He is My Promise.

Well.

Do you guys ever get frustrated by parts of your life?

Yeah me too.

And a few days ago I was on a particularly long drive alone, and I had just spent a day engrossed in some things that reminded me of stuff in my life that I wish I could change.

But they are things that aren’t so much in my control.

We’ve all been there, wanting to date someone but they’re not Christian, or having a bad job situation, family life, a financial emergency, or a boring academic path.  And we all might be doing our best in this situation, but time and time again we find ourselves very drained our hopeless by whatever it is.

And it might seem stupid, because there are people in the world with so many other problems that are far worse, that they can’t change.

In spite of that, I still found myself a bit drained and frustrated by a particular situation I have while I was driving.  I didn’t have the radio on. And I felt like God was leading me to pray and talk to him about all this stuff.  Now lately I’ve been trying to pray in intentional and somewhat structured ways, so this was leading me to something a bit different and more casual.

I found myself eventually saying to God; I need your help, when are you going to show me which way to go? or what to do? I need you to help me in my frustration.

And then I sat in silence for a bit.  And then I turned some music from my ipod on.

Soon this song I haven’t listened to very  closely before came on, and I felt like God was responding to my prayer with this song.

The song is called “Promises” by Joel Auge.

Joel Auge is singing as if he is God, and so the song is heard by us as if God is talking to us.

The chorus of the song is;

And I am your promise 
I am your strength 
Have no fear 
The King of love is here 
Oh the King of love is here 

And the song goes on and says other roles God has in our lives.

I just felt like God was using this song to tell me that this is what matters.  That in spite of whatever situation I am in, that He is my promise.

That because of what Jesus did with his perfect life, sin absorbing death, and God powered resurrection, I get the promise of God.  I get the promise of relationship with God, and that same God becomes my strength, and that God loves me so greatly, that he is the King of Love in my life.

I felt very quickly God was showing me he cared about my frustrations, but that He was far bigger than they are.  And what I have in Him, is far greater than any problem I have.

I hope and pray that what fuels my thoughts are these things about God and not my frustrations.

Life Freaks People Out

So I am this stage in my life where myself and my peers start making decisions about what they want out of life.  We are graduating college, getting married, choosing career paths, and moving places, to name just some of them.

There is a curious thing that happens though.  We all start freaking out.

Now I can understand why this happens, we are finally out of the institution of school that has controlled our schedule for years, and my guess is that lack of structure frightens us.  Honestly it’s change that freaks us all out.

But I write this post as a Christian Man.  And as a Christian man I don’t know if these things should freak us out as much.

I think what happens is we think we have to grow up and be the hero of our lives.  Or that some person or job or life experience has to be the hero of our life.  And if we don’t have that thing, or if our ideals aren’t lived out then we will be damned, not to hell, but to a life of mistakes and misery.

Friends.  Jesus is our hero.  

I think though that sometimes we think if we aren’t making the right decision in certain instances our life will be ruined.  Sure, there are good and bad decisions, but I sometimes I think we give the choice of life circumstances too much power.

Christian brothers and sisters, I see this quite often in you and I have this to say to you;

Do you know that Jesus is with you to the end of the age and further?

He’s not with you if you only make the right decision.  He’s not with you only if you choose the right job, person, or place to live, he’s with you because He is good, and is with you no matter what.

So perhaps you make a bad decision, perhaps you picked the wrong _____________ (you fill in the blank).  Jesus is still with you.

Jesus is the good life.  Connection to Christ can sustain you more than any career, person, or place can.  Trust me on that.  He is the living water.

Now I know we shouldn’t make sinful choices.  We should make Spirit lead choices, but no matter what choices you make, Christ will be with you, and whether you make a good choice or bad choice, God can redeem your poor decision making to be something good.

Have we forgot God is all powerful?  Have we forgot His Spirit is in us?  Have we forgot the curtain is torn and we now have  access to our King?

So are you afraid of making decisions? Fine, I can track with that.  But seek God.  Seek his council, and know that He will be with you no matter what, and in everything He should be what we look toward to sustain us.  When we do that we become crazy people where all life is good and God is always good.

Don’t fear what this world could do you, or what you could do to yourself, because Jesus is bigger than all that and will always be with you.

Sometimes I feel like Ender Wiggin.

Just to warn you this is the nerdiest blog title I’ve made to date.

