Becoming is important!

Today officially marks my two-year anniversary in Nashville, Tennessee. Part of me reads that sentence and can’t believe its been two years, and the other part of me can’t believe its ONLY been two years. Sometimes I wonder about the journey God has me on. Sometimes I feel like the Israelites heading for the Promised Land, for 40 years. All heading and never arriving. I can only imagine the complaining and whining that was heard during those 40 years, because I know the complaining and whining I hear coming from my camp. I just finished reading Michael Kelley’s post for today and it was weird reading the thoughts that were in my mind. 

 

Looking back at my time in seminary, then my time at InQuest and now here with LifeWay, it has been a long journey. There have been ups and there have been downs. I have seen God do amazing things and I have seen myself whine and complain shortly after. I have seen God teach and use me in ways that seemed unthinkable and I’ve seen me put Him on the back burner and forge ahead on my own. One thing I do know for sure is that the days walking with Him are days I treasure, and forging ahead on my own never works. You’d think I would have learned that lesson well enough by now not to make the same bad choices, but it still happens. 

 

I loved a line from Michael’s post today, “God is just as concerned about who we’re becoming as where we’re going.” Those are wise words I believe. Our journey can take us many directions, but one thing is certain, they should always be towards Him. That is the prayer I am praying right now for my life. I don’t want the times spent working alone anymore. I simply want to follow and move with Him. I don’t know what that means really, but I am trusting Him with that. I am simply desiring to focus on becoming more like Him and let Him worry about what’s ahead. I want to focus on time WITH Him. It has become very easy recently to allow other things to invade my life and eat up my time. It shouldn’t happen, but it does. When you aren’t constantly checking those areas in your life, it is amazing how quickly you can get off track. Well, the time has come to right the ship. 

Where has your past two years taken you? What does your journey look like? More importantly, what do you look like? 

From Hamas to Christ, an amazing story

This video and story is about a young adult that grew up in a family of a very high ranking Hamas leader. His story of redemption from that darkness is amazing. Watch and then read the interview. There is little doubt he has met The God of this world and his life has been turned upside down.

Click here for the video.

Click here for the interview.

Quick thought for the day

What does your prayer life look like? My generally revolves around thanking God for the many blessings He has graciously given to me and asking for help and protection each day. I am beginning to wonder about all these blessings though. What if all the comforts and “blessings” are actually not from above. What if the comforts we are realizing in this country are actually meant to lull us to sleep and keep us from knowing what really trusting in God is? What craftier tactic than to give the enemy wealth and riches and allow them to build big church buildings and homes and manicured lawns? What if all these things prevent us from doing what God has called us to do? Maybe our manicured lawns and big homes keep us so busy that we miss building relationships with out neighbors. Maybe building big churches and “christian” empires keep us so busy and ego driven that we forget about the Kingdom. Maybe a big paycheck keeps us from trusting on the hand of God for the necessities of life. I am not sure why I am having these thoughts today, except that our current sermon series deals with spiritual warfare. That combined with the fact that as I survey the Christian landscape I quickly become depressed about what I see churches doing and how I see Christians (myself included) living. What if many of these problems are from the enemy allowing us to get fat and happy? 

Proverbs 30 is an amazing chapter and full of wisdom. For the sake of today, I will only mention three verses because the directly pertain to these thoughts. Proverbs 30:7-9 says,

“Two things I ask of You;don’t deny them to me before I die: Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me. Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need. Otherwise, I might have too much and deny you, saying “Who is the Lord?” or I might have nothing and steal profaning the name of God.” 

Maybe in our churches and personal lives we are asking for the wrong things. What if this was our prayer? I have to admit this is not a comfortable thought. The implications of praying this prayer are enormous. What if God really takes away our creature comforts? What if I lose my job? While I don’t think that is the point of this thought, it does raise a bunch of questions and issues for me to wrestle with. Maybe when I am done wrestling with all these issues I will write a new book called, “The Words of Agur.” The whole “Prayer of Jabez” thing worked pretty well right? Take a look at the verses today and allow God to ask you some tough questions.

A new Christianity?

As I look around the “Christian” landscape today, I see many very strange things. One of them is a form of Christianity I don’t find as I read the Bible. In the Bible, I see men either following God or not. Certainly men were not perfect, but in cases of personal failures you’ll find repentance and reconciliation. As I look around today, I see people claiming to follow Christ, but their lives show nothing to back up their claim. I am not talking about earning salvation, but I am talking about having fruit. I am talking about obedience to God’s Word. I am talking about living a kind of faith that matters. I am talking about following after a loving God who demands our devotion. I guess when I look around I seem to find many people who want salvation without lordship and entrance to heaven without devotion. I’m afraid that many who call themselves Christians are going to be painfully awakened to hear the words, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” It is scary and very distressing to me.

A few tough questions I wrestled with this week: 
Can I be a follower of Christ and not be devoted to His leadership? 
What is devotion and what does it look like? 
Can I be devoted without being obedient? 
Is devotion legalistic? 
Does a life devoted to following Christ look different than the life of a non-Christian?

These questions cause me a lot of concern, both personally and corporately. As I examine my own heart, what level of devotion does my life show? As I look around the church today, what level of devotion do I see being preached and lived? Our faith is not a faith of showing up on Sundays and placing a check mark in that box. Our faith is one of radical devotion to a radical God—the type of God who would miraculously give you a child, and then ask you to offer that child as a sacrifice, the type of God who would offer His only Son to reconcile sinful humanity to Himself, and the type of God who would offer you salvation and freedom and only require acceptance of that gift.

I have to think that acceptance of His gift will result in a life that displays true devotion to Him. As I look through the passages this week, I see an example of true devotion; one night, God tells Abraham to take Isaac, his only son, and offer him as a sacrifice. The next morning Abraham takes Isaac and heads out for the mountains. Wait! Did Abraham know what God was asking? What about the promise God made to Abraham and the miracle that Isaac was? Why didn’t he consult other people to get their opinion on what God had said? Why didn’t they call a committee meeting to see what other meaning God must have had? Why didn’t he do something more along those lines? The answer: He trusted God and lived a life fully devoted to Him. The answer does not make sense. The action does not make sense. But he obeys anyway. I can’t fathom making that decision, but he seems to not even pause. God told him to do something, so there was no other option.

Several thoughts I learn through this passage:(if you want to read the rest, and I know you do, click here to go to the Threads site where you will find the other half.)