From Dark to Light

Jenny Slaver is an artist who has created a series focused on Christ's final days. It goes through the darkness of all the stuff through the crucifiction and then turns to the light of the resurrection. This video shows some of her work. I wanted to share since Easter is approaching. Let us not forget this part of the holiday weekend. The chocolate bunnies and especially the Reese's Eggs are great, but they are not near as amazing as Christ and the Cross.

My Problem With Church Is...

Dan Kimball in his book, They Like Jesus but not the Church, writes of 6 of the most common beliefs that young people outside of the church have about the church. Below is the list.

1) The Church is an organized religion with a political agenda.
2) The Church is judgmental and negative.
3) The Church is dominated by males and oppresses females.
4) The Church is homophobic.
5) The Church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong.
6) The Church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally.

We have talked several times about what changes we should do to bring more people into the fold and I think this is a starting point. I have stronger opinions on some of these than others, but these are what people say drives them away from church. The problem with that is because of these things we are driving them away from Jesus himself. So we need to change the way we approach the subjects above. I know that the issues above were all started with the church trying to please God but the result is driving people away.

What do we do? Quit giving the people church. Quit giving the people denominational traditions. Quit giving people man made ideology. Let us give people Jesus. A relationship with Christ will convict people to change who they are. It is not our job to pass judgment and try to change others’ convictions about what they should or shouldn’t be doing.

Maybe our comments on this subject can focus on the 6 things(in part or as a whole) and how we can change people’s perceptions of the church without compromising our faith and values.

Brace Yourselves

Some of you know this and many may not. But my freshman year of college, I joined a Fraternity. I am a Sigma Chi. For those that don’t believe it, yes it is true. Yes one of those kind of Fraternities. Not quite National Lampoon’s Animal House with John Belushi or Fraternity Row, but basically the same thing.

Ever so often I will get to feeling nostalgic and I will pull out my pledge manual and read through some of the material. I will quiz myself to see if I have the Greek Alphabet memorized still and how fast I can say it. I will go over all of those things that I had to memorize as a pledge 13 years ago and look at them. I think about what they meant to me then, what they mean to me now, and what they could mean if people lived up to these things.

I am sharing this shocking truth about myself because the other day when I pulled out my pledge manual, I read these words.

“...Friendship among members, sharing a common belief in an ideal,...

...and possessing different temperaments, talents, and convictions...

...is superior to friendship among members having the same temperaments, talents, and convictions.”
--from The Spirit of Sigma Chi

When these men started the fraternity, they looked at the differences in the people who had joined and said it is better for us to hold true to the most important ideals that we believe in while still maintaining individuality. “Different temperaments, talents, and convictions.” They felt in their differences they could be made stronger and more influential.

Even though this statement is about a secret Greek social organization, I thought of church. The missional church video I posted a while back mentioned this and Jeff has mentioned it in some of his comments. Our church looks the same. Our church acts the same.

What would our church be like and how much stronger could it be if we held true to the central ideal of who Jesus Christ is and what he did for us, while celebrating and encouraging the differences in others? What kind of people might start showing up and serving God? Think of the work that could be done for the Kingdom of God, if we would truly embrace the freedom that comes from Christ and allow people to serve with the gifts and convictions that they have been given.

Insanity

Dustin gave me a set of sermons to listen to yesterday. I started listening to them on my way to work today. I have some other things I want post about later today, but I thought this was a cool quote from the guy. It hits home the issue we have talked about being inward focused instead of outward focused. This is not an exact quote, just the best that I can remember it.

"If a farmer went into his house and threw his seeds all over the place and against the walls, and then went outside to the fields expecting a harvest, we would call him insane. But this is what the church does every week." Patrick Mead

A Feather In My Hat

This is just a thought that I had, and it is not an attack on anyone else’s motives. It is just thinking out loud, or thinking via blog actually. I wonder about serving the “needy” and what my motives are. For someone to take their Christian faith to the next level we quite often see people getting involved in feeding the poor, giving clothing to those without, serving the sick; basically giving care to the less fortunate. Now before I go on, let me say these are good and noble causes. These are causes we are commanded to do in the bible. Quite often when people hit rock bottom, is when they are most receptive to the Savior. Taking part in these things allows us to show them the savior at their lowest moments. So I am not saying that we shouldn’t do these things, we most certainly should. I just wonder why I might be drawn to these more than other things.

