Where is the Service Due?

Hebrews 11:13-16 (NIV)

 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

I am really starting to think we have gone off the reservation in most of the church. We teach a gospel of accept Jesus, let Him pay for your sin’s, change your lifestyle to reflect a moral standard and we will see you in heaven when you die. But where is the service due?

My most treasured verse in the Bible is 2 Timothy 2:4. No soldier entangles himself in civilian affairs, so that he can better please the one he serves. Ephesians 6:12 runs a close second and there are many others like them that appeal to me. But I am really finding I am alone in the way I think. If you look at every individual that Jesus either called or for those that asked if they could follow Him; He asked them for a virtual abandonment of their former life. And if you look at Paul’s conversion he left a life of wealth, power and prestige… never looking back; and later he said that he counted all of that as nothing! The early church as well as the Apostles believed fervently that Jesus return was immanent if not in their lifetime certainly in their generation; and their lives reflected that. They lived many times in a communal state. They devoted their lives to spreading the news of a life transformed by Jesus… many times under persecution and threats of imprisonment, death or being cast out of the community of Jewish believers. And they transformed the world! But because we no longer see Jesus return as immanent we go about our lives as the rest of the world and our service to God is a footnote.

With just a cursory reading of the New Testament it is not hard to see us being called to a far different life than the one we currently live. It would be redundant to start naming and quoting all the scripture both new and old testaments that describe a radically abandoned life of service or specifically and directly speak of an abandoned life. The bible also tells us in; 1 Corinthians 7:20 (Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them). So it doesn’t mean we immediately go join a monastery or embark on a mission trip to Africa. But it does mean that every motive for your next breath belongs to Jesus, and our lives should reflect that.

If our government told us a giant asteroid was going to hit earth in two years but not to worry they have found a habitable planet we can go to. But all of us as a people need to pool our resources and all of our time, money and effort into building the escape ship… Would you abandon your life and join the cause? Or would you keep living like you never heard the good news?

That asteroid (figuratively speaking) is still coming, we don’t know when, but we know it is. No one ever condemns the early church for the radical separation they made from the world to live different lives and spread the news of Jesus. They are our example are they not? Yet, we don’t even come close to following it, why? What changed? I will tell you what it is; we look at them as immature in this great Faith we think we have a hold of. They are immature because they don’t have the historical lens we use to know that Jesus is still along way off, so we might as well make ourselves comfortable while we wait, and all these years later Jesus has become a Sunday morning footnote.

I am making changes in my life to reflect a different purpose and way of living… if you study the scripture you will find a choice to do nothing else if you really are in love with and want to please your Heavenly Father!

Isn’t it time to start putting stuff on the ship before the asteroid comes? I think He is closer than many think! 

Don’t hang up the phone!

I was having dinner with my son last night and our discussion surrounded how he viewed what actions were permissible by him in and out of my presence. Then I asked him; “Is there anything you know that I don’t approve of that you would do in my presence?” Of course he said; “No!” Then I thought of the application in my own life and my pursuit of what seems to be an impossible task. “The pursuit of Holiness” I say it seems impossible because there are so many times throughout the day where I forget who and whose I am; many times it is because of an angry outburst and others it is because I just got too busy.

Some of the things that Both Jesus and Paul have told us in scripture come to mind that have helped me to get a leg up on this whole ‘Holiness pursuit thing”.

First Jesus says to; “Seek ye first His kingdom and He will take care of everything else” (Matthew 6:33) and Paul has said to; “Pray with out ceasing”. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

So think about this!

If as my son said he wouldn’t do anything I didn’t approve of in my presence, and I am always every second of every day seeking to further Gods kingdom and am in constant prayer with Him… at what point am I going to have an opportunity to sin?

So instead of pursuing ‘Holiness’ as a means to an end I think God intends for us to pursue Him and everything else will just take care of itself.

From now on, when I wake up in the morning and pick up the phone to call God I am just not going to hang up until I fall asleep that night. I will endeavor to walk every second of everyday consciously aware that He is literally right by my side. And because He is right beside me; I am pretty sure the Holiness thing will take care of itself.

Filthy Rags

Grace:
How can we so easily ask God for more of what we already don't deserve? To flippantly ask with an arrogant expectation for a life filled with breezy walks down sunny roads, never once considering giving back the life that was purchased to the one who paid the price. We ask Him every day for our needs, wants and desires and never once ask the one who gives us these things and more; what does He desire from us. I am just thankful that God still loves me at the end of each day. When although I may not have sinned in this worlds eyes, the evil thoughts and desires my heart paraded before my mind should have condemned me to a thousand deaths... and He saw them all... and yet still He loves me and offers more grace. I am a woefully sinful man and we are a woefully sinful people who can never deserve that which He lavishes on us.

(Isaiah 64:6) All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away”.

The term “filthy rags” is a translation of the Hebrew word iddah, which literally means “the bodily fluids from a woman’s menstrual cycle.” and rags is a translation of begged, meaning “a rag or garment.” So then all these “righteous acts” or thoughts of being able to Piously approach God and say; “I am a pretty good person” is considered by God as repugnant as a soiled feminine hygiene product.

So, instead of asking Him for what you want today, see if you can do something, Anything; to put a smile in His heart today!

All Alone

This is just me being real… and also kind of rambling about a scary thought that I wanted to share.

If you have never felt what I am about to describe then this will just be so many words on a page; but if you have, then I think we can get a tiny glimpse of what Jesus must have felt to be separated for the first time from God.

Have you ever experienced that pivotal point in your life where everything changed almost in an instant? And that change brought so much happiness and joy into your life that even months or weeks later you literally have to pinch yourself because it just doesn’t seem real. And if it is real the change was so sudden and fantastic that you are still holding your breath waiting for the shoe to drop? Maybe it was the time you met your husband or wife, your first child, your dream home or a gigantic promotion and pay raise. Whatever it was, it so radically altered your life that whatever your life was in the weeks before it occurred doesn’t even have significance to you anymore.

My journey to where I am right now is kind of crazy… and if you have read more than one or two things that I have written it isn’t something that’s real hard to figure out. I made a very serious and real commitment to completely give my life to Jesus in my early twenties and for next twenty years God blessed my family and I with everything. Awesome wife, awesome kids, awesome career, awesome income… I mean it was really everything most men pursue to consider themselves successful. And I thought I was still being Super Christian in the midst of it all... but if you had asked my wife back then; and she was honest with you; she would have told you I was the biggest egotistical, selfish jerk that walked the planet. And I was! And because I am also a really stubborn, thickheaded, know-it-all, God had to allow some things into my life that I think few ever have to face in order for Him to get my attention. And one of those things was His silence… silence for the last thirteen years. Not His absence, although if you had asked me in the middle of it all I would have told you that God bailed on me. I had so perverted His word and blessing in my life that I was never going to see Him or that kind of life again. I knew I was still saved but I was now one of those that got into heaven with their pants on fire and He really didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. (p.s. I was wrong). I still loved Him with all of my heart and missed Him horribly but I knew what I had become and was ashamed… I understood! But I so wanted to know Him again like I did before…

Now here I sit… that time of darkness and silence came to a close at the beginning of this year. I see the how and why of all that has been, and I understand. It is so different again that it is really impossible to describe. It is even better than what it was in the beginning with Him and I. And believe me I did not think that to be possible. And I don’t know why this thought followed but it made me shudder!

I knew in my twenties the joy of walking daily, hand in hand with God and also what it is like to (feel) separated from Him (although I never really was)! I also know what it feels like to have a deep and mature relationship with Him; one that comes from loving Him and with the best of your heart trying to serve Him for most of your life regardless of circumstances. To have Him look right at you and then change things in an instant to make Himself become part of your life again in indescribable ways. I literally feel like I need to pinch myself everyday, but I know it is God doing this so I am not worried. Yet, there is a side of me that is still holding its breath. It still remembers the pain of the last thirteen years, and is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And then I thought “WOW” What if He did it… I mean really did it! What if God really did turn His back on you… did not care or watch out for what happened to you anymore? Not just that absence of His word or touch (which by the way is horrifying beyond compare) but His actual physical absence. To have that wonderful pivotal moment of your life jerked right out from under you at the height of its glory, all in a split second!

Holy cow!

That is what the bible says He did to Jesus. Jesus cried out in His darkest hour on the cross “Father why have you forsaken me”. He was alone for the first time… but not like we would experience it, I mean really alone. For us, God promises; “He will never leave or forsake us”. So even though you don’t feel Him… He made a promise to be there and many more promises that talk about how He cares for you in the darkest of quiet times. But not so for Jesus! God could not even look at what was happening to His own son. Satan had loosed the dogs of Hell on Jesus and His Father had turned His back on Him for the first time in all of eternity.

If you have sat where I have recently been and could sit where I now am… you would have a couple of tears in your eyes at the moment… That is some crazy stuff! There is a BIG part of me, the flesh side of me that is scared to death… I NEVER want to go back to that feeling of not having God literally right by my side ever, ever again! And He promises to never leave it.

There will come a day when the sheep are separated from the goats… and darkness will come. The hounds of hell will be loosed in a place devoid of God. A place where there will be no one to save you, to protect you… a place where there will only be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

That is the place Jesus went for you and I… so we don’t have to.

And that is where everyone is going that you and I know and love, who does not also know and love Jesus.

Jus’ sayin’

Evangelism

e·van·ge·lism

noun

the spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness.

zealous advocacy of a cause.

I remember in my early twenties God moving forcefully against me to literally and physically save me from myself. The initial result was a transformation into a true blue bona-fide Jesus freak; embarrassingly so! I looked for and manufactured ways in every encounter with someone I met to bring up Jesus and try to win their soul. I was an Evangelism Explosion Super Hero and I was one really annoying person to be around.

Skip forward 30 years; and you will find inside me a crazy Jesus freak (even more so) than that boy from thirty years ago. But it is kept inside now in temperance. I try to limit what and when I let it bleed out and to whom. But it is getting harder to do that.

Jeremiah 20:9 (NIV)

But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

God is once again moving forcefully in my life, but this time not against me. The whole turning into a Jesus freak in my twenties was not some weird over reaction but more an immature response to such a radical change. I went from less than zero to the child of a King in a matter of moments. And the only response I could give was an almost explosive outpouring of wanting to share that experience. Albeit; ‘a little out of balance’ but if you know me you know that is how I attack anything… I am all in or I am not interested at all! That is how I live my life.

I said earlier that; “it is getting harder to do that”… the ‘that’ being able to keep what is happening inside of me.

I teach 4^th and 5^th grade Sunday school and today’s lesson was on an undignified King David. He was so zealous for what God had done that in front of God and all of his subjects he danced wildly in the streets of his neighborhood in his underwear leading a celebratory procession down the street. The story is found in Second Samuel chapter 6 if you care to read it. He flat out did not care what anyone thought about the love he felt for his Father. And the only response he could give to anyone was an unabashed display of joy and affection. He wanted EVERYONE to know and share in his experience and all of what had led up to this moment. And so I am struggling again with this same thing. But I also now realize just how easy it is to dismiss someone as a kook who is acting all weird if you are not the King. And although I don’t mind being labeled a kook, I don’t want to be in-effective.

This now brings me to my point. “Evangelism”… just what is it? Is evangelism knowing the bible backwards and forwards to the point that you can defend any position or defeat any argument? I don’t think so! The early church didn’t even have a bible. If they were lucky they had a single letter from Paul to share and if they were even luckier they got to read it. So no! Evangelism can not be by its early definition, ‘know your bible’. The early church was by far the most effective the church has ever been in societal conversion and all without instruction from a bible. It still didn’t exist for hundreds of years to come.

So what made them so effective?

It was not what they knew but how well they knew WHO they knew. And everything else that came after that was the explosive feeling of wanting to share the most incredible experience of their life with anyone that would listen. And that is why I am struggling. Not because I want to go and shake someone and scream in their face; “DO YOU KNOW JESUS?” But because God… my Father… the King of the Universe, loves me, shows up for me, cares for me in ways that cannot be contained. And it is not because you need to listen to me or you might go to hell; but because; “unless you know God like this you are missing out on the most incredible experience that can be had by anyone in ten or a thousand lifetimes.

BUT!

There is only one problem with the whole picture that has been painted here. And that is YOU! If you are His; and you have not felt or experienced this yet, I dare say that you haven’t believed Him ‘yet’ for the rest of the story. Many if not most who have read this far in to my little ramble are more than likely saved and heaven bound. But because you have only put your feet into the water on the shallow side of the pool, you still do not know the joy of swimming in His love.

The Pharisees asked Jesus one time’ “what the greatest commandment is?” And He replied: “to Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength.” He also said later in another passage to; “seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other “Things” will be added to you.” He basically said the same thing the second time except with a promise! And the “Things” He speaks of are all of the rest of life and what comes with it.

But until you can get this one thing right… until you can abandon your life, your hopes and dreams, your family… YOUR EVERYTHING; to be completely and totally used by God for His purpose and His purpose alone… then you will never receive the promise of “All these things” being added to you. And sadly you will always think you have to know a little more than you do before you can tell someone else about what God has done. Mainly because you have no personal  experience to share. You will never know that absolutely explosive and uncontainable feeling of wanting to tell someone about what God is doing in your life… because He isn’t doing anything; and everything that is happening in your life is of your making and not His. You have no idea what you are missing out on while we have to tarry here.

And I feel sorry for what you will never see here on earth that is completely yours… just for the asking.

Gods’ gift of salvation is FREE… but it will cost you everything you are, if you want to enjoy it while we are still here on earth.

 I recently watched a 1950's YouTube video of a house wife tripping on LSD. One of the things that stood out is towards the end of the video. She is trying to share her experience with her interviewer and is obviously experiencing something she is feeling that is beyond wonderful. And she looks at the man and asks; “don’t you see that?” and he of course says; “no”. And she continues on trying to describe her experience and after a minute she pauses. She looks at him and with a great deal of compassion in her eyes and speech says; “I feel sorry for you!”
That is exactly how I feel with what God has been doing since the beginning of this year. It is beyond incredible, so much so that it is hard not to want to scream it from the rooftops… LOOOOOOOOOK AT WHAT HE HAS DONE; AND IS DOING!
And the crazy thing is everyday He just seems to be a little closer, a little more tangible and it somehow is just a little bit better than the best thing that ever happened just a few minutes or hours earlier.

That has got to be what heaven is going to be like on steroids…. 

A Common Destiny for All

Ecclesiastes 9:2-6 (NIV)

All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
As it is with the good, so with the sinful; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.
This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. Anyone who is among the living has hope even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten. Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.

God says he gives rain to the evil and the good equally. Basically we all share life under the same sun and take the same test as we walk through this life.

Ecclesiastes 9:11 (NIV) The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

For most of us life throws some pretty crappy curve balls, and many times life is not very fun… “Time and chance happen to them all”… Solomon’s life did not end as gloriously as it began and somewhere along the way in “time and chance” he lost sight of the one who transcends that. We all fall victim to random opportunity and failure in life, but the one thing that separates the good and the evil in the end, is the love that God has for those that call Him father. And when it is all said and done, there is nothing that “time and chance” can do in this life that will compare to the life He has planned for you in His house.

Get a Dog!

I was contemplating weighty things this morning… thinking about what life becomes when this world ends and heavens reign begins.

What will we do all day, every day…for eternity? What if it is boring?

Then I thought about my dog ‘Max’. They say if you want to know who loves you more, ‘your wife or your dog” lock them both in the trunk of a car for two hours and when you open it you will know for sure by which one is happy to see you.  Now, that may be intended to be humorous but it also drives home a point.

If you do not or have not ever had a dog you will have to take the rest of this on faith… and I feel bad for you because until you have owned a dog you have not physically experienced unconditional love. I have never been able to spend so much time with my dog that he didn’t want to be around me any more. In fact it is always my decision to end our time together because there is never a time when my dog does not want to interact with me or just be right beside me sitting enjoying company together. It doesn’t matter to him what we do as long as we do it together. His entire world revolves around me, it is as if it ends when I leave and picks back up again when I return. My son put his iPad on record to watch Max to see what he did while we were gone for the day… can you guess what it was? After we left he ran to the window to see us off, then he became visibly upset… and for the remainder of the time he either slept or moped until we came back. And then of course his whole world brightened when we returned.

I think of my own life and how much brighter it is when I know God is physically involving Him self in my life, how I feel when close to Him, praising Him, loving Him. It really is kind of like a high! He is our creator, and because He made us He also knows exactly what will satisfy us. He made us in such a way that it is only Him that brings complete wholeness and satisfaction to our lives. And just like my dog. When we are together nothing else matters. Not what we do, where we are or where we are going… just that it is together.

Judging from the emotions and joy I feel when I am worshiping, loving or just spending time with God (and we are not really physically together yet)… I got a funny feeling that when we are finally physically with Him, it will not matter what we are doing, where we are or where we are going, as long as we are with Him.

And then, and only then will we be completely and totally satisfied. For eternity!     

Blue or Red Pill?

Matthew 6:33 (KJV)
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

In the movie The Matrix, the main character Neo is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill... You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes... I wish like Neo in the Matrix there was a blue or red pill you could take to make a clear transition, to be able to really see and live in the physical presence of the realm of God. Life would be so much easier to live for Him then. In many ways this verse is the red pill. I personally think it is by far the most important verse in the Bible; it completely summarizes the Bible in its entirety. The "Things" that Jesus is talking about were mentioned in the preceding verses and it is EVERYTHING else that our life on earth consists of. God is telling us plainly and completely that if we pursue Him above the ‘everything else’ in our life He promises to take care of the ‘Everything’ for us. In essence we are offered the chance to live a life personally ‘kept’ and held in the hands of the creator of the universe.

I don’t think there is a better deal you will find any where else in the universe.

Churcheeze or Christianeeze!

Do you know that feeling that crawls up your spine whenever you hear someone rake their finger nails across a chalk board? I know this will sound harsh and I hate that, but I get that same feeling almost every time I hear someone speaking “church talk”! You know what I mean. “Have a blessed day”. “Isn’t God good”, “Praise the Lord” or “Praise Jesus” (usually spoken at highly inappropriate times)… and so many others. It is not the words themselves, and I am not embarrassed by it, heck I would scream; “I love Jesus” in front of the world if it would make a difference. But, it is usually the people delivering it that irk me, and they usually sound phony. On rare occasions I have heard it spoken and felt power in it, and it meant something. But most of the time it is something flowery and superfluous, spoken with no authority, praise/worship or meaning and is usually intended to make the one speaking it seem more pious than actually intending to be beneficial to anyone.

And this is where I struggle.

God has done so many raw and miraculous things in these last few weeks, and so changed everything for me that I want to scream how awesome He is to anyone who will listen. I am like Jeremiah when he said; “But if I say, "I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” (Jeremiah 20:9) But every time I hear my self saying the same crap everyone else says, I cringe inside…

So I am on a quest. A quest to find a way to express to those around us how perfectly awesome our God is. To have them actually hear what you said and want to know what it means or why we are saying it without turning them tuning you out because you just screamed “Praise Jesus” at an entirely awkward or inappropriate moment and they labeled and wrote you off as another pious and religiously filled worthless pew warmer.

Any thoughts, Ideas… what do, or would you say?

I am just thinking out loud and I definitely am not intending to make anyone mad, this is simply my personal hang-up and a search for a resolution.

Cheers

An all consuming Fire!

Hebrews 12:29 (ESV)

...for our God is a consuming fire.

In my devotional this morning one of the ideas presented about God focused on the all consuming side of Him. The writer shared a story of a holy land tour guide he had met who entertained the idea that God was like a giant continual nuclear explosion. That is why we can't see Him face to face and why He can't come here directly because it would destroy us. 

Going there for a moment, (I am not saying he is right or wrong) but if it were in one way or another true... then maybe that is why we have to die to ourselves to become a part of Him. When we finally come to Him we experience the all consuming holiness of Him and our flesh dies in the face of who He is, leaving our spirit free to pass through the all consuming nature of God and into an intimate loving relationship inside of Him.

You are no longer outside looking in but inside looking out, seeing the view He sees you through.

Just a thought!

A life with your Father

Imagine for a minute that you are a young adult again, just starting out on your own in the world. You leave your fathers house and begin your life, but not long into this new life things turn bad for you. It is not as easy as you thought to get a good paying job and you never have enough ever for your basic needs. You are losing your house and you can’t feed your self… the realization sets in that you have no future. You know your father is waiting to take you back. He loves you and told you he would be waiting for you, but you rejected his way of life, that is why you left. You know coming to him requires you to accept him and his life, but if you do you know he will always care for you. Eventually you give in to him and his love and accept his way of life. But now that you are home, neither him nor this way of life is really interesting. So you find yourself locked away in your room when you come home, watching TV or something else useless. You stay at work a little longer hoping to establish a promising career, or go out trying to find something you can enjoy or make you happy. You barely talk when you see your father and certainly do not take the time to spend with him.  But still he is always there waiting, inviting you to go places with him to enjoy the day with him, to let him care for you and show you how much He loves you.

Does this sound familiar, maybe not in the literal sense but how is it with your heavenly father? Have you accepted His offer to live with Him in His house? If you did, you no longer have a worry in the world. He has promised to meet your every need. He waits everyday for you to unlock your bedroom door and spend some time with Him… to spend all your time with Him. To pursue Him with as much enthusiasm as you pursue your own dreams. He has such an adventure in mind for you, one that will you will truly enjoy… one that will make you happy and satisfied, because it is what he created you for.

Or do you find yourself staying at work and pouring your self into YOUR career, so you can pursue YOUR dreams. Or spending your free time and resources doing what YOU enjoy, (or what you think you enjoy)!

You have NO idea what is waiting for you until you release everything you are and want to be to Him. He is the only one that can truly make you feel safe, secure and fill you with real joy!

I will leave you with a short story I heard that applies.

A father gave a string of fake pearls to his daughter a few weeks before her birthday. She loved those pearls and wore them everywhere, everyday. On her birthday he came to her with his hand outstretched and the other behind his back, and asked her to give him back the faux pearls. She resisted and begged and pleaded with her father not to take them; she loved them! But eventually she gave in to her father and gave him back her cherished possession. And when she did from behind his back he produced an exquisite necklace made of real pearls to give her in exchange for the fake ones she loved.

How about you? Are you still chasing YOUR dreams, or the one He created you for?