I like it, but I don’t…?

We moved from our small, two bed, 1.5 bath, restricted kitchen, and decent living room apartment into a bigger, three bed, two bath, enormous kitchen, and roomy living room house these last few days.  It’s been a bit of work, of which has probably been unbalanced—I’m lazier than I like to admit, and am unfortunately good at coming up with semi-legitimate things to do instead of cleaning and packing—but we’re about 98% done.  Just random small bits and pieces of things left to throw in a box and move to the house, and then the cleaning of the empty apartment.  And I’m not at all excited about that.

It was extremely exciting to move the couches and beds and tables, and to figure out where we wanted all the stuff to go, and to hang up posters and paintings and so on.  When it’s big, noticeable stuff, it’s enjoyable, even if it requires heavy lifting.  But when you get to the little trinkets and stuff you don’t really want but don’t really want to throw away, it’s not at all fun, because it seems like a waste of time and it’s completely under the radar.  And don’t even get me started on cleaning the place that we’re about to leave forever.

And my spiritual life is like this too.  I love it when God makes big changes in my life.  I love getting completely messed up and transformed, even if it’s tough for me to do, because it’s noticeable, it’s something completely new, and it’s exciting.  But when God asks me to do the small stuff—cleaning up little, under-the-radar convictions, picking up after myself, making sure that I leave a good impression when I leave some place or something behind—I get frustrated and I don’t want to do it.  It’s not fun anymore.  And I have no idea what convinced me that my spiritual life is about me having fun, and not about me laying my life down—even the tiny annoying parts—and submitting to the will of Jesus, lover of my soul.

(And so it turns out that the little things are a big thing too.)

Moving isn’t always an enjoyable process, whether it’s from apartment to house, or from old sinful self to new regenerate self.  But if we ignore the small stuff, the move is never completed.  We never can settle into the new, because there’s still small parts of us in the old.  And while I don’t like cleaning up and taking care of the seemingly insignificant things, I do— because beneath my surface frustration, my heart loves completion.

• What little things are keeping you from completing the big changes in your life?
• Are you seeking partial transformation in order to fulfill your own desires, or are you seeking complete transformation to God’s will for you—even if it’s hard?

One Good Thing About the Dentist

I’m about to admit to you my greatest weakness.

I have a really, really crazy sweet tooth.

I eat lots of candy, and drink lots of soda, and if it’s got sugar in it I like it. And I was at the dentist a couple weeks ago, and needless to say—despite the fact that I already have a number of fillings—I have a…”good amount”…of new cavities that need to be filled.

I know I have weaker enamel, I know I’ve had bad luck with cavities before and I really don’t need any more, but I can’t stop eating candy and drinking soda, because I just love it. I love the way sugar tastes. And I can only pray that we are like this with our relationship with Jesus, too. That even though we get hurt, are looked down upon by others, have to be worked on and fixed, and just face a lot of stuff that eats away at us—despite all that, we’re so in love with Jesus that we simply can’t stop chasing him more. Even though we face things that aren’t nice and happy all the time, we never stop wanting more of God.

Authority in Christ is a really strange thing, I always thought I could be sure of something until I learned what faith really meant and all it encompassed, and now the old “sure” isn’t very sure at all, and the new Jesus-inspired “sure” is mind-boggling. But as I keep chasing after him, as I keep wanting more of God, he keeps pumping me up with confidence and authority.

God is going to do big things at The Ridge and in 24-7 Ministry this year. I’m sure of it.

What has been “eating away” at you that has discouraged your faith?

There is for Here, This is for That

The youth group is going on a mission trip up to New York this week, and it reminds me of the couple mission trips I went on in middle school and high school.  I loved mission trips, because I got to get away from everything at home, go with my church to someplace that didn’t know who I was, and be “extra Christian” for a week.  And it felt good, because I knew in some dark corner of my heart that being “extra Christian” was a really good thing.  I was doing what I should.

But every time we’d come back, I didn’t need to be “extra Christian” anymore…I was home, everyone knew me, they already knew I was a Christian and so I didn’t need to let them know further by doing the sort of things we did on the mission trip.  Which really just means I was afraid, I was lazy, and I was hypocritical.  Because I wasn’t “extra Christian” on the mission trips; I was, in fact, only “a little bit Christian” at home.  “Extra Christian” really was “fully Christian.”  I wasn’t doing what I should when I was at home; when I was comfortable, when I was scared, when I was selfish.

Last night at Bible study we were praying for the youth’s mission trip and I came to the realization that the main purpose of short-term mission trips is not to do God’s work somewhere else.  The primary purpose of short-term missions is to teach us how to do God’s work here.  And of course God uses mission trips to reach people, and he works through them to do his work wherever it is that the mission goes to; but learning how to Love in an unfamiliar setting is a stepping stone towards learning how to Love in a familiar setting.  Because it’s a lot harder to be fully Christian in the place you live, where the people know you and you have to face all the long-term effects and you don’t have anywhere to go back to in a week if things start getting rough.  But doing things for others usually ends up doing even more for you—because when you work for others, God works in you.  He shows you why it feels right and why it is what you should do, and he changes your heart so that you want to do it—whether you’re in an unfamiliar setting or not.

• How can I be a better missionary where I’m at?
• What calling does God have on my life that I’m avoiding because I’m scared, lazy, comfortable, or selfish?
• What can I ask God to change in my heart so that I can Love better?
  

Uncomfortable Prayer

I have been praying lately for God to make me so in love with him that it’s uncomfortable…

It is amazing how strongly God answers prayers that coincide with his will.

There are emotional highs, one-night experiences, and similar scenarios that you may think of when you hear this. But it’s not the same. Because emotional highs and one-night experiences are not permanent. Being so in love with Jesus that you can’t speak and can’t sit still but don’t know what else to do and feel like a kettle boiling water without a spout to release the steam…that is permanent. That is real.

• What if you prayed for God to remove your understanding of “impossible” and replace it with love for him?
• What if you asked God to do what you don’t think he could? (Which often has more to do with ourselves and less to do with signs and tests…)
• What if you prayed for God to make you uncomfortably in love with him?

Because when we pray for what Jesus wants—and we do this because there comes a time when we realize that our deepest and strongest desires are exactly the same as his—instead of what we think we want; when we pray for him to increase and for us to decrease (Jn 3:30); when we pray for his will to be done (Mt 6:10); when we pray for things that bring glory to the Father (Jn 14:13); when we pray for things God wants he answers. It doesn’t matter how big or how small, how fathomable or how impossible, how realistic or how outrageous. God wants us to ask him to do what he wants to do. And he then wants to use us to do it.

Don’t be the brother of the prodigal son, who spent so much time doing things he thought his father would like that he didn’t even know what was going on in his father’s house (Lk 15:25-26). Pray for God’s heart to be revealed to the church, pray for our desires to diminish and his to be magnified (Ps 9:20), pray for these things so that his praises and glory and majesty is lifted up (Ps 9:13-14), and pray for everyone that knows Jesus to be uncomfortably in love.

Because you can always be more in love with God. Just another benefit of him being infinite and all.

Et Cetera and Similar Endeavors

Going to the zoo today, the water park on Friday, Warped Tour on Monday, and The Dark Knight comes out the 18th. Not to mention last week I got to blow stuff up. July is turning out to be quite an exciting month.

I’ve been listening to a ton of new music—Search The City, Burden of a Day, and A Skylit Drive have all been playing a lot on my iTunes lately.

I am currently feeling like an overinflated balloon, flying higher and higher, and am hoping that God gives me an outlet for all the love and vision he’s shooting me up with or I will soon explode—I sometimes feel like there is too much God for me to handle, this is of course true in the sense that He is infinite and I am certainly not, but it blows my mind that it is possible to wake up every morning for the rest of my life and be even more in love with Jesus than I was the day before. It is completely impossible for this to be true if I live to be 80, there is no way a human being can contain that much love, but “with God all things are possible (Mt 19:26).”

A few things God is working me through, around, in, and so on:

• What if we believed—as in had no doubt—in Matthew 19:26, Matthew 17:20, John 14:14, and Philippians 4:13?
• The Christian church in the time of Paul and Peter and John and such apostles (that wrote parts of scripture, brought thousands of people to know Jesus Christ, did miracles, spoke with total confidence and authority, et cetera…Acts 2:38-43) was certainly a smaller number of people than today. What if the church today took Christianity as seriously as the apostles did? If less than twenty people did what scripture and history tells us, why shouldn’t we expect even more?
  
• Sometimes we pray and pray and pray for something; for God to make our hearts like his, for his will to be revealed to us, and so on. And despite constant prayer and earnest seeking of God nothing changes…this might be because God has already made our hearts like his, and we just have to do.

