Author: Tim Ehrhardt

I'm just a common ordinary pastor, chaplain, father, grandfather, and dog owner who loves the smell of a genuine leather Bible and the aroma of its message. I'm on a quest to track down the best Bibles, how to best read and use them, and to discover the encouragement inside.

Hiding from God

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Our human nature tends to look at the one thing we cannot do, instead of seeing all the range of possibilities that we can do.  The serpent, the devil, was successful in getting Adam and Eve to focus on that one tree they needed to avoid (Genesis 3:1-7).  Instead of seeing all the prospects of life with God, in our fallen condition just tell us what we cannot do and we will probably be sure to do it.  More than that, the devil subtly planted a terrible and untruthful idea in the heads of Adam and Eve – that God was somehow holding out on them and was not providing everything they really needed and wanted in life.  Sin looks really good, and even initially tastes really good.  Yet, sin has an awful aftertaste and reeks inside us.  Sin always over-promises and under-delivers.
 
            We all face temptation, sin, and the effects of sin.  Perhaps the greatest impact of sin is sewing fig leaves for ourselves and hiding – hiding from God, hiding from one another, and even hiding from ourselves.  All this hiding causes us to be spiritually blind, and to sleepwalk through hell unaware of our true spiritual condition.  Because of this reality, we all need a Savior to deliver us.  Apart from God we are only dust.  We need God’s Spirit to breathe life into us.  We need God’s Spirit to breathe life into the church.  We need God’s Spirit to grace us with conviction of sin, and breathe new life into us so that we may again enjoy him in Paradise.  Just as we did not give ourselves life and cause ourselves to be born, so we cannot give ourselves new life but must be born again by God’s Spirit.
 
            Hiding with fig leaves is the symbolic way of demonstrating that Adam and Eve were acting independently, and were now going to operate on their own apart from God.  Our fallen spiritual condition does not want to acknowledge our need for the sheer grace of God.  Instead, we hide our true motives and desires.  Through The Fall we are inclined to look for ways to deal with problems in our lives apart from God.
 
            We want to return to Paradise, and we devise all kinds of thoughts and ways of doing that.  Paradise always seems to be “out there” somewhere.  In our fallen condition, we buy into the “if only” syndrome instead of dealing with the sin in our own hearts.  If only we had that one thing, then we would be happy and be in Paradise.  Single people may look for that special someone, believing that Paradise will come if they meet Mr. Right or Miss All That.  Married persons may think that if only their spouse would be more like _____, then Paradise will come.  Kids might believe that when they grow up, then there will be independence and they can do whatever they want and there will be Paradise.  “If only” we had more money.  “If only” we had a bigger house, another car, or more power and influence.  “If only” other people would stop being jerks, care more, serve more, love more.  “If only” I had my way then, we think, there would surely be a restoration to Paradise.
 
We often expect way too much of relationships with others.  A woman will never find a man who completes her because no man can fix what is broken within her heart.  Even If every woman had a man who thought of nothing but her, how to romance her, how to love and encourage her, she would still be empty.  No man is enough.  Every woman needs a Savior.  And a man will never find a woman that takes care of everything in his life.  Even if every man came home each evening to a woman who was all dolled-up with a freshly grilled steak on the table for him, he would still be empty because no woman can fix what is broken within his heart.  Neither red meat nor any woman can provide for a man what he really needs.  Men need a Savior.  We all need a Savior.  We all need deliverance from our disordered loves and misguided attempts to find Paradise in this life apart from God.  The temptation after The Fall is to try and find Paradise outside of God through perfect relationships and ideal circumstances.  Yet, what we really need is to repent of the sin of our own hearts, and deal with the brokenness of our own lives.  And that is what the season of Lent is all about.
 
In this season of Lent, we must repent of our hiding and wishing for everything and everyone else to be different without any cost to ourselves.  What do you need to repent of in this season?  Who are the people that you look to do for you what only God can do?  Have you forsaken your first love of Jesus Christ?  Has your relationship with God been non-existent?  Has it been stale, dull, and lacking passion, desire, and energy?  Has distance replaced intimacy between you and God?  Do you avoid the spiritual disciplines of bible reading and prayer because you believe something else will satisfy the real needs of your heart?  Are you keeping up appearances and hiding, while on the inside you have doubt, depression, and despair that things will never change? 
 

 

May you have the courage to face the empty places of your heart and allow the unconditional grace of Jesus to cleanse and fill your soul.  Soli Deo Gloria.

Idolatry

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            Truth is one of the greatest possessions we own.  To know the truth and to practice it is the key to success in every area of life.  This is especially true for the Christian.  All truth finds its source in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).  Jesus taught that if anyone would live in fellowship with Him through the practice of truth they would have the “light of life” (John 8:12).  God expects us to practice the truth He has revealed to us.  One of our most serious hindrances is the neglect of learning truth and our failure to practice what we know to be true.  An important truth which every believer in Jesus must accept is that the Christian will serve that which he yields to himself/herself (Romans 6:16).
 
            Jesus Christ, as our representative, fulfilled all the demands of Old Testament law for us.  His work is imputed to the believing sinner who thereby becomes righteous and forgiven (Romans 3:24-31; 5:1-11).  Through identification with Jesus in his crucifixion and resurrection the believer is set free from the penalty and bondage of sin and will no longer be characterized by the dominion of sin (Romans 6:1-14; 1 John 3:9).
 
            This does not mean, however, that the believer never sins again in this life.  What it means is that when we sin we not only disobey God, lose fellowship with Him, hinder our spiritual progress, and fail to be a good example – we become characterized by and enslaved to our sin.  When we seek to have something or someone else replace the atoning work of Jesus on the cross to meet the most basic needs of our lives, we have set that something or someone up as our idol to worship.
 
            Jesus said that we cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:19-24).  When we serve God we live in freedom; when we serve money we become idol worshipers and become enslaved to it, trusting that money will be our ticket to real freedom and happiness.  The issue here is not how much or how little money we actually possess, but the place of money of in our lives and what it stands for – how it figures in our list of priorities.  Many believers today serve God with their lips, but in reality they are in bondage to money.  The evidence is in how we live.  If we are willing to sacrifice almost anything and everything to gain money, then we have set up financial security as the thing we really worship and adore.
 
 
 
            Jesus said that when we know the truth, it is truth that can make us free (John 8:32).  Whenever we commit a sin, we become the servant of that sin.  This is more than being caught in addictions such as alcohol, gambling, pornography, and overeating.  Persons with “clean” lives can also fall prey to the errors of believing that regular church attendance, giving ten percent of income to the church, being nice, growing up with Christian parents, working hard, or being an all-around “good” person are the things that secure a right relationship with God and provide the best things in life.  Idolatry is not only tied to addictions; it can be tethered to our virtues, good deeds, and self-righteousness.
 
            This season of Lent is to be a time of healthy introspection, taking a fierce moral and spiritual inventory of our lives, and identifying and repenting of everything that we have replaced God with as an idol. 
 
–What or whom do you identify as your primary means of security and significance?
–Do you have any anger or resentment toward those who pose a threat to whatever it is you tie your security and significance to?
–What fears do you have about giving up certain possessions, activities, or even relationships?
–List the activities and behaviors that you continue to do even though you know it is not in your best interest to do them.  Admit your helplessness to God, receive the work of Jesus on your behalf, and tell a trusted pastor or church leader about your issue.
 

 

            We must not allow ourselves to live careless lives, but to live in the freedom that comes from knowing and practicing the truth.  May our Lenten journey lead us to new hope and life in Christ.

Ash Wednesday

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
The season of Lent is a reminder that we live a sinful fallen world; that judgment is coming; that we must respond to sin with a humble return to God so that we can be spared and the Lord’s Name may be upheld.  Just as we prepare for big events in our lives, like weddings or commencements, Lent is a time to prepare our hearts in anticipation of remembering Christ’s passion and resurrection.
 
            Lent is a solemn season in the Church Calendar.  Ash Wednesday begins this forty-day season that is to be characterized by penitence, fasting, and self-examination.  In other words, Lent is a call to prayer and repentance, with fasting as a very practical way of devoting oneself to a deliberate connection with God.
 
            The heart of the Lenten message is that we must return to the Lord.  When there was a need for the Israelites to return to the Lord, the people were called to a prayer service (i.e. Joel 2).  The prayers they offered were confessions to God, petitions for God’s grace and favor, and affirmations of confidence in God.  Fasting, weeping, and mourning communicate the seriousness and sincerity of the people’s repentance.  It is our hearts that need rending, and not our clothes.
 
            Imagine you are out for a hike on a beautiful spring day and you come to a creek. You notice that someone has dumped trash into the stream—not a pretty sight. Judging by some of the empty soda cans, the trash has been there awhile. And there is an ugly film on top of the water. You cannot just leave the scene as you found it, because it would bother your conscience. So you stoop down and begin gathering the trash.  It actually takes several hours before you can begin to see a difference; it’s amazing how much junk is there. You sit back, rest for a moment, and realize you’ll have to keep returning each day until the site is truly clean. But when you come back the next day, it’s as if your work has been undone.  In fact there’s more trash than before. Somehow the garbage bred overnight. You think about the unlikelihood of someone coming to this very spot to dump their garbage in the few hours while you were away, and you realize that something smells fishy—so to speak. So you begin to follow the creek upstream.  Sure enough, you come to a garbage dump that has been there for years. It’s emptying into the passing creek. Your cleaning job only opened up a gap for more stuff to settle. You could go and clean every day.  But if you want your creek to be clean, that means going directly to the source and dealing with what’s there.
 
