About Me

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I am a husband and a father and I pray that I will continue to look more like Christ to my wife and children each day. I pray that all that I do will be used to give glory to the Father and Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

True Faith

Menno Simons was a religious leader who lived from 1496-1561. He was a Catholic Priest who became an Anabaptist which means "rebaptizer." The Anabaptist were strong supporters of a believer's baptism, meaning baptism that comes after a personal confession of faith in Christ. The Mennonites (which I find interesting) took their name from him. Simons wrote the following words about what true faith is and what true faith does. I read this today and wanted to share it. It is something to ponder while trying to do the work of God.

“True evangelical faith is of such a nature
it cannot lie dormant,
but spreads itself out in all kinds of righteousness
and fruits of love;
it dies to flesh and blood;
it destroys all lusts and forbidden desires;
it seeks, serves and fears God in its inmost soul;
it clothes the naked;
it feeds the hungry;
it comforts the sorrowful;
it shelters the destitute;
it aids and consoles the sad;
it does good to those who do it harm;
it serves those that harm it;
it prays for those who persecute it;
it teaches, admonishes and judges us with the Word of the Lord;
it seeks those who are lost;
it binds up what is wounded;
it heals the sick;
it saves what is strong;
it becomes all things to all people.”
--Menno Simons

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

More Than Just a Tip of Your Hat

“Be careful how you live among your unbelieving neighbors. Even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will believe and give honor to God when he comes to judge the world.” --1 Peter 2: 12

When I read that verse I start wonder how the second part will take place if I don’t even know my neighbors. I think there is an implication here that we live honorable lives that point people to God and that we live those lives while having some relationship with an unbelieving world. The impact of Suburbia has many of us driving home in our neighborhoods, opening the garage door and closing it behind us and never knowing a single person near us.

For many of us it took a natural disaster like Hurricane Ike for use to make a connection with the people near us that we didn’t know. We shouldn’t wait until the next hurricane or black out takes place for us to do more than nod to the people around us. Because the fact is there is a spiritual disaster going on. We have lost people all around us going to hell and we block them out on a daily basis. Let’s get to know people that we are around. Let’s show them the love us Christ now, no matter how they respond. Peter says if we live that kind of life, those nonbelievers will believe and will give honor to God.











Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Take It Personal

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." —Revelation 3:20 (NIV)

Jesus wants a personal relationship with you. We need to ask ourselves if it is a real relationship that we have or if we are just going through the motions. When Jesus spoke the words above, he was talking to believers. So take your relationship with Chrit personal. Jesus Does.










Monday, April 26, 2010

Prayer

God in heaven, you are holy and deserve to be honored above all things.

I pray that the Kingdom where you are the supreme ruler over all will come soon.

I pray that whatever you desire will happen here on Earth to bring you glory just as it does in heaven.

Please provide for my physical needs and help me know the difference between my needs and my wants.

Please forgive me, and I ask this knowing that it requires me to forgive others as you are willing to forgive me.

God you know my weaknesses and I ask you to give me strength so I do not fall into my temptations. Use your strength to deliver me from the power of Satan.

Amen

Jesus gave us the great example for prayer. The passage above is my version of what Jesus said in Matthew 6: 9-13. Are you using this wonderful gift we have been given. Are you taking time to communicate with the Most High God?

The reason I bring this up is that I was reminded about prayer from my son Gideon the other day. We pray with the boys each night. We have Gideon spend time thanking God for whatever he can think of, which sometimes is a little funny. Example: “Thank you God for my knees, Thank you for my fingers. Thank you for T-Rex.” So even though it can be a little funny, we still want them to get into the habit of praying. We are also working on teaching how to pray at meals. The other afternoon we were playing in Gideon’s room and he was talking quietly. I couldn’t hear what he was saying until the end. “And thank you God for Jesus, Amen!” Yes his Amen has an exclamation point. He puts a lot of expression and excitement into his amen. I made a big deal out of this almost inaudible prayer. I called him over and hugged him and talked about how great it was that he was praying. I don’t even know what he was praying for, which is ok, because the exciting news was that he was praying.

This convicted me a little bit, because I realized that what I focus on for prayer life for my son is that he prays at a meal and he prays at bed time, but I haven’t worked hard at instilling the idea that he can pray whenever and I haven’t been a good model of that. Now I know that he is only two and I can’t expect him to have a 24/7 prayer life right now, however if I don’t start modeling the right prayer life he might give up his random mid afternoon prayer of thanksgiving that he gave the other day. I don’t want that.

A couple of years ago I started a book called Soul Revolution. I say started, because I never got around to finishing it. It did have some great stuff in it though. The main focus the author was getting at was the need for constant prayer. He asked his church and anyone who would take part in the challenge to try to pray on the hour ever hour. Just stop and take a few minutes to thank God for where you are and ask God to use you where you are. Ask him for his will for your life for that minute. I did this for a while and unfortunately have gotten out of the practice. But in such a short time of talking with God on a regular basis, I felt like there was a stronger connection. I felt his direction for my life. I felt more relaxed about my day and less stressed about the things I was going through even though they were stressful situations.

So I am going to, and I encourage you to, do a check up on your prayer life. Try to pray more often and see what great things God can do.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Serve God Anyway

Untitled Inspiration:

So remember, people are unreasonably illogical and self-centered.
LOVE THEM ANYWAY

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfishness and ulterior motives.
DO GOOD ANYWAY

If you are successful, you will win false friends and make true enemies.
TRY TO SUCCEED ANYWAY

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
BE GOOD ANYWAY

Honesty and frankness will get you nowhere, they make you vulnerable.
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY

People favor underdogs, but they follow the top dogs.
WELL, FIGHT FOR SOME UNDERDOGS ANYWAY

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
I’ve seen that happen.
BUILD ANYWAY

People really need help, but they attack you if you try to help them.
TRY ANYWAY

Give the world the best that you have, and you’ll get kicked in the mouth.
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU HAVE, ANYWAY.

--Anonymous

I have been spending time thinking about the meeting last night. If I had written the above thought and wanted to address the outcome of the meeting, I would have added the following line:

If you are called to serve God, some may tell you that you are not worthy or not able.
SERVE GOD ANYWAY!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

What would you be willing to do for...

A few years ago I purchased a book titled The Day America Told the Truth by James Patterson and Peter Kim. This book is rooted in an entirely anonymous survey which covered topics like morality, sex, violence, work, God, and other items. People were asked to share experiences and answer questions that would fall into these categories. Some of the facts are interesting, some are disgusting, and some are frightening because you realize you fall into some of the categories.

Here are a few of the findings that are disturbing.

13% of Americans see the Ten Commandments as even relevant
91% of Americans admit to lying regularly at both work and home

In the section “What you are willing to do for 10 Million dollars?”

25% would abandon their families immediately
25% would abandon their church
23% would become a prostitute for a week
16% would leave their spouses
7 % would murder a stranger

This makes us a little uneasy, so we comfort ourselves by saying well those are non-Christians. They don’t have any morals. But I think we are kidding ourselves if we think believers aren’t swayed by these same external forces. The other thing that is comforting is that we are fairly certain that this scenario would never take place. Who is going to go around and pay out 10 million bucks to see what people will do? Let’s all breath a sigh of relief.

The scary thing though is that it doesn’t take 10 million bucks. Greed and Lust have so filled our lives, yes even the lives of many of the faithful, that we are willing to throw away so much of our lives for such small pleasures. Families are destroyed because of affairs. Lives are destroyed when people, sometimes good people, bend the rules to make an extra buck. We need to prepare ourselves for these scenarios. We need to commit to doing what is right before we ever face the temptation. If we don’t we make it that much harder to not give in. We need to commit to living a life worthy of the calling that we have received (Ephesians 4:1).

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Cover Up

I have come to despise Axe Body Spray. Not only for their ridiculous innuendoes and quite often blatant sexual references in their ads, but also the product alone turns my stomach. The reason it and all other body sprays are so disgusting to me is that I teach 8th Graders. They believe they have mastered the cover up. Here is the scenario: A male student either fears or knows that they have B.O. so to offset this they use about ½ a can of this on their bodies to cover it up. This is no new phenomenon in the culture of the adolescent male. I will go ahead and confess that when I was in football in Jr. High, and then in high school when I decided doing extra bear crawls because some one else screwed something up was not the program for me and I landed in P.E., I also took part in the cover up. Now I claimed that I didn’t have time to shower, but the fact is I just wasn’t comfortable showering with 25 other guys at a time(another reason to stay out of prison.) We didn’t have Axe body spray or any others. We just had to use cologne and I used a ton of it. I believe at that time in my life I was wearing Preferred Stock by Stetson. Which if you ask me is a great name for cologne. I do wonder if they were referring to the banking/investment term preferred stock or if they were using the term stock to imply livestock or breed. I feel certain it is the second. “If I just wear this cologne I will be able to prove to a woman that I am the special breed of man that she wants to be with.”

Ok, off of memory lane and back to the reason for this post and that is to discuss the cover up. Does the cover up work? No! However for some reason adolescent males are convinced that it does. I try to tell my students that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I also try to warn them that Axe and B.O. combined just mutates into something worse than just B.O. It turns into B.B.O. (Beyond B.O.) and is much worse. If you use Axe spray or cologne to hide the fact that you need a shower, it doesn’t change the fact that you need a shower and quite often makes you need a shower even worse.

The reason I am talking about this is that I feel like to many people are living their lives trying to cover things up. We cover up sin, cover up failures, and try to hide who we truly are. As Christians we need to stop the cover ups. There is nothing I can do that will justify me. There is no act of love that we can do to change the fact that we need to be cleansed. The cover up is both hypocritical and Pharisaical. It is just whitewashed tombs looking nice on the outside to hide the death and filth on the inside (Matthew 23:27) Giving a list of things that we did to cover up the filth will not work. “Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.” But I will reply, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

Don’t cover your filth up. Let Jesus cleanse you of it all.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Questionable Aftertaste

"We still worship what we want our lives to feel like more than we worship Jesus. We still major on minors, debating whether the book of Job is literal or parable when we should be out there pulling people out of the rough stuff. We still spend more money on self-help books than we give money to help others. We have become a club--a clique. A group that is supposed to be a perfect picture of the Father--but instead just acts like a bunch of disgruntled orphans. And we wonder why no one wants to be a Christian...So instead of following Him we say we are following Him while actually following a combination of Him and our own Chaos. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong, but usually we get a mixture of the two. Just enough of God to make a difference. Just enough of ourselves to leave a questionable aftertaste. So the world sees that God is real, but at the same time something doesn't quite sit well with them about Him." --From Christianish by Mark Steele.

Friday, April 16, 2010

No One Will Ever Know?

I started a new book this week titled Christianish, by Mark Steele. The beginning of the book talks about the effects of calling yourself a Christian but living opposite of what we say we are.

“even a singular one who calls himself little Jesus, and yet lives the opposite, damages the whole caboodle—and in effect damns the whole world that is watching.” --Mark Steele


Do your actions turn people away from Jesus? Do your actions go against what you preach? I feel pretty safe saying that at some time in the future all of us will have to say yes to those questions. Here is the reason that I am bringing this up. Jared Wilson posted the other day about our private lives giving public witness. He gave some info that got me thinking. The info came from a study that said that the rate of in room porn rentals in hotels seemed to rise when the hotels were filled with people attending a Christian conference in the town. The statement that was a little striking was “They will know we are Christians by our porn consumption.”

I feel certain that when those people sat down in their hotels at night and rented their movie of choice they never thought anyone would know. And they went back to their lives when they left town and back to their spouses in many cases, and didn’t think anything about it. The only problem is that their private actions had a paper trail that tainted Christ. Hotel managers and workers who found out about this might have been left with a bitter taste in their mouths. All of the good mornings and smiles and pleasant behavior given by all of those people carrying their bibles out in the mornings don’t seem to matter as much any more. It all seemed like fake kindness to cover up a behavior that is wrong.

Now I am not writing this post to harp on those terrible porn watchers and how they have been a terrible witness for Christ(even though they have.) Really what Wilson’s post and the quote from Steele that I wrote at the top of this post made me ask myself is “What am I doing whether in public or private that could cause an outsider to have second thoughts about Jesus?” It should concern us that even our private lives bear a witness for Jesus. In one of Patrick Mead’s lectures that I listened to recently he talked about going on vacation and being recognized wherever he goes. He said he likes that because he is always being held accountable for his actions. If he acts in an inappropriate way, there is a good chance someone will recognize who he is because of him being a well known preacher.

Maybe we should try to live assuming that everywhere we go, people know we are Christians and they are watching to see what we do.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

What Does Your Day Planner Say About You?

Let me first say that I don’t use a day planner, nor do I keep a calendar, or plug in events into my cell phone. I tried to keep up with one for a while, but this is how it worked. I would go to the store at the beginning of the year and buy about 50 bucks worth of new inserts for my day planner. I would spend a couple of days trying to organize it and putting important information in it and updating the calendar to reflect important meetings coming up. Then I would carry it around and for weeks not update it. Weeks would turn into a month and so on. The day planner eventually became a glorified pen/pencil holder because that was all I would actually use it for because I had quit writing stuff into the calendar. Then I would misplace my pen or pencil out of it and I would just have this day planner taking up space that was used for nothing. Same thing would happen with my big desk calendars for school. Now I know people that it would drive them insane if they didn’t have their day planner whether it be a paper or a digital one. People ask me “how do you keep up with everything? How do you remember what’s coming up?” The answer is simple. I rely on the person who does keep a planner to remind me. Now I admit that this isn’t a perfect system and sometimes it has failed. However so far there have been no serious repercussions for forgetting so I haven’t changed my behavior.

Now I will get to the point of this post. I just finished a book titled A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. The final chapter of the book is on finding meaning in your life and work and it offered up a time management tool for the reader to check ourselves.

Step 1: Make a short list of the most important things in our lives
Step 2: Pull out your Day Planner/Calendar (or if like me you will have to use memory)
Step 3: Use your calendar and write out how many hours you spent investing into the most important items on your list.
Step 4: Ask yourself if the amount of time you invested into your most important list reflects that they are some of the most important things to you. If not make changes so that the time does reflect that.

So if I use this and say that my top 3 things are
1. My Faith
2. My Family
3. Serving Others

Does the time I spent last week or month reflect that? I’ll be honest. Some areas I think it reflects it, but other areas of priority don’t seem to be a priority at all. Check yourself and if you need to pray about it and make changes.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

What If?

It is a question we ask ourselves in contemplating the positives and negatives of a decision we are about to make. Sometimes it is good to ask this question. Teenager about to jump off the roof onto the trampoline asks himself, “What if this doesn’t turn out like I plan?” That is a good what if question. When Gideon and Josiah start to do things like this I hope they have these what if questions. If not we are going to numerous trips to the emergency room. Asking the “what if” question does pay off on occasion.

This Sunday in Bible Class a passage was used to define the sin of sloth. It was the parable of the talents. A talent in Greek is an amount of money. I believe I read that it was 75 lbs of gold. Brief overview of the passage: A master entrusts a certain amount of gold to three servants. Two of the servants make a profit for the master by using the gold they were given while the third was afraid he would lose it, so he dug a hole and buried it. You see the third servant asked the what if question. “What if I lose the money I have been trusted with and then the master gets angry with me?” So he does nothing out of fear. The master returns and rewards the first two servants. But to the third servant he says, “You are a wicked and lazy man…and now you must be punished.” Matthew 25: 26 & 30 FDV (Freakin Deacon Version).

What do you think the master’s response would have been had one of the servants tried to make a profit for the master but ended up losing it? Since parables are meant as a teaching tool and we know that the master represents God I feel like I have an answer to that question. I think the answer is Grace! That is what the master’s response would have been. I have had discussions with people that I am close to who are afraid of upsetting God and so they live and, unfortunately, worship God in fear. Now I am not saying we shouldn’t fear God and shouldn’t worry about upsetting Him. I actually think I need to have a stronger sense of fear of God in my life. What I am saying is that we don’t need to let our fear of God stop us from trying to do something for God. I have heard people say, “I think this is ok to worship or serve God like this, but in the back of my mind I worry, What if(There is the question again) I am wrong and I raise my children wrong.” The fear is that God will punish them and their children because he didn’t like the way they served and worshiped him. I just disagree with that type of theology. I believe God will honor the fact that we serve and worship him. The master in the story didn’t give the servants instructions on how to serve Him. He just rewarded the ones who did serve him. Don’t let your worship be defined by fear. Just worship. Also, don’t let your service be defined by fear. Just serve. Don’t refuse to do work for God because you are worried that you might mess it up. The parable above explains how God views the person who does that. “Wicked and lazy!”

I pray that we will have a healthy fear and respect for God and I also pray that we will not let our service and worship be hindered by the terrible “What if?”

Plan B

Pete Wilson is releasing a book later this year titled Plan B. On the Amazon page for Plan B, you can watch a video of Pete Wilson talking about his book and what it is about. In the video was this statement that I liked.

"I'm just so sick of this version of Christianity, where we feel like our entire theology can fit on a T-Shirt, Bumper Sticker, or maybe even a bracelet." Pete Wilson

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Piggies Dancing To The Rhythm Of God's Kingdom

Today Steve’s Sermon was on Worship and what that really means and on the way to lunch I had a little visual reminder of this. Gideon, Josiah, and I were going to pick up some drinks before lunch and we were listening to some Praise and Worship Music. Gideon yelled with a little bit of surprise in his voice, “Look! My piggies are dancing!” As I looked back Gideon was pulling his Crocs off and his toes were wiggling as fast as they could. I thought to myself that this is an image of what worship needs to be. Some type of action. And I am not talking about clapping hands or raising hands because we were reminded today and have been reminded other times that worship is not just a song. It is not just what we do in the church building. Worship is how our belief and love of God results in an action.

So I leave you with this. Has your love for God led you to action? Are your piggies dancing?

Friday, April 9, 2010

What's your verb?

Think back to your elementary studies on grammar. Verbs are action words. On a side note if you look up verb in the dictionary it is a noun, which is kind of funny to me for no reason at all. I know it is a noun, I just think it is funny that a verb is a noun.

I heard this in a sermon/lecture from Patrick Mead and had to share it. Look to Hebrews Chapter 11 (the faith chapter). You have all these statements of people of great faith. I won’t put the whole chapter here, just the stuff to make the point.

By faith Able brought and offering
By faith Noah built an ark
By faith Abraham obeyed and left home

And the list goes on. What does every one of these statements in Hebrews 11 have connected with faith? They all have an action or a verb. Their faith caused all of them to do something, and it was different for each person. But the point is they did something because they believed.

The question Patrick Mead asked in his lecture and the question I pass on to you is: What’s your verb, and where’s your verb? What is it that you can do to show your faith in God? James 2 reminds us that faith without works is dead. That doesn’t mean you are saved by the things you do, but it does mean if you are saved you should do something. There should be some fruit to show for it.

You don’t have to tell me what your verb is, I would actually prefer you not, unless God is really laying it on your heart to share. I just want to ask myself, and I want you to ask yourself what you can do. What gift do you have that will allow you to show God your faith. And we can’t try to cop out and say, I’m just not good at anything. The bible is clear that everyone has been given gifts. The post I made a few weeks ago titled Knowing or Doing?, had a couple of videos of Ed Stetzer talking about making disciples. One of the things he said was he studied the Greek meaning behind the word everyone in the verse that say everyone has been given a gift. He said if you look back at the original language that word everyone actually means…Everyone. Shocker I know.

Once you know what your verb is, use it!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Fresh Start

This month’s Book of the Month study from our church is actually 2 books which are 1 & 2 Peter. Yesterday I was reading this verse: “All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.” --1 Peter 1:3

This verse reminds me of a couple of things. First would be the song by Third Day, Born Again, which I love.


I am also reminded of Jesus’ meeting with Nicodemus. “Jesus replied, ‘I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.” This of course throws Nicodemus for a loop and Jesus goes on to explain that it is a spiritual birth not a physical birth that he is talking about.

Do you remember what it felt like when you accepted Jesus Christ? Or after your Baptism? Do you remember how coming back from youth camp you felt on fire and were ready to conquer the world for Jesus? It was a fresh start. You felt born again. And then life shows back up and Satan starts distracting you and the feeling starts to go away over time. Even though I feel I am doing better in my walk with God than I was a few months ago, I want to have that fresh start feeling. I want to burn for God like I have before.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Casual

The Barna Group does research and provide statistics and resources focused on the trends taking place in faith communities. George Barna has recently written a book titled, The Seven Faith Tribes. The title is pretty self explanatory, but it focuses on the 7 groups/categories that people in the U.S. fall in concerning faith. While reading some info about the book I saw that 66%, or 2/3 of the Adult population would fall into the category of Casual Christians. Here is a brief description Barna gives of the Casual Christian which is probably how you would describe the Casual Christian.

“Casual Christianity is faith in moderation. It allows them to feel religious without having to prioritize their faith. Christianity is a low-risk, predictable proposition for this tribe, providing a faith perspective that is not demanding…From their perspective, their brand of faith practice is genuine, realistic and practical. To them, Casual Christianity is the best of all worlds; it encourages them to be a better person than if they had been irreligious, yet it is not a faith into which they feel compelled to heavily invest themselves.”


I have been in that category. It was not too long ago that I was there and I pray that I don’t end up there again. This isn’t an attack on the Casual Christian. I am just thinking about what could be done if we could get the Casual Christians of the U.S. to take their faith more seriously. Think of the needs that could be met. More importantly, think of the souls that could be saved.

We have talked about ways to get people to move into action in several posts lately. I just wanted to share some numbers that might help us to move into action to help others move into action. It is a startling number of people that fall into the Casual Christian category. We do not need to view them as wrong because they aren’t doing enough. That makes us legalistic. But we do need to consider the impact of making sincere followers of Christ out of ourselves and others.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Hold Us Together

I love this Matt Maher song. When you are feeling low, draw close to the love of God and let us share that love with others so when they are low they also have something to hold on to.

Cool thought

Jared Wilson wrote a post for his blog a few days ago titled How do you know if your Jesus is too safe? I really liked his closing line in the post and wanted to share it with you.

"I hope one thing God saves us from is our desire to domesticate him." --Jared Wilson

We can't tame God's Wrath and we can't tame God's love. Maybe today we can pray to God to show us ways that we try to tame him and then repent from it.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

May The Tomb Be Empty And All Your Baskets Full

As we wrap up this Easter holiday I am reflecting on what all we have done for the past 3 days. We spent time with friends and family, hunted eggs 3 times, decorated cookies, & went to church. Over the last few weeks we read the Easter story to the boys and I tried to remind Gideon of why we were celebrating. I am however wanting to see more of a focus on Christ in the future. I am not saying that we won’t hunt eggs or decorate cookies, but I do want to put some memorable traditions in place to point my kids and me back to Jesus and what he did.

So next year I am wanting to start some of these traditions. I want some things to be just between me and the family. Some type of reflection time for us to grow together closer to God. I also would like to see some of our family friends to join together to create some awesome Easter experiences that will remind everyone of why we are celebrating in the first place. So if you have some ideas of things we could do, lets make it happen.

Friday, April 2, 2010

In the Ground

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” --John 12: 23-24

About 2000 years ago Jesus Christ explained why he needed to die. He needed to die to produce more life or more “seeds.” Think about that verse. If Jesus was the seed put in the ground that produces more seeds, what is the fruit of that? We are. We are the “many seeds” that are produced from Christ’s death. Now if we are the seeds, that means we have a job to do. We are also to die, as Christ did, to bring glory to God. If I will die to myself as Christ did, God can use me to produce more fruit and bring more people into the fold. Jesus explains that in the 2 verses that followed the verses from above.

“The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me, must follow me, and where I am, my servant also will be. My father will honor the one who serves me.” --John 12: 25-26

As we finish Good Friday and move towards Easter, let us ask ourselves this. Who am I following? Am I following myself or am I following Jesus? Is God going to be able to use me or am I unwilling to let go of the things of this world?

Thursday, April 1, 2010

And the Crowd Goes Wild!!!

“Meanwhile the leading priests and other leaders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death. So when the governor asked again, ‘Which of these two do you want me to release to you?’ the crowd shouted back their reply; ‘Barabbas!’ ‘But if I release Barabbas,’ Pilate asked them, ‘what shall I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?’ And they all shouted, ‘Crucify him!’ ‘Why?’ Pilate demanded. ‘What crime has he committed?’ But the crowd only roared the louder, ‘Crucify him!’ Pilate saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that a riot was developing. So he sent for a bowl of water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this man. The responsibility is yours!’ And all the people yelled back, ‘We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!’ So Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to crucify him.” --Matthew 27:20-26

There is only once that I have ever heard this story referenced outside of the Easter season. It was after the 2006 Texas Governor’s Race. Kinky Friedman had run as an independent and did not win. When discussing the fact that he lost he said something along the lines that he keeps reminding himself “the crowd also chose Barabbas.”

I heard this passage from Matthew referenced the other night in a bible class and it got me thinking. It’s a weird story. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Mark tells us Barabbas was guilty of murder in an insurrection, or an uprising against the government. Which might give an extra clue about why the crowd chose Barabbas. The Jews despised being under Rome’s authority. Someone willing to stand up to the Romans would be well liked by the rest of the Jews. That’s about all we know about Barabbas. So why does all of this happen? You can say that it happens because Jesus had to go to the cross to be offered as a sacrifice for us, so that is why it happened. And that wouldn’t be incorrect. I just thought of it a different way this time when I saw the text.

A man was found guilty and should have been punished. Jesus however took his place. Last Wednesday, I realized, I am Barabbas! And so are you. We are the ones that should have been punished. But Jesus took our place. I know I am not the first person to ever make this connection, and it may be old news to you. But when I saw it on Wednesday, it made sense. It was cool to see something in a way that I haven’t before.

I pray that as we continue to read, discuss, and try to live out God’s Word, that we will have more moments like the one I had a week ago.

New Study: Abide

Jared Wilson has a new study out from Threads Media. The study is Abide, Practicing Kingdom Rythems in a Consumer Culture. Based off of the study we just finished on Wilson's Book, Your Jesus is too Safe, I can only assume this will also be a great bible study. You can go to the links and read about the study and also register to win a copy of the leaders kit.