Passion for the Christ

It's become a tradition each Good Friday to watch the movie "The Passion of the Christ",it's very emotional for me, and it always points to some amazing realities. Jesus paid it all! When this travels from my head to my heart/soul than I cannot help but be compelled to be with Jesus all of the time, to praise Him, worship (worth-ship) Him for who He is and thank Him for what He has done. And it's all out of gratefulness, It became for me a passion to do anything for Him, and to share this great news with others and help them understand Him better!

I am so thankful I "Got it" at the moment of salvation (right before my 18th birthday), but where and why is there a disconnect for so many others? Why is Jesus and church just another thing in their lives? How did that happen? I think the answers "Fire Insurance", your Get out of Hell Card is one reason. People are told that Jesus paid it all and all you have to do is confess your sins and you will be saved, and you will go to Heaven instead of Hell. But rarely does that person "Get it", because we have moved onto the next not yet saved person and "win" them to Jesus. Christ's sacrifice cost Him everything, true, salvation is free but that's not the end of it all! Immediate follow up, we call it discipleship is a must!!! Another reason people don't "Get it" is because living for God is a lot harder than living in the world and seeking comfort and pleasure!

In Luke 8, Jesus shares a parable about 4 seeds, the first seed the birds got to, the second seed fell on rock and no roots could grow, the third got choked up by all the weeds that stole the sun and nourishment of the soil, and the last seed went deep into the soil, produced fruit 100 times more than the seed that started it all. Jesus goes onto to explain the story. The seed is the word of God, the first seed represents those who hear God's word but the devil robs it from their hearts so that they end up not believing it to be true. The seed that lands on the rock, represents a person who receives the word of God with joy, even excitement and they may even follow God for awhile but when trials come and tests them to the core they look to some other way of getting through the crisis other than trusting in God. Everyone faces trials, it's how we get through them that matters, and in desperate times people without strong core beliefs can lose direction and turn to whatever else sounds right. The third seed represents those who worry, don't trust God truly, the ways of the world seem better to them than the ways of God (that's most people I believe). They love the here and now stuff more than they love the one who loved them enough to die for them. They end up with many mistresses! We know God says He is jealous for us and will have no one or nothing else competing for His love or He just leaves us to ourselves. And of course the last seed represents those who "Get it", they are compelled by His love, no one has or will love them like He loves them and that becomes their life. It's an amazing offer, complete and absolute forgiveness, un-conditional love, an opportunity to live the adventure of serving and representing God, and of course we get a place in eternity with Him once this life on earth ends. Who in their right minds would turn this down? FAR TOO MANY!

I want to say to anyone reading this that no matter where you are right now in your relationship with God - IT'S NEVER TOO LATE!!! God promises that no one is beyond His outstretched arms of longing embrace for you. Seriously, no matter what you've done, or what's been done to you, God longs and waits for your return. His love for you and I is absolutely passionate and when we finally "Get it" ours becomes that too! "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."

Together

This weekend I had several wonderful experiences and they all had to do with relationships and God in the midst. There are so many so called experts out there on Twitter, Facebook and Blogs (like me right now). Some are merely theorists, who can talk a good talk while others are true practioners. I really love information, but only IF it leads to TRANSFORMATION.

I am relatively new to the church I serve, and I have been busy scheduling as much time as I can with our people, maybe that's one of the reasons I have put on about 10 pounds since moving here, meals with people. But I don't want to sit in my office only writing training manuals and strategizing, as good and necessary as those tasks are. I am called to BE WITH people!! I love Southbrook Church, we have a very passionate and Godly Pastor in Rob Singleton, and his family, a staff that is united and practicing our Core Values, and a congregation in love with God, and many people finding God weekly. Ours is not a sit on your hands kind of church. Over the weekend I performed a funeral for someone I did not know, but knew the daughter-in-law and was honored she asked me to preside, (weep with those who weep). I also heard of the death of a man whose son and wife I am getting to know, again (weep with those who weep). After a meeting at the funeral home on Friday I decided to visit our Monroe Campus for Family Night at Vacation Bible School. What a great time watching that team serve and lead with excellence (rejoice with those who rejoice), I did my best to stop and chat, say hi, or talk with as many as I could because relationships matter. I am so grateful God created me so relationally!!! I need my down time mind you, but I get I energized by being with people!!! After VBS, I wanted to go support our Weddington Student Ministries team as they kicked off their Summer Tour, I got there a little late but people were still hanging around, so I had another opportunity to build more relationships. I even got introduced to a potential key leader who is chomping at the bit to use her gifts for Life Groups.

