REMIND – Reclaiming Our True North

THE SECOND OF SEVEN

It’s not easy to look honestly at ourselves. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. True self-examination can be painful because it forces us to face uncomfortable truths — to see what we’ve become. And often, what we see is someone we don’t like, someone we never meant to be. So instead, we hide behind the image we project, believing our own carefully crafted propaganda.

Yet, remember this. We are not the sum of our actions. It's not decided who we are, based on our behavior, or lack of it. Neither are we what other people have said or think we are. 

We are who God says we are. You are who God says you are. Period. 

God’s viewpoint, His statements, His calling, and His working for you is what counts. That is where you get your identity. When God called you to become His child through the sacrificial death and resurrected life of His son Jesus, and you repented and believed, you entered a new sphere of eternal existence and participation in the divine nature, that nothing can change or take away. As Paul’s letter to the Romans states:

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? Romans 8:31–35 (ESV)

Just in case you are not sure of the answers to all of these questions, they are: “no one” and “no thing.” 

Paul then tells us why all this is true as he wraps up this section of the letter. 

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37–39 (ESV)

We never lose God's favor because of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That will never change. But we can forget it.

The world is dominated by the belief that our identity is bound up in how we look, what we own or what we can buy, what we can do or what we have done. We're bombarded with these beliefs continually. This is why we must remind ourselves whose we are before we can identify who we are. Therefore, Remind is the first of the five steps to renewal. 

This brings us back to Josiah, the young king of a nation that had forgotten their assignment to be a light for God to the world. He had a humanly impossible task before him. The first thing we’re told about Josiah is astounding. 2 Kings 22:2 says, “And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left”.

Pause and consider the gravity of that statement. His immediate heritage was a spiritual catastrophe. His grandfather Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with pagan altars and even sacrificed his own children to false gods. His father Amon continued this wicked legacy and was assassinated by his own officials. Josiah came to the throne as an eight-year-old boy with no godly father, no godly grandfather to model his life after. 

So where did he get his "true north"? The text tells us. He reached back. He skipped a generation, and then another, and he anchored his identity in his spiritual ancestor, David. He reminded himself of his covenant identity. He knew he belonged to the line of David, but more importantly, he belonged to the God of David. His obedience didn’t flow from a list of rules he was trying to keep; it flowed from a deep, settled sense of belonging. The Chronicler tells us that in his eighth year as king, at just sixteen years old, Josiah “began to seek the God of his father David”. His reform didn't start with activity; it started with identity. He first had to know whose he was before he could know what to do.

We see this principle in the modern world as well. In the mid-2000s, the coffee giant Starbucks was in deep trouble. After years of explosive growth, its founder, Howard Schultz, who had stepped away as CEO, wrote a now-famous memo to his leadership team. He warned that in their relentless pursuit of expansion, the company was losing its soul. The focus had shifted from the craft of coffee to the efficiency of transactions. The warm, inviting smell of roasting coffee had been replaced by the smell of breakfast sandwiches. This, he said, was leading to the "watering down of the Starbucks Experience".

When Schultz returned as CEO in 2008 to turn the company around, his first major act wasn't financial. It was an act of identity. He did something that Wall Street thought was insane: he closed all 7,100 of his U.S. stores for an entire afternoon to retrain over 135,000 baristas on the art of pulling the perfect espresso shot. It cost the company millions in lost revenue, but it was a powerful, symbolic act. He was reminding them of who they were. He was saying, "We are not a fast-food chain. We are not just about transactions. We are about the coffee. We are about the experience. This is our core identity". The historic turnaround of Starbucks began with a return to its true north. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/27sbux.html

What does this mean for us?

Personally, who are you? I mean, who are you really? Before you are a husband or a wife, a parent or a child, an employee, a neighbor, or a citizen of this nation, who are you? If you’re in Christ, your primary identity is this: You are a beloved child of the living God, bought by the blood of Jesus, sealed by His Spirit. Do you live from that identity? Or have you allowed your job, your political affiliation, your successes, or your failures to define you? 

We must constantly preach the Gospel to ourselves and remind ourselves of our core identity. We are not what we do; we are who God says we are. We obey God not to become His children, but because we are His children. That simple shift changes our motivation from fearful performance to grateful love. It changes us at the core of our being, our soul. 

And corporately, as a church, what is our identity? We are not a social club. We are not a political action committee. We are not an entertainment venue. We are the body and bride of Christ, a family of disciples on mission, called to make more disciples of Jesus. Every ministry we run, every program we launch, every dollar we spend must flow from that core identity. Renewal begins when we Remind ourselves who we truly are.

This is a good thing, but I didn't say it was easy. What will it take for you to truly align your self-identity with how God identifies you? Ponder that for a minute. 

If we believe, and I mean really believe the Bible is the Word of God, we can believe what it says about us, God’s covenant children. Once we get a vision of this and accept it as reality, we can live it. The more you know; the more you can believe and then, the more you can change. 

Several years back, Dr. Neil Anderson, a theologian specializing in practical theology at Talbot School of Theology, authored “Victory over the Darkness.” Among his contributions in this book is a section on “Identity.” This has aided many in REMINDING themselves of who they are and in reclaiming their true direction. You can download a PDF of this below.

Who I Am In Christ

THE LIGHT IN THE ATTIC

THE FIRST OF SEVEN

This is the first of a seven part blog series focused on church renewal. I believe I have some wisdom on this subject. I've served on staff of one church and been a pastor of three other churches for 22 years. In the pastorate, two of the churches were new and grew rapidly and prospered. The other church was a legacy church that had been losing a 100 people in attendance a year for seven years in a row (yes, -700 in seven years). Reminds me of the lean years in Joseph’s vision concerning Egypt from Genesis. Anyway, we were able to stop the decline but could not bring about the renewal that was needed. Honestly, when I left that church after six hard years, I was in severe burnout. 

In between pastoring these churches I served in several denominational capacities. This allowed me to also minister in churches as a transitional pastor. I've completed 13 transitional pastorates in my ministry so far. Each of these has been a bit different, but also fruitful and successful. None of them were the same; some were actually fun but some were also challenging; as you may imagine. 

You may ask, “Why write about this subject of church renewal now?” Well, glad you asked. It's because in the Baptist association I serve, most of my churches need it. Some of our growing churches may not see the need, yet they're mainly growing from transfer growth. In other words, they are not growing by conversion of the pagan population. I’m not saying all our churches need renewal, but most do. What is sad, is that most will not see the need themselves. 

Of course, this is a problem. To paraphrase Mark Clifton, “How is a dying church a testimony to the power of the Gospel?” Well, it’s not. People see a disconnect when we preach that the Gospel has power to defeat death, the devil and rescue souls from hell but can’t keep a local church from closing. Something has gone wrong, terribly wrong. 

We shouldn’t blame society, because the Gospel has progressed in worse places and is thriving now in worse places. We shouldn’t blame the Gospel itself, because if we are faithful to it, we should see transformation on both a personal and corporate level. This should be widespread, but it's not. 

Casting blame isn’t going to solve this problem anyway. But looking into what the Scriptures say about it may, if we will look honestly and then when changes need to be made, we turn decisively. 

So if you are still in on reading this, I want to first engage your creativity. 

Now we get to the heart of this blog.

I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine you’ve inherited an old family home. It’s been in your family for generations, but for the last 50 years, it’s been neglected, maybe rented out to careless tenants, and has fallen into disrepair. The paint is peeling, the garden is overgrown with weeds, and the inside… the inside is cluttered with generations of forgotten junk, dust, and decay. It’s your history, but it’s a mess.

So you decide to begin the long, arduous task of cleaning it out. You start downstairs, room by room, filling trash bags, sorting through what’s valuable and what’s not. Finally, you make your way to the attic. It’s dark and musty, and under a pile of old, dusty blankets and broken furniture, you find a small, locked chest. You pry it open, and what you find inside makes your heart stop. It’s the original deed to the property. But more than that, tucked inside is a letter from your great-great-grandfather, the man who built the house. In his own hand, he details his vision for the home—a place of hospitality, a beacon of warmth in the community, a refuge for the weary.

Suddenly, your work is no longer just cleaning. It’s restoration. You’re not just getting rid of junk anymore; you are reclaiming a vision. You now have the blueprint. You know what this house was always meant to be.

That is precisely what happened in the nation of Judah in the 18th year of a young king named Josiah. The nation was a spiritual ruin. It was cluttered with the junk of idolatry, inherited from Josiah’s grandfather Manasseh—arguably the most wicked king in Judah’s history—and his father Amon, who was just as bad. The house of God, the temple in Jerusalem, was so neglected that it needed a complete renovation.

And in the middle of this simple "house cleaning," the high priest Hilkiah found something that had been lost for generations. Underneath the rubble of neglect, he found the Book of the Law—God’s blueprint for His people. And when that book was opened, a light was flipped on in the dusty attic of the nation’s soul. For the first time in decades, they saw the dust, the decay, the rubble of their own hearts.

