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Requirement of New Life

This is a post that was originally written by myself and shared on Youthworker Movement. 

When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this observance?’ 27 you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed down and worshiped. (Exodus 12:25, NRSV) 

We like order, control, but essentially we like having things OUR way. We really like things our way, and we resist like the dickens anything else. When the operative word, “change,” is uttered any sense of the word we tend to clam up and resist, and yet we have this quandary of the lesson that we get in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

To have new life, something must die.

Ouch.

New life in Christ is amazing, but bad things had to happen for that new life to happen. Jesus had to die for us to live. Really think about what this means for our lives now. For us to live into that new life we have to consider that some parts of our lives do not belong. You can’t give your heart to Christ and the world, you can only serve one master.

So what does that mean for our lives?

It means that there is nothing in our lives that doesn’t connect to our deep faith in Christ. That is what it means to be a disciple to constantly point to our savior, if we are not doing that then why are we following Him. I mean seriously, this is what discipleship is and what it looks like. Things have to go aside and Christ has to reign in our lives. Christ’s love and grace gives understanding of what we truly need and everything Christ passing over us because we don’t need it.

We just need Christ, and Him alone.

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Sitting Outside

I really like working in the community in which I serve. Let me be clear in what I mean. I love to once a week work remotely at a location in the community of Fort Worth. It always brings a feeling of blessing. Today I am sitting outside Central Market in Fort Worth. Each Thursday I come to a remote location from at 4:00 pm to work for awhile outside the church, but also invite students to come by if they want to hang out.

It’s a win win for me because I get to experience the beauty of God’s creation, connect with the community and connect with youth at Arlington Heights UMC.

Today as I sit outside Central Market I am reminded of the fact that Jesus did this a lot.

Rarely did Jesus stay in one place for an extended period of time, but kept connecting with people in all communities of the region he lived in at the time of his ministry. Jesus and the Disciples were constantly moving from place to place with the sole purpose of connecting people to God’s Kingdom. Not only that but Jesus would be teaching to His disciples or hundreds sometimes thousands of people of this important connection.

I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time in the office, maybe I’m spending too much time there.

Maybe I need to be going from place to place connecting people like Christ did.

It’s worthy of reflection at least.  We will see where it leads me and where it leads us.

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What are We Becoming?

22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves[a] in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.

I love this passage and advice from James, the brother of Jesus. Today I present to you this passage, but also this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character.  Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.”

So what are you becoming? What are we really doing in our lives?

What are we really becoming?

 

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Bragging is not healthy

This morning I am reading for my seminary class, “The Bible in Youth Ministry as Spiritual Guide for Adolescents” and I was doing it I was reading the story of Joseph and his brothers. I think we can all acknowledge one thing.

Joseph was kind of a punk.

Joseph the Dreamer has been having very interesting dreams and whenever he has a dream Joseph in all his wisdom and LOADS of humility shares his dreams with his brothers in which this is usually what happens:

Hey brothers! I just had another dream and in the dream I learned that one day I will be your master and you will all serve me.

Kind of a punk.

We all knew this bragging wasn’t going to end well, and in fact it doesn’t. Joseph’ brothers put him in a hole in the ground and at first just want to leave him there, but then they get a better idea. Hey! let’s sell Joseph into slavery. Let this dreamer be someone else’s problem. That is just what they did.

I think we all can relate to all the people in this story. We have all been that annoying 6th grader that lives to push every button that every has to get a rise out of them, and we all have been annoyed by said 6th graders. I think the story of Joseph teaches us a great lesson in humility.

Is it bad that Joseph has dreams and that God has chosen me, absolutely not! It’s amazing that God is using Joseph in the way He is. Let us remember that we are all human and there is nothing that we could ever do to earn God’s love and grace and there is nothing we didn’t do to earn it either. We are all in the same boat and yet God loves each of us just as we are. We must remember always to see the world and our neighbor as God sees them and additionally not raise ourselves above our neighbors but love them as Christ loves each of us.

The only being that ever existed that had great evidence to raise himself above everyone else, Jesus Christ humbled himself and died on the cross. So what does it say that Christ could have raised himself and yet chose humility?

Additionally what does say about ourselves that we do the opposite at times?

Let us always seek to model the example of Christ.

Amen.