_ One of my fond memories growing up around the holidays was doing jigsaw puzzles as a family.  It is a tradition that we have continued into my family.  These puzzles are not small little dinky things they are usually 1000 plus pieces.  These puzzles take days with the whole family participation needed.  I love putting together puzzles for multiple reasons.  The family time with my wife and girls is priceless.  Just sitting around a table for hours at a time focused on the puzzle building…lends itself to open talks and great laughter.  Sitting around the table putting together puzzles, will be memories our family will cherish for life.

Not only has puzzle building created precious memories of time spent with family, it also holds many lessons for life:What is the 1st thing you do when building a puzzle, for most people it is putting together the edges. This builds the framework in which all the other pieces must fit within.  The framework determines the shape, size and boundaries of the puzzle.  This is pivotal because you unless you fit all the other pieces inside the framework (as the creator designed), the puzzle will never be complete.   The creator of the puzzle of our lives is God and He designed us a certain way. Without the framework of his word our lives will not look the way they should or be complete.  

When I am building a puzzle, I find myself constantly looking at the picture on the box to give myself a reference point to see what the finished product should look like.  Have you ever tried to put together a puzzle without following the picture or knowing what it is supposed to look like when completed?  How often do we do this with our daily lives?  Hebrews 12:3  Fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith…How do we focus on Jesus we study his word

When you get towards the end of the puzzle and have only 20 pieces left in your hand to place in the puzzle, it always looks like you are missing pieces but it always ends with just the right amount.  This confirms that we do not always see the big picture and how each little piece fits in the scope of our life.   One time we did a puzzle it was a picture of a place we love.  We realized all of the pieces were cut in the same shape and it was impossible to put the puzzle together because there was no way to tell pieces a part even—the pieces have to be shaped in such a way that they only fit in one spot—things in our life will often will seem oddly shaped and not right but are meant for a specific place in our puzzle and must be their for the puzzle to be complete.

When we only see one piece at a time it is hard to see one piece at a time.  This is always a struggle for me…because I want to be able to see how everything connects in life and how things will work out.  Yet, The creator of the puzzle is the only one that knows what it should look like and designed it so every piece fits together.

Johnie Moore
Pastor of Discipleship/Training

by Dave Lautz

Consistent throughout Scripture is the double command, first to resist giving into fear and the various mental and emotional states it produces (such as discouragement, worry and anxiety), and second to pursue God-dependent courage, confidence, security and peace.

This may lead one to ask, “Why is God so adamant that we resist fear and live in His peace?” Sure, fear, worry, anxiety and discouragement are painful ways of thinking and feeling. And they certainly make life more difficult.

But aside from the pain and inconvenience, what real damage do they cause?

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged" (Joshua 1:9).

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear" (Matthew 6:25).

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you….Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27).

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God" (2 Timothy 1:6-8).

God’s strong opposition to fear is because when fear is in control, it significantly hinders His work in and through our lives. Jesus expressed this truth in His parable of the soils: “The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life…choke it, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).

As many of you are aware, I am in the midst of a significant mid-life career change. Frequently finding myself out of my depth, I am very much a “rookie” at work. Though my boss is very understanding and supportive, it still makes for an often anxious situation. Note-I deleted this next sentence deciding it was unnecessary, adding no real value.

The other day, I allowed my anxiety to get the best of me. Even before arriving at work, I was feeling overwhelmed. The only thing on my mind was finding a way to lighten the load. Of course, life doesn’t care about our stress level. The day brought with it the typical amount of new problems and my anxiety level rose even higher. Later, when my boss came to discuss a list of things we needed to do, all I wanted to do was escape. I could care less about the things he said we needed to do. Though outwardly I smiled and nodded, inside I was seething. Didn’t he know what I was going through? For all his talk of being supportive, I bet he was enjoying piling it on “the rookie.” And where was God in all this? “Don’t you care?” I silently yelled at Him. He was probably out somewhere taking a nap.

I survived the day—just barely. As I was later reflecting on it, God brought several passages of Scripture to mind.

“You have heard that it was said to people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21).

“A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, don’t You care if we drown?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet. Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was immediately calm. He said to His disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’” (Mark 4:37-40).

By allowing my anxiety to get the best of me, instead of being a productive teammate at work and a joyously, trusting follower of Jesus, I had been led to murder my boss and rebuke my Lord.

As Jesus taught, a full human life is the result of us loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind an strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves. When fear is in control of our hearts and minds, it prevents us from living this “abundant life.” Fear places us at the center of the universe, making both God and others merely objects we use in the pursuit of our self-focused desires.

Fear and its by products are not just uncomfortable inconveniences; they are spiritual cancers which rob us of the life Jesus died to give us. More importantly, they rob God of the glory He receives when His life is manifested through His children. The fact that we worry so little about our worrying shows how little we understand the damage that fear produces.

In my last post, I shared how God used the experience of jumping out of a plane to open my eyes to the degree to which our lives are controlled by fear and what a life controlled by God’s peace would be like. Since then, I’ve been seeking to grow in my understanding and experience of putting off fear and putting on God’s peace.

In this post, I’ve shared what seems to be the next step in my journey: a greater awareness of the damage fear causes. I pray these thoughts prove helpful to you on your journey from fear into God’s peace.

by Dave Lautz

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:6-7

Most of us are familiar with this passage. Many have even memorized it. We turn to this promise to find God’s peace in the midst of life’s storms. But what if these words refer to more than a spiritual high ground of safety when the worries of life reach flood stage? What if the apostle Paul was describing the secret for experiencing the peace of God which is necessary to live the life of God? For many of us, fear, worry and anxiety are such deeply entrenched realities, it’s almost impossible to imagine life without them. But what if?

God recently gave me a taste of what it would be like to live wholly enveloped by a deep, abiding sense of His peace. It has left me not only believing it is possible, but desperately seeking it.

For my most recent birthday, my wife bought me a ticket to go tandem skydiving. (You’ll have to ask her why.) This is when you jump out of a plane tightly harnessed to a (hopefully) very skilled skydiver. He’s the one who wears the parachute.

As far as a fear of heights, I’m rather average—somewhere between the person who’s too scared to climb beyond the first step of a ladder and the tight rope walker. I fully expected that at some point during my skydive, I would experience something like the sense of vertigo I feel whenever I venture to look down from the very edge of an observation tower on top a big city skyscraper. But I never did.

From the point in time I signed the ten page waiver, was introduced to my “jumping buddy”, had the harness put on me, received my two minutes of instruction, climbed into the well-used plane, through the ten minute flight to jumping height, to watching the two divers exit before us, to that eternal moment before the jump when I was dangling just outside the plane, ten thousand feet above the earth, through those initial dizzying somersaults, that exhilarating, forty-second free-fall, the serenity of gliding gently back to earth, to the near perfect, pinpoint landing, my mind never once entertained even the remotest possibility that I might be hurt in any way. Throughout the entire event, I felt completely safe and protected. I was at perfect peace.

The most amazing thing, though, was not the overwhelming sense of peace itself, but what it allowed me to do. Absent of even the memory of fear, I was free to experience the jump to the full. I savored every delicious moment, experienced the subtleties of every sensation, drank in every breathtaking view. I was more alive than I had ever been. 

I now see how crippled our lives are by fear, worry and anxiety. In the here-today, gone-tomorrow existence we call life, it seems impossible to ever fully escape the knowledge that we are never more than just one event away from the losses we fear most. Our guard is ever up; our mind, ever vigilant. Everyone and everything is suspect. The result is an inability to experience life to the full. Instead of pouring our entire being into pursuing the adventure God has set before us, fear deceives us into wasting our limited resources on powerless schemes of self protection.

The withering force of fear was well captured by Jesus in His parable of the soils: “The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life…choke it, making it unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).