I wonder if it is so appealing because it is like an extra feather in my hat.

“Hey man, wanna play a round of golf Saturday?”
“I would love to but I can’t. I am feeding the homeless Saturday?”

It just sounds great and feels great and should feel great. I’m not even talking about having impure motives. Even for all the right reasons I wonder why I am more drawn to serving that way than I am to sharing with a co-worker the life changing truths of Christ.

Here is why I started thinking this. Let’s look at 2 people.

1. Homeless Man who can carry all his belongings in one bag and doesn’t know God.
2. Co-Worker with a good job, great family, nice house, and doesn’t know God.

Where are they both headed regardless of their differences? Spiritually speaking, my co-worker is just as “needy” as the homeless man. The point of this was for me to remind myself to see everyone with Jesus’ eyes. He can look at a very diverse crowd and have compassion because he can see all their needs.

I want to see the needs of the people and give them Jesus. Our speaker at the Family Retreat last fall said something to this effect. “When Jesus made all of his ‘I Am’ statements in John, he was basically saying, I Am whatever you need me to be.” I want to give the “whatever you need me to be” Jesus to everyone I am around.

Are we stuck

Do you feel like we are going in circles? I saw this quote from Ed Stetzer's new book Transformational Church, and I thought it hit home many of the things we have been talking about.

"...we sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that the Merry-Go-Round approach to church is enough. Keep everyone moving, the lights bright, and the music happy and you will get no complaints. The big problem-- too few are making any headway. Rather than missionary disciples for Christ moving out into the world, we have a group of happy people going in circles. God calls us to make a transformational impact on the world, not provide a carnival of frenetic activity for ourselves."

We need to make sure we are not content with going in circles. Let our lives show others that there is more to this life and this faith than the merry-go-round. Maybe once this book comes out we should all get a copy and study it together.

Butterfly Effect

I don’t know how many of you have read Ray Bradbury’s Sound of Thunder, guessing not many. In this futuristic sci-fi story, time travel has been invented. A company has used it to start a thrill seeking adventure of dinosaur hunting. Please hang with me to the end of this. I know many of you are getting ready to move on to another blog, but this has a point to it in the end. I am just using a story to set the stage. So the people that do this have to make sure that they do not do one small thing to change anything in the past or it could completely alter history. If you are not into Bradbury and don’t want to spend 20 minutes of your life reading this short story to find out how they do this and the results, you can always check out the Simpson’s Halloween spoof of this story. Homer’s dad gives him advice that if he ever goes back in time he must make sure he doesn’t change anything or history would be altered. While trying to fix a broken toaster Homer turns his toaster into a time machine. He goes back in time and accidentally kills a bug. When he returns to the modern world he realizes that life is completely different. He then keeps trying to go back and correct what has been wronged. I am including the rest of the video here for you to enjoy.



Now I am going to get to the point of this post. This sci-fi story gets its idea from the Chaos Theory. It is a mathematical theory that states is you change an initial condition of something even if the change is minor, it can have tremendous changes and outcomes over time. I must warn you that clicking on the link to Chaos Theory above could have negative effects. I started reading about it earlier and started suffering severe headaches until I passed out. It is far more complex than my mind works. Here is a quote centered on the Chaos theory.

“It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.” --Chaos Theory

I thought of this earlier today and I was wondering if there was a factor that I could change in my life, whether large or small, that could have a tremendous Butterfly Effect for the Kingdom of God. What if I could start just the smallest change in my life that would ripple out and affect someone else’s life, which would then continue to ripple further and further? Ultimately this could have huge impact for God and the case for Christ.

