Let go of "I want"

Scripture: “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!”

Psalm 119:36 ESV

Observation: There is much in this world that tempt "this can be yours..."

Application: seek the path that glorifies God, not self.  Eliminate "I want" and replace with "what do you want".

Prayer: Father, teach me to seek Your desires and to let go of mine.  Amen!

Faith over logic

Scripture: “Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain.”

Exodus 34:2 ESV

Observation: God was telling Moses very specific things of how he was to come before himself.  Imagine the stress of knowing that tomorrow morning you would be meeting with God!

Application: God will often put us in a position to rely and trust in Him alone.  There, in that position of vulnerability, we experience true trust in Him.  Following is often a choice between faith and logic...I pray that I would choose faith.

Prayer: Father, Your commands can be scary and full of uncertainty.  I pray that my faith would be bigger than my fear and that I would simply follow...step by step.

Fear and trust

Scripture: “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”

Proverbs 29:25 ESV

Observation: When I fear, it is often due to seeking the approval of men rather than relying on the sovereignty of God.  This is a trap that should be avoided.

Application: in the words of Yoda, "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering".  Rather than fall prey to this paradigm, I will instead trust in the Lord for all things.  He alone can set me free.

Prayer: Father, may my heart seek only Your approval and no other.  May my trust be in You alone.  Amen.

Where does the bow point?

With the finish of 2015 upon us, I am reviving the SOAP posts.  SOAP is an an acronym for Scripture, Observation, Application, and Prayer and is a great journal method to capture what God is showing you through time in His word.

Scripture: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

Genesis 9:16 ESV

Observation: A "bow" is a weapon.  If you look at a rainbow, which way would the arrow fly?  Towards the sky...what a wonderful symbol to represent God's covenant with Noah, showing His wrath turned away from the Earth.

Application: God is a promise keeper!  He continually gives us what we do not deserve and keeps us from His wrath.

Prayer: Father, thank You for mercy and Grace.  Without Your demonstration of love and forgiveness, we would all be destined for eternal sorrow.  Amen.

#AllSoulsMatter

Tonight I write on a subject that has been on my heart for more than a year.  It has weighed heavy on my heart and in all honesty, I didn't want to broach the subject.  I tend to shy away from headlines, and things that may get people's attention.  I don't seek notoriety or people's praise, I simply write what I write based on how the Holy Spirit leads me.  Let's get on with it...

Tonight's post is about (gulp) Ferguson.  I work less than 5 miles away from Ferguson.  I have seen the protests, watched the news stories, and even been in the traffic related to the protests.  I must confess that I have felt anger during some of these things.  I kept being inconvenienced and I would get angry.  "How dare they..." I would think.  Slowly over the past year, God has softened my heart and given me a word from Himself.  The scripture passage I wish to discuss tonight is Colossians 3:1-17 (pay special attention to verses 12-14).

"3
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. "
I have come to the conclusion that Justice, Love, and Mercy are separate from each other and not conditional upon each other.  I do not intend to martyr Michael Brown nor make excuses for his actions.  What I would like to do is ask, where is the grief for Him?  Did he commit wrong doings?  Yes.  Did that put him out of reach of God's mercy and love?  No!!  This should grieve all who call themselves Christ followers.  Verses 12-14 tell us to put on compassion, kindness, humility, & forgiveness, because we too have been forgiven.  Regardless of his actions, Christ still died on the cross for him.  He was not beyond the saving grace of Jesus.  I found myself saying things like "That's what you get for not obeying the law"...how heartless is that?  How does that show Jesus to Michael Brown or his Family?  I don't see any connection to love with this way of thinkings.  Michael was a son, and at one point a small child!  At what age did he become "expendable"?  At what age did he become "too bad for Jesus"?  The answer is he never did.  God is willing to meet us wherever we are and can change us from whatever we are.  I am not taking sides for or against any person involved, rather I am taking sides with God.  God loves us ALL, even though he detests our sin.  He sent His only son to suffer and die on a cross for our sin, so that ALL of us may have access to Himself and eternal life by grace through faith.  
What I have learned through this, and what is most poignantly on my heart is that God loves us all and all of us have great value...and we should treat each other accordingly.  We must stop writing off people (made in the image of God people!) and start seeking to share the love of Christ with them, and watch God work.  All souls matter to God...ALL!
The application for myself in all of this is to stop being angry every time someone does something and instead remember that they are a sinner just like me and desperately in need of God.  I should love them and tell them about Jesus.  Without quoting a large number of passages, the key principles at play here are: Love covers a multitude of wrongs, God extends mercy and grace to us and we are to do the same to others, we should not be surprised by lost people that sin, sin is sin and none is greater than another in the eyes of God...it is either sin or it isn't.
This has been on my heart so much lately because I don't understand how we as a society have lost touch with loving one another and instead care more about spinning perspective into views of right vs. wrong, opinion vs. opinion, lies vs. facts, etc.  When I watch the news, instead of feeling judgement and anger, I feel sorrow.  Sorrow because of what I don't see, and that is Christians pushing past sin to tell people that there is a cure for it and his name is Jesus.  
There are many challenges that face people growing up, from poverty, abuse, broken homes, drugs, violence, etc.  When people grow up not knowing about God, or having not embraced Jesus, why are we surprised when bad things happen?  More importantly, what can we do about it?  The single biggest failure in America today is isolationism of Christians...and it is self imposed, not forced on us by the government, or anyone else.  We must take the gospel into our local communities, and make a difference there.  True change starts with a single heart turning to Christ.  When I think about the happenings in Ferguson, the hard questions to me are this:
How could we as Christians have helped Michael Brown, his family, and his friends?  Why are we so focused on the sin and not loving those lost or left behind?How can we now help his family, friends, and community?  How do we do this in every community around the world?
The answer is we need to love one another, turn the other cheek, share the gospel, build relationships, stop focusing on why sinners sin and bring them to the sin doctor Jesus.  Minister to families and let them know that God loves EVERYONE and Jesus died for EVERYONE.  Be a community of believers that points people to Jesus.  The apostles took the gospel message to the world and set it on fire and the same Holy Spirit is with us today...but we must obey and GO.  We must stop being isolationists, keeping Jesus in a little box, and only speaking about Him in church. 
If you don't like what you see on the news...do something about it...and that starts with telling a lost world about Jesus...whether they want to hear it or not.

