We Are the Body???

Last night, my wife Ali and I attended a Casting Crowns concert in Cedar Rapids along with like 3,000 other people. I have to say first of all that I love Casting Crowns and Mark Hall! I feel as though they are extremely down to earth and they sing truth in every one of their songs. The concert started out with the song until the whole world hears which is a new song of theirs that I really neither like nor dislike but as I sang the words with those 3,000 people, the question began to dawn on my mind, "Do we mean the words that we sing?" The song says that we'll keep singing until the whole world hears and yet so often it would appear that we could care less if the world hears the gospel! After this song they began to sing one of my favorites, We are the Body and as they sang the words "Jesus paid much to high a price for us to pick and choose who should come, and we are the body of Christ." I couldn't help but feel a mixture of extreme conviction and anger. The truth of the matter is that we are the actual Body of Christ, His ambassadors on this earth and yet what we portray to those around us is NOT love, is NOT acceptance, is NOT understanding but rather indifference at best and down right hate at worst! I am increasingly convinced that we are, for the most part living in ignorance at the call God has placed on the hearts of those who call themselves His disciples. Oh God, that we would actually begin to live like we were the Body, that we would actually begin to reach with His hands, see with His eyes, and love with His heart!

sacrifice?

This past weekend was Acquire The Fire in Minneapolis, MN where we joined 5,000 other people in seeking to encounter the love of God. These events are always high emotion and high energy and as we began the weekend the MC screamed to the crowd "Are you ready to see God move this weekend?" The crowd yelled back in agreement. Then he yelled "Are you ready to have God change your life this weekend?" Again the crowd yelled in agreement and as I watched what was happening I couldn't help but ask myself if those youth actually knew what they were agreeing to. I don't think we comprehend the life that God is calling us into, we don't grasp the fact that this isn't just another religion, not just another job, not just another list of rules to try and keep. We don't get the fact that God want's to give us everything but in turn we must give Him everything. We must give everything we are, everything we think we have, everything that we might be, we give it all sacrificially and then walk where He tells us to walk. We wrongly assume that this is a price to high to pay but in reality all that we really have to offer is brokenness, pain, confusion, and death. In return God gives us hope, joy, peace, and life.

God's Will?

At times I find it comical that we are so prone to extremes, or perhaps I shouldn’t lump everyone into the same mold. I guess you can just read this and see if it applies. I started reading a book today called “Just Do Something” where the author makes the argument that there are times when we find ourselves guilty of not doing anything because we are waiting on God’s will. He claims that there are times when believers try and find God’s will in a situation when maybe God is indifferent to that situation. Now granted I am only half way through the second chapter but it is an intriguing idea.
On the other hand, my devotions this morning form Oswald Chambers claimed that if there is any doubt in the heart of a believer about a situation one is in, then the believer is not in the will of God. He states that we must wait until God’s will is absolutely clear before we make a move lest we run ahead of God’s plan and mess the whole thing up.
Well, what is one to think? It can easily be tempting for believers to adopt one or the other extreme: to just run through life doing whatever pleases you, all the while claiming it is the will of God; or to not do anything, take no chances, exercise no faith because you feel a shred of doubt and so therefore it must not be God’s will. I’m sure that both of these authors would agree that it takes equal amounts of both views to follow God’s will. In scripture we see where Jesus’ disciples tried to run out ahead of God’s will and had to be reigned in. On the other hand we see where God wanted His people to move but they were afraid of what that might mean for them.
Ultimately I believe that when we are truly seeking God we do not have to fret about whether or not we are or are not in his will. In Isaiah 30, the prophet is telling the Israelites that when they repent and come back to God, He will receive them and forgive them. Then in vs. 21 he says, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” Meaning that when we truly seek God, we can take comfort in the fact that he will guide our steps, the only thing we have to do is keep following where He leads.

After Christmas

I really hate this time of the year! Christmas is over but the snow is still around for another two months, It is so cold that I don't even want to go outside, and the Christmas lights are still up but everyone knows they have to come down soon. I think it might be this last thing that is the most depressing to me. The lights are so beautiful and before Christmas I love to look at them because they point to Christmas. It's almost like every house that is lit up with lights is a reminder that Christmas is almost here. Now, however the lights mean nothing. Oh there still beautiful and I still love to look at them but they have a sort of hollow beauty now. Not to overspiritualize everything but I couldn't help but think of how this is a good illustration. To me it represents so many who really do look the part. They try so hard to be put together, and shine as brightly as they can and yet there's is a hollow beauty. We need to realize that if Christ is not who we shine for then we are nothing more than disappointing to those who stop to stare at our efforts to shine.

