J.C.'s M.O.

Matthew 14:28 – Then Peter said to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you by walking on the water.”

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Jesus is so amazing. What got me about this story today is peters direction for Jesus. JC is out there walking on the water and Peter isn’t quite sure if it is really him or not. He thought it could be a ghost or some other spirit. So in order to see if it really was Jesus he had to do a test. This test shows us a lot about Jesus and the way his disciples saw him.

I have always understood this test to mean something like – if you can make me walk on the water then I will believe it is you. This would make sense, because only God himself could do that. But this was not the test that we see here. The test was one that checked Jesus character. It tested his personality. Peter held up his standard operating procedure and compared to the one he saw before him the test was whether or not he would call Peter out to him. Jesus was known for calling people to follow him, and this was the standard by which the disciples recognized him here. He has done the same in our lives. We can know that he is Lord because he will keep calling us to him over and over again no matter how many times we have gotten it wrong.

So what is there to learn from this? We need to be ready to be called to the uncomfortable situations of the world because this is JC’s standard. He proves himself to us daily by calling us over and over again. The truth is if you know Jesus you will be called to him. That is the way it is and it is a good meter to see how well we know him. How has he called you today?

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Lord help me to answer when you call. I want to keep your proven system working. Teach me to be a recruiter the way you were. I am willing to got to the uncomfortable situations with you. Thanks for calling me.

That's the Kingdom of God

Matthew 10:7-8 – “Go and announce that the kingdom of heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received.”

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One thing that I don’t do is announce that the kingdom of heaven is near. Is this something that we are still required to do? The only people we see doing this today are the homeless with their cardboard signs, and that is usually in movies. The homeless don’t seem to have the spirituality that they used to. But my question is what is the kingdom of heaven, and what is our responsibility to it? What should we be declaring to others. It is bad that I don’t know this? Anyone have any ideas on what the Kingdom of heaven is and what our responsibility is to it today?

Straight Priorities

Matt 8:21-22 - Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

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Ready for some debate? For those who read my blog you know that one of my goals is to read scripture in a fresh way. I don’t want to take any of my culture or my “Christian” ideas into it. Sometimes that leads to awesome discoveries for my walk, and sometimes that leaves me even more confused than I started. Case and point – today’s verse.

The majority of my life has now been as a Christian. One thing that the church has always taught is that your family should come before just about anything. We say that God comes before our families, but in practice he doesn’t, and for the most part we are OK with that. But I got to thinking today, does the Bible place family before ministry? Should it be that way?

May I suggest that perhaps we should place ministry before our family? I am not saying that this is right, or that I do this, I am just suggesting that perhaps we could make a case for this in the bible. The verse above is just one example of scriptures calling us to serve with Jesus before we take care of the needs of our family. Elsewhere in scripture we see Jesus allowing his disciples to leave their careers and their families to follow him. The real kicker is in 1 Corinthians 7:29 – Now let me say this, dear brothers and sisters: The time that remains is very short, so husbands should not le marriage be their primary concern.

What I think we have is a disconnect in our Christian world between love and action. Can we love the Lord more than anything in this world and not have time to serve him because of our family obligations. I am not ripping on anyone, but I got to tell you that I get this excuse all the time. I love my job but the hardest part of it for me is getting people to jump in and do ministry with me. I am sure that the bulk of the problem is my fault, for not being a good enough motivator, but this excuse is just tough for me. It sounds so noble, and I am not sure that anyone has been called on this before, but let me say this, - If you are unable to do the Lords work because your family is your priority, perhaps your family has a whole needs a new set of priorities.

Then there is the idea that my family is my ministry. That is valid, but it is something that we never see in scripture as far as I can tell. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that family is not important. My only thought is that most of us admit that God is more important. We need to align our actions up with that.

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Lord help me to not only love you most but to live for you most at the same time. I don’t want to categorize my time, I want to be a Christian all the time. Whatever you are calling me to do is my primary concern. I live for you first, help me to do that.

You be the Judge

Matthew 7:1 – Stop judging others and you will not be judged.

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I am not sure that I ever really understood this verse. This is one of those things that I read before and felt that I had a handle on it, so all I needed to do was make sure that I don’t become judgmental. To this day I don’t think that I am judgmental…to peoples faces. There is a fine line that I have to walk here too. I have Christian friends right now who are doing things that both of us know they shouldn’t be doing. I know I shouldn’t remain silent and let them leave the calling the Lord has on their lives. The new testament is full of people calling others on their sin.

I had to walk through this with some of my best friends. (you know who you are). On friend in particular was in a relationship that we knew was wrong. We had to tell him, calling him on his junk, and after that we became enemy-like. About a year down the road he came back to visit me, relationship over, and was repentant. It really stung to lose a best friend during that time, but the Lord has strengthened our relationship, and it is even better now than it was for.

But that is not what I wanted to say in this entry. I wanted to suggest that perhaps God isn’t the one doing the counter judging in this statement. Maybe I shouldn’t judge other people because in doing that I fall into the trap of pride and the endless cycle of judging myself by comparison to others. By that standard I am very judgmental. God has been dealing with me in this area a lot lately. I am very competitive and I am discovering that there is no trophy big enough. I constantly compare myself to others and when I feel that I am better than them I move onto the next person on the scale. Disgusting isn’t it. By doing this I know that I build pride in my life and am constantly judging myself, never reaching a level of contentment. I want the Lord to help me straighten this out.

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God thank you for your word being specific to my situation today. I no longer want to set judgment standards by comparing myself to others. Help me out of this cycle. I do it all the time and it is going to take work. I need your strength

Holy Spirit Led...

Matthew 4:1 - Then Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted there by the Devil.

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I had never realized that Jesus was led by the holy spirit to be tempted? I remember being taught throughout my childhood God never tempts us. I guess that is true but it seems here that he may as well have. He brought Jesus to the tempter himself. I am not sure if this is a Jesus only thing, or if God brings us to places of temptation. I guess we need to know why God did this for Jesus? I don’t have a good answer for that. I am not sure why that had to happen. I guess it served to make Jesus more human, in that he faced the same temptations that we face. Either way I haven’t ever felt like I was tempted by the Lord and I am thankful for that.

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I am not real sure what is going on here Lord, but the bottom line is that I know you are good and I trust your judgment more than my own rationale. Take first place in my life, and don’t let the temptations I deal with ensnare me.

Conflict Creation

I have the pleasure of preaching at my church a few times each month. I really have come to enjoy preaching, and I look forward to what the future holds in that regard. This last week I got to preach on a topic that was real fun. I spoke on Creation. If you have not heard the sermon I encourage you to take a listen to it. I had a great time doing it and although it was very different from most messages that I preach I was very happy with the outcome. I had several people approach me after the service and ask me questions, wondering why I said some of the things I did. I received a phone call to encourage me in my preaching, and I even heard that a few people were inspired to read through the passage again on their own time.

Then it seemingly hit the fan. Comments slowly began to trickle in that were contrary to the way I felt about my sermon. Some of the ones that I heard included that I supported the theory of evolution too much, I treated the word of God in an irreverent manner, I sarcastically supported a more traditional creation theory, and one person even suggested to a staff member that they didn’t think I knew what I was talking about. All of this has been third hand information, but it was discussed in our staff meeting today. I got to tell you the truth, I am frustrated by it. I am not really angry or sad, just frustrated.

In response to the third hand comments that I received, let me say a few things. As I listened to my sermon back again, I decided that I am going to stick with what I said. I feel like my theology was sound, and that I did a satisfactory job, accomplishing my goals in the sermon. That being said I want to work on some of those things that people said. My critics may be right that I don’t treat the word of God with the respect that it deserves. This is completely unintentional, but I will acknowledge that I want to be a better handler of the word of God. It is more valuable to us than silver and gold. My hope was to convey this in the message, but obviously to some I did not. For that I apologize. I want to be better at that in the future. I want to be better at this and I want God to do it through me. It is a constant struggle that I face to make Thomas decrease and Jesus increase in my life, especially in my preaching. I have fallen short in this area and honestly you get a lot of Thomas when I preach. I am a work in progress and my aim is present more of his word and less of my own with each passing sermon. So to those who were offended in any way by y sermon you have my sincere apologies. It was not meant in harm. My prayer is that despite my shortcomings you would be drawn into the word and fall in love with it for yourself. Even though Thomas comes through sometimes, I pray that you would still fall in love with Jesus.

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Lord, I truly feel like my sermon this week was on par with other sermons I have delivered in the past, and that’s a problem. I want more of you in my life. Too much of my selfishness and pride comes out in my sermons. Help me to fix that. I want to see you glorified. I pray that you would bring good out of this situation and would train me to be the preacher you want me to be.

I Want You

2 Corinthians 12:14-15 - I don't want what you have; I want you… I will gladly spend myself and all I have for your spiritual good, even though it seems that the more I love you, the less you love me.

This passage is rich with meaning. Paul is saying here that he doesn’t want what the Corinthians have, he just wants them and that he is willing to spend whatever he has including himself to get it. Despite his output however it seems that the Corinthians aren’t giving themselves to him. The point to me however is that Paul is willing not only to give himself, but also what he has for people, even when they don’t give back. I am not sure what is harder. I think for me it is harder to give what I have than to give myself. That all depends on what we mean by giving ourselves. I find myself to be far more greedy with my possession than with my personal time, but am I really. How often do I not show interest in others because I value my time more than theirs? How often do I pretend to listen and just say ah-ha, as people talk. Maybe I actually suck at both giving myself and my possessions, I have just trained myself to think that because I am a pastor I give all of my time to the work of the Lord. I need to love people more. (Have you heard me say that on my log before) Paul did not fear rejection he just loved people with all that he had. I need to do the same.

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Lord, help me to do that.

Godly People

2 Corinthians 9:9 – Godly people give generously to the poor.

Sometimes when I read the bible I tend to skip over sections. It’s not that I don’t read them, it is just that I don’t give them thought after I have read them. What that is really doing is handcuffing the word of God. It strips it of all its power. It takes away its ability to transform my life. So often I look into the mirror and don’t change my appearance metaphorically speaking. This verse is a great example. I read 2 Corinthians 9 today and it was one of those “Great what am I going to blog about” days. I started meditating on this verse above and it hit me like a rock. The God’s honest truth that I don’t give generously to the poor. I may have a couple of times in my life, but it is not a regular habit in my life. My lifestyle therefore is not that of a Godly person.

As I write this I am thinking about how my life is going to change. Should I go out there, leaving my wife and daughter to be at home, and give away the money we are saving for a home? I have to confess that I just had the thought that I would write this and change nothing about my life. But something has to change, or I am as foolish as that guy in the mirror. What is the Christian response to giving in this day and age?

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Here’s the deal God. I can’t give everything I have to the poor. I can give generously. I can’t give to every poor person I see, but I can give to a few. Give me opportunities to prove my godliness in this way, and I hope not to fail you. You are worth it.

The Perfect Place

Well we found it. I am just not sure that it will choose us. We went to look at condo's today and found one that we absolutly loved. It is in the right neighborhood, the right complex, has all the right amenities, and would be perfect for my little starter family. The problem: It is priced right at our limit. No flex room at all and the tendency here in sonoma county is for houses to go for right at, and sometimes higher than their asking prices. We can't do that. We like this place very much and want to put an offer, but it is so nice tha we are scared that someone will swoop in with a higher offer and snag it. So we are praying. I would appreciate it if you would pray with us. I am praying that it would stick at that price or that God would take us elsewhere, and have another place for us. He is all I want in this life (or at least all I want to want) so I trust him in this matter, but your prayers will help.

obsession

1 Corinthians 7:1 - With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends, let's make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without. Let's make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God.

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The promise that Paul is speaking of here is one of relationship with the Lord. But the promise is conditional. It requires an separation from the things that cause us to stumble. So Paul continues his case by calling us to get away from not only things that defile us but even things that distract us. If we truly desire this relationship we would do exactly that. But alas, I do not. I am easily distracted. I have what my wife (and previously my mother) call an addictive personality. ( I realize that the previous parenthetical statement could be read in one of two ways. To clarify my mother and my wife are two separate individuals. Hopefully you can ascertain the meaning given this truth) I quickly become obsessed with seemingly benign interests. I have been known to partake in a casual video game which sends me down a 4 month spiral of playing every worthwhile game released in the past 2 years. In that time I will go to video game web sites, read video game news letters, even spend half an hour playing video game demos in wal-mart like a 6 year old. I realize it is quite pathetic. But I do this with so man things in my life. Baseball/Baseball cards, Football, guitars, music, Mexican food, anything I could call an interest, quickly becomes an obsession or me. Some of these things can even be healthy. For the first few months I was blog obsessed. This was good because I felt like God was showing me a lot, and that I grew in relationship with a bunch of people in that time. I have even been addicted to bible and other Christian book reading. Not necessarily a distraction, or is it?

