Cyber Truths By E-mail
22. How Eager Are You? (August 16, 2006)
Dear Friends,
Recently, the Holy Spirit gave Mike a word
for a close friend of ours, immediately followed by a vision of
the man being dead and looking much like he does today.
In other words, in the vision, it appeared he was going to die
in the near future.
Our friend is now in his mid-forties.
Later that day when he came to our home, Mike "danced
around" the vision by asking him, "Do you have a
will?" Then the Holy Spirit prompted him to be honest and
tell him the vision. Some deep and revealing discussion
followed regarding matters our friend knew our Lord wanted him
to deeply consider and take action on.
In our early years of following Jesus, a
missionary friend told us, "You
should ALWAYS be ready to pray, preach, or die for Jesus!" We've taken those words seriously because
there is much circumcision of the heart that's needed to be
prepared for the immediate response required to carry out any
of these three actions.
"And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Therefore encourage each other with these words"
(1 Thessalonians 4:17b,18).
How would you respond if someone told you
that you had sixty seconds before you were to die? Really, how
would you respond? Would there be immediate elation and joy
that you will see Jesus face-to-face? Or, are you looking to
get to heaven as long as it's still a far-in-the-future event,
either because you're not ready or there are other priorities
in your earthly life? Having to consider this question on the
spot really reveals where your heart motive lies.
It's like the hand grenade scenario we
used at our retreat center to test how really dead to
themselves people were:
I’d simulate throwing a hand grenade
in the middle of a group.
“You have three seconds before the
hand grenade blows up.
One...two... three...”
• 0% of the clergy ever jumped on the
grenade. Not one!!!
• 10% of non-clergy men jumped on the
grenade.
• 50% of the women and teenagers
jumped on the hand grenade.
When people don't have time to analyze the
pro's and con's, their true heart often shows up!
When I shared the vision with my friend,
his immediate response was to become despondent. But we were
able to use his reaction to clear up things that were hindering
him in his relationship with God. The heaviness of spirit that
had been plaguing him for some time began to lift as we talked.
He was able to re-align his heart's motive with the only
pre-eminent priority in life—Jesus.
In fact, our conversation led to the three
of us concentrating more on loving, obedient trust in the Holy
Spirit within us. Our earnest desire was to rely more on Him
for wisdom and life perspective. You may recall that the
biblical definition of wisdom is seeing life from God's perspective.
This means nullifying any reliance on our soul (our mind, will,
and emotions), and connecting to the Holy Spirit through our
spirit. Each of us needs to "re-wire" the way in
which we see our life here on earth, releasing the Spirit to
guide our heart's motive.
In the days to follow we asked other
people about their response if they found out they were to
immediately die. No one was ready! And, most didn't like the
idea. So how is it with you as you read this?
Please consider these questions:
• Are you more attracted to people
and things here on earth, or to eternal life with Jesus?
There is much more behind the words of
Jesus in the verse that follows than people who call themselves
"Christian" make part of their life: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength" (Mark 12:30). Not
only is this command to be our supreme
heart's motive; as we live it out
in our daily lives it removes all
other competing goals and desires in their competing allure.
Does the thought of your death immediately
draw you to think of family and others you fear losing? This is
a crucial test for all of us. That's why our Lord breaks the
above command down to specific criteria to weigh so that we can
test ourselves to see who or what we truly cherish:
“Anyone who loves his father or
mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his
son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone
who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of
Me" (Matthew 10:37,38).
Family is often a key consideration when people find out they
are going to die.
We remember many years ago a man in his
thirties who was follower of Jesus. He was happily
married and had three young children. He found out he was going
to die from a rare form of leukemia. Facing the loss of his
wife and children he inquired of the Lord about his death. The
Lord told him that He was going to use the courageous manner in
which the man faced his death to change the life his lukewarm
friend. "Are you prepared to forfeit your life for this
man?" the Lord asked him. He responded with an emphatic
"Yes!!!"
As the friend observed the undeniable
presence and joy of Jesus in the weeks leading up to the man's
death, he put all worldly considerations aside and became a
true follower of Jesus.
[We have personally experienced how God
used the death of several people to alter the lives of others.
In fact, God used the death of our friend, Dick Shand, to stir
us to put our trust in Jesus (see Restoring the Early Church:
Chapter 4)].
How about you? Are there things on this
earth — worldly goals and values — that you don't
want to leave more than you want to be with Jesus? Remember
God's warning:
"You adulterous people, don’t
you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?
Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy
of God" (James 4:4).
In your inmost being, are you one of those
against whom God speaks?
"[I am] always on their lips but far
from their hearts" (Jeremiah
12:2).
“These people honor Me with their
lips, but their hearts are far from Me" (Matthew 15:8).
This isn't a 'pass-fail' question right
now for you, but it can be when you stand in front of the
Judgment Throne of our Lord. It's biblically appropriate for
each of us to stop and scrutinize our lives to see where we
fall short in our journey of loving, obedient trust and
tolerate sin in our lives. Paul had to encourage the
Corinthians to scrutinize their own lives to make sure Jesus
was more than lip service and a religious add-on: "Examine yourselves to see whether you are
in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ
Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the
test?" (2 Corinthians 13:
5).
Even as the Israelites at last approached
the Promised Land, Joshua exhorted them to scrutinize where
their heart's motive lay. That's because "serving
the Lord" encompassed far more than ritual and tradition: "But if serving the LORD seems undesirable
to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will
serve.... But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).
• Do you fear death?
We realize that most of us do not want to
die a painful, prolonged death. But how about death itself? How
do you respond to the notion of your own death—especially
your immediate demise?
In our daily existence it's easy for many
Christians lose sight of one of the reasons Jesus became human.
We are told: "Since the
children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity
so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power
of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all
their lives were held in slavery by
their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:14,15).
We were both given the opportunity to
prepare our parents for their death. When Mike told his ailing
father he was about to die, his Dad's immediate reply was,
"Jesus has been waiting for me!" His Mom had a face
full of glee... Sue's last conversation with her unbelieving
Dad caused him to respond to our Father's call and put his
trust in Jesus. Her Mom gave her life to Jesus on her death bed
after years of "soil preparation" by the Spirit
through Sue.
If you fear death, you're missing
something Jesus accomplished on your behalf, victory over the
fear of death. If you fear death, then you're sinning through
doubt and disbelief...
• Is your conscience clear?
In other words, are you now in fellowship
with the Father and His Son, Jesus? Stop and look inside
yourself!!! Are you at this very moment living with unconfessed
sin? (See 1 John 1:9). Remember, when you were baptized, you
pledged to keep a good conscience toward God (see 1 Peter 3:
21). Are you keeping your pledge right at this moment? If not,
why not????
Remember, if Mark 12:30, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength", isn't your
pre-eminent heart's motive, you're grieving our Lord. In the
Older Testament, God told the Israelites He would never
entertain "any other gods
before him" (see Exodus
20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7). In us who have embraced His Covenant
He will not entertain any other motives that compete with Him
as "gods" or idols. The very meaning of the
"covenant" you have in Jesus means to live in union
with Him, to have oneness with Him.
One of our Father's stipulations for you
to enter His Covenant is:
Your Salvation Pilgrimage Both Begins and Continues
with Your Forceful Conviction and
Steadfast Determination to Follow Him
Answering the call of our Father to trust
wholeheartedly in Jesus is a vigorous response
from which no earthly power can hold you
back! As Jesus proclaimed, following Him is a heart issue
filled with forceful determination. This essence is captured in
Matthew 13:44-46:
“The kingdom of heaven is like
treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it
again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought
that field. Again, the
kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he
went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
It takes tremendous certainty to give up
everything you’ve got in order to lay hold of that which
our Father is offering you. Keep in your foremost thoughts that
your ongoing genuine repentance, agape love, and complete trust produce the type of conviction and
determination our Father calls for. And, living this way makes
seeing Jesus face-to-face at any moment a thrilling joy that
far surpasses anyone or anything in this world!
Please, use this e-mail to open discussion
with those you really want to see again in heaven. Any of us
may find ourselves standing before the Throne sooner than we
think...
Mike & Sue Dowgiewicz
