Modern Parables-Demons

Demons

Hello all, it's been quite the hiatus since I posted last. I would give you excuses on being busy or that it was the end of the semester, but I have still failed to post regardless of those. SO I'll start by saying that I'm very sorry for not being consistent or posting as often as I said I would. Thank you for following the link, and I hope that you enjoy what you read. It feels good to write again and I believe it's a solid message to come back to.

In the fall semester of my sophomore year of college I had started attending church a small amount. Only if someone woke me up and dragged me would I go. My girlfriend at the time saw this and she thankfully took me to a special event that her church was having called "Going to the Movies." It was an event where they would show clips from modern movies, and then tie this to a biblical message. All of this to say that this idea is not totally original, but instead of movies as modern parables, I've been led towards using songs instead. This will be the first of four posts in this series.

Our first song is called Demons by Imagine Dragons. Now simply from the title of the song you can guess that there could be some deep issues talked about. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, you can listen to it here at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqI78S14Wgg

This song will parallel right alongside an individual that Jesus met in his journey named Zacchaeus. His story can be found in Luke 19:1-9. 

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Zacchaeus was a tax collector, which made him a hated man among most of society because it meant that he cheated and robbed people on a daily basis. Our song this week describes a man who is trying to hide his flaws from someone that he cares for. He uses the line, "I wanna hide the truth, I wanna shelter you, but with the beast inside, there's nowhere we can hide." The song and Zaccheaus have something that we can all grasp onto, we aren't perfect. 

So often we try to live this spotless life, and we get so upset with ourselves when we fail. We don't understand how we could be loved when we have so many flaws. Zaccheaus was the last person that Jesus should have desired to have dinner with, and yet we see Jesus pick him out of the crowd before his act of faith. The song paints a picture of despair because he feels that he has let down the one that he cares for. There is hope though.

What does Zaccheaus do as soon as Jesus decides to come to his house? He has an amazing act of faith. Jesus changes. He states, "Salvation has come to this house." The song does not bring a message of hope though, it states that "No matter what we breed, we still are made of greed, this is my kingdom come." He falls into a despair that he is going to be stuck the way he is. Jesus is better than this though. Jesus is bigger than whatever despair you have that is holding you back. There is no past relationship, there is no home situation, there is no addiction that Jesus can't heal. There is no hurt that He can't mend. 

Zaccheaus should have given up, he should have taken the approach of just embracing his "demons" inside. But he didn't, and we get to see the benefits of it. By simply having a desire to see Jesus and act on it, Zaccheaus becomes a changed man, and so can you. All it takes is accepting the love that Jesus gave us on the cross.

Thank you for reading and God bless. 

Sensory Overload

Sensory Overload

Let me start today off with an apology. It has been a week and a half since I posted and I am sorry for the time gap, I promised a weekly post and I failed to deliver. Thank you for coming back though, I'm so excited you decided to click on the link and come here. Today is about taking scripture and maybe seeing it in a different light. 

The passage for the week is found in 1 Kings 18:20-40, now it is super long and so I am not going to post it here exactly. Here is a link that you can read it at though: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2018&version=ESV For those of you who don't feel like following the link, let me summarize very quickly what occurs in this passage. A man named Elijah is a prophet of God, and the evil king Ahab has decided to challengethe fact that Elijah is truly a prophet of God. So Elijah being the clever man he is decides to have a showdown between the God of Israel and the god of Ahab, Baal. 

They meet on top of Mt. Carmel under these terms, two bulls will be chosen and prepared for sacrifice. They will put the bull on an altar but not set it on fire. Whichever God answers by calling down fire on the sacrifice must be the true God. An important note is that Elijah is the only prophet for his God, but Baal has 450 prophets. Baal is up first and his prophets do the preparations and start signing and dancing calling down for fire. Nothing happens. Elijah pokes fun at them and throws some sarcastic comments their way while this occurs. The prophets of Baal then start cutting themselves, as was their tradition. Still....nothing happens. After a few hours of this, Elijah steps up and says that it is his turn. He builds his altar and then digs a trench around it. He pours about 14 liters of water on his offering, and decides it's not wet enough. So he does it again, and again. After all of this water is on the sacrifice, he calls up to God. He answers. A pillar of fire comes down from heaven and burns up all of the water and the bull. Winner=God of Israel.

Now this may be a story that some are familiar with, but maybe some are not. Now here is where we are going with today, sometimes we hear the stories of the bible so many times that we become complacent to them. We become hardened against the wonders that the bible holds as these don't seem relative to us. Imagine if you were there though. We are going to walk through the story a little differently. Just like you are experiencing where you are right now, using your senses.

What would we smell if we were there? I imagine people are sweaty. There are two bulls being slaughtered for sacrifice. I've never been around a dead bull before, but if it sat out in the sun for hours I can't imagine it smelling too pleasant. 

What would we taste? Sweat rolling off your lip as you watch this process occur. It doesn't mention people bringing food to this instance, I can image that I would be picturing what had I eaten for breakfast that day, what was I going to eat for lunch? 

Touch? There are tons of people gathered around for this. The god that they worship has just been called out by this man. He calls them liars in essence because they worship something that's not real. People are crowded on top of Mt. Carmel. I can even imagine trying to push through crowds trying to find a better vantage point to see. 

