Eat and Grow

When my boy isn't eating his food I look at him and say, "you need to eat so you can be BIG and STRONG."  He smiles at me and tries to copy my flexing gesture, and begins to eat.  I was thinking about that this morning.  The whole idea that if he didn't eat, he really would begin to get weaker and weaker.  He needs food to grow and he needs it for strength 

Well, when I think about my spiritual life, I truly want to grow.  But if I am honest, I often don't want to eat.  I just want it to happen: no effort, no energy...just happen.  But that isn't how things work.  That is only the way our selfish and lazy minds work.  We want something, but don't want to put the work into getting it.  Ponder this idea.  Ask yourself what you are truly after.  If you truly desire God, than no amount of work, pain, or struggle will side track you from pursuing him.  But if what you are after is your own good, than you might just find laziness more appealing than God himself.

You need to eat your (spiritual) food so you can be BIG and STRONG!  Feed yourself.

Controlling our Hope (Part 2 of 2)

I can’t control the weather.

I can’t control who lives.

I can’t control my kids.

I can’t control my wife.

I can’t control what people think of me.

I can’t control what is demanded of me.

I can’t control when unexpected costs come.

I can’t control if I get a disease or major health problem.

I can’t control if I get hit by a car.

I can’t control if my “stuff” works how it’s supposed to.

I can’t control my kid’s health and safety.

I can’t control my brain to function as it should.

I can’t control politics.

I can’t control who wins the Super Bowl.

I can’t control.

I can’t control.

I can’t control.

Thinking about life makes me realize how little is up to me and how much is out of my hands.  Why then, do I spend so much physical and emotional energy trying to control what I can’t…all the while neglecting the very things I can control.

By God’s grace and through the power of the Spirit, I can control my obedience to Him.  

I can be faithful by saturating myself in God’s word, whether I feel like it or not. 

I can be faithful by loving my wife, despite how she responds. 

Loving and disciplining my kids, whether it is easy or exhausting. 

Sharing my faith, whether people respond or not.    

Sometimes faith seems complicated, but I think that is because our hope is in so many different things and we try to control all those things.  Maybe faith is simple.  Our duty is to obey God and keep his commands (Eccl 12:13).  It is that simple.  What makes it complicated is not what is asked of us, but that our desires are not where they should be.  It gets complicated because our sinful hearts pull us in so many directions, and in that we try to control much of life around us.  Maybe it is time to stop trying to control so many things.  Time to stop being anxious and worried over things we can’t control.  Time we just look at what God has called us to be obedient to, and do it.  Time we trust God for all that other stuff, and focus our energy where it should be focused.  After all, trying to control these things instead of trusting God accomplishes nothing except revealing our hope is in something other than God Himself.    

Controlling our Hope (Part 1 of 2)

I hope I make a difference.

I hope my marriage thrives.

I hope my kids love Jesus.

I hope to provide for my family.

I hope people like me.

I hope to enjoy life.

I hope tragedy doesn’t strike those close to me.

I hope my neck stops hurting.

I hope it rains.

I hope my car will work when I turn the key.

I hope to have more kids.

I hope our economy will strengthen.

I hope.

I hope.

I hope. 

“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” -1Pe. 1:13

Hope.  Fully.  Those words rise from the page as I read this verse.  How many different things is my hope in?  How many things, even good things, do I hope for because I want them to come true.  Yes, it is a good thing to want to make a difference.  But is that a hope I have because of what I want?  Or is it a hope that overflows from a hope that is fully on Jesus Christ?  How would my life look if my hope were fully on the grace that is to come?  How would it be different?  Why am I so far from that? 

All these little hopes seem harmless, but in the end focus my attention and energy away from the sovereign plan of God.  Why do I hope it rains?  If God wanted it to rain, it would rain.  So why not, instead, hope in God through the drought.  Hope that He will accomplish his purposes through this.  I believe that as we are swept away by the greatness and beauty of who God is and what He has done, that our lives will be changed.  It is not trying harder, doing this or that, or learning more that will transform us into who we are called to be.  We need to hope in Christ.  Fully.  Everything else will work itself out though that hope.      

Self Esteem

There is a lot of talk about self esteem today, especially in circles that work with youth.  People beleive that if we can get kids to feel better about themselves then they will be more likely to suceed and less likely to fall into depression or drugs.  Christian organizations and youth groups have adopted this same philosophy, yet there is a huge problem with it: it isn't Biblical.

Think about it.  Do you think Adam and Eve needed self esteem?  No!  In fact, they only began to worry about their self-esteem after they sinned.  This tells me that the focus on self and worry about self worth is a product of the fall.  It is a result of sin.  So if Adam and Eve didn't have self esteem before they sinned, what did they have? They had, what I like to call, God esteem.  They found their worth in God and who they were in Him.  Their thoughts and lives revolved around God and His glory, not around their own thoughts and their own glory.

What this means for us is that we need to think less about what we do, less about who we are, and less about our status in society.  We need to think more about who God is, more about what Christ has done, and more about our identity in Christ.  This means when we get down we don't need to convince ourself of our worth, rather we need to remember that no matter what, our lives our hid with Christ (Col 3:3).  Nothing can separate us from God's love (Rom 8:38-39).  And that our identity does not change in Him.  When we begin to do this, no longer will our identity change based on circumstance, rather it will be changeless, regardless of how you feel.  Just the thought of this brings hope to the downcast, hope to the anxious, and hope to the sinner who is flooded with guilt.       

• Self Esteem focuses on how you feel about what you have done. God esteem focuses on who you are because of what Christ has done for you.
• Self Esteem focuses on your changing identity in culture. God esteem focuses on your changeless identity in Christ.
• Self Esteem is about how I feel about myself, leading 2 obsessing over self. God esteem is about how I feel about God, leading 2 worship.

The Christian Walk

After hearing a sermon, there are some key points or feelings you usually take from it, but it is often difficult to remember the details.  Since my sermon was about the Christian walk, I wanted provide some of the details from the sermon in writing, so they can be remembered and referred back to;  Because if we miss the purpose of the Christian walk…we will miss Jesus. 

Below are the 3 main points (from Col. 2) I communicated followed by the quote by Tullian Tchividjian (Presbyterian Pastor and great grandson of Billy Graham).  His quote sums up beautifully what the Christian walk is about and how we are to grow in it.

1.       You are completely full in Christ.  Everything you need, in Christ, you already possess.  So don’t seek fullness anywhere else, you have it.

2.       You have triumph because of Christ’s triumph.  It isn’t about what you do but what Christ has already done for you.   

3.       You live the life you are called to live because of your love for Christ, not to gain the love of Christ.

“I’m realizing that the sin I need removed daily is precisely my narcissistic understanding of spiritual progress. I think too much about how I’m doing, if I’m growing, whether I’m doing it right or not. I spend too much time pondering my failure, brooding over my spiritual successes, and wondering why, when it’s all said and done, I don’t seem to be getting that much better. In short, I spend way too much time thinking about me and what I need to do and far too little time thinking about Jesus and what he’s already done. And what I’ve discovered, ironically, is that the more I focus on my need to get better the worse I actually get. I become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with my performance over Christ’s performance for me makes me increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective. After all, Peter only began to sink when he took his eyes off Jesus and focused on “how he was doing”

So, by all means work! But the hard work is not what you think it is–your personal improvement and moral progress. The hard work is washing your hands of you and resting in Christ’s finished work for you–which will inevitably produce personal improvement and moral progress. Progress in obedience happens when our hearts realize that God’s love for us does not depend on our progress in obedience. Martin Luther’s got a point: “It is not imitation that makes sons; it is sonship that makes imitators.”

The real question, then, is: What are you going to do now that you don’t have to do anything? What will your life look like lived under the banner which reads “It is finished?”

What you’ll discover is that once the gospel frees you from having to do anything for Jesus, you’ll want to do everything for Jesus so that “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do” you’ll do it all to the glory of God…That’s real progress”

*from June 2011 Newsletter Article 

Sharing in the Death & Resurrection (Part 3 of 3)

Our old self is dead.  It is no longer there. 

The reign of sin is gone.  It no longer has the authority it once had.

Now what?

The death of our old self and dethronement of the reign of sin is not the end.  We not only participate in the death of Christ, but the resurrection as well!  Christ’s resurrection is also our resurrection.  We are risen with him and given life (Rom 6:5-10)…but why? 

A boy is coloring a picture, and in his excitement handles the crayons a little too aggressively and breaks one.  He is upset because he needed that color, but now it is broken.  He looks at his mother as she reaches into the crayon box and pulls out another crayon of the same color.  Why is she giving the boy another crayon?  Is it so he can break it just like he did the last one?  No!  She is giving him one so he can use it for its intended purpose.  To color. 

Our lives were broken.  Sin destroyed us.  What did God do for us?  He sent his Son for us.  Jesus died for our sins, and then rose from the dead to give us life.  Does Christ die, rise, and give us a new life so we can break it again?  No!  He gives us a new life so we can live it out for its intended purpose: God’s glory!  Living out the power of the resurrection means living life the way God intends for us to live it, through the power of Christ’s finished work.  It means fearing God and obeying his commands (Eccl. 12:13).  He didn’t die and rise so you could be an observer.  He did it to give you life with him, life that participates in what God is doing.  He did it to change you.   The whole object of all that Christ has done in his grace is to deliver us finally and completely out of sin and death and to bring us into this new life, which is his own life, which is indeed the life of God.

Sharing in the Death & Resurrection (Part 2 of 3)

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.” Gal. 2:20

Several years ago, Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, was captured, tried, and hung.  He was killed for his terrorist activity and violence to other humans.  Can he run Iraq anymore?  Absolutely not!  It isn’t just improbable, it is impossible because he is dead.  Even though he cannot rule the country, his violence, policies, and ideas can still be lived out by people within the country and world.  People can act like Saddam still reigns, but truth be told: he doesn’t and can’t reign again. 

Before Christ changed you, sin reigned.  It was sin that ruled your heart, guided you, and had the power.  But upon belief, something happened to sin.  Sin has been killed, which means sin no longer reigns.  We may at times try to act like it reigns, like people did with Saddam, but we must know that it isn’t just improbable that sin will reign, it is impossible. Christ conquered the power of sin, so that what reigns now is Christ.  The power that sin had on us has been nailed to the cross, has died, and was buried.  Christ is now the power in us.  Christ reigns.  Christ gets the last say.  Learn to obey the one who truly reigns instead of listening to the silent whispers of the one whose reign has been forever conquered.   

 

 “Because of my union with Christ, because I have died with him, because I have been buried with him, because I have been risen again, I am dead to sin as a realm and reign, I have finished with it, it has nothing to do with me.” -Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones