My Christmas Wish

By David Hobbs, Christmas of 2014

Everybody’s allowed a Christmas wish, right? My Christmas wish to the Lord is that He would grant me to communicate to one soul the meaning of God’s holiness so that they connect with it.  If you are reading this, pray that you might be the one, because it’s the most precious revelation.

Luke recounts the story where Jesus went to eat at a Pharisee’s house. Though Christ was treated cavalierly by His host, one woman of scandalous reputation approached Him weeping, washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, then kissed and anointed them with fragrant oil (Luke 7:37-38).

There is something about the holiness of God, the forgiveness of sin, His overflowing love and electrifying presence that can intertwine in the most precious revelation. We don’t have a word big enough to describe  it,  something ike the holovpresness of God. Very few in the Bible, even in Jesus’ day, seemed to receive the fullness of this revelation. But this woman did. And Martha’s sister Mary did when she refused to give up her place at Jesus’ feet in order to wait tables [Luke 10:38-42].  She confirms it shortly thereafter when John records her breaking an alabaster box of very costly perfume and pouring it on Jesus’ feet [John 12:3] (Mark’s gospel says on His head [Mark 14:3]). is holiness

            Jesus hinted at it when He talked about the man who found a treasure in a field that was so valuable he went and sold everything he had in order to buy that field. Speaking of Himself, He said He was greater than Solomon, the richest and wisest man of his day, and greater than Jonah, who brought an entire evil kingdom to its knees with a one-sentence message. In fact, the Bible has so much to say about the greatness of Jesus that words can’t convey it. (Especially since words go to the head as intellectual knowledge, which falls far short.)

But these women understood it at the heart level, where it changed their lives forever! None of the disciples were recorded as having that deep a level of understanding, though they certainly had enough to follow Jesus wherever He went. But these humble women … it’s like they were immersed in His holiness, washed through and through by His purity, saturated by His love and forgiveness which coursed through their beings in glorious waves that words could not express.

            There is a little country church not far from here that I’ve never been to. But a friend who has tells me that whenever the pianist begins to play, a spirit of weeping comes over the congregation, including him. It’s as if the holiness of God invades the room, and weeping is the only possible response.

            I was in a prayer meeting last week where they put on some background music: a CD with just a piano playing. It was so beautiful and worshipful that I had a similar response—I was overcome by tears. It was a revelation of the inexpressible beauty of God.

            The Bible says that if we seek God we will find Him if we search for Him with all our hearts. As Christians we pray a lot, usually asking for things. But how many have sought the Lord until He came with a revelation of Himself like these women received? How many have prayed and asked Jesus to reveal Himself in His holiness, His absolute purity, His beauty and forgiveness that breaks their hearts in adoring love? That makes them like the man in the parable, willing to sell all they have if they could only buy the field containing this revelation?

That’s my Christmas wish—that there would be at least one person out there reading this who would seek the Lord until they connect with His holiness, until they are overcome by His love--until their life is ruined for anything but seeking more of Him.

Passing Through the Valley of Weeping

By David Hobbs

Are you in the Valley of Weeping? If I asked that to a crowd of Christians, I’m sure many hands would go up. The struggles of life seem endless at times—health issues, relationship struggles with children, spouse or parents, job crises, financial setbacks, tragic accidents… the list goes on and on. 

 I had 10 years of personal revival in my life, many experiences of which I chronicled in this blog and in my book Walking in the Spirit. But then to my dismay the revival ended, my marriage hit the rocks, my health was staggered… I entered the Valley of Weeping and have been there for the last 3 ½ years. 

 Recently the Holy Spirit gave me a passage that greatly encouraged me—Psalm 84. It’s all good, but verses 5-7 especially lifted me. Verse 5 starts out, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you.” It’s good when you enter the Valley of Weeping to be strong in the Lord. Otherwise it might destroy whatever faith you do have and leave your life shipwrecked. If you’re not in a crisis now, strengthen your faith so you will be ready when they come. 

Hebrews 6:18-19 talks about what the psalmist is referring to here, “that … we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil….” When we enter that desolate valley, we need to have lines of hope anchored to the very throne of God. 

What are we talking about here? What are these lines of hope? The surety of our salvation through Christ’s blood on the cross, the knowledge that He will make all things work together for good to those who love Him, the faithfulness of all His promises, like “Surely I am with you always, even unto the end of the age,” and “He always leads us about in triumph in Christ.” "Though sorrows may last for the night, joy comes in the morning." 

James puts it well (Jas. 1:2-4): “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

But after we enter into that Valley, there is another key many people miss: Ps. 84:5—“Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
 whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” The Valley of weeping is a place we are passing through with our hearts set on pilgrimage. We know we are not stopping here, and we know where we are going. 

 Some people act like the Valley of Weeping is their destiny, and they weep and cry and roll around in the muddy swamp of their misery. Their error? Their hearts were not set on pilgrimage. They came to believe that this valley was their lot in life, that it will always be this way. 

 There was a time I found myself thinking this way. But one day I realized that David, whose many, severe trials we can trace through the Psalms, was brought through and out of every single one by God. Though his trial of fleeing from Saul seemed to go on forever—certainly many years—yet the time came when he passed out of that Valley of Weeping and assumed the throne he had been promised. No trial can last forever! But our faith in God can. So we need to set our hearts on pilgrimage. 

What then is our final destination? Where are we going? Psalm 84 has the answer to this too, which really jumped out at me. Verse 7--“They go from strength to strength,
 till each appears before God in Zion.” That’s our final destination—God Himself. In the Valley of Weeping it is often hard to feel His presence; He seems very far away! But we’re not going to stop until we are in His presence for good! And you can bet there isn’t a trial in existence that can follow us into that presence! 

 We may be in the Valley of Weeping now, but we’re not staying there. Our pilgrimage may take us into many such valleys along the path of life, as it did for David, but God delivered him out of them all. And He will do the same for us. Don’t stop! Don’t falter until you appear before God in Zion. Then your trials, and your journey will be over! “In His presence is fullness of joy; at His right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

"Fellowship with the Father"

By David Hobbs

God has always desired relationship with mankind. Therefore it’s sad that most Christians couldn’t explain the meaning of I John 1:3 [KJV]--truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, or what Jesus meant when He said to the backslidden church in Rev. 3:20 [Living Bible]--If anyone hears me calling him and opens the door, I will come in and fellowship with him and he with me. 
The 1 John passage has the idea of partnership—our partnership is with the Father and the Son, like we are partners in the family business. We’re partners in the business by sharing in the work of the gospel and building up the Kingdom, but also part of the family in the family business. 
We don’t go home at 5 o’clock until the next day at 8. We go home with the Father and the Son for a loving, family meal and quality time together in the evening. This is the meaning in the second passage, from Rev. 3, where Jesus says if we hear Him knocking and open the door of our hearts, He will come in and share a meal with us—the family sharing sweet fellowship times together. 
Both are part of our calling and part of God’s desire for us. He doesn’t save us because He feels sorry for us and doesn’t want us to go to hell. While it’s true He saves us from something, it’s much more true He saves us to something: to relationship with Him. 
This has always been on God’s heart, since man was first created. In Gen. 2, after God created man, he then created all the animals and brought them to Adam to see what he would name them. Most Christians think their prayer/fellowship time with God consists in asking Him for things. When they hear the preacher exhorting them to spend more time in prayer, they think that they will have to expand their prayer lists so they can pray longer. But God didn’t bring the animals to Adam so Adam would ask God what to name them, He wanted Adam to name them—part of partnering with God in the family business. 
We all know about God meeting with Adam in the cool of the day. That was the other part of the equation—the sup-with-him-and-he-with-Me part. Many pastors get in on only the family business part. They pray to the Lord for a word to preach, they pray for their members, and for wisdom to counsel, diligence to protect and lead, etc. and are grateful that God answers them. But unless they maintain their own vibrant prayer life/relationship with God, they can easily get too busy and miss out on the family part of God’s family business; they become little more than hired employees in God’s business and not one of His sons or daughters. 
Jesus’ disciples were all trained in the family business, but more than that they spent much quality time with Him that made them devoted followers from the heart. 
We need to recapture that ability to spend quality time with Jesus in our day. It’s a lot more than running through our prayer list every day and praying over our meals and ministries.

