Posted on May 26, 2011 by James Gorton

Thursday May 26, 2011

God assigned four qualities for Job, and those four qualities were communicated three different times in the book of Job. He was a righteous and blameless man, fearing God and shunning evil. What great qualities the Lord verbalized in regard to Job. What qualities might He say about you? Whether we like it or not, He has assigned qualities in our lives in proportion to the lifestyle and the attitudes we have manifested here on this earth. It would seem that Job would be invincible to temptation and be above convictionn.

Yet as you begin to read the book of Job, another quality begins to emerge as he relates with three of his friends when they try to convince him that he must have done something wrong to deserve all the negtive experiences that Job was facing. Job wanted to know why all of this was happening to him and his friends had ready answers, but those answers were off base.

Job, in the middle of the book, begins to reflect on all tht he had done. As you see in the following verses, there are a lot of “I’s” in this passage. “I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist him. The man who was dying blessed me; I made the widow’s heart sing.I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame.I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger.I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth. I chose the way for them and sat as their chief; I dwelt as a king among his troops; I was like one who comforts mourners. (Job 29:12-25). Job got his eyes off the source of all he was and all he had and became prideful of his accomplishments. This was the downfall of Job and what the Lord later in the book begins to attack. Solomon talks a lot about pride in Proverbs and said that pride went before the fall (Prqoverbs 16:18)

On this journey we need to be careful to attribute all we have and all we do to the creator and sustainer of life and not focus on all that we have done.

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Generational Change

Posted on May 25, 2011 by James Gorton

Wednesday May 25, 2011

As I was thinking about today’s jlog, I began to ponder the past few days and the significant things I have had the opportunity to experience with my friends. The first experience involved a graduation party–not one but actually three parties of high schoolers graduating. The joy on their faces and the feeling of jumping another hurtle marked my mind as I began to think of another generation beginning to take their place in impacting our society for the future.

On Saturday night Carter and I went to a manhood ceremony where a young boy was being ushered into manhood by his parents and we as friends and family had the opportunity to affirm his gifts and abilities and encourage him to take his place as a young man in impacting his worlgenera new generation is rising up to form for tomorrow’s leaders.

On Monday night, I sat in the gym as my son walked up to the principle of Mountainside Middle School and receive his eighth grade promotion diploma. He is no longer in elementary school or in junior high, but he is now in high school. After the ceremony he came up and gave me a big hug and vanished to the gymnasium where they had a big party for the graduates. I came and picked him up after the party, but I realized that the new generation is moving to the forefront to take their place and lead this society.

Yesterday I got a phone call from my daughter telling me that she had a big surprise and wanted me to guess. After guessing a few things, she told me that she had passed her psychological licensing exam and was officially a psychologist. What joy filled my heart with the hearing of that accomplishment. She is part of the new generation that is taking their stand in leading our society.

These experiences have been so sweet to see my children and children of my friends accomplish their dreams of graduating from school and it was a privilege for me to be a part of their celebration. A generational change is in the process of taking place right before my very eyes and I have two choices for my self.

The first choice is to begin to sit back and allow this generation to continue to take more and more leadership and myself become stagnant and stop growing. That would be the easiest thing to do. Or I could continue to grow myself and not rest on wht I have done in the past which is the harder road to take, but one that I am reminded Paul took and encourages us to take, no matter where we are on this journey with Him. “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13-14). Our children have a race to run but so do we.

On this journey God is calling each of us to run our own races and not sit back and allow our children to run their race and our race.

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Job, The Shunning Man

Posted on May 24, 2011 by James Gorton

Tuesday May 24, 2011

The fourth quality that the Lord verbalized to satan regarding Job was shunning. “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no-one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (Job 1:8). It is an interesting word to use and is only used in the bible 9 times; four times in Job, four times in Proverbs, and one time in Isaiah. In all cases it is used in conjunction with evil.

I then looked up the word shun in Websters dictionary and it said that to shun something or someone is to deliberately avoid that person or thing and especially avoid habitually destructive things. Job when he was venting with his friends in 28:28, he spoke about this shunning and said that, “to shun evil is understanding.” Shunning is an action word in which someone is acting on the knowledge and wisdom they have gotten, in this case wisdom from God. Job used fear of God as being the essence of wisdom and shunning evil the culmination into understanding. Fear (reverence) for God and shunning (avoiding) evil are two inseparable concepts. In Job 28:28 Job says “to fear the Lord that is wisdom and to shun evil is understanding.” The word “and” connects these two concepts. One is a quality a person has and the other is an action that comes out of the quality. The fear of the Lord opens my senses to gain insight and brings wisdom. Once I recognize what I need to do or change in my life as I fear the Lord, my next obvious step in the process is to act on what I have learned and shun any actions that point me in the direction of evil actions. As I do this I have full understanding of not only the truth that sets me free but my actions demonstrate my understanding.

