Streamlining

I feel it is time to do more while doing less. I feel like I am so all over the place all the time, and that benefits no one. I run around like crazy trying to do as much as possible. I have talked with Grace, and it is like every time I hear about something, I want to do it. While this sounds like a good thing, I do everything just better than o.k.

I am not trying to brag or anything like that, but when I focus on something, things come out well. I think that is true of anyone. More time+more energy=more productivity. So I could really use your prayer on this.  I need to decide where to cut back. On the flip side of that, I need to decide where the "extra" effort goes. To do this, things must go into perspective. This is where the real reflection comes in. Some are easy. Let's take a look at how I will prioritize things.

1a. I am a Christian
1b. I am husband

Those were easy to say, but I have to break down how they are so related. As a Christian, there are certain things that are important and must be done. Not for salvation, but in response to my salvation I desire to do them. Some of these supersede the husband category. These include going to church everyweek, praying every day, reading my Bible everyday, and tithing. I will do these things before anything else. However, they are closely related to me being a good husband.

As a Christian, I know that my wife is my church. I must love her as Christ loved the church. There is so much implication there. Just knowing what God did for the church, I know that I should never be able to do anything close to what He did, but I shall try.

I will break down these two more tomorrow and try to answer some obvious questions. Thanks for reading.

South Africa Baby!

Well, after a couple of weeks of "being in the works", it has now become official. Grace and I will be taking the college small group from our church to South Africa at the end of June. We will be meeting up with our good friend Isaiah Porter, who is currently volunteering for one year at the Indawo Yethemba Children’s Village in Durban, South Africa.  There we will be putting on a camp for local kids, teaching them about Jesus and learning a lot in the process. It is really amazing and a blessing that we go to Avalon Church, which has such strong convictions about sending people out in the world so Jesus' name can be known. We have a lot of money to raise. $1,600.00 per person to be exact. If you would like to donate, click here. I am sure I will have a lot more to say on the subject, but I am just so excited I had to get this initial feeling down. Thank you Jesus for even giving this opportunity!

Sacrificing, Suffering, and Rejoicing

I am currently reading through Philippians 3:1-11. This is the topic I am speaking on this Sunday to middle school students. This blog is attempting to answer the question: What is God saying through this Scripture?

First, we must rejoice. Paul has told us before and will tell us again. He has no problem telling us this. In the Psalms repeatedly we are told "Bless the Lord, oh my soul!" But why? We have Jesus! We are God's children! Why oh why must we constantly be reminded of the rejoicing and praising that should mark a Christian's life?...Because being a Christian is difficult. Just because I am a Christian does not mean that everything will be "ok" and that I get everything I feel like I deserve and other people get what I feel like they deserve and that I will never have to sacrifice or suffer! It actually means the opposite. And it is Biblical both that we sacrifice and we suffer and we praise God the entire time.

Verse two warns us against those who try to make it really, really hard to be a Christian. "Dogs" was usually a mocking term that the Jews used to describe Gentiles because they were ritually unclean. The "look out for those who mutilate the flesh" refers to the fact than many Jewish people try to tell the Gentiles that they must follow all the Old Testament rituals in order to obtain salvation. This is in contrast to Jesus' teaching of salvation through grace alone, and it has Paul livid. He goes on to say that we are the true people of God, for we worship through the power of the Holy Spirit, glorify only Christ, and put no glory in anything we do.

Verses 4-6 really create a great counter argument to those who think they are going to Heaven because they were brought up in church or because they know the Bible and what is says. Paul was that guy! He was a flippin' Pharisee! He memorized at least the first five books of the Old Testament, probably more. He most likely spoke Aramaic, the national language of Israel, even though he was raised in a Greek-speaking town. Dude was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, given the best education possible, believed he was serving God in the manner of Elijah, yet he wants none of it! Paul said that whatever gain he had, he would count it as loss for Christ. But not just what he mentions, everything is garbage and not even worth knowing about compared to the value of know Christ as Lord and Savior. Paul even says he has lost everything, with suffering, just so he can gain Christ and be found in Him.

This is a kind of paradoxical thought isn't it? Lose to gain? I don't believe it is so hard for us to relate to the Jews of Paul's time. Think about it. They are God's chosen people. They have studied the Old Testament, they know that God has picked them and put them in place to be elders and leaders within themselves. They hear about Jesus and say "Give up all this? For that nutter? I have everything I could possibly want. You want me to give up my reputation, my power, my money, my camels with spinners and boots with the furs? For a man from Nazareth? I would be shunned. People would mock me. I would be an outcast. They would laugh at me at the lunch tent when I invited them to church or told them about Jesus. NO THANK YOU! I am happy, I know God choose me, I don't think God would ask that of me, and that is all the reason I need". Give up your house. Give up your car. Give up your friends. Give up iPod, iTouch, iPhone, iAnything and everything with an apple on it. Give up Facebook, Xbox, and the computer. Give up television. All just to have the value of knowing Christ a little bit more. Oh, and be joyful about it. Rejoice in Him. How many of us say.."NO THANK YOU!  I or my parents worked hard. God would want me to be happy. I don't want to give up anything. I will just go on lying to myself, saying that I love God, but not really ever sacrifice anything for Him". Some of you don't even believe in God, and you are still saying "No, I don't want to give up anything, not for your God or your Jesus".

So here is the question: Is it necessary? Paul answers that later on in verse 10. He says we share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means we may join Him in Heaven and resurrect from the dead, just like He did. So now you must be asking yourself, "I have to give up everything AND suffer. Yes. Yes you do, but you get to know Jesus and be resurrected from the dead and glorify Him and celebrate with Him for all eternity! Let's look at another proof for this. Jump over to Romans 8. In verse 18, Paul says he considers the sufferings going on in our lives to pale in comparison to the glory that is to come in Christ Jesus. Right before that, in verse 17, we are told that we are children of God PROVIDED we suffer with Him to be glorified with him.

Let's recap. First, be willing to give up everything just to know Christ a little bit more. Second, be prepared to suffer, because suffering will come. But don't forget to rejoice in Jesus and praise God! Why? How? Because we will be glorified in Him and get to spend eternity praising our Creator, our Savior, and our Lord.

It can be very difficult to remember the rejoicing part when things are not going well for us now. But through prayer, Bible reading, biblical friends, and time being reflective on Scripture, I know that we can.

Study Group Name

Ok. So I don't know if anyone else reads this, but I am excited. I have finally decided on a name for the Bible study I teach for college students. I am going to call it...re:generation. I like this name for several reasons. First, when we accept Christ, we are all born again. We are made new. This fits. Also, my desire is to see a whole generation of college aged people in Henry County and the south metro area changed for Christ. I am on fire about this and pumped up. With a name, I can advertise, get the word out, and hopefully more people will get to hear and learn about the love of Jesus Christ. If you have taken the time to read this, will you please pray for re:generation and all the souls in the world who need to hear about the love of Jesus Christ. Thank you.

Useless...???

Today Grace and I drove down to Alabama to visit her family for the weekend. On the way here, I decided to listen to a podcast of Matt Chandler from The Village Church in Dallas, TX. I have never listened to him before, and he came highly recommended from the youth pastors and the head pastor of my church, Avalon Church. I have never experienced more of a "rip your heart out, melt your face off, live for Jesus" type of moment than I did today.

The title of the sermon is "The Path:Part One - The Authoritative Word". I enjoyed the set-up and relational stories, although this one ran a little longer than others I have listened too. He eventually got into scripture, and it was 2 Timothy 3:14-17 and 2 Timothy 4:1-3. He started talking about reading the Bible, and the excuses people come up with. He focused on one in particular. It was the "I don't have enough time to read the Bible" excuse. He said anyone who uses this excuse is lying, because that person has the same amount of time as everyone else. That was not groundbreaking to me, but the next part was.

He next stated that for some reason, we as a culture do not realize that we are all not going to live to see 70, 80, or 90. We don't know it, but our respective preacher will end up doing at least one funeral of a member of our congregation each year. He said when you think of people like Luther, they preached like they knew there time on Earth was short. I then thought of another preacher, the prince of preachers, C.H. Spurgeon. He preached to over 10 million people in his life time and according to Wikipedia, no other author has more material in print. He died at the age of 57.

My heart broke here. I immediately began to think of all the things I had done in my life, everything little thing I had dedicated my time to that did not bring honor or glory to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour. What did it matter that I had read the Harry Potter books 7 times each, that I could tell you stats of the Braves, Bulldogs, or Falcons, that I had been in JROTC for four years in high school, that I had played baseball, basketball, wrestling, and football growing up, or that I had played many, many video games. Everything that I had done felt like it did not matter, for Jesus was not praised in these things.

I talked to Grace about this, and she listened and then very politely let me get back to chewing on this new revelation. As I continued to get really down on my whole existence, the Holy Spirit really started to move in my heart. God was like, "Hey, remember, I am sovereign." That is when I knew, that all along, God had a path for me. I knew that the omniscient God of the universe had planned these things out for me, for without them I would not have married Grace, gone to Avalon church, get in Chris Reinig's small group because I knew him from high school, come to serve the Lord in an amazing youth group, feel the call to minister to college students, and then get recommended this life changing sermon by Matt Chandler. I suddenly had peace because I realized what I had been telling people for months...God is in control.

I have finally been able to put Psalm 46:10 into my heart "Be still, and know that I am God". Now please pray with me that my life will change to always bring honor and glory to Him.