He offers mercy to all

Scripture:

9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:9-11)

Observation: God knows what is sin and God knows how He wishes to deal with it.  We cannot always know God's plan and often times we must wait on God to show us.  God will make all things clear in His perfect timing.  Judgement, condemnation, grace, and forgiveness are all outcomes that are possible...the last 2 are available for those who acknowledge God's sovereignty, that Jesus was His son and that He paid the price for our sins on the cross once and for all.

Application: There is NO SIN GREATER THAN ANOTHER.  Do not get wrapped up in the sin, get wrapped up in the unfathomable grace that God has shown us by sending Jesus to die for our sin.  We must get to the point where we realize how wretched we are and how desperately we need a savior.  We must acknowledge that apart from Christ, we are filthy, dirty, detestable.  How merciful is God that He would send His only son to die a brutal death on a cross so that we could be reconciled to Himself?  We know in our own hearts exactly how evil we are.  We know our thoughts, emotions, struggles...and so does God.  Salvation from sin and ourselves is available by approaching the throne of grace.  Laying your life before Jesus and making Him Lord of your life.

Prayer: Father, You are good, holy, and mighty to save.  Thank You for sending Jesus because You knew that we are filthy, dirty, sinners, in need of a Savior.  He took the punishment for our sin and Your grace and mercy was poured out upon us.  May we receive it not with a contrite heart, but with one that has been renewed and changed by You.  Amen!

Freedom

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:5-8 ESV)

I never gave it much thought, it was just something I always struggled with.  The conflict that I felt within myself was real and it is real for everyone.  One might expect a diatribe about the sinful nature and overcoming it in 3 easy steps (a best seller to be sure!).  I instead would like to share some defining  experiences that I have been battling through these last several months.  

I am a perfectionist.  The very nature of this means an endless cycle of self criticism and frustration.  A "good" day and a "bad" day can hinge on perfect completion of tasks.  This mindset is dangerous for many reasons, but one I want to focus on is projecting this persona onto God.  When we think of God as a relentless task master, we are missing the mark, carelessly looking past love, mercy, and grace.  I found myself at a place where if I missed a blog entry for the day, I felt as if I had failed (sounds like pride, but I can tell you that this was not the case). I would beat myself up about it and the downward spiral began.  I was condemning myself for failing to meet my own expectations.  How foolish!  Once I realized what was happening, God really started to show me some amazing things about His love and grace.  The most amazing discovery was that I need to see myself how God sees me, not how I see me.  Specifically, I am loved by God and I am forgiven.  I need to extend grace to myself, forgive myself, because that is who I am in Christ.  

In Christ alone there is freedom!

More to come...

I haven't gone dark...a lot in the works

I wanted to give a quick update as to what I've been up to.  Those of you who read these posts on a regular basis know that I haven't posted since the beginning of the month.  I wanted to offer some explanation and vision of what is to come:

• 2014 was primarily devoted to SOAP (Scripture, Observation, Application, and Prayer)
• While this is an excellent premise for a daily pattern and a wonderful discipline, I found it to be outside of how I interface with life.  I finished 2014 and had to make a decision about what was going to happen moving forward.  There will likely be some SOAP posts in 2015, but not daily.
• Topical posts, I'm an analytic.  I look at my day and think about every aspect of it.  What happened, why did it happen, what would I have done differently if given the chance, what was God trying to teach me today, what did I learn from God today, what did I question about my faith today that I need to study, and on and on...this is likely the most common posts to be seen in 2015.
• Goal setting and general life, I will likely choose to post on some key attribute that I want to learn more about or change about myself.  Please join along for the journey.
• I still have a short film that I want to produce in 2015.  The script is written, some of the music is done, but I haven't found the right image sequence that tells the story that I want to tell.  More to come on that.
• Lastly, I've created a Facebook page to make it easier for people to stay connected, comment, etc.  Feel free to share, like, etc. as you see fit.

Many good things to come in 2015.  Thank you for joining me on this Journey to glorify Jesus!

SOAP January 5, 2015

Scripture: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5 ESV)

Observation: this verse is like a favorite shirt, it is old, but brings comfort.

Application: We don't need to know or understand the big picture, for sometimes God is holding us so close that we can't see...and then later, we realize that He was holding us all along.

Prayer: Daddy, I get scared sometimes about things that I can't control.  Help me to remember this verse and Your faithfulness in those times.  Amen.

SOAP January 1, 2015

Scripture: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1, 3-5 ESV)

Observation: without God, nothing was made.

Application: Sometimes it is the simplest concepts that seem to stretch our faith the most.

Prayer: Daddy, let this year be one of faith and breaking through darkness.