GENERATIONAL DISTANCING FROM GOD!

It’s not an exciting title, but perhaps it created enough curiosity to get you to open this blog?

[All scripture references will be from The Message Bible unless otherwise noted.]

Now the biblical book of Judges is not one that is frequently turned to or highlighted. It tells of the period of time from the death of Joshua until the rise of the line of kings in Israel and Judah [approximately 1380 – 1015 B.C. – therefore, about 365 years]. Samuel was the final judge of Israel and it was he who anointed both Saul and David as kings of Israel.

Our Bibles make an astute observation in Judges 3 that is frequently overlooked. With the death of Joshua and the relatively complete conquering of the former inhabitants of Canaan – the Promised Land – the Holy Spirit seems to want us to know something specific about the new breed of the children of Israel. [Or perhaps we should call them the children of the children of the children of Israel?]

Read it for yourself – see if it doesn’t remind you of our current plight. [Judges 2:11-16]

The People of Israel [who had no direct memory of Moses or Joshua] did evil in God’s sight: they served Baal-gods; they deserted God, the God of their parents who had led them out of Egypt; they took up with other gods, gods of the peoples around them. They actually worshiped them! And oh, how they angered God as they worshiped god Baal and goddess Astarte! God’s anger was hot against Israel: He handed them off to plunderers who stripped them; he sold them cheap to enemies on all sides. They were helpless before their enemies. Every time they walked out the door God was with them—but for evil, just as God had said, just as he had sworn he would do. They were in a bad way.

 

But then God raised up judges who saved them from their plunderers. But they wouldn’t listen to their judges;…

 

THE FIRST GENERATION OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL

Numbers 14:22-23

God said, “I forgive them, honoring your words. But as I live and as the Glory of God fills the whole Earth—not a single person of those who saw my Glory, saw the miracle signs I did in Egypt and the wilderness, and who have tested me over and over and over again, turning a deaf ear to me—not one of them will set eyes on the land I so solemnly promised to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with such repeated contempt will see it.

Consequently, this first generation was sent back into the wilderness to wander around meaninglessly until every last one of them died except for Moses, Joshua and Caleb.

[v.25] …for right now change course and head back into the wilderness following the route to the Red Sea.

 

THE SECOND GENERATION OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL

This was the group that actually did cross the Jordan River under the leadership of Joshua. They progressively conquered the people groups who were living in Canaan and inherited their houses, much of their property and even their crops – just as God had promised!

Joshua 1:10-11

Then Joshua gave orders to the people’s leaders: ‘Go through the camp and give this order to the people: “Pack your bags. In three days you will cross this Jordan River to enter and take the land GOD, your God, is giving you to possess.”’

Although they experienced set-backs, they did indeed conquer much of the Promised Land. Before Joshua died, he designated specific boundaries for each of the twelve tribes to possess. Partly because of disobedience and a lack of faith, not all of the foreign peoples were eliminated from the new land.

God becomes exasperated with this generation and finally pronounces  [Judges 2:3]:

[God speaking] So now I’m telling you that I won’t drive them out before you. They’ll trip you up and their gods will become a trap.

Judges 2:10

Eventually that generation died and was buried…

THE THIRD GENERATION OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL

Also Judges 2:10

…Then another generation grew up that didn’t know anything of God or the work He had done for Israel.

Now read carefully the very next words [Judges 2:11-12]:

[Implied: “This] People of Israel did evil in GOD’s sight: they served Baal-gods; they deserted GOD, the God of their parents who had led them out of Egypt; they took up with other gods, the gods of the peoples around them. They actually worshipped them!

A few verses later we read:

[vs.14-15] They were in a bad way. But then God raised up judges who saved them…But they wouldn’t listen to their judges; they prostituted themselves to other gods – worshipped them! They lost no time leaving the road walked by their parents, the road of obedience to GOD’s commands. They refused to have anything to do with it.

Consequently, a pattern was developed that would reenact itself over and over for the next 300 years!

