Two Kinds of Food

Hi friends! As I was praying for you today this is what God led me to:

We are all probably familiar with this concept of spiritual food:

"man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." ~ Deut 8:3

But here is another kind of food:

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."

But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."

Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"

"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
~John 4:31-34

This is really interesting to me and it resonates with what I know about the Christian life. Here Jesus compared doing God's will to food. His disciples must have noticed that he hadn't eaten in a while. They urged him to eat and Jesus says that he has his own secret kind of food. What did he mean by this? Here is what I think.
On this earth, there is nothing more fulfilling than doing God's will. I hope all of you already know and have experienced this. There is an overflowing joy that goes along with being part of what God is doing. Furthermore, and as these verses seem to point out, there is something nourishing about it. There is something about doing God's will that energizes and satisfies you, kind of like food. When we do God's will we satisfy our spiritual hunger.
So all of this is very interesting to me. We are fed when God's word goes in us, but we are also fed when God's will goes out of us. So now let me ask you, have you been feeling fulfilled lately? And if not, which of these two kinds of food could you use more of? Perhaps you could use more of both of them, I certainly could.
God is Good.
With His Love,
Charlie

God Hated Esau?

Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
~Romans 9:10-13

This is indeed a challenging passage. But God put it in the Bible for a reason and I will now give my thoughts. I will warn you that there are some controversial theological ideas expressed here. But my aim is not to bring you into correct doctrine. Instead, my aim is to bring you into authentic worship. My hope is that after reading this you will be on your knees thanking God for your salvation.
Let me first ask you a question. Take a look at the two parts of the last phrase, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Which part surprises you more, the fact that God loved Jacob or the fact that God hated Esau? Our natural response would be to wonder why God hated Esau.
Let me just say that, for the believer, that is the wrong response. We should not at all wonder why God hated Esau. It should be clear. We should look inside our own heart and realize that Esau was a sinful man just like us. Furthermore, we should realize that God should indeed hate us as well. The text should say "God hated mankind because their hearts were prideful and wicked." But it does not say that. Instead it says "God loved Jacob." And that, my friends, is what we should be surprised about. Jacob was certainly just as evil as Esau. But for some reason God decided to love him.
I thank God that he decided to love me. I should have been hated like Esau, I should have been condemned to hell, I deserved to be punished for my wickedness. But something amazing happened, God loved Charlie.
Do you truly realize that you should have been hated? Do you truly realize that you deserve to be in Hell?
Think about this, it should drive you to your knees with gratitude.
With His love,
Charlie

God is waiting for us

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. ~2 Chron 7:14

Are you desperate?
I hope so, because that is the kind of people God needs right now.
Have you ever asked yourself why God is not doing more? He can do whatever he wants right? What is he waiting for?
The answer is simple. He is waiting for us to humble ourselves and desperately seek Him in prayer. James 4:2 states "You do not have, because you do not ask God" God is waiting for us. He will do amazing things in us, through us, and around us, if only we will desperately seek Him.
Why are we Christians so horrible at this? Why is it rare to find a Christian who has a healthy and rich prayer life?
There are probably a lot of reasons, but they all stem from the same sin: Pride. We have been deceived into believing that we can successfully get through life without desperately seeking God. Let us stop believing that lie, and let us begin to see ourselves as we truly are: Desperate.
Perhaps this is most difficult for those of us who, by all worldly measures, are quite capable. Those of us who are the upright pillars of society. It is those personalities that may be most inclined to think they don't desperately need God. Don't be deceived! Satan is perfectly happy seeing you perform well in every aspect of life as long as you are not using the amazing supernatural power that God is waiting to give you. God takes no delight in our lives if we are not living by His power.
Let today be the day we repent of this evil self-sufficiency and begin to seek God in a brand new way.
God is waiting for us.
With His love.
Charlie

Sometimes immediate action is necesarry

Hello friends!

²⁶Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." ²⁷So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian^[d]eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. ²⁹The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."

³⁰Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.

³¹"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³²The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
³³In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth."^[e]

³⁴The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" ³⁵Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. ~Acts 8:26-35

Just today a friend told me how we should do good works for someone before we preach the gospel to them. For example, a missionary should go and help people with their physical needs before sharing the Gospel with them. He went on to use the analogy that you would not ask someone to marry you on the first date- you would need to first prove yourself to the individual.
Let me first say that I am all for meeting people's physical needs. In many many evangelistic contexts this may be the best approach. After all, Jesus showed love by meeting people's physical needs.
But now, back to that analogy about the first date. I, as many of you know, got engaged very quickly- even before the first date. We both decided in faith that this was God's will for us. God was working very powerful that day and we could sense his Holy Spirit speaking to us. Indeed sometimes, like in the passage above, the Holy Spirit works swiftly and powerfully.
What am I trying to say with all of this? Here is my point.
We, as Christians, are afraid. Sure, we are not called to preach the Gospel to every passerby on the street. But nevertheless sometimes the Holy Spirit calls for immediate action. Sometimes we are called to share our faith- even to someone we just met. This was the case in the scripture above. The Holy Spirit was working powerful on that day and I am convinced that if we are obedient and faithful we too can be used by God in amazing ways, just like Phillip was.
But, like I mentioned, we are afraid. We are afraid that we will be rejected. I know this feeling. But what does this fear tell us? This fear tells us that we don't believe in God's power. This fear tells us that we don't believe that without Christ the world will be judged to Hell. This fear tells us that we are not willing to suffer shame for the sake of Christ. Yes, it is possible that our message will be laughed at and rejected, but in that case we should be happy that we were obedient to God's call.
Have you ever been chatting with someone and felt the Holy Spirit guiding you to tell them about why you believe in Jesus? Let us obey that call! Let us run this race!
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. ~Romans 1:16
Are you ashamed of the Gospel? Next time the Holy Spirit prompts you to speak DO IT!!!

With His Love, For His Glory,
Charlie

Blessed assurance or trembling fear? Perhaps both

Friends,
I have heard it said that there are many paradoxes in the Christian faith, and indeed there are. The one that has been on my mind today is the apparent contradiction between the teaching that we Christians should have "blessed assurance" of our eternal salvation, and at the same time we should be people who tremble with fear at the word and power of God. Take a look:

My flesh trembles for fear of you,and I am afraid of your judgments. ~psalm 119:120

Serve the LORD with fear,and rejoice with trembling ~psalm 2:11

There are many verses like the three listed above. Now see what the Bible says about assurance

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. ~John 10:28

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~Rom 8:38-39

Have you ever thought about this? Is there a contradiction here? I would say that this is not a contradiction at all, but rather these are two truths that actually work together. Let me explain.
What is "blessed assurance" mean for you? is this something that gives you enormous comfort? or is this something that you may have taken for granted?
I believe that God never wants us taking our salvation for granted. I believe he wants us to cling to it, to find great comfort in it, to always be in a state of thanksgiving for it. And for this reason he desires us to fear and tremble at his word. The more we fear the wrath of God, the more our salvation becomes something we embrace. Does this make sense? Let me take it one step further.
Do you fear God. Are you at the point in your Christian life that the wrath and judgments of God no longer concern you much? If so, let me tell you that you are in a very dangerous place. The Bible tells us that some who have "tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit" will fall away to eternal damnation. Does that scare you? Let me be the first to say that it scares me. But it also makes me remind myself of God's promises, and it makes me thank God that I am safe in Jesus.- And I think that is the point.
I hope and pray that this message has blessed you.
With the love that flows from Christ, through me, to you,
Charlie

The little tip that completely changed my prayer life

Recently I heard it said that when you pray you should see yourself as a lawyer in God's courtroom, pleading your case with the word of God, and the desires of God, and what God has done in the past. This has been one of the most life changing pieces of advice I have ever received. I know there are examples of people doing this in the Bible. The first one that comes to mind is Numbers 14. God stated that he planned on destroying the Jews because of their unbelief, yet Moses is able to make God change his mind!
How does Moses do this? Pay attention because I see this as an awesome model we can use when we wish to plead our cases to God.

The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? ¹² I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they."

¹³ Moses said to the LORD, "Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. ¹⁴ And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, O LORD, are with these people and that you, O LORD, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. ¹⁵ If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ¹⁶ 'The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert.'

¹⁷ "Now may the Lord's strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ¹⁸ 'The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.' ¹⁹ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now."

²⁰ The LORD replied, "I have forgiven them, as you asked.

In verse 13 I noticed that Moses is appealing to God's own desires. He basically says that if God allows his people to get destroyed by their enemies then the peoples will say that The Lord was not powerful enough to do what He promised and bring the Jews into the land. So he is appealing to God's desire for His Glory to be known. He then, in verse 18, appeals to God's character using the very words God spoke in Exodus 34:6. Finally, in verse 19, Moses appeals to what God has done in the past, asking that he would do it again.
So with this in mind, this is perhaps how your prayers should sound:
Lord, you said this...and you said this... so I ask you for this...just like you have done for me in the past, and just like you did in the lives of...Also God I ask you to do this... so that your Glory will be shown, and so that the people will know who you are.
I have a lot more to say on this topic. Feel free to call or email if you want to chat more about it.
With Christ's love,
Charlie

Above All Else?

Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life. ~Proverbs 4:23

"Above all else?" That's what the verse says. Does that sound like an overstatement? Well it isn't. Here's why:
What do you care about at this very moment? What motivates you? What are you living for? What is your greatest goal for today?
The answer to this question is your god. If you are living for your career, your career is your god. If you are living for your family, your family is your god. If you are living for the weekend, then leisure is your god. Do you now see why the scripture says "Above all else"? Here is a similar passage that will help illustrate this point:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! ~ Matthew 6:21-23

I find it interesting that after Jesus says the first part "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also," he then goes into talking about your eye being the lamp of the body. How is this connected?
Well, I don't think Jesus is necessarily talking about your physical eyes. We all know what it means to have your "sights set on something." It means that you have your heart set on something. So in this way, Jesus is trying to say that what you currently have your "sights set on" will determine if you are full of light, or full of darkness.
So what can we "set our sights" on so that we can be full of light. I will tell you what works for me: God's glory. I love to have God exalted in my life, and the idea of God's light shining out of me is a very exciting and motivating thought. I want people around me to think "Wow, God is awesome."
But as these verses suggest, we must be intentional about this, we must "guard our heart." This morning I woke up a bit anxious some worldly concern. I had to rebuke myself and turn my motivation to the greater gain of God's glory. After dong this it was not long before the worldly anxiety was completely gone. It is good to be "full of light"
Examine yourselves. What is your heart set on?
With the love that flows from Christ,
Charlie

The most crucial duty of an evangelist

I have thought about this question lately, "who brought me to Christ?" As I considered it, I realized that while there had been a number of influential people that played a role, one person stands out in my mind, and today I realized why.
Let me ask you a question. What is the most powerful and effective (hint) thing you can do to help someone become born again? I would say that the answer is not share the gospel with them, although that is certainly important. I would say that the most powerful and effective (notice anything about those two words? James 5:16 NIV) thing you can do to bring someone to Christ is continual earnest prayer.
It is my assertion that the most crucial duty of an evangelist is to be in constant prayer for those he is ministering to. After all, it is God who has the power to open the eyes of the blind:

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. ~ 2 Cor 4:4-6

It is evident here that the reason people deny the Gospel is because their minds have been blinded by the "god of this age" (Satan). Also we see here that it is God who gives the "light of knowledge." Again, we need to recognize that is is God alone who opens people's heart to the Gospel. He is the one with the power to save.
Now, back to my earlier question. "Who brought me to Christ?"
There was one individual who spent years praying for me. He watched as I continually rejected and blasphemed God, yet he never gave up on me. He would constantly tell me I was being prayed for.
I was living in Madison when I first put my faith in Christ. Eventually, I returned to college in Stevens Point. Upon returning, people whom I had never met would tell me they'd been praying for me while I was in Madison, as my name had been brought up in prayer meetings. They would praise God because I had been saved.
I write all this as a call for all of us to increase our prayers for the lost. Can you see how God is glorified in this? He loves to answer our prayers, and I am convinced that the more prayer that goes into something, the more God is glorified when he acts.
And by the way, Thank you to Reid Anderson.
With love,
Charlie

