Forgotten God

From time to time, I will read a book that knocks me off of my feet.  The book “Forgotten God” by Francis Chan did just that.  I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to learn a scriptural view of the Holy Spirit, and how He interacts in our lives as Christians.

Let me unpack this for you:  somewhere along the way, I began to cultivate a warped view of the trinity (One God in three persons:  The Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit).  I began to see God like a totem pole:  God the Father was the general, Jesus was 2^nd in command, like a lieutenant, and the Holy Spirit was someone or something that I chose to ignore.  He sort of scared me, and it was much easier if I just didn’t think about Him too often.  

God convicted me of this earlier this year, and I dove head first into studying the Holy Spirit.  I began an in depth study of the book of Acts, and read several books by many different people.  Of all of the ones I read, “Forgotten God” was the one book that made total sense to me.  I truly believe Francis Chan was honest about feeling the same way I did, and decided to hit the issue head on instead of ignoring it.  I am so glad He did.  This book completely changed how I follow Jesus.  I can honestly say that I feel closer to God because I read this book.

If you want to grow in your walk with Jesus and grow closer with God, take a moment to read “Forgotten God”.  You’ll be the better for it!

Note:  Francis Chan is the founding pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California.  He is also the author of the best seller "Crazy Love".

Casting

Definition of Cast:  (verb) To throw or hurl something with great force.
When was the last time you hurled an object?  Have you ever hurled something with great force? 

One of my favorite memories as a child was when my Father and I took some old dishes to the local trash dump.  I vividly remember standing over the dumpster and throwing those ceramic plates and glasses into the metal container.  There was a feeling of release and freedom as I threw them as hard as I could.  It was fun to hear them crash and break!  I enjoyed watching them shatter into a million pieces.

King David wrote in Psalm 55:22

Cast your cares on the Lord
and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall.

That is what our heavenly Father wants us to do with our worries.  As His children, He promises us that He will take them.  Today, hurl your troubles onto the Lord.  Watch them as they shatter into little pieces.  He will sustain you.

Dead as a hammer

I was hanging out with one of my friends this weekend before church and we were talking.  He is a brother in Christ, and was really excited about Colossians chapter 3.  As we were leaving, he reminded me to read it sometime this week.

First of all, anytime a fellow brother or sister suggests reading something in the Bible, go and do it.  Usually it is the Holy Spirit telling you through someone else something that you need to know.  

As I read Colossians 3, one thing jumped off the page at me.  It was in verse 4 when Paul writes “When Christ, who is your life…..”  For some reason, that really stood out to me!  Some translations say “When Christ, who is our life..”  Why did Paul word it that way?

I believe it is because Paul had his priorities in line.  Paul didn’t see us like the old hymn says “I was lost, but now I’m found!”  Paul went to the root of the matter!  In verse 3, Paul says that we were dead, but now hidden in Christ.  In other words, our sins were forgiven through Christ, and we are hidden from a Holy God.  We were dead as a hammer, and now (because of Jesus) we are alive.

Now we fast forward to the year 2011.  Should it look different now then when Paul wrote the letter to the church of Colosse?  Absolutely not!  If you are a Christ follower, then Jesus shouldn’t just be someone who leads you through life, He should be your life.  There is a big difference between the two!

How do we get there?  Here are a few thoughts:

• First, love God with everything you have.  (Mark 12:30)  Jesus tells us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind & strength.  When I played soccer in the state playoffs in high school, I played so hard one game that I had to be helped off the field.  I played with everything I had in me.  I left it all on the field.  Jesus tells us to love God in the same manner.  By doing so, our hearts begin to line up with God’s heart.
• Read God’s word.  God communicates with us through scripture.  That is why they call it “The Living Word”.  If you are a Christian, then you interpret scripture through the Holy Spirit living in side of you.  Imagine God sitting over you shoulder, whispering in your ear while you read.  By reading god’s word, you are literally hearing God’s voice in your heart.  When we begin to grasp this, our lives begin to dramatically change.
• Pray.  Our God desires to hear from His children.  (Philippians 4:6)  Paul encourages us to go to God “in everything, through prayer & petition…”  Have you ever signed a petition?  It is a statement.  It's an official request.  Pray big!  Ask God for some things that are too big for you to fathom.  Take your concerns to God over and over again.  He will answer them.  It may not be the exact answer you expect, but it will be in His will.  In doing so, you are hiding yourself in Christ and seeing God work out things on your behalf.

Jesus is so awesome.  What a privilege it is to serve Him.  What grace He has given us.  Don’t just pattern your life after His, make His life yours.