Sometimes though I feel like Ender from Ender’s Game.  It’s a book about a boy genius who is trained to fight an alien invasion.  I won’t get into much more of the plot because it’s a great book, and you should read it for yourself.

One thing I will get into is that in the book, Ender is always being tested.  Always being put on the next level of pressure.  His authorities are always trying to make him a better leader and warrior.  They amp his training throughout the book, always making it harder and harder, and even stacking the deck against him.

Sometimes I feel this way with God.

It is primarily in relation to my sanctification that I feel this way.  Now bear with me before you judge my theology.  Or even agree with me.

At times it just feels like everything in my life happens to make me better.  Rare is the rest I get from my continous sanctification (dramatic much huh?). Obviously there is rest.  I am just telling you guys how it feels.  Not necessarily the reality of the matter.

For example the last few weeks I have been diving into my unforgiveness and trying to figure out how to get it out of my life.  I realize of course I need God, however thanks to James Macdonald, I also can be apart of that process, if my heart is motivated by Christ likeness rather than whatever other motivations I have.

So yesterday I was struggling with forgiving a particular person, and feeling slightly convicted, but more inclined to hold onto my bitterness and sense of childish justice, only to arrive at an event this person was at.  I even felt when I was being convicted, perhaps this person will be at the event, but more than likely not,  and there they were greeting me with a handshake when I walked in the door to the event.

That’s why I feel like Ender Wiggin.  I feel like I am always being set up to be sanctified.  Set up on the hard path of becoming a better person.

And as I was slightly annoyed and angry yesterday thinking this is my life, I realized there was something fundamentally wrong with my thinking.

Something in me was thinking that somehow the results of sanctification were not as good as the results clinging to my bitterness and unforgiveness.

For one, that latter way of life is death.  It wounds inside.  It makes me an enslaved person.  It makes me a hurt person, ruled by my own unforgiveness on the inside.

The result of sanctification is however really good for me.  It’s making me a free man.  It is freeing me from the oppresive ruler that is my sin.  It is allowing me to live in freedom from the power of my sin.

So the result of God just letting me be, is not good, because I will choose slavery.  Which in turn makes what goes on inside my heart and mind a really bad situation for me now as well as later.  Where as the result of God’s caring about me, and then setting up my sanctification is to make me a man free from those hurtful things, so I can reflect his glory better, among other things.

Besides all that my own acheiving of my sanctification is just trying to prove to God I am worthy.  So when times of sanctification come up, I really need to invite the Spirit in me to take care of it, because I will fail at it.  And if I was trusted for my own sanctification in my life none of it would happen.  However because God is in charge of it, it actually happens, and it makes me a free man.  That’s pretty awesome.

I need to understand that.  God help me find strength in you.

I want to preach better than a song.

Well a couple weeks ago I talked about moralistic preaching.

So why not talk about some other aspect of preaching this week?

This blog post is mostly for myself, but it’s open to the public. Haha.

Remember when you first heard the Mumford and Sons album?  I do.  It was at a time in my life where it seemed like every lyric in the song spoke to me in a way that resonated with not only what was going on in my life, but in my soul.

Now maybe you haven’t listened to Mumford and Sons, but I am sure there has been some cd out there or at least a song out there, that every time you hear it, or perhaps for a time in your life, its every lyric just made you say that is what is going on in me.

I want to preach that way.

When I preach I want to be able to bring the reality and truth of God’s word, and who He is to the people I preach to, in a way that stirs their soul.

I want to preach better than a song.

Songs do a great job of connecting to us.  The songs that deeply move us tend to be songs that connect to us deeply. (besides being well played songs)

And I think if I preach well, the same can happen.

I think that’s something that the world could use more of.

I am not talking about preaching sermons that just connect to people and move them so they get good feelings.

I am talking about proclaiming the word of God that has moved me and changed me so that what flows from my lips comes from a heart connection with Him.

I am talking about exalting who God is in a way that speaks to the eternity on our hearts.

I just think we can all preach, or proclaim who God is in a way that people can connect with as they would with a song.

Whether I preach this way in my everyday conversations, or whether I do it from the pulpit, I want to preach better than a song.

This requires truth.

Most of all it requires God.

Holy Spirit, make me a person that can preach better than a song.  But let it not be my skill that is better, but your moving in my life, and who you are.  Draw more people to you. 

Oh Political Season, How you raise my apathy towards you.

In Amurrrica, everyone knows what’s best.

