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In All Things.

 

I found this today on Facebook, courtesy of YouVersion’s Facebook page. It is a simple passage from the Word of God, but in today’s day in age, specifically the political season it is not simple.

Or is it?

According to Jesus, all the law and the prophets are summed up into this new commandment. This is a crucial commandment to us now and forever. Yet today in our nation we are submitted to hate being spewed between not just two candidates but between friends, family, and church communities.

One question: What message do you think we are sending to the world by doing such things?

Jesus knew what He was doing when he surmised that Loving all people is better than hate, because hate raws the bones of our bodies. I understand that everyone is different in their opinions, but that doesn’t mean they are bad. Like I said I am not campaigning for any thought, except that we are called to love all people.

Jesus says this is how we will be known as His disciples, so again I ask what happens if we don’t love? Could we possibly send the wrong gospel about Jesus to the world? Could we give people the wrong image of Christ by not doing this?

I don’t know.

All I know is that Christ told us to love as He loves. That’s all I need to know because as His disciples we must listen to the teacher and put them into action.

It really is that simple.

So, please for the sake of the gospel, LOVE.

May God encourage and equip us to love as He loves.

In all things.

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We Remember.

Today is the 11th year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We can all probably vividly remember where we were in 2001 on September 11, recall what happened in the order that it happened and who we talked to and so forth. It will always be a day that we will never forget.

Today I would like to guide us to remember something else, something more.

On September 11, 2001 there was this temptation like there is anytime a tragedy happens. The temptation is that if God truly loves and wants the best for us, why would He allow something this horrific to happen. We would infer that God ordained for these things to happen.

We have all been there.

Maybe its the passing of a loved one or a large scale national tragedy like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, or the shootings in Aurora, Colorado. I will stop there but the sad fact is that I could go on and on listing other events in my lifetime of terrible things happening.

We remember these events, yes, but I think it is so important not to stay there as my pastor and friend, Dale Schultz said today. We must live on and embrace life everyday. Doesn’t mean its easy, it’s quite the opposite at times.

We must live on.

We also must remember above all what the Apostle John said many times. That if we abide in the love of Christ that Christ himself abides in us. To say another way it says in 1 Corinthians 12:31:

Use your ambition to try to get the greater gifts. And I’m going to show you an better way.

God came to this earth to show us the best way to live through His son Jesus Christ, because if we remember and stay in those terrible moments we are not embrace the better way that He taught to embrace. We must embrace the way of Christ, because through this embracing experience we are engaging in the very better way that Christ ordained for us.

I encourage you and I to always remember above all that God loves you and His is so powerful that even the presence of fear cannot approach Him. His perfect and amazing love casts out fear. God is the ultimate embodiment of love.

We will always remember 9/11, but remember also that God’s love is always right beside you, and His grace is always extended to you.

Amen.

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Having the Latest and Greatest

For those of you that didn’t know Amazon came out with an entire new line of kindles today. For more information on what they are go to the amazon website. Out of curiosity I went to the website to see what the “family” had to offer. Of course they were bigger and better than before, better resolution, HD, you know the works.

Then something disturbing happened.

“I need one of these.”

I love my Kindle Touch and I have had it maybe a year, maybe. So I was a bit disturbed by this new desire to buy a new kindle. I logically thought like many of us did that I could sell the one I had and use it to buy the new one and so I wouldn’t really lose much money in the process.

Then I thought this is why technology changes every year because we keep buying and buying and buying the latest and the greatest because it never stops. There is always going to be the next ‘thing.’

But that is just what they are.

Things.

They give nothing to our soul. We as human beings have this practice of putting things in our lives hoping they will fulfill the hole in our heart, but they won’t. They can’t because they have no power except for the power that we give them.

Everything that we need is in Christ’s love and grace and his willingness to die for us even though we didn’t deserve it. It’s like the following:

If you could have a million dollars or friends which would you desire first? Which should you desire first?

Money and things can’t give you happiness or eternal life because they aren’t anything but paper and resources that are used to make them. The only power they have is the power we give them.

So, what power are you giving the latest and greatest in your life?

Christ gave you the ultimate gift, himself. He extended His Love and Grace.

What will you do with it?

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Who God Made Us To Be

God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them. (Genesis 1:27)

“Who was I made to be?”

“Exactly who you are.”

Ever had this conversation with someone? Have you ever asked the question of who we are made to be and then been given this response? It seems to be a very truthful albeit unhelpful response. It’s start to the point, simple, and yet extremely complex.

How can something be simple and complex at the same time?

That seems unreasonable, but we see it all the time in the scriptures. Love your neighbor as yourself doesn’t sound complex but it really is.

To add even more complex to this conversation let’s hone in the question of this post.

Who has God made me to be?
God created all beings in His image.

We are made to be like God, but we are not God. Which means we have qualities like God, like Love, Grace, Peace, Kindness, Caring and may others.

It’s that simple.

The problem is that we complicate the equation. We make it seem that we are not created to be in God’s image because if we were made in His image we wouldn’t make the mistakes that we do, but that is not true because at the same time we are human, and the nature state of being a human is making mistakes.

So you see the point now.

It’s simple, yet complicated.

Which is why the Israelites struggled with this thought and their worth and identity for years. Which is why Jesus came to begin with, to show us who we were made to be. His disciples. Jesus comes to the earth to help us realize our worth and identity, that it is not in our sins that we are defined but in the faithfulness of Christ. Christ defines us for who we are by saying, “I will die to prove that you are worth my image.”

It’s a powerful and influential force that comes when Christ dies for our sins. In that one simple act we are rebranded in the body and blood of Jesus. Because it is truth what it says in Galatians 2:20:

I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

You and I are not what we were before.

Christ is the active and abundant force that is within us, giving us the direction and words to say when we need them. However, we must embrace this force that is within us because when we do that we truly embrace who God made us to be all along, His image.

We no longer live but the body and blood of Jesus Christ live within us and we live by faith and are defined by the faithfulness of God’s Son, Jesus. Who died to prove that we are worth His image.

May God encourage, equip, empower, and energize us to embrace His image.

Amen.

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Letting God In

“Therefore, my dear ones . . . work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ). [Not inyour own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight” (Philippians 2:12,13)

“Hear this: I don’t think God wants you at war with yourself. He sent the prince of peace to soothe those tumultuous waters already. Self-depreciation is a cruel response to Jesus, who died and made us righteous. Guilt is not Jesus’ medium. He is battling for global redemption right now; his objective hardly includes huddling in the corner with us, rehashing our shame again. He finished that discussion on the cross. Plus there is no time for that. We’re so conditioned to being a problem that we’re actually the answer.” -Jen Hatmaker

Over the last couple of years I have noticed something about people and in particular followers of Jesus. It is easier to extend grace to everyone else, but when it comes to extending grace to ourselves that is something that is almost impossible. I work with teenagers, as many of you well know and the thing that really gets to me about teenagers is sometimes they surround themselves around people that may not have the best influence on them. 

Why?

Well I think I have come to realize that not just teenagers, but people in general invite people into their lives that they think they deserve. Which could be possibly why some girls have the worst boyfriends.

Why are we always so self-destructive?

Why is it so easy to invite destructive people into our lives but so hard to invite our Creator?

In some people situations they are haunted by what has happened in their past and a part of them feels that they are defined by what happened 10 years ago, but it was 10 years ago!

See this is the exact reason why God sent His son.

So that we wouldn’t defeat ourselves but that we would be redeemed and would live a life abundantly and not shackled. Christ died for all our lives so that we could have a fresh start, so that we can try again. In the same way He extended grace to us we are to extend it to the world and also ourselves because sometimes the worst critics of ourselves is in the mirror.

Here is the point. We let people that destroy us in but not God, but in order to truly experience the abundant life that is full of redemption we have to let God in. God is the perfect gentleman He won’t force Himself upon anyone. He wants us to choose to let Him in because when we make that choice then our very heart desires it as opposed to being forced. True disciples are developed through our own desire for God to come in and help.

May you let God in and may God truly show you the abundant life that He has for you.

Amen.