And on the seventh day... rest.

Rest.

"and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD"

Then there was evening and morning. The sixth day.

Okay so today I feel better. It was wierd. I heard of those 24 hour bugs, even made them up in highschool so I wouldnt have to go, but never have I experienced one. Went to Peppertree tonight. The kids put on a little production as a way to thank us for helping them and doing the Christmas gift thing for them on Saturday.

First time in along time that I really felt appreciated by someone I was ministering to. I get thanks from people I am (was?) in ministry with but rarely do people who you serve thank you. I dont think Im living for that. I could pick much "better" ministries to be apart of to be confirmed and affirmed in. It was just... nice.

Is it wrong to look for encouragement? I dont know. Some would call it living for people (instead of God) or being a man-pleaser, both of which I have struggled with and still sometimes struggle with. One of my teachers posed the question "If you had to pick a herisey to follow which would you pick?" Easy. Im would fall in the camp of the "Social Gospel", putting heaven on the back burner and taking care of people now. Helping them out of where they are at.

Let me say on the record. I am not a Social Gospelist. I just have leanings, just like any other christian arround.

But encouragement from the body, is biblical, called for by God, and sometimes very needed for strenght to continue.

Then there was evening and morning. The fifth day.

Im sick!
Urgg I have a fever and chills.
One minute i cant seem to get warm.
The next I am boinling up.

Then there was evening and morning. The fourth day...

Feeling a little light today.
Nothing much to say, but I promiced myself that I would write at least 10 minutes, 6 days a week (and rest on the seventh) while all this was going on. Worked today. Yeah.
Umm.

Going to go home.

Going to wash some dishes.

Going to make some dinner.

Going to eat some dinner.

Will probably clean a little. My house is not "a mess" but it could us a tidying up. Got some presents to write in. I dont wrap them because, oddly enough S. gets much enjoyment out of wrapping presents. So I just mostly write little notes for them, either in the cover if they are books or in a card taped to the front.

Mike called. Wants me to pray about starting a church with him in Sweeden. Crazy guy. I dont know if I am up to that right now. But he said it would be a couple of years before we'd go. Hes already sending me links and articles.

And I got an email from a writers blog I have. The are looking for a writer for a Missions orfanization that reaches out to europe, and they are baised in CO within about an hour (barring blizzards) of where Mike lives. Praying.

Heard from God? Not yet.
Only
Father the fatherless.
"Oh lead me to the place where I can find You"

Then there was evening and morning. The third day...

Im a little late in getting this up.
All sorts of thoughts going through my head.

Church this morning.
Thought Gary was going to anounce my stepping down.
People still are expecting "Pastor Adam" or at least "Get it done Adam"
Pastor Adam is okay.

Like anyone could stop me from pastoring, tending and instructing.

Maybe my real issue is filling time with stuff that Pastors are "supposed to do" without ever doing the real work of a pastor. Like working the angles of prayer, scripure and Godly mentoring.

Maybe sometimes I am a bad friend. I went to a friends house tonight. Totally went to bless them and cook them dinner in the midst of holiday busyness. But as I was leaving, I was struck with the fact that another of my friends who is looking to be blessed, has asked for it, I feel unable to bless. Things that would totally knock my socks off dont work for him and at this point I feel unable to accomplish this task. Can people be too different? I dont know. We seem to have different views on everything from ministry to family life to how friendships should even function.

Forced together by involvement in the same ministry, held together by one touch point, conflicts ensue, Christ, the scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and when nessisary other counsilers were needed to keep us together. Remove that touch point and what happens? Do we cease to be friends? Many words spoken, but less action is taken. There isnt hate or apathay. Theres love and care and excitement, just it seems that there is a moving appart.

Where should the heart of a Son be?

Trying to hold on?- Keeping to the biblical principles of unity, and embracing the pain of misunderstandings?

Letting go? Loosing a friend to the fact that we are both growing in differant directions? Embracing the pain of a lost friendship?

Somewhere in the middle? Trying to keep a little of both to excape both extrems of pain?

Something different that I havent even thought of?

Then there was evening and morning. The second day...

Day number two.
Its not overyet. Its amazing how the unimportant has so much ability to clog the arteries of our spiritual heart. Staring at a computer screen has the ability to numb the spirt, entrap the soul, and cause our bodies to fall almost into slumber.

Delt with my first wierd person who had nothing to say to me. Bye, you'll be missed. Then the wierd long awkward pause as the reality began to show that even though I had tried to explain it to them, they missed what I was saying and really just didnt get it. Dont cover it up. Dont stop what you're doing, don't doubt the ministry. Because I've left, do people think that I dont care about what happens as I leave. Dont you think I know theres a whole that no one is prepared to fill. Theres anguish in my heart over this. When I left Student Venture it took five people to take over my position. Is that pride on my part, I hope not. Rather a realization of two things.

First, God has gifted me well, trained me well, and caused life circumstances to grow me into a very capible and compitent man. I need to be wise in the application of these gifts.

Second, I need to be a man who disciples well, so that when I am called to other things, there are those ready to take my space if they havnt aready begun to push me out. Im almost thinking that no ministry should be even started with out having disciples already inplace to begin learning. Jesus practiced this principle. He called the disciples first, then went about his ministry. This also means that instead of fitting disciples into your busy schedule of ministry, the disciples become what ever ministry you choose to do.

Then there was evening and morning. The first day.