[vs.17-19] When God was setting up judges for them, he would be right there with the judge: He would save them from their enemies’ oppression as long as the judge was alive, for God was moved to compassion when he heard their groaning because of those who afflicted and beat them. But when the judge died, the people went right back to their old ways—but even worse than their parents!—running after other gods, serving and worshiping them. Stubborn as mules, they didn’t drop a single evil practice.

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Here we see a clear representation of the deterioration of a culture that began as wholly dependent on God and progressively became distant and even oppositional toward Him!

I doubt that you need me to notice the similarities to what we are currently observing in the United States of America!

History clearly documents that many of the initial developments in America were motivated by a desire to worship freely without restriction or persecution.

America’s history clearly identifies three ‘Great Awakenings’.

The First Great Awakening began in the 1730s and lasted until about 1740. A major catalyst for this period was the preaching of Jonathan Edwards: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!”

The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival that occurred in the United States beginning in the late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of the nineteenth century. Charles Finney was a charismatic preacher who advocated for personal conversion. His form included extended meetings, emotional appeals, and public prayer for sinners.

This period was also known for the westward expansion’s spirituality led by the Methodist and Baptist circuit-rider preachers and their gatherings called ‘camp meetings’.

The Third Great Awakening in the 1850s–1900s was characterized by new denominations and active missionary work. This revival produced influential leaders such as Dwight L. Moody.

Some contend that the 1960’s and ‘70’s represent a fourth great awakening, but this thought is not widely adopted. However, this period is recognized for three contributions:

1.   The Jesus Movement of the late 1960’s and the teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith.

2.   The development of innovation in worship styles.

3.   Mainline Protestant denominations weakened sharply in membership and influence! Independent, non-denominational churches proliferated and grew with significance!

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I just read yesterday [April 14, 2026] of a spiritual renewal on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh where hundreds of college students were responding to an invitation to pray and make Christ their Lord!  This movement actually began in 1967 and has had an impact on other universities such as Notre Dame. It’s heartbreaking that many will denigrate this breakthrough because it was generated and led by the Charismatic Catholic Renewal.

Having been touched by this group while pursuing my M.A. Counseling at Franciscan University, I can report that some of my most meaningful worship experiences took place in that environment and among the friends I made there! I can also quickly name a number of Catholic friends and family members whose lives were genuinely transformed as a result of this movement.

Can a broken and sorely divided Church come together to fan the flame of a universal turning to God?  Will rigidity, petty jealousies, envy, and legalistic opinions prevent us from encouraging what we clearly observe as a spiritual awakening?

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Ever loving, always seeking, quick to forgive God:

Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

 

Few would deny that we desperately need a nationwide spiritual awakening in America!

 

PLEASE help us not to miss it because it is initiated by a religious group other than our own!

 

Times are desperate and we see our culture being decimated by politics, variant views of social reform, disrespect for law and order, and a large younger populace who have been shorted by a failure to cultivate morality and respect for all life!

 

A spiritual renewal is EXACTLY what we need!

Help us not to miss it because it didn’t originate in groups that we are familiar with or part of.

 

Grant us the ability to recognize the work of Your Holy Spirit and fan the flame aggressively in every way that we can!  May this wave of the Spirit alter the course of our nation for the foreseeable future!

 

AND MAY YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH – AS IT IS IN HEAVEN!

CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SHIFTS: A Personal Perspective

I began my pastoral ministry service in 1974 as a ‘student-pastor’ of a very small congregation in the Hoosier Mountains of southern Indiana. I was excited to take up this responsibility – even though I was only a part-time, weekend pastor. Saturdays were spent visiting in the homes of our members and making connections with the youth of the church. We had Sunday School, Sunday morning worship and an evening service. We made our late-night return trip to our home at Asbury Seminary to be ready for work and classes on Monday morning.

Little did I know the massive transitions that would occur before I finally retired in 2017.