Some messes, you see, can only be seen when the light is on. And for the people of God, the light is always the Word of God. The question for them, and the question for us is this: When God’s Word exposes what really is, will we look honestly and turn decisively?

When God’s Word exposes the truth of our condition, God’s people must look honestly and turn decisively—personally and corporately. If we don’t, we will suffer the consequences. We learn this from the story of King Josiah in 2 Kings 22-23. We will explore this more in future blogs.

The theme for this series is a verse from the prophet Jeremiah, who was ministering during this very time. It says, “Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!” (Lamentations 3:40, ESV) 

To do that, we are going to walk a five-step pathway of renewal that King Josiah modeled for us. It’s a cycle of renewal that we can apply to our own lives, our families, and our church today. 

The five steps are: Remind, Review, Refocus, Refine, and Reform. There will be a separate blog on each of these five steps using the story of Josiah as the backdrop, with perhaps a final seventh blog wrapping it all up. 

I hope you’ll follow along. But I pray more than anything that there will be something here or something in the Scriptures that will inspire you to test and examine your ways and the courage to look honestly and turn decisively.

To The Seventh Generation

The tunnel was pitch black. The water rushing over my legs was ice cold. Our team of four crouched through the narrow space while holding the flashlights of our cell phones above our heads to give some light in the darkness. The water tunnel, two feet wide and 5-6 feet high, showed ancient pick marks surrounded by green algae. I was grateful for my water shoes since the surface of the passageway was smooth, but quite uneven. The echo of the rushing water and people’s voices reverberated off the stone walls. I was overwhelmed thinking of the 2700 years of history in this remarkable 1,750-foot carved, snaking bedrock channel. The tunnel was originally excavated by two teams, one starting at each end of the tunnel and then meeting in the middle. Where are we?

The Siloam Tunnel in eastern Jerusalem in the ancient City of David. It was dug during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah so he could fortify the city against the invading Assyrian armies without compromising its main water source. Today, it is considered an extraordinary feat of engineering. A miracle!

I’ve always admired Hezekiah. The book of 2 Kings describes him as a very good king; a reformer. He destroyed idols and pagan temples. He trusted and obeyed God and was very prosperous. The Bible says there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, both before and after him. But...he wasn’t perfect.   

At one point in Hezekiah’s reign, he became deathly sick, and the prophet Isaiah warned him to put his affairs in order. Hezekiah begged for healing and God gave him 15 more years to live and a miraculous sign to prove it. Meanwhile, the son of the King of the idolatrous Babylon, heard about this and sent messengers with a get-well card and a gift, inquiring about the miracle. Pridefully, Hezekiah gave these messengers a private behind-the-scenes tour of his palace, armory, treasury, and storehouses showing them everything in his palace and Kingdom. What was he thinking?

When the prophet Isaiah learned about this, he in essence, said to Hezekiah, “You've been tricked, and the condition of your heart revealed. A day will come when everything in your palace will be carried off to Babylon. Worse yet, some of your own descendants will be taken away and will be servants in the palace of the king of Babylon.” Hezekiah responds with relief that the consequences of his actions would not happen until after this death.

Hezekiah’s pride, selfishness, and lack of foresight in his present affected future generations to come.

How often do we make hasty decisions without considering the long-term effects on us, those around us and those to come? 

It could be a job or schedule change, an out-of-town move, a marriage, a change in church membership, a decision impacting health and illness, the choice to share our faith, and the list goes on and on. 

I recently learned about the Iroquois Indians’ seventh-generation principle. This dictates that decisions that are made today should be fair and meet the needs of seven generations into the future. How wise!

The Life Application Bible states: “The past affects our decisions and actions today, and these, in turn, affect the future. There are lessons to learn and errors to avoid repeating. Part of the success of your past will be measured by what you do with it now and how well you use it to prepare for the future.”

We don’t have to walk blindly through dark, narrow tunnels. Neither should we make hasty, short-sighted decisions. If we slow down, seek God through His word and prayer, and live humbly, He will light the way. He gives sure-footed wisdom, and the foresight needed so our actions and decisions today leave a positive and godly legacy for generations to come.

Karen Kinnaird brings the vast experience of having served as a ministry wife for nearly 38 years. Her husband has served as a church planter, senior pastor, state denominational leader, agency specialist at NAMB, and Associational Missionary Strategist. Karen currently serves as the Executive Assistant for Forgiving Forward, a ministry dedicated to helping people experience the freedom of the Gospel through the power of forgiveness. Karen and Jimmy, also known as Gigi and Poppy, have 3 children and 3 grandchildren.

This blog originally appeared in the www.Touchinghearts.tv blog.