How can you say, ‘We are wise,
And the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
Has made it into a lie.
“The wise men are put to shame,
They are dismayed and caught;
Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
And what kind of wisdom do they have?
Jeremiah 8:8-9

As I study through Jeremiah chapters 7 – 9 this week in my​ precept class I could not help but see the familiarity in these chapter with our present day. Here in my home state of Alabama debates wage across social media concerning the same sex marriage and the about to be released Fifty Shades of Grey. If you follow my Facebook page you know that I am part of Dr Juli Slattery and Dannah Gresh’s book team for their new release Pulling Back the Shades.

Here’s the thing… I am against same sex marriage and I am against the erotica/porn of Fifty Shades of Grey. However, I am not ready to go and storm the capital over them. I am more concerned about praying that God would prepare me to be able to love and minister to those who will be hurt through these things.

Those reading Fifty Shades for entertainment, obviously have never heard the true stories of the brutality that this entertainment breeds. They have never wrapped their arms around a 15 year old girl who had to have a hysterectomy because the stepfather who chose to rape her over and over was into BDSM and then when someone tried to rescue her the courts sent her back into that home and within months she was dead from abuse. That’s the reality of the “world” of BDSM… Fifty Shades just dips your toe in for a quick visit. It’s just the frog in the pot.

Deceived… so very deceived are we. So very blinded by the desires of our flesh and the whispers of the serpent of old. I have learned that the line between between being deceived and willingly embracing evil can be a very fine line. Evil I shall hate, but deception I shall pray for truth to be revealed. Yet, to both I will equally speak because sometimes I simply cannot tell which is which.

I won’t storm the Capital because it doesn’t matter what the law of the land states. Abortion is legal in our land, however as a Christian I will not choose to have one. Pornography is legal in our land, however as a Christian I will not choose to participate in it. Marijuana is legal in our land, however I will not choose to smoke it. Therefore, just because same-sex unions become legal in our land does not mean I, as a Christian, join myself in one.

What the current downhill moral decline of our nation does do is cause one to have to truly choose to obey the Lord because it is a Spirit given conviction and not just an outside conformity to culture. As for me and my house we will obey the Lord.

Sadly, the changes occurring to marriage in our nation is our own fault. We, the one man for the one woman for one life, opened the door to this because we ourselves chose to not treat marriage as a holy covenant before God. We chose to live with each other without a promise. We chose “sexual freedom”. We chose this… with our lives as the roadside billboard display for a divorce under $200 no questions asked. We stuck our toe in. Once again it’s just the frog in the pot.

Sometimes it’s easier to stand up and yell louder than to go to our knees and be humbled before our God and seek His forgiveness for our own part in the decisions of our nation. Judgment always begins with the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). The first thing that always has to be cleaned out is the temple (John 2:14-16). When the church in America is no longer a profitable business… who all will remain?

We have chosen this.

I was watching the video lesson for our Jeremiah precept class and in it Kay Arthur was sharing some of the trials that her family had been facing… as she shared her trials it hit home. As my family has been bombarded.

As I read in Jeremiah this past couple of weeks I read of the nation of the north coming to set siege on Jerusalem. This nation didn’t come to make an in and out sneak attack. They showed up with their tents and livestock and set up house all around the city walls (Jeremiah 6:3). They were there for the duration. Our family has been attacked in this way…

We have had the in and out sneak attacks from which we still carry the scars. Now what we are under is the circled round about siege. Cancer has set up camp all around us, my Daddy, my Sister-in-Law, and my Father-in-Law. What we hoped would be a short fight or at least remain a maintenance camp has proven to be a full throttle war.

Looking from the outside it’s easy to wonder as Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad the Butthole (as I like to refer to him) did in the book of Job what sin we could be committing to cause such an act of discipline… and I have even asked what in us needs so pruned that it requires such a fierce fire of refinement. I have struggled with God. I have asked Him to show me… and all I have heard is “trust Me“

So a strange painful peace has enveloped me as I have stood on “trust Me“

There have been so many moments that I have wanted to have a “moment”. I have wondered in my times of anger and hurt if I could just say to hell with God and walk away from Him and His Church and any attempts at serving Him.

There have been moments of stunned numbness that I have just wanted to go into a zoned out stupor and just run from reality and pretend it all isn’t true.