I.        VISITATION

My first conference superintendent suggested that I make 40 to 70 home visits per week! He was an older leader and had served for many years as a superintendent; he was clearly out of touch with the reality of the 1970’s cultural climate.

However, visiting did play a part in the way I served my churches throughout the years.

In my first full-time appointment in Pittsburgh’s suburbia, I went door-to-door down the road that our church was located on, inviting people to attend while leaving a small gift and a flyer of information. I can’t remember anyone attending as a result!

I was taken – by two elderly ladies – to visit many former attenders, some of whom lived a considerable distance from the church. I don’t recall anyone attending as a result of those visits.

After spending my first six months teaching our forty congregants how to lead a person to faith in Christ, we were still only a congregation of forty! I was disappointed [the impatience and over-eager response of an inexperienced young pastor]!

The building of a brand new facility [including twelve acres] ideally located in an area ripe for new homes, I knew that we had great potential for growing the Kingdom of God! I stumbled on an idea. The congregation had splintered over the relocation and construction of our new facility. The forty remaining members were left with an overwhelming debt of over $70,000. It was a dire situation.

I began visiting in the homes of those who had formerly attended. After calling first to arrange a visit, I found that I was welcomed by many of these folks. After meeting me and giving me the opportunity to get acquainted with them, some of them began to attend. These were obviously productive visits!

Then, the family connections started to fall into place! In the next six months, the attendance doubled, with new faces almost outnumbering the congregation that I had inherited.

PASTORAL CARE VISITS

I had several visitation priorities as I began my ministry. One was hospital visitation. When I knew that one of our attenders was in the hospital, I was intentional about visiting them. I kept my visits brief and always shared some scripture, left a care-card, and prayed with them [with their permission, of course].

My own Grandma Haire had gradually been ignored by our pastors after she became a ‘shut-in’. This hurt and disappointed her – along with our family. As a result, I determined that I would visit our shut-in’s once-a-quarter and offer them Holy Communion each visit. Although I sometimes – through the years – found this to be a draining aspect of ministry, I kept it up faithfully. Later, as the churches I served began to grow, I trained lay-leaders to assume much of this ministry!

When I learned that members were dealing with major issues, I tried to offer support by calling to arrange a visit. This is when my counseling skills began to grow and emerge. Pastors are a frontline response to people in crisis – plus, we’re free! 

CULTURAL SHIFTS

Somewhere in the 1980’s things began to change! Privacy became more significant. I often use the term: “A person’s home is their castle!” to describe this transition. In feudal days, castles had moats to keep others out! This became representative of American culture as well.

Just showing up at the door of a parishioner’s home became unacceptable! Home visitation became less and less of a practice of ministry [although I did continue to visit shut-ins]. I also would call to express concern when I learned that a person or family was facing a crisis. This sometimes opened a door for a home visit.

OBSERVATIONS

From my limited perspective, I believe that visitation is now rarely a practice of the newer breed of pastors. In a recent conversation, someone said: “I can’t even imagine my pastor doing hospital visits!”

The pastor as CEO has emerged from the 1990’s successes of Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Andy Stanley and many others. As a result, even pastors of small churches are practicing ministry as though they were leading a much larger congregation!

It’s my perception that many of this newer generation of pastors spend the vast majority of their time working in their study. With Sunday evening services now gone, one wonders what they do with all that time?

 

II.        COMPUTERS AND CELL PHONES

Somewhere around 1992, computers began to become increasingly available. I received my first computer around 1994, as a gift from two of my parishoners.

Cell phones began to become commonplace at about the same time. I don’t need to tell today’s generation about the massive influence this had on the church and its ministers.

By the turn of the century, I was laboring at the end of every week to put together PowerPoint presentations to accompany our worship and even my messages. All of the church’s records were now being recorded and reported via computer. THE WORLD CHANGED!

