LifeLink Devotions
Thursday, April 7, 2022

Ephesians 5:28-32 “In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

The older I get, the more I realize how hard it is to carry the burden of performance. From an early age, we have been taught from numerous sources that we all have a role to play in life, and that our lives will be judged on how we did. Every job we take demands that we learn a certain set of skills to accomplish the work assigned to us. Every relationship we pursue seems to require some adjustment to our personality or goals so we will be accepted by the other person. We have even turned our relationship with Christ into a performance by thinking that Scripture demands we change our behaviors to match some idyllic model of what Jesus must have been like. To quote the words of a former college classmate who became an author, “I’m tired of trying to measure up.”

The reason I got on this train of thought today was because of a misunderstanding about marriage and its symbolism of the church’s relationship with Christ. Near the end of the Apostle Paul’s teaching on marriage he makes this statement – “This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church.” For most of my life I understood that to mean that the marriage relationship of husband and wife is the basis for understanding the relationship of Jesus to His church. Now I know that I was wrong. The right understanding is this – the relationship of Jesus to His church is the basis for understanding marriage. This makes a huge difference to me. No longer do I use my relationship with my wife to define my relationship with Jesus, but I use the truth of my relationship with Jesus to define my relationship with my wife. I do not know how to love Jesus because I have practiced on my wife. I know how to love my wife because I have experienced true love for Jesus. I know how to act towards my wife because I have experienced how Jesus acts towards me. I know how to treat my wife because of how Jesus treats me. I know how to forgive her because I have been forgiven. I know how to care for her because Jesus cares for me.

Here’s where the whole performance thing comes into play. When we responded to the call of God for salvation and surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ, we became one with Him. The two of us – me and Jesus – became one flesh, one spirit, and one mind. The total life of Jesus – his nature and character – was born in me through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the book of Titus, Paul says, “But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.”

The life of Jesus Christ was born in us when we repented of our sin and by faith received God’s
gift of salvation. Unfortunately, in our human attempt to do our best and take responsibility for the outcome of our lives, we have distorted His qualification of our lives by trying to learn how to please to God. We have somehow turned God’s truth of grace into our duty to adapt our lives to the learned behaviors that please God. As a result, we are frustrated and fearful of failure.

Unfortunately, we have taken that same misunderstanding into our relationships with people and spouses. We are dissatisfied with life because we feel it has been spent trying to please others by learning approved behaviors rather than living in the liberty of expressing God’s love. We have become addicted to performance when God wants us to be addicted to love.

Here’s the key for me – the love of God in Christ Jesus has so overwhelmed me, and the life of Jesus has so overtaken me, that I no longer live for me, but for the one who died for me and who now, in His resurrection power, lives in me. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not about accepting a new job and then learning the skills necessary to please the employer. It’s about being adopted as a son of God and being guaranteed the inheritance of it all. Then, to carry beyond human capability, we have the very life of our adopted father infused into ours so we have the capacity and capability to know everything necessary to fulfill the goals of the Father. We are no longer bound by the false belief that we must try to please God. We are no longer slaves to the false thinking that we can perform up to an acceptable standard. We have been liberated by the birth of Jesus in us, and His life lived through us cannot fail to please God.

That’s how a man is to love his wife. He doesn’t learn what please her and then attempt to do it. He doesn’t perform up to some perceived standard of approval. Just as Christ did with me spiritually, the husband takes his wife’s life into his and becomes one with her. Her thoughts are his thoughts and her ways are his ways. Then, when he loves her, he is loving himself, because she is one with him. All activity ceases to be performance and instead becomes the expression of the heart. That’s what Paul means when he calls this a profound mystery. The union we have with Christ in salvation is to be the model for the union we experience in marriage. When we understand it from that perspective, we will begin to experience and enjoy the fullness of oneness that God intended.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions
Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Ephesians 5:25-27 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

My days can get long. They start around 5:00 a.m. when I do my personal study and then communicate with overseas missionaries. I remember one particular day when I had to meet some men at the church at 6 a.m. to drive three-and-a-half hours for the memorial service for a wonderful servant of Jesus whom God had called to her eternal reward. She and her husband had been faithful servants in our church before moving away. Words cannot adequately express the influence this woman’s life had on others. Since she was a teenager, she had gone through numerous, and I mean numerous, health issues. By the age of 50 she had experienced well over 100 surgeries. Yet this woman of faith never complained. In fact, if ever anyone needed to be uplifted or hear an encouraging word, they would call her. She modeled for all of us the proper way to live under adversity.

