What To Do If You Want Life in Your Life . . .

Mike Hosey, An Elder

Bodies of water feed a land. In fact, they do much more than that. They give a land life. Almost anywhere you find a lake, or a pond, you will find life both in it and all around it. But the most lush lands, those teeming with the most life, tend to be those that have rivers flowing through them.  This is because those rivers run long distances through large expanses of land, so that a greater surface area of territory is touched by water.  These rivers are almost always fed by runoff, or tributary rivers, and are often surrounded by many lakes.  When a land has rivers, it means that life-giving water falls on the land in abundance, either in the form of rain, or in the form of snow, or it bubbles up from subterranean springs. The life of the land exists in dependence on those rivers, lakes and springs. And those rivers, lakes, and springs exist in dependence on precipitation. But lands that are independent of rivers, meaning lands that exist without rivers, or bodies of unfrozen water, tend to be deserts.  Of course, deserts have life, but they are not teeming with it.  And the only life they do have is in a continual contest for whatever meager amount of water exists there. In places like the Sahara Desert, or the Gobi Desert, there are enormous stretches where there is no water at all, and no life at all.  They are about as lifeless as the moon.

But then there are deserts where there is water all around.  Antarctica is covered in water, but it is in the form of ice. It's frozen and immovable so that Antarctica, too, is about as lifeless as the moon.

When we have the spirit of Christ in us, we are like lands that are flowing with water (John 7:38).  We teem with life, and not only do we teem with life, life flows out of us so that others can have it as well.  And not only that, but the life is eternal! But if we try to be independent of that spirit, if we quench it (1 Thessalonians 5:19), if we are not dependent on it, or filled by it (Ephesians 5:18), then our river dries up, or becomes frozen, and the life in us competes for whatever meager water is left, and we become much like a desert -- perhaps beautiful, perhaps having some life, but hot, parched, and mostly dead.

Does God Want You To Be Independent?

Mike Hosey, An Elder

In America, the idea of independence is a sacred one.  It is woven into our history from the very beginning. We fought a war, spilled blood, and spent treasure to become independent from Britain and her king, and to become our own, self-governing nation. In doing that, we became one of the most influential and powerful nations in all of human history.   And we achieved that in a remarkably short time relative to most societies.  Those beginnings, and that success, developed some strong and distinct American cultural ideals rooted in that original concept of independence. For instance, until recent decades, Americans were soaked in an idea popularized by Herbert Hoover, and noted by cultural historians called rugged individualism. It was the idea that each individual could make his or her own way without involvement from government regulations, interference, or even help, and that society was best when people embraced that rugged individualism. At its extreme, American’s didn’t even need other people. Implicit in the idea was that individuals could be self-sufficient. It was the idea of individual independence. Most Americans believed in the idea at a core level, even if they didn’t really always practice it.

The idea has some validity. We are able to do many, many things on our own. And society is generally better when people do.  But no man is totally independent of others.  Further, when it comes to our relationship with God, either collectively or individually, independence is an idea wholly alien to the Bible. There are no biblical heroes who were independent of God. Not one.  In fact, every single biblical hero is IN dependence of God.  They are unable to do ANYthing without his help or involvement.  From Jesus, to the apostles, to the Old Testament’s hall of fame, every single biblical role model of faith stands in dependence on God’s power, presence, plan, and relationship with them.  And that’s the way God wanted it. In fact, it’s the way it needs to be.  A lightbulb, after all, is completely useless when it is independent of its source.

Paul reveals this concept to us in 2 Corinthians 12:9.  In that chapter he boasts of his accomplishments, but then recalls how he had to suffer persecution from a thorn in his flesh. God tells him that His power is made perfect in Paul’s weakness. Paul recognizes his weakness and embraces God’s power as well as embracing his own weakness, realizing that when he is weak and dependent on God, that he is also strong! In God’s system, dependence is a sacred idea.

Is Your Kind of Hope a BIBLICAL Hope?