I remember working at a large church during this period with a dynamic lead pastor. She became perturbed observing younger attenders using their cell phones during worship. On an occasion, she had an opportunity to speak with a few of them at a luncheon. Inquisitively, she asked what they were doing on their phones during worship. She was shocked at their response! They were texting one another about the points she was making as she preached!  😀

You see, all the changes were not negative! Who would want to go without computers today? No one! They are an integral part of the way that we operate in all the venues of our lives! We’re often reminded that the massive bank of computers that sent our first astronauts into space  -  are now small enough to carry in our pockets or purses!!!

I recently observed that for the first twenty-two years of my ministry I either hand-wrote my messages or typed them on a typewriter!  Those paper messages were then filed in filing cabinets along with the paper research that I had accumulated. Seems hard to believe now, don’t you agree!

 

III.        MEGA CHURCHES

The late 1980’s saw an explosion of mega-churches across our land. These massive congregations had already existed in other countries. I remember reading before this that the four largest congregations in the world were all located in South Korea!

Eventually, we began to see the pastors that had grown these churches [some names mentioned earlier] become the teachers for all the rest of us who were hopeful of seeing a similar level of accomplishment.

These mega churches were able to hire huge staffs and maintain a wide variety of programming for every age group! They were busy throughout the week with nearly unlimited options available for their members. It was the kind of broad-based impact that could not possibly be offered by smaller churches with significantly limited resources.

Meanwhile, these mega church pastors became more and more highly recognized through book sales, speaking engagements and major teaching events like Willow Creek Community Church’s Leadership Conference or Catalyst – to name just two. I even flew to southern California for a week one winter to attend a Church Planting Conference at Saddleback and a corresponding Church Growth Seminar led by Rick Warren!

Mega church pastors became our models and our teachers – even though much of what they taught was not directly applicable to our smaller more traditional situations.

In time, when one of these highly recognizable leaders experienced a ‘fall’ – usually due to sexual dalliances – the whole Church felt the pain! Massive shock waves and after-effects impacted all of us who were in ministry!

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What continues to amaze me is that churches are still following these mega church leaders and models! Many churches mimic their worship styles and structures. Darkened sanctuaries became a common feature for many churches across America during the 1990’s. Initially the reason was to be able to maximize the use of screens for videos, dramas and other effects that were intended to shape the experience for the worshippers. This stands in stark contrast to sanctuaries that were flooded with natural light – often filtered through stained glass windows with Christian symbols embedded.

Many churches operate like small clones of mega churches, singing songs that our people don’t know and developing casual formats that are designed to create and sustain familiarity and connections. However, without accompanying small group interaction and accountability, the people never really become connected to one another through the single 90 minute Sunday worship experience!  

Several years ago, I visited a nearby multi-site megachurch for a Sunday experience. When the service ended, I simply stood and watched the people leave. They rose from their theater-seats, progressed back the aisles through the foyer and out the doors to their cars. I observed no interaction whatsoever! These people didn’t know one another and weren’t connected to one another in the least. They simply worshipped at the same church!  This was quite a contrast to the churches I served where I often said to people as I left: “Make sure the door is locked when you leave.” They would smile, nod and agree to do so!

And the result:

·        It is estimated that 15,000 churches closed in 2025.

·        The number of people attending weekly worship in America is at an all-time low of 20% of the population.

·        Many denominations are finding it difficult to find enough pastors to lead their churches.

·        The Pew and Gallup polls indicate that about 20% of Americans attend worship weekly at least three times a month. However, a Washington Post breakdown of America’s faith habits – using data from the U.S. Religious Census – reports that as few as 5% of the population regularly attends religious services.

It is not a pretty picture for the American Church and consequently for our culture. The WOKE agenda has clearly infiltrated the Church and is undermining its desire and passion for being spiritually fruitful!

Having led growing churches for forty-four years, I can tell you that leading a healthy church is HARD WORK! I know that we get teased about only working one day a week, but I have log books that document well over fifty hours per week throughout most of my ministry!

A recent survey done by Lifeway Research indicates that pastors are tempted to leave ministry because of conflict in the church and/or burn-out. The isolation in their role and the rapid decline of the Church in our culture only add to the burden of leading a church. I learned to live with a continual sense that my work was never done!