By the time we arrived back in Eau Claire it was 5:00 p.m., and in 30 minutes I would be attending an elder board meeting. On the way home, my wife had called and asked if I would have time to meet her for supper. I was so blessed to feel that she had missed me that much and wanted to spend that time with me. I told her to be at the restaurant by 5 and order my food so I could sit for 20 minutes with her and eat before the meeting. She agreed. I was pumped for those few moments of time with the love of my life.

When I arrived at the restaurant and headed straight for the restroom, I noticed her in the corner booth with my son and his family. I wondered why they were there. When I came out and started for the booth, I heard a voice shout out, “Hi Grandpa!.“ I knew it wasn’t the voice of my son’s son. Then, in an instant, there was a small boy jumping into my arms. He had run across the restaurant to surprise me, and he certainly did. It was my two grandchildren from Sun Prairie and their mother – my daughter. They had come up for a quick surprise visit.

I was so overwhelmed with joy that I didn’t even think about how my wife arranged to sacrifice her personal time with me to bring me such joy? Her thoughts were about blessing me. Her words of invitation to dinner together were words designed to produce great joy. That joy continued for the next two days, as I got to spend each morning with the kids before I go to my office appointments and each evening playing games and wrestling.

I learned something from her that day. She spoke words to me designed to encourage me and lift my spirits. Words are powerful. So men, let me ask you, does your love for your wife come through in your words? When Jesus Christ came to this earth to pay the price for our sin, He used His words to wash us and cleanse us. The faith we have placed in Him for our salvation is based upon the power of His words. The commitment we make to Him is motivated by the hope we find in His words. The choices we make to live holy and blameless lives are influenced by the love He spoke to us with His words. In the same way that Christ loved us and cleansed us from sin by His word so that we He could present us to himself in purity and love, we are to love our wives and use our words to bring them to a place of radiance.

Men, if your wife is not very radiant to you right now, it’s probably your fault. She will only reflect the beauty she sees in your eyes. She will only match the radiance she hears in your words. Your words have the power to tear her down or to build her up. Your words have the ability to discourage her or encourage her. Your words have the authority to wash away her fear, doubt, disappointment, and insecurity. Your words have the strength to enrich her. Your words can bring her joy. Your words can make wrinkles and blemishes unimportant and irrelevant. Your words can and will produce radiance.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church – with a passion to make her holy and blameless, which is expressed in our use of words designed to cleanse her and make her radiant. In doing so, you have given yourself the greatest gift you could receive.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

 There’s a new wedding tradition that was introduced to me almost 10 years ago. It occurs near the conclusion of the ceremony. I encourage all couples to adopt it into their ceremony. It represents our current passage of Scripture from Ephesians 5.

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy…”

 Use your visualization skills for a moment and picture the front of a church during a wedding. The bride and the groom have taken their places on the stage. The groom is on the right as the audience sees them. His family and friends have all sat on that same side of the church. The same is true for the bride’s family and friends on the left. The groom has already stated his covenantal vows to his bride, and she has done the same. They have exchanged rings as a seal of their covenant and commitment. Now they move around the back of a table on which the unity candle has been placed. As a beautiful song is sung, they take the individual candles that were lit by their mothers and light the unity candle in the middle, after which they extinguish their individual candles. This symbol of the oneness of marriage has long been a part of our marriage ceremonies.

