God uses the mess...

As a "Christian," why does my stomach turn when I use that word to describe myself, I have related with God's words in a lot of different ways throughout my life, so many different ideas, concepts, feelings and thoughts creep into my mind when I consider my relationship with the Word of God. Over the past 6ish years, I have been purified from so many of the ugly associations I have with the Bible, and God has brought me to a place where I can finally connect with it in the context it was meant to connect with us in.

Bottom line is, if we approach God's word with our first intention being anything other than to connect with the heart of God, we will miss the point entirely. The Bible is not foremost about knowledge, instruction or learning, its not mostly about telling a story, it's not even mostly about its characters, God, us, etc. It is mostly about God's desire to glorify himself through the revelation of His heart for a fallen people.

If such a bold statement is tough for you to swallow, I'm sorry. The truth is, until we recognize this, we will never be able to experience the it's ability to, convict, instruct, guide, teach, etc. Our ability to be transformed by the power of God's word is dependent on our ability to connect first with the God of the word in genuine relationship.

I spent a good chunk of my morning in the book of Genesis. An interesting book, seen mostly as the book about creation. The crazy thing is the creation story is such a tiny portion of what the book of Genesis has to offer its reader.

What I found this morning as I read Genesis looking for the heart of God for a broken person... me, is that Genesis is really a story about God choosing to engage with a fallen world, both physical and spiritual. When man chose to sin, it separated us from God, and in an instant gave God the opportunity to show us something that is vital to our understanding of this God. Our behavior, actions and faithfulness are not pre-requisites to God using, forming, giving to, and loving us. He did it all in spite of us. That is the story of Adam and Eve, that is the story of Noah, and Abraham, Sarah and Hagar.

What man conceives in sin, God redeems for His own glory. What man produces in unfaithfulness, God uses to establish His rule in the hearts of people.

In particular, Ishmael, the illegitimate son of Abraham, conceived in his Wife's servant Hagar is an example of how God takes pride, arrogance, unfaithfulness, and deceit and uses it to draw people to himself.

Genesis chapter 16 tells the story of Abram, Sarai, Hagar and the conception of Ishmael. The entire story is filled with problems... Why would God bless, establish, and make great a person who acts and thinks in the crazy ways Abram does? Who is he kidding? The idea of Ismael is the most pure example of human control and pride, and yet just one chapter later in Genesis 17, God makes clear his desire to use brokenness to change the world. Speaking of Ishmael he says...

²⁰ As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.

Wow! This is so cool... bottom line, God is bigger than our mess... he wants to use it to transform us, and turn is into people passionate of loving and serving him.

You're sin is not strong enough of to stain the work of the cross. My deceitful heart is not ugly enough to end the covenant God established with Abraham. God can use my mess, and yours.

Live in the power of this reality today, and every day the rest of your life.

Embracing a concept

As someone who calls himself a "Christian," or follower of Jesus, I am forced to embrace a concept that is fundamental to the Christian faith. That concept is the idea of persecution and hardship. I read verses like, John 16:33... "in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world," and realize as a believer, I have to give lip service to the idea that hardship and struggle will be a normal part of my life. So, when I don't have enough money to pay the power bill because I bought a pair of shoes instead, I chalk it up to Christian hardship.

This, quite frankly, is a bunch of bull $%#&!

Sorry if that offended any of my readers! that is if I have any :)

God is doing something really different in my heart right now. I sense that He is preparing me for a really difficult season, and when I say difficult season, I am not talking about low income, or less things, I am talking about real, biblical suffering. To be honest, I only know what that looks like because of the stories I read about in the Bible. I am not sure that any American Christian has any concept of what suffering for the gospel really looks like. I sure don't.

We, as Christians in the American church, need to learn that following Christ is about more than abstract concepts that rarely have direct impact in our lives. What comes first, sold out, powerful faith, or persecution and hardship? It's easy to convince ourselves that persecution just isn't practical in our world today. Afterall, this is America, we have rights, inalienable rights to boot, but does that mean sharing in the sufferings of Christ isn't possible?