It can be. I wish I wasn’t so obsessive.

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God you made me thins way. My theology tells me it wasn’t on accident. It has the tendency to separate us, but I know it doesn’t have too. I pray that you would be the object of my obsession. That I would run to you with all my free time. I am not even close. Help me to get there.

Sad

I am not sure where I am going with this entry, but hopefully by the end I will have figured it out. I heard a story that was so deeply impacting yesterday that I felt I needed to address it in blog form, even though I don’t know why I am so deeply affected by it.

Last night I went to one of our churches small groups. There were about 12 people there and I was just there to support the leaders, letting them know that what they are doing is worth while. One of the people at the group was a guy named Greg. I had first met Greg on Sunday morning. When I first saw him he appeared to be mentally handicapped. His eyes were fluttering up at the top of his eyelids, and he had the look that he wasn’t all there. As I walked up the ramp after church I got to meet him. Turned was quite intelligent, and blind. He was a really outgoing sweet guy. You may think it is wrong to say this, but I have met a lot of handicapped people who aren’t sweet people. They have this –mad at the world- thing going on. I have been yelled at by handicapped people for not helping them with doors and the like. Greg was not one of these guys. That day Greg and I exchanged pleasantries and were on our separate ways.

At the group meeting last night Greg was a great asset. He was talkative and friendly. Your role model group member. After the meeting we were hanging out and I decided to strike up a conversation with Greg. I have never been one to gingerly approach the handicapped. I think they must be frustrated with all the people out there pretending that they don’t notice that they are handicapped. So I approached the subject immediately. He reintroduced himself, and I did the same and asked him if he was good with voices. He said he was. That always amazes me when the blind can recognize everyone by their voice. I saw that he was open about his disability by asking that first question, so I asked him another. “Were you born blind?” He told me that he had been blind for about 15 years. So my obvious next question was “What happened.” His answer floored me.

I am not sure what his exact words were, but I could tell that he was embarrassed to give his reason. He stuttered through the reason: He shot himself trying to commit suicide and lost his eye sight. I didn’t know how to respond. I have heard about how frustrated people become when they fail at committing suicide. They all ready feel like failures, and now they fail at something that seems so simple, taking their own life. For Greg there was even further consequence to this scenario. Not only did he want to die, and fail at killing himself. He now had to live the rest of his life knowing that he handicapped himself. His wife then left him; he lost his job, his kids, his house. As if he wasn’t feeling bad enough all ready.

I am not sure what it is but I don’t think there are stories much sadder than that one. I am still not sure what the bigger picture is, or what the lesson is or even why I wrote this. I am just processing, and this time there is no conclusion. I am tempted to stick a cliché in here like – “life isn’t fair” – or – “win some you lose some” but I won’t (So disregard those last two clichés). I am rocked by this story and I am sure that it will be a sermon illustration some day, jut not yet.

Self Exam

2 Corinthians 5:15 - He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live to please themselves. Instead, they will live to please Christ, who died and was raised for them.

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This passage flies right in the face of the way that I live my life. I feel like I try to live my life by both of these paradigms, and surprise surprise it doesn’t work as well as I would have hoped. I am ashamed to say that I live to please the Lord, because that pleases myself. And I don’t mean that in a “It gives me joy to serve the Lord” kind of way. I mean something that I have confessed to many times on this blog. I serve the Lord often because of what I get out of it. Whether that be personal satisfaction, praise from man, or anything else, I need to regularly check my motives. I want to live to please the lord exclusively and let the bi-products be exactly that – bi-products.

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Lord don’t let me use you. I want my heart to be pure before you. I want to please you because you are worth it. Help me to be more honest with myself and have a better eye for my true motives.

reflecting glory

2 Corinthians 3:18 - And all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more.

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This is a fantastic analogy that I don’t recall ever reading before. I know I have but it never really stood out like this before. What a great way of explaining worship as a lifestyle. Singing songs only does so much, but if we were to reflect the glory of God with our lives we would radiate worship. That is what my desire is to do. Enough Said.

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Lord I want to be a better worshipper. Help me to radiate your glory. I want to be more like you and I mean that now more than I normally do. Sometimes I just say that, and it has become familiar to me. I am sorry. I want to be more like you so that I can reflect your glory better for others. Remind me of that constantly.