A different kind of tithe.

Over the past few months our Pastor has been preaching on tithing.  One of the passages he used came from Malachi 3.  In this chapter, God calls to our attention to the fact that we are to bring the first fruits (10% first) of what we make back to him before we keep anything for ourselves.  When we choose not to do so, we are literally robbing God.  Can you imagine breaking into God's house in the middle of the night and stealing his valuable possessions?  No one in their right mind would dare do such a thing, yet Christians do it every week when they choose not to honor God with their tithe.

Here is where things get sticky:  what if God changed the tithe from 10% of our possessions and earnings to 10% of our time?  How would we measure up if that were the standard?

As a Christian, it's easy for those who tithe to become proud and arrogant.  We sometimes see ourselves as "the obedient ones" who obey God with our pocket book, all the while spending little or no personal time with God.  I have been guilty of this many times in my walk with Christ.  When it comes to spending quality time with God, many of those who find their pride in tithing fall short when it comes to tithing their time.

No matter what our economic status is, we all have one thing in common:  we all have the exact amount of time.  There are exactly 168 hours of time in a week.  We all get the same amount.  Let's think outside the box for a moment:

Let's say you get 8 hours of sleep a night (I wish....). If that is true then you are left with 112 hours a week to do whatever you want with your time. 

If we tithe on our time in the same manner as we do our money, we would owe approximately 11 hours of our week to God first.

Just for arguments sake, let’s say church time is deducted from those 11 hours.  If you attend church each week (let's be generous and say 4 hours start to finish each Sunday morning) then you are left with 7 hours.

7 hours.  That's an hour a day to spend with God.  Is that something achievable?  Could we give 1 hour a day to God if we were required to tithe our time instead of our money?

A few thoughts:

• Let me be very clear!!!  The example I just used is a perfect example of legalism.  God isn’t a time clock, and our time with Him is not some trivial timecard that we punch in / punch out.  I used this analogy to examine how we spend our time.
• The reason I used this example is to call to our attention that God doesn’t want 7 hours of our time a week, He wants us, and He wants us all of our time. 
• If you look at any parent / child relationship, time is always more important than money.  God cannot be bought.  He owns it all.  Our Father sent His Son Jesus to die for us so that we can enter into a sin-free relationship, one that is intimate and personal.  He is constantly pursuing us.  The question is “Do we respond?”

When I was dating my wife, I lived in Nashville, Tennessee.  She lived in Anderson, South Carolina.  Every single Friday at 5:00pm, I would rush to my car and drive 6 hours (one way) just to see her.  If it were a 24 hour drive, it wouldn’t have mattered!  I had to see her!  I was head-over-heels in love with her, and I still am to this day.  The most important way to show her that I love her is to spend time with her everyday.

God is no different.  He doesn’t want us to simply love Him.  God wants us to be in love with Him.  I love steak, but I wouldn’t drive 6 hours to eat one.  I am in love with my wife, and would do anything to see her.  God wants us to spend time with Him everyday. 

Consider how you might be able to spend time with God each day.  You won’t regret the effort.

Keeping it real: haughtiness

In Proverbs 6, I ran across a word that you don’t hear everyday:  haughty.  In verse 16 it says “There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to Him…”  In the very next verse, it puts “haughty eyes” at the top of the list.

Many times I will see a word like this and reflect on what it means.  I looked it up in the dictionary this morning.

Haughty:  Having or showing arrogant superiority to and distain of those one views as unworthy.

Wow!  God doesn’t just dislike haughtiness, he hates it!  It says it is detestable to Him.  In other words, it makes Him want to vomit!  That is some pretty strong language for such a little word.

God (more so than anyone) should be the only one that would have the right to be haughty.  He created us.  He is holy and perfect.  He is omnipotent (all powerful), Omniscient (all knowing), and omnipresent (everywhere).  When you examine scripture, we don’t see arrogance at all, but a God who goes out of His way to meet us, even in our sin.

Think of it this way:  God created us in His image and made us without sin (Adam and Eve.)  When mankind sinned against God by disobeying Him, the first thing He did was implement a plan to send His only Son Jesus to stand in our place on the cross.  

Jesus, being fully God, humbled himself to man status (Philippians 2:5-8), and came to earth to die for us.  Can you imagine leaving paradise to go to the gutter and live in filth, sin and despair….only to die for those that didn’t love you?  That is the exact opposite of Haughtiness.  That is humility.