Eat Your Soup!

Last week, Albertein made some awesome potato soup that I absolutely love and am quite sure I could eat my weight in! It's full of bacon, cheese, and of coarse potatoes and for some reason Jackson got it into his head that he just would not eat it. Well, the way it works at our house is that what we have for supper is what we have, and if you don't like it well, tough. So as Jackson made his displeasure known, I informed him that he was going to have to sit there until he ate his soup and that was that, and of coarse that caused more whining, which in turn caused my temperature to go up and so on and so forth. Anyway, after quite a while of this, Jackson decided that it would be better to just suck it up and eat his soup than to have to sit at the table all day and night and low and behold, he found out that he loves potato soup. As I watched him scarf down his soup that he finally tried I said, "See Jackson, isn't it so much easier when you just do what I ask?" And in my mind or heart, or both I heard God say "Yes Luke; isn't it so much easier when you just do what I ask?"
Why is it that the majority of the time we fight so hard against what God has for us, and yet when we finally shut up and follow Him, we find out that following Him is where we always wanted to be.

Following closely

So yes I realize that it has been forever and a day that I have written anything on here and that probably everyone has assumed that I have abandoned this whole blogging thing forever but, here I am, and I pledge to do better with this whole thing. With that being said . . .
I was listening to one of my favorite pastors the other day discussing his "conversion experience" or in layman's terms how he began to follow Jesus. He explained that he really didn't know anything about what he was doing, he just knew that he had been forgiven, and that he now had a hunger for scripture and a longing to live however God wanted him to live. Because of this hunger, he began to read his bible every morning and every evening; not out of a legalistic sense of having to, but because he wanted to know what he was supposed to do. He explained that he also had a lot of baggage, like a filthy vocabulary and as he read what God was all about, he realized that the way he talked didn't match up with who God was, so he changed the way he talked, and so on. The thing that I found very interesting about this (and it certainly isn't anything new) is that Chip didn't change because he set out to specifically change this or that about himself, he changed because he realized his actions didn't add up to what he now knew.
One of the problems that I have to be mindful of is the fact that I get to focused on the action; in order to be a better Christian I must do this, this, and this. The action then becomes the important thing, and if I don't do these actions in a certain way then I have failed. In actuality, I believe that God isn't about the actions. What I'm going to do is not focus so much on the actions, and instead focus on who God is, on who Christ is and then think, if I want to be closer to Jesus, these things in my life can't stay. If I want to be closer to Jesus, I need to talk to Him, I need to spend time with Him. If I want to be a Christ follower I need to know Him more so I can follow Him more closely. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Ability Vs. Choice

I've been thinking all day long about the difference between ability and choice. This started yesterday when I was talking to one of my youth guys about the movie the Hangover, and in the middle of talking to him about it he stopped and said, "Oh, you probably can't see that movie can you?" I found this question very interesting, and thought provoking because of the implications that it unknowingly carried.
The assumptions that this guy was voicing was that because I am a pastor, and more importantly a Christian, there are some things that I am incapable of taking part in; but is this assumption correct? What many don't realize is that just because a person becomes a Christian, their ability to take part in non Christian activities, such as movies that promote sin for all to see is in no way hampered. We could still take part, but as a Christian, why would I want to? The focus of Christianity should be to become more Christlike in all that we do, and so why would I then want to take part in something that will inevitably drive me further from my ultimate goal?
When all is said and done, it isn't about one's ability to do this or that, it comes down to the motives behind why we do what we do. I heard a story recently about this guy who was leaving early for a work trip and so his twelve year old daughter got up before him, and made him his coffee; why? She made him his coffee, not out of some unspoken obligation, not out of guilt, not out of a desire to be a better daughter, but simply out of love for her dad. Galatians 5:13 says "You my brothers were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love." So again, it isn't about ability; we are free to live our lives. It's about motivation, it's about love, it's about choice.

