Checkmate Cheaters

C h e c k m a t e!

I don’t play chess. I don’t know how many pieces are on the board when the game begins, what each piece can do, which direction they move or how to protect the king, but I do know what this word means. It means to be helpless or defeated. It means that the game is over. There’s no way out.

An old chess master stood studying a painting that illustrated checkmate on canvas. After studying each piece and weighing each option finally blurted out, “You’ve still got a move. Don’t quit.” Only a master would have known that there were other options beyond giving up.

This to me is the essence of what David said in Psalms 121:1-2. He was in check and it looked like there was no place to go to avoid disaster. Things were about as bad as they could get, but he suddenly realized that the game was not over. He still had a move and so do you. He could still look up.

“I will lift my eyes to the hills from which comes my help. My help comes from the Lord which made heaven and earth.” (Psalms 121:1-2) He became a Checkmate Cheater, and this is the way he did it.

First of all, he began to look at an old problem in a new way.

Frederick Langbridge described this incredible difference when he wrote these words. “Two men look out through the same bars: one sees the mud and the other on sees the stars.”

Mud will always be there if that is the object of your focus, but the stars will always be there as well. What you see will largely depend upon which way you’re looking.

The Psalmist chose to look up! “I will lift my eyes,” he said. It was a deliberate choice.

Alfred A. Montapert had a clear head when he made this statement. “We cannot choose the things that will happen to us. But we can choose the attitude we will take toward anything that happens. Success or failure depends on your attitude.”

Checkmate cheaters look up when they are down but not out. Stars are always above you where ever you are, and the devil can not shake them out of the sky. Looking up requires little effort but pays enormous dividends.

In the second place, he began to anticipate the best not the worse.

This was the way the Psalmist expressed it. “I will lift my eyes to the hills from which comes my help…” A Checkmate Crasher expects help. He anticipates a change for the better. Good is going to displace the bad.

Murphy’s Law does not govern us. You know. If things can get worse, they will. We live under a different law. It’s called the law of God’s Grace. The Bible says, “Noah found grace in the eyes of God.” (Genesis 6:8) In other words, Noah found help in a helpless world. When grace comes on the scene, we can always expect the best and not the worse. That’s what grace will do for you now.

Finally, he began to implore imperial intervention.

Now isn’t that interesting. He said, “My help comes from the Lord that made heaven and earth.” You talk about imploring a Higher Power. He went directly to the Creator who made something out of nothing. He implored the Creator to intervene and the Maker to move on his behalf.

Checkmate Cheaters are not more clever or classy than anyone else. They are just more resilient, more determined and more resourceful. They are ready and willing to fight one more round, go an additional mile and search for one more alternative.

They implore Imperial intervention after man’s feeble efforts fail. They envision and confess no limitation with God. He made heaven and earth and my problem is nothing to compare with that vast project.

• The heaven of heavens can not contain Him
• The dictionary can not explain Him
• No power on earth can restrain Him.

Checkmate Cheaters implore Imperial intervention because they know that God writes with a pen that never blots, speaks with a tongue that never slips, and acts with a hand that never fails. When you get to the end of your rope, God is there, and by His help there is always a next move.

In The Journey Together

Pastor Jimmy & Bob

God’s Bailout Plan is Best.

Bailout was the word of the year in 2008. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary this word was looked up so often in their online dictionary that it easily made the choice of the year. Everybody seems to want a bailout but apparently a lot of Americans were not sure what a bailout really is. According to the dictionary it means: a rescue from financial distress. Someone steps in to pay the debt that someone else owes. It’s not exactly a give and take proposition. It’s a one sided affair. A bridge loan situation is made to help someone out of financial distress, and the person receiving the money pledges to repay the loan plus interest. But that is not necessarily the case in an out right bailout. One pays and the other may walk away with money in their pocket and no intention or demand to repay it. It’s grace to some degree in action. It’s forgiving a debt that someone is unwilling or unable to pay with no strings attached. Paul assumed that risk with Philemon. He told creditors that if Philemon owed them anything to put it on his account. It was a bail out. In Biblical terminology, it is called ransom or redeem. The words are defined as:  Ransom = the redeeming of a captive by paying money or complying with demands. The powerful word is recorded in Mark 10:45. “For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom form many.”  Redeem = to buy back or get back or to recover. The beauty of redemption is best described in I Peter 1:18-19. “Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold….but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” An old Gospel hymn that has been assigned to antiquity should have a new birth and ring long and loudly in our churches and be humbly sung from our lips. It simply says, “Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, but He washes white as snow.” In my opinion this demonstrates God’s bailout plan so completely that I dare not attempt to define it, but allow me to identify some of the unique characteristics of His perfect bailout plan. First of all, it is accessible. In 2008, the federal government provided billions of dollars for a bailout to some of their select cronies in high places. Little people—ordinary Joes and Janes had no need to apply. It was not accessible to everyone. A carpet layer told me his ability to stay in business was shaky at best, but he quickly added that Washington was not concerned about him. Nothing in this humongous bail out plan was available to him. He was to small to count, but not so with God. All you do is apply. Resources are available. Angelic crews can be dispatched immediately. God, in His Word, encourages you to apply with boldness. (Hebrew 4:16) Boldness means to be confident. Move forward. Don’t be shy. You have a right to come. The King, Himself, has invited you to His Throne. He will bail you out. In the second place, His bailout plan is adaptable to your particular need. It adapts according to your need – large or small. Philippians 4:19 explains it in these words. “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” My need and your need are probably very different, but His plan is not pre-packaged, take it as it is or leave it. It is customized to cover you and yours. Read Philippians 4:6 carefully. It says, “Let your requests be made known unto God.” I personally love the words “YOUR REQUEST.” God will fit His bailout plan to fit your need. Tell Him what you need, and see what happens! In the third place, His bailout plan demonstrates perfect equality. I rest with confidence on Romans 3:22 which declares, “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference.” God’s bailout plan is equally accessible and totally favorable to one and all. He has no favorites, and His plan is not based upon merit or means or medals we wear. The big don’t walk away with the best, and every body else gets the rest. Prodigals get bailouts by the compassionate Father and have parties thrown on their behalf. You may not be equal at the country club, but you are not inferior in the eyes of the Father. Finally, God’s bailout plan is unilateral. It’s one sided. It costs Him everything, and me nothing. He gave His ALL that I might have All Benefits and Blessings from the Throne of His Grace. This is not 80% - 20% proposition. There are no co-payments required or accepted. I am the beneficiary. No strings attached. His love is unconditional and unstoppable. I John 4:19 speaks volumes. It says, “We love Him because He FIRST LOVED US.” Resting In God’s Bailout Plan, Pastor Jimmy & Bob