Conform is only two letters away from Comfort

I spent the last weekend in Arizona for a family reunion of sorts, many stories I hear that start like this are negative—family reunions are not always looked upon with anticipation or joy—and while there are of course things in anyone’s family that do not sit well or agree with them, I had an enjoyable time. There are a couple cousins in particular (who are brothers (as in the two cousins are brothers, they’re not my brothers)) that are creepy, not in the sense that they are sketchy people but in the sense that they live almost parallel lives to mine. I only see them once every year or two, a person can change a lot in that amount of time, but regardless of how I change, they make the same change. Every time I do see them, we’ve listened to the same bands, saw the same movies, watched the same internet videos, wore the same clothes, played the same video games, and so on…while this is generally limited to surface things it still freaks me out.

I was recently talking to a friend who was sharing a few of the things going on in his life, and was surprised to discover that I am going through many of the same kind of things, but was relatively unaware that I was going through said things until he began to talk about them. During this conversation I was also reminded of a different friend who had been going through said things a few months previous, and was struck with reality for a moment by realizing how much more common said things are than I thought them to be.

Another one of my best friends and I quite often (usually more than once a day) will say exactly what is on the other’s mind, sometimes just before the other gets ready to say it, regardless of subject matter—unlike my two cousins (who are brothers), this extends from random, inconsequential passing thoughts to heavy realizations. This is perhaps the epitome of creepiness in this series of similarities.

And I share these scenarios because a lot of times I feel like I’m the only one who knows what it’s like to struggle with what I struggle with, to experience what I experience, to think the things I think, to love the things I love. A lot of times we feel alone. And I don’t mean physically alone. You can be in a room with a hundred other people and feel alone. You can be with your closest friends, and still feel alone, because you don’t have to be apart to be alone. The reason I share these scenarios is that we are not alone. I am beginning to discover that the root of loneliness is fear. Feeling like you’re the “only one” is a direct result of nothing more than invulnerability. Many of my friends know this was a struggle for me in the last year, being vulnerable. Sharing experiences and thoughts. And as ironic as this is, no one is alone in feeling alone. Everyone has secrets—if not from everybody, at least from somebody. But as I shared, I’m coming to the realization that there are more people going through the same things as me than I think. There are more people experiencing what I experience and loving the things I love and struggling with the things I’m struggling with than Satan tells me. But we only discover this in sharing. If we never tell someone how we feel, they’ll never have anything to reply “me too!” to. We’ll never be together if we allow ourselves to be convinced that we’re apart.

This is particularly true as Christians, because we are “one body (1Co 12:12, Col 3:15).” We are to “live in harmony in the Lord (Php 4:2).” We are to “bear with each other (Col 3:13).” We are to “encourage one another and build each other up (1Th 5:11).” And we are all “partakers of grace (Php 1:7).” We do not fulfill fellowship when we keep things to ourselves (not to mention doing so makes us miserable). There is comfort in sharing our lives with each other, because there are a lot more similarities than we might think. And we don’t have anything to fear, because not even in death will we ever be alone.

“And surely I am with you always…” -Matthew 28:20

“For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.” -Romans 6:9

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” -Galatians 2:20

More Than I Expect

The story of Jesus feeding five thousand (although including women and children it was probably in the area of fifteen thousand, if there were five thousand men) is a common one, I heard it plenty of times growing up in Sunday school, but I never cease to be amazed at God’s ability to reveal something new to me every time I read scripture, regardless of how familiar I am with the text.

I think that scripture is commonly thought of as, at best, well-written text with truthful life teachings. In the realm of Christianity it is also believed to be inspired by God. This is all well and good, and much can be taken from the Bible this way. But this also limits scripture to the words that are there, which begins to cause confusion when there are numerous versions and translations and some of them sound quite different than others, and it tends to make things a little blurry sometimes. And I’ve found that this common conception of scripture is, while not false, extremely basic…and there seems to be a lot more to it. How else could this be explained when I find something new every time I read it?

But the author of Hebrews says that “the word of God is living and active (Heb 4:12).” And this seems to be the only explanation for the things that it does. And when we look at scripture as well-written text, we are only looking at the skin—the outer surface—of this living, active breath of God (2Ti 3:16). There is an infinite complexity beneath the mere text of scripture, just as there are countless veins and arteries and nerves and organs that all work in different ways, doing different things, to keep the body alive. Scripture is alive, and too often I find myself satisfied with what I see on the surface. My God is so much bigger than just words.

Questions sparked by Jesus feeding the five thousand (specifically in Matthew 14:13-21, though it’s also found in Mark 6:33-44, Luke 9:12-17, and John 6:1-14):

• How far am I willing to go to be with Jesus? (v.13)
• What excuses do I make to keep people from being with Jesus? (v.15)
• When do I ask God to do something for me when he’s expecting me to take action? (v.16)
• Do I let circumstances cause doubt, or do I have faith that Jesus will provide even when I have no idea how it can be done? (v.17)
• Am I thankful for the things I have, even when I don’t think it’s adequate? (v.19)
• Do I offer the gifts of God to others like the disciples gave away the food, or do I keep them for myself because I’m afraid they’ll run out? (v.20)
• Do I ever doubt that regardless of who they are, God will provide more than they need? (v.21)

Unnecessary Backtracking

Sometimes when I talk with Jesus it’s not a happy topic—not to say that I don’t want it desperately—and this is what some people call conviction, it gets confused with feeling guilty sometimes, the difference is that “guilty” demands a sentence, and because of this extraordinary thing called grace I am completely innocent. Conviction leads to reformation rather than punishment.

But even knowing this, we often feel like we’ve lost ground when we’re convicted, don’t we? Like we have to work harder to get back to where we were. Like we got a “go back three spaces” card in a divine game of Monopoly. And this gets us down, this gets us stressed, this causes us to spend time walking in place, trying to build our muscles up again for actually moving. But when you fall down, you don’t have to spend a week working your muscles back into shape. You just get up and keep going. When you make a wrong turn, you don’t have to go back to your starting point. You just have to turn around.

And this often can lead into a very subtle guise of selfishness…our prayer starts to be all about us, we focus on where we’re at spiritually, we beat ourselves up for making the same mistake again, our prayers and thoughts all begin to point inward, and we get ourselves under a magnifying glass. We get so focused on every detail of our lives and how it affects what we think is important in keeping spiritually disciplined.

The problem with this is that all it takes to be spiritually disciplined is earnestly seeking after God. Simply falling in love with Jesus. John 14:15 says “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” And what if this meant we will keep his commands if we love him, instead of we will love him if we keep his commands? What if keeping Jesus’ commandments was an effect of loving him, rather than a requirement to love him? 1 John 2:3 says “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” It is proof that we do know Christ when we keep his commands. It’s an unavoidable effect of falling in love with God.

As Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits.” (Mt 7:20)

When we’re convicted, when we fall, when we fail—there is no time to make up. There is no ground to regain. We haven’t lost anything. And any time we spend trying to “make up” for it is time wasted. We can’t go back in time, we can only choose how to use the time that’s coming toward us. It is selfish for us to use that time trying to do what God has already done for us—making sure the old has gone (2Co 5:17), trying to renew ourselves (2Co 4:16), trying to earn forgiveness (Col 1:13-14).

And I think this selfishness is a huge reason why the church today seems to so often be dysfunctional.  It is so concerned with attendance, programs, publicity, taking care of its self-determined “needs,” finances, et cetera et cetera, and where is God in all this?  So there are movements to try and “get back” to what a church is supposed to be, and they create programs and publicize and it ends up being the exact same thing under a different title.

But the successful ministries all can be boiled down to simply loving Jesus.  Being absorbed with progress, statistics, appearances, “making up” what’s been “lost”…it’s all a distraction.  We don’t have to concern ourselves with doing things that God has already done for us.  We don’t have to make things “right” before we can start pursuing our Savior.  We just have to get up, we just have to turn around, we just have to start DOING IT instead of planning for it and talking about it and publicizing it and mapping it out.  Jesus is ridiculously contagious, He doesn’t need us to make Him more appealing.  What do you do to make the Creator of the universe more appealing???

God does not need to be advertised, He just needs to be loved.

We love Jesus; He provides the rest.

How can you turn your magnifying glass into a telescope?
Where has selfishness been secretly dwelling in your life?
What have you been distracting yourself with that keeps you from just DOING?

Autopsy

I believe that it is somewhat factual to say that if a heart were to be split in two, it would not function as well as before. And assuming that this is true, it follows that it would be even harder for the heart to work if it were split into thirds, and it would become even less effective in four pieces, and so on. But even knowing all this, I still portion out my heart to so many different things.

What if my heart was undivided? (Mt 6:24)

What if I stopped trying to explain God and simply loved Him? (1Co 2:14, Col 2:20-23)

What if I was convinced that God knows all my needs? (Mt 6:32)

What if I actually had faith that He WILL provide? (Mt 7:8)

What if I did things on faith, without first having to be proven wrong? (Mt 14:25-31, Jn 15:5)

What if I prayed for absolutely impossible things and truly believed that God would do them? (Mt 17:20, 19:26, Jn 14:14)

What if I stopped assuming that I know what’s best? (Eph 2:10)

What if I acted like I truly have the mind of Christ? (1Co 2:16)

What if I actually believed that the Creator of all things moved and spoke and worked through me? (2Co 4:7-10)

Minding More Business Than My Own

I catch myself from time to time talking about nothing really, my mouth is moving and words are coming out—hopefully in English—and they are usually but not always making sentences that don’t really matter at all, and as I continue to talk at whoever is around I wonder why I am still speaking. My friends are probably all too aware of this. I try to speak truth, I try to make sense when I talk to people, but it doesn’t always work. Sometimes it’s in one ear and out the other. Everyone has these moments, we talk and no one listens and sometimes we’re simply rambling but sometimes we’re saying something important, and it just doesn’t catch our listeners’ ears.

I wonder what exactly it was about Jesus that made him so easy to listen to; was he charismatic in presentation, was his voice soothing and captivating, did he simply look out of the ordinary? In Matthew 9:9 Jesus says to Matthew, “Follow Me!” and Matthew just gets up and goes. Just a few verses earlier, Jesus tells a paralytic to get up and walk home. And he does, and this has always baffled me…if I had previously been paralyzed and I suddenly could walk, I would not just leave! I would be at Jesus’ feet, I would stay and listen to whatever else he had to say, I would just be in awe—I couldn’t just leave. But because Jesus said so, the guy does.

And Jesus tells all these stories, it seems like they’re almost randomly interjected into conversation. Yes, they have significant teaching qualities and are very applicable, but a lot of times the people didn’t understand at first, a lot of times Jesus had to explain himself, and even then some people didn’t get it. What made his every word so interesting? Even after he confused them, even after he healed them, even if it was just a couple words in passing, everything Jesus said was listened to.

Paul says that we as Christians speak God’s wisdom that is revealed to us by the Spirit (1Co 2:6-16). And he quotes Isaiah 64:4, which says that no ear has heard nor eye has seen what God has prepared for those who love him. And I think this is why Jesus’ words were so revered; Jesus, being fully God, had a full revelation of the Spirit, and therefore a full knowledge of the wisdom of God. He spoke things that no one had heard before, and did things no one had seen. He taught with “spiritual thoughts and spiritual words” instead of “human wisdom.” The word “mystery” in verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 2 doesn’t mean mysterious or puzzling, it means truth that God has known since the beginning of creation (Ro 16:25-26)—and when God’s truth is finally revealed, it causes people to react the same way they did to Jesus.

And this is the crazy thing: at the end of chapter 2, Paul says that “we have the mind of Christ.” (I wonder how I can have the mind of Christ, but I still think with my own as far as I know? But he explains that too, in 2 Corinthians 5:13. So let’s go back to that first part…)

You have the mind of Christ.

In full. Not part of Christ’s mind, not a select portion of his thoughts, not a “The Best of Jesus Christ” demo…the full mind of Christ is ours. With salvation comes the Spirit of God—the Spirit that reveals God’s wisdom to us. And as Isaiah 64:4 says, we simply have to love Him to receive those things that haven’t been seen or heard. These things are prepared for us. They are given freely. And we often have the same problem that the Christians in Corinth had, because I don’t usually feel like I’m enlightened with God’s wisdom like Jesus was. Paul says back in his first letter to the Corinthians that “since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? (1Co 3:3)?” We forget so easily that we are completely transformed when we receive salvation. And we’re so stuck in these habits of living material, temporary, worldly lives that it’s hard sometimes to let go of that and embrace our new lives as stewards of the mysteries of God (1Co 4:1). But I want to speak with authority like Jesus did (Mt 7:28-29). I want to be as confident as Paul or James or Peter or any of the other apostles that never doubted that they were speaking God’s wisdom, because they were only speaking with the mind of Christ. And it’s just a matter of breaking old habits, and following when Jesus calls me, and having faith that I can get up and walk when I’ve been paralyzed all my life, and quite simply being in love with God.