On this journey we will need to have an open mind to hear God’s truth, and then put feet to those truths for wisdom and understanding to be ours in abundance in all of our relationships.

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Job, The Fearful Man

Posted on May 23, 2011 by James Gorton

Monday May 23, 2011

On first glance, you might be wondering what is so wonderful about the trait of fear in the man of Job. Often in our present society, it is not an enduring term that many people would want attached to their name. We sure don’t want others to find out what we are afraid of. I am not talking about this kind of fear that God described Job in Job 1:10 when he said to satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no-one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God.”. Later in the book of Job, Job is in the process of venting to his friends about his wows and speaks to this issue of fear when he says, “The fear of the Lord–that is wisdom.” (Job 28:28). We so often throw out phrases such as “the fear of the Lord” but I wonder if we stop and really take the time to meditate on what it really means. Job says that fearing the Lord is the essence of wisdom. If you want to be wise you need to fear the Lord. Solomon said in Proverbs 9:10 that “The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom.” So what does it mean to fear the Lord?

When I think of fear, I think of reverence or respect for someone. I have a fear (respect) of the patrol with a radar gun. I am fearful (respectful) of those who are in authority such as teachers, pastors, judges, parents, close friends, etc. Reverence or respect causes me to listen to what they are saying or to observe what they are trying to get me to do (observe the speed limits, understand an assignment, gain insight into a spiritual principle, etc.). Fear of a person causes me to open my senses to new truth and insight in my life and my future. Fear of God causes me to open my spiritual eyes to hear truth that can help me in my decision making in various relationships I come in contact with. The fear component gets my attention so that I can gain new perspectives of life and in turn gain wisdom. Teaching our children to respect authority early on will ultimately help them as they start their own journey with the Lord in fearing Him.

On this journey, it is essential that we have a healthy dose of fear when it comes to the fearing the Lord for the wisdom He can give us on this journey.

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Job, The Upright Man

Posted on May 20, 2011 by James Gorton

Friday may 20, 2011

As I was pondering this quality that God attributed to Job, I began to think of others that had the characteristic of being upright or being righteous. I went back to Abraham as he began his journey. Abraham was told to leave his homeland and his family and go to a land he did not know. Once there he was told to separate from Lot, another member of his family. He didn’t have any of his own children and was getting older. He begins to question his role and legacy with God. God asks him to look to the heavens and the stars and to count them if he is able. When Abraham looked to the heavens, an interesting thing happened to him. “Abram believed the lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:28). He came into right standing with God because he had faith in God’s ability to create and to provide. His trust in God caused him to be upright or righteous. Being righteous has nothing to do with ourselves, but only our faith in God.

When I pondered what the Lord said about Job, it began to make more sense. “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright. . . .” (Job 1:8). Job was upright because of his belief and trust in the God of the Universe. That’s why Job said, and said: “The lord gave and the lord has taken away; may the name of the lord be praised.” (Job 1:21). Because of his faith in God, he recognized that the Lord had control of all of life and trusted that the a lord was going to take care of this situation. He believed God and his belief or faith in God caused him be be righteous.

Blameless is something we have control over. Righteous is something that comes on us when we have faith in the God of All. On this journey where we put our faith determines our standing with the Lord.

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Job, The Blameless Man

Posted on May 18, 2011 by James Gorton

Wednesday May 18, 2011

When you think of Job in the Old Testament, what comes to your mind? A man who had a lot of sorrow in his life? A man who lost all of his children due to a tornado hitting the house where they they were all together celebrating? A man who lost all of his sheep? His camels? His servants? A man with sores all over his body? A man whose friends didn’t recognize him? A man whose friends came to support him in his sorrow and sat with him for seven days without saying a word? A man whose wife after seeing all these things said to him, “Curse God and die.”? You are right that all these things happened to Job. I tend to focus on the negative things that happened to Job and not look at the apex of the book of Job. There are several themes in the book of Job, but the one that sticks out for me involves how we respond to trials when they come our way. Our response to these trials begin to create qualities in our life that God is aware of. It was God who started the conversation with satan when God attributed four qualities to Job.

The first quality the Lord attributed to Job was being blameless. “Then the lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless. . . ..'” (Job 1:8). I have heard that being blameless is being above reproach, living a live that is free from sin. David in the Psalms said this, “I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.”(Psalms 18:23). In keeping away from sin, David saw himself as blameless. It is a life of attitudes and actions that are pleasing to God. No one can point a finger at us in our actions, behaviors, or attitudes and criticize us. A life above reproach.

Solomon gave some input to this quality of being blameless when he said, “The way of the lord is a refuge for the blameless, but it is the ruin of those who do evil.” (Proverbs 10:29). Doing evil is the opposite of being blameless. Being blameless involves choices we make every day in the way we handle our affairs. We have a choice in how we act at work with co-workers. We have a choice in how we communicate with our spouse. We have a choice in how we talk with our children. We have a choice in how we respond to someone who accuses us of doing or saying something wrong. In other words, we have control of being blameless or doing evil. Blameless is in our hands each and every minute we live here on this earth. God attributed the quality of being blameless to Job, a man of great self-control.

On this journey there are many forks in the road to choose to do evil or to be blameless. Choose wisely.

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Unsurpassed Control

Posted on May 17, 2011 by James Gorton

Tuesday May 17, 2011

When I hear the word control in relationships, there are a lot of negative connotations associated with the word that I have heard in counseling situations. I have heard the parent-child relationship being verbalized by a wife whose husband made all the decisions and didn’t let her have a say in the process of making decisions. I have heard the words being manipulated by a husband when he felt that the wife got her way by using direct or indirect manipulation and guilt. I have heard a teenager who has rebelled against his/her parents when they were too controlling. These I would, and I hope you would, consider to be negative uses of control and are detrimental to the connections of vibrant and healthy relationships.

This morning I saw another type of control that was used that had a very different feel to it, a very positive and comforting feel. In fact it was not just the kind of control the we normally associate control with, but it was expressed in terms of an unsurpassed control, a control that has ultimate power. In Job 1, the angels came to God and satan came as well. God started the conversation with satan and asked him if he had considered His servant Job. Satan knew of Job, but said to God that He had him protected from all sides and satan couldn’t get at him. God responded to satan by saying in verse 12, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Satan could do nothing to Job without God releasing his ultimate power and protection on him. His power was unsurpassed. To me, that is very comforting to know that my God in whom I worship has ultimate power to control and protect me. That is a very positive power that I want Him to have in my life. It means that satan can do NOTHING to me without God’s say so. But there needs to a side bar to this power. This unsurpassed power only works when I am connected to God. Jesus in John 15 states that we need to be connected to the vine in order to experience all that God has for us. When we are not connected to the vine (Jesus), we can do nothing and are on our own power to protect ourselves.

This truth causes me to put my TOTAL focus on God’s unsurpassed power and not be concerned whatsoever with what satan might be doing. Paul concludes Romans 8:38-39 by saying, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”. That is reassuring when we are connected.

On this journey, there will be times of trouble, but be assured that as you are connected to the vine, God has unsurpassed power to meet and take care of every problem you have.
Then Satan went out from the presence of the lord.

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Such A Time As This–Experienced

Posted on May 16, 2011 by James Gorton

Monday May 16, 2011

On Saturday, I jloged about Esther being put into a position as Queen of Persia to save the nation of Israel. She was willing to step up and risk her life to save her people. Being in a “such a time as this” does not necessarily mean risking your life, but being available for God to use you is a necessary attutude for being in God’s time table.

Well, I had an experience on Saturday that fits into this category and it was when Dean, friend of mine, and I were playing golf in Flagstaff. We were ready to tee off on hole number 4 and one of the pros of the club came up and greeted me as Dr. Gorton so I responded by asking him how his winter went. He said “terrible” which stopped me in my tracks. I wanted to continue to play golf, but his response forced me to asked what happened. Over the next 15 minutes (I know what you golfers are thinking that we would be holding up others, but there was no other golfer behind us for 30 minutes) he began to open up his heart as to the problems he faced.

Here are the facts of Chad’s story. He thought he had food poisoning and so he didn’t go the doctor for over a week. He was vomiting every half hour and his stomach turned inside out, literally. Finally he went to the urgent care facility and they said he had food poisoning, but he pressed them so they went further and found that his appendix had ruptured. They did surgery and cut 12 inches of his colon. Unfortunately they didn’t get it all cleaned out and gangrene set in. They had to induce a coma for seven days and did four major surgeries while he was under the coma. He lost 50+ pounds and was in the hospital for 82 days. During his stay he experienced a near death experience and saw the white light and blue sky, but there was a door that prevented him from experiencing this place of peace. When he came to, he realized that he didn’t have a relationship with God and wanted to and became a believer.