Tainted Evidence

It “ain’t” what it looks like. Joseph had not been mauled and mangled by a man eating mountain lion. The case was rigged, and the evidence was tainted. It was a deliberate effort to perpetrate a miscarriage of justice and to lead a grieving father to reach a conclusion which was far from the truth.

They did a “snow job” on Jacob, and he fell for it because he was accepting tainted evidence as literal fact which brought consequences that were horrendous.

• It led him to believe the worst…”an evil beast has devoured him…” This was not a fact, but he reacted as though it were.
• It pushed him over the edge to become a victim of melancholy needlessly: ”he mourned for his son many days.” His emotional suffering was without merit. As a result, he could not celebrate the success of his son Joseph because he assumed he had been killed.
• It isolated him from the tenderness of others who apparently really cared for him. Genesis 38:35 declares, “And all his sons and daughters rose up to comfort him; but he said, for I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.” He shut others out because of tainted evidence.

Beware of half truth. You may get the wrong half, and it can impact you for the rest of your life. Jacob accepted half truth. The coat was indeed Joseph’s coat of many colors. That was a fact, but the blood splattered on the jacket was not Joseph’s. It belonged to a slaughtered goat. Believing and accepting tainted evidence was a drastic mistake that sent Jacob reeling in despair.

One lady thought her doctor was wonderful because he touched up her X-rays when she needed an operation but could not afford it. The doctor could taint the X-rays to make a bad health condition look good, but no amount of tainted evidence could alter the fact.

Go back with me to relive the experience of miners and settlers in British Columbia. As they carved a path deeper and deeper into the country, they came upon an abandoned fort by the name of Fort Alcan. Eagerly they began to dismantle it step by step. They ripped out lumber, stripped it of all electrical appliances and pulled plumbing out of the floor and walls. In the process, they made an absolutely amazing discovery.

Mighty locks were attached to heavy doors and two-inch steel bars covered the windows, but the walls of this prison were only painted to resemble iron. They were nothing more than painted wall board to look like iron. It was tainted evidence, but the prisoners believed the misleading appearance and never attempted to break out. They were prisoners of tainted evidence.

The words of Clare Boothe Luce should drive us to make better decisions and to ignore the tainted evidence and rise above our present circumstance. She said, “There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them.”

Few calamities are worse than losing hope, and that calamity is compounded when hopelessness is based upon false information. I urge you to reexamine the evidence, discord that which is rigged and accept that which is fact.

Fact #1: Tainted evidence makes it appear that God has forgotten His promises and doesn’t care about me.

You may have been putting up with being put down so long that you have come to accept it. The loss of self esteem is worse than death because you have to live with it every day of your life.

That’s what happens when your world gets turned upside down and inside out. One 12 year old boy who had been trapped in child labor working in a coal mine expressed his emptiness and frustration clearly when asked if He knew God. His reply was, “No. He must work in some other mine.”

I have had that feeling before. God may be working in Saskatchewan, San Antonio or El Salvador, but He isn’t working where I am or for me. That’s what the tainted evidence looked like. God has forgotten His promises and doesn’t care about me, but it is falsified information. The promises of God and the care that God has for you are incontestable, irreversible and invincible!

Fact #2: Trashed trust does not warrant stumbling into the pit of paranoia.

So somebody stuck it to you. They did Joseph. Don’t hold it against every other inhabitant on earth. Like Joseph, facts will not support that claim. Paranoia is cancer of the spirit and mind and spreads rapidly into every part of your being. It concludes that everybody is against you, but that is not true. God is for you. (Romans 8:31) “And if God be for us who can be against us?”

The anti-biotic for paranoia is the promise of God. It worked for Joseph and it will work for you. His prison garb was tainted evidence to hide the promises of God regarding royal robes. He clung to the promise of God when He was in the pit knowing that he was on his way to the palace. The Bible says, “God was with Joseph….” Don’t depend on fraudulent evidence. Hold on to your unflappable trust in God. Faith will win.

Fact #3: A regrettable past does not disqualify you from having a resplendent future.

Examine the skimpy resume that Joseph had. He was a pampered kid. He flunked in diplomacy. He excelled as dreamer. He was briefly employed as a delivery boy; a victim of family abuse and was an escape goat of a sex scandal that rocked the nation. A past like that is heavy baggage to carry into the future, but it’s the only one he had. What an encouraging fact to discover that his past did not disqualify him for the palace. He turned loose of the past and reached into the future. The past is the past. Just that and no more. You can’t change it or amend it, but you can transcend it.

Don’t fall for tainted evidence.

• God has not forgotten you.
• Trashed trust does not warrant caving in to paranoia.
• A regrettable past does not disqualify you to experience a resplendent future!

In The Journey Together,

Pastor Jimmy & Bob