Here are a few thoughts:

• One of the most prominent places we see haughtiness practiced every week is in the church.  When Christians look down on others with arrogant superiority and distain of those we view as unworthy, it makes God literally want to vomit.  If Jesus can meet sinners where they are and hang on a cross for them, we can love those that enter our church and love them where they are; sin and all.  (This includes:  single mothers, tattoos, homosexuals, drunks, prostitutes, swindlers, homeless, mentally ill, etc. etc. etc.)  If a church doesn’t do that, then they need to close the doors and quit calling themselves “Christ Followers”.  

• This concept blows racism out of the water.  If you have any animosity towards others or treat them differently because of the color of their skin, then knock it off immediately.  It disgusts God.  Jesus saved the Jew and the Gentile from sin.  The least you can do as a Christ follower is love your brother, no matter what color they are.  (Note: this includes bi-racial couples!)

• As a Christian, if you see the leadership of your church being haughty towards others, bring it to their attention.  If they refuse to change then leave and find another church immediately.  God will not bless a congregation of people who think they are better than others.

• Not forgiving others is not optional!  Jesus says in Matthew 18:21-35 that holding a grudge and not forgiving others is inexcusable.  He doesn’t say “My Father would appreciate it if you’d consider forgiving your brother!”  He says do it!  PERIOD!  (Note:  The Bible is so serious about this that it says not to take communion if you haven't forgiven your brother.  In other words, Jesus is saying "I can't even be around you if you still have unforgiveness in your heart.") 

• Loving those who you are unlovable and forgiving others you don’t want to forgive will always cost you!  You will have to humble yourself in order to do so.  If you call yourself a “Christ Follower”, then you will always pay a price.  Jesus requires us to finish last (the last shall be first and the first shall be last).  Keep in mind that whatever the cost is to you (humility, inconvenience, embarrassment) fails in comparison to the price Jesus paid to love you.

Faithfulness vs. Feelings (part 2)

God is faithful.  Every time, all the time, God is faithful.  He will always show up.  He will always be there.  God never turns His back on His children.  No matter what we feel, God’s faithfulness is pure, and always shows up when we don’t expect it.  Even when we doubt Him, God is in the business of proving His love for His children.

When I was a teenager, I went out with some friends of mine.  It was late at night, and I should have already been home.  On the way back, we ran out of gas.  To say the least, it was not an ideal situation.  None of the guys with me had a cell phone, so I walked back up the dark road to a gas station (which had already closed for the evening) and made a collect call to my father.  Even though I woke him up in the middle of the night, he said “I’ll see you in a minute!”  As I sat on the side of the road, I soon saw his headlights topping the hill.  After many years of knowing my Dad, I knew he would show up and make everything ok.

Our heavenly Father is the same way.  Several weeks ago I wrote an article entitled “Faithfulness vs. Feelings.”  In the post, I explained that no matter how we feel during our walk with Christ, God is always faithful.  Today, I was able to see that first hand.

At this stage of my life, God has me in a holding pattern.  Week after week, day after day, I have been praying for God to answer a prayer that He has placed on my heart to pray.  Each day I wait patiently for the answer to this prayer, and each day I hear God say “Not today!”  For some reason, I woke up this morning extremely discouraged and disconnected from God.  That is honestly how I felt.  What God reminded me in His word this morning is “I am faithful!  It doesn’t matter how you feel, it matters that I keep my word!”

I began to pray early this morning for God to send me someone to encourage me.  Two different guys called me (both were in a Bible study I led this past spring) and explained how excited they were about the Lord.  One told me how he has had the opportunity to share the gospel with several people this week.  The other one told me how much he loved his new church and how God was blessing him and his marriage.  That got me pumped!

Later this afternoon, I received a text from a good friend of mine who loves Jesus.  It simply said “I have been praying for you today, and wanted you to know how much I love you!”  God sent these folks today to encourage me.  Even though my “big” prayer hasn’t been answered yet, God was faithful to answer the little one.  He encouraged me all day long!

Here are a few things I learned today:

• Never underestimate the power of prayer.  Call your heavenly Father and tell him when you are out of gas.  He will always say “I’ll see you in a minute!”

• Never underestimate the words “I love you!”  Tell others these three words.  Mean it.  You never know how bad someone may need to hear them.

• Pray for each other.  When God lays it on your heart to pray for someone, then stop what you are doing and pray.  I don’t know how it works, but I do know that it does work.  God wants us to pray for one another.

• God is always God, and God is always good.  He is in the business of remaining faithful no matter what we feel.  Praise God!