What do you think?

Pleasing God

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

--Thomas Merton

This prayer from Merton is beautiful. I came across it while reading Plastic Jesus a few years ago. I love and also believe the line "But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you." There is so much that we have wrong. Much of what we think we have right may actually be polar opposite of the truth. And that is exactly why we need God's Amazing Grace.

Let us strive to please God and praise God for the grace that will carry us through.

New Song

I heard this song as I was pulling up to work today. I of course was running a little late as most mornings, but I kept listening to it. I was having a hard time getting out of the truck while the song was still playing. It may not be new to you but today was the first time I have heard it and wanted to share it with you.

The song is by Among the Thirsty and the title is I'd need a savior. Hope you enjoy it.

A Break for a Good Laugh

Since we have been trying to solve the church's problems over on Dustin's Blog I decided to give us a little break, a pause, Selah, just for a little laugh and a little reflection on the thoughts below. Patrick showed me these videos a couple of years back and I thought I would share. They crack me up!

Knowing or Doing?

Apparently Spring Break slows down the blog world quite a bit. I posted only one post last week. There are several blogs I read regularly and they also posted very few posts for the week. One post that I was glad to see was Dustin’s post on change. It asked what changes do we think need to happen in the church. If you haven't read that post yet please check it out and share your thoughts. I would like us to have good discussion on his blog about chages that would be good for the church. There are several in my mind and I plan on going back and commenting more but one of the most important things I think needs to happen is church needs to be better about making disciples not just making members. The way we can start that is we ourselves have to become better disciples.

What is a disciple of Jesus? Let’s start with the definition of disciple: One who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another. We are good at the first part of being a disciple. One who accepts. I accept Jesus into my life. I accept his teachings. Now to the second part: Assists in spreading the doctrines. Not so good at that part. So we are good at knowing the things we need to do and not do, but we are not so good at doing the things we should do. To be a true disciple of Jesus I must also assist Jesus in spreading his message to the world. To do that, I must start doing and not just have good bible knowledge.

Knowing or Doing: Which one are you? Let's get out of the knowledge phase of Christianity and get into the doing phase. Will you join me?

Earlier today I came across these videos of Ed Stetzer preaching on Making Disciples. He is preaching to pastors and church leaders but don’t let that stop you from listening. The thoughts focus on what we should be doing in our lives. Here are a couple of quotes from the sermon that I really liked, but I hope you will pull up each of the two videos and watch them to see the full thing.

“We are leading our churches in sin when we teach people to know but not do the teachings of the bible.”

“The greatest sin in most churches is that we have made it ok to sit there week after week and do nothing and call yourself a follower of Jesus.”

Time to Clean House

In Dustin’s class on Sunday I was reminded of King Josiah and what he did as King. The story of Josiah can be found in 2 Kings Chapter 22-23. He became King at the age of 8. As they were rebuilding the temple a book of the law was discovered. In Ch. 22 verse 11 it says “When the king heard what was written in the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes in despair.” King Josiah then goes on a religious rampage. He starts destroying anything that was connected with the pagan practices that had been put in place over the years going so far as to executing the pagan priests on their own alters.

Josiah found out how his ancestors had gone against God’s will and he steps in to destroy all evidence of it and puts people back on track to following God.

I wonder if we should take the sins of our past maybe even the sins of our ancestors a little more serious than we do. So often I dismiss the lasting impact of past sins and how they still effect my life. Perhaps this is why I still struggle with the same sins. Maybe I need to be a little more forceful. Maybe I, like Josiah, need to execute my sins on the alters that I and my ancestors have built to other Gods.

“Never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since.” 2 Kings 23:25

It is so easy to be a Christian

It is in America at least, and especially today. I am not talking about living up to what we are called to do for Christ. As I study the implications of being a Christian, I am realizing that part is harder and harder everyday. But to live as a Christian in the good old U.S. of A. we don’t face too much backlash.

