Radical

So I recently finished the book "Radical" by David Platt and let me just say to those of you who haven't read it - Go.  Now.  Don't delay.  Read it.  Did I mention now??


There's a catch, though.  A big one.


If you want to keep living your church-going, song-singing, comfortable-living, status-quo, "keeping up with the Jonses" lifestyle...well...this book is not for you.


BUT...


If you want to have your world completely rocked, if you want to be haunted by the message that it speaks to your heart, and if you want to radically change your life for the glory of God and the furthering of His kingdom then this book IS for you.


I can't put into words all of the thoughts that are going through my mind and heart about this book.  Specifically, I'm convicted that I am much more concerned with the things of this world than the things of God and - let me be honest here - that is NOT the picture God has for my life (or yours for that matter).  I spend way more time and money on food and books than caring for the widows and the orphans of this world.  And guess what?  There is not a single verse in the Bible that says it's okay for me to worry about the next book I buy or the next meal I eat.  However, James 1:27 makes it crystal clear as to what I should be concerned about:

"Religion that our God and Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

I don't know about you, but that doesn't leave much room for interpretation.  In fact, it seems to be exactly opposite of what I just described that my own priorities are looking like.  Go look at your own checkbook - what are you spending your time and money on?  Does your list of priorities seem just as backwards as my own?  Are you living a life that is "polluted by the world?"


And that's just one point that Platt brings up throughout the book.


Here's the long and short of it:  This is not meant to be a book review.  This is meant to be a challenge.  Go read the book.  More importantly, go read the book and come away changed, altered, distressed and disturbed.  The point is not for Platt to get the recognition for writing a good book and saying all of these things that are convicting and unsettling.  The point is that we should be convicted.  We should be unsettled.  We should be reminded of and called back to our first love - Jesus Christ - and we should align our lives with what Jesus actually said for our lives to look like, not what we're pretending Christianity is all about.


If you spent more time reading this than you have your Bible all week, there's an issue.
If you spent more time on facebook than sharing the gospel all week, there's an issue.


I'm not perfect and I certainly have just as much to work on as you do, probably more.  The reason I write all of this is not to make you feel bad and put myself up on a high horse casting judgment and condemnation down on everyone else.  The reason I write all of this is because I want more.  I want more than just the mundane drudgery of going to work and bringing home a paycheck and spending money and dying with nothing to show for it but a bunch of stuff!  I want to spend my energy giving it all away - my time, my money, my life - for the glory of God the Father.  It's what we were made to do anyway!


Who cares if people think we're weird because we do things differently than they do?  That's what people need to see.  It's radical to follow Jesus.  Normal to Him is entirely backwards to the rest of the world.


So be radical.


I dare you.

Molded

Thursday for my quiet time I was reading in Hebrews and there was a particular verse that stuck out to me.  Honestly, I didn't even know why it did at first.  I've been mulling it over for the past day or two just trying to make sense of it in my heart and let God show me what He was trying to show me through that verse.  Here it is:

"For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering."  Hebrews 2:10

I ended up leaving for work quite a bit early (because of meeting with the guys that I meet with on Thursday mornings), and I sat for about an hour and read through a sermon on this exact verse that was preached in 1826 (or so) by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  Enlightening to say the least.  Spurgeon spoke about the fact that it was not Christ who was made perfect through suffering (because He already was) but the sacrifice itself that was made perfect.  Here's the thing - I don't really understand how all of that works.  But I know this:  If Jesus was making a sacrifice that was perfected through suffering, then it only makes sense that suffering in our lives has some purpose (whether we can see it or not) and that this suffering is molding us more and more into the image of Christ.


C.S. Lewis said in his book The Problem of Pain, "Tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless."  I tend to agree with Mr. Lewis, especially after this reading of Hebrews 2.


So, I think God is reminding me that pain hurts.  A lot.  But that ultimately His purposes are served through that pain and He's using it to make me more like Him.


I think He's also showing me that if I find myself in situations where I'm not being challenged to be more like Christ, then I need to run away as hard and fast as humanly possible.


And so I ask myself (and you) - Am I being molded into the image of Christ?  Is God perhaps using the pain I may feel at times to draw me more into Him and His will for my life?  Is God showing me something that I need to run hard and fast away from?