Hearing would be huge. There are 450 people dancing, screaming, and cutting themselves right in front of you. I picture people cheering for their favorite musician before they come on stage for a concert. Only the performer would never show for these priests. Crowds laughing at Elijah's taunts to the priests. People questioning why Elijah is pouring water on his sacrifice. How foolish of him to wet his sacrifice if he wants it to burn. The insults and the shame being thrown at Elijah.

Then we see it though. We see literal fire fall from the sky. No small amount either! A pillar of fire comes down and consumes this sacrifice! I'm sure we can feel the heat as this massive wonder appears in front of our very eyes! God has been called upon and we SEE Him answer. How amazing would it be to see God answering with a pillar of fire in front of your very eyes. 

You see the bible isn't just a collection of stories. Someone didn't write these out of fiction deciding that the people of today should have another book to read when they finish Harry Potter. No, these are real stories lived out by real people. By putting ourselves in the story and trying to imagine how it was in their time, we can more easily see how these lessons apply to our lives today.

Thank you for reading and God bless. 

Disguise

Disguise

 Ephesians 2:8-10

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Our passage this week discusses an idea that all of us will face at one time in our lives, or maybe you are going through it right now. This passage and this message apply to you, no matter who you are, because we are each made in the image of God. If you stop reading right here and see nothing else, I want you to know that God loves you and carefully designed every aspect of what makes you you. 

This weekend I attended a convention in Atlanta and people dressed up for this convention in extremely elaborate costumes. It was quite an experience to see and be around as you saw people not responding to their real names but rather to the names of the characters that they had dressed up as. All weekend I got to see people be so comfortable in the skin that they were wearing it gave the entire city a sense of self confidence that I have not seen in many places before.

I was reminded of this passage in Ephesians, as it discusses that we are God's workmanship. God put careful time and thought into each of our lives. He allowed us to all be a unique individual that is a part of the incredible whole of humanity. Yet I had to ask myself why I don't receive this same sense of confidence everyday as I did this weekend at the convention. 

Why was it that walking around with fantasy characters seemed more comfortable than walking around my own college campus. That's when the truth really sunk in, comfort. It seems that in today's world we have no comfort. There is some flaw in each of us that we hold onto, whether it be our looks or our personality, something is always holding us back. We can't seem to shed the discomforts of the flaw, and thus we aren't able to be comfortable in the wonders God has blessed us with. As verse 8 mentions, it is not by us that we have achieved this. It is a gift, God didn't have to make us fearfully and wonderfully made. God could have made us all average humans who just mindlessly turn around and praise Him. 

That wouldn't be love though, that wouldn't be a choice on our part. You see I firmly believe that God has made each of us incredible so that in the end we see we are reflections of an even greater God. Verse 9 even states this, so that no man may boast. So what is it? What are you holding onto right now that is denying your vision of being made in God's masterpiece. You see a masterpiece isn't put underneath a blanket. The Mona Lisa isn't sitting in a closet, it's out on display for all to see the wonderful work that was created.

God calls us to do the same. Now once again, I'm not telling you the bible wants you to walk onto the street corner and say, "Everyone look at me! I'm so incredible and oh yeah God made me too." That would be awkward and people might throw things at you, but rather embrace the fact that you, in your entirety, were created by a marvelous God.

I'll close with this idea, some of you may think to yourselves I don't know how I could be God's workmanship. I've failed too many times, I've done too many bad things, I'm not a good person. I've let God down and I don't know how I could ever be a reflection of Him. The Skit Guys used this phrasing exactly in their skit God's Chisel: "'I let you down so many times God.' 'No my child, you were never holding me up. I hold you up with my victorious righteous right hand. Never forget that, in this relationship I hold you up.'" He holds up His masterpiece, we just have to be willing to accept His love. 

Thank you for reading and God bless.

Unwritten

 

Unwritten

Hey! Welcome back, it's good to have you this week. I've been trying to come up with something to blog about for a few days now, trying to find a lesson that needed to be taught right now. I really wanted to focus on something in the Old Testament because we have been focusing on the New Testament quite a bit. The more I tried to limit it though, the more difficulty I had. Putting a limit on God never works out for us, and actually led me to today's passage. 

It's found in John 21:25:

²⁵ Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

This verse is located as the last thing that we read in the gospels. The last book of the bible that is explicitly about Jesus, retelling His life story and this is what John leaves us with.  We have seen four straight books of the wonders and works that Jesus has been able to do, and John gives us the closure that we need not that we want.

How many of you have ever read a book or seen a movie before that you just wish didn't have to end. You came to the end and it didn't seem real or right that the movie was ending. For me it was a tv show called Boy Meets World. I grew up watching this show, and when it came to an end after seven fantastic season, I can remember the tears flowing down my face. This seemed to be a natural reaction. My journey alongside the characters in this show had come to an end.

We seek definition. These things go on in our lives we want to know that there is more to the story. By adding an ending to something the mystery goes away. The human mind seeks things to end so that it can better understand and gain a grasp of the situation. If something doesn't end and one doesn't know the details, then curiosity can grab the better of that person. 

So why doesn't John allow us to have an end? Because we are supposed to wonder. When someone tells me just a slight something about a particular place or thing, I make it my job to try to learn everything that I can about this place or thing. You see it would be easy for us to close the book of John up and say that Jesus was such an incredible man and He did so many great things. However we wouldn't be giving Him the honor and glory He deserves. Jesus hasn't finished His work yet. He is coming back, and that is why it is unwritten. 

Jesus called us to act, now. He called us to love, now. He called us to be His hands and feet, to carry out His work while He was away. You see by losing the wonder of Christ, by forgetting that His work, His story, is not yet finished we can move on easily. I no longer worry about what is going to happen to Harry Potter, because it is finished. I don't have to worry about what happens to Frodo Baggins because his story has ended. 

Jesus hasn't finished yet. There is still a world out there that needs His love and affection. Until all have seen His love, Jesus will never be finished. His story is still being written at this very moment, the question is....what will you help contribute to it? 

Thank you for reading, and God bless.

Look Again

Look Again

Good Evening! Thank you for coming today, I want to warn you that there is a lot of scripture reading tonight. It will be a lengthy post today, but I pray that you will be as excited to walk down this path as I was when I first had it shown to me by my youth pastor when I was in high school.

Let's Go! Our passage is found in Mark 15:33-39

³³ At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. ³⁴ And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
³⁵ When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
³⁶ Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
³⁷ With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
³⁸ The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. ³⁹ And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

Now what we are reading here is Mark's account of the death and crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God, was sent by God to earth to take on sin and die as the ultimate sacrifice for all of humanity. That is a huge task to undertake and sometimes we forget that Jesus was 100% man and it would be a struggle to walk into something like this. In fact, the night before Jesus is taken He asks God if there is any other way that this can happen. 

Now this passage contains something unique that a lot of people like to hold onto. Jesus cries out to God in pain and says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It's a question that we often ask ourselves, how in these dark times does it feel like God has abandoned us. This is even more extreme though, it appears as if God has abandoned His own son! What chance do I have if God has abandoned His own son? I mean no wonder the man cries out in pain, His Father has LEFT Him. Jesus is bearing the weight of all sin from humanity and He has no God to support Him.

But what if Jesus wasn't doing this? WHAT IF Jesus wasn't upset with His father for what was going on? WHAT IF there was a bigger picture? You see Jesus knew that His father could not be with Him in that moment. God in order to remain perfect and whole has to be absent from sin. He can't have sin be part of His being, it would make Him imperfect. Jesus asked for another way not because He didn't want to be crucified or die, but rather because He didn't want to be cut off from His father. 

In Habakkuk 1:13 the Bible states that "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness." Jesus knew that God couldn't have sin with His being, which is why He had to be cut off in this moment. We are cut off from God now until we reach heaven and shed this sin filled bodies. SO STILL WHY DOES JESUS MAKE THIS STATEMENT??? He knew it was coming so why still cry out to God like this? In front of everyone!

The Sanhedrin are the spiritual leaders of the day, the ones who wanted Jesus dead. They said He was a blasphemer and a liar. Something interesting about the Sanhedrin though is their education. The Sanhedrin were Jewish religious leaders who had dedicated their lives to upholding and living the scriptures. They would begin to memorize the scriptures at a very young age in order to have it fully committed to memory. These are the people standing with Jesus's family and friends, and this is where Jesus's remark makes us take another look. If you look in your Bible their will be a little letter next to verse 34 leading you to a footnote. This footnote will lead you to Psalm 22, which reads like this:

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

 Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
² My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.^[b]

³ Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.^[c]
4 In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

⁶ But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
⁷ All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
⁸ “He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

⁹ Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

¹¹ Do not be far from me,
    for trouble is near
    and there is no one to help.

¹² Many bulls surround me;
    strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
¹³ Roaring lions that tear their prey
    open their mouths wide against me.
¹⁴ I am poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.
¹⁵ My mouth^[d] is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

¹⁶ Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me;
    they pierce^[e] my hands and my feet.
¹⁷ All my bones are on display;
    people stare and gloat over me.
¹⁸ They divide my clothes among them
    and cast lots for my garment.

¹⁹ But you, Lord, do not be far from me.
    You are my strength; come quickly to help me.

Now does this sound familiar? Doesn't this sound like the perfect description of what we are seeing with the crucifixion scene?  The Psalmist even opens the passage with the same words that Jesus used. Here is the catch though, Crucifixion was a death tradition carried out by the Romans. The Roman time period being hundreds of years after this Psalm was written. A psalmist writes a perfect description of the death of the Messiah in a form that he doesn't even understand.

Jesus may not have been crying out to God, but what if He was quoting a passage to the audience surrounding Him. What if He wanted them to see that He was on that cross, fulfilling yet another prophecy hundreds of years later? Psalm 22 finishes out with a message of peace that all will be reminded and worship the one true king. When you first saw this blog post the picture may have said evil, but Jesus can take evil things and when we look again they have turned good. 

"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani." What does Jesus do with His last breath? He doesn't curse the God who gave Him everything, but rather to remind the people that He is giving everything to those who have cursed Him. 

I'd love to chat if you have any further questions!

Thank you for reading, and God bless.

The Art of Busy

The Art of Busy

Hey all, first off I want to apologize for this being a day late. That's my fault, and I hope that you have all had a fantastic week so far. Today we are going to be looking at an idea of busy. How it is the business in life that we crave and this craving effects us.

Our passage of the week is found in Mark 9:50:

⁵⁰ “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

Now normally I don't feel that it's appropriate to pull one verse out of its context and just use it, because it was placed in its location for a reason. The previous portion of Mark 9 talks about how one shouldn't be a stumbling stone for others. We are given the example of if your eyes cause you to stumble it is better to pluck them out than to be cast into hell. A super intense illustration of what Jesus is trying to teach. This leads us into our verse, which talks about salt. 

Now the classic verse that people generally read is found in Matthew, but this one really jumps out. The first thing we focus on in this passage is this, Salt tastes good. Salt makes everything taste better and thus most people love salt. You have something about you that is salty. There is something about you that when you interact with other people, the people see this thing. Now this salt can be anything, your humor, your looks, your kindness, even your humility. Jesus asks for His love to be our salt, for it to be overflowing in our hearts so that it pours out onto others.

Now I have rarely seen someone scrape salt off of something before, unless it was just too much salt for them to handle. The same applies to people, we are all willing to interact with people and see what they are doing unless we don't like their salt. We try to lessen the impact that their life will have on us by moving on. In this passage though the question is raised though of how do you make something salty again?

People will soak up your salt no matter where you go, the question is how much are you spreading that salt? Have you ever bit into something and just gotten huge mouthful of salt? As if the chef when preparing the food got distracted and poured salt continuously into one area. Salt is small, and in the grand scheme of things the influence that we have is small. I feel that sometimes we bounce in between two extremes of social interaction.

On one side, we stay in the same area for so long. Jesus was constantly moving in His ministry, one day his disciples found Him alone and asked why He was alone, there was a crowd waiting to see Him. Jesus told them that it was time to go, it was time to move onto the next town. Jesus came here to love on all people and show them God's love.

On the other side we have too much business to ever spend time with people and have life experience together. The verse says to have salt with each other so that there may be peace. We sometimes try to have such a busy life trying to bounce around from area to area that we forget to ever just be and live life. We feel that we have to be everywhere all the time or else we are failing the kingdom of God by not being His hands and His feet to the whole world. 

A final analysis of salt though shows that it's never just one crystal. Even Jesus did not attempt to tackle the world alone. He knew that business and trying to do so would be impossible. So breathe, love, and spread the good news of His love one interaction at a time. 

Thank you for reading and God bless.

Game Over

Game Over

Hello All! Glad to have you back this week, I hope you are ready to jump in!

This week we are in Philippians 4:8-9

"⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

This passage is located in the last chapter of Philippians and it brings with it an appreciation for the church he is writing to. Paul has poured into and invested in this church for quite sometime and he is closing his letter to them with this idea. His time to pour into them and help them grow is coming to an end with this letter. He may have the chance to see them again or speak to them again, but for now it is ending.

Our first goal of the week is to define what is excellent and praiseworthy. As we reach these situations in life where our time of influence is coming to an end we try to grasp onto a few things. Whether it is the end of our college career and we want to be remembered, the end of high school and we want to stay friends forever, or even a job that you love and now you have been let go. 

Paul's temptation in this letter could be to say, best of luck while I'm gone, you guys are going to be alright I think, GOOD LUCK! He wants to be there with the church, he wants to see them succeed, he wants to walk through life alongside them but he can't. He reminds them to not focus on him but rather on the things that they have been taught.

Practice what you have learned. I can't tell you how many times I have walked out of a sermon, read a leadership book, or had a fantastic talk with a friend who showed me something that I could improve on. The whole car ride home I think of how great it would be for that practice to be in my life, yet I don't act on it. 3 weeks later I realize that I didn't do it and can barely even remember what it is that I didn't do. 

Paul didn't want to be forgotten, this is a natural feeling. After investing in something and pouring into it, nobody wants to be forgotten about. Paul realized how much bigger this was though, he would survive if they forgot about him. They would survive if they forgot about him, but their effectiveness for God's kingdom would be lessened by not practicing the things Paul had taught. Paul was led by God to share with and invest in this church, and so the practices and ideas he shared with the church were vastly important. To forget about these things and move on in life is to give satan a victory. 

Finally a promise, the peace of God will be with you. Paul was just a man, the church was made up of normal people. The thing that allows this promise to be true is the living and resurrected Jesus Christ. Paul's time with them had come to an end. He will no longer be able to invest in them, and this is sad. He is not leaving them on their own though, Paul has shown them the light of Jesus Christ. He is in a state of discomfort because he just wants to continue walking through life with them. What Paul has realized though, and why he can give this promise is because they are not alone now. 

Jesus conquered death so that we could all have eternal life through him. It is a tough thing to deal with a goodbye. When you have invested in something for so long that all you want is to see it grow it is painful to pull yourself away from it. Jesus didn't call us to be the water though, He has simply asked us to spread the seed. Jesus, the water of life, is there to come in and bring it to fruition. So I'm not promising that goodbye is easy, I'm not promising it to be painful. By focusing on the good though, the lessons that Jesus has used you to teach or been taught, we achieve the peace of God. We walk with the risen Savior.  

Thank you for reading and God bless.

A Tight Grip

 

A Tight Grip

If this is your first time reading, welcome. It's good to have you here today, and if you are a returning reader, I pray that you see something new today as well.

Let's jump straight in because we've got a lot to cover. 

This week's passage is found in John 20:11-17

"¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
¹⁷ Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Now this week's message comes from a lesson that I have been facing all week. Pastor Rob Bell released a series of videos called the Nooma series in order to give a different spin on teaching the word of God. The Bible is not twisted in these videos, it just gave a new medium to sharing the word. One of these is titled Today, and it uses this passage.
  
In this scripture, we have seen Jesus be crucified on the cross, dieing the worst death that any of us could have imagined. Those closest to Him watched as He struggled through His last moments. 3 days have passed and Jesus's friends visit His tomb often to grieve their loss. We observe this moment though with an odd twist at the end. 

You see Mary Magdalene was a close friend to Jesus, and she has witnessed His death. Upon seeing Him alive, she moves out of her shock in towards Him to embrace Him, but Jesus doesn't embrace her and say everything is alright. Instead He tells her to let go, and to go and spread the good news. 

What does this mean? Why would Jesus ruin this moment for her, why not sit in the glory of it having defeated death and celebrate the embrace of a dear friend? Time is not static, it is a continual thing. You see so often in life we want to pause and just stay in the moment, without moving on towards what is to follow.
  
I am one of the worst offenders of this, as many times I have looked to a moment in the past saying how great that moment was. How I wish I could go back to some of the "glory days". But what does that say about now, about the moments at hand. You see Mary was excited to have her Jesus back, she was excited for things to return to how they were. But they can't. Jesus didn't come back to life, defeat death, and conquer our sins to return to His life pre-crucifixion. Jesus came back to offer a chance for us to join Him as He joins the Father.

Great things happen all the time, glorious and awesome moment occur in our lives. Jesus intended for those moments to come, we get to experience love and joy in those times. The warning that we are receiving though is that we aren't to hold onto these moments because they are fleeting. We hold on so tight to a moment sometimes, that we blink and that moment has gone from the present, to now being in the distant past.

I often look at my past and wonder what I could have done better, what I messed up at, or even what I did well. Do you know what happens in these moments though? I miss out on what is at hand. I am so focused on what has happened then, that I miss now. Jesus gives Mary a role in the present, to go and spread the good news. Find your role. Jesus is calling you to something right now, He has an urgent plan for you, but sometimes we miss it. We focus so much on future things to come, or moments in the past, and deny His plan for right now. 

The truth that I have learned while trying to wrestle with this message this week is this: We can't grab hold of what is in store for today, if we are so busy trying to hold onto yesterday. So let go.

Rob Bell closes the video with this, and I feel it is appropriate to end our time today, thank you for reading and God bless.

"So may you accept the past for what it is. May you celebrate what needs to be celebrated and grieve what needs to be grieved, and then may you receive from God a new spirit. One for here, now, today."

Bored

Hello all! Sorry that this post is coming so late, but I still wanted to make sure it was up for you when you woke up the next morning. This week's blog is a little less intense than the last week, but I personally have found really cool working with it over the last week.

Our passage is Acts 20:7-12
^"7 On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. ⁸ There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. ⁹ Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. ¹⁰ Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!” ¹¹ Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. ¹² The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted."

All of us have been bored at one time in our lives. This may have been while you were waiting on your oil to get changed, or you were waiting for class to finish on a Friday afternoon, or you were waiting on dinner to finish cooking so you could eat. Boredom is something that can be so common and so destructive. I sometimes like to tackle boredom in different ways such as making up my own game or time to learn something new. The boredom we are discussing today though is a much more serious type of boredom. Being bored with God.

The bible focuses on us as Christians having a relationship with God, and how this relationship is a thing that grows constantly. However if we are honest sometimes our relationship hits a dry spot. Sometimes we seem to get stuck in a spiritual rut. The passage that we are looking at has two different perspectives on boredom. Shall we look?

The first is Eutychus, the man who falls asleep and dies for it. Am I saying that next time you fall asleep in a church service you will die? Nope. Speaking from a man who has narcolepsy, it's tough to stay awake sometimes in church, I'll agree with you on that. Eutychus has attended a service where Paul intends to preach through the night. Paul has been preaching for hours at this point and Eutychus falls into his deep sleep and falls out of a window. This is tragic, but there is something that can be learned. Look for opportunity to learn. Sometimes we hear a story in church and we tune out. 

"Oh I've heard this before..... I wonder where we'll go for lunch. Man I've got a lot of homework to do today. I wish Chik-fil-a was open today." Next thing you know the sermon is over and you have missed your opportunity to see something new about God. The scripture is God's word and every time we read it we can grasp something new from it. By checking out of a service because you feel that you have heard it before kills the opportunity for you to grow even closer with God.
  
The other perspective is Paul's perspective. Paul sees this man fall out of a window and die while he is preaching. Now I have only delivered about 15-20 sermons to a crowd before, but I am quite sure that if someone died during one of my sermons I would ask myself two questions, Do I stop teaching and call the ambulance, and am I really that boring? Paul does neither of these though, he knew what he was teaching needed to be heard, so he walks over brings the man back to life, and keeps on teaching! Be enthralled with God.

Paul was so in love with God that all he wanted to do was talk about him. A man's death wasn't even enough of a distraction to keep Paul from teaching the good news. Now this second point may be a little hard to grasp the practicality of it. You say, but I've tried to find that passion for Him again, it's just not there anymore. Then I would ask you to look at your life. What areas are things going well in? Do you feel like you have gotten there all on your own?

Maybe you aren't doing so well right now, bills are stacking up, family is hard, sickness is striking, even love doesn't seem to be working out. God has a plan for you. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God doesn't intend to hurt us, but rather to make us prosper. Focus on that, the provider that will meet all of your true needs in the way He best sees fit. Sometimes we expect God to do something crazy to get us out of a crazy time when we keep getting knocked down. We forget that it's His hand who keeps helping us get back up. 

 Thank you for reading and God bless.

Number My Days

Number My Days

Hope everyone had a fantastic celebration this past weekend with the 4th of July, and it's good to have you back here. Today's topic is heavy. I am warning you this ahead of time because it could bring up some emotions, and I am asking you to keep reading. I really feel that this message needs to be heard, and so I pray you will follow along this journey.

Our passage this week is found in Psalm 90, with a particular highlight on verses 10-12.

"Our days may come to seventy years,
    or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
    for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
¹¹ If only we knew the power of your anger!
    Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
¹² Teach us to number our days,
    that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:10-12 (NIV)

This is a passage or phrase that I feel many of us have heard before, teach us to number our days. Often this verse is shared in the middle of or right after a time of great sorrow. Our days are numbered and we should take everyone of them as a blessing. I believe that message lies in this passage if you just single out verse 12, but I also believe the scripture gives us another message that is an encouraging note to go alongside this heavy truth.

This chapter in Psalms is subtitled "A prayer of Moses, the man of God" and it is important to know this because it gives us understanding of the passage. It opens up with a hope in God who was here in the beginning and has been the refuge for His people from day one. It also discusses His overall mastery of time and how God has sees our entire lives "like a day that has gone by." 

Then we move into verse 10, where the writer discusses how little strength and control we have over when our time has come to leave this earth. How we can have what we feel is strength, yet it fades so quickly in the grand scheme of life. 

Then we hit the key verse, verse 12. Let us not focus on the first part of the verse this time though, but rather wrestle with the second half. That we may gain a heart of wisdom. The writer ends the passage asking for God to show mercy towards them in this time of suffering. He states that their suffering has been long endured and that they just want relief from this time of pain. "Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us." Why this sudden change in attitude after verse 12?

I believe it is because verse 12 is the bridge between the two places. The writer seems to be praising God in the beginning, and mourning and asking for relief in the second part. Doesn't this seem like our lives today? Life seems to be great and everything is fantastic. Our relationship with God is flourishing, or maybe even sliding to the backburner. Then it happens, you receive that news. A phone call comes that rocks your entire world. That simple drive home at night doesn't go as simply as intended. Then we are left begging God to remove us from the time of pain.

This is a natural feeling. If you are in this time of pain, I want you to first know that God loves you and hasn't abandoned you. He is standing right next to you with arms wide open ready to carry you through this, we just need to keep focusing on His love rather than our affliction. The heart of wisdom is our guiding light in this. You see wisdom helps us in discerning through the tough situations. Wisdom helps an individual make the tough call. Wisdom helps us realize that there will be another time of praise to come, God will make things right again and joy will be in the morning. But it also helps us to see that God doesn't leave during those bad times either. By maintaining and continually pursuing this relationship with God through his word, we can grasp onto this wisdom.

Teach us to number our days, yes, every morning, every breath is a blessing. Some of us didn't expect to be in these hard places right now. But let us receive and embrace this heart of wisdom, so that love may be realized from the God who is master of time.

He loves us so much that He put HIMSELF through a time of pain, so that we could live an eternal life with no more pain. 

Thank you for reading and God bless.

Shackles

Shackles

Good afternoon! I hope that your week has been exceptional thus far. Today we are working in the book of Romans. This is a letter, by a missionary named Paul, written to a church in Rome. Paul is going to tackle a tough issue here that I feel many of us run into all of the time. Shall we begin?

The verses are found in Romans 7:14-20

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

There is an idea in this passage that our body is a battlefield. Once you have accepted Christ as your Savior and began to work on a relationship with him your body is competing with the sin nature that it still holds. Paul struggles with this as I feel many of us do today. 

First. We always do what we don't want to do, and what we want to do we can't do. Maybe you are reading this right now and you feel very tied down because of a sin. It seems like no matter what measures you put up to stop it, it always wins and always feels stronger. You are not alone. Paul focuses on a building up and strengthening of community when he writes and this is because he realized how strong sin can feel. By not walking through it alone, we already have an advantage that God has granted us. When He created Adam He saw that it was not good for man to be alone. When sin entered the world, Eve was walking by herself in the garden. Community is a blessing given to us to help combat sin and win in this war.

There is one other point that I feel is very important to look at. Paul states he has the desire to do what is good, but can't carry it out. Continue to desire to do good. Paul understands this struggle and fights it daily. His body is a battlefield just like ours is, yet he continued to have a desire to do good. I think this is key, because God gives us strength and tools to help combat our sin nature, so never give up! Never give in to that nature because that is a victory for Satan not God and that is never ok. 

Now what does this mean for you today, sitting at your computer, reading this blog. Maybe you are dealing with something really tough right now. Sin attacks us in many different ways and I can't begin to guess what some of you are walking through reading this, but I can assure you that you are not alone. Find someone to talk to about it, set up some accountability for it. 

Maybe you have recently become a Christian and you feel awful because even being a Christian you still continue to sin. It's not just you, everyone has dealt with this frustration at one time. Everyone has had an issue in their life, a thorn in their side in which they feel they can't conquer. This is because we weren't made to conquer it alone. Jesus surrounded himself with community and His disciples and we should follow His example. Jesus brings us all together through his forgiveness, and we will walk through this together, because we are the body of Christ. 

Thank you for reading and God bless.

Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork

 

Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork

Hey all! Good to see you all again. Just as a side note before we get into today's post, I will plan on doing these posts Sunday afternoon/evening so they should be up by Monday morning at the latest. Usually they will be up before 10 pm Sunday night though.

SO! We are gonna dive straight into the scripture, we will be in Ephesians 4:29 today. I don't know if I have said this in previous posts, but I am spending this summer as the Recreation leader for a children's church camp in the Birmingham area. We have a different theme verse each week and this verse was our theme verse this past week.

Here it is:

²⁹ Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

On a surface level reading, we see this message: Be nice to others, don't say mean things. When I first started working with this verse alongside the kids this week, I arrived at the same conclusion. This is a beauty of scripture though, it is alive and can take us sooo much deeper. I feel like this passage gives us two very explicit points:

1. Build up according to their needs

The word needs is highlighted because it has a certain understanding that gets looked over. A team is comprised of different people, just as a body is comprised of different parts. Now some have more self-confidence than others, and some have more experience than others. This is where we get our title from. I at first wanted all of the children in camp to be cheering for each other and building each other up with their words. This was really effective for some of the children and not so much for other kids. 

I walked away from my first day of rec a little confused on why it wasn't working for some. Cheer louder I thought, if the kids are even louder then it will make the ones being cheered for happy. This didn't seem to work either though. It took a little kindergarten girl's tears to make this part of the verse sink in. Some of these children don't need support, they need guidance. By bringing them aside and helping explain the game a little further, children became exponentially happier. 

I think so often we see others and apply this idea of, "I would love for people to do this to me, so it must be what they want too." This verse is very clear though, build them up according to their needs and to do this we must look outside of ourselves. 

2. Pay attention to who is listening

I think it's very easy to just overlook the last part of this verse and keep moving on. We seem to have gotten the meat of the verse in the first part so what could be in the last part. The Bible is very intentional though and every word is important. That those who may listen will benefit, which raises a question. How many of you reading have ever said something to someone and you knew they just weren't listening.  I am terrible at this because I will tune someone out while texting all the time. I know that I get frustrated when people do it to me, so why do I continue to do it to someone else? I think that maybe this part of the verse is included to give ourselves a self-check when looking at the meat of the verse.

Are we saying things that need to be heard? If someone were able to hear every word that we spoke, would they benefit? This is where our challenge for today's world comes around. I think we let a lot of things slip out of our mouths that aren't necessarily beneficial or uplifting. Teams fall apart due to under the breath comments, because when we don't lift someone up with our words, it does the exact opposite.

Today's blog post may seem really simple and something you've heard before. I don't know who is reading this blog, or if I even have subscribed followers. But you've made it to the end of this post, and I like to believe that Jesus brought you to this blog for a reason.

So readers, let me leave you with this, Jesus loves you. If you don't know who that is, I'd begin reading here:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%201&version=NIV

If you have questions feel free to message me I'd love to chat. Also if the word becoming flesh feels or sounds weird or odd, I ask that you hold on tight, as next week we'll be walking through that passage.

Thank you for your time and for reading,

God bless.

Heart of Stone

The Heart of Stone

Hello all! It's good to be back with you again this evening. Tonight we are going to discuss something that I feel most everyone is going to be able to relate to, and that is a heart of stone. Now before we get too deep or offended, I would like to preface this by saying that I don't feel that everyone has a heart of stone. I would guess though that most everyone reading this have experienced dealing with one before whether your own or another persons.  

The passage of scripture we will be looking at tonight is found in Ezekiel 11:18-21(NIV)

¹⁸ “They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. ¹⁹ I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. ²⁰ Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. ²¹ But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

Now as always we want to give some context to this passage. Ezekiel is a prophet of the Lord, and he has come in a time where Israel, God's chosen people, have fallen away from worship of God. God has sent Ezekiel to show them that they are not in the right path and that their worship of false gods and idols is leading them to a path of destruction. God shares these words with Ezekiel though telling him of a time when Israel is going to return to God. This is a promise that we are seeing. 
  