The reason I started thinking about this was the news of the attack on the Christian villages in Nigeria earlier this week. Around 500 Christian Nigerians in 3 different villages were attacked by members of a Muslim tribe. The attackers used machetes to butcher 500 men women and children to death. I don’t want to over sensationalize this event. There is a sense of tribal warfare that has been going on for quite some time. The attack was not solely because the people were Christians. But that does play into it.

I decided to pull up some websites about modern day martyrs for Jesus. We go about our daily lives and show up on Sunday to punch our ticket and have no understanding of what happens to believers in other parts of the world. People are rounded up and thrown in jail some executed because they have converted to Christianity. One of the Chapters in Your Jesus is too Safe talks about a man from India or Sri Lanka. I can’t remember. He was put in jail once he converted to Christianity. He was beaten severely. And then the jailers brought in person after person that he had converted to Christianity. He had to watch as all of the people that he helped convert get beaten. He spent more than a year in prison and in an interview he said something to the effect that his time in prison was very beneficial to him. He learned how to counsel people and help them grow in their faith. I wonder how many Americans could deal with that. I doubt myself. I certainly doubt that I would look at something that horrible and say that was very beneficial to me. “It did me good to get beaten regularly and to watch people I cared about get beaten, because I learned something from it.” Seriously!?

I have heard people talk about the persecutions that we have to face here in America. How many of us have faced any real persecution. Patrick and I were talking with some of the guys in the youth group about what might happen if you open up about your faith at school. The guys started talking about people would beat you up, and all of these horrible things that could happen. We asked them if that had happened to any of them or anyone they knew and of course it hadn’t. I came across this quote the other day and I wish I could remember the exact wording and who said it, but I can’t. It was along the lines of this. “Why do we work so hard at pretending that being a Christian in America today is so dangerous?” We have convinced ourselves of something other than the truth. I guess part of the reason for this is because the New Testament from the words of Jesus to the words of Paul, all the way to the end, it discusses the fact that people will face persecution for following Christ.

I guess the point of this post is to just encourage each of us to be thankful that we live in a place that allows us to practice our faith and remember that there are people around the world who don’t have that freedom. We should also pray that we will have the strength if we do face persecution so we can look to it as beneficial for strengthening our faith.

The image below is a map of the world. The areas shaded in yellow are areas that have restrictions against Christianity and the areas shaded red are areas that are hostile towards Christians and Christianity. For more info on modern day martyrs you can go to www.persecution.com or google Voices of the Martyrs.

Look! It's the Second Coming!

And unfortunately I am right in the middle of it. Of course I am not talking about the second coming of Jesus. I wish I was, or maybe I don’t because that is a little scary considering my admission to guilt that I am about to post.

The second coming that I am referring to being in the middle of is the second coming of the Pharisees. We have mentioned the Pharisees numerous times in the past few months. These are the guys who had perfected following the law. We know that Jesus had some very harsh things to say about them and we hope to never end up like them. This is frustrating considering the fact that it is precisely where I found myself this morning.

As I skimmed through several blogs that I follow and a few new ones that I found today, I was reading a lot of people’s take on church planting and what the focus needs to be. I started thinking about my views on church and beliefs that I have developed over the past several years and it hit me. In my heart I am a Pharisee.

Now I am not a Pharisee in a sense that I am proud that I follow the law so well and I look down on all the sinners and think what a pity. I will admit that I break the law of God like everyone else. The way that I am a Pharisee is the sense of pride that I have in the way I envision church and the things I believe the church should be doing. I criticize the church for not doing what we are called to do and I have a sense of pride that I have it figured out. I look at churches that I disagree with and think when are they going to figure it out like I did?

This is not to say that I shouldn’t seek spiritual growth and that I shouldn’t pray for others’ growth and understanding in the word and in their walk with God. I just have to drop my pride and do my best to please God. Even in the things that I am so convinced that I have right, I need to realize that I may be wrong after all. The Pharisees were certain that they had religion and church figured out. And Jesus showed up and said, “Sorry Guys, you have it all wrong!” Actually his words were much worse than that. I don’t want the second coming of Jesus to be like this. Trumpets blast, Jesus appears, and I say “Look at what I did Jesus! Look at what my friends and I all had figured out while all of those other slacker Christians had it wrong!” And then Jesus turns to me and says “You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”

I am guilty of looking down my nose at other believers who I disagree with and I fear churches are guilty of that also. We sit around in our pews and bible classes and bash other denominations, other churches, or even members of our own church we disagree with and we are completely distracted from what we should be doing: worshiping God with all of our being, especially our hearts. It is sad that even in our attempts to please God, Satan has stepped in and helped us (with little to no resistance) find a way to take the focus off of God and put it back on ourselves.

I need to quit trying to build my resume and portfolio for God and just build God’s Kingdom. No Pride Attached.

Father forgive me. I have been wrong and I have taken what was intended to please you and turned the focus to me. I thank you for your patience with me. Help me as I grow in my faith be humble as I try to help others grow in their faith also.

I ask this in Jesus Christ.

Get Up In Their Grill!

First off let me say that I am very thankful that I am a teacher. I spent Friday and Saturday helping build a fence at my house. I spent Sunday trying to recover. Hence the reason there has been no posts since Wednesday.

Yesterday Patrick mentioned a book that he saw that was about us being intolerant of the things that go against our belief. I believe the title is Be Intolerant by Ryan Dobson(Son of James Dobson). Patrick sent me the Amazon link to this book at my request and I started looking at information about it. I also pulled up the author’s webpage and read for a few minutes. The Amazon link that describes the book says this:

“Love is getting in people’s faces and tell them the truth.”

So what I have been thinking about since yesterday and through today is where is the line between sharing the truth with someone about their actions and being a pushy arrogant self-righteous offender who pushes people away from Christianity.

Now I don’t know the full direction that Dobson takes in his book. The description does mention doing this “in love” which I agree is essential, but from there I don’t know anything else that he talks about. So everything that I am mentioning is only a thought that came from this brief statement and is not to say that the book teaches something different. I don’t know what the book says.

The reason this has been on my mind is that I have been saying for the last couple of months that we need to be counter-cultural. We need to live our lives in a way and speak words that go against what the culture of today teaches. These of course were brought to the forefront of my mind through the study of Your Jesus is too safe.

When is being offensive ok? Is it ok as long as I am doing it out of love? Does love offend at all? Should I only get in the face of another believer who is doing something against God’s word or should I also get in the face of a non-believer and tell him he is wrong for doing the things he is doing.

I know we should show fellow brother’s and sisters the truth and we should call people out in love to do the right thing. Paul did this to Peter in Galatians 2: 11-14. Priscilla and Aquila taught Apollos when they heard his teaching that did not include the full gospel of Jesus in Acts 18: 24-26. In John Ch. 6 when Jesus talked about being from heaven and being the bread of life, many of his followers were offended and turned away and left him.

I guess the question we have to ask now is “Is it ok to get in someone’s face who is a non-believer?” I agree that our beliefs need to be vocalized. I am not saying we shouldn’t tell people we think something is wrong. I guess I am just concerned about how we can go about that while still trying to get them to accept the truths about Christ. I can’t imagine too many people have become believers by a Christian getting in their face whether in love or not, and telling them they are wrong. I believe too many people have turned from Christ never to return because of a believer bible-bullying them. I think we don’t do enough of the first type of correction (which is towards another brother or sister) and we do too much of the correction towards non-believers. How can we expect them to live up to a standard that they don’t believe in?

I guess this is where I stand on the issue of showing the non-believing world the truths of the bible and what we believe is right and wrong. We need to live counter-cultural. Our lives need to be a reflection of the standard that we are called to. We then develop real relationships in the world, even with “tax collectors and sinners” and live out our faith. I think we can do this without accepting everything that the world says and does as ok. And once we show them Jesus we can pray that they will accept Christ as their savior and will start to change the type of person that they are.

We need to let Jesus change people and realize that we can’t do it.

This post I believe is truly a ramble. A bunch of questions and not many answers. I would like feedback. Even if you completely disagree with my thoughts on it I would like to hear your thoughts.

The Church

I was reading a post from Ed Stetzer, about Church planting. I really liked this thought from him.

“The Church matters. It is God's agent of change for the hopeless. It is how He delivers transformation to a hurting world. Through the Church, God unfurls the banner of mercy and announces the kingdom of grace. He has assembled the Church to tell and model the most important issue in life--how to spend all of eternity with God Himself.”

He then goes on to say that the church appears to be on some powerful birth control because churches aren’t growing and multiplying. I thought this was a funny thought but a sad and true thought at the same time.

I think we do need to think of the church as a living, moving, and growing thing that is a force for good and God in the world. Each year I teach my students about the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening. For those who didn’t pay attention in your American history classes (As Patrick’s blog shared a few weeks ago), they were two major religious movements in American History. They were not a time when a whole bunch of people woke up at the same time. Spiritual Awakenings, not physical awakenings.

I just hope our generation will start another Great Awakening. That if in 100 years or 200 years or 2000 years, this crazy old world is still spinning and life is still going, I hope the people will look back on us and talk about the Spiritual revival that swept the world in 2010. I want us to be a part of that. Not for the sake of having our names in the history books, although that would be cool. I want us to shake this world up for God.

Give us clean Hands
Give us Pure Hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
God let us be
a Generation that seeks
that seeks your face
oh God of Jacob.

Pray those words. Pray for God’s direction in your life and how you can be a part of changing the world for God. While you are at it, please pray for God’s direction for my life. All of this blogging, reading, studying, and thinking, has me wondering about the role God wants me to fill.

God, use me.

Check Your Heart

Today I started reading for the study of the Book of James that was prepared for our church for the Book a month club that we are working on this year. Thank You Laura Dodd for your contribution for this month’s study. I read James chapter 1 this afternoon and a set of verses stood out. It of course is along the same topic of discussion that we have been having on this blog for the last 2 months, but this time it is scriptural and not just my long winded ramblings that makes the point.

“So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the message God has planted in your hearts, for it is strong enough to save your souls. And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don’t obey, you are only fooling yourself. For if you just listen and don’t obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you keep looking steadily into God’s perfect law—the law that sets you free—and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” James 1: 21-25

Our belief in Jesus needs to transform our lives into action for Jesus. We need to obey, and not obey part of the message or most of the message. We need to obey all of the message. Jesus showed us how following God is a lot harder than following the law. The Pharisees had perfected the way to follow the law. They turned it into a check list of items to do and not do to make sure they were pleasing God. And let us not forget that they were trying to please God. People like to criticize them and make them out to be evil, but they wanted to make sure they were following the law as they were instructed in the last prophecy that the Jews had been given. Malachi Ch. 4 lays down some harsh words for the evil people of the world and then instructs the Jews to follow all of the laws. So Jesus comes into the scene and tells the people they need to live to a higher standard. It is not ok to just have a checklist of right and wrong. The focus spreads to what our hearts are like. There is a passage from the Gospel of Luke that hits the idea of being called to a higher standard and also hits this same point that James made in the passage that I included above.

In Luke Ch. 6 Jesus gives the Beatitudes and then goes on to teach about loving your enemies and not judging others and then talks about having good fruit in our lives. All of these statements were counter-cultural. They went against the teaching of the day. And then we get to the knock-out punch. He hits with a jab, jab, jab, one right after the other and in verse 46 he hits us with the right cross that drops us. Or it should. It does me when I think about it. But I don’t want to think about it. I want some Osteenish make me feel good religion today. I don’t want to be knocked on my butt by this statement.

