Facts of the Matter

Good Morning!

The imagery of Christ making His way through the bustling, pawing, and demanding crowds was one of peace, bearing, and purpose.CALLED by the Father to complete His task, Jesus never appeared to be in a hurry…yet always progressing toward His goal.

Because Jesus had a clear sense of His calling , He was able at age 33 — the night before the cross — to say to His Father,“I have finished the work You gave me to do.” (Jn. 17:4)

So it is to be with us . God has CALLED us to a work, be it in the context of the market place or behind a pulpit.

Unfortunately, many of us conduct our lives in a manner more indicative of a DRIVEN person+:

He’s results-orientated.

He’s in constant pursuit of expansion.

He’s restless and very intense.

He’s very competitive.

His people skills are underdeveloped.

He’s “too busy for integrity.”

He’s pre-occupied with symbols of achievement

By contrast, Isaiah paints a picture of work accomplished God’s way:

If your lifestyle and approach to work reflect a DRIVEN man as opposed to the CALLED person of Isaiah 32:17, perhaps it is time to take inventory.

My prayer is that you are having a great week!

R. Dwight Hill

+Gordon McDonald in “Ordering Your Private World“

* Originally dated Sept. 6th, 1995

Good Morning!

The imagery of Christ making His way through the bustling, pawing, and demanding crowds was one of peace, bearing, and purpose.CALLED by the Father to complete His task, Jesus never appeared to be in a hurry…yet always progressing toward His goal.

Because Jesus had a clear sense of His calling , He was able at age 33 — the night before the cross — to say to His Father,“I have finished the work You gave me to do.” (Jn. 17:4)

So it is to be with us . God has CALLED us to a work, be it in the context of the market place or behind a pulpit.

Unfortunately, many of us conduct our lives in a manner more indicative of a DRIVEN person+:

He’s results-orientated.

He’s in constant pursuit of expansion.

He’s restless and very intense.

He’s very competitive.

His people skills are underdeveloped.

He’s “too busy for integrity.”

He’s pre-occupied with symbols of achievement

By contrast, Isaiah paints a picture of work accomplished God’s way:

If your lifestyle and approach to work reflect a DRIVEN man as opposed to the CALLED person of Isaiah 32:17, perhaps it is time to take inventory.

My prayer is that you are having a great week!

R. Dwight Hill

+Gordon McDonald in “Ordering Your Private World“

* Originally dated Sept. 6th, 1995

Let’s face it: Money is a seductive mistress ! You can’t live without it, and you continually run the risk of it, like a charmed snake, reaching up and biting you to your destruction. Consider a vexing issue presented by John Wesley over 300 years ago, which serves as a sobering warning for you and me:

“I fear, wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore, I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue for long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches. How then is it possible that Methodism, that is, a religion of the heart though it flourishes now as a greed bay tree, should continue in this state? For Methodists in every place grow diligent and frugal; consequently, they increase in goods. Hence they proportionality increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. [I Jn. 2:12,16]. So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away. Is there no way to prevent this-this continual decay of pure religion? We ought not to prevent people from being diligent and frugal; we must exhort all Christians to gain all they can, and to save all they can; that is, in effect, to grow rich.” 1

If God has blessed you financially to the point that you have excess, you may want to consider these action steps:

• Craft a mission statement for yourself and your family that will insure that you leave an eternal legacy relative to the building of the Kingdom of God. “ Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:19-21)

• Surrender your earthly holdings to God , making him the owner and you the steward: “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful (I Cor. 4:2).” Carefully analyze Luke 12:16-21.
• Determine to be a generous giver : “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful [hilarious] giver (2 Cor. 9:7).” (See Deut. 15:7-11)
• Choose to be content with God’s level of provision and get off the upward mobility treadmill. Carefully study 1 Timothy 6:6-10 and Philippians 4:11-13.
• Set limits on your work to insure that the pursuit of wealth does not crowd out your nurturing relationship with your spouse and children. It is all too easy for gifted and driven people to violate family relationships by their physical or emotional absence: “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim. 5:8).” That little word “provide” means “to look out for” your family, which includes the financial but is all encompassing in scope.
• Choose to live under your income . Put a cap on your standard of living. Prayerfully consider giving away your excess. “… From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked (Lk. 12:48b).” Keep in mind you have two important responsibilities beyond providing for your family:

