The love of a child

When I get home from work, it takes less than a second for my hand to hit the doorknob before my daughter starts running into the kitchen, excitedly yelling "Daddy!!" Its as though all she has wanted all day long was for me to be home. All she wants is for me to pick her up, give her a big hug and then play with her. Its really hard to resist, but after spending the previous 12+ hours in the ICU, I need a shower and fresh clothes before I go touching anything! One day this past week, I got out of the shower, grabbed some dinner and had a seat on the couch... this little lady crawled up onto my lap, and cuddled in, just wanting to be close to me. She didn't want or need anything from me, just closeness. After I finished my dinner, she hopped down, grabbed her bag of blocks, sat down and said, "Now, daddy play blocks with me." It was an evening of pure, simple, love. No agenda, no manipulation, no worldly corruption... pure, simple, child like love. I am long-convinced that of the many blessings that come with having a child (or in my case, children) is the easy and evident snapshot of love. And not just any love, but the love that exists between parent and child and, at its best, how it mimics the love of God to His children. But in this case, the example of the love that His children should have for Him. Jesus tells us to be child-like. Not in a sense of immaturity, but in a sense of purity. When we feel God's presence near us, when He is rattling the doorknob, we should run excitedly to Him. When we ask to be, and plead to be in His arms, we need to understand that there are times we must simply wait, and that there is a reason. When we are in His presence, sometimes we should just sit with Him, sometimes we should play. Never with an agenda, never with a manipulative heart, never by the standard of our world... we should delight in His presence. Our requests should be pure and centered on our desire to be closer to God, and to want to be active with Him. Its not possible to put into words the feelings of reciprocal love between parents and children. To try would be a disservice, and would fall immensely far from the truth. It is something that can only be experienced by those who are actively taking part in the relationship. The beauty of the love is in its simplicity and completeness, it depends on nothing outside of itself. It is sustaining, unending, and perfect. It is not without struggles, pain, discipline, and heartache. We accept that those hard times come, and through them, we grow in the depth of this love. I pray that my life would reflect a love of God that is anywhere near as pure as the love my children have for me. I pray the same for anyone who happens to read this... there is a God that longs for you to experience His love. No one on this earth can put into words the depth and beauty of that love, only you can experience it for yourself. Seek it out.

Milestones

We often talk about, or hear others talk about, milestones... mile-markers that can be looked back on through our life in an attempt to measure growth. It's often a tactic we, as Christians, will employ in order to make it easier to see how God has worked in our lives and changed us, how He has worked through us from the moment of our redemption through our acceptance of Jesus, and how our spiritual life has matured. It's a wonderful practice, and a great encouragement in the times that God feels distant, or we find ourselves struggling.
Yesterday, as I was thinking over the first chapter of Nate Larkin's Samson and the Pirate Monks, I noticed something else though... the same milestones and markers are there in our descent to sin. As Larkin details his own dealings with lust and sexual sin, he shows the moments that decisions are made and deceptive schemes are hatched. His own experience is so readily transposed no matter the nature of one's sin and at the moment of brutal honesty in looking at our own sin, we easily recognize the stops we made along the way. In the same way that you do not become a mature Christian overnight, you also do not become an adulterer. It is a pattern of action and thoughts... choices made at certain stops along the path. The difference between a person growing in the love of God, and one struggling in the grip of sin is very small... It is, or should be, humbling to remember, as we look on others who are struggling that the only thing different between the two is a simple choice. I could have chosen differently, at numerous stops along my path, and I shudder to think what my life would look like today. By the grace of God, and only by His actions through me am I who I am. And even still, I am a moment by moment choice away from headed straight down the same path. It's my prayer that by knowing and recognizing both the milestones along the upward slope and the downward slope and by relying on the love of God, that I can continue living in a pattern of obedience, and growth.