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46

I have said that Jesus Christ is my lord and savior. I believe that he is God. I proclaim to the world (at least the world that comes to my church with me on Sunday) that he is my King. And then Jesus comes into my life, looks at all of the garbage and says, “What’s the point? Your heart isn’t even close to where it needs to be”

Hold on Jesus! I do a lot of what you say. Isn’t that enough? Let’s look at the list Jesus. I didn’t do that, I didn’t do that, I did all of those things. Come on Jesus.

“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'” Matthew 7: 21-23

It is time to obey. We need to be transformed. I need to be a different man than before I met Jesus. Let us pray to recognize when we are living a watered down feel good version of the Gospel and ask God give us strength to change our hearts. It is hard for someone as wicked as I am.

A Must Read

This was a post from Jared Wilson yesterday. When I read it, I was really impressed with the way he approached the idea of surrendering to Jesus. I wanted to share it with you. After this line there is nothing from me, it all comes from Wilson's post Blaspheme Your Idols. (I just want to make sure you don't credit this brilliant thought to me)
__________________________________________________________

Blaspheme Your Idols: By Jared C. Wilson

This is another excerpt from my work in progress, the proposal for which is currently being shopped to publishers.
---

God’s love for you is aflame with righteous zeal and just jealously. We are to hate idolatry because God got to us first, loved us first, owned us first, before the devil and his demons made any false promises to us through our idols.

Gospel wakened people feel swept off their feet by their romancing God. (If you’re a man, and this sort of “church as feminine” language bothers you, you will have to get over it. This is how God draws our character. You will have to nail your machismo to the cross and stop thinking you’re more of a man than your Groom.) When the power of the gospel saps the power of idols from our veins, when we have really tasted and seen that the Lord is good, we are so smitten we can’t help but ditch every back door Johnny we ever messed around with. How pathetic they are! And how pathetic we were for ever giving in to their two-bit come-ons.

A bride joined to her groom forsakes all others. She writes the spiritual equivalent of Dear John letters to her idols. When God’s love captivates you, you go around spurning all your other lovers. I call this “blaspheming” your idols.

Blaspheme them. Tell them they have no appeal to you any more. Tell them you don’t need their damage, their pain, their anti-glories. Tell them you have no desires to use and abuse them any more. Tell them your heart, mind, soul, and strength belong wholly to God now. And then don’t speak as a lover to them ever again. Sinful relationships must end.

Am I being hyperbolic? Sure. You can do all this simply by virtue of worshiping God in study, prayer, praise, service, and across-the-board meditation on the gospel.

Reflecting on 1 Thessalonians 1:9 -- “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” -- Ray Ortlund illustrates the blaspheming of idols this way:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons. Our hearts are multi-divided. There is a board room in every heart. Big table. Leather chairs. Coffee. Bottled water. Whiteboard. A committee sits around the table. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. The committee is arguing and debating and voting. Constantly agitated and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with so many responsibilities. The truth is, we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, unfree.

That kind of person can “accept Jesus” in either of two ways. One way is to invite him onto the committee. Give him a vote too. But then he becomes just one more complication. The other way to “accept Jesus” is to say to him, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. I am your responsibility now. Please run my whole life for me.”

“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ray’s prescription for blaspheming our idols means telling them, “You’re all fired,” and recognizing the sovereign Lord Jesus as chairman of our thought life, our work life, our family life, our sex life, our recreational life, and our emotional life. In Chapter 7 on Inevitable Holiness, we’ll explore some more ways to intentionally de-idolize our lives. As the prophet says, “There are 50 ways to leave your lover.” But leave him you must. And don’t be too demure to slam the door on the way out.

--Jared C. Wilson

Mi Casa es su casa

Acts 4: 32-35

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything that they had. With great power the Apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them, for from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, and brought the money for the sales, and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”

I especially like the wording of the one my wife is teaching the kids. “Nobody said ‘That’s mine, you can’t have it!’ They shared everything.” I think that comes from the Message, but I am not sure.

