"Only You Can Satisfy"

"All of my life I'm searching for what can be only found in You, only You can satisfy." lyrics by Todd Procter. Were their ever-truer words spoken? People find delight and great gain in a great many things only to be crushed under the weight of seeing everything fall apart. It does not mater which way you cut it everything will come to an end and to those who are satisfied by what ever "it" is will be crushed. Heaven and earth will pass away but the Word of the Lord endures forever. If the Word of the Lord Endures forever then He must as well because what is finite cannot produce what is infinite. So where do we arrive then at one place. Heb. 12:3 here we learn the only thing that we ought to focus on, Jesus Christ! Keeping in mind that the author writes that it was for the joy that was set before Christ that He endured. He did not endure do to exceeding joy from the cross but rather the joy came from the knowledge of what was accomplished by the cross. So to we are exhorted in verse 11, "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." This is where joy and satisfaction maybe found not in the trial but in the hope that God is perfecting you through the trial. To this I will cling along with the promise that "I will never be tested beyond what I can bear", that "the Lord works all things together for the good of those who love Him", that "He has a plan to prosper me and not to harm me to give me a hope and a future", that "After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you." and so I say nothing, not a relationship, not a ministry, not a hobby, not a passion, not even a dream can satisfy, each of these will leave you and me broken and hurt only to be found and lifted by the only hand that was never raised against us yet has always held us so that when we fall it is never so far that we cannot stand again. It is true this hand has disciplined us as Hebs. says but not for our harm but for our good thus as Job said, "though HE slay me I will hope in Him." Why? Because it is for my good and I know this full well.

RIVERS OF MY LIFE

Rivers, some of my best memories have rivers in them. Most of those memories are one river specifically, the Willamette River. Now all those who have been here in Oregon for some time most likely are shaking their heads in disgust, but no mater I love it, even if people think you will grow an extra arm just from swimming in it. Anyone who spends much time around me will tell you that I love water! Be it frozen or flowing freely I love it, especially when I ride on top of it. I wakeboard and have many great memories of long summer afternoons riding on the Willamette. Many of the tricks I can do were landed for the first time on that scummy water. I love the river!
The river however is merciless. I have seen with my own eyes search and rescue boats looking for the body of a young man who was swept away by the current. Try as you might the waters will find a way through everything in there path shore lines of rock fade beneath their persistent aggravation. What at times is a still calm river around the next bend may turn into turbulent rapids tossing anyone daring enough to attempt to row through them this way and that. I have experienced this. As a young boy my mom took my brother and I on a white water rafting trip. I remember getting to the big rapids and the guild taking us over to the side of the river and letting us look at what we were about to go through. I was terrified. Fear gripped me yet some how they got me to agree to do it and I am glad I did, it was fun! I remember the guide would tell us when to row and when to hold. He knew what he was doing. He had done it before and therefore could guild us safely through.
It is not difficult to see the relation of this as one thinks of God. Hebrews 12 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfector of our faith. We must have the guild telling us when to row or when to hold or else we will end up swept away in the river of life. Smashed against rocks or flipped over and just trying to keep our head above water as life swirls around us. When the turbulence of life is met with God’s hand upholding us it brings joy. I never want to experience life outside of the boat of the hands of Jesus.
I went for a run in the rain tonight and where else do I run but on the banks of my beloved Willamette River. As I looked up stream all these thoughts began to come to me and thought of these waters headed north would take me up those stretches of river that I know so well that have so many fond memories. The journey however is full of rocks and twists and turns deep parts and shallow parts, if I took a boat up to get back home I would need a guide to show me how to navigate through the mess of the river or life. My trust must remain in my guide because if i foolishly try and jump out of the Boat of the Father's hands i will drown. As I ran I sang a song and part of that song goes like this, “guild me to eternity” and so that is my prayer LORD that you would be my Guide to eternity through the turbulent waters of life!

Wednesday's with Kevin

“Wednesday with Kevin” is an installment that I look forward to writing each week; God willing. The content of which will be based on discussions had by, myself and my good friend Kevin. Each week Kevin and I try and start our Sabbath day, Wednesday for he and I, with a hike up a local butte to seek the face of God. We spend our time conversing praying and reading. What follows and in future weeks will God willing bless you as I will be chronicling what God is teaching he and I through our talks and time before Him.
Today we spent our time taking some pictures, praying, reading, and talking about what God is doing as well as the struggles we face. By the way it was beautiful up there today. The peak was above the cloud level and you could see snow capped mountains in the distance, while the cloud blanket rolled aimlessly over the low-lying hills. I love that God is creator!!!!!!! Today was great spending time with Him.
We spent much time praying. God is teaching me much about praying. What does it mean to really pray? Prayer put simply is us talking with God. If we only knew what really happened when we prayed, we would pray continually, with out stopping, ever! I find it interesting that the only thing the apostles asked Jesus to specifically teach them was how to pray. I think they understood something that most of us fail to grasp. When we pray we come directly before the throne of God. The same God who created the heavens and the earth, the same God who parted the Red Sea, the same one who caused the walls of Jericho to fall is the one whom we come before when we pray. Prayer is all over in the Bible Paul again and again tells the Churches, Timothy, and Titus to pray when the Disciples were waiting for the Holy Spirit they were in prayer. God wants His saints to pray. I once heard it said that, “prayer on earth releases power from heaven.” We must pray prayer is one of our weapons Paul is referring to in II Cor. 10:3-6 that is able to pull down the strong holds of the enemy. Prayer enters another world we know little about if we allow them to. Donald G. McDougall wrote, “Paul’s prayers related to another sphere, because he understood that our real struggles are in that other sphere.” In this he was referring to Eph. 6:10-20. I pray that I will take hold of this insight and apply it to my life.

May God bless you and protect you as you come before His throne in prayer.

God's Voice in Paul's hand II

As promised the second really cool thing God showed me through digging into the letter of Paul to the Church at Ephesus.
Eph. 5:18-6:9

Ok so here it goes, I love the way Paul writes, but most of you can probably tell that by now. Anyways Paul makes a command in verse 18 saying do not become drunk on wine but rather be filled with the Spirit. Now we can’t really go down to the store and buy some Holy Spirit and just pour it in, though some try this with coffee, but that’s another story for another day. So how do we do this? The answer is simple we don’t rather we have this done to us by God. When read in the original Greek this idea comes across much clearer, so I’m told (not a Greek scholar yet). Regardless the text says this that we are to allow ourselves to be filled with the Spirit. The following verses give us the result of this filling with the Spirit; we will sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another, be thankful, and then Paul writes also that we will, “be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.” From this verse through 6:9 Paul gives three examples of how this is worked out: from marriage, parenting, and working for an employer.
Each one of us ought to be filled with the Spirit because this is the only way we will be the united body of Christ that Paul talks about so many times in this book. As he writes in the start of Chapter 4, “there is one body and one Spirit… one God and Father who is over all and through all and in all.” I am so glad that my life does not rest on my own action but rather on the action of a perfect God.

Praise be to His name forever and ever amen!!!

In Him, TUCK

God's Voice in Paul's hand

Recently I have been digging in a bit to the book of Ephesians. What I am finding is a great amount of insight into how the body of Christ is to function. Unity is one of the biggest, if not the biggest theme running through the book. Paul again and again encourages the people to be unified. Two passages that have been very exciting for me is Chapter 4 verses 11-16 and chapter 5 from verse 18 through chapter 6 verse 9.
First off chapter 4 Paul is talking about the different gifts of the Spirit, what some call the five-fold ministry. This is very key to understanding what I would like to share. If you keep reading and get to verse 16 you will find that it says, “from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” (NASB) Now what I find so cool about this is how much unity it calls for. You see right on the heals of describing the gifts of the Spirit Paul says that the body is, “fitted and held together by what every joint supplies,” in other words the body of Christ falls apart if each person along with their unique gift is not present serving the body as part of their service to Christ. Continuing on he says, “according to the proper working of each individual part,” This is great, he before says that we need all the different gifts of the Spirit and then goes on to make a very important stipulation, you might say. Each “part” must be working properly. So not only do we NEED every part but also we NEED them in proper working order. That proper working order is set forth in God’s Word as well. I don’t have time to go into each gift and how it should be used but one could read Paul’s letters alone and get a great idea of how each gift is to be used. I will even go as far to say that you could extend this beyond just Spiritual gifts and apply it to Spiritual well being in general. If a member of Christ is wayward it affects every member of the body because according to Paul we are all members of one another. I understand unity much more now having looked though this passage. Before I believed unity was a very good thing, what I failed to realize is that it is a necessity. For possibly the first time, or at least to this degree, God has reveled to me that I cannot do it on my own that I need other members of Christ in order to serve Him the way I was designed to. We really are a body that needs every part. If you look one verse higher you will find the object of the “whom” in verse 16 it is Christ! He is the head, far be it from any of us fingers and toes to determine the way things should run. Praise be to His name for what He is teaching me. I hope this blesses you.

You will have to wait for what I am learning from 5:18- 6:9 till later right now I am must go fellowship with the other members of Christ, because like I said I have learned I cant do it alone.
Be Blessed in Him!!!

Identification

Over a year ago now I had a conversation with a friend of mine and he told me some thing that has been very impactful for me in my life and I hope it will be like wise for you. He asked a question, " what is the first thing someone would say to me when they introduce me." So if I were the one being introduced a friend of mine might say, " Hey this is my friend Tucker, he is..." what comes next is so key. What am I most identified by? Where is my identity found, I have gone though life and not as much now but in the last few years my identifying mark has been wakeboarding. I would literally get introduced name first and then " he wakeboards" or a comment about a trick I could do. This while kind of enjoyable at the time began to bother me. My most distinguishing mark so to speak was insignificant. This friend of mine who is an excellent musician made the comment that he desired his mark to be Christ. Where when people thought of him though he is a great musician, they would think, "man I can really see Christ in him." this truly is the only make worth being defined by. The reason this is the only thing worth being defined by is this is the only stable thing. People identify themselves by many things: what school they attend, what their major is, what their career is or any number of things. What happens when the company goes out of business or you can’t afford school any more what then? What will you do then? Some people can't retire because they would not know what to do with their time because all they do is work. What I am proposing is that we find our identity in Christ alone, not in fading beauty or wealth but in Christ Alone. Solomon at the end of his life realizes the uselessness of wealth, work, beauty, all the fading things and writes the book of Ecclesiastes and at the end of the book he says essentially, " what is left except to fear God and Obey His commandments." that is worth identifying with if you ask me the only independent cause of all things!