In our culture and country, it’s as if we are told when we are born; “hey you’re the smartest, and the best, and you should live life that way. Also celebrities are really smart too.”

And to me the political season brings that out.  I don’t even know what season it is.  It’s hard to tell in Arizona.  But it seems like it’s the time in life where politcs are talked about a lot.  And everyone loses their minds.

Now I know writing this will probably endanger my blog with comments that say I just don’t get it.  And you are probably right.  That last part is not sarcasm.  I really don’t get it.  I know at some level politics can be a good thing for Christians to be apart of, and to care about,  however I have only seen the crazy side of that swinging pendulam.

So this blog isn’t about if politics are good or bad or whatever.

This blog is going to be about stewardship.

A Biblical stance on the government, is a government that issues justice for it’s people.

An Amurrican stance on government, is that the government is your provider of everything.

The Bible goes so far as to say that God puts those leaders in place above you.  (side note: Did God vote for Obama? o snap!)  Well I believe the Bible, and I think that God does place leaders in those positions.  What those leaders do in that position of authority is ultimately on them.

I say all that to give us a Biblical ground for government, as well as to say politics is a stewardship issue.

Say what?

That’s right a stewardship issue.

We think that we can tell people to steward things that aren’t ours to steward.

The reason I think it’s a stewardship issue is because a lot of times (forgive my judgemental observation) but those that are most passionate about politics, can’t even steward their own lives.

So my challenge is simple.  Do you steward your own life well?

God has given you a life to take care of.  In a lot of instances a family.  Or a car, or a job, or a hat.  And do you take those things that God has given you and use it in the way that God would use it?

Or are you too busy worrying about how others steward things while your life is a mess?

Do you have debt? Does your wife feel loved?  Do your kids feel known? Is your car clean?  Is Jesus known by your life and words?

If not, then in the words of Chef Ramsey Shut it down.

As Christians it would be awesome to have our life so well stewarded that the world comes to us for the political solutions.  But more often than not we run to the world with our political solutions, that have little to do with Jesus and more to do with donkeys and elephants.

If this is you let it convict you. If not, then keep on keeping on.  As for me, I am not against politics, I just see a greater need in my own life to steward the things I have before all my Facebook statuses are about politics.

Moralistic Preaching Vs. Preaching Grace Driven Effort

Something I am passionate about is preaching.

When I was fifteen or sixteen my youth pastor asked me to speak to the youth group while he was gone on a mission trip, and I think it was then I found a passion and gifting that Christ had given me. 

It was probably not the best seeing as I misused the word debauchery several times as well as preached through the whole book of Galatians in one message.  Luckily God has given me a lot of opportunity and put great people in my life over the ensuing years to get better at preaching and fan that flame.

So back to what I was saying.  I am passionate about preaching.  I can also be very critical of it.  Sometimes over analyzing things preachers are saying.  Even when I prepare my sermon notes I really want everything I say to be Biblically true and sound, so I am careful with the words I speak so that I am not preaching something opposing the Gospel and the Bible. 

What I am most critical of is works based faith preaching or a preaching that promotes moralism in a way.  Basically a preaching that says something like “do this, because it’s the right thing to do.”  So maybe that’s not exactly works based faith, but that becomes the result of preaching moralistically I think.  And obviously it’s not always phrased like my example but honestly sometimes it is.

 The other side is a call to grace driven effort, which is the idea that because we have been accepted by God because of His grace, we are driven to run the race well.  That because of what Christ did we can’t help but be compelled to serve him by following His commands and living by the Spirit.   Which a lot of times is a promotion of those same morals that when preached a different way irk me.

I think it is important to define that line and be wary of it.  It can be a fine line because I think I seem to notice this slant towards moralism in preaching a lot.  (perhaps I am just too critical).  The reason this is an important line to notice is because if we preach moralism we are just preaching what a lot of other religions can agree with and get behind, and we don’t highlight the beauty and supremacy of Christ. 

So I think we can agree that preaching moralism is not a good idea.  Or not based in the Gospel.

My questions to preachers (Bible study leaders, Sunday morning preachers, missionaries, anyone that preaches) are; How do you avoid preaching moralism, and preach a grace driven effort?  How has that affected the people you have preached to?  How should we respond in our hearts when hearing preachers preach something that sounds moralistic, but by believing the best in them, knowing them, and knowing that’s not what they meant? 

My question to anyone that has heard a preacher is this;  What do you hear more of, a preacher preaching grace driven effort, or preaching moralism?  Or do you think the distinction is clear? 

This is a different post than I ususally do, but I am curious and would like to hear many opinons on this matter.  I already know my opinion on this matter, but I want to hear others opinions on this.  So let’s discuss here in this post among each other and see where the conversation leads.

Common Grace Ain’t the Best Grace.

Common Grace.

From what I understand common grace is another way that God shows his love and a type of grace to everyone. 

Basically common grace is the idea that people can live seemingly decent, and seemingly moral lives, because of the way God has made things.

It allows people to experience good things, like technology, or medicine, or love, or whatever other things we can enjoy, without any level of devotion to God through Jesus.

Of course this is all simply because God loves all and wants humans to experience good things, even though we by ourselves might not be able to have create those good things on our own.  (i.e. the earth, humans, other things you didn’t create.)  So if you don’t think there is a God you probably don’t believe in common grace.  You can either humor me or stop reading.

This idea of common grace is at the core of American culture.  Work hard enough.  Buy yourself enough comfortable things.  Make sure your family has everything they need and most of what they want.  Try and live as comfortably as you can.  Experience as much as you can.

We Americans love us some common grace.  We want as much as we can possibly get.  For a lot of people that’s really the end goal.  Get as many good things (common grace, or things that seem good in our perception) in our lives as possible.

And we as followers of Jesus sometimes settle for common grace.  We are happy having enough money.  We are happy going to a church we like.  We are happy having all the friends we want.  We without saying it or thinking it, make our lives about having as much common grace as we can.  It doesn’t feel like we’re settling though.  It feels like everything is good and that is what life is truly about.

And if anything stops the possibility of our our life with all those good things, well then we need to fight against that, politically, socially, or however else we would.  Quite often the disruption of that common grace, the possibility that some person or instituion could take away things we really care about in this world, makes us deeply angry and frustrated.

But 

I know of a grace that is better than common grace.

It’s not quite as common.

It could be, but it’s not.

This grace when experienced and understood just a little makes us see all of those good things in a new light.  It makes those good things far more beautiful, but not as valuable as they once were.

The grace I am talking about is so valuable that everything in your life can be taken away, and still the most important thing to you is still there.

This grace cannot be earned.

The grace I am talking about is unmerited favor from God.  That’s favor based on nothing we do.  It’s based on who He is.  And the reason we even get to have it, is because Jesus took on a debt we owed to a just God.  Jesus made it possible for us to have a relationship with the one true living God, by His life, death, and resurrection.

Jesus lives and He offers the best grace around.

It’s better than a good earthly thing.

And we need to realize that.  We need God’s grace to us to fuel our lives, rather than the good things on this earth that we get to experience.  Because now by grace, we get to experience the only good thing that doesn’t end.  God Himself.

Confessions of a guy that grew up in church.

So I grew up going to church.  Actually I grew up going to two churches.  My mom and dad became christians at different points in my life and got saved in different churches.

My mom went to a luthern church, and my dad a non-denominational, highly pentacostal church.  Two radically different worlds.

All these years later I go to church now too.  My whole family goes to the same church actually.  (Except one of my sisters who goes to a church in Tucson).  And the reason I go to church is not because this is my culture and what I have been taught.

For some reason I have always had a mind older than me.  And so growing up I even saw things about church I didn’t like.  The things I didn’t like were some relgiousness and falseness in it.  I say religious to mean that we do things to make God move.  We do things so that God is happy with us.  And I saw that a fair amount growing up.  My memory may exagerate that though.

Things as simple as my mom or dad telling me to stand up and sing during worship.

Something they didn’t realize is that despite me being around all that truth being spoken, my heart had not been changed.  It created a “Christian kid.” But it didn’t create someone with a new and reborn heart.

Following God was more about knowing the truth and doing what He wants you to do than anything else I think.  Maybe I remember it wrong, but that seemed to be what it was like.

But eventually after a lot of fighting with parents, more disillusion with the church, and actually going to a more healthy church God revealed himself to me in a way that I finally knew He loved me. And that’s when God did something in my heart.

Now when God changed me, it was because of something he did in my heart.  Not because of some awesome youth program. Or some awesome event.  He took someone that didn’t know me very well, and had them speak truth to my heart.  Specific things that my heart had been dealing with.  And that helped me realize all this truth I had been taught was true, but more so I felt loved by God.  And realzized this person was delivering a message of love to me specifically from God.

God was relentless in my life in spite of man trying to do what they thought was best for me.  But for some reason in all of man’s might and power, man could not change my heart.  My heart could not be trained to follow Jesus.  Not sincerely at least.

Call me old fashioned or Biblical, but I think that only God changes our hearts.  He may use people to even do that, it may even happen in the midst of some awesome event.

But

He is the one that changes it.

And now I am a youth pastor.  And I know that no event I put on, no way I do small group matters, unless it is somehow a place that cultivates God changing our heart.  Don’t get me wrong, I think God changes hearts in all sorts of ways.  But it needs to be lead by the Spirit rather than led by our events, or are ideas as to what pleases God.

This is what I want people to know, that God changes our heart.  We can’t be simply trained to follow Jesus or love Jesus or worship Jesus.  Even if we grew up in the church.

If that was possible, then my dad would have been able train me during  junior high and my freshman year to do all that.  But he couldn’t, my heart about God stayed nearly the same.

What my dad and mom did do, that changed my heart, was pray for it. They prayed that God would do something in my heart.   And God did.  I know he loves me, and that honestly makes me feel like nothing else matters but the fact the one living God loves me.

Who Owes Me?

So I struggle with anger.

I would have to say it’s an emotion that I don’t always do the best with.

Now some may be able to use their anger or frustration and turn it into good things.  Because not all anger is sinful.

I however seem to turn into a crochety old man.  And I think quite often I get angry about stuff that really doesnt matter.  And then sin with that anger in some way.

Recently I was listening to an Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. It was talking about different enemies of a leaders heart.  And Andy was comparing these different enemies do debt.  And with Anger he says it is like you are saying to those you are angry with “You owe me.” (rather than I owe you)

That really resonated with me for some reason.

I think too often people in my life do something I view as dumb or stupid or whatever that causes me anger.  It’s because I think the world owes me intelligence.  Or really, the world of people I know owes me what I want.  It’s pretty dumb really.  A lot like a little spoiled kid who thinks he deserves everything, and whines and cries about it. 

No one owes me anything.  But for some reason my heart and mind convince me that someone does at times.

I don’t wanna live like that anymore.  Because someone has given me something I haven’t earned and wasn’t owed to me.  Check who and what out here.

Anyways anger is dumb.  God change my heart more please? 

When the wife’s asleep God will speak. (but He speaks when she’s awake too)

I am on my Honeymoon.

Awesome I know.

And I felt the urge to write a blog.  Weird I know, because I am on my honeymoon.  But I stay up late and she goes to bed earlier than I do so quiet times are had by me.  And I think God is teaching me something in the past twenty four hours that I want to remember, so I am blogging it.

Last night me and my babydoll watched a new Basic Series: Teaching featuring Francis Chan.  Watch that here.

In it Francis talks about how there was this youth pastor that people had been impacted by, and that one thing that stood out to one particular person about this youth pastor, was that when they walked around together it was the closest thing to walking with Jesus that person had ever experienced.

Then tonight I was listening to this message from the Village Church Denton. And the pastor begins to talk about how he wants the elders (or pastors) in his church to be people that when followed around for a day, could show people how the Christian life is truly lived out.

I think God is speaking something to me.

That he wants to change me and mold me into that kind of person.

Jesus was a guy who sinners felt loved by.  Loved enough to eat with Him, in spite of other annoying religious leaders hatin on those sinners at the same time.  He was a guy who kids were drawn to.  He was a man who helped restore people’s lives  at that present.

Jesus was so full of love kids wanted to hang with Him, sinners feasted with Him.  All the while he was doing the work of Heaven on Earth.

I want to walk my daily life, the way Jesus would have walked it.  I want people to feel deeply loved by me (in the appropriate ways of course).

I want my small minute life, and the things I do with it, to be powerful enough to point them to Jesus.  Or to let them get a glimpse of Jesus in me.

When I hear the story of that youth pastor, who walks like Jesus did, something rises in me that knows God has that for me as well as anyone who seeks that.  The only things that will stop that, are my flesh wanting my glory instead of His glory, and my pride thinking I can be like Jesus without knowing or inviting His Spirit into my life.

It could be a powerful thing if walked around like Jesus did, full of the Spirit, knowing God is pleased with us, healing people, loving people, teaching people.