I have had a couple of thoughts rattling around in my mind over the past couple of days and none seemed to manifest themselves enough to where I thought I could get it out on paper(or computer screen actually). Much of what I am facing deals with knowing that I should be doing more, but I am not. Which in my mind, is worse than being ignorant of the fact that I should be doing something more. Blogging about doing more for God is not really doing more for God! Or if it is, it is not enough!

Do I talk about needing to do more at/for the church, or do I talk about sharing Jesus with the lost. Both areas that I need to work on. The passage that I included at the top of this e-mail popped into my mind, while I was considering starting a post on another topic. So I figured it is what I should address first. And I am a little torn about it because saving someone’s soul from the Wrath of God, is far more important than taking care of a brother’s or sister’s worldly needs. Eternal Needs always trump Worldly needs.

Now that I have addressed my concerns over putting the needs of the church over the needs of the world, I am still going to stick with talking about the passage above. The main reason for it is that if we can live in a way that is counter-cultural to the rest of the world, maybe the rest of the world will be interested in what has happened to us and wonder why we are different. When we live in a way that makes them ask, “Why are you that way?” we open the door to tell people about Jesus. And we get back to what I think is most important.

I came across this passage again a month or so ago and Sarah Grace and I talked about it. I told her I wish the church could be like this again. It doesn’t say the people gave 10 percent to the church and the church helped some people. It says that they shared everything. AAAHHHHH!!!!! The communist democrats have somehow used the DeLorean and the flux capacitor to go back in time and influenced Luke (probably with some form of witchcraft) and caused him to include their socialistic agenda in his book. Evil! Evil! Rip out that page!

Sorry for that rant. No I am not. Sorry for lying about being sorry.

Back to the point of this post before I loose 3 of my 4 semi-regular readers. This is the church that was the beginning of the church. We have all (no matter what denomination) come from here, because this was the beginning. And this is the church that grew in numbers daily. Acts 2:43-47 says the believers shared generously with each other and that “the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.”

The church was living against the norm. It caught people’s attention and those people were then told about the life changing power of Jesus Christ. This was the church that was living out their faith in a new life.

I know that we live in a different time, and we have mortgages and college funds to worry about, and don’t forget saving up for the Wii. But I can’t help but think maybe this is part of the problem. Bills, college funds, and the Wii fund may be important, but we must not forget that they are only important from a worldly standpoint. Not a single one of those are eternal things. Who is going to really care that I got highest score ever recorded on Mario Kart. Especially when it comes down to taking care of others, and even more so when that taking care of others results in the lost being saved.

Our other option is to share our worldly things with the lost world directly. We can meet people’s physical needs to show them their spiritual needs. Either way we handle this we would be living up to the call to letting go of everything and letting God use it all to make an impact.

I would assume many of you are somewhat familiar with Rich Mullins. He was the Contemporary Christian recording artist who was quite successful who had an amazing career ahead of him. He died in a car wreck in 1997, what many would say, cut short the life of a great Christian singer/songwriter. Many of you may not have known this about Rich. He moved onto a Navajo reservation where he taught music to the poor Native American kids. The profits that were made from all of his music(tours and recordings) was divided up. He took the average income of Americans at the time for his pay ( which I believe was around 25,000 dollars a year, but I may be off) and the rest was given away to charity. He said this at a concert shortly before he died.

“Jesus said whatever you do to the least of these my brothers you’ve done it to me. And this is what I’ve come to think. That if I want to identify fully with Jesus Christ, who I claim to be my savior and Lord, the best way that I can do that is to identify with the poor. This I know will go against the teachings of all the popular evangelical preachers. But they’re just wrong. They’re not bad, they’re just wrong. Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken....”

This story hurts, because I know that I am not anywhere close to being that kind of man and I know it is true that Jesus calls us to give up everything and follow him. I think this is something that we should pray about. I know for a fact that it is something that I need to be praying about. I want to do anything within my power to serve people. I want to get over being selfish about my stuff. If I have something someone needs I want have the ability to recognize that need and give it up. I want us all to live in a way that shocks the lost world and makes them draw near us to figure out what is going on. And when that happens they can see Jesus