Stop living for God

After reading and discussing chapter 2 of Ian Thomas' book The Saving Life of Christ, I have been struck by a couple of ideas...
The absolutely inadequate way that the Christian life is portrayed and offered by our churches- how many of us grew up hearing sermons proclaiming that we must live for God? Everything we do must be done for God! Witness to the lost... For God! Every aspect of our walk with God was to be focused on a life lived for God. It's an easy misunderstanding, and no harm was meant by the fantastic men and women that taught these principles, but they are principles that shift the focus and the burden of the Christian squarely on our own shoulders. It leads to massive amounts of people who come into a saving relationship with Christ to be radically changed and excited about going about and doing good works to advance God's kingdom... They are excited about living for God's glory... but then, as they get further into it, the same excitement begins to fade, our fruits begin to wither, rot, die, and decay... We get tired and burnt out, it's too hard, the burden is too heavy, and we become just like the majority of Christians that we have ever known... The kind that the lost world looks at and says, "why do I need God? I'm already tired and defeated"
We've missed a very crucial point... It is never supposed to be us living for God, us living for Christ, because that places us in a religion that is just like so many others with the believer at the center, trying to earn goodness... Christianity is different, we are to live surrendered, not for Christ, but with Christ living through us! It is saying at that moment that we ask Jesus to forgive us and become our Lord and Savior, that we surrender our bodies and mind to Him so that He may come and live through us. The burden of living for God is lifted by God living through us. The joy and peace of the Christian life is knowing that I can't live for God and accomplish anything, but if I choose to allow God to live through me, He can accomplish everything. It is only when we forget and try to again do something for God's glory that we are back on the road of defeat. We must choose daily to surrender, to find the strength to surrender, and by doing so, having an unspeakable joy just knowing that through you, God can do anything. Jesus told His disciples that even though they witnessed Him doing great things on this earth, that they would do even greater things once the Holy Spirit was descended upon them. It's because it allows Christ, through the surrendered flesh of all who believe, to work in all places, in all things, doing all work, for all time! It's not because we are somehow more able to do something for God, but rather we are more able to submit to His doing something through us that His glory would be magnified!
Stop living for God... He can do it better. A life lived in regular submission is a life filled with abundant joy that makes a lost world curious. A life lived in recognition that all God has ever expected from man is failure, is a life free from the burden of hoping that you're good enough. A life lived consenting to the will of a loving God is a life that is fulfilled in a way that can only be experienced, not described. The only way to experience that joy and freedom, that true peace, is to step out in faith and tell God that you want to surrender. Tell God that you are tired of trying to live for Him, and you are ready for Him to live through you.

Sunday Morning Conviction- 9/9/12; Love or Hate

Love presupposes hate... those words struck me this morning as I sat in church. Love presupposes hate. Among the most sure ways we know that love exists is because it is easily apparent in our world that hate exists. It is impossible to love without also hating, both must be active in your life. If you express a love for something, you are saying that you hate anything that strives to harm that love. If you do not hate that which seeks to harm the thing you claim to love, one could argue that you do not truly love. We have been offered a watered down truth that hate is wrong. Hate that calls us to stand up for that which harms our love is righteous and biblical. Because God loves us, He must hate that which seeks to harm us. Because God must hate that which seeks to harm us, He must deal with it in a very serious way. If he does not act against these things, then He does not love us. But because we know that God does love us, we know He will work against those things that seek to harm us. But, also, out of His love for us, God allows us the free will to choose His love, or the things of this world that we try to use to find love. If we choose to love the things of this world, and thus place them at a higher priority in our lives that we place God, then we are telling God that we love those things, and therefore we hate God. We are allowed to make that choice, and the consequence is very clear... the wages of sin is death. To choose against God is to choose eternity apart from His love. To choose against God, is to choose Hell. Or, we can choose to place God as our priority, and ask for His help in placing Him higher that the problems of this world, and we are then choosing to live in His love... to live in His love is to follow Christ... and that is to choose an eternity in Heaven. The choice is ours to make, the details of how to make the choice, and the consequences for each choice is clearly lined out. It is a decision to made sooner rather than later. It is a decision that alters the path of our lives on a daily basis. What choice have you made... love, or hate?

Resetting my prayer life

Was thinking back to the last time I posted... It's been a little while... So I thought I'd share a little of what God has been teaching me lately.
I felt strong conviction about the laughably weak prayer life I lead. It got to the point that if I managed a heartfelt prayer a week, outside of church, then I was feeling pretty good. I really felt like things were running smoothly, i didn't feel the need to pray. I was coasting along no problems... Except, the problem was the stunting of my growth in spiritual maturity. God kept reminding me of passages on lukewarm belief, and the propensity of stagnant believers to backslide. And then I kept being reminded of some advice my dad gave me repeatedly when I was younger... it's easiest to coast downhill.

There were multiple people in my life that were struggling with one thing or another, each time I quoted this advice, it seemed to help them... Yet I never listened to it myself.

I was coasting, and by doing so, opening myself up for influence from an enemy that seeks to destroy us, one step at a time. I needed change, progress, growth. I was convicted of that anemic prayer life. I wrote out a prayer list and scheduled a time to pray over it every morning. Mostly the needs that my friends had made known to me that week. And then I made a list of the men that most influence my walk with Christ... I scheduled a time to contact and pray for 2 of them each day. I say this, not to boast on what I have done, but in how God has used this to minister to me. To focus on the needs of those around me, and to simply spend time in the presence of my Lord, has been an incredible experience. It has helped maintain my focus on how I can advance to Kingdom work of Jesus, and how I can simply serve those who are around me.