What do we do with this promise though? Sure it was great for them in their time, but how does it tie back to me today, June 16, 2013. I think there are three ways that we can apply this passage to us.

1. A New Spirit
  We sing songs in worship about, "All I need is you Lord, is you Lord, all I need is you." But is this really true? How would we react if we were just with God. Would it be ok to have no iphone, no internet, no boyfriends or girlfriends? Just Jesus. When asking Christ to come into your life and change you He brings a NEW spirit. He brings that element to your life that was missing before. He is literally completing you! This is how we turn away from these things that are false and bad because all this new spirit desires is Jesus!

2. The heart of stone to a heart of flesh
I am spending my summer working with children at a camp. If there is something that I have noticed with children it is this lesson. Forgiveness is so simple for them. So often we are wronged in life, and so often we hold grudges for us. Doesn't it feel better to just let it go though? To have a solid cry, to just lower all of one's walls. I must say that this is a lesson I am not too comfortable with myself. I struggle with being vulnerable to anyone, and this directly influences my relationship with Christ. This new spirit that has been given to me in Christ is directly hurt by my heart of stone. 

The inability to show emotion or weakness makes one feel that they can get it done themselves. I don't need to listen to what others are doing or their advice because I can get through this journey on my own. I can't tell you how many times in life I have ignored the wisdom of others to try to just do something on my own. I am so thankful for a dear friend recently who called me out on this. She told me how I always try to learn lessons my way. I know for a fact that Jesus sent her there saying, PLEASE! Let this heart of stone go, I just want to wrap my arms around you.

3. Follow the law
How many of you can drive? If you can drive you know how easy it is to creep faster and faster over the speed limit. We all think this phrase at one point, "I can speed on this road, there are never any cops." The bad habit is formed and reinforced because the absence of law keeps us from seeing wrong. ** I'm not condemning you if you speed, as stated I have done it too. Please don't feel awful if you read this, I once got a speed ticket for going 85 in a 70. If it makes us a sinner I'm right there with you. ** The same is true for a heart of stone. God gave us guidance in order to nurture this new spirit, and to prevent us from the heart of stone. It's so easy to go back to a caliced and hard heart once you stop listening to laws. 

This is where accountability is key. My best friend constantly gives me checks on life and how I am doing. When I feel like an awful person for having a conversation with my best friend, those are the times when I immediately see how far off I have gone from nurturing this new spirit and sticking to my heart of stone. 

This new spirit and new heart God offers is incredible. It is LITERALLY life-changing. By realizing how far off we are from complete and asking Jesus to come into our lives and begin to work with our brokenness, He can melt away this heart of stone.

 If you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment or send me a message. I'd love to talk further.
Thank you for reading, and God bless.

Coming Back

 

 It's been awhile readers. A year ago I stopped making blog posts and I went out on my own. As I look back on the blog I saw some really cool things that God had been working in. God has worked in amazing ways this past year, but I come today to share a message about vision.

 The passage we will be following today is Matthew 11:25-30.

It reads:

²⁵ At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. ²⁶ Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
²⁷ “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

There are a couple takeaways from this, the theme being the title of this post: Coming Back.

The first is Jesus thanking the Lord for the way that He reveals himself. I do not feel that Jesus is bashing the wise and learned or saying that it is wrong to be wise and learned but rather highlighting the accepting nature of little children. So often as we grow older we become less accepting. I know for instance that I might be one of the worst people to try to give advice too, because often if I disagree with the advice I shut people out. Children do not turn away though, they accept the love and instruction from God that is needed. All of it.  What could happen if we let go of inhibitions and just really wrapped ourselves in all that God offers us. I guess the challenging part is would it feel freeing or convicting?

In verse 27 we see a really cool example of relationship with Jesus. You see Jesus doesn't ever just say something and then not give us an example to follow. He says that all things have been committed to Him by the Father, and that no one knows the Father except the Son and vice versa. This is where the conviction part kicks me in the gut. I think the reason sometimes we find it difficult to feel the Father's love because we try to bypass the middle man. We think that a relationship with Jesus doesn't need substance or effort poured into it. We want the savior without the work.

So we know the reason to come back, but when I feel like I'm so far away sometimes how do I get back? This is where Jesus doesn't leave us out to dry, the message of hope. In verses 28-30 Jesus just calls us back to Him. He offers us rest with Him. He offers a love that is easy and peaceful if we just meet Him. Just by calling on Him and admitting we don't have it all together without Him.

I will close this out with a story. The picture posted is a hiker because that has been one of the moments that I have felt most like coming back in life (that is not me).  My senior year of high school I hiked a small portion of the Appalachian Trail with fellow senior class officers. We had a tremendous time and saw some incredible things but there is one thing that you miss when you are out there, the comfort of home. Sure your bed is nice and air conditioning feels great, but it is coming back into the family that is proud to have you is what you crave. I chose to go into the woods, and it gave me plenty of time to plan and reflect. I knew though that at the end of the trip my family would be overjoyed to see me again. 

If this is the love that we feel from our earthly parents, how much more welcome will we feel from our Heavenly family?

Thank you for reading.