Lord, help me to humbly face the answers to these questions and give me the strength to change my life accordingly.

Forsaken

The past couple of weeks have been a blur, to say the least.  However, I've had this thought brewing in my mind the whole time.  It started one morning (I think) while I was driving to school: "What does it look like to completely forsake the world?"

I think what shocked me most about the line of thinking that followed was that I wasn't even thinking "spiritual" thoughts when it came to me.  Literally, driving down the road, it just popped in my head - out of the blue, you might say.  After the initial shock of such a thought I began to try to wrap my head around this idea.  What does it look like to forsake the world?  It's an uncomfortable conversation for me to have with myself because there are so many things in this world that I love, so many things that I devote myself to doing, so many things that I give time and effort and money and attention and...and...and...you get my drift?

For me, thinking about forsaking the world means giving up a lot of things.  It means my passions become different.  It means my priorities change.

It certainly didn't help the process when our pastor spoke at Wednesday night service.  He referenced this verse:

"For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation."  Galatians 6:15

You see, his point was the same that I'd been pondering for more than a week.  It's the same point that Paul is making in his letter to the church in Galatia.  It's the same point that we all as Christ followers should be asking ourselves on a daily basis - when all is said and done, is your life being made every day into a new creation in Christ?  Are the things that you pursue of this world or of Christ?  Or are you trying to compromise and do both - pursue the world and Christ?

You can see why Wednesday was so effective in my heart.  It served to confirm these thoughts that have been floating around in my head, it helped to solidify things and make them more clear.


Our church calls Wednesday night service 'Renewal', and for me it was that and so much more.  For me it was confirmation of the calling on my life.  It was affirming and encouraging to be reminded of what God's been doing in my heart and where He's been molding different areas of my life to change me more into His image.


And it was also convicting as I began to think about the things that I pursue in life that are not what I should be pursuing.  In my own life, it's books, movies, approval and a host of other things.  What is it in your life?  Football?  Maintaining an image?  Clothes?  Popularity?  Being religious?  Regardless of what your pursuits are, the question is not what are you and I pursuing.  The question is what are we doing to change the things that we pursue in life?  What are we doing to seek more after Christ?  What are we doing to forsake the world?


This question's been on my mind ever since our pastor asked it Wednesday night.  He said he wanted to haunt us with this question, and I'd say he did a good job of it (at least with me):

"What is your life marked by?"

Hummingbirds

This weekend Beth and I went with a group of leaders in our church to do some planning for the college small groups that are starting in the next few weeks.  I got up early on Saturday morning, well before everyone else, because I enjoy that time alone.  For me, it's a chance to sit quietly and read my Bible, drink a cup of coffee, and truly rest in the Lord.  Even if I'm really tired I find myself energized by that, prepared to face whatever the day has in store.

So, I went outside with my Bible and journal to enjoy the cool of the morning while I read, and just as I had gotten settled into the rocking chair and reading from Psalm 100 I heard a buzzing noise.  I looked up and nothing was there, so I dismissed it.  The second time I heard the noise I ignored it for a moment, but when it persisted I looked up and there was a hummingbird, getting nectar from a feeder nearby.  It kept doing this interesting thing, though.  It would get some nectar, then back up and look at me, then get some nectar, back up and look at me - definitely an interesting experience being stared down by a hummingbird...

Anyway, as a result, two thoughts occurred as I watched this tiny little bird feeding and watching and feeding again.

The first was of the song by Tenth Avenue North called "Love is Here."  The lyrics say, "Come to the water you who thirst and you'll thirst no more."  I was reminded that just as this hummingbird needed that water for life, so also do I need the living water that Jesus offers in John 4:

"Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

I love the picture of that bird coming for water, needing that water to sustain life, and the reminder that Christ offers us all water that's better than any we could ever find on earth - pure enough to quench our thirst for eternity.

The second thought was of the scene in C.S. Lewis' The Silver Chair where Jill meets Aslan for the first time, posted here in its entirety because I could never do justice describing it.  The main gist is that Aslan (the symbolic Christ-figure in the Narnia series) offers Jill water and she is concerned about the danger of drinking the water in the presence of the largest, wildest, most dangerous looking Lion she's ever seen.  As I watched the hummingbird, who needed and wanted the life-giving nectar, it also kept an eye out for me, the very large human who could destroy its life in an instant.

More fitting than the scene in The Silver Chair, though, the hummingbird really reminded me of 1 Peter 5:8, which says:

"Be sober-minded; be watchful.  Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."

Peter is telling us to be watchful because just like I could have jumped up to harm the hummingbird, so also is the devil prowling around looking for any way that he can possibly destroy us.  I find it quite easy in my own life to remember that Jesus is the living water, but all too often I let my guard down and don't keep an eye out for the schemes of the devil.  He's crafty and cunning, and if I let up watching for just one minute, he steps right past my defenses and starts wreaking havoc in my life.

I'm taking the hummingbird as an example of what I want to emulate - while I continually come to the Lord as my source of life, I also want to keep watch so that I don't get caught in the snares of the devil.

And I'm praying the same thing for you.

Good Measure

Sometimes I sit down to write, having been inspired by a passage I read in the Word that day or that week, and I've found that a lot of what I write about hits on topics that have been convicting or challenging me - and that makes sense to me because I know how sinful I am and how much I mess up on a daily basis.  It makes sense to me that God would convict me over and over about things - I can be just that dense a lot of the time.


The other day, though, I was sitting on the couch (I think) and these thoughts started to overwhelm me.  It all stemmed from a verse that I've known and read many times over the years:

"...for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control."  2 Timothy 1:7

I love that verse because it reminds me of the true spirit that God puts inside each of us.  He makes us powerful and loving and self controlled through His strength and movement in our lives - and I love that!


Anyway, this verse made me start thinking about how this school year is different that the last few.  This school year I have a different attitude.  I know things are stressful sometimes and I know I'll be frustrated over the course of the year, but God didn't put the spirit of fear inside of me and He doesn't want me shying away from the work that He's going to do.  Rather, He started to remind me further of promises found in scripture.  John 10:10 - 

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."

 And Luke 6:38 - 

"...give, and it will be given to you.  Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.  For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you."

I love these promises and it was so encouraging to have God remind me of these particular passages in His Word.  It's a beautiful thing to serve a God Who gives life abundantly and Who fills our lives up with good measure.  God has called us to live lives that are full and abundant and running over with good measure, not spent shaking in fear.  He blesses us way more than we could ever deserve and He calls us to live lives that glorify Him as a result.


So I challenge you (and myself) to live out this year abundantly in Christ.  Don't miss out on opportunities because you're afraid of what might happen.  And don't forget that ultimately we're glorifying the God of the nations who blessed us in the first place.

Strive

I hear a lot of people talk about the American Dream or life goals or their calling in life.  Especially when they don't have clear direction - then they start to talk about feeling lost and unsure of the future.  If they're a Christian, then I hear phrases like, "I don't know where God is leading me" or "I'm trying to figure out God's will for my life."  I hear it a lot - probably because I say those kind of things so much myself.


But, I was convicted this morning reading through Luke chapter 13.  Verse 24 really stood out to me:

"Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able."

That word "strive" really gets me in the gut.  Jesus didn't say "Hope to enter through the narrow door" or "Think about going through the narrow door."  Jesus said strive.  That's a word that implies effort.  The definition is "exert oneself vigorously, try hard."  Don't get me wrong, I don't think Jesus is telling us to work to earn our salvation.  That's not the intention here at all.


Jesus is saying this phrase and He's convicting me so much this morning about not being lazy.  About not having a laissez faire approach to life - and to my walk with Christ, specifically.  Instead of waiting for God to "reveal His will" to me or complaining that I don't know what my calling is in life, He's pointing out that He's already told me His will for my life.  He tells me in His Word to, "Seek first the kingdom of God."


Just because I'm saved and I know I'm going to heaven doesn't mean that my work stops there.  I still have a call on my life to lead others to Christ.  I still have a mission in life to bring glory to the Father.  Do I have to do anything to earn my salvation?  No.  But I still have tasks here on earth that God has called me to do and will continue to call me to do until I go home to heaven.  Jesus is just reminding me of that this morning.


So the challenge for myself as I go on to the rest of my day, and the challenge for you as well, is to strive.  Seek out ways to advance God's kingdom.  Look for ways to glorify Him.  You may not know specifically what school you're supposed to go to or what state you're supposed to live in.  You may be unsure about who to marry or what job to have.  BUT - if we're seeking after God, if we're striving for the narrow door - do any of those details really matter?  Don't we serve a God who is bigger than that?  Trust Him.  He's bigger than any of the details and He's infinitely more capable of handling them.

A Reminder

I just need someone to remind me of basic truth every once in a while.  Have you ever been there?  That's this morning for me.


I got up this morning to run and after I got home and cleaned up a bit, I sat down to read today's Bible passage from the L3 Journal, which was Luke 4, and what really hit home with me seemed so basic...and yet so necessary.


But then I started thinking about it.  I knew I wanted to write about what I had read and share that truth, but it seemed too simple.  What I had learned seemed like it wasn't good enough or spiritual enough.  I started to go back and re-read the passage, maybe find something 'deeper' to write about, but God grabbed hold of my attention and pointed something out to me.


Sometimes I see what the pastors at church blog about or what other 'spiritual giants' in my life comment on when they read the same passage I read and I get a little twinge of...I don't know...jealousy maybe?  It just seems like they got so much more out of what they were reading than I did - but like I said, today God just grabbed hold of me - I make things too complicated sometimes.  I look too hard and miss the most obvious things.  This morning is a bit of a convicting reminder for me to rest in the joy of reading scripture, to be open to God telling me what He's going to tell me, and that's it!


I almost skipped over that last couple of paragraphs to write about what I got out of Luke 4 today - that Jesus was tempted, that temptation is always something God provides a way out of, that being filled with the Spirit is a guaranteed way to escape temptation.  Those are all necessary truths for me to be reminded of today in my own walk with the Lord.  But that's for me.  It's what God chose to reveal to me today.


I would encourage you to seek the same thing.  What is God revealing to you today?  Compared to anything I could ever say, what God has to say to you is going to be far more relevant, more convicting, more valuable.  Genuinely seek God's face today and He'll show Himself to you more clearly than anything you've ever seen.

Magnificent Obsession

Lately, I've become obsessed with the sky.  Every time we go somewhere, whether it's a quick trip down to the store or to a near-by city or even another country, I find myself looking up.  I'm literally obsessed.


Think about it though.  The majesty of the sky, with its multitude of colors and the swirls of clouds.  Every sky is different and yet every sky is the same.  You can be in an entirely different country from me and we'll see vastly different pictures, but the same moon and stars will come out at night, the same sun will still rise and set each morning and evening.  The more I think about it and the more that I stop in the middle of what I'm doing to take yet another picture of the sky, the more in awe I become.


If you never thought about it before now, ponder this.  It is impossible to look at the sky, with all of its incredible detail, and not believe in the Creator.  He's the most accomplished artist there will ever be and what awes me even more than how beautiful His Creation can be is how full of splendor, majesty and power He proves Himself to be through the vastness of that which He created.  The sky is a perfect picture of that for me.  I love to look up at a perfect sunset or the fluffiest clouds I think I've ever seen and remember how amazing my God is.  I get overwhelmed sometimes at how awe-inspiring it can be.  I am moved to the very core of my soul thinking about how God displays His magnificence throughout all of His Creation, but especially the sky.


I think of this song by Steven Curtis Chapman every time the subject comes up.

"This is everything I want

This is everything I need

I want this to be my one consuming passion

Everything my heart desires

Lord, I want it all to be for you, Jesus

Be my magnificent obsession" 

May God reveal Himself to you more and more each day and may He become your magnificent obsession in everything you do and say.  Think about that this week - maybe these pictures can give you a small glimpse of what I'm talking about.

Training

As you know based on my last post, I've started a routine of being consistent in my working out and time with the Lord.  I was doing p90x for a while, but long story short, I've altered that plan quite a bit and the majority of this new plan is running and hopefully getting good enough to do a 5k or something in the near future.  That said, as I've gotten a few runs under my belt I've noticed a couple of things:

- I've gotten better in just a short amount of time (I assume I'll continue improving?)
- It's hard work!