Our hearts are the source from which our lives flow. Unfortunately, we spend great amounts of time, money, and energy—even in the church—doing trash removal “downstream.” But real transformation begins when we travel upstream to the source of our heart. Our real struggles and sins take place where no one sees: in the heart.
 
We must enter this season of Lent and cry out to God to spare his people and not give others a reason to scorn us for our lack of humility and attention to the Lord.  Let us, then, worship and fall down, and weep before the Lord our Maker.  Let us mourn over sin, and anticipate God’s anger by confessing those things which displease him.  Let us equally anticipate God’s grace, because he is compassionate and relents from sending calamity.  Let us take responsibility for fully, and not partially, confessing sin to God.  Let us find our hope in God because he is the only One who can deliver us from every trouble, especially the judgment to come.  Who knows? Perhaps the Lord will choose to leave us blessing and will break open the doors of his goodness.
 

 

For those attending an Ash Wednesday service, let the imposition of ashes upon your forehead signify that you are repenting from trusting in things other than Christ; that you will cease attempting to rely, on the one hand, your own ingenuity, and, on the other, a simple formalism of only going through the motions of Christianity.  Let the sign of the cross upon you mark your heart, and not just your head.  May the Lord have mercy upon us, bless us beyond what we can ask or think, and give us peace.

Insecurity

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            

 

 
            In my first pastorate, I had a woman in the congregation with a constant sourpuss outlook on life and was continually critical of me.  After I got to know her, I discovered that she had an alcoholic father who abused her in childhood.  It was not a stretch for me to see that her problem with my authority had to do with the sheer fact that I was her pastor, her leader, and she had major problems with authority figures.
 
            What do you do with insecure people?  It helps to understand the pathology behind such persons, because a church leader cannot always take things personally since the issues are not always of a personal nature.  The person who is raised in such a way that they are insecure almost always misinterprets life.  The reason they do this is that they evaluate almost everything and everybody from the perspective of their past.  Thus, nothing, and I mean literally nothing, can bring security to such a person from the outside.  The cure must come from within through the work of the Holy Spirit impressing the redemptive events of Jesus to the individual, thus creating an assurance of pardon and security that is supernatural.
 
            Insecurity will cause a person to have an exaggerated need for evidence of security.  Yet those needs cannot be met by anyone or anything in that they are not a part of reality and fact, but tend to be irrational.  This makes decision-making for the insecure person difficult if not impossible.  When such needs are not met in life, the insecure person is hurt again (unconsciously reminding them of their past hurts) and they, therefore, lash out against those people that they feel could and even should meet their needs for security and love.
 
            Insecurity causes a person to set up “tests” to prove they are loved and accepted by others.  People intuitively sense these “tests” and their true character, and, understandably, retreat from the insecure person.  This, then, is misinterpreted by the insecure person as rejection, and the problem is deepened.  Insecurity inevitably causes a person to almost obsessively sift through the past and examine the present looking for evidence of security or insecurity.  Events, words, body language, and relationships are evaluated over and over.  The old battles are continually being fought with a constant stream of misinterpretation.
 
            Insecurity, then, only breeds more insecurity and the insecure person either cannot or will not take initiative to settle anything.  Such a person, for sure, cannot reconcile the past without help.  In the place of genuine assistance, some insecure people try to do everything perfectly to compensate for their feelings of inadequacy.  On the other hand, there are those who simply give up and live a passive existence.  They feel so unloved and rejected that they stop trying, so as to not feel the sting of inadequacy and frustration anymore.
 
            Which brings me back to my very insecure parishioner – she was highly critical because everyone failed her “tests” and they were unceremoniously labeled as uncaring.  She really believed that others could change her life and her world if they just cared enough to do so.  So, this troubled woman lived with all kinds of “if only’s.”  If only they would call me every day…. If only they would come and visit more often….  If only they would listen better….  If only they would pay more attention to me….  The problem is that even if others would do such things, the “test” would only become bigger and bigger until it is unbearable for the person trying to help.  The helper then drops-out of the insecure person’s life all together, only reinforcing the feelings of the insecure person.
 

 

            Do you have insecure people in your church?  Are you an insecure person?  The problem of insecurity will not be resolved apart from going back and reconciling the past (see a previous post on this).  Real change comes from the inside-out.  The truth is that all of us as fallen individuals have some degree of insecurity inside of us.  It can only be dealt with by making daily affirmations of truth based in Holy Scripture given by God, so that our security lies solely in being people created in the image of God and forgiven through the cross of Jesus Christ.  Anything less than this does not bring assurance, comfort, and genuine spiritual healing.  By His wounds we are healed.  As we approach the season of Lent and anticipate Holy Week, there is no better time than in these next weeks to take a healthy introspective look upon our lives and find our ultimate value in Christ alone.  “It is finished” was his cry.  Let it be ours as well.