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.

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?"

commitment phobia

As I set here on vacation in Florida, a few of the people who are here with us are watching the season premier of the bachelorette, which has to be one of the worst shows ever conceived; alright I can think of worse ones, but it's close! Now, I admit I have watched a Bachelor episode or two, and I have held my breath as that final rose was handed out, but as I hear this episode playing in the background I am just struck with how wrong the whole concept of the show is. Here's this lady who is basically trying out an endless line of guys, initially judging them on their surface attributes. Then as the show goes on she'll kiss this one, and this one will get a special weekend away with her, and everyone will cry at least once. Then in the end she will pick one of these guys that has turned out to be her "soul mate", hand him a rose, and give him a commitment to maybe someday possibly become engaged to him. Maybe.

I believe that this show illustrates the problem that our culture has with commitment incredibly well. Seemingly in everything we do, we have this fear or phobia of being too committed. We lease cars, we have tract phones, and we move in with the one we "love" instead of getting married to them, just in case. this phobia has even crept into our spiritual lives as well. We have this idea, or attitude that we just want to date Jesus. Nothing serious, just a promise here and there, maybe go to church every now and then but we want to keep our options open, just in case. However nothing could be further from what we are supposed to do, and what we are supposed to be.

Jesus tells us that unless you hate your father and mother, then you can't be a disciple of mine. Meaning that the relationship we have with Christ has to be so far above our most intimate relationships that they look like hate in comparison. Jesus isn't looking for a casual relationship, he is calling us to a deeper, all in commitment that makes everything else pale in comparison. The question is, are we willing to accept?