace (Genesis 45:5-8; 50:20). Talk about loving what’s kind! To Walk Humbly Like David Maybe David learned humility from his early life as the youngest in a family of shepherds. Or humility could have come
when he had to depend upon the Lord to deliver him from the much stronger Goliath. Maybe he learned to walk humbly during his many years on the run from King Saul. Or perhaps humility came after his unbroken string of military victories— made possible only because of God’s work in his life. But true humility called for much more from David. In Psalm 51, we find him a broken and contrite man. On the heels of cataclysmic failure—not success—David discovered that circumstances had to turn against him before he learned the lesson of humility. Brought low before God and people, he realized his need for grace, cleansing, and renewal. David learned the hard way to walk humbly with His God. These great lives stir our hearts and propel us to action. There are many others. Moses prayed for the mercy of God on behalf of His people. Job rested in God’s sovereignty as the salve for suffering. Nehemiah did what was right in the face of continued opposition. And Esther humbled herself to save her people. The principles behind Micah’s words permeated the lives of these ancient saints. Despite their antiquity, their powerful examples continue to provide practical insight to this very day. This year will keep each of us busy. But as the overwhelming pressures of life rise over our heads, let’s draw upon these practical principles—and learn from these great lives—as we do what’s right, love what’s kind, and walk humbly with God.
“As we peer into the pages of the Bible, tucked away toward the end of the Old Testament, we discover three qualities that give us practical direction for these days of pressure.”
Charles R. Swindoll serves as the senior pastor-teacher of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas.
5
by phil callaway
W
e laid you to rest on a Wednesday under the wide Alberta sky. I was hoping for a stray rain cloud to disguise my tears, but I wasn’t alone in that department. Saying goodbye to one you’ve admired since you were knee-high to a tricycle isn’t easy. But one who read you bedtime stories? Taught you to ride a bike? And loved you enough to say so? It is positively
heartbreaking. Teenagers don’t hang out in cemeteries much, but your grandkids refused to leave that Wednesday. The night before you passed away, they crowded your bed and sang the hymns you loved to hear. Twice you took my daughter’s hand and tried to raise it to your lips. When at last you succeeded in kissing it, she began to weep from sadness and joy and the delight of another memory she’d carry for life.
© stocksy.com boy
And that’s what you were about, Dad. Memories. When I was a lad, I loved to sneak up on you and watch what you were doing when you didn’t know I was there. That’s when you became my hero, I suppose. When you thought no one was watching I learned how to treat a woman. I learned to honour her and open doors for her and when to tip my hat. I learned that we’re toast without the ladies, so put them first in line at potlucks. I learned to let them stroll on the inside of the sidewalk so when we’re hit by an oncoming truck they’ll still be around to care for the kids. When you thought no one was watching I learned what was worth chasing. You avoided the deceptive staircase promising “success,” investing in memories instead. You never owned a new car, but scrounged to buy tent trailers for family vacations. Watching your life, I learned that simplicity is the opposite of simple-mindedness, that those who win the rat race are still rats. Going through your dresser I found your glasses, heart pills and a reading lamp. I suspect you’re doing fine without them. In a file marked “Will” you’d misplaced a note Mom gave you listing your attributes. She made you sound like Father Teresa. “On time for work. A gentleman. Filled with integrity. Wholesome in speech. Loves family. Loves God.” It’s the best inheritance a child could hope for. When you thought no one was watching I learned how to bring God’s Word to life. Hours before you passed away I had you to myself. You were struggling to breathe and my singing didn’t help, so I told you I loved you and thanked you for being a good dad.
"When you thought no one was watching I learned how to bring God’s Word to life." Then I opened the old Bible I watched you read when I was a boy. You’d underlined some glorious verses in Revelation 21 and I read them to you nice and loud, of that place where our tears will be wiped dry and our question marks straightened into exclamation points. By the time I reached the promise that your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, you were sound asleep. Friday morning the sun rose on your face and you simply stopped breathing. No more tears. No more Alzheimer’s. Home free. When you thought no one was watching I learned how to die. With relationships intact, with nothing left unsaid. Thanks for hunting trips and fishing lessons. Thanks for majoring on the majors. And for a thousand timeless memories. Most of all, thanks for giving me a glimpse of what God looks like. Tonight I’ll lay flowers on your grave once again, and past the tears I’ll determine to keep that twinkle alive. To live so the preacher won’t have to lie at my funeral. As you cheer me on, all the way Home.
Phil Callaway is the editor of Servant magazine.
by steve johnson
F
or several years a woman had been having trouble getting to sleep at night because she feared a burglar breaking in. One night her husband heard a noise in the house, so he went to investigate. Sure enough, he found a burglar. "Good evening," the husband said. "I am pleased to see you. Come upstairs—my wife has waited 10 years to meet you." Do you become paralyzed by “what if” questions? What if it happens? What if it doesn’t? That’s what I call living hypothetically. The imagination knows no bounds and when you really put your mind to it I bet you can conjure up an almost infinite number of possible disasters. Another term I have for this habit is “awfulizing,” making dire predictions about the future. Awfulizing is a two-step process. First, you suppose worst-case scenarios, circumstances, and situations. Next, thinking they could happen, you react with fear, anxiety, distress, and even insomnia. How’s that kind of thinking working out for you? Living hypothetically or awfulizing is not emotionally, physically, or spiritually healthy. When fear of what might happen dominates your life it stamps out joy, peace, and confidence in the Lord. It robs you of the energy and vitality you need today. Rather than living the abundant life Jesus promised you live in bondage to your
fearful imaginings and negatively impact those around you. There is a better way! Here are four ways the Bible instructs us to think. 1. Replace control with commitment. Behind the awfulizing is often a need to control. The idea that someone other than you, including God, controls your future may be a terrifying idea. Being helpless and vulnerable scares you, so you fixate on hypothetical situations to avoid your feelings.
“When fear of what might happen dominates your life it stamps out joy, peace, and confidence in the Lord.” Jesus said, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34). He’s saying not to get fearful and fixated on tomorrow’s troubles—real or otherwise. Instead, focus on today, what is real now, and what you can control. Continually commit what you can’t control, including the future, to your all-loving and infinitely wise Father in heaven. 2. Replace worry with prayer. “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need…” (Philippians 4:6). The kind of
worry referred to here is distracting care, things our regular thoughts are drawn to and distracted by. When those distracting cares surface the Bible says, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you” (1 Peter 5:7). Hand off the everyday things you “what if” about to God. Don’t wring your hands in worry. Instead, clasp them in prayer. Commit your family, loved ones, work, finances, and whatever else you worry about to God regularly, entrusting everything to His loving care. Hudson Taylor, missionary to China, gave this excellent advice: "Let us give up our work, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into [God's] hand; and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about."1 3. Replace thanklessness with gratitude and appreciation. The second part of Philippians 4:6 says, “…and thank him for all he has done.” Expressing gratitude and appreciation to God does two things. First, gratitude focuses your thoughts on present blessings and realities. It is impossible to be focused on present blessings and worried about future hypotheticals at the same time.
Second, gratitude shifts your mindset from negative worst-case scenarios to positive, real things. Increasing your love for God by thanking and appreciating what He has done for you makes it easier to trust Him with your future and not be fearful. 4. Replace false, negative thinking with true, positive thinking. When it comes to thoughts, it’s garbage in, garbage out. Philippians 4:8 says, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Because emotions are responders, what you put into your mind and allow yourself to dwell on will determine the emotional response you get. Think about scary, hypothetical situations and you will experience fear. Think about what is real, true, honourable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable, and “the God of peace will be with you.” (Philippians 4:9). What if…you change your thinking and let go of living hypothetically? Source unknown.
1
Steve Johnson is the executive director at Insight for Living Canada.
Insight for Living’s Bible-teacher Chuck Swindoll has spent more than 40 years emphasizing God’s grace alongside a commitment to practical application. Learn more about our pastor at insightforliving.ca/chuck-swindoll.
by dr. terry boyle
H
ow would you define a culture? Now let me clarify; I’m not thinking of yogurt, and I don’t mean the opera. Those aren’t the kinds of cultures I have in mind. A culture is the set of principles and values that unifies a group of people. Once a particular set of principles is found to be effective and helpful—in other words if certain decisions consistently bring good results—then it saves the group from having to re-invent society from the ground up every day. Imagine how chaotic it would be if we had to boot up our entire civilization every time a new day dawned: “So, how do we feel about murder today? Still against it. OK. What about charity? Show of hands please. Al…right, it looks like we’re still in favour of charity.” You get the picture; we start every day with a certain number of decisions already in place. Those decisions, the Cultured Company continued from p. 11
ones that we agree on collectively, are what define our culture. In the Bible, we are reading a document (in fact a library of documents) that was written over the course of oneand-a-half thousand years. The various books were each written within their given culture, and those cultures would change with time, just as they do today. However, the individual books of the Bible were written by people who were enabled by God to see beyond their own culture and to express a different set of pre-made decisions. They were inspired to reveal—either vividly or subtly—the “culture of heaven.” The culture of heaven is the set of decisions that has been established by the Creator God. As such, these decisions and priorities are changeless. They have always been and always will be the expression of God’s flawless will.
One of the passages that most elegantly distinguishes between an earthly culture and the culture of heaven is the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus compares and contrasts the culture in which most of the Jews were then living (a culture of elitist hypocrisy driven by the teachings of the Pharisees) with a very different culture. Whenever I speak or write about the Pharisees, I always try to give some explanation about them. There is actually a reason and a history behind their culture. The culture of the Pharisees grew as the answer to an important question. The question was this: “How can we be clean before God, and stand justified before Him, if we cannot use the Temple for sacrifices?” That question started to be important when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple nearly 600 years before Christ. But it was in the period between 170 BC and 164 BC that the question became crucial. The Second Temple (built by Nehemiah) was defiled and rendered unusable during that time by Antiochus IV. The position of High Priest was opened up to the highest bidder, so the descendants of Aaron were out of the picture too. The Jews knew from their scriptures (our Old Testament) that sacrifices were needed for atonement to relieve them of their guilt burden, and only the Aaronic priesthood was legitimately authorized to receive those sacrifices. If the place where the sacrifices took place was “closed for business” how could they possibly be forgiven their sins? One answer—the answer the Pharisees came up with—is to know the Law of Moses so thoroughly, and to keep it so well that you never have the need for the forgiveness that can only be found through sacrifice. They came up with a code of behaviour so strict that they
believed they never ran the risk of sinning. That led them down the path of pride and arrogance because they thought of themselves as pious. Of course Jesus had to shine a light inside their culture to show just how dark their prideful hearts were. A system without sacrifice is a system without humility.
“One of the passages that most elegantly distinguishes between an earthly culture and the culture of heaven is the Sermon on the Mount.” The Sermon on the Mount turns their culture on its head. In the culture of heaven the humble are favoured, the ones who have little or nothing in terms of earthly influence and prestige. In the culture of heaven it is the internal motives of the heart that carry weight, not the external appearance of having kept current on a checklist of prohibitions. For example, by external measures, it doesn’t matter if you want to beat someone’s head as long as you don’t actually follow through. Hold the grudge as long as you want, there’s no law against being bitter and resentful. But by the internal measures of the culture of heaven, it’s the wanting to that is significant. It has been pre-decided that forgiveness is the way forward in the culture of heaven. Christian growth in these terms is simply learning the culture of the place where we will eventually spend eternity. It shouldn’t be a matter of culture shock when we get there—we should be familiar with its customs. Hopefully we’ve spent a lifetime learning them.
Dr. Terry Boyle serves as pastor for Insight for Living U.K.
by steve johnson
CULTURE SHIFT Culture is the set of principles, values, behaviours, and beliefs characteristic of a particular group of people. We are all born and immersed in the culture of the world, which is opposite the culture of heaven. Receiving Christ as your Saviour means you shift from the world’s culture to heaven’s culture. Your aim as a believer is now to learn as much about heaven’s culture as you can and, increasingly, live it out on earth. Understanding four key changes will help you to live according to your new culture.
1.
Your change of identity and citizenship.
“Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life” (1 Corinthians 15:22). When you were born again the
Holy Spirit transferred you from being in Adam, and a citizen of the world, to being in Christ. Your citizenship was transferred from earth to heaven. Read: Ephesians 2:11-13, 19; Philippians 3:19-21; Romans 6:1-14 Reflect: A new identity and citizenship is the foundation of making the shift to living out heaven’s culture in your life. This world is no longer your home. In effect you are a foreigner here who belongs to another country. How does the change in your spiritual identity and citizenship alter your self-perception and attitude to everyday life in this world? Respond: List the privileges that are yours because you have a new identity and citizenship.
2.
Read: Micah 6:8; Colossians 3:5-25; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 5-7
Your change of authority.
As a citizen of heaven Christ is your king and His Word sets out the laws and principles of His kingdom. They are heaven’s culture to be lived out on earth as they are in heaven and ultimately we are accountable to God. Yet you and I must still live on earth and deal with those immersed in the world’s culture. Chuck’s article this month gives insight into how to do this using the example of Paul before Herod Agrippa and Festus in Acts 16. There you see Paul speaking with grace and courtesy about the changes in his own life. No condemnation of his corrupt audience even though he disagreed with their lifestyle. Paul models humility, kindness, respect, grace, and class. Read: Acts 16 Reflect: Paul knew his citizenship was in heaven and Christ was his true king. He spoke boldly as an ambassador for his king. Respond: Like Paul, share your story when you can. Speak with gentleness, sensibility, but also firmness. When speaking for God, focus on the principle at stake and that will embolden you. Determine in your heart to stand tall and speak for God. Be ready, and He will bring those opportunities.
3.
Your change of priorities.
As a citizen of heaven, God’s priorities become your priorities. Put off the practices of the world’s culture and live heaven’s culture.
Reflect: Phil’s article this month provides a glimpse of a godly man who lived and died according to heaven’s culture and priorities. These governed his daily life and in turn impacted those who watched his life. He was a man who glorified God in his relationships, ambitions, and all he did. We learn heaven’s culture from others who live it. Respond: Review Phil’s article and highlight at least four ways his dad lived out heaven’s culture. Do you need to change any of your priorities?
4.
Your change of mind.
A new culture requires a new way of viewing everything. Seated with Christ in the heavenlies offers a different perspective— God’s perspective. Old ways of thinking are to be put off and new ones, consistent with our new identity and citizenship, are to be put on. Read: Romans 12:2; Colossians 3:1-3; Philippians 4:8-9 Reflect: The article, Living Hypothetically, presents how heaven’s culture governs our thinking in one aspect: don’t live hypothetically. The new reality you now understand as a citizen of heaven is God is in control, not you. Respond: Instead of mentally creating hypothetical situations resulting in anxiety and fear, learn to commit your future to the Lord, pray, be grateful, and think true positive things.
Steve Johnson is the executive director at Insight for Living Canada.
online RESOURCE SPOTLIGHT
Living a life of faith hardship.
DOESN’T MEAN THERE WON'T BE
The Bible gives us a spiritual “hall of fame”—raw, uncensored, gritty stories of men and women sometimes soaring and often stumbling through the incredible life of faith. Their inspiring biographies are memorialized in Scripture not simply because of their faith in God but because of God's faithfulness to them. Visit insightforliving.ca/characters and learn more about these heroes of the faith.