Hope Rising

Have you ever felt hopeless?

Hopelessness is terrible, it's mind numbing, it can be debilitating... it will make you desperate...

During one of the roughest stretches in my life, I found a way to be bound TO hope instead of bound BY hopelessness. If you're interested in how this happened, you should read on.

Here's what I know for sure about hope

1 - Hope is Desperately needed. 

Hope in our world can seem rather fleeting - "here today, gone tomorrow". In the Bible, it was more concrete. Hope in the Bible had the connotation of earnest expectation.

John 1... In the beginning, the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He existed in the beginning with God. 3 God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. 4 The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

...10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

Jesus' HOPE is stronger than hate. 

…came to his own and his own rejected him (John 1:11)

2 - HOPE is divine in nature.

One of the most known verses in the Bible is John 3:16... for God so loved the world that He gave his only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

God... so loved! It started with Him... it's who He is... it's His nature.

3 - Hope is active 

God, SO LOVED the world. God's love initiated a plan to save us.

4 - Hope is Universal in scope

God so loved THE WORLD...

If you live on the planet you can be a recipient of God's active hope. Because Jesus paid the ultimate price for my sin and yours - a cruel death on the cross - we can receive His Hope. I'm so glad that Jesus is a better Saviour than I am a Sinner.

God's hope is amazing and wonderful and fantastic and, and, and ... there really are no adequate words to express how great His hope is.

Let me conclude with Zachariah 9:12:

...

 Return to your fortress, You prisoners of hope. Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.

The phrase "prisoners of hope"

became words of freedom for me. I realized that God did not want me to become a prisoner to hopelessness and despair. He did not want me chained and bound by fear and confusion. But he wanted me to be imprisoned in His jail of hope, shackled by his chains of hope, tied with His ropes of hope. 

And let assure you - He can and will do the same for you if you ask Him to.

Hosanna...

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. It was the day when Christians all over the world remember when Jesus road into Jerusalem on a donkey, beginning the final week of his life.

John 12... 12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!" “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!”

Crowds are full of many different people with varied thoughts and agendas. It was no different on this day. The crowd that cheered for Jesus coming into Jerusalem was filled with both the committed and the cowardly.

The committed were those that worship from a sincere heart, even when the religious leaders of the day tried to shut them up.

Luke 19... ³⁷ When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: 38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” ³⁹ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” ⁴⁰ “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” 

The crowd is filled with the committed, but it is also filled with cowards. Be careful of the applause of fearful people. Fearful people are fickle. One day they can be singing Hosanna and the next day they quickly change their tune. Remember: The same crowd that yelled "Hail Him" about Jesus on Sunday, screamed "Nail Him" on Friday.

What have your words been about Jesus this week? Are they filled with love and gratitude, or fear and frustration? 

Take some time today to thank God for what He has done for you. Stop and express your gratitude to Jesus. 

Here... let me help getting you started...

Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

The Power of a Resolute Life

I know it's almost 3 months past New Year's, but i want to take some time to extol the virtue and power of a resolute Life.

Dan 1:8 But Daniel resolved.

Resolve…

1 - to come to a definite or earnest decision about; 

2 - firmness of purpose or intent; determination. determine (to do something)

3 - a resolution

(dictionary.com) 

Res·o·lute  - "Admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering".

Daniel's life has always been fascinating to me. As a young man he is taken into captivity. He is chosen as one of the finest, fittest and smartest. He rises up the ranks of this new, foreign nation - ultimately becoming one of the decisions makers in the country of his captivity.

And what was the reward for his excellence in working hard and serving both God and man? He is set up by his associates and sentenced to death. Death by lions.

You can read the whole story in Daniel 6 (and you should), but suffice it to say that Daniel is set up by his fellow workers to disobey the reigning King by continuing his custom of daily prayer to His God. In the end, God rescues Daniel from the lion's den by sending an angel to shut up the mouths of the huge, hungry felines and his accusers become the lion's breakfast instead.

Let me make a quick, but important statement to bring application to this story. I want to suggest that Daniel did not make his choice to stay faithful to God about his prayer life the day the "no prayer" edict came into effect. Daniel had made his decision many years before when ... "Daniel resolved" to honour the Lord with his life.

Allow me to further say that many hours of internal intrigue, worthless worry and antithetical anguish could be done away with if we would simply resolve now what our life values and guiding principles would be. In reality, most of our life choices would already be made for us if we lived by the power of a resolute life.