Why did Jesus come to earth? John 10:10 records His mission statement: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Essential to experiencing life to the full is experiencing the peace of God. The life most of us know is one governed by fear. The great tragedy is that it is such a normal part of our lives, most of us are blind to the degree of our enslavement. We don’t feel the need for freedom from fear, thus we don’t seek it. Consequently, though acknowledged and admired, Jesus’ offer of freedom from fear through God’s peace is rarely pursued and even more rarely experienced.

To live life to the full, our hearts and minds must be guarded by God’s peace instead of governed by fear. The path to deeply experiencing God’s peace begins with an awareness of the measure of our bondage to fear. To those who would pursue this path, I invite you to devote the next thirty days to seeking God’s revelation of the extent to which fear, worry and anxiety influence you. If you are genuinely open to knowing the true state of your heart, odds are you will be surprised and more than a bit humbled by what God reveals.

And you will be blessed. For God will have just enabled you to take a huge step towards the freedom necessary to live life to the full.

Hopefully you won’t have to jump out of a plane to do it.

by Dave Lautz

As I’m seeking to grow in my ability to experience pleasure (i.e., delight) in God, I’m finding that one of the great barriers I must overcome is the natural tendency to prefer the pleasure of “doing for” God over the pleasure of “experiencing the person of” God. What makes this even more of a problem is that I tend to confuse the two. I often think I’m delighting in God when, in fact, I’m delighting in doing for Him.

An example of this kind of confusion is found in Luke 10. Jesus sent out a large group of disciples to proclaim the message of the coming of the kingdom of God. When He did so, He gave them power to perform various miracles. Luke 10:17-20 captures the conversation between Jesus and these disciples upon their return.

The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

If I had just had the experience of performing miracles, including the casting out of demons, I’m pretty sure my reaction would have been exactly the same as the seventy-two. And though Jesus affirms the exercising of God’s power to accomplish kingdom work as a good thing, He cautions them about the source of their greatest joy.

In the article, “A Pastor’s Lesson in Kingdom Life from a Master Apprentice of Jesus,” Dallas Willard is quoted by Keith Meyer as regularly offering the following warning:

“The greatest enemy of intimacy with God is service for him.” As a result of the work God has recently done in my life, I understand the truth of that statement more fully than ever before.

As, I think, many of you have heard by now, I recently stepped down from my position as a pastor at Golden Hills. After over twenty years as a pastor, I’m now working a “secular” job. This was not a change I was seeking. It was one that God, in His wise love, thrust upon me. As I worked to process this God-ordained life-change, I found myself struggling with a deep resentment against God.

After getting married at twenty-five, I spent the next four years wrestling with a sense of God’s call to go into the full-time pastoral ministry. At twenty-nine, I finally surrendered myself and my family to what I understood to be God’s will for our lives. For the next twenty plus years, to the best of my ability, I gave God and the pastoral ministry everything I had. Then, without warning or explanation, He yanked me out and plopped me into the market place.

I was angry at God. I felt I had done everything He asked of me. And what had He done in return? Noting close to what I had expected. He never allowed me to achieve the kind of ministry success I had always longed to experience, the kind I thought I would experience if only I fully surrendered and trusted in Him. But after twenty plus years of faithful service, I had failed to fulfill my calling and it was God’s fault. (At least, that’s what it felt like to me. The reality of all that God had graciously done in and through me in ministry was very different, but I was too blinded by my hurt and pain to see the truth.)

One day, not all that long ago, as I was continuing my effort to process through these thoughts and feelings, I sensed God say to me, “Dave, why are you angry?” (I think God once asked Cain that very same question. Ouch!)

By God’s grace, I finally had the strength to be fully honest with Him and, more importantly, with myself about the real reason for my anger: “Because You didn’t give me the ministry success I wanted and had worked so hard for. You didn’t give me what I deserved.”

God had been patiently working to bring me to exactly this place. Without realizing it, I had just fallen head long into His healing trap. He gently replied: “Dave, what gives you greater joy and satisfaction, success in ministry or deep intimacy with Me?

Instantly, my heart was laid bare before me. By His severe mercy, I was allowed to see a part of me I had not seen before. Though possessing a genuine desire to serve God for His glory, hidden beneath it was another, far less righteous one—one that had held a far greater control over me than I could have imagined. All those years of working for God—it hadn’t been just, or even mostly for Him; it had been mostly for me. The ministry success I had been so feverishly pursuing was so that I could be respected, admired and honored by others. It was so I could view myself as better than others. It wasn’t God’s pleasure and glory I had been seeking. It had been my own.

With a tenderness beyond comprehension, God continued: “Dave, the reason I didn’t give you the “ministry success” you craved is because it had become an idol to you. It would have taken you away from Me. I love you too much to ever allow that to happen. One of the reasons I have removed you from professional ministry is so that you can learn to seek and experience the pleasure of knowing Me, apart from doing any work for Me. Only when you grow to the place where just being with Me is your greatest joy will I be able to more fully use you in doing work for Me without it being a danger to you.”

“He replied, …’Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven’” (Luke 10:20).

by Dave Lautz

In my last blog post, I suggested that God is “an acquired taste.” I wrote:

An “acquired taste” is not a pleasure you experience the first time you taste something. Instead, it is a pleasure in something that must be intentionally developed over time…. A main reason for this is because when we first get saved, we all come to God as people having been trained by our fallen nature...

Allow me to offer a story that illustrates this point.

My friend was an assistant coach on his son’s little league team. It was the end of the season and their team had made it into the championship game. While in prayer the day before the game, he strongly sensed God saying to him that tomorrow would be “a great day.” He went to sleep that night confident of the positive outcome of next day’s game. Things, though, did not turn out as expected.

His son had one of his worst games. While at bat, he struck out twice. During an inning he was pitching, after allowing several runners to get on base, he threw a bad pitch which the batter was able to hit deep into the outfield. To make matters worse, it was hit to the worst player on their team who, predictably, missed the ball, allowing all the runners to score. But it wasn’t just his son. The entire team played poorly. They lost the game and the championship. Adding insult to injury, my friend got yelled at by one player’s father for not playing his son the way he thought he should have.

After the game, angry and confused, he cried out to God, “I thought You said it was going to be a great day!” The response he received was life changing. What he heard God say in reply was:

What do you mean? It was a great day.

Did you notice how you responded today to your son's performance? When he struck out those two times, instead of getting angry and scolding him like you frequently do, you were able to genuinely encourage and support him. And while he was pitching, when that long fly ball was hit into the outfield to your team’s worst player, do you remember how you responded to that player? When he ran in from the field at the end of the inning, instead of being angry at him for missing the ball, you told him you were proud of him for trying so hard. And when that parent yelled at you, you didn’t respond in kind, but were able to remain calm and peaceful.

And did you notice how your son responded today? When that boy missed the ball while your son was pitching, instead of getting angry at him like all the rest of the players, your son went up to him and encouraged him. And do you remember what the mother of that boy said to you after the game? She thanked you saying that your son was the only boy on the team that made her son feel accepted.

Look at all the things that happened today. How can you say anything else but that today was an absolutely great day?

My friend was (and is) a very devoted Christian and a leader in his church. Yet in that moment, he realized that for all His Bible knowledge and years of service to God, he and God were on different pages. In many cases, the things God loved most were not the things he loved most. He knew he needed to experience change deep in His heart.

He needed to become a person who genuinely delights in the things that God delights in.

by Dave Lautz

“Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

What does it mean to delight in something? The online dictionary I use offers the following definition: “to take pleasure in, appreciate, revel in, relish, enjoy, savor, bask in.” Though I long to be regularly experiencing great pleasure in God, to be honest, the level of pleasure I regularly experience in my relationship with God falls far short of the delight expressed by many in Scripture:

• In Psalm 73:21, Asaph writes: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”
• In Psalm 42:1, the sons of Korah write: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.”
  
• In Philippians 3:7-8, the apostle Paul writes: “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.”
  

In the past few years, I’ve begun to experience a slowly growing passion for God. Joyfully, this has included a slowly growing, regular experience of pleasure in God. One of the things I’m learning is that the ability to experience pleasure (i.e., delight) in God is something of an “acquired taste.”

An “acquired taste” is not a pleasure you experience the first time you taste something. Instead, it is a pleasure in something that must be intentionally developed over time. Coffee is an example of an acquired taste. Most people really don’t enjoy coffee the first time they drink it. But over time, a person can come to the place where they experience real pleasure in drinking good coffee. Allow me to suggest that the ability to experience pleasure in God is, to a large degree, an ability that must be intentionally developed.  

The main reason for this is because when we first get saved, we all come to God as people having been trained by our fallen nature, life experiences and choices to have a strong taste for sin and an equally strong dislike for the “flavor” of righteousness.

For example, we all come as people who really enjoy things like being first, having our way, and getting even with those who hurt us. We also equally come as those who really don’t enjoy things like putting others first, submitting our will to the will of God, and forgiving those who have hurt us.

In a very real sense, growing up in our salvation means cooperating with God in His work of changing us so that the things we used to have a taste for, we no longer have a taste for, and the things we used to not enjoy, we now enjoy.

It is only as our spiritual sense of taste changes that we can become people who genuinely enjoy and experience great pleasure in God.

by Dave Lautz

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.Revelations 2:2-5a

Like many, when I first became a Christian, I had a real excitement about my relationship with Jesus. I couldn’t get enough of Him!

• Every Sunday found me in church praising God with all my heart and hanging on to the pastor’s every word.
• I spent time daily in the Bible and prayer.
• Attended weekly Bible studies and church socials,
• Participated in church service projects,
• Regularly shared my faith with others.

I did all these things, not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

I was passionate about Jesus!

Gradually, though, the excitement faded and my relationship with Jesus settled into a rather dull routine. I kept doing all the same things, but they were now more often works of obligation than expressions of desire. It was like what happens far too often in marriages. Sadly, this phase lasted for much of my Christian life. But in the past few years, I’ve noticed that some of the old feelings are coming back.

I’m becoming passionate about Jesus again!

There’s something different, though, about the passion I’m now feeling than when I first became a Christian—it’s deeper, more substantial.

The excitement I felt as a brand new Christian was entirely self-focused. I was intoxicated by all that Jesus had done for me, was doing in me, and what I was able to do for Him. On the surface, it looked like I was all about Jesus. A deeper probe would have revealed that I was all about what Jesus was doing…

…for me.

This self-centered response to Jesus’ love is the normal and healthy response of a baby Christian. By definition, a baby—including a spiritual one—is supposed to be immature. The self-centered response of a brand new Christian is to be rejoiced in, but not stayed in.

Our love for Jesus is to mature into a God-centered focus. Unfortunately, many of us don’t know how to experience this change in the deepest recesses of our hearts. As a result, we experience what I and the Christians Jesus addressed in Revelations 2:4-5 experienced. Though remaining correct in doctrine and faithful in service, we lose the very heart of our relationship—a passionate delight in Jesus.

So what has led to my renewed and more mature passion for Jesus?

That’s one of the main things I want to blog about. Though I reserve the right to occasionally reflect on other aspect of the  spiritual life, I plan to focus the majority of my posts on what it takes to nurture and experience a God-centered, passionate delight in Jesus—the very source and essence of true life.

• To those who never lost, or have been able to rekindle your passion for Jesus, I hope my reflections will encourage you to “keep on keepin’ on.”
• To those who, like me, have, to one degree or another, experienced a loss of our passion for Jesus, I invite you to join me in my journey of learning to rekindle and maintain my passion for Him, but at a far deeper level.
• To those who are new in your relationship with Jesus, I pray that the things I share will help you to pursue spiritual growth while at the same time deepening in your passion for Jesus (which is how spiritual growth is supposed to happen). 
• To those who would not describe yourselves as being in a personal relationship with Jesus, please feel free to follow my efforts to pursue a mature, love relationship with Jesus. You will find plenty to amuse you. But a word of caution: if you’re not careful, you just might find yourself experiencing a slowly increasing, passionate delight in Jesus.