Then something unique happens. As they prepare to move back to the front of the stage, the groom moves from the bride’s left side to her right side, and escorts her back to the front of the stage. The audience wonders if a mistake has been made. He is now standing between the bride and her family. The pastor says these simple words to the groom – “Having now taken your rightful and God-honoring place as the head of this relationship and the protector of your bride, love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

Do you see the symbolism? Several things have been represented by this move. First, the groom has left his father and mother and become the head of a new family. The bride has left the security and protection of her family and surrendered herself to a new protector. The groom, with his right hand now free while his bride holds to his left arm, can protect his bride in the event of danger or attack. He is willing to sacrifice his life to defend her.

Isn’t that awesome? It so beautifully portrays the marriage relationship Paul describes in Ephesians 5. I wish every married couple understood this. If you’re already married, I hope you don’t think it’s too late for you and your spouse to start living like this. When wives willingly submit to the leadership and protection of a sacrificial husband, God’s love is magnified. It’s how He designed marriage to work.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions (Click here for Apple Podcast)

Monday, April 4, 2022

 There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding in our culture and in the church about the Biblical principles of marriage. So many people have gone off on radical tangents because they misunderstand the words the Apostle Paul uses in Ephesians to describe a Godly marriage. Some have based their understanding on the poor examples that were set by their own parents or by those in positions of leadership in the church. Some have chosen to interpret Paul’s teaching based on a pre-determined social agenda. But when understood considering the true picture of our relationship with Christ, the truth set forth about marriage bring the greatest fulfillment possible to both husband and wife.

Ephesians 5:22-27  “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” 

Marriage is a mutual partnership of love, respect, and submission. It is not a dictatorship. It is not anarchy. Marriage is a mutual submission to Christ, resulting in mutual submission to one another, expressed by the husband loving his wife as Christ loved the church, and the wife respectfully submitting to the husband as she does to her Lord.  

When Stuart Briscoe met his future wife Jill, they realized they came from two different family backgrounds. The dynamics of each family would help them to understand the true definition of submission, love, and respect. Jill’s father was a quiet, gentle man, and considered himself head of his home: protector, defender, and provider. Her mom was a sweet, Scottish- born Presbyterian. She believed in the sovereignty of God and her husband. Her father adored her mother, put his considerable business assets into her name, and looked to her to raise the children. He was the model of God’s love by seeking to enrich and fulfill her life at the expense of his own desires. When Jill’s sister came of age, her father supported her when she became an excellent car mechanic and raced cars. Eventually she took her place at his side as partner in his successful car business. Jill’s father represented the servant-hearted leadership of Christ, who loves His bride the church and proves it by giving himself up for her.

In contrast, Stuart’s family was strict. His father was an elder in a small local assembly of believers, and he took seriously his responsibility to rule the household well. He considered himself the authority in his family, while his wife, a bright, articulate, efficient lady, considered herself in subjection to her husband in everything, carrying those convictions to her dress, her hair style, and her silence in the presence of men at the church. She was a gifted child of God but based on her misunderstanding of Paul’s marriage principles she was stifled and unfulfilled.

When Jill met Stuart’s family for the first time, she remembers wondering greatly about this amazing mode of doing things. She says, “I sensed an unconscious frustration of unexplored desires and frustrated gifts in my mother-in-law. It was as if those gifts sat meekly inside her heart with eyes downcast and wearing a hat. In that moment as a new believer, I believe I stumbled on an important truth of what submission isn’t. Submission isn’t sitting down on the outside while you’re standing up on the inside.”

When we experience true love, we become its slave. But that slavery is absolute freedom. Freedom to stand on the inside and leap on the outside. Love does not suppress – it liberates. We who know the incredible grace of God understand this. We have surrendered and  submitted our lives to the One who sacrificed His life for us. We were not coerced or manipulated to do so. We understood in our hearts that every moment of every day Jesus Christ has our best interests in mind and desires to see our lives fulfilled. Our submission to Him brings the greatest joy.

That’s what it’s supposed to be like when a husband treats his wife like Christ treats us. Wives will submit to the loving leadership of such a man, because they know it sets them free to be all that God made them to be. When husbands are living in submission to Christ, it will be reflected in the way they sacrificially love their wives. Wives will reflect their submission to Christ by respectfully submitting to their husbands. Both will be filled with the complete joy and satisfaction of life as God intended when living in His love. It’s beautiful. It’s satisfying. It’s God’s truth.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions (Click here for Apple Podcast)

Friday, April 1, 2022

There is NOTHING about this devotional today that relates to Aprils Fool’s Day.

Life is filled with forced subjection. We’ve all had jobs that we did on the outside while we dreamed of something else on the inside. We spend long hours fulfilling a job description while our hearts burst with boredom and long for liberty. I remember one such job I had like that prior to being called into the ministry. It was shortly after college when I was confused about the direction of my life. I held two jobs. I drove school bus and served as a police officer in a little North Dakota town. The city had been given a six-month grant to hire a daytime policeman. I needed money, so I applied. I was the only applicant. I wore a uniform, was issued a gun, and drove a squad car. I was directly responsible to the mayor of the town.

One day I issued a parking ticket to a farmer who had come into town in the late afternoon and parked his truck backwards on the street. He was blocking a portion of the driving lane, facing the wrong direction, and taking up several spaces. The next day the mayor called me into his office and tore up the ticket in front of me. I was told that certain people in town do not get tickets. I asked him for a list of those people, and he refused, saying only that I shouldn’t write tickets anymore to avoid any possible problems. I was angry. I submitted on the outside and played the part of a police officer with no authority, but on the inside, I just wanted those six months to be over.

Ephesians 5:21  “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.“

When we look at the Roman culture of the first century, when Paul wrote the above command, we see relationships between men and women that involved forced subjection. Women were the servants of men, even as wives. It was the way society was managed. That’s what makes the next section of Ephesians so interesting to study. Paul tells everyone to be subject to each other, and then follows up with specific instructions to wives to submit to their husbands. In a culture of forced subjection of women to men, why does he tell the Christian women to submit to their husbands? The reason, I think, is the difference between forced subjection and voluntary submission. Paul wanted the Christians to model something more than external conformity. He wanted the heart to be involved also.

None of us is the final authority on anything. None of us is the ultimate boss. Within the context of the family of God – the church – we are all to be subject to one another out of reverence for the ultimate boss – the Head – Jesus Christ. God has established and ordained levels of earthly authority in the church and in families, but each of those leaders is to model the same kind of authority that Jesus did. He first modeled it at age 12, when he was found by his parents in the temple, teaching the elders. After they expressed their fears and emotions and encouraged His obedience, Jesus voluntarily subjected himself to their authority. Luke 2:51 says, ”Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.”

The Greek word translated “obedient” in this verse is the same word “submit” Paul uses in Ephesians 5:21. It cannot mean to relinquish authority and equality. It does mean the voluntary subjection of one’s authority to another as a result of our love for God. Jesus made himself subject to his parents because he revered God’s authority which had established the family order. For the purpose of fulfilling God’s will, Jesus eventually subjected His authority to the Roman government, and died at their hands as a sacrifice for our sins. He could have taken authority over that entire situation and won an external battle, but His heart voluntarily submitted out of reverence for the Father.

We will only experience true freedom when we understand that submission comes from the inside, not the outside. It is not forced, it is voluntary – motivated by our love for the one who subjected Himself to our sin so that we could be free from it. To use the words of Jill Briscoe from her message entitled “Hilarious Hupotasso,” (that’s the Greek word for “submit”) “Sit down on the inside as well as the outside. You’ve been sitting down on the outside because you had no choice. Now we give you this voluntary choice, this act of will rather than this legal requirement. Paul was after a heart attitude, a spirit of humility by choice, not coercion. Paul is pro-choice: the choice to lay down our lives for our brothers, sisters, husbands, and children, because we have laid it down for Christ.”

How liberating it is to serve one another in love because the heart of Jesus Christ our Lord fills our heart and motivates such a choice. Suddenly life has purpose and meaning again.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions (Click here for Apple Podcast)

Thursday, March 31, 2022

While having lunch with a missionary couple from Brazil several years ago, we talked about family, ministry, and life in general. Afterwards, as I drove home, I thought about our conversation, and realized that every part of it had been positive, encouraging, and filled with thanksgiving. There was not one discouraging word. There were no attempts at humor using sarcasm. There were no insults or innuendo. There were no subtle attempts to establish credibility by criticizing others. The entire ninety minutes was spent in speaking to one another in the love of God. It was refreshing.

I’ve been in too many social situations where I have quickly joined the communication style of the crowd. Sarcastic comments fly off the tongue followed by forced laughter to cover the hurt that has been inflicted. Criticisms of people not in the group escalate as each person gains some misguided sense of value by belittling others. The experience of power over people soon becomes the group dynamic that promotes insults and injury to others. To some of us this may sound like a rather radical and extreme analysis of our average conversations in everyday life, but it really isn’t. We have become blinded to the emotional needs we try to meet through communication and to the damage our words do to others. We are destroying the influence of the love of God by allowing our speech to be motivated by the love of self.

Ephesians 5:19-20  “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The Apostle Paul provides us with the correct way to communicate with each other – we are to speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. The principle is this – when we talk to anyone, it is to be done under the influence of the Spirit of God so that our speech is filled with the grace of God and praises people. Let me explain. When we worship God, we praise Him. We praise Him for who He is and for what He has done. We are completely focused on His goodness. Paul says we are to speak to one another the same way. Our conversations with people should leave them feeling like they have been commended, not condemned.

Unfortunately, that’s not the norm for most of us. We more often participate in building ourselves up at the expense of others. It’s what Satan wants from us, because it destroys the impact God’s love should be having on others. James Dobson said it this way: “Satan’s most successful maneuver in churches and Christian organizations is to get people angry at one another; to attack and insult our brothers and sisters, thus splitting the body of Christ.” We seem to thrive on strife. We somehow believe that it makes us better to make others worse. We have bought into Satan’s tactic of comparing ourselves to others rather than to God.

There is an old legend that tells of Hercules encountering a strange animal on a narrow road. He struck it with his club and passed. Soon the animal overtook him, now three times as large as before. Hercules struck it fast and furiously, but the more he clubbed the beast, the larger it grew. Then Pallas appeared to Hercules and warned him to stop. “The monster’s name is Strife,” he said. “Let it alone and it will soon become as little as at first.”

This is valuable advice for those of us Christians who engage in criticism and counterblows, somehow thinking that it’s the best way to stop the blows of others against us. A gentle answer turns away the wrath of others. Kind words heal the hurts. Encouragement softens the heart. Praise brings good to the front of everyone’s life. It’s how God created us to live.

So let your speech be seasoned with grace. Let your conversations be positive, encouraging, and filled with thanksgiving. Let others walk away from your time together feeling built up and energized. Speak to one another in a spirit of praise. You’ll make others feel better, and you will too.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions (Click here for Apple Podcast)

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

When I was a freshman in college, I joined an outreach team. We went to various churches and performed musical concerts. Occasionally, when we were visiting a church on a Sunday morning, the pastor would request that we bring some form of message. That was my role in addition to singing. I distinctly remember the first sermon I preached as a part of that group. It was in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the home church of one of our team members. I spoke from Ephesians 5:15-16 and based on the King James Version of the Bible I entitled the sermon “Walking Circumspectly.” I still have that sermon typed out and in my files.

The full verse in the KJV says, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.” I like that word circumspectly. It means “to be diligent, accurate, precise, and aware of everything going on around you to the farthest extent of your experience.” It describes a life lived wisely. In the context of this letter that Paul is writing, it means several things:

1. to be alert to every possible trap of the enemy that would hinder our spiritual intimacy with Christ
2. to be diligent in our pursuit of faithful obedience to Christ
3. to be accurate in the assessment of our personal lives so that they are free from sin
4. to be aware of every opportunity that presents itself to be a witness for Jesus Christ.

When I consider what it means to walk circumspectly, I think about it in relationship to deer hunting. That’s a stretch for some of you, I’m sure, but bear with me (excuse the mixed metaphor). One of the things I like to do when deer hunting with a bow is called still hunting. That’s the process of quietly stalking the deer on the ground rather than sitting in a stand and waiting for the deer to come to me. Both methods require me to be circumspect, but still hunting requires more alertness to every detail around me and more camouflage to keep me from alerting the deer to my presence. When I still hunt, I use binoculars, so that I can be aware of everything happening to the farthest extent of my experience. The deer can see and hear me from a greater distance than I can see or hear them, so I use every advantage I can. I concentrate every sense I have on the task of sneaking through the woods quietly and alertly so that I will be aware of every opportunity to tag a deer. While still hunting last year I snuck up to within 12 yards of a tom turkey before he was aware of my presence. The first deer I ever shot in my life was shot from a distance of 15 yards with the deer standing directly in front of me staring at me, not sure of what he was seeing.

Walking circumspectly in this world requires the same kind of alertness and diligence. Every spiritual sense we have must be tuned to the environment around us. We must be alert to every trap of the enemy. We must be diligent to make every choice we are provided with in faithful obedience to Jesus Christ. We must be accurate in assessing our personal lives so that we can remain untouched by the sin around us. We must be aware of every opportunity to be a witness for Jesus Christ as we walk through this life.

Witnessing about Jesus can be done in a multitude of ways. I meet so many people who are discouraged because they don’t feel they witness correctly, or at all. Yet when I see their lives and watch their interactions with people, their whole life is a witness to the love of Jesus. The gift of love we give someone today may not have had any gospel reference in it, but it was the living example of the gospel, and the Holy Spirit can use that to draw them to Himself. By faith we must trust that the Holy Spirit will use whatever input we give at any time in a cumulative way to bring that person to their point of decision. Let me illustrate.

I was at the store picking up some landscaping supplies for a home project. As I stood in line, a young man came up behind me carrying only a bottle of Mountain Dew. I asked him if he wanted to go ahead of me. He said no, and his reason was that he was too tired to do anything other than just stand and wait his turn. I asked him why he was so tired. He told me he’s a new dad and they have their first baby at home. I extended my hand to congratulate him, and he shook it. As we talked, he told me he was taking his turns getting up at night and it was wearing him out. I told him how proud I was of him and that he was going to be a great dad. Never once did I tell him who I was or use any reference to Jesus Christ. I simply spoke words of encouragement to him. Then when I paid for my stuff, I told the cashier to add his soda to my bill. At first, he refused, but I insisted. It was such a small thing, but it touched him deeply, and he said he didn’t know how to thank me. It was obvious that he had not seen love like that before. I pray that God will use that one simple event to draw him to salvation as others influence his life at other times. I thanked God that He had made me sensitive to an opportunity, and that I had made the most of it.

Live wisely and make the most of every opportunity!

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions (Click here for Apple Podcast)

March 29, 2022

Let’s talk today about how we sometimes misapply Scripture to justify our personal practice of fault-finding.  I heard a quote one time that stimulated my thinking on this problem. The speaker, whom I can’t identify, said simply, “Criticism and fault-finding are not spiritual gifts.” Some people must think they are because they are so good at them. They believe it is their life’s calling to point out the sin in others. They find some form of self-worth enhancement in the tearing down of others. Then, when the ego-high is no longer achieved, they move from personal accusations to social activism. Soon whole churches are involved in a nationwide movement of spiritual terrorism that destroys the testimony of God’s grace. They defend their position by misunderstanding what Ephesians 5:8-10 says.  

