Glorifying Self

Does anyone else feel really good inside when people praise you for something you've done?  Maybe you did a great job on a project at work and you get a raise, a bonus, or a party thrown in your honor.  Maybe you accomplish something that has been a goal for quite some time and people celebrate that with you.  Whatever the case, getting praised for something feels good, doesn't it?


That said, reading this morning convicted me about that very thing.  I try not to, but a lot of the time I catch myself trying to do something that earns someone's praise.  I try to be better than everyone, or be the first to do something, or have all the right answers.  I even look for situations where I can offer my opinion on an issue or dilemma that someone has in the hopes that people will recognize and praise my intelligence and wit.  To be honest, the pride in me really wants to receive praise.


Now, don't get me wrong - praise is a good thing!  Praise can encourage a person when they're feeling down.  Praise can be a motivator for further good deeds.  Praise gives our Father in heaven the glory He deserves from us, of which we can never give enough.  Praise is an incredible word with a lot of application to our everyday lives.


The problem is when we seek out praise.  When I find myself doing things not because of the good that they are but because of the praise I will receive, that's a problem.  When I discover that I accept the praise for something as if I deserved it instead of pointing it back to God, that's a huge problem.  It can even be classified as idolatry - I'm placing me above God.


Jesus said in John 8:54, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing."


Did you get that?  Jesus - the one Man who lived a perfect, sinless life on earth, the one person who was fully Man and fully God at the same time, the one Man who actually deserved glory because He was the Son of God - said, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing!"


Jesus understood that unless His Father received the glory, it meant nothing.  It was worth nothing.  It was a waste of time.  Unless the praise we receive is seen through the lens of glorifying God, we may as well have not received any praise at all.  That's why Jesus says in Mark 8:34-35, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses himself for my sake and the gospel's will save it."  Our job here on earth is to completely give up our wants, our desires, our fancy jobs, our beautiful houses, our very lives for the sake of glorifying God.


If you give up those things for the sake of Christ, will God still bless you with them?  Maybe.  Probably.


Will it be worth it even if He doesn't give them to you?  Infinitely so.


I'll end with the perfectly fitting lyrics of Selah's song 'Glory'

We want to see your Glory

Every knee falls down before thee

Every tongue offers You praise

With every hand raised

Singing Glory

To you and unto you only

We'll sing Glory to Your name

Known

Sometimes I feel like I can't be good enough for God.  I know I really can't be good enough, not on my own anyway, but do you know what I mean?  Do you ever feel that way?  I get this feeling that I'm dirty and sinful, and I'm sure that it's the devil attacking me and trying to bring me down, but I even think, "How could God ever love a person like me?"  It can get overwhelming at times.


BUT, the incredible thing about God is that He knows exactly what I'm going through.  


And it's not a "I-know-what-you're-going-through-even-though-I've-never-been-there-myself-and-I'm-just-pretending-to-empathize-with-you" kind of understanding.


He's saying to me, "I've been in your shoes.  I know your struggles and I want to help you through them."  It's that kind of understanding.  What a peace it brings for me to think about and meditate on.


Anyway, I was kind of in that kind of funk a few days ago and I started to notice a few things in my Bible readings each day.  It was so clear that it may as well have painted a picture for me.  The details were unbelievably vibrant.


The first verse I came across was John 2:25, which reads, "...for He Himself knew what was in man."  It was this immediately relevant passage that truly spoke into my heart.  It was as if God  gently reminded me that Jesus knew what He was getting into when He came to earth.  He knew what man was like.  He even knew me.  He knew my character traits, my personality, my good qualities and my bad ones.  He knew that I would have great days of praising and glorifying the Father and He knew that I would have terrible days filled with mistakes and sin.


At the very beginning of His ministry, "He Himself knew what was in man."


Astonishing!


In addition to that, He even told everyone that He knew our flaws:


"For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."  John 3:20


He knew them!  He knew that we were sinful and He knew that we would even run from the light because of our sin, and yet...and yet...


He still went to the cross.


He still died for our sins.


As He took His last breath, He still said, "Father, forgive them."


I don't know what kind of love could possibly possess a man who knows the sins of the world and would still die for that very world, but I know that is a love I want to permeate my life.  That is a love I want to share with others.  And that is a love I want to completely overwhelm me and break me to the point of sacrificing my whole life for the glory of God.


I'm praying that you encounter that very same love in such a deeply intimate way that it radically alters your frame of mind, that it changes you to the very core of who you are, and that it moves you so that you can do nothing else with your life but shout it to the nations.


As I am reminded of Psalm 34:8, "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" I am also encouraged that it is good to be known by that kind of God.

Waiting

Sometimes when you go to the doctor, you end up in the waiting room longer than you spend in the examining room. Once you get back there, the doctor gives you the once over, asks a couple of questions, writes a scrip, and you go on your way thinking, "Did I just pay THAT much money for two minutes with a doctor?"

Doesn't make sense, does it? I know it doesn't to me. Here's the cool thing - while with doctors it may not make sense, with God it does. For me, more often than not, the solution is found in waiting for Him rather than meeting with Him. Don't get me wrong, meeting with the Lord is incredible! I love those sweet moments in the morning during my quiet time or a great sermon series or a moving worship set - they really speak to my soul and inspire me to keep living and loving for the Lord and seeking to do what He would have me do. But the times I really LEARN from Him are the times that He keeps me waiting patiently (most times not so patiently) for Him.

I read these verses in Psalm 37 the other day, but because of traveling I haven't had the chance to blog about it until now. Check these out:

"Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness."

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."

"Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act."

"Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him..."

"The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in His way..."

"The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip."

"Wait for the Lord and keep His way..."

I don't know about you, but to me - especially considering my propensity for impatience - that's God's not so subtle way of telling me to slow down and wait on His timing for things. So many times I think that I've waited long enough and that I'm ready for the next phase in my life, but so often I forget that my job is to be where God has placed me. My job is to delight myself in the Lord, to commit my way to the Lord, and to keep the law of God in my heart. My goal should be to glorify Him where I am, and let Him deal with the details of what's next in my life. God has to be the one who orders my steps and guides me where He wants me to go. Who knows better than Him, right?

So, the next time you go to the doctor, think of the waiting room as a literal lesson in waiting. While the doctor may know how to treat you well, who knows better than the Great Physician?

Shout to the North

This post has been a long time coming.  It's something that's been floating around in my mind for quite a while now, but recently I have seen things that I feel like are forcing me to say something.  Sad news, ladies - this post is for the men who happen to read it.

"Men of faith rise up and sing of the great and glorious King.  You are strong when you feel weak, in your brokenness complete."

I heard that song I don't know how many years back and the last couple of days it's been stuck in my head.  Forget the rest of the song for now, even the whole line.  The first five words are what get me - "Men of faith rise up..."  A few things I've observed recently:

One - I get the chance to work the sound board at church, which means during the service I have a perfect bird's eye view of everything that's going on.  I get to see the people who come in late, the people who are texting instead of actively participating in the service, the people who are truly engaged - all of it.  I thought it was just my imagination, but I began noticing what I thought was a trend.  When the music is going full swing, it seems to me that more women are engaged than men.  Now I know that we as men aren't big on the hand raising and such.  We are a bit more emotionally reserved and so I understand a bit of reluctance.  But it's not just music.  When the sermon is over and the invitation is given, I don't remember the last time I saw a man go up to the front to pray or talk to a pastor.  The women, though, they have it covered!  They go up all the time - to pray, to pray with someone, to ask for prayer from a pastor - they seem to be eager to get to the altar, where the men don't want to budge from their seats.

Two - recently on campus there was a 'Night of Prayer.'  The idea was that for 24 hours our campus would be praying, whether it was prayer requests, for the movement of the Lord among us, for mission trips, whatever came to mind.  I thought to myself, "Oh, that's a great idea.  They've done that before, even when I was a student.  I bet that really moves people to have a heart for the Lord."  Beth and I went to check the mail and passed the sign up sheet for 'Night of Prayer.'  I glanced at it.  I was shocked.  To be honest, I went back later and took it just to make sure I had read correctly (if anyone needs it back, let me know and I'll drop it off where I got it).  There were 107 people signed up (many doubled in time slots) for 20 minute intervals to pray throughout the day.  Pretty good, I guess.  I don't know what the numbers should look like on that, but that wasn't the shocking thing.  I started counting.

Girl, girl, girl, boy, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, girl, boy, boy...it went on.

In the end, 25 male people had signed up to participate.  If you're tracking along with the math, that means 82 females had signed up.  82!  That's 3.28 times more girls than boys who signed up to pray!  That's 75% of the people who signed up!  What?!  I'm not saying that it's wrong for girls to pray or be involved in the spiritual renewal of our campus, but where are the men?

Now, I know the numbers are skewed some because not everyone who signed up showed up to pray, and not everyone who prayed was signed up.

Obviously.

Here's my point though after noting these two observations.  While there are some men out there who lead their families to walk in spirit and in truth, while there are men out there who do not at all fit into this category - there are a lot of us who are failing in our jobs as men.  The Bible says very plainly that the men are called to be the spiritual leaders of the household, of the church, of society.  The men are to be the ones who are at the forefront of every spiritual battle, whether it's in prayer, on the mission field, at work, at church, whatever.  The men.

Yet, who's doing the leading?  Who's doing all the praying?  Maybe privately there are men all across the globe who are prayer warriors, men who in their households really do lead by example and teach their families what the Lord would have of them.  There are men that I know right now who are incredible spiritual leaders, men who I look up to and hope I will be like when I've grown and matured, my dad being at the top of that list.  

But you can't be a man who privately leads your family and not live it out publicly.
And so, it leads me to believe that many men aren't leading their families, privately or not.

"Men of faith rise up and sing of the great and glorious King.  You are strong when you feel weak, in your brokenness complete."

Men, you don't have to be perfect.  You don't have to know all the answers.  You don't have to get it right every time.  But you MUST lead.  God calls every last one of us to stand up and be the spiritual leader.  He never said we wouldn't mess up, but He is saying we must try.

In the trying, we'll grow.  In the growing, we'll improve.  In the whole process, we'll be leading - like we're called to do.

Joy

What makes you happy?  I know for me there are many things that I would say make me feel happy.  Chocolate, a good book, coffee.  Even people make me happy.  Like my wife saying she's proud of me or my daughter laughing at something silly I've done.

Now, for the real question.  What brings you joy?  You see, joy has a deeper meaning than happiness.  Happiness is just finding delight or pleasure in something, but joy - that's defined as keen elation, great satisfaction.  If you search the Bible for the word 'joy', you'll come up with so many results that you won't know what to do with them.  One of my favorites is Habakkuk 3:18, "yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation."  We are called to find joy in the Lord.

I learned something new about joy this morning as I was reading in 1 John.  The fourth verse of the first chapter says this, "And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete."

I guess it would help to know the context. John is talking about the fact that he is an eye-witness to Jesus coming to earth to be our salvation.  He's proclaiming the eternal life that Jesus brings with Him for  us and how incredible fellowship is with Him.  He concludes by saying that he's writing all of that so that his joy will be complete.

Here's what blows my mind and, more specifically, what my take away for today is - I can have joy in the Lord all day long, but my joy is made complete when I tell other people about Him.  That joy is not finished growing in my heart unless I'm telling other people about Him and what He means to me.  Will my life still have meaning and purpose?  Yes, but it will not be completely fulfilled, because part of my calling, my purpose, God's plan for my life is to share his love.  I'm created to share the hope that I've found in Him with the people all over the world who don't know that precious, life-giving joy.

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations..."

What are you doing to make your joy complete?      

Precious

I was looking at Beth and Isabella while they slept this morning, soaking in a last little moment with each of them before I went off to work, and I had a moment of clarity.


They are precious to me. Those sweet moments when they don't even know I'm watching are precious to me. The times when Isabella is curled up in a chair with a book. The times when Beth has her head tilted just so as she reads a recent blog update or recipe. The times when they're both asleep, nestled into the blankets in the exact same pose. They don't know I'm watching but those are the most precious times to me.


I mean, there are things in life that we like a lot or even things that we love, but I bet there are just a few things that we would say are precious to us. Things that maybe no one else would appreciate or at least very few people would.


The amazing thing about it all is this - to God, we are that precious! Check out this verse from what I was reading this morning:


"As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious..."


Later it says God has chosen us as "a people for His own possession.". What an amazing picture! I was completely overwhelmed this morning as I was reminded that just as I have those precious moments with my family, we are considered all the more precious by our Father in heaven.


Do you feel like the world is weighing you down and nothing is going your way? Do you feel like everyone is against you? Do you feel abandoned or alone or burdened or afraid?
Be encouraged today, because God loves you and He has a plan for you and He has made a way for you to have the most intimate relationship you have ever known! You are precious to Him - more precious than you could ever imagine.


Just one last thing: Are you living your life to reflect how precious you are to the Father?

Hope

What do you hope for?  A typical person these days might say they hope for the economy to start back up again or they hope for war to end.  An American dreamer might say they hope for just that - the American dream.  A husband or wife, 2.5 kids, a house in the suburbs with a big yard and white picket fence.

What about this question:  in whom do you place your hope?  Is it yourself - you know you'll never let you down.  Is it your elected officials or your pastor - they would never betray the hope and trust you place in them!  I read this morning several verses that may set it straight:

"The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.  The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue."  Psalm 33:16-17

Man!  You mean the people around me are going to fail me?  My hope is misplaced?  You mean even sometimes I'll let myself down?!

Really, in all seriousness, you probably already knew that.  We can hope in stuff and people all day long, but at the end of the day, you know as well as I do that people are fallible, people mess up.  We get let down and hurt and roughed up a lot by this world and it's no wonder we're not all crazy for all the pain we end up in throughout our lives.  It's why you see so much depression and suicide - this world is a hard place to live in!  Check this out, though - the rest of the story:

"Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.  For our heart is glad in Him, because we trust in His holy name.  Let Your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in You."  Psalm 33:20-22

Amazing!  I can't even begin to describe the peace that settles on my heart when I read that.  The Bible doesn't just say we should hope in the Lord - it's so much more than that!  He loves us - more than we can imagine.  He's trustworthy - and he'll never break that trust.  He brings our hearts joy - and it's the deepest joy we'll ever know.

Here's my favorite part of that verse:  "Our soul waits for the Lord..."  Our souls are all waiting for just the right piece to make them whole and that piece is the Lord.  Our souls will only ever be satisfied by the Lord.  Our souls are perfectly made to be perfectly completed by the Lord!

If you don't have hope in the Lord, I pray that you will because it's the best thing you'll ever know.  If you do have hope in the Lord, don't forget - your hope is never misplaced in the Lord.

Lofty Task

Do realizations ever just dawn on you out of the blue?  I mean, I was just sitting in the chair in our daughter's room watching her toddle back and forth between rooms in her high water pj's and this thought occurred to me - "She's my responsibility!"

I don't mean I realized that it's my job to make sure that she's eats healthy food or wears cute clothes or has a place to sleep - of course, that's my responsibility.

I'm not even referring to the fact that it's my job to make sure that she does well in school or gets a great job or marries the right guy - yes, all of those things I will do.  Yes, all of those things I take very seriously!

But, to be honest, there's one thing that I was strongly reminded of this morning that Beth and I MUST do as parents.

"Train up a child in the way (s)he should go; even when (s)he is old, (s)he will not depart from it."
Proverbs 22:6

She could be malnourished, naked, sleeping on the street, uneducated, unemployed, and married to some dirtbag - but whether or not we accomplish this one thing will determine our success in raising her.  Whether or not we do this one thing will paint a clearer picture of our priorities in life than anything else we could ever do or say.

It was like an explosion went off in my head!  I always knew that I had this responsibility, but the reminder was incredibly poignant today.

It's our job to raise her up in the Lord, to teach her through the example of our lives and the words of our mouths what God's love means and how it affects our lives - how we will never be the same now that we know it, and how we couldn't be who we are without it!

It's our job to show her what the Gospel is and to lead her to the cross!

It's our job to disciple her once she's found Jesus and help her grow in that most intimate of relationships!

The bad news is - we can't do it in our own strength.  We can never do or say the right thing to accomplish this task.  The good news is - we have faith in our Father, our Lord, our Savior that He will grant us the strength and grace and love and patience to do it all!  Will we make mistakes?  Undoubtedly so.  But the picture of our daughter at the end of our lives will reflect who we are and how we invested our time.

A picture really does paint a thousand words...

Relationships

How much time do you spend with your best friend?  My guess is a lot.  I mean, how else do they become your best friend?  You spend hours talking to and spending time with them.  You call each other to go to a movie or get coffee.  You tell each other about what's going on in your life and how something has made you happy or someone has made you mad.  Why?  Because with a friendship like that, or any relationship for that matter, you have to spend time cultivating it.

What if your best friend never called you?  What if you never spent time with your closest friends?  Isn't it obvious that just like a gowing relationship requires time and energy and effort to make it grow, a relationship without those things is stagnant?  Wouldn't it be true that a relationship without those things is not a relationship at all?  You wouldn't be best friends with that person, you would be more like acquaintances...or strangers...

You know the same thing applies to our relationship with God?  I can say all day long that I love God and I want to glorify Him with my life and I have this really close relationship with Him and I'm trying to figure out what His will for my life is and...and...and...

But how can that be true if I don't spend time with Him?  How can that be true if I don't talk to Him and let Him talk to me?  The truth is, though, that's something I've heard before.  It's not a new concept to me that I need to put time and energy and effort into growing in my relationship with God.  It's not my purpose for writing this today.

I need to take this a step further and share what's been really on my heart lately.  In our small group, we have been reading through "Forgotten God" by Francis Chan.  (WOW!  We're not even halfway through and already it's given me much to think about and apply in my life.)  One of the things that Chan mentions is that the Holy Spirit is a Person, distinct from the Person of God or the Person of Jesus.  That started me thinking about something I hadn't thought about before.

The Holy Spirit is a Person.  John 14:17 talks about how I am to be in relationship with the Holy Spirit.  So, just like with God, I have to foster it, I have to put effort into being in and growing in relationship with the Holy Spirit.  This is such a new concept for me because I guess I just always assumed that the Holy Spirit would just be there, that He would just guide me and teach me and that would be that.

But it's so much bigger than that!  The Bible promises all of these gifts that the Holy Spirit brings with Him.  The Bible says that I will bear the fruit of the Spirit.  So, how do I make sure that I am receiving those gifts?  How do I make sure that I am bearing that fruit?  How do I learn God's will for my life, what I've been praying for since I can remember?

I have to pursue relationship with the Holy Spirit - actively, consistently.  I have to pray for a closer and more intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit, just like I pray for a closer and more intimate relationship with God.

So I guess the thought I'll end with is - what or who are you seeking relationship with?

Resignation?

Perspective is everything, isn't it?

Take a picture of a man and a woman both holding a purse in the street.  If you're a man of honor and integrity, then you assume he's giving it back to her after getting it back from a thief.  If you're a woman who's been taken advantage of, then you assume he's stealing it from her.  What if she's taking it from him?  What if she's giving it to him?  What if they're both con artists that just stole it from some other person not in the picture?  You catch my drift?

Perspective really can be everything to how we view and handle experiences, and over the past couple of weeks while reading through the Gospel of Mark I've been blessed to see a perspective that I hadn't really taken time to notice before.

The first thing I noticed (although it's not hard to notice and someone else actually pointed it out to me) is Mark's use of the word or some form of the word 'immediate'.  All throughout the book it seems like Mark just uses the word over and over.  My English teacher from high school would have circled it after the first few times and written 'redundant' in big, cursive, almost-illegible red script.  But I think he's trying to get some point across by his repeated use of the word.  For a while I couldn't pin-point it exactly, but my second observation helped a little...

The second thing I noticed about the book of Mark was an emotion.  It seeps through the pages, especially near the end, and it just overwhelmed me with every page I read!  I mean, normally there is a verse that stands out or a lesson that intrigues me, but an emotion?  It was new to me.

The only verse the came to mind the whole time I was reading was that verse in Isaiah 53,

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth."

And the only word that came to mind the whole time I was reading was resignation.  Of course, that sounds weak and pales in comparision to the word I was really trying to think of - submission.  I know, submission isn't an emotion.  But I don't know any other way to explain it.  I felt...through the way the text was written and the order of the events and even with this word immediate coming up all the time, I felt the emotion Jesus must have felt as he submitted.  Can that even do it justice?  Does that even make any sense? 

I don't know.  What I do know is it was eye-opening for me.  It was real and raw and human.  It helped me see a different side of Jesus than I normally see or think about.  Above all, it helped me understand more of why Jesus went to the cross for me.

He perfectly understood that God's will is perfect...that God's will can be trusted...that God's will has everyone's best interests at heart.

So, after much verbiage, here are two things I've gleaned from my reading of Mark:

1.  If you want to be more like Jesus, submit to the will of God.  You can't change it anyway...
2.  If you want to be better at submitting, try this new word 'immediately'.  Jesus didn't delay in submitting to the will of the Father, and neither should we.