There have been moments of overwhelming confusion when I have wanted to fall into a heap in the floor and cry and crumble and melt away.

There have been moments of desperation when I have said God give it to me… I’ll take it. Take it away from them and pour it all on me.

There is nothing so paralyzing as helplessness. Watching a loved one battle an illness makes you feel utterly helpless. I know why the four friends grabbed their friend and carried him on his pallet to a roof and ripped off the roof to lower him down to Jesus… it was finally something they could do. Finally they could help!

The amazing thing about believers today… is that we don’t have to grab our friend and rip off a roof to get them before the feet of Jesus… we have been given direct access from any place at any time through His rent flesh. We just need friends who are willing to go boldly to the throne (Hebrews 4:16) and get us help in our time of need.

As the evil from the north circled and set up camp around the city, they came as direct call of God in order to bring judgment upon the land of Judah. The prophets and priests and leaders of the land had led the people away and were not listening to God or having any regard for His Word. They mocked Him to His face within the land that He had given them.

However… Jeremiah remained. He remained to reach the remnant. Jeremiah would suffer much persecution for His faithfulness to proclaim the truth to a people who preferred their own understanding and the sweet pleasant non condemning words of the charismatic.

As I have studied through just these first chapters of Jeremiah my God has set a resolve within me… as Kay stated “I will not fall apart!” My family also declares, “We will not fall apart!“

We will not fall apart because we serve the God who holds all things together (Colossians 1:17). You see my family is choosing to be Jeremiah’s in this day. We choose to stand for Biblical truth. We choose to not stay silent. We choose to not bow the knee to apathy or mediocrity. We choose to hold the banner of the Standard high. We choose to blow the trumpet.

Though a host encamp against us our hearts will not fear. Though war arise against us in this we will still be confident… because one thing we have asked from the Lord and this one thing we will seek… that we will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life and behold the beauty of the Lord in His temple… we sing praises to the Lord… in the midst of the battle we will sing. For we know that as God made Jeremiah a fortified city so has He made us. Though the walls of our city be damaged, dented, and devalued they will not be defeated. We will be delivered. The walls of the city of our God will never fall. They will never crumble. For not even the gates of hell themselves can prevail against them.

As I was teaching the name El Shaddai in chapel to my preschoolers last Thursday one of the kids in our 4 year old class shouted out and pointed at me and said “You look like God!“

Oh I hope so!

How I hope and pray that when others look at me it is JESUS they see…

We are in the wall of God (Colossians 3:3). We are the watchmen on the wall (Isaiah 62:6). We will not fall apart. We will stand. We still trust Him.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth…

Ephesians 6:10-14

My Daddy needs the prayers of the saints.

When my Daddy was first diagnosed he was put on big gun chemo. This chemo had a 70% chance of being effective. It was. It worked. However, it was also giving my Daddy neuropathy. My Dad was scheduled for six rounds of chemo, he had received five of those six. The neuropathy had reached the point that the doctors explained one more treatment could put my Dad in a wheelchair. The last PET scan had showed that the cancer was dead in the tailbone and dying everywhere else. So the doctor felt it would be safe to continue with only an Avastin chemotherapy without the drug that caused the neuropathy. Everything seemed to be going well…

My Dad planned to return to work, all seemed hopeful.

Then my Dad received word from his employer that if he could not return to work without his 25lb weight restriction they would have to let him go. The doctors could not lift the restriction because the cancer was in the bones. One wrong lift could break my Dad’s back. Therefore his employer let him go. Yeh… let that sink in.

Now my Dad fights cancer and job loss. My Dad just turned 6o years old in December. Now we wait for my Dad to be able to be “approved” to receive HIS money. HIS money that he has payed in for over the past 40 years of his life. In the meantime… the doctor bills keep coming.

Then my Daddy started feeling worse… the last PET scan results showed that the cancer was “acting up”. It was hopeful that the Avastin would have held it at bay for 6 to 8 months… it didn’t. It didn’t hold even two months. The cancer has proved to be aggressive.

With cancer, my Dad can’t just go back to the treatment that was working before. He has to go to something else. He will begin a new mixture of chemo tomorrow. This mixture has a 50% chance of working. This means, according to the doctor, that it is effective in 5 out of 10 people. My Dad needs to be one of those five.

I just finished writing a devotional in my latest book and in that devotional I studied up a little on the number five in Scripture…

The Number 5

Because man has 5 fingers, 5 toes, and 5 senses the number 5 is significant and thought to be the number of human weakness. He is considered weak and dependant. The number 5 may speak of man’s weakness and inability or God’s strength and ability. Some interesting examples:

• The 5 loaves were not enough to feed the great multitude.
• The 5 brothers in Lk 16 could not keep themselves out of hades.
• The 5 husbands could not satisfy the woman at the well.

~ biblehistory.com

I am well aware of the weakness of man. I am well aware of the weakness and limitations of the greatest among us. However, in this weakness our God is strong!

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

My two specific prayer request for my Daddy is that you would pray that

1) He would be One Of The Five.

2) He would receive 1st time approval of His social security benefits.

With God nothing is impossible…

I believe that… Lord help my unbelief! (Mark 9:24)

We have not… because we ask not…

So I’m asking… again.

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 7:7-12

I will be wearing white for my Daddy tomorrow… will you join me?

Will you join me and will you post it with a prayer request from your circle of influence with the hashtag #teamwayne

This coming Wednesday night I will teach my very first lesson at Central Baptist Church. I will be teaching through the first two chapters of Jeremiah. Right there in that very first chapter of Jeremiah is a jewel of a verse…

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you…

Jeremiah 1:5

Jeremiah was appointed a prophet to the nations. This was what God had created him for and called him to do. Later in the second chapter God tells him something pretty important…

Now behold, I have made you today as a fortified city and as a pillar of iron and as walls of bronze against the whole land, to the kings of Judah, to its princes, to its priests and to the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 2:18-19

God encouraged Jeremiah. He made sure that he knew that God had made him as a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of bronze. Jeremiah needed to know this because the attack was going to come. Jeremiah would have to learn to trust in the midst of fear.

Let me ask you… do you turn to trust when fear sends its blazing arrows your way?

I can honestly tell you right now that I am experiencing fear. I am staring fear right in the face and I feel it circling around my head like those devil birds that I cringe at every time I come up on one chowing down on its latest road kill cuisine. I feel it tightening my chest and I feel it trying to suck what little calm I manage to maintain right out of me. Yet… somehow by the grace of God I am still able to trust in the midst of fear.

I trust because He said He is with me… and I believe Him.

I trust because He said He never gives a snake when his children ask for a fish… and I believe Him.

I trust because He said I could… and I believe Him.

I am trying so hard not to be angry… trying so hard not to be angry at the God I love so deeply and trying so hard not to be angry at those who have wounded me and those I love… holding your tongue is hard… holding your fingers at the wide open gate of a keyboard is even harder.

I keep mulling over Jeremiah 1:5 and the word appointed. Jeremiah was appointed for a specific task for a specific time to a specific people. The word appointed in the Hebrew is nathan and it means to give, set, put. God gave Jeremiah to this time, to these people. He set his course. He put him in his purpose. Does God do that for us? Are the words of Jeremiah 1:5 for all of us? 

You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

John 15:16

There it is… right there in the New Testament… Jesus speaking to His disciples… the word appointed. They, we, appointed to go and bear fruit.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10

The word appointed is not there in Ephesians, but it is clear that beforehand, before we knew Christ, God already had good works planned for us to walk in. We are His workmanship. Before we were born again in Him, before we were in the process of being conformed into His image… God appointed to us, gave us, set before us, our own course.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us

Hebrews 12:1

At first reading this verse in Hebrews sounds like it could be referring to a group, possibly to the church as a whole, but when we look at the original Greek what we see is that the word used for “us” in this verse is NOT plural… it’s singular. This verse could be read like this…

Therefore, since I have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding me, let me also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles me, and let me run with endurance the race that is set before me.

I have a race.

You have a race.

My Daddy has a race.

My Father-in-Law has a race.

My Sister-in-Law has a race.

For some reason beyond what I can see and understand in this life cancer has become a part of their race.

I DON’T LIKE IT.

Yet it is. It is and I know that in no way could it be apart from God allowing it to be… and here is where the tug of war of trust and fear collide. Here is where Jeremiah stood as a fortified city against all of the land. Standing in the face of great attack yet standing still. Standing seeing those he loved hurting and knowing beyond a shadow of any doubt that the God of everlasting lovingkindness could stop it all. Could stop the attacks against himself. Could stop the attacks against the city. Could stop the spinning of the earth and the flow of the exact amount of trade between oxygen and carbon dioxide that allowed all of creation to even exist.

But He didn’t… because He had a plan. He had a plan for Jeremiah. He had a plan for Jerusalem. He had a plan for not just the salvation of Jeremiah and Jerusalem, but for the world… and that plan is not yet complete… so we who believe step in and we grab the baton for our leg of the race.

God has a plan for us. 

The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand,…”

Isaiah 14:24

It is this plan and the knowledge of this set race that keeps me trusting in the midst of fear. This and the fact that God is greater than cancer. Cancer cannot defeat Christ. Cancer does not decide when your race is over. God does.

My head knows this even when my heart falls apart.

How thankful I am that God is greater than our hearts.

I am stepping back in to the world of leading a Precept Bible study. Tonight we will begin a study on the book of Jeremiah with an introductory lesson. Last night I dreamed that I was lost in a crowd and I could not find my room. I walked and walked carrying all my stuff, my backpack, my study book, and my handy dandy white dry erase board but I was just walking in circles. I walked until the pain in my legs became so great I knew I would never make it. I was in a silent-in-my-head panic because I knew that by the time I got there everyone would have thought I was not coming and they would have left and joined another class or no class at all.

Here’s the thing…

I kept seeing familiar faces and strangers and I would ask them for directions. I would ask them how I could get to my room from where I was presently at and every one of them… EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM… smiled at me and welcomed me and they POINTED me in the direction I needed to go.

However…

Not one… NOT ONE… was willing to stop what they were doing and take the time to walk with me. Not one was willing to lay aside there own agenda and make sure I got there. Not one offered to take some of the burden out of my hands or off of shoulders and go the distance with me. Last night I walked alone.

In the church… I walked alone.

No one was mean.

No one was snotty.

No one was self-righteous.

No one was condescending.

No one ignored me.

Yet, no one would walk with me and help me to carry my burden. I walked alone.

Bear one another’s burdens,

and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2

I woke up this morning exhausted. The fear of being lost, burdened, and in pain still fresh in my mind. As I began to analyze my dream, because dreams I remember aways come from somewhere, I realized that part of that dream was my nerves and concern that no one is going to show up to be a part of the Bible study I will be leading… but the other part came from the fact… not fear… the proven fact… that so many of us in the church are not as mean, hypocritical, and condemning as so many post on social media… but we are unwilling to actually walk with someone and help them carry their burdens.

We will point them in the right direction all day long, we will gladly hand them the map, we will encourage them and pat them on the back, but we are too busy and too concerned with our own “missions” that we simply do not even see the need to walk with this person. We will smile and wave and watch them walk off… alone.

What if they can’t understand the map?

But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem toGaza.” (This is a desert road.) So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Acts 8:26-31

God never intended for any of us to walk alone…

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2:18

Although we who believe can be sure and secure that God never leaves us or forsakes us (Hebrews 13:5), He never leaves us to walk alone, He still chose the church (Matthew 16:18), each of us individually filled by HIM (Romans 12:5), to link arms and be joined together in the unity of the faith (Ephesians 4:13) to ensure that we do not do this justified redeemed life alone and He never intended for us to have to find the way to this justified redeemed life alone either…

I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

Malachi 3:1

***

“…as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

John 20:21

Jesus does not let us walk alone… maybe we shouldn’t let each other walk alone either. Maybe we need to stop and take the time to not just point out the right direction, but offer to grab hold of one end of their burden, just enough to make it bearable, and take them by the hand, and be willing to sacrifice our own agenda’s long enough to walk with them… at least part of the way.

And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:2-4

One night, Denise found herself sitting in a cabin with 10 girls immediately after the salvation message. She and the counselor smiled as questions came rapid-fire from the students. “How did Satan come to be?” “What is the Trinity?” “What happens when you die?” and “What does God say about the end of the world?” were among their many queries.

The campers hungered for Truth, and wanted help navigating the depths of the Word of God. Denise realized that if she couldn’t translate the academic theology into the language of an eight-year-old, then she didn’t really understand the truth!