Sunday, (Father's Day) was a full one, but so rewarding. I believe strong relationships occur because of bonding experiences and not just by hanging out, but it takes one for the other to happen. After helping lead our FUSE Volunteer Pump Up at 8:15, and then going to our Worship services where our people literally nailed their "UNLESS" list to the cross, I was invited to our Executive Pastor's house for a quick (for me) Father's Day meal even though they had extended family over. (I was truly honored,thanks again Kush's), we had some more bonding, but I had to cut it short, but for good reason as I had signed up to serve with our great team for the monthly serve at the Charlotte Rescue Mission. There were like 20 of us instead of the usual 8-10, (on Father's Day no less). We worked hard, side stepping each other in order to serve the men who are trying to find their way to God and overcome addictions. It was so wonderful to watch our folks dive in and serve so well and begin to bond. Many of us did not know one another until right then and there, but we do now!

Being in other's lives is what it's all about, isolation is never good. In fact it's deadly! Now because I am a people person, I am lucky in that meeting new people energizes me, I know I am not the norm, so for you who get anxiety attacks at the thought of meeting new people, can I just say that rarely will you be disappointed, out of 10 people that you meet, one or two may even become a life long friend, or for a season, a very significant someone. Whether it's weeping with those who weep (at a funeral), or rejoicing with those who rejoice by encouraging Ministry Team Leaders, or serving alongside the saints. We need each other!!! Today is a great day to reach out to a long lost friend, mend a wound, seek forgiveness, give it, thank someone who made a difference, or perhaps invite someone new along for the journey of doing life together. The role model is Jesus, full of compassion, truth, love and mercy, and he didn't give theory!! He walked daily with real people, getting dirty as he walked hard and dusty roads to meet people's felt and real needs. He made a lot of time to build relationships, we should do the same, the rewards are incredible our lives richer for it!

The Joy Factor

Joy is missing in our world today and it's no wonder! Natural disasters happening around every corner, nearly everyday. People losing their homes, possessions and being completely displaced. The job market is of course terrible, college students are no longer able to find jobs in their field of study that they just invested a whole lot of money, time and effort on, they are just happy to find a job. Not to mention those adults who have been outsourced, replaced, or are over qualified, replaced by someone who can live with a lower salary. People are popping prescription drugs at incredible rates because their stress levels are so high and exercise too low. I see joylessness played out in checkout lines as people are so inpatient, and put out with everyone talking loudly on their cell phones oblivious to those around them. On the road people seem to drive as if they are entitled to drive however they want and act out with road rage like never before. Courtesy and kindness are nearly extinct. Happiness of course is totally related to circumstances...

JOY has nothing to do with circumstances and it is NOT a personality trait! In Galatians 5:22-23 we are told that the results/benefits/fruit of having the Holy Spirit in our lives is joy. It comes from God! You cannot manufacture it, you either have it or you don't and that means you are either walking in step with the Spirit of God or you are not.

As a follower of God and while I am living in the extreme times I am, I want JOY to overflow out of me! I want this to be true for two reasons; one for me, I need and want to walk in step with God's Spirit, and so I can thrive and not just survive. Secondly, I want the people who are suffering, discouraged, angry, sad, lonely, needy and at the end of their hope to experience what I have. I want JOY to overflow out of me! But I must walk in step with the Spirit. How do you do that? That's what I will write next time, but for now I challenge you to examine your life, an easy way to know if you are walking in step with God's Spirit is to ask yourself and even others if Joy is consistently a part of your life.

The In-Between

Going home, you can do it but it's never the same! I went home recently for my youngest daughter's college graduation (Way to go Elyse), and I was also able to go visit my siblings who live in the small town we grew up in. When I am there I love to go for long runs along familiar streets, and one of the places I run by is our town's cemetery. It reminds me of my mortality, I was born here and I have lived in many cities and states since then but I love coming home. We all have a birthdate and celebrate it, but we also have a death date, that date we have no clue about, but rest assured it's coming. Not trying to sound doomsday or morbid, it's just a reality.

What happens in-between our birthdate and death date is EVERYTHING! We have no idea when our death date will be, for all I know this could be my last blog. But what we do with that in-between time is called our life? I know when I put my head on the pillow at night I take for granted that I will wake up the next day and get to live it passionately for God. I am so incredibly glad to know the following;

* I know that God loves me, chose me and I responded to that invitation.
* I know I am not good enough to earn my way to Heaven, but because Christ Jesus went in my place I am able to spend eternity with God worshipping Him, enjoying whatever He has for me here and there and that hope is secure.
* I know that He has given me purpose and gifts/abilities to accomplish that purpose and so my life has meaning!
* I know that my life is not my own, it was bought with a price I could never repay, but it is in fact a free gift available to anyone just for the asking.
* I know that my life would be a complete wreck without God, sure I could live and have a job and get up and do it all over everyday, but frankly that is never enough for me or most people. We are always asking "Is that all there is?". "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?"

So, we have a birthdate, and the reality is we have a death date, it's just not known to us yet. The question I challenge you with right here and right now to ask is...

WHAT WILL I DO WITH THE IN-BETWEEN?

Bold and Passionate Prayers

A lot has happened since my last post, but I want to write about what I read in scripture this morning. Over in I Kings, Solomon had just finished building the Temple and was dedicating it, and in Chapter 8 in the Message version it says that he had finished praying bold and passionate prayers, he had been kneeling the whole time and had his arms raised before God. I am someone who loves prayer, I love praying, listening in prayer, praying with others and participating in Concerts of Prayer. I am a praying kind of person, not boastful here to make myself seem ever so spiritual, but I am communicating that I LOVE PRAYER!

I am often curious why some Christians, in fact a majority have such a hard time praying out loud in public whether it be a small or large group. Why? Do they just not practice prayer in private, or have they not had good modeling? Do we just not teach on it enough? Is it just an odd practice speaking to someone we can't see or hear from? Is this why Prayer meetings are so poorly attended in most churches? And when believers talk about wanting revival, do they not know that before every great revival in history it was always proceeded by a movement of prayer? I want revival, we NEED it badly as we watch the world coming apart at the seams all the more reason to turn toward God. I would have loved to hear Solomon's BOLD and PASSIONATE Prayers, I want to have bold and passionate prayers, who is with me? Let's get out of the shadows of shame and ignorance and self consciousness about our prayer lives and lets learn together how to pray boldly and passionately. Let's make our prayer lives a strength rather than something we hope others just won't find out about. Speaking to God, pouring out to Him and even hearing from God ought to be the most natural thing we do, like breathing.

Delighting in God

For 2011 I have chosen to meditate and wrap my life around 2 verses from scripture. The first is Romans 15;13 "I pray that God, the source of hope will fill you completely with joy and peace BECAUSE you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit." (more on that verse in another blog) but the other verse is;
Psalm 37:4-5. "Take delight in the Lord and He will give you your hearts desires. Commit everything you do to the Lord, trust in Him and HE will do it."

One of the last things I am about is one of those wealth and prosperity Christians, there is absolutely no logic or correct line of thinking here. Try preaching it in India or Haiti or any 3rd world country. Honestly the poor do not have the lure and distractions of money, they just need to survive everyday, but they have a joy from God that no amount of money could ever give. Enough of that....here is what I am learning and applying each day this year regarding Psalm 37:4-5. First, delighting in God without asking Him anything for myself is not as easy as you might think, well not for me anyway. I find in my prayer life that so much of it was in asking God for answers for myself and others. Yes, I am commanded to bring my requests before God with faith and with His will in mind. I am also commanded to pray without ceasing as well as many other commands, but delighting in Him has been so good for my soul!!! The fact that He knows what my heart desires are all ready makes it redundant to ask what He knows anyway, my part is to delight in Him, totally commit my life to Him and His part is to grant me the desires of my heart that are in line with His perfect will! How cool!!! So this is how a new prayer for me might sound like;

"Father, I delight in my future, that You hold the keys, that You are the author and perfecter of my faith and I delight that no good thing do you withhold from those who truly love you. I delight that you are the giver of all good things, I delight that your protection for me is secure as You go before me, come behind me and send Your angels to camp over me! I delight that you actually care so intimately about me that when one more of my hairs falls out (and more have fallen out then grown back in) you know it! Thank you God for knowing my every step and day and nothing takes you by surprise. In Jesus matchless name, Amen!"

How I might have prayed this prayer could have sounded like this; "Father God, I need your help desperately, I need a better paying job. I need to provide better for those I love, and I feel so in-adequate in not doing so. Please God, please, I ask that you jump in and help me quickly, I am in dire straits here and you know it. Thank you and bless you God, in Jesus matchless name - Amen!

Do you see the difference? I am a Dad and I am so glad when my adult children communicate something to me about me that they love about me. I disliked it when the only thing I was good for was when they just asked for things only I could provide, I did love providing it, but not wanting it to define my parental existence. So it is true of my relationship with my Heavenly Father, He has the resources to provide everything I need, and He could give me everything I want, (that would not be good of course). But the best thing I can do is delight in Him.

How do we delight in God? Well, that's for the next blog! I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you delight in God on a regular basis!

Is Christmas just for Kids?

I admit it I am a kid at heart! Growing up in a large family in a small rural Mid-Western town, I have stored some really good memories, and of course they are somewhat romanticized. Magical snow-falls on cold nights, sledding on a hill that at the time seemed a lot longer and steeper than it is today, drinking hot chocolate with large melted marsh-mellows that left a mustache on my upper lip but did warm up my chilled to the bones body! I remember Christmas Eve services at my church where we held candles while singing "Silent Night" at midnight and then heard the church bells ring as the service ended. Now that was pretty cool. I remember all 5 of us kids "sleeping" in the same room on Christmas Eve and waiting the next morning for our parents to drink their coffee before we could come downstairs, open our stockings first and then taking turns (youngest to oldest and one at a time) opening our presents and saying thank you after each one.
Good memories as a kid for sure, and later as a Dad myself I did my best to create memories for my girls. Whether it was decorating the house, letting them pick out the real tree, and decorating it with the sounds of really old Christmas music playing in the background. We would read my collection of Christmas stories while drinking hot chocolate and picking out a local family to share the 12 Days of Christmas with as we anonymously put a package on the front steps, rang the door bell and ran before they could see us and never knew who did it!
But my girls are grown up now, and just a couple weeks ago I helped my oldest and her husband decorate their very first tree and listen to the same corny Christmas music that she has to play! It can be depressing not having little ones around, but I truly want to focus on the gift of God and everything that goes with it. I don't want to get caught up on racking my brain out trying to come up with that just right gift for the special people in my life in hopes that they will really, really love it or hope that those who choose to give me a gift will give me just the right one so that my fragile ego will be stroked just enough to feel good!
No, instead I want to experience the knowledge from head to heart that God truly loved me enough to send His perfect Son to take my place and pay in full the penalty for my waywardness that my efforts and good deeds could never do. I am amazed that God would replace my filthy rags of niceness and good works that will always fall short with a royal robe of His righteousness that Christ Himself will put on me. I can barely take in that He chose to adopt me, give me an inheritance that has a value that cannot be measured and that God would not just choose me but use me, that He would give me a new identity, a new name and allow me to come boldly before Him with confidence all because of what Jesus did by being obedient instead of keeping His rightful, comfortable throne in Heaven and leave it for a humble, smelly stable. That He would choose to be spat on, wrongly accused, mocked, beaten beyond recognition and then endure for awhile the cross and be separated from His Father all so that we could be set free from sin and be forgiven.
He has changed the world, the fact that the world stops and celebrates Him is amazing, but that we worship temporal gifts instead of the true gift and the great gift giver must sadden Him immensely. May Christmas 2010 become the year when we all bend down on our knees and take the time to worship and adore what this season and holiday are all about! Oh Come Let Us Adore Him, Christ the Lord!