Mike Hosey, An Elder

God is a God of hope, and he wants each of us to overflow with hope (Romans 15:13).  Now for some people, that is an odd statement.  Hope, after all, is a word inherently and fully filled with uncertainty. For instance, we may say something like, “I hope dinner is ready when I get home,” or, “I hope my team makes it to the Super Bowl.”  When we say those things we are expressing our desire for a future outcome, while at the same time expressing our understanding that those outcomes may be different than what we desire. We desire a hot plate at the end of our workday, but we recognize that our spouse sometimes gets very busy and may only have a bowl of cereal for us.  That “hope” statement is odd for some people because God is an all knowing God, and as such he must be a God filled with certainty.  He is also a loving God, so it doesn’t make sense that a God filled with certainty who loves us would also want us to be filled with the anxiety of uncertainty. The problem lies in a wrong understanding of the word hope.  Biblical hope is not filled with uncertainty.  Biblical hope is certainty. One of the many places where this is clear is in Romans 8:23-25.  There, Paul argues that we eagerly wait for our adoption as God’s children. He argues that we are saved in the hope of our future, and that we wait patiently for it.  One cannot be saved in uncertainty, and one does not wait in it either!

Hope is like faith. We often think of faith as uncertainty.  But biblical faith is devoid of uncertainty. Biblical faith is certainty. Abraham’s belief in God’s promise to make a great nation from Isaac was so certain, that he reasoned that God would raise him from the dead if he sacrificed him like God had commanded (Hebrews 11:17-19). The opposite of faith is mistrust, and mistrust at its core is a problem of uncertainty. This is why faith produces behavioral results.  We act on what we believe to be true. The greater our belief that something is true, then the more certain we are of that truth, and the more likely we are to act -- even at great risk to our own well-being. Great faith is great certainty that what God has told us is true.  Great hope is great certainty that God’s future promise will be true. So faith is certainty in what God has told us in the past, and is telling us now in his word.  Hope is certainty about his future promises.  This is why endurance produces character and character produces hope (Romans 5:3-5). Our successful endurance shows us that God’s promises are true, which produces a character of trust, which in turn increases our certainty about the future.

How Do You Know if You Have Good Character?

Mike Hosey, An Elder 

It has been said that character is measured by what we do when no one is watching. There is certainly truth in such a statement. Character, after all, is largely about behavior, and how we behave when no one is watching is probably a greater reflection of who we are and what we actually believe than what we do in the midst of a church service on a Sunday morning. This is because such behavior is not biased by our fears of what others may think about us. Consider also that the statement doesn’t apply to behavior that simply happens when other people are not around. It can apply to behavior that happens in the midst of thousands of eyes. What a man of little character will allow himself to do in the middle of his church service in his hometown of High Springs may be quite different than what he allows himself to do in the streets of a pagan festival in a far-away country. The people in the far-away country may be no one to him.

But character is far more than what we do when no one is watching. It is what we consistently do when no one is watching, and it is what we consistently do when we are under pressure of sacrifice. Such consistency is a measure of whether our values are in line with our behaviors. If a man says he values honesty, but lies every time that an untruth will bring him benefit, then he does not value honesty. He values benefit. And his character needs work. When a man does something that is right, even when doing what is right will bring him pain or loss, then such a man values what is right. His character is good, and it is proven by his sacrifice. Jesus is the highest example of this. He valued the mission his father gave him -- which was to save humanity -- and he died a criminal’s death to accomplish it. His values and his character were proven by a consistent and final behavior of service.

But good character is measured by more than just our genuine internal morality, or our values consistency and their integrity under pressure of sacrifice. It is in what a person of character places his value that proves the goodness of his or her character. For instance, if a man values the acquisition of wealth, and pursues this at great sacrifice to himself and his family, and does it consistently both when people are watching and when they are not, he still does not have good character. Such a man has a greedy and selfish character.

 But consider the character of Timothy from the Bible (Philippians 2:19-22). Paul describes his character as proven because of his service to the gospel.  It was consistent enough for Paul to send him out to do gospel work. Paul then implies that his values are supremely centered on serving God! Such was Timothy's character that Paul knew no one like him.