The thing I tend to forget about training myself (mind, body, or spirit) is that it is real work to start in whatever condition you're in and push yourself to grow and improve individually.  I want it to just come easily and not have to do much to achieve improvement.  Obviously, with education being my profession, I have a first hand view of students who choose to work hard or not.  The ones who work hard are successful, the ones who do not are not successful.  Simple.  With my body, I can easily see in my own life how if I work hard I improve and if I don't then I very quickly become lazy and apathetic.

Hopefully you can tell where I'm headed - it's the same in our walk with Christ.  As a Christian, God doesn't tell us to just get 'fire insurance' and that's all we're required to do.  It's a lifestyle, it's a transformation, it's work to grow closer to God in our relationships with Him.  The awesome thing about it is that while the training of my mind or body can be a very individualized experience, the training of my spirit is something I'll never have to do alone because God is right there beside me giving me strength and lifting me up as I continue to grow closer to Him.

As crucial as all of that it - to realize that I need to work at this relationship - I think it's so vital to understand the importance of starting early in life.  Just like young children can learn languages so much easier than older people or young athletes have more time to improve their abilities than older athletes, young people are so important to Christ.  He even says in Mark 10:14-15:

"Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.  Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."

God has placed in the hands of Christian parents the remarkable ability to influence our children for the Lord.  We're even commanded to do so in Proverbs 22:6:

"Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it."

A couple of weeks ago I went into Isabella's room to get her up for breakfast - a time I have begun to cherish more and more as she gets older - and she looked at me, smiled and pointed and simply said, "Bible."  It was the first time she had done that and I almost broke down right then and there.  It absolutely melts my heart and makes me smile the biggest smile ever to know that the first thing Isabella wants to do when she gets up - before eating or getting a new diaper, before running around or playing with her toys - is read a story out of her little Bible.

I know we're going to mess things up as time goes on.  I know we're not always going to get things right.  But there is one thing that I will die before getting wrong and that's the command of Proverbs 22:6.  If we as parents do nothing else with our lives, I'm praying that we raise our children up in the Lord because it's the best gift a parent can ever give to a child.

What Routine?

I absolutely love summer.  Being a teacher, this allows me ample time to do all the things I don't usually have time for during the school year - like read my ever growing list of books, fixing/cleaning things around the house, etc.  I have a problem though.  A problem to which I know the solution but find myself wavering back and forth to commit.  You see, during the school year my morning routine is down to a science.  Every minute of my morning is accounted for, every task has its time slot, and let me just be honest:  summer completely throws my routine out the window.


It's a blessing and a curse, really.  I have the freedom of knowing that I don't have anywhere to be or anything to do, no deadlines to meet, no lesson plans to write.  That part is great.  The part where I don't work out consistently, where I'm not consistently in the Word, where I sit down to write a new blog entry at 4:50 in the afternoon and I haven't even showered or gotten out of my pajamas yet - those are the parts that aren't so great.


Is it wrong to not have any real obligations for a period of time?  No, I don't think so.  Am I gloating in the fact that I have all summer off and don't have to go to work for two months?  No.  In fact, it's probably the worst thing possible for someone like me who is so routine oriented.


Reading in the L3 Journal the other day, Proverbs 5:23 stuck out like a sore thumb:

"He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray."

It may not be true for everyone, but for a person like me - lack of discipline really is death-like.  I don't die a physical death or even a spiritual death, but I certainly decline in my growth.  When I'm not consistently working out, I can definitely tell a difference in my physical abilities.  When I'm not meditating on God's Word and seeking His face daily, it opens me up for all sorts of temptations to lead me astray.  I think that's why Solomon in all his wisdom wrote this particular part of the Proverbs.  He knew that discipline was a vital part of every person's life, and it's most relevant to us as Christians.


I need the consistency of knowing that every day at a specific time I am going to open up God's Word and spend some time learning what He has to say to me for the day.  I need it. "As the deer pants for the water," so to speak.


I say all that to say this.  I'm making it a goal of mine for the rest of the summer to get up at the same time every day in order to:
- discipline my spirit through time spent with God,
- and discipline my body through working out.


I've got to.  It's vital for life.  It's especially vital for life in Christ.  That's my routine.
What's yours?