I also say this to encourage anyone who reads this (all 6 of you) to let me know if there is something you want me to add to this list.

Sunday Morning Convictions: Aug 19th, 2012

First off, its my birthday... wouldn't you like to think that on your birthday God might take it easy with the conviction?? But, alas, once again God is more concerned with ensuring that my life is advancing His Kingdom, and making sure that I am paying attention... its almost as though He truly loves and cares about me that He would make sure that I am listening... So, a few things that I will be thinking about as I fall asleep... 1) I have to stop waiting for God to open a door and place me in His service... At the end of this morning's message Pastor Derek was talking about the ongoing needs within our varied children's ministries. My immediate response was, as it often is, to shut down and counter with the oft uttered phrase, "That's not my calling". But, as I reviewed some of what he said later, and in talking with my wife... I was convicted of my attitude. First, I apparently believe I am so special, or so important that I can't be trifled with the needs of the children? Really? Second, I believe that there is something that God is working on building through our church, some kind of new ministry that I am going to be called to be a part of... I have no idea what it is, but I've been feeling it for a couple of years now. First Baptist Church is an amazingly exciting body of believers and many of us in attendance have voiced a feeling that God has been prepping us for something amazing. So, I think my attitude often extends from not wanting to give myself to some other cause or service because I don't want to miss whatever this new thing might be... because I apparently don't trust God to take care of me. And then, Derek said something that shattered my view of service (not because it was something new, I have read and done more than one study that puts out the same point) it was something like this, "You will never be ready to serve where God calls you, if you are unwilling to serve where He needs you." Its not even about the actual service... I was not even willing to consider the need. God has been continually working on my willingness to follow Him. It started with deciding to go to dayshift, it continues with actively seeking a shift in jobs to allow more freedom for service, it includes a point where I finally had to tell God that I would move wherever He needs me to go if thats what He says to do. Conviction #1- be willing to serve wherever I am needed,in order to be ready to serve wherever I am called. 2) I am in a class with men, we are married men, and we have diverse and sorted pasts that give us an opportunity to support one another and build each other up in so many ways. I don't appreciate the individuals of this group enough, I often get lost in just appreciating them as a whole, but not as each man. I am thankful that as I have problems in my marriage, there is a man, who is my peer, that I can talk to... and chances are has had the same issue. Anytime I have shared about the ways I have managed to nearly wreck my own marriage, at least one other man in that group has said to me, Hey, I've been there, let me pray for you, if you need to talk, let me know, etc, so on and so forth... If you are reading this, and you are a man, find a group of men that can give you this... come check ours out if you'd like. Conviction #2- I need to appreciate the men that have been placed in my life and realize that I can learn so much from each of them, if only I would shut my trap and listen sometimes. As a somewhat random side note to end this little blurb, I strongly recommend Subversive Kingdom by Ed Stetzer... whether you have read Stetzer before or not, it is an amazing look at what the Kingdom is, what it will be, and what our role in it is. If we as believers, and by extension, the church, would live as the Bible commands (and Stetzer manages to make easily readable and understandable) our world would be radically changed. I think thats all for now... I really do hope that at some point, I will be able to post much more frequently

Thoughts while driving home...

Its a good thing i live close to the hospital, if I had a longer drive home after work, who knows where my mind would wander... Praying on my way home this morning, and I got stuck on the sovereignty of God. I don't like to give over control of anything, and I don't like the idea that God doesn't have to answer to me... I like to believe I am of such great importance (as evidenced by the, roughly, 4 people who read my blog) that God should revolve around me. He should choose His actions based on what I have done, or how they will affect me.
But, He doesn't... God exists in His own glory, and acts in ways to increase that glory. He works to extend the reach of His glory by extending His kingdom. He extends His kingdom by calling more people to Himself that we might be accepting of the gift of salvation. He allows this gift of salvation by making Him who knew no sin, to become sin so that through Him we might become the righteousness of God. He achieves this through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ, as a member of the trinitarian God, chose to humble himself, and take on the flesh of His creation, to live a sinless life, so that He alone could be found righteous as judged by the law of God, as is found in the Old Testament... But then, through an act of immense love, chose to gift that righteousness to US in exchange for our eternal condemnation... This allowing a sinner like me to be called righteous, a friend of God. And as such, I am to give myself over to accepting that same sovereignty that I struggle to enjoy. Because, Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe...