Sally's Treasure

Our recent focus here at LFA on the importance of the Presence of the Holy Spirit reminded me, of course, of a powerful story that long ago helped me in my understanding of Who He is and what He does. And how I need Him. It is from The Secret by Bill Bright and begins with a quote by Thomas Arnold.

“He who does not know God the Holy Spirit does not know God at all.”

Please read on.

Sally was almost penniless.  When her husband Jeb died years before, his life insurance had paid off the mortgage, but that was about it.

Now the house was deteriorating around her. The car had been junked long ago when she couldn’t keep up with the repair and insurance bills. She got by on just a few dollars each week for groceries, and when the electric bill got too high, she decided to live by Coleman stove and candlelight.

So Sally rarely left home. How could she when everything cost money? Coffee at the café was eighty-five cents. Even with her senior citizen’s discount, movies cost $3 (The book was published in 1989—miss those prices!). A walk to the park required shoes, and Sally’s only remaining pair were clinging together by a few bits of thread.

So day after day, Sally stayed at home and creaked back and forth in her rocking chair. Life was supposed to be better than this, she thought. It started out so great. So full of promise. But now it’s passed me by. 

And so she lived—just barely lived—for years. Destitute. Lonely. Defeated. Until one day, when an old acquaintance from across the country remembered her childhood friend and decided to look her up.

Miriam was heartbroken when she saw Sally’s living conditions. She decided to stay a few days to try to encourage her friend and help straighten up the house.

And in the course of helping her old friend, Miriam made a startling discovery.

Tucked away in the file drawer of Jeb’s old roll-top desk was a folder labeled “FOR SALLY.” Inside, Miriam found an old bank savings book. The last entry had been made twenty-two years earlier, just before Jeb had died. The bank book indicated a balance of $87,000.

But that wasn’t all. The folder also contained a yellowed envelope, sealed and inscribed with Jeb’s handwriting:

To Sally, With Love Forever

“Do you know what this is?” Miriam asked.

Sally searched her memory. She remembered the last days of her beloved husband, the tender words that had passed between them as they realized that the end was near.

Then the memory hit her. In the grief and heartache of the days and months following Jeb’s death, she had forgotten one of the things he had said: “When I’m gone…a file for you…in my desk. Important.”

Now, as Miriam watched, Sally opened the envelope carefully. Inside was a single folded page and a key. Sally began to read:

My Dearest Love—

My time with you draws short, but I want you to know that I have provided everything you will need once I am gone. Check the bank book in this file. Then take this key to the bank with you. In loving remembrance of me please enjoy life to the full!

With love forever, 

Jeb

Sally and Miriam discovered that the key was to a safety deposit box at the bank. As they lifted the metal lid, their eyes widened as they discovered several bundles of cash totaling $32,000, a pile of stock certificates, and three folders of rare coins.

That afternoon a stockbroker informed them that the stock certificates were worth $550,000 on the current market. A rare coin dealer appraised the coin collection at $447,000. The bank calculated twenty-two years’ interest on the savings account, which brought its total from $87,000 to more than $254,000. All told, Sally was worth more than $883,000! She had been living in misery and despair when more money than she would ever need had been available to her all along.

Doesn’t this story make you sad for Sally? She is a vivid illustration of the bittersweet way in which many Christians also live. Although God has promised us all the strength and help we will ever need, many of us try to “go it alone” because we are unaware of the boundless resources God has provided in the person of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we live like Sally—unfulfilled, fruitless, and spiritually malnourished—while the key to joy and abundance is within our grasp.

Destitute. Lonely. Defeated. Have you been there too?

Maybe it’s time to really discover the treasure inside you. Study and understand the Bible’s basic teaching about the Holy Spirit and then invite Him to release His power in your life each day. He is a person. He speaks (Acts 13:2 NAS). He teaches (John 14:26 NAS). He guides (John 16:13). He convicts (John 16:7-8 NAS). He commands. (Acts 8:29 NAS). He helps (Romans 8:26 NAS). He comforts: (John 14:16 KJV). He has been called alongside the Christian as a companion, comforter, helper and one who energizes, strengthens and empowers. Amazing! We as believers get to experience unprecedented joy and personal fulfillment. More than that, our verbal and nonverbal witness for Jesus Christ would sweep the world!

Selfish me would settle for it to at least sweep Pittsgrove!

The Holy Spirit’s purpose is to glorify Christ, and He does so by empowering and enabling you and me to glorify God by the way we live. His resources are at our disposal. If we do not appropriate them, we can only live like poor Sally, struggling through a meager existence when vast riches are at our command.

But when we give the Holy Spirit control of our lives, the spiritual bank vault opens wide. The Lord God Almighty gives us everything we need to honor Him and experience life to the full, for “out of his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you the mighty inner strengthening of his Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 3:16).

Look out, world…

— Eileen Hill

The Spirit of the Law

In Revelation 2 we read Jesus’s warning to the church at Ephesus.

‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

As we read His words, may we be reminded of what is also written:

“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.” – Proverbs 21:2

The church at Ephesus has abandoned their first love and Jesus knew it. May we take heed. Whether we are exposing false apostles, preaching a sermon, rebuking false doctrine, feeding the poor, studying our Bible, speaking in tongues, or prophesying in His name, Jesus weighs the heart. He knows the motives and spirit behind our acts. 

Since we, as the seed of Adam, seek self-exaltation, without His Spirit, we focus on compliance with the letter of the law as a means to justify ourselves.  We will attempt to use the law to ascend His holy mountain. This is a violation of the intent of the law, which has been and will always be, to glorify God through the exaltation of the Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, the propitiation for our sin. 

Jesus came to reclaim the hearts of men. Above all, He wants our love. He reminds us that we should “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” Without this, obedience to the rest of His word is but a resounding gong in his ear.

Do we wield the words of God out of a love for self or a love for Him? Do we search the scriptures looking for promises and power that will lift us up or lift Him up? Are we using God’s strength for our glory or His? 

May all lampstands burning strange fire be removed until only Jesus, the true Light of the Word, remains. May He give us one heart, and a new spirit, one that loves God. The Spirit of God loves God. May His law, starting with the first commandment, be written on our hearts. When this happens, we will be a letter from Christ to the world, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

To God be the glory,

— Roger Garrison

Paying Attention to What Father is Doing

Recently we had a missionary couple join us for a couple of services. If you weren’t intentionally looking to connect with visitors, you might have missed them. Thanks to a growing number of people who are watching out and caring for our new guests, I ended up meeting Scott for breakfast, which led to a long talk about our Father.

God used Scott to reawaken something in me, something that once burned bright a few years ago but was now smoldering in my heart. It is a passion to be where my Beloved is, not where I hope or would like Him to be. It is the passion to intentionally invest my life, not just “drift” my life. It is the call to come and follow Him without regard to the cost.

 Curiously, in our discussion, we found out that we had a common spiritual ancestry. The same people who tried to influence me to Christ also touched Scott’s life. We heard the Gospel lived and preached from many of the same people in our little Seabrook community. We both wasted years in doing our own thing. We both were drawn to the savior by grace alone. We’ve both seen things on the mission field that left us wondering, “Why not here, Lord?”. We both are not so impressed with the churches we build from human effort, not just in the US but all over the world. We both know there is more. We both want more. The deep in Scott called to the deep in me.

What’s the point? Pay attention to those whom God brings across your path. Look for the gift they bring to you. Don’t be foolish enough to think that every new acquaintance brings a Holy Spirit gift to warm your heart. Just maybe you carry the gift they need. Simply join the dance of loving our Father and let that love splash where it may and on whom it may.

The truth is, we can slowly drift in our hearts. The wear and tear of life can distract from really living in Christ. True life is only found in the one who is the way, the truth, and the life. Pay attention, stir up your gifts, look for the many ways our Beloved appears to us. Get in touch with your slumbering godly passions and live again.

Join me in engaging the visitors who come through our doors. They may have a gift to give or a gift to receive from you. Let the life of Christ bloom among us. Let’s live Him loud.

—George Davis

Thoughts on Getting Old

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

You know you're old, my parents used to say, when the movie stars you followed start to pass away. For us, I guess, that would be the rock stars, at least those that made it through the sixties.
In Psalm 90:10 we read: “The years of our life are three score and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore.”

Looks like I’m on borrowed time, better keep taking the vitamins. I like it when I find verses in the bible that speak to old age.
We are relevant and not going away....just yet.
Here are some of those verses:

The time has passed,
“I have been young, and now am old;....” Psalm 37:25

But we have much to share, and to remember,
“I remember the days of old, I meditate on all that thou hast done; I muse on what thy hands have wrought.” Psalm 143:5

Though there is a fear,
“Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
forsake me not when my strength is spent.” Psalm 71:9

But we know there’s always a promise,
“...even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you.” Isaiah 46:4

And the hope is,
“To live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer ruled by human passions but by the will of God.” 1 Peter 4:2

The opening lines to this blog are from a poem by Dylan Thomas. Believed to be written to his dying father. “The sentiment is that life is precious and should be fought at every turn, and should burn and rage at the approach of death.”
Whilst I can agree life is precious, I know I don’t need to rage at the dying of the light.

How blessed we are that Jesus has conquered death for us and we can face it without fear, knowing that He has overcome the darkness, and the light will get ever brighter in His presence.

—Mick Sanderson