I am convinced that opposite is true. The early church wasn't persecuted because of their cultural context, they were persecuted for their radical faith. I believe that persecution and hardship is our avenue to real gospel centered impact, and the reason we aren't experiencing it is because we are more interested in embracing a concept of suffering than the real thing.

We want confortable lives. Our lack of active faith perpetuates a problematic cycle. Consumerism, selfishness and marginalized impact due to dry religion. Persecution is something we ask for when we begin posturing our lives for the gospel. Why did the world hate Jesus? The gospel. Why will they hate us? The gospel. We have gotten too good at working our butts off to be attractive to the world and that places a very real ceiling on our ability to impact our surroundings with the gospel. We need to recognize that the gospel is attractive, no matter how dangerous it really is.

What do we need? we need a new posture... life orientation and pursuit. We need to place all our hope in the work God is doing rather than the work we are capable of doing. We simply need to make ourselves available to people everywhere we go. If we live out the reality of the truth in our lives, it will bring the persecution that marks the lives of the most impactful Christians throughout human history.

Anyone else ready for something more? Ready to die? I'm not, but I want to be. God prepare my heart for embracing the life you lived, and have for me. Thanks for modeling and living it out for me to follow.

As a boy growing up in southern California, my family spent a lot of time at the beach. It was a recreational activity that we all loved, plus it was free. We would take off most Monday’s since it was my dad’s day off, and spend the whole day swimming, making sand castles, napping, throwing footballs, and just enjoying the sun. Even from the time I was very young, about 6 years old, my dad would take me out into the ocean. Obviously, as a 6 year old, I had a healthy fear of the ocean and it’s waves. It made me feel small, helpless and insecure, but my father’s confidence always put me at ease. He always said, “Once we get out past the waves there will be nothing to worry about, it’s completely peaceful.” In order to get out past the surf, we were forced to go right through it. When the waves were small, my dad would lift me up, and send me shooting over the wave, but as they got bigger, we were forced to go under them. I still remember my dad preparing me for the big waves, he would say, “ ok, here it comes, you ready to go under? On the count of three get as close to the bottom as possible.” As soon as He started counting my heart would begin to beat a million beats per second. I remember vividly the feeling of the wave rushing over me, sometimes I wouldn’t get low enough and the wave tossed me around like a shirt in the washing machine. I would scramble to figure up from down, desperately seeking the surface of the water. As I finally came to the top, I would immediately hear my dad’s voice encouraging, and re-assuring me. Almost as if He had been watching me struggle to find my way, and only jumped in to my aid when I needed it most. When I cried out, he was there, but not always with a hand, sometimes just the encouragement to keep going, keep swimming, and stay focused. With each dive under another wave, I longed for the one that would find me out far enough to be outside the range of the breaking surf. When it came, it was like a rushing sensation of freedom and peace. My dad would pull me toward him, celebrate our victory over the waves, and we would float peacefully over the swells, up and down. IT was here that I remember falling in love with the ocean and the waves. It was my fathers careful, responsive hand that kept me believing I could do it. It was his presence, encouragement and confidence that kept me moving when I wanted to turn back. Most of all, it was knowing that at any moment, I could cry out to him, and in a heart beat he would be at my side, coming to my aid. My father loved me, longed for what was best for me. He wanted to protect me from things I didn’t know were coming, and teach me about things I didn’t know existed. He wanted me to learn to trust him, and depend on him. He wanted me most of all to experience something powerful, and sometimes that meant letting me flounder for a moment. His responsive action to my every emotion was as real and consistent as his presence.

I am preaching a sermon this sunday titled, "Does prayer change God's mind," and although I do not believe i will ultimately be able to harness the mystery of such a question, I think the above story illustrates well the relationship God has with His people, their lives, and their prayers.

It begins with asking if God has emotions for us.

- If God has no emotions for us, then He is a robot, incapable of relationship

- If God has emotions and doesn't respond to our outcries in prayer then He is a tyrant who doesn't want relationship

- Therefore, God must have emotions for His people, and must be responsive to our outcries, pleas, and prayers.

Obviously we know that God is unchanging... sovereign, and omniscient. His foreknowledge could create in our minds a lack of need for prayer. If God knows everything, and His will is unstoppable, then what role can our prayers really play? We cannot change God's mind.

The mystery here has to be wrapped up in the how. If we know God does call us to pray, and He responds emotionally, and acts on our requests, then it's the how that is perplexing. That may be a question we cannot answer, given Paul's sentiments in Romans 11, "Who has know the mind of the Lord..." but we can get a sense of the value of prayer.

A couple thoughts...

1. It's vital to understanding God to know that He is emotionally changed at the heart level by our lives, feelings, prayers, etc. I think to see it any other way is to deny God's love for us.

2. He interacts with us. He doesn't just have emotions that hang out in no mans land. His desire is to interact, be involved, and be Lord of our lives. He wants our fears, hopes, dreams, etc. Interaction is key to any relationship. If He doesn't interact with us, we have no relationship at all. We see all over in scripture God interacting with His people.

3. God moves as a result of our prayers. It's true, weather our prayers are the actual catalyst for that change, I don't know, but we know that our prayers affect change, we see God being swayed by Elijah's prayer, and we see God's anger squelched by Moses' prayer. Prayer works! IT changes things. When we cry out to God with a pure heart, He responds... often times with the very thing we are asking for. Crazy isn't it?

Do we dare claim to serve a God that chooses to let us impact our world? Does it make Him weak? Does it make Him even stronger?

God created man to be in perfect loving relationship with Him. Prayer is our mode of relating with God. IF our prayers are not powerful, impactful, and effective, then the fabric of our faith vanishes in the wind. Prayer works... believe in it. live in it. be transformed by it!

Re-discovering our mission

Burned the candle last night outlining my next sermon series in the book of acts titled, "Re-discovering our mission." Over the past year of my life God has had me in a very interesting process of considering what the point of church is. When I say church, I mean the program based, Sunday morning service, construct we call church. As a church planter it's an important and interesting question to entertain.

Like so many planters I set out to be something different than everything else out there. Not that everything else out there is bad, but I think everyone who sets out to create desire that it be unique, one of kind, or at least fill a gap. We want to believe there is a point to the efforts, sacrifice and dreaming that comes along with starting something new from nothing.

Ironically, in church planting the accepted formula for success is simply one that leads us down a path to becoming the very thing we didn't want to be... the same old thing. Let's face it, how much difference is there really in the American church today? Not much. Different songs, service order, sermon style, etc. The most, "unique," churches are the ones that are seen as cutting edge, or highly technological. What makes that different?

Here is my point. Through the past few months, I have begun to see a different church emerge in the pages of Acts, that has caused me to ask,

"If the church is meant to reflect the heart of Christ, what should it look like?"

The book of Acts is simply stories of the apostles faithfulness to the mission that Jesus gave them when He left the earth, and empowered them with the holy spirit. His instructions were clear in the final days he had withe them

"Feed my sheep."

"Go make disciples"

"Bear witness to the gospel"

These words have nothing to do with church, especially not the brand that we immediately think of when we hear the word church.

Really what happened in the book of Acts is, people unified around a mission by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it was explosive. As a result of the centrality of the mission in individual lives, that mission spread corporately resulting in the start up of the local church. IN fact there are places in Acts where it seemed the formation of the local church might get in the way of mission and the apostles worked to protect from that.

The appointing of the first church leaders in Acts 6 is a great example of that. The congregation was growing, and there was no one to take care of the needs of the people, so Peter and John appointed people to do so for what? To expand church attendance? No, so they wouldn't have to waste there time on less important things.

They got it! Mission came first!

The truth is, the church as we see it, was never supposed to be what we have made it into. It's actually a bi-product of missional community.