At the risk of conjuring up flannel graph images and Sunday schools songs from years ago, why don't you decide today to - "Dare to be a Daniel"

God is Great, Beer is Good, People are Crazy

My whole life can be defined by music. I can take you back to almost any season in my life and tell you what song was significant for me at that time. Three summers ago the song was "God is Great, Beer is Good, People are Crazy" (that wasn't a good season). 

I suppose I should explain a bit. My name is Brian Beattie and I am a music junky. I am a husband, a father, a leader, a business man, a Pastor and a music junky. For the record, I'm not writing to advocate for alcohol or against crazy people - but FOR music.

Lately, I have spent a lot of time with my boys and their band called Incentive. I find myself living out some of my teenage dreams vicariously through them as I drive them from gig to gig. These guys are incredibly talented and will make far more of their music than i ever did. 

Let's go back 50 years.

Jeff Foxworthy says you may be a Red-neck if the directions to your house includes the words "turn off the paved road". Now, I wouldn't define my family as red-necks, but people who have visited our family home have made the case for how perhaps we were. We definitely lived "off the paved road".

As the youngest kid in a family of 7, we were raised on heavy doses of country music. I mean heavy doses. Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tom T Hall. Even today I may not be able to remember someone's name that I met yesterday, but I can't forget words to obscure old songs like "A Boy named Sue" or "The Year that Clayton Delaney Died". I used to spend countless hours sitting beside my parents record player learning the words to these songs and learning how to play acoustic and bass guitar along with them.

My teenage years we filled with the music of Andre Crouche. I had never heard "Christian Music" before, but the guy who picked us up for the church youth group I had joined, played an old eight-track of Andre Crouch and the Disciples - Live from Carnegie Hall  every week. Songs like, "Jesus is the Answer"and "He looked Beyond My Faults (and saw my needs)" still have powerful, emotional connection for me.

In my late teen years, a friend and I memorized an entire album of The Statler Brothers and dreamed of becoming singers and travelling the world.

Then, there was that one summer during my Bible College training where a buddy and I worked as lumber-jacks in Northern Ontario to help his brother-in-law plant a church. I still laugh when I tell the story of how I was threatened with death from drunken lumberjack (true story!). Music help me get through that summer alive.

Through the years I have gained an appreciation for many different styles of music, all having a significant part both in my past and in my present.

So, why am I telling you all this? Why do you want to hear my trip down memory lane?

Let me make a couple quick and easy applications.

Some reading this article are wondering if you will ever be free of the emotional or relational struggle you feel bound by. Let's face it, life gets crazy sometimes. I remember talking to my sister when she was in the midst of a challenging time in her life where we shared our mutual admiration for a Tim McGraw song that was current at the time called, "Live Like you were Dying". It became (and still is) a source of inspiration for both of us.

Others are wondering when God is going to answer that prayer that you have brought to Him more times than you care to remember. To you I submit the words of The Gaither Vocal Band song, Give Up:

"Now if you got burden's too hard to bear

Oh, and if your load is more than your share

Kneel, kneel down, talk to Jesus because I, I know and I know He cares

And He'll, He'll make a way, make a way for us somehow."

Whatever you are facing, try this, find the truth in a song that has brought meaning and purpose into your life and allow the words come alive for you again. I don't care if it's country, gospel, rock, classical or Zamphir and his pan flute - there is something powerful about music that can remarkably change the course of a day. Here's a hint for you that works for me - I have found the greater the challenge, greater the need for increased volume.

So, don't let circumstances or bumps along the road of life steal your passion. Turn up the radio, crank up your Ipod and join in on a song that elevates you above whatever is trying to hold you down. And, if you need a help finding a song, you can sing along with me about how God is Great (with or without the beer and the crazy people).

I was asked recently why we don't talk more about prophecy at Freedom House. You know, the type of prophecy where you delve into the mysteries of the book of Revelation and what all the beast and trumpets and vials mean.

I don't think my response pleased him - I said, "because I don't think anyone knows the future, or what those symbols really mean definitively, so it's a bit of a waste of time".

Now, that was a short answer to a longer discussion, but not much longer. To be honest, I just can't take much time for these discussions. I used to care a lot about them, but quite frankly, they have become a waste of time for me.

Let me take this a step further. I think they're a waste of time for most Christians. I'm wondering when we will get tired of entertaining ourselves and "out-exegeting" another Christian tribe? When will we stop taking "unknowable" tangents in our Christian conversations?

At the risk of sounding cliche, I have relaxed into what has been described into "pan" eschatology. It will all pan out in the end AND the truth is, we don't know when the end will come - just ask Harold Camping.

Another of the classic Christian issues is about to hit in a week - the dreaded Hallowe'en. What do we do, hide in our churches? Have a Harvest Party? Maybe a 24/7 Prayer vigil?

Well, we're going to do what we've done for years. NOT get sucked into the Christian issue vortex, but rather serve the city. In Brantford, there is a great family event that takes place this weekend called Scare in the Square that we intentionally come alongside and hopefully make a bit better. Then on the actual "unholy eve" we will be out collecting food for our local food bank at an event called "Trick or Eat".

Let's face it, there are many big issues that need to be discussed, worked through and lived out with passion. Then, there are others that we should make personal choices about and move on to the big issues. Maybe if we did this, more of the BIG issues would get solved.

Romans 14:22 ...So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God

Why I Still Believe

Several times in my life I have sat down and considered what I really believe. This happened to me again recently.

Coming into the fall, I came to the realization that my oldest son, Renyck was about to enter his last year of high school. That means he may leave home next year and not come back. I wasn't ready for the dialogue that happened in my head over this. Had I done everything I could to prepare him for life? Had I been a good example? When I wasn't a good example was it so much that I will need to pay for his counselling later?

There are seasons in your life that hit you more significantly than others ...and this was (is) one of them. It has become one of those "boarder crossing" moments.

You know what I mean? Like when you're crossing the boarder into the USA. They ask you the standard questions - that are actually echoes of the BIG questions of life.

When did you come from?

What do you do for a living?

Where are you going?

Now, at the boarder, they aren't looking for the answer to the BIG philosophical questions, but the questions are the same.

Where are you from (ie. how did all this start - is there a God)? What do you do (ie. what is your purpose, why are you on the planet)? Where are you going (ie. like after this life is over - is there an afterlife - if so, where will you be)?

And so, for me, I had to wonder if I had communicated these thoughts and beliefs in a way that made sense, but more importantly, had affected the way I lived in such a way that Renyck knew I believed it (and he would believe it too).

When was the last time you thought of the BIG questions and why you still believe?

Agreeing to Disagree in matters that Don't Matter

The church is answering questions no one is asking!

As we started preparing for Freedom House TV which we launched 2 weeks ago, we put together a promo video and this was one of our points in our opening rant. (check it out at freedomhousetv.com)

In the middle ages, one of the Big questions the church played around with was "could God create a rock so big that he couldn't pick it up?". Theologians spent countless hours debating this "life changing" query.

Now in our post-modern age of enlightenment we have made great strides towards really important dialogue. Or have we? Now our internal dialogue revolves around denominational distinctives that have little (if any) salvific effects. Topics like baptism, tongues, escatology, celebration of certain days (like Hallowe'en), drinking, blah, blah, blah fill our calendars with endless talk points, but at what expense?

Romans 14 speaks to these issues with clarity and certainty. You should take the time to read it for yourself, but let me quickly sum up what you will read. Regarding disputable matters, each person should inform themselves on what they believe, act on that belief with conviction AND respond with grace to allow others around them to act on these issues how it fits their personal convictions. Ultimately we agree to disagree in matters that don't matter.

AND in these grey areas - where there is no direct Biblical directive to "definitely do this" or "definitely do that" - we DO NOT judge our brothers on how they interpret each issue.

WOW - that is good teaching!

Do you think it's possible we have missed the whole point of why the church exists? It can't be to continually arguing about barely significant issues, can it?

Well, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that after almost 30 years of involvement with people and ministry, I have experienced more chats about these or similar topics than I care to mention. The good news is that I see a new breed of believer that really wants to hit the big issues and bring resolve - issues like poverty, human trafficking, world hunger, etc - and what God expects our response to these needs to be. Issues that bring division in the church, like pride and judgement are being displaced by what really matters so we can be "salt and light" and a blessing to our cities.

I'm not suggesting this will be easy - it's much easier sitting back in our respective religious corners and throw our critical jabs at each other. But we've seen from the past that this is not just unproductive, it is detrimental.

This new breed of believer is both an idealistic dreamer and a hard-working pragmatist. And they are the type of people BIG THINKING people love to hang with. Search them out and do life together and as you do you will start answering questions everyone is asking!