A Willing Heart

This past Sunday we wrapped up a four week long discussion on how to unlock your God given potential, and through it all the main theme has been commitment; how committed are you to seeing God work through your life. I've had a lot of people come up to me these past four weeks expressing concerns that they don't feel like they are doing enough for God. Or people are wondering how they can hear God more clearly because maybe there's more that he is wanting them to do. If we aren't careful, when we begin to focus on questions such as these our Christianity can very quickly turn into a question of "how good am I?" Or "How much can I do?"

I shared last Wednesday about how in 2Chronicles 30, under King Hezekiah the people were taking part in the passover for the first time in a long time. It was basically a revival where people were earnestly seeking God, and yet the problem was that there were a lot of people who, when the time came to eat the passover they were, according to the law, unclean. Then in 2Chronicles 30:18-20, Hezekiah asks God to pardon the ones who had their hearts set on seeking God, and yet were unclean according to the rules of the sanctuary. It then says that "the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people." So what was the most important thing? Being clean according to the rules, or having a heart set on seeking God?

Now don't get me wrong, the law was very important but it was a means of drawing the people to God. God's focus and his desire was for a relationship with his creation, not that they were perfect! Even today we get so hung up on, and worried about how well we can perform as Christians, and how often we have our quiet times, and how much we put in the plate, and how many Sunday school classes we teach, and how we don't drink, or smoke, or cuss, and how clean we can look on the outside that ultimately we miss the fact that Christianity is all about having a heart set on seeking God! Again, Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; there were a lot of other commandments but this was the most important one!

And so as we strive to be disciples of Christ, and as we work to be holy as God is holy, we must remember that above everything else we must ask ourselves the question: "Is my heart set on seeking God?"

Dog Poop Gospel

It constantly amazes me the ways that God chooses to speak to me. Maybe it's my immature personality or the fact that I have a tendency to be very simple minded but I can't tell you how many times I have been watching Sponge Bob Squarepants and God opens my mind to some deep, or not so deep spiritual truth that is being portrayed right before my eyes. A few weeks ago, Oskar, the dog that we have had for over 6 years became very sick and past away, so now we have Hudson; a 13 week old Snouzer. Hudson is doing pretty well with potty training but sometimes he has accidents and as I sat at the computer doing some work the other day I began to smell one such accident. At first I thought maybe the dog had simply farted because he was setting on my lap at the time and has a tendency to do that when he's comfortable, this habit of his is somewhat annoying. I realized however, as I continued to smell that distinct smell that it's source was probably more than just a simple passing of some puppy gas. When I went to investigate, sure enough I found Hudson's little gift to me on the living room floor. After some time with the carpet cleaner, and some discipline for the dog I went back to work, but for some reason the smell did not go away. I thought maybe he had deposited some more goodies somewhere else in the house, but no matter how hard I looked I could not find anything else that would warrant the smell that was invading my nose. It was past time for me to be up at the church, so I abandoned my search and hopped in the car only to find that the smell was in the car as well! You may have suspected by now, as I did that if the smell had followed me from the house to the car that maybe I should stop looking for it's source in my surroundings and instead turn my eyes on my person. Sure enough, when I did this I found that somehow Hudson had left some of his goodness in a big glob right on my knee, did I mention I was wearing my new jeans? As gross as it may sound, instead of going inside to change my jeans, I just went on up to the church and did my best to wash the mess off. After scrubbing my jeans long enough for the goodness not to be visible any longer, I set to work in my office, however I quickly found out that even though there was no longer a visible mess on my knee, the smell was still very much hanging around.
As I thought about this incident, it became very clear to me how many times this happens to us in a spiritual sense. We realize that something somewhere stinks in our lives and so we do our best to get rid of it. We do good things, we try and be a good person, we recycle and yet no matter how hard we try, something still stinks. This even happens to us as Christians. We know we are forgiven, and we know that Christ is our Savior but at the same time the smell still lingers! Paul talks all through out the book of Colossians to a group of Christians about how they need to stop living the way they did before they came to Christ. As of coarse you know, the only way for me to stop smelling like poop on that fateful day was to get some clean jeans, and spiritually speaking The only way to be truly cleansed is to let go of who we were before, and to dive head first into who God wants us to be. I wonder how God will speak to you today if you are open, it just may be through an unexpected deposit on your new jeans.