Modern Day Ecclesiastes

I often just sit and think.

Typically its about the future, sometimes its the present, and rarely the past.

I was rather reflective today.
Thinking about life in general, wondering what I was doing, what's my purpose?
The more I thought about it the more I just got these feelings of hopelessness, futility, uselessness, and emptiness. I felt like the writer of Ecclesiastes. Everything seemed like vanity. There's nothing new, life just continues to go on. Problems come and go. The world keeps on spinning. Things that promise happiness prove to leave us wanting. Nothing seems to truly satisfy.

So what's the point?
We'll like Ecclesiastes, this isn't where I ended.
The writer concludes with this:

Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty of all mankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.


So there are things that matter. The trick is remembering what they are.
It's not anything that the world can offer.
It's a simple relationship with God.
The sooner we can get this figured out. The more satisfying our life will be.

A prayer

God, please teach me how to pray. Spirit, may you guide my words; You know what's best for me. Selah.

God I want more of you in my life. I ask for more of you. Please take control. I surrender my will; Holy Spirit please come fill me, saturate me. I want more of You. May Your presence rain down on me and may You reign in me. You are all I want, You're all I need, please be my everything.

May I be still and listen to You God. Please speak clearly to me. My heart's desire is to know and love You. Father, please pour out your mercy and grace on me. Oh, Lord revive my soul. I long to hear Your voice. Your presence is all I need. May Your work be done in me and trough me. May everything I do bring glory to Your name. You deserve all glory and honor King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Emmanuel, God with us; may You take center stage of my life. May You be first, then others, and finally me.

Father, may I be producing good fruit. May the fruit of the Spirit be evident in my life. May I exemplify supernatural love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. May I live and walk by the Spirit. May I walk hand in hand and step in step with You. Not a step ahead, nor a step behind, but following You as You lead and direct.

Father forgive me for my filthiness. I desire to live for You. Please give me self-control that could only be from You. Lord, please use me as an instrument of Your love. May Your grace and love flow through me, may I be overflowing with Your presence. Lord renew me and transform me. I desire to see a revival breakout. God change our hearts, may we come back to You. May we be a people longing to see Your will done. May we be a generation that brings you glory. May we exalt you above all else! Be lifted high Emmanuel. Father we desire for heaven to invade Earth. May Your kingdom come and Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

God help me to see things that way you do. Open up my eyes Lord. Give me the capacity to love as you do, sacrificially and truly. Please break my heart for what breaks Yours. May I be a living sacrifice unto Your name. May You be glorified above all else. Lord please reign in me. God I ask for Your power in my life. Supernatural power. Power that can't be accredited to me because of it's clearly and wholly of You. I ask for an outpowering of Your Spirit to accomplish your purposes, not to fulfil my agenda. God erase my agenda and lead me in Yours. You are all I want, God You're all I need. Please satisfy me oh Lord, the author of my salvation. The rock of my life. Continue your work in me until it is complete. Guide my path and direct my steps. May I be in constant communion with You. God invade my life, invade this place oh Lord. Fill me with Your presence. Cleanse me and purify me oh Lord. Wash me white as snow. Forgive me of my sins. Father thank you for all that you do for me. Thank you for your love. May you receive all the glory, honor and power. It is in your sons name, the precious name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that I pray these things.

Amen.

You Are Not Your Own

Be forewarned, there is some harsh language in this. Sexual Immorality is a big deal. It's a sin that plagues both the world and the Church. As I've been reading through 1 Corinthians it was something that the church of Corinth really struggled with. Paul reminds them of exactly what they are doing. It's disgusting.

The following is paraphrasing and quotations from 1 Cor. 6:12-20; Matt 5; Jeremiah 2:13; James 1:13-15; Romans 12:1-2 as well as some of my own words.

