Good News

This is going to sound weird but nevertheless; it is true. What I am about to say goes against our desires and our hopes. The feeling that God is absent from our lives is good because it means that we have a relationship and that we are not following after an image or an idol. Anthony Bloom in his book Beginning to pray writes this: "If we could mechanically draw Him into an encounter, force him to meet us, simply because we have chosen this moment to meet Him, there would be no relationship and no encounter. We can do that with an image, with the imagination, or with the various idols we can put in front of us instead of God; we can do nothing of the sort with the living God, any more than we can do it with a living person. A relationship must begin and develop in mutual freedom." The reality is that God is never absent from our lives. Every part of his creation from the raindrop to the sunset is full of His glory, and there is nowhere in any part of the universe where He is not there. But God longs to be sought after. To be chased so to speak. God cannot be manipulated but sometimes he will play hide and seek with us. I don't know about you, but I enjoy the chase!

Where is God?

Have you ever had one of those days in which no matter how close you try to get to God, it just doesn't seem to be working? You spend time worshipping and just waiting for God to move in your life. You lay face down on the floor hoping, praying that God will speak just one word into your spirit. That He will change you life just slightly. That he will encourage and lift you up. But nothing seems to happen. Mother Teresa experienced the same feelings. She wrote this in her journal: Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me? I call, I cling, I want, and there is no answer! Most of the time it seems like this happens when we need God most. We may be going through a tough problem in our marriage or another relationship. We may have lost our job. Death's hollow knock comes rapping on our door. We sinned in such a way that we feel like we blew everything. We experience financial difficulties; our stocks and mutual funds lose their value. It's a never ending list of problems and concerns that shake our world so we go running or crawling to God but...................... nothing but silence. There is a verse in the Bible where the Son of God experiences the same kind of feelings, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!?" Even Jesus experienced these same type of feelings. Theologically we have tried to explain this verse in so many ways, but why does it matter. In that moment Jesus felt like God had turned His back on Him. A feeling that we too share sometimes. God, My God, where are you?!

Reasonable God

One of the trendy saying's you hear in church circles is that we need to be relevant to the culture. But sometimes because of our desire to be relevant we strip down the gospels and deflate the power of God to a more reasonable level. A level that we can handle, a level that we can explain to others. One of the questions that I hear a lot is simply, "Why?" If there is one thing I have learned in following God is that God many times asks us to change something, or to do something, or even to say something to someone. But we don't want to obey until we know why He is asking us. Then if we suspect the reason He is asking us, we judge whether or not it is reasonable for us to listen to Him and obey. So what has happened is many churches have lost the power of God, the miraculous, because they cannot live with the "why" question unanswered and therefore cannot handle the mystery of God. Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard says this, "Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commandingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity! Woe to the person who makes miracles reasonable. Woe to the person who betrays and breaks the mystery of faith, distorts it into public wisdom, because he takes away the possibility of offense!..... Oh the time wasted in this enormous work of making Christianity so reasonable, and in trying to make it so relevant!" Christianity or God is not meant to be reasoned away and explainable, it is meant to be mysterious. And as far as I am concerned, miracles will always be relevant.

Dumbing Down of the Miraculous II

I have been studying a lot lately on the miraculous ways God moves. Recently I read in a book the following: We avoid the reality of Christ's power in a number ways... We're tempted to spiritualize Jesus' power..... The stilling of the storm is about psychological storms in our lives. The healing of the lame is about solving emotional problems that cripple us. Jesus bringing sight to the blind is about God's ability to help us see our lives clearly. And so on and so forth. If we do that enough we begin to think the Gospel stories are nothing but metaphors, and metaphors primarily about us. I am guilty of doing this very thing. The gospels lose their power when we dumb them down to our level. The reality is that Jesus DID calm a real, physical, natural storm. The reality is that Jesus did PHYSICALLY heal the lame mane who came on a bedroll through a roof to see him. When Jesus spit in the dirt made mud and put it on the mans eyes, PHYSICALLY his blind eyes were opened. I think it is ok that we us these as metaphors for purposes of helping people, but we must never, ever forget that these were real miracles, physical miracles done by a real, physical Son of God, Jesus.

Dumbing Down of the Miraculous

The Holy Spirit has really been moving and challenging me lately on some issues in my life. Last Sunday's guest speaker just confirmed these challenges in my heart. God's heart is people, but more than that His heart is to move in and on His creation. He wants to set captives free. He wants to heal the sick. He wants to raise the dead. He wants to much, much more than we think He does. We limit Him, in a way. No man can limit God, but God allows Himself to be limited because He chooses to work through His followers. If we aren't willing to move into the miracle zone, then miracles, for the most part will not happen. We must be willing to move in the Spirit! We must be willing to risk! We must be willing to reach out!

Last Day of September

Today is the last day of September. If you have noticed the leaves the last few weeks have begun their change from green to brown. Some of mine have even fallen off the trees already. My yard, no matter how much I water it in vain, is turning brown. Tomorrow begins the new month of October. The month of harvest, the month of fall coming upon us. Change is in the air. I believe it is a sign of the times that we live in. Constant change is inevitable. Some are good and some are hard. Some we expect and some shake us at our core. As we get older we expect our bodies to decline some over time. But as we get older, we are hardly ever ready to lose those closest to us who have accompanied us on our journeys so far. This week two people who I knew graduated from this realm of fragile life into the realm of everlasting life. So as I sat at my desk in my office this morning opening one of my devotionals, I found this on the page dated September 30th. "The peace of God is different than any other peace. It surpasses all understanding; it helps you to keep your composure. You are not shaken by earthly things. It is a deep peace, created by the knowledge of a living faith, which is the living principle of the foundation of all truth. Christ in in us, the hope and the evidence of glory." I don't understand why things sometimes happen the way they do. But even though I don't understand, I can still have the peace that passes all understanding. That is what Christ brings into our life. I don't know about you, but I need the peace that only Christ can bring in my life today!

Danger of Sunday's Message

One of the dangers of preaching on taking risks is that we will take the biggest risk of all and just file the message away and do nothing with what God has challenged us with. Chasing lions is about going after God's best. It is about being proactive, being offensive, and using what God has given you to impact the world around you. There are so many areas where we need to step out and take a risk. Husbands and wives need to risk more in their relationships by being more open and honest and actually talking and communicating. Bearing their souls at the risk of sounding crazy or even mushy. Parents talking to their kids, pushing beyond the normal conversations and risking finding out what is really going on in their children's lives. Using your gifts and talents to push the kingdom of God further into your own world. Their are lots of risks to take. There are lots of opportunities for you to move out of your safe zone. The question is, will you chase the lion, or will he chase you?

Feels like Fall

It was a nice labor day weekend. My parents were here which was nice. I have been noticing a change in the way the days feel lately. Starting to feel like fall. When I took the kids to school this morning I definitely noticed a change in the seasons. I think it is a good parallel to what I sense God is leading us to do this fall. The small groups are starting to form and God has given me a great series of messages that will begin this coming Sunday. One thing I have learned in planning is to never plan ahead of God. Always stay right with God and He will direct your next step. Also, something that is extremely important in planning is to never ever plan so much programming and structure that there isn't room for the spirit to move and cause growth. My desire is to not just be known as a Spirit-led or Spirit-filled church, but to be a Spirit excited church filled with Spirit-aware people!

Been awhile

It has been so busy and hectic this summer that I haven't made the time to blog like I should have. Notice I didn't say I didn't have the time, I did. I just did make the time. It wasn't one of my highest priorities. It could have been probably should have been, but I just didn't do it. I was reading the book of 1 john today. It's a good book. Speaks a lot on sin and how if we continue sinning we really aren't children of God. Talks a lot about anti-Christs and how to identify them. But it was the very last verse that grabbed at me. Here is what it says, "Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God's place in your hearts." That grabbed me. Some translations say to keep away from idols. I like it better because an idol is a statue,something i can see, something that I can avoid. But when you look at idolatry from the standpoint of anything that takes God's place in your life, that is a little closer to home. The question for the day is, What is taking God's place in my life? People, relationships, things, jobs, pleasure, Me. Because in reality if we don't make a conscious effort to keep God in his place in our lives, he will fall down on our priority list like blogging did for me this summer.

Breathtaking!

My wife and I are in Colorado Springs today. I love the mountains. There are so inspiring and awesome to look at. They are a reminder of the faithfulness of God. Psalms 36:6 says "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths." I think God made both the oceans and the mountains to be spectacular and breathtaking. The same way God's rightouesness and justice should be for us.

Rain, Rain

Finally got a couple of good thunderstorms here today. Everything was so brown. Hopefully this will green everything up. Its amazing how I can water my yard and plants and they still have some brown in them. Then God causes it to rain and they perk right up. Wonder what God spikes his rain with. The kids games were cancelled tonight so I just used my Espresso machine and made myself a homemade cappuccino. Pretty good! Worked on Sunday's sermon most of the day today. It's entitled "Potential."

Whoops!

I realized I haven't blogged in awhile. Came home and fixed lunch for my kids and ate with them. They are swimming now. I am excited about this fall at church. I think God is really getting ready to do something if we will listen and be open to changing some things up. That word "change" always gets our defenses up. But without change, nothing good can happen. Mark Batterson talks about this in a way in his book ID:The True You. Basically we cannot have anything new until we are willing to allow the old to die. For instance if you want to go to college, the dream of high school has to die. If you want to get married, the single life dies. I feel like God is moving in the area of discipleship for me. How we do it, what it is not, what it should be. Read a lot of books on this lately. Simple Church, Breaking the Discipleship Code, Organic Church. Read Colossians, Ephesians, and will be reading Hebrews and 1 Peter to see what discipleship looked like in the first century church. What we need to adjust and improve. Also the way Jesus did ministry many times was so much different than how we do it today. Kicking around the idea of a coffeehouse. A lot of really great ideas, just need to have God put it all together. Can't wait! Exciting!