~ DiscipleLand

After our PromiseLand Preschool Christmas program, one of the young mother’s came up and hugged me and said, “you most definitely have found your calling“. That is not the first time that I have had someone say that to me in relation to teaching small children.

I have always loved children.

I can’t remember a time when I was not lugging around someone else’s children Whether it was my baby cousins, someone’s child at the ball park, my nieces or nephews, someone’s child at church, children I was babysitting, or my own.

I remember once in high school when someone showed me a picture of Aaron Spelling’s house, (you know when the whole 90210 was a thing) and I remember looking at that picture and thinking and saying out loud, What a waste. All that house and money for so few people… I would have every bedroom filled with an adoptive child. 

Loving children comes naturally to me… it has nothing to do with being Spirit filled. After high school I was planning to get a degree in child development and /or psychology and open my own day care or become a counselor for children. Something in me desires for every child I have ever seen to know that they are loved and beautiful and special and wanted… I am the weirdo that will wave at your kids in the check out line and have a ten minute conversation with them in the Target isle about why they must have this particular pair of shoes because they sparkle… because they matter.

Children matter.

I don’t cringe when I see the parents with 5, 6, 7, plus kids… I dream of what it would be like to have a quiver that full. I don’t go into a panic with a room of 10 or more kids… I sit back and smile and watch them interact with one another and me and wonder what amazing plans the Lord has for each of them and what impact will each of them leave in this world.

When the Lord called me to Himself, and I FINALLY began to walk with Him, and I learned that He had gifted me to teach His Word… teaching His Word to “grown-ups” terrified me... and to this day it still does. It takes His Spirit in me to stand up in front of any grown person whether it be two or three of them or over a hundred. That’s my calling. That’s what I can only do if the Lord goes with me.

What my love for children has allowed God to do within me is to show me how to learn His Word and actually be able to break it down in a way that anyone from two years old to ninety-two years old can understand it. What Denise learned at camp God taught me through leading a third and fourth grade Sunday School class and from simply interacting with little ones my whole life.

If we can’t translate our academic theology into something that an eight year old can understand then all we can do is repeat big words and memorize doctrinal statements.

There’s gotta be more.

To truly grasp the Word of God and all the beauty it holds for our everyday life we have to be able to chew it.

Your words were found and I ate them,
And Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart;
For I have been called by Your name,
O Lord God of hosts.

Jeremiah 15:16

Have you ever tried to swallow something without chewing it… simply because you didn’t like the taste? The texture of it being broken down in your mouth where you could experience all the little different aspects and flavors of it made you gag, and so you just choked it down without the discovery… and in the process you almost got strangled and choked as the massive size of the bite cut off your airway?

Yeh, well that’s what it is like to try and survive just off of academic theology without the understanding of how to break it down into bites small enough that a child could consume it without losing all its integrity.

Eating solid food (Hebrews 5:12-14) in a healthy way requires chewing… or it simply just will not come out right.

Eating solid food with a palate that can taste all the little delicious details in each bite requires time and practice… and cleansing the palate.

Would you join me for a tasting?

O taste and see that the Lord is good

Psalm 34:8

Tasting the Lord and seeing that He is good… If you only pick around at Him you will never experience the explosion of flavor that He is. If only pick around at Him and never try parts of Him that seem foreign and strange then your palate will never mature.

If you have ever had children then I can almost bet that you have experienced the spitting out of food before it has ever been chewed, or the snarled nose of refusal to even take a bite, the supper table showdown is a duel almost every parent will face.

Our youngest is still in the showdown stage… but our two older have passed it and their palates have matured because of it. Our youngest will spit and gag and even swallow things whole to keep from having to chew it… and her digestive system pays the consequences. On the contrary our older two will now try anything, and they will chew on it a while before they come to a conclusion on whether or not it is good and if they decide it is not, they have the ability to make a firm and educated reason why… it’s not based on simply its outward appearance.

If we want to mature in the Lord, we have to be willing to taste Him… all of Him… we have to be willing to take little bites of Him and chew on it. This is what studying the Bible through Precept does. It’s a supper table showdown. This January the table is set with the book of Jeremiah for me… would you like to join me supper?