The God that is in us

The God that is in us. That is the title that I have given this message because that is the amazing truth that we have. Jesus said:

"Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ~John 6:5-7

Now according to these verses Jesus thought it was better for us to have the Holy Spirit than for us to have his physical presence. Think about that for a second. This fact alone should tell us that Jesus intended the Holy Spirit to have an enormous influence in our lives.
I am trying to make a point here. You may have noticed that I have been speaking of the Holy Spirit quite a bit lately. I will be upfront and say that I think many Christians are not living their daily lives with complete reliance on the Holy Spirit, and therefore not experiencing the Christian life the way God intended. I am not trying to advocate speaking in tongues or miracles (though I am certainly not opposed to these things), I am simply trying to (with the Holy Spirit's help) inspire true God-powered revival. Please don't think that this kind of teaching is reserved only for those of the Charismatic following. I, like many of you, embrace Reformed Theology. What I am trying to do with these messages is give us all a deeper longing for the God that is in us, The Holy Spirit.
Do you agree that we all need a deeper daily reliance on the Holy Spirit? Do you earnestly seek the Holy Spirit?
Does this kind of teaching make you feel uneasy? If so, please pray and ask God for wisdom about all of this.
I may have said some challenging things here. I welcome and encourage any comments and questions.
With great love for all of you,
Charlie

What is in your heart today?

Hello again dear friends and family in Christ,

The topic on my heart today is very similar to what I have been saying in the last few messages, and that is that we need to recognize our daily dependence on God.
By recognize, what I mean is that we must daily remind ourselves that we can do no good apart from God (John 15:4-5). Some of us are quite capable of performing well at whatever our day brings us, but we need to be very aware that if our hearts are not filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control, then we are not bearing fruit for God, and we are not pleasing him with our lives. Is your heart today filled with these things?
I will be the first to confess that I do not wake up in the morning with all of these naturally flowing out of me. I need to desperately seek God and ask him to fill me with his Spirit. And this, my friends, is the situation we are all in. If we are not constantly and daily asking God to fill us with his Holy Spirit, then we are not living the Christian life by faith, apart from works.

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace ~Romans 8:6

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him ~Luke 11:13

Is your mind today "controlled by the spirit"?

With very much love,
Charlie

Waiting in expectation for our daily bread

Hello friends,

Give us this day our daily bread. ~Mt 6:11

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait in expectation. ~Psalm 5:3

I think that within these two verses there is model for what our dependence on God should look like. Let me explain the insight God has recently given me about this.
The first step is understanding what "our daily bread" is. I am going to suggest that "our daily bread" is much more than just reading the scriptures or praying. I believe "our daily bread" is an actual encounter with God. While this may take the shape of God revealing himself during prayer or the reading of scriptures, the point I want to make is that "our daily bread" is something that we will never have if God does not personally show up in our lives and give it to us. It must be a supernatural encounter with He who is "the bread of life" (Jesus calls himself the bread of life 4 times in the 6th chapter of John!)
The other verse I provided speaks about praying in the morning and then waiting in "expectation." So, we pray in the morning that Jesus, the bread of life, would reveal Himself to us and then we wait in expectation as we continue with our day. Sometimes, I have found that God shows himself through my morning scripture readings. Other times, it does not happen until later in the day when I am reminded of a promise that God's word contains. Still other times, God does not seem to show up until after I have waited and prayed for a while. The point is that we should be doing everything in our power to seek God (prayer, scripture, ect), but we must realize that it is God who gives us his bread and we must wait in expectation.
So I ask you now, have you sought God today and are you waiting in expectation?
With much love,
Charlie