(1) To participate in the work of building the Kingdom of God: “Jesus…said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…’”

(2) Helping the poor of this world. “ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. ” (I Jn. 3:16-18) Carefully study Deut. 15:7-10, Proverbs 14:31 , 19:17 , Isaiah 58:6-12, and 1Timothy 6:17 -19.

CONCLUSION : Immersed as we are in a money-mad world of materialism and affluence, may God grant us his wisdom on handling wealth. If God has blessed us financially, there is no reason for guilt (Pro. 10:22 ), but we clearly need to understand that we will indeed give him an accounting as to how we handled this seductive mistress. (See 2 Cor. 5:9, 10)

This week may you experience His grace, peace and protection!

R. Dwight Hill

*Original Facts date December 19^th, 2001

1 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Dover Publishing, Inc. Minpola N. Y. 2003, pg 175

In last week’s “Facts” I mentioned that I would lay out a simple, but effective way to spend daily time with the Lord Jesus:

Begin your time with the Lord, thanking him for his presence and for his love. Praise him for his faithfulness.

Choose a short passage of Scripture to read and meditate on. Don’t take a whole chapter. As you prayerfully meditate your way through the passage, ask God to speak to your heart and to reveal the Lord Jesus to you. Concentrate at going slowly and deeply with less material. For example, you could meditate your way through Psalm 23.

From verse 1: “The Lord is my shepherd.” Stop to ponder what it means to place yourself under his Lordship. Ask the question as to what Lordship means. Jot down your thoughts and pray them into your life.

I would then ask the question, “What is the correlation between “Lord” and “Shepherd?” When I think of a shepherd, I picture his sovereign love, and self-sacrificing care of me. I derive comfort from being one of his sheep. My mind turns to John 10 and Jesus’ description of the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, etc. I might jot down my observations from John 10 on his shepherding of me; then pause, thanking him for what I have observed about the sheep – shepherd relationship. I might ask myself the question, “Can Jesus be my shepherd if I do not allow him to be my Lord?”

Psalm 23:1 goes on, “I shall not be in want.” As I ponder this statement, I ask myself why I am so often concerned as to whether God will meet my material needs? Could the answer be it is because I am not surrendering to his Lordship as my Shepherd? Thus, I am making it difficult for him to fulfill his promise to meet my needs? I might spend some time recording my fears and disbelief as it relates to his provision and then re-committing that area of my life to him.

I then continue to prayerfully work my way through the rest of the Psalm, one word or phrase at a time, jotting down my observations, and possible applications, and praying over my discoveries.

When I am finished meditating through the Psalm, I might go back over my material and pose questions next to each of my observations. For example, I might ask:

Have I totally surrendered my life to the Lordship of Christ?

Am I willing to choose to trust my Shepherd, to provide for my material needs? Etc., etc.

After each question, I pause and listen for him to speak to me.

This week, may you experience His grace, peace, and protection.

R. Dwight Hill

The Scriptures inform us to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7 NKJV). Yet everything in us demands a rational explanation. “Show me. I’m from Missouri.” We want the security of knowing before acting. Our duplicitous mind and heart recoil at the prospect of truly trusting God with the unknown, much less with what seems to us to be the irrational. Yet God, in His determination to teach us to walk by faith, pushes us to trust Him in the most unlikely ways that simply defy common sense: ” My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”, declares the Lord.’ I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them…” (Isa. 55:8b; 42:16a). For example:

• God to Noah, “Build a boat out here in the dessert. ” Noah: “What’s a boat?” “I’ll show you.” Noah: “Why would we want a boat in the dessert, Lord?” “Because I’m going flood the earth and drown all the wicked people.” Noah: “How long will it take me to build the boat Lord?” “One hundred and twenty years.” Noah: “But Lord, everyone will think I am a nut case.” God: “Noah, how long can you tread water?” (See Gen. 6).

• God to Abraham: “Take your son, your only son whom you love…Sacrifice him …as a burnt offering.” Surely Abraham must have been thinking, “But Lord, what about your promise and fulfillment of giving me a son in my old age? You cannot be serious.” Yet Abraham obeyed, and in the eleventh hour God spared Isaac. (See Gen. 22:1-19)

• God to Joshua: “There’s this fortified city, Jericho. March around it seven times, blow trumpets and shout, and the walls will collapse and you will take the city.” Joshua could have been thinking, “He wants us to drink the Kool-Aid.” Against all rationale, God’s word accomplished what He had promised. (See Jos. 5:13 – 6:21)

• Jesus to Peter: “Throw your net over there on the other side of the boat .” “But Lord, you, an itinerate preacher know nothing about fishing. I have fished this lake for years and know what is going on here. Besides we fished all night and there are no fish to be had.” To his credit, Peter – against his every rational inclination – obeyed Jesus, and … well, you know the rest of the story. (See Jn. 21:1-14)

Faith, by its very definition, demands that we look beyond proof positive, to embrace the character and promises of God. Observe Moses’ testimonial, in retrospect, on God’s faithfulness to Israel, “Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; everyone was fulfilled” (Josh. 21:45).

CHALLENGE : Perhaps God is speaking to you about a direction or action He wants you to take that rationally does not pencil out. Consider: “…Without faith it is impossible to please God…My righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him” (Heb. 11:6a; 10:38a). Today, choose to please God by believing and obeying Him, whatever His terms.

This week, may you experience His grace, peace, and protection.

R. Dwight Hill

The danger of having idle time on my hands without accountability.  

Our goal is to please him. For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly bodyWait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from GodGod will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ  (2 Cor. 5:9b-11; I Cor. 4:5b; Rom. 2:16b)  (See Ecc. 11:9)

Prayer: Lord, I commit to structuring my life in a way that insures that I am accountable to another person or group.  Help me to keep ever before me the fact that I will indeed give an accounting to you.

 We can easily become de-sensitized to the suffering of the common man because with wealth we  often possess greater options to ease the pain of life.

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.  The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.  So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us (Lk. 16:19-26). (See Lk. 12:48; Rom. 12:15

 Prayer: Lord, I confess my inclination toward turning a blind eye to the suffering around me.  Grant me a servants heart to engage with the suffering people whom you place in my path.

This week, may you experience His grace, peace, and protection.

R. Dwight Hill

Many followers of Christ feel there is something fundamentally wrong with their church, but cant quite put their finger on it. In all probability, the general level of spiritual maturity is woefully weak. The majority is undisciplined in the word of God and prayer, and is in dire need of help in living holy lives separated unto Christ. Few give evidence of the fruit of the Spirit, much less fruit bearing. Few, if any are being truly discipled and equipped for life and ministry. As a committed participant in my local church, which I dearly love, this reality is a source of grief to me.

In the following eight Facts, I would like to make observations as to why the church is generally failing in its calling to make disciples. 1

#1 Christian leaders have been diverted from their primary calling of equipping believers to do the work of the ministry.

Jesus commanded us to make disciples, and informed us that he would build his church (Matt. 16:18; 28:18-20). It appears that we have it backwards in that we are building the church and leaving the discipleship to him.  Certainly he demonstrated this priority of discipleship, given the fact that he gave 90% of his time to the training of the Twelve.  In Ephesians 4:11-16 Paul clearly spells out the responsibility of spiritual leaders to equip believers so that they, the believers, do the ministry: And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head–Christ– ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (NKJV)

The Greek word for equipping in Ephesians 4:12 is katartizo and means to equip for service. Put another way, these gifted men (vs. 11) are to specialize in equipping the saints for the work of the ministryIn short, Christian service (vs. 12). 2 When the laity is equipped, believers grow into the stature of the fullness of Christ (vs. 13), become spiritually stabilized (vs. 14), and prepared to minister the truth in love (vs. 15). In this environment, all the gifts naturally function to the effect that the body grows (vs. 16).

During the early formation of the church, pressure built on the apostles to meet the physical needs of widows. Rather than divert their attention to this important but secondary task, they chose spiritual men to address this need, thus freeing them to fulfill their calling to the ministry of the word and prayer: Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word." (Act. 6:3, 4) Today, many church leaders under pressure to build the church, have been sidetracked from their primary mission of disciple making to becoming program directors, administrators and care givers.  

QUESTION: Where are you putting your primary ministry efforts? In running programs, or in equipping people for the ministry? The former is busy religious toil; the latter is the Lords work of making disciples. The former produces hay, wood, and straw; the latter gold, silver, and costly stones. The former will fail the searing test of the Refiners fire; the latter will not only survive the fire but will be rewarded for its labor. (See I Cor. 3:10-15)

1 These key ideas are drawn from Greg Ogdens Transforming Discipleship – Inter-Varsity Press, pages 40-55. The expansion on Ogdens ideas in these articles is mine. 2 Wuest's Word Studies – Wuest's Word Studies Volume 1: Word Studies in the Greek New Testament.

A weekly letter of encouragement to business and professional men and women

THREE MEASURING STICKS OF GODLY CHARACTER

Good character today is in short supply.  For example, in a recent survey, 61% of college students admitted cheating at least once. Of them, 73% felt no remorse, and getting caught stopped only 7%.  The IRS claims that 40% of Americans are out of compliance a nice way of saying they are cheating on their taxes. The sacred mantra of postmodern values is not absolute truth, since truth is now what you define it to be, but the twin pillars of independence and tolerance.  Translated: I get to do what I want to do, and I allow you to do what you want to do. 

By way of contrast, godly character is living out biblical imperatives with integrity.  Following are three measuring sticks of that character: +

Core: What you are at the core of your being reveals the essence of your character.  David said of God, You desire truth in the inner parts Literally, ones inmost thought. (Psa. 51:6b)  Solomon reminds us that, as [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he. (Pro. 23:7 – NKJV)  Only you and God know exactly who you are at the core, as revealed by your thinking patterns.  

Consistency: A persons core character is seen best in what he or she reveals consistently, rather than in a single statement or random act. (Tocqueville)  Tocqueville referred to this consistency as the habits of the heart.  Said King David, My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast (Psa. 57:7a) And the man who fears God? He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.  (Ps. 112:7) Nietzsche referred to consistency as a long obedience in the same direction.  Observe the centrality of consistency in both the life and teaching of Jesus: Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  "Because lawlessness will abound (in the end times), the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.  (Heb. 13:2 (NIV; Matt. 24:12,13 NKJV)  (See Psa. 37:24 Isa. 50:7; Rom. 12:12; I Cor. 13:7; 2 Tim. 2:10, 12; Jms. 1:12)

Cost:  The test of our consistency of character is determined by what we are willing to suffer for our convictions.  If our core values are not worth dying for, they certainly are not worth living for. It is not true that every man has his price. Consider the life of St. Paul: I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me–the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace… I speak the truth in Christ–I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit– I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race.  (Act. 20:24; Act. 9:1-3) (See Phil. 1:20, 21; 2:27; Col. 1:24)

QUESTION:  Based on these three measuring sticks, how would you evaluate your character? Is there an area where change is needed?

This week, may God grant you His grace, peace, and protection.

R. Dwight Hill

+ These three measuring sticks are adapted from Character Counts, Os Guinnis,  pages 12-15, Baker Books, 1999

The Facts of the Matter is also available through the Internet: http://www.factsofthematter.org2008 R. Dwight Hill. Unlimited permission to copy without altering text or profiteering is hereby granted subject to inclusion to this copyright notice