Oh the spiritual implications of sleep. I once had someone describe different sorts of people and the different levels and types of tiredness that people needed to hear from God. Now I’m not saying that God cannot communicate whenever he wishes too. I'm just saying that most people, including myself, have a mode in which we operate best. Some people need physical tiredness to communicate with God. These can be your outdoorsy type people who “find God in nature” in the most orthodox interpretation of that phrase. Others need a weariness of the mind to hear well from God. These are your early morning risers who get up at 4 in the morning because that’s when they are less distracted by the on goings of the day. Then there are those who operate on a moderate level of constant fatigue. These people normally are your servant types in the church who can hear from God while serving, whether that’s vacuuming or doing dishes. Then there are the people who need to be totally at the top of their game to really hear from God. Well rested, have already been awake for a while, and have the time to sit and think.

All that to say, that I need sleep to hear from God.

So today I started a new (old?) journey to find out what God has for me (and my pretty girl); where he is leading us and what he is calling us to do. I started what amounts to a sabbatical- time taken to seek God for direction in ministry. I stepped down from any sort of official role in my church, I’ll probably have to give back my keys, clean out my bookshelf and my picture probably wont hang on the wall any more (though I wonder if I can get that picture, its kinda nice). I don’t even know if I’m still invited to the Christmas party next week.

It probably looks sudden to those around me. Its okay. I'm not super ready to have to explain myself to people but I guess I will have to say something. Perhaps that I want to be where God wants me, and I don’t know where that is right now. True, yes. Vague; that too.

The reality is that when I started at the church it was with a certain set of conditions. I knew I would have to work out side of the church to make ends meet. I mean seriously what church can afford (or has the vision) to hire three guys to run one ministry outside of what happens on a Sunday morning. No, I knew going in that I would probably never get paid here. I was to be in charge of the worship gathering of our main group. Leading, teaching and a developing a group of people with a heart to bring people to the presence of God in a real way that would cause them to ascribe worth to Him. I was also to be in charge of writing. What does that mean? Well we didn’t know either except for the fact that I was good at writing, and it seemed that God was using things that I had already written in different people’ lives, so we said yes I should be in charge of writing. Anything else? Well yeah I should share in the teaching responsibilities. Fine and dandy I guess, but really I'm not that great of a public speaker, at least not to large crowds, and not to people who look at you with blank stares and you just sit and wonder, is any of this sinking in? I like interaction. I like to answer questions and have discussions, I like to scratch where people itch, in the sense that I want to talk about what people really are thinking about and give them God’s perspective (does that assume too much on my part, maybe, but its my journal and if you don’t like it, write you own)

So how did I do at those things? Well as I sat to do a “three-sixty” evaluation of myself, my ministry partners, and our ministry, I couldn’t really help but look at what I was doing and evaluate anything other than “fails to meet expectations.” Was it because I was in some blatant sin? No I don’t think so. It was different, other than that. It was that life had changed for me. When we started, I was a single guy, in college, living in a place without running water or heat or a stove that I only paid $100 a month to rent a room. I had a job with flexible hours and I had this strange desire to succeed and help out those around me as much as a could. Some people saw this as passion and faithfulness. Others saw it as foolhardy and youthful exuberance. Nobody really saw it as a continuation of co-dependence on a system that felt very safe to me. “Succeed” I told my self “and somebody will take notice” A servant’s heart is what I was told I had. And my varied experience, my competence at many different things and fierce confidence in my ability to figure things out only allowed me to excel at filling in the gaps for people. All of this meant my cell phone rang a lot. And my desire to be liked and accepted by people meant I rarely said no. And now I'm supposed to be in charge of all this stuff? I did what any highly competent man pleaser would do. I work hard. I stayed up late, I sacrificed friendships, and I sacrificed my school worked. So the “ministry” looked good but the reality was that I was not a healthy guy.

And so in the last six months I have been growing in my realization that my place in the kingdom depends less and less on the things I do, and more and more on who I am. God has created each of us to function with him in different ways. And he’s created us to be healthy.

I am a Son of God. There are boundaries that God has, I think, built in to each one of us. Principled the same but manifested in different ways. They are the boundaries that allow us to live in freedom, but once we over-step those bounds, suddenly there is bondage and not freedom. I, in my commitments, had overstepped these bounds.

And in trying to bring myself back into right accord, I became unable to fulfill those tasks that I had once under taken. But I was trying. We are all called to be administers of the good news of the coming of the messiah. But being a pastor of a group of people is a totally different undertaking. Work, healthy boundaries, and full-time ministry quickly overflowed my schedule. I pulled out of as many “non-essential” peripheral ministries as I could.

I don’t know where I'm going with this right now. Maybe I’ll change this later and call all this history the back-story, so that I can actually write what I'm thinking with out so much explanation.

So things I did today.
Got up early and took Sarah to work- Realized that once we are married, there will be some thing to rising and going to bed on the same schedule whenever possible.

Prayed while I tried to go back to sleep-
Prayers consisted of asking God what he wanted me to do.
Response: It’s about time.
Realize that because of my lack of strength and energy, I was unwilling to seek God in what he wanted from me in the fear that he might want to “add” to my plate

Went and met with some people I work at the church with
Sorta weird. I think I feel way more okay with it than other people did. Felt like they were justifying why they thought it was time for me to step down for a while. Weird conversations about whether I had been supported in all of my change. They felt they had, but really I felt abandoned by them. Anybody who calls my future wife a Jezebel because she would like to see me healthy in my life and fulfilled in my ministry doesn’t rank real high with me on the support list. Mostly I felt condemnation. Mostly I felt confused, like out of one corner of their mouth they said, “Yes be healthy” and out of the other “How come you aren’t doing more.”

Left church but was called and asked what I wanted to celebrate about leaving. Had no answer, because I didn’t think what I was celebrating would go over well