When we put of faith in Christ and commit to following Him we become members of the Church, the body of Christ. We become part of something bigger than ourselves. Should we then take members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?! Don't you know that two become one flesh?! We are already one with the Lord in Spirit! Don't even think about sexual immorality! Run from it! God says, "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. " He explains that His people left Him, this perfect bubbling spring of fresh water for a well that has only a bit of muddy water and will dry up because it isn't even able to hold water. They left the perfect for something that won't even satisfy! They are whores who leave the one that loves and cares for them and trade it in for something that is only temporary and won't satisfy. It's disgusting! They were drawn away be their own desires and then, as James explains, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. This adultery, this love affair with sin leads to conception and then leads to this stillborn baby. All the excitement of the pregnancy is gone when in your hands you hold a lifeless baby. As God's people, this is what sin looks like and does. It does not satisfy, its disgusting and disappointing. Jesus says that even in looking at a woman with lust we have commited adultery. We need to run from sexual sin! Therefore...present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind... Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Have Some Self-Control and Control Yourself

Presented with the question of 'how to be disciplined' by a friend not long ago, I answered the same way I had answered when I've asked myself that question in the past. I said that requesting it from God in prayer and then just doing seemed to be the answer. I probably should have explained these further, and how I had come to those conclusions, but I decided to go with the more concise answer. Anyway, he replied to the second part, reminding me that "just doing it" was discipline. Once again, I had gone through this with myself in the past, so I wasn't surprised by the remark. Nonetheless, the question stayed without me throughout the day. If becoming disciplined requires discipline, how do you ever start?

Before, I explain the answer that I came up with, let me further explain my initial response. I feel like often times those of us who have grown up in the church stray from the cliche Sunday School answers, or at least they have lost their meaning. Let me remind you that they became cliche because the actually are the answer to most of the questions. In James' letter he explains that we don't have it, because we didn't ask God for it. (This is in the beginning of chapter 4. Notice also your motives play into it, as well as faith (chapter 1)). This seems extremely simple, but how often do we actually go to God and ask Him for something, especially when it's something He desires us to have and expect Him to provide it? The second half of this point stems from the idea that discipline and self-control are synonymous in my mind. In Galatians 5 Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit. Many of you know them, but I'll list them anyway. They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now although I can display these things to a limited extent on my own we know that they are not the fruit of the flesh. Those are listed just prior to the fruit of the Spirit. If these things are then from God, should they not look different then when we try them in our own might? It seems that these nine traits should be of supernatural amounts in our life if we are living by the Spirit. I can feel a tangent and a sermon coming on, so I'll try to stay on track on not go to much deeper. This is all to remind us that true we can't have true-self control, it needs to come from God and be based on our relationship with Him. Again, cliche but true.

The second thing that I told him was just do it. In the past I thought asking for it and trying to do it was all that we could do. As my baseball coach always used to say, "Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent." This is to say, that although we won't be perfectly disciplined or self-controlled, but the more we get in the habit of it, the more natural it comes. I think the key word there is habit, and don't get me wrong, I know this is much easier said then done. I definitely know. I still struggle with this often.

So now that I've explained my two part answer, lets get back to the part where this was on my mind throughout the rest of that day. Although I felt my answer was decent, and I knew I had some backing for it, I wondered what really practicing that might look like. How do you start? What are realistic goals to set? Then different things I heard cause the Spirit to remind me of the sermon I had just preached a few weeks earlier. I spoke out of Philippians 3. This passage is really well known. Paul is explaining how he lives focused on the end goal of fully knowing Jesus Christ. That was it! Whenever we are disciplined, it's because we are putting off the short-term satisfaction for the long term gratification. In summary, a person of self-control is one who consistently evaluates life's decisions through the lens of eternity. Hopefully this makes sense, but to make sure, I'll keep rambling. Whenever your struggling with being disciplined about doing or not doing something it is because you want to do the thing that matters in the long run, not the thing that is temporarily easier or more enjoyable.

What I am saying is, I still hold to my initial answer, prayer and practice. The only difference is the practice is continually reminding oneself to press on toward the goal, constantly looking forward.

So go pray, and go practice.