I am not saying that we should imitate every aspect of the early church, but when it comes to the main points, I think the book of Acts accurately portrays the heart of God for the role of the church in the world, and we cannot miss that. It is a people first, program second mentality that we must cultivate. We cannot get so wrapped up in maintaining our comfortable structures that we lose sight of why we exist.

What matter's most is people finding Jesus. If the church is existing for any other reason it will become lifeless, and will soon stop reflecting the heart of God. It's time we get our priorities straight and begin living out the calling we are left upon this earth for.

The world needs Jesus, we are His chosen vehicles to bring the message of hope, and our church structures are actually getting in the way of that possibility for transformation. The sad thing is, it's all in the name of God.

My prayer for this coming series is that we as a church would recognize our calling to mission, and put it first! This could mean significant changes, I don't know, but it has to be taken seriously if we want to follow in the footsteps of the apostles... men and women who had greater impact than we have ever seen in the world since.

Ready for an adventure?

Reflections on "Good Friday."

Do you think that when Jesus sat with His friends around the dinner table that night passing around bread and wine, urging them to remember His sacrifice, what He had in mind was our version of "Good Friday?" Do you think he was hoping for late night worship services? How about large programs? Did He hope that once a year we would look to the event of the cross and feel sad... guilty... shameful or confused? What was the point? What is the point of Good Friday I wonder?

Ironically the most common feelings in most human beings on Good Friday are things like confusion, shame, guilt and sadness. Almost as if we will hurt Jesus' feelings if we don't take a few moments in the evening on this day to furrow our brow, sadden our face, and be solemn. I guess for me it's always been less about how Jesus is "feeling," and more about how I am feeling. I've never really known how to act, so I sort of make it up. I spend the day a little more contemplative then usual, but I am in essence just putting in my time of feeling sad and guilty.

Can this possibly be what Jesus was after? No way, in fact, I'm convinced today that in fact our typical Christian approach to Good Friday actually steals from and cheapens the impact that this historical event was meant to have. It starts with rejecting one of the most common misconceptions about Good Friday...

My sin forced Jesus to the cross

Believing this is what makes me feel guilty and shameful on a day like today. How could I? It's my fault, my sin, my mess that forced Jesus to endure the suffering and pain of crucifixion.

Believing this makes me want to close my eyes and pretend it's not there. Believing this makes me feel even more guilt for somehow not taking it serious enough. I feel shameful, and imprisoned my own lack of faithfulness. This breads fear, anxiety, guilt and a sense of obligation. All of these things are what Jesus came to rule out of our lives!!!

How is it that we have taken a day that represents the end of condemnation (Romans 8:1), and turned it into a day that we place condemnation on ourselves.

Bottom line, you didn't put Jesus on the cross, I didn't put Jesus on the cross, He went on His own accord. He set aside his position of glory, and took on human flesh, becoming obedient to death on a cross because He chose to. Stop giving yourself so much credit! You and I do not have the power to control the God of the universe. He did it, for free, as a gift, and it was His idea and free choice.

Today, instead of feeling guilty, sad, and shameful; Instead of feeling a sense of obligation about all the Christ did, instead, I want to elevate it and celebrate it by basking in all that it accomplished in my life. That is what gives power to in in my own life. Today I choose the freedom, righteousness, grace and power that the cross offers. I choose to celebrate, not cry. I choose to smile, not frown. I choose to live, because that is why He came, that I might have life, and life to the fullest.

Scripture reminds us that, "It is for freedom, that we have been set free."

Live in it, walk in it and celebrate today, and you will be placing Christ and His work on the cross at center stage in your life. Then, choose to live in it every day for the rest of your lives.

If we celebrate the cross once a year, we have entirely missed the point of what today means. I pray that today, my heart would be set on living in the power the cross gave me, and letting it change the way I live, move and breathe.

So tonight, I am going to reflect on the cross, I am going to worship Him for the gift, and then I am going to watch the Lakers kick the Hornets butts in game 3 of there playoff series, and I am going to celebrate the freedom I have been given to do so! It is for freedom I have been set free.

Thanks you Jesus for giving your Life so that I could have real life! I celebrate you and that life today!