Not too many years ago, I had a conversation with a fellow pastor – six years younger than me -  who had recently retired. He had endured a difficult appointment and felt the need for a respite. However, after having a year of “doing other things”, he later reengaged in ministry! This is another example of a pastor who desperately needed a sabbatical, but had to find his own way of getting it. He literally stated to me: “Harold, the only way that a pastor can get a sabbatical is to either have a heart attack or a moral failure.” What a shocking and sad statement!

Those years between 1974 and 2017 were marked by several other smaller transitions.

 

IV.        PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT

Somewhere along the way [late 1960’s and into the 1970’s] we experienced a flourishing of the Pentecostal movement that created a lot of controversy – especially regarding ‘speaking in tongues’. This was followed by an enormous surge in praise and worship music that was made available through Integrity Music, Hosanna Music, the Hillsong movement from Australia and, of course, the music videos and events of the Gaithers. Worship leaders became sought after for their skill, charisma, and ability to lead worshippers into the presence of God.  Names like Don Moen, Darlene Zschech, and Ron Kenoly [who, remarkably just died as I was constructing this blog – February 3, 2026] stand out in my memory. There were many others!

Although not all churches were impacted by these smaller movements, many were! Concerts by Christian artists became worship events. Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, Cece Winan, the Gaither Vocal Band, and many others followed this pattern by filling large venues with worshippers!

V.        THE CHURCH GROWTH MOVEMENT

The Church Growth Movement emerged in the 1970’s and 1980’s as a network of church consulting firms, conferences and publications focused on helping pastors develop strategies to increase the size of their congregations. This movement was led by figures such as Donald McGavran, Dr. Wynn Arn, C. Peter Wagner, and Robert Schuller, who emphasized the importance of cultural relevance and marketing strategies in church growth. The movement’s emphasis on consumer-oriented church growth led to the rise of megachurches, with the number of megachurches increasing significantly during this period!

I remember attending the Free Methodist Church’s [eastern area] Minister’s Institute of the Northeast at Painted Post, New York during my second year in the ministry [1977]. We were required to bring exhaustive studies of our church’s attendance and membership trends over the past twenty years. Dr. Wynn Arn was the speaker and he presented a whole new wave of thinking regarding growing our churches. Within the next year, every church in our conference was required to submit a ‘Mission Statement’ to our leadership!

A whole new way of thinking about our churches was initiated that clearly impacted the future for many of our churches!

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I have tried to give a fair assessment of what it was like to be in ministry from 1974 through 2017. I am not suited to speak to the pressures and changes that have occurred or been added since then. However, I can assure you that the pressures have NOT diminished.

I remember feeling compassion for pastors during the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020. In order to survive, almost all churches had to find ways to broadcast their services for home-viewing.  Most of these ended up being poorly done simply due to limited expertise and equipment. Churches that had already been live-streaming their services had a huge advantage with this dilemma.

It’s also difficult to imagine leading and trying to grow churches in the volatile environment we’ve known in recent years. Think about it! How do you grow a church today when Christianity is in such significant decline?

For the most part, churches are radically slow adaptors! This has been the most frustrating aspect of leading churches for me to deal with! To maintain vibrant contacts in the current age, quick adaptors are essential!

The denomination that I have associated with throughout my ministry is facing challenging times! They have recently decided to eliminate [or significantly alter] their pension plan for pastors. Plans are underway to merge conferences to facilitate greater fiscal responsibility. Although this American-based denomination has fostered – through vigorous missions’ investments over the decades – a global community of over 1.6 million members in 106 countries, the American membership has dwindled to less than 70,000 members [4% of the total world membership]!

Imagine the pressure on American pastors to grow these remaining churches!

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Lord of the Church,

 

We who are part of the American community cry out to You for help!

Your ‘body’ – the body of Christ –

has a desperate need to be infused with a renewed presence of Your Holy Spirit!

 

Today, we pray for our bishops, leaders and pastors as they seek to discern the next generation of pastors!

 

Lord of the Harvest,

You are still calling willing servants to lead and serve Your Church and to grow Your Eternal Kingdom!

 

May those who hear Your call respond with soft hearts and willing spirits!

May You give them courage to lead from the strength that only comes through Your Holy Spirit! Fill them! Feed them! Use them for Your sovereign purposes!

 

And may we see an army of the faithful fall on their knees and cry out to You for renewal, infilling, wisdom, guidance, courage and boldness

as we move into the future with renewed hope!

 

Raise up a new generation like the men of Issachar - mentioned in I Chronicles 12:32 – who ‘had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.’

 

AMEN.

WHY ARE SO MANY AMERICANS 'FORMERLY-CHURCHED'?

At our annual session of the Harvest Conference (Free Methodist Church), our new bishop, Kaye Kolde painfully acknowledged that our American membership has dropped from 99,000 in 2015, to 62,000 in 2022.  Her acknowledgement pointed out that when we look at our world today, we have to recognize that many people are not 'unchurched', but 'formerly churched'.  

This leaves us wondering: Why the exodus from the church?

There are two primary reasons why people bail out and leave the faith.

       I.  God doesn’t conform to our expectations.  We want a God that we can control.  Many of us want faith to be a power that moves God in a direction that we prescribe.  We want faith to be a code that unlocks the door to God’s unlimited resources – so that we can use them at our discretion.  Essentially, we want faith to be a way for us to get what we want from God. 

This attitude is especially prevalent in American culture where we are used to getting our own way.  When God doesn’t cooperate with us the way we think He should we tend to give up on Him!  We use the spoiled logic that if God doesn’t give us what we want, then He must not really be good and He must not really love me. 

How do we arrive at these unbiblical conclusions?  How can we become so distanced from the biblical concept of a sovereign God.   God is God and there is no other.  

We must get our thinking and beliefs right about God.  There is no better way to do that than by getting involved in a good, thorough Bible study with a godly, reliable teacher.  We must also engage our logic and reasoning capacity.  Think about it.  If God can be manipulated and controlled by me – then who is really god?  If we would simply think seriously for a moment, we would all realize that we want a God who operates on a different level than we do.

^{Isaiah 55:8-9}    “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the LORD.

    “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

This is the kind of a God that we want in control of the universe and in control 

of my life.  Especially when we know that he is good and loving and cares for us. 

       II.  The second main reason that people leave their beliefs in God is that He allows bad things to happen in their lives.  To be blunt, we become disappointed with God and even angry with Him because He fails to protect us from evil people, things, or circumstances. 

Unexplainable tragedy tends to undermine our faith.  Painful or adverse circumstances don’t fit our understanding of the character of God or the Christian faith.  We ask: “How could a good God allow this to happen?  Why didn’t He stop it?” 

Let’s take a closer look at this:

A father is carrying a four-year-old into a doctor’s office to receive a tetanus shot.  When the doctor pulls out the needle, ask him if his father loves him.  In that moment, he will have doubts.  But ask him after some years pass.  He will have a completely different perspective.  He will know that his father showed his love by caring enough to protect his son’s health. 

Just as a child cannot correctly judge his parent’s character based upon one scary trip to the doctor, so we cannot draw conclusions about God’s goodness based upon the immediate circumstances of life. 

Judging the significance of current events can only be justly done by examining them in the context of a lifetime.  Many of us have a hard time seeing past our immediate surroundings.  If God doesn’t answer our prayer immediately, we wonder if He exists.  We begin to lose confidence in our belief that God loves and cares for us. 

     Here’s the key point:  Authentic faith looks at the whole picture!

     Consider a couple of biblical examples:

•      Joseph spent 15 years as a slave in Egypt after his brothers sold him to a traveling caravan.  Yet his “tragedy” was part of a beautiful tapestry that God was weaving behind the scenes to save an entire region from famine!
•      Then there was Moses, who spent 40 years in the wilderness before God sent him back to Egypt – freeing a nation from slavery and unfolding a wonderful purpose in his seemingly purposeless existence.