Living like Paul....Thoughts from the Shower

I was in the shower the other day (not that that is unusual) and I was thinking about life (again, nothing out of the norm) when suddenly I thought of Paul, and his first letter to the church in Corinth. 1 Corinthians 15:14 says, " And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." and three verses later in verse 17 he says. "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and your are still in your sins." Basically what Paul is saying is, if the resurrection isn't real, then his preaching, as well as his faith, is a waste; it's useless. Many of us have heard this verse before, I think we had to memorize it for AWANA. Anyway, what I realized is that Paul's life was centered on his faith and his preaching. These both revolved around the resurrection. So, in essence if Christ wasn't raised from the dead, Paul's life was a waste. Again, nothing new, but, get this, this is the part that never clicked before (or at least I don't remember it ever clicking), if Paul's life would be a waste if the resurrection weren't real, would mine be as well?

I mean think about it. If Christ didn't rise from the dead, how much of your life would be wasted? Would it be a couple hours on Sunday morning? A few minutes before meals? 15 minutes in the morning?

Because, it seems to me, that whatever time spent related to Christ would be a waste if this were the case. How much of your time is that? How much time of your life revolves around Him, Him crucified, and Him raised?

It's ironic, because, If Christ is alive, then all time spent without Him is a waste, and if He isn't, then all time spent for Him is.

Knowing He is alive, How much of our life is a waste? How much of it isn't spent for Him?

Anyway, it was an interesting thought in th shower. Hopefully you think the same.

Persecution...?

I think that if asked, many of us would consider to have suffered persecution at one time or another, but what would we consider persecution?....Social awkwardness?....Getting made fun of?....Getting talked about behind your back?...The cold shoulder?  

Although these examples may be considered persecution, they are nothing compared to what some others face; and, what causes this persecution?  Wearing a Christian T-shirt?  Sharing your faith?  Not conforming?  

If you had to choose between death and denying Christ, what would you choose?  Some of us may not find it too difficult to say death, but have you really thought about it?  It's not such an easy answer when a gun is pointed to your head.  Would it not honestly be tempting to save your life and repent for it later?  

Watch this video.

This is something that's real.  (Please pray for her, tomorrow the court decides whether or not she has to go back to her parents.)

Do you take your faith seriously enough to die for it?  Or is you're faith something you're willing to live out until the price gets too high?  What's the point in which you turn back?

What's sad is that many of us say we would be willing to die for our faith, but we are afraid to evangelize because we don't want to be seen as weird, pushy, or become an outcast.  We would rather avoid the social awkwardness than do what the creator of the universe has commanded us to do!  

So tell me this, if social awkwardness is too high a price to pay, what makes you think you'd give your life?

Heavenly Father,

I come before you thankful for You're love.  I ask that I would live a life that demonstrates faith, that I would never deny you, no matter what the price.  I ask that you would fill me with You're spirit, so that I can better do You're work.  You are an amazing, perfect, loving God, who deserves more than all the praise, honor, and glory we can give.  I present to You my life as a living sacrifice, please do with me as you please.

I pray this in Jesus name,

Amen

Getting Started....blogging and school

For those of you who are visiting my blog for the first time, you're in good company, because it's my first time as well.  I'm trying this out, and we'll see how it goes. 

Anyway, this is the second week of school and it's going fantastic.  God is showing me some amazing things, and I am continuing to be refined.  My favorite class is pastoral theology with Dr. Koessler.  It's amazing!  He continually challenges my thinking.  He reminds us that we often start with pragmatics instead of theology when defining the role of a pastor.  What does the Bible inform us about  being a pastor?  What is the proper balance between preparing theologically and practically?  How should a pastor be trained?

Today is Tuesday so we had president's chapel.  Dr. Nyquist started a series on Hebrews 11.  I was eagerly awaiting for today with high expectations since he announced his series last week, and I was not disappointed.  I'm not really going to go into what he talked about, but here are some of my thoughts:

In what way are you practically living by faith?  Why is living by faith so hard?  If it is impossible to please God without faith, how often are we doing things in vain?  Is there anything you are doing in your life right now that takes faith?

Dr Nyquist said:

"God's looking for FAITH, not EXCUSES.

God's looking for FAITH, not ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

He's looking for what pleases Him, not what promotes us."