“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

The context of exposing the fruitless deeds of darkness is personal, not public. We are not called to wake up others, but to wake ourselves up so that the light of Christ can shine on us. We are called to expose the deeds of darkness that exist in us, not in others. It seems that some people believe that the evidence of spiritual maturity is the ability to be bold in the work of exposing sin publicly, both in people and in our society. It is usually not done with grace, and certainly not done with an eye towards the reconciliation of the sinner to God. It is done to tear people down to improve their own position. These people are not allowing the true Light of Jesus to shine on, in, or through them.

Thad Noyes, a blogger on a Christian website, says, “…It seems that some people are really good at tearing down, at exposing sin, at pointing out all that’s wrong. But they are lacking in grace and the ability to bring the healing power of the gospel into people’s lives. They can cut you open, but they can’t get the cancer out, let alone see that you heal. It is easier to tear down and destroy than to build back up. It is far easier to expose all that’s wrong than to constructively and winsomely model in our teaching and our lives how to live in a manner pleasing to the Lord. It is easier to play the part of the convicting prophet than to point people to the great high priest who can cleanse the conscience and forgive sin.”

In his book called Temple Builders, John R. Lucas writes, “As we progress towards truth, towards maturity, towards spiritual discernment – there will lay ahead a trap.  As we see error and immaturity in OTHERS, there will be an opportunity to respond to the error and immaturity in a way that does not please God.  We will be tempted to point out this error and immaturity to other mature believers or whoever will listen to us, thus becoming a BUSYBODY.  We must mind our own affairs before God.”

My friends, be careful. “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness” is not a call to social separatism. The statement “but rather expose them” is not a command to social activism. It is a call for the disciples of Jesus Christ to let the full intensity of His light shine in our own hearts and expose any form of darkness that exists there to the light’s healing power. Wake up, you who are sleeping and living in conformity to death. Let Christ shine on every part of your life.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions (Click here for Apple podcast)

Monday, March 28, 2022

One year during the archery season for deer, I got caught in the dark. I had arrived at the woods well before sunrise and started to unpack my hunting gear. I was ready to shut the car door, so I reached into my pack to retrieve my flashlight. However, on this morning, there was no light. The switch had been left on and the batteries were dead. I was mad at myself. I didn’t want to wait until daylight to get to my tree stand, but the trek up that hill in the dark was dangerous. Besides, we knew there had been wolves in the area. Then I remembered two things. I always carried a spare set of batteries in my pack, and I also carry one of those wind-up LED flashlights for just such an emergency. I wouldn’t have to walk in the dark after all.

Being in the dark can be scary. But why is it that being in the darkness of sin isn’t? So many people who claim to have come to the Light still live as if there isn’t any light in them. There are two significant truths in today’s Scripture.

Ephesians 5:8-10  “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.”

The first is that when we come to Jesus for salvation we have been transformed into flashlights.  I think this is one of the most incredible motivations for the expression of joy in all the Bible. We were once darkness, but now we are light in the Lord.

The second truth is that as flashlights, we control whether the light is on or off. There are a couple of reasons that the light may be off. It may be out of power. The power can only be restored to the light when we spend time with God in personal devotions and prayer. It is the only way that we can find out what pleases the Lord so we can let the light shine. It’s not our light that shines – it’s God’s light, and if we’re not powered by Him, we will have no light.

The light may also be off because we’ve chosen to turn it off. We have been led to believe by our spiritual enemy that there is some natural light out there in the world, so additional light is not needed. It is a lie. The whole world is darkness! There is no light in it at all. Until God declared the existence of light in Genesis 1, the world was totally dark. Prior to coming to Christ for salvation, we are all declared to be in darkness. (see Col. 1:13; 1 Thess. 5:4-5; 1 Peter 2:9) We have no light at all apart from God, for God alone is the Light. Man-made light is no light at all, but simply an enticement to the darkness. However, we are deceived into believing that certain parts of our human existence have enough light of their own and don’t need the light of God, so we shut Him off.  

Wonderful things will happen when the light is on. Fear is dispelled. Luci Swindoll, writing in an article called “Heart to Heart,” in Today’s Christian Woman, says, “A friend of mine was caught in an elevator during a power failure. At first, there was momentary panic as all seven strangers talked at once. Then my friend remembered the tiny flashlight he had in his pocket. When he turned it on, the fear dissipated. During the 45 minutes they were stuck together they told jokes, laughed, and even sang. Ephesians 5:8 says we are that flashlight. Just as the flashlight draws power from its batteries, we draw power from Jesus. As light, we dissipate fear, bring relief, and lift spirits. We don’t even have to be big to be effective. We just have to be “on.”

The effect of the Christian life shining light in the darkness has dramatic impact on non-Christians. It becomes a witness to the power of Jesus Christ. Some of the situations of life can be pretty dark. Cancer, birth defects, accidents, permanent disabilities, financial ruin, and any other form of suffering that is experienced by us all are a real test of the power of our Light. The Light of God can and will shine brightly even when times seem hopelessly dark.

A former Russian criminal named Kozlov, who later became a church leader, wrote of life in a Soviet prison: “Among the general despair, while prisoners like myself were cursing ourselves, the camp, and the authorities; while we opened up our veins or our stomachs, or hanged ourselves; the Christians did not despair. One could see Christ reflected in their faces. Their pure, upright life, deep faith and devotion to God, their gentleness and their wonderful manliness became a shining example of real life for thousands.”

Kozlov was once in darkness, but became light in the Lord because other lights chose to shine in the darkness. Maybe you will never know today, or in this life, how many people were transformed from darkness to light because your light was shining. Someday in the presence of God you will know. But I do know this – if your light isn’t on, no one is being affected. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.” Let your light shine!

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotions Click her for Apple podcast

Friday, March 25, 2022

In 1972 I experienced my first earthquake. It was really nothing more than a little jiggle, but it surprised me. There was no damage, and over the course of the next three months I learned that those little tremors were quite normal in Fairbanks, Alaska. I still noticed every one of them. Scientists tell us that earthquakes happen when the geological plates beneath the surface of the earth shift and rub against each other. Sometimes they can be deadly. In 1995 a violent earthquake occurred in Kobe, Japan, when two plates on a fault line fifteen miles offshore suddenly shifted against each other, violently lurching six to ten feet in opposite directions. The result was the worst Japanese earthquake since 1923. Thousands died. More than 46,000 buildings lay in ruins. One-fifth of the city’s population was left instantly homeless.

The destruction unleashed by those two tectonic plates depicts what happens when a Christian partners unequally with a non-Christian. Two people committed to each other but going in different directions can only lead to trouble.

When I was a little boy my mother would sometimes say to me, “John, I know just who you’ve been playing with today.” She knew because I had become something like the other boy, whichever one it was. She could identify my playing partner because I had become like him in speech, mannerisms, and actions. There were always telltale changes in me that gave away who I had been hanging with. Children often copy other children quite unconsciously. So do adults. We are affected by the people we spend time with, in one way or another.

Ephesians 5:6b-7  “God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.”

It seems to be so easy for us to rationalize and justify our connections with people who have no interest in obeying God. We even go to the extreme of lying about it. We choose a very valid and biblical reason for “reaching out” to them, like wanting to influence them for Christ, when in reality we are connected to them so that we receive some personal benefit. There is only one valid reason for being in relationship with an unsaved person – to connect them to God. It must be our true motive. It cannot be about connecting us to them, or them connecting us to someone we think we need. It’s about total commitment to Jesus Christ and His commission to connect people to Him.

Dale Hays, writing in Leadership magazine, tells this story. “On a recent trip to Haiti, I heard a Haitian pastor illustrate to his congregation the need for total commitment to Christ. His parable went like this:

“A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn’t afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: he would retain ownership of one nail protruding from the wall inside the main. After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So first the owner went out and found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the nail which he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail. The Haitian pastor’s conclusion: “If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ’s habitation.”

Therefore, do not be partners with those who are disobedient to God. Relate to them only enough to share with them the love of God but be very careful not to let the pendulum of influence swing in their favor. Be alert – you can be influenced. Be strong and be the influencer for Christ!

Pastor John