Tool Time

The most successful learner is the one who cherishes comprehension, treasures truth, aptly applies and attaches astuteness, and above all is diligent in such pursuits with passion. What is striking, stipulating and stifling is the antithesis, absent of ardency, lustfully lazy. Such is the battle that is waged within. Influenced by our desire and pleasure we plan placation, enjoy entropy of environmental numbness, believing this to be the natural nirvana.

Each of us has been blessed, garnished, or given at least one 'gift' to be used for the benefit of others, our neighbor, and our society. The use of this gift, requires acquisition of some tools, making it usable for the benefit of others and ourselves. Say for oversimplification, you have been given the gift of swinging your arm. Early on in life you discover that you can use this gift to hit the Fisher Price work bench making the 'nails' go down. Later, you find your gift allows you to make noise, and eventually play music on the Fisher Price xylophone. That same skill meets with another challenge and maybe you don't have the skill to make music, but only noise. So you move on.

Through out your early life, you are blessed to have a father who works with his or her hands and is a carpenter, and you discover that your gift came from genetics, as he can drive nails like few people can. So you too learn how to do the same. You also discover that you cannot use a framing hammer to do fine finish woodworking, so you need a different, more refined tool to tackle this job. You discover, as you look on your dad's tool display, that he not only has a framing hammer, but more than a dozen others, all different shapes and made of different materials. As you learn to do more and more, you realize that, while you could use just one hammer, having a specialized hammer helps you accomplish different tasks with better precision, and finesse, all using the same basic skill of swinging your arm.

Whether you have the gift of swinging your arm or not, you can examine this little story in many ways. If you are not interested in the least about tools or learning a bit about the art of swinging your arm, you may not even get this far in the reading, or if you are reading, you might as well not be, because you aren't paying attention to the details and trying to make the connections. You could even fully understand what I am mentioning because you, like me went through each of these steps, and yet, when was the last time you picked up a hammer? I have seen many people, including my wife, trying to use a hammer inefficiently, only to coach them on the proper, more efficient manner to swing it, and if practiced, they too become much better at the skill.

There are two ways to move through life. A life lived in transformational learning will have invested the time to develop adept craftsmanship with a tool, and whenever needed use not only the correct tool, but use it well. The life lived in 'just enough to get me through', however, will have to work once again to first find the tool, learn how to use it again 'just enough to get them through' and hopefully do a good job with it. While it takes time to learn to use a tool well, it takes longer and requires more work to have a tool box full of tools with only limited experience in the mastery of their capabilities.

It is the lazy person that will work hardest in the end, being able to complete tasks, but with no long term transformation and therefore when required again, will have to spend time again 'relearning' the skill once again in order to meet the present need. All the while, the one who diligently made the learning a joyful addition to their life, has only to patiently ponder for a moment, extract and use what is already within. Many are the times when tools are required, and many are the tools used to finish the job well. I find myself always asking the questions, "Am I diligent in using the tools I am blessed with? Am I also diligent in discovering and using new tools to do even better work?

Jesus said in John 14:

2 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. (English Standard Version).

The tools we have at our disposal are given by God to be used by God for His glory. My job is to acquire the tools, learn as His apprentice how best to use them, asking Him which tool to use, when, and watch as He helps me build beautiful things for His kingdom. Two thousand years later, we should be doing greater things because for two thousand years Christ has been working in His people and through His people. So why isn't this happening? It's tool time! Time to use, time to learn, time to build. Will you join Him?

Pointing to the Purveyor of Power

Standing in preparation for teaching a “Truth University” class for my church this summer (July 2010), I find myself looking at scripture with an eye bent on worship, holy worship, wholly worship. Scripture is replete with living testimony of hearts both tuned and discordant with the heart of God. The examples are extant, excitant and exhorting to a heart willing to submit to the teaching within each. I often find myself seeing into every story with eyes colored by the place God has put my heart. These past abundant months rear as those colored by a desire to understand, uncover, and unleash true Godly worship from my heart.

The beauty of the gospels is that none are identical, speak all of the same stories, but are threaded and woven together to give accurate account of a didactive discourse and dynamic doings of Jesus Christ, both man and God, demonstrating the desires of the Father to men.

Both Luke (21:1-4) and Mark (12:41-44), offer the brief, yet pointedly powerful account of a poor widow. The focus of many a sermon being that she put in more than others. For the first time I find myself hit by the howitzer of her humility, her powerful paucity.
Looking for the keys to worship, I have stumbled upon two central issues.

1. Acceptable worship is such because God accepts it.
2. His acceptance of it is directly dependent upon our diligent discernment in response to the resonant resident within us, the Holy Spirit.

Central to all issues of acceptable worship is an understanding of our rightful place with God, our poverty compared to His glorious riches. How often it is we come to Him giving Him what we believe are sacrifices, perceiving our offerings to be abundant and magnificent. It is here He sees into our hearts, reducing our haughty appraisal of the wealthy sacrifice to its actual significance, pathetically pale.

What is surprising to me is that Christ did not say that the others did not invest in the kingdom, or that their offerings were unacceptable, but that hers were more valuable because she trusted God enough to give all she had to live on, knowing that He would care for her every need. Her puny offering poignantly pointed to the purveyor of power and peace in her placated place. I wonder how often it is that we fail to see God move, because we don’t put ourselves into a place where we are solely dependent upon Him to provide, not just monetarily, but especially spiritually.

If I honestly believe that I am poor, and if I truly trust God for my provisions, offering out of my parched paucity, then will I hear from God. Then will I serve Him with all my paucity. Can it be that my puny offering poignantly point to The Purveyor of power and peace in my placated place? May it be so.