I told him that my friend and I were committed Christians and would be willing to help him in any aspect of his new path with the Lord. He didn’t have a church in Flagstaff, so I told him about a great pastor in the area and he knew the name, but didn’t know he was a pastor. God put us in the exact place He wanted us to be to connect with Chad. We would have never had the opportunity to hear this story if we were more concerned with playing golf over connecting with Chad. How many times have we missed opportunities like this because we are preoccupied with our priorities and are not sensitive to God changing our direction.

On this journey we need a sensitive heart in order to experience “such a time as this” situations, but the reward for being willing to change direction can be awe inspiring.

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Saturday May 13, 2011

Have you ever been in a period of your life when you sensed that God was impressing you do do something or to call someone? Have you experienced a time in your life when things were lining up just right and it seemed that you didn’t have to put forth any energy as the pieces just seemed to go together? I have experienced it occasionally in my counseling practice. I remember a couple of times when I was at my desk and had an impression put on my mind to call someone. When I acted on that impression, I heard on the other end something like, “How did you know to call just now. I was just thinking about you and wanted to talk to you.”. When I have experienced these encounters, I am reminded about a situation in Esther’s life that had a similar outcome.

Esther was chosen as the queen of Persia and Media. She was of Jewish decent, but no one knew it and Haman, second in command in the country, hated the Jews and especially Mordecai because he wouldn’t bow down to him. Haman got the king to sign an edict that on a certain day all Jews were to be killed. The edict would mean that Queen Esther would be killed as well and Mordecai, her adoptive father wanted her to try to stop it by going into the king and requesting a reprieve for all Jews. Esther was fearful of going into the king because she hadn’t been asked in for a month and if someone went in without being asked, it was death for that person. Mordecai responded to her by saying, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). She had been put in a position to effect change for the Jewish nation and the question was whether she would use her position to save the Jewish nation from being killed. She was there for such a time as this.

What about us. God has us in a relationship or a job right now. He may have you interacting with certain individuals for something He has in store for you to do. For Esther, she had to be open to being used by God to save the Jewish nation. Are we willing to do whatever He asks in our present position or present relationship to change that person or that position? Every day could be a “Such a time as this” experience if we are open to God’s direction and His prompting.

On this journey, there will be experiences that are God ordained if we keep our mind open and our hearts willing to do whatever He asks.

Posted on May 14, 2011 by James Gorton | Leave a comment

Unwavering Morality

Posted on May 13, 2011 by James Gorton

Friday May 13, 2011

I remember a night when I was on the college baseball team decades ago, and we were driving from the snow covered foothills of northern Colorado to El Paseo, Texas to play some spring baseball games. Two coaches were driving two of the cars and I was in charge of driving the other car. As you might expect all of the rowdy players wanted to ride in my car and the good players were with the coaches. I don’t know how the conversation got started, but these grizzly guys knew that I didn’t cuss and so they started pushing me to say a cuss word. Over the next 45 minutes I was grilled and cajoled into trying to say one cuss word. The more they pushed, the more I stayed pat in not saying a cuss word. I was raised by parents who didn’t use profanity and I learned to communicate without using it either. They finally went onto other topics and I was relieved that I was off the hot seat. I had one of the most foul mouthed player come up two me privately later and said that he really admired my stand.

I was reminded of this event in my life when I read about Mordecai this morning. Everyone was commanded to bow down to Haman, the kings second in command, but Mordecai refused to bow down. “Day after day they spoke to him but he refused to comply.” (Esther 3:4). He had a moral compass within and he was not willing to waver from that compass. The only person he would bow down to is the God he worshipped. No matter how many times they tried to persuade him, he refused to compromise his moral ethics. What are the moral and ethical structures in our lives that we are not willing to compromise? In the face of possible death, would we still hold onto our beliefs? Are we willing to communicate our beliefs knowing that what we say would likely terminate a valued friendship? What are our non-negotiable moral and ethical standards? Answers to these and other questions help us to evaluate what we are willing to die for. Mordecai was willing to die versus bowing down to Haman and compromise his value system and shame the God he worshipped.

On this journey, there are going to be times when we are challenged to go to the wall for what we believe even to the point of losing our life.

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