We must get our theology right!  God has not promised to keep bad things from happening to us.  God has not promised to heal every illness.  He has not promised to reverse the consequences of sin. 

Yet there are occasions when God intervenes and does all of these things.  Why?  Because He is a good God who loves to give good gifts to His children. 

But these are not promises.  He is under no obligation.  The fact that divorce occurs and people die and plans don’t work out is no reflection on the goodness or the presence of our heavenly Father. 

Just look at the Apostles.  They were certainly men of great faith.  Yet their lives were not free of difficulty;  all of them but one, died as martyrs!!!!  God didn’t always intervene to save them.  But an answer of “no” did not undermine their faith.  They didn’t have to get everything they wanted to keep their faith intact.  Their faith was grounded in Jesus and His resurrection – not on how their lives went or what happened to them.

I can almost hear you thinking.  But what are we to do when tough times come?  How are we to handle the unexplainable tragedies that occur in our lives?  What should our response be when it feels like God has let us down or abandoned us?  Good questions!

The answer to these questions is also found in some key verses of the book of Hebrews. 

^4:15-16  For  we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Here’s the best news you’re going to hear today.  Because you have Jesus as your High Priest, you can draw near to God with confidence!  Some might say, “Confidence in what?  I already know that He may not give me what I want.  He might say no to my prayers.  How can I ask for anything with confidence?” 

But you can have confidence because God will always give you two things that are critical in your times of need. 

The first thing He will give you is mercy.  Our Savior, Jesus, knows far more about what you are experiencing than you may think.  Jesus is able to enter into your pain and understand how you feel because he also knew:

Temptation.  He experienced temptation at the hand of Satan himself.

Rejection.  He was rejected by both friends and family members.

Failure.  He saw everything He had lived for and worked for crumble around Him.

Fear.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, He spent an entire night dreading the events of the next day.

Abandonment.  His friends ran away when He needed them most.

Loneliness.  He even faced death alone. 

Jesus understands your pain and/or sorrow.  You can come boldly to Him with total transparency and openness, confident that He will never mock or ridicule you.  He is a mercy-giving God because He knows from experience what it is like to need mercy.  Mercy is the assurance that God will never allow the pressures or heartbreaks of life to overwhelm you.  He will ALWAYS be there to help or carry you!

The second thing He will give you is grace.  Grace in this context means the strength to endure or the ability to carry on.  Remember, He has not promised to deliver you from your circumstances;  but He has promised to deliver you through them.  You can ask Him to change your circumstances, but we’ve already stated that God rarely intervenes to do so.  However, He has promised to give you the grace to endure in the meantime. 

Even the great Apostle Paul experienced this painful reality.  In II Corinthians 12 he tells about what seems to be a physical problem that had plagued him for many years.  Now this is a man who had the spiritual gift of healing, but he struggled with a personal malady.  He tells us that he asked God three times to deliver him from this problem.  Each time God said no.  Paul accepted his consequences and came to realize that there was a reason for God’s unwillingness to heal him.  It was to keep him humble.  He was a man who had experienced phenomenal spiritual privileges – including a supernatural glimpse into heaven where “He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.”  (12:4).  Anyone experiencing this kind of privilege would certainly be vulnerable to spiritual pride.  Consequently, God left this godly man – who had the gift of healing others – with a physical malady to keep him appropriately humble and to remind him of his dependence on God.  God’s actual answer to Paul on his third request was:  “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  (12:9). 

So there it is – the evidence that you can trust God with every area of your life!  Let’s review it:

1)   Authentic faith is properly grounded in Christ!

2)  Authentic faith recognizes the sovereignty of God.

3)  Authentic faith looks at the whole picture.

4)  Authentic faith anticipates the mercy and grace of God when the going gets tough!