Motivation Part 2--Appetite

Read Part 1 first, now right after this post

So the question is, “How do you motivate someone to do what they should be doing, (and oftentimes will even admit they should be doing it)? We see in the Bible that the law has the power of condemn, but is unable to empower people to obey it. Likewise we can “guilt” them to do what they should--like pray--but they still won’t. Instead they will come out with excuses: “I’m saved by grace, not works. Jesus knows that I love Him, I pray all the time anyway, I don’t pray well; it’s not my gift….” On and on the excuses go--why we don’t have to do what we know we should. What’s the answer? Debating them over the validity of their excuses? We’ll never win that debate. And even if we could, they still won’t pray, because, bottom line, they simply don’t want to. So how do we motivate people to do what they don’t want to do? The Bible has an answer. The answer is to make them hungry. Hunger is a powerful motivator. Prov. 16:26 [New Life Version] says--“A workman’s hunger works for him. The need of his mouth pushes him on.“ God provides the motivation for people to fulfill His commandment to work by tying it to our need to eat. We enjoy food. We also need it and suffer hunger pangs when we don’t have any. Paul emphasized this in 2 Thes 3:10 when he said, “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” That woks in the natural. How about in the spiritual realm? Is there a parallel motivator in the spiritual appetite? Yes. That’s exactly the way it’s supposed to work! If you can get a person hungry enough for Jesus, they’ll do anything trying to get more of Him: praying, fasting, even praying all night,and 40 day fasts, etc. Don’t try and shame them into it, that’ll never work. But let them whet their appetites on Jesus and turn them loose. Does the Bible support this? Look at Psalm 34:8—“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.” And in Isaiah 55:1 the prophets cries out: “Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
 come to the waters;
 and you who have no money,
 come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
 without money and without price. 2Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
 and your wages for what does not satisfy?” Rev. continues the same theme in 22:17—“And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.” Jesus was always looking for spiritual hunger and thirst. In John 7, on what the Bible calls the “last, great day of the feast,” Jesus cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.“ He picked the day when fleshly appetites would be most fulfilled: all the stops would be pulled out with food and wine and partying—everything the world had to offer. That’s exactly when Jesus cried out, saying in effect, “Are any of you still hungry and thirsty? Do you have an appetite that this world can’t satisfy? Then come to me and try what I have to offer!” Someone who has developed an appetite for Jesus will do whatever it takes to fill that craving. But then we find out that the more He gives us of Himself, the hungrier we grow for even more! Try and be satisfied with one revelation, with one supernatural experience—the more we get the more we want. The person with no appetite is the one who has never tasted Jesus, or it was so long ago they have readjusted their appetites back to the thin and tasteless gruel the world offers. Even worldly fame and riches are paltry substitutes for the true riches of heaven. In His presence there is fullness of joy, and at His right hand there are pleasures forevermore. But you must taste and see for yourself. I can’t talk you, or shame you, or scare you into it. You must make the discovery. If you have spiritual hunger, follow it. If you don’t, pray and ask for it and keep on asking until you get it. There are reasons mystics became mystics: they tasted enough to sell everything out for more. There are reasons the apostles were willing to die martyrs’ deaths: they were in hot pursuit of Jesus, and nothing could stop them. Taste and see!

A Question of Motivation, Part 1

I heard a sermon yesterday by a young preacher who hit the nail on the head in identifying a glaring problem. He asked  the the congregation how many of them wanted to be like Jesus? Most people dutifully raised their hands. Then he pointed out the hypocrisy of the 200-300 people in the congregation saying they wanted to be like Jesus and yet only 10 of them had been in the pre-service prayer meeting (busted!). He exposed the yawning gap between what most Christians say they want and what they are willing to go after--as though the character of Christ was going to magically fall upon them from heaven one day. He said, “this is the problem,” and then put a picture on the screen of a man sleeping with a smile on his face, head half buried in his pillow. He used the passage from 1 Cor. 9:24-27 where Paul talks about athletes disciplining their bodies and going into strict training to try and win a crown that will soon perish; therefore how much more should we do the same to win an everlasting crown?

This is not popular preaching in most circles, as the American church somehow seems to think there is nothing more to the Christian walk after salvation than sitting around waiting to die or get raptured to heaven.

They young preacher went to great lengths to exhort the people to do what the Bible says; that they who seek the Lord shall find Him when they search for Him with all their hearts  (Deut. 4:29).

I answered the altar call with a few others, probably many of whom had already been  in the prayer room before the service, but basically it seemed to go over like a lead balloon. “Probably won’t add anyone to the prayer room before the next service,” I thought.

Ass I meditated on this it seemed to boil down to a question of motivation. People know they should do better—pray more, read the Bible more, witness more, etc.—but how do we motivate them to do it? Guilting them--as he was trying to do—doesn’t work. People have learned to live with the guilt of underachieving. Besides, they reason, “I’m saved by grace, not works, so all I really have to do is believe.” We can’t scare them with threatenings of hell for the same reason. I myself have tried preaching the once-in-eternity opportunity we have been given here on earth to be changed into His image and acquire His character, and how Christians will be weeping in heaven when they realize their lost opportunity that will leave them far off from Jesus throughout all eternity—all to no avail. The flesh with its comforts has great power. ("I'll be in heaven; what difference will it make how close to Jesus I am?") How do we break through and motivate Christians to take advantage of these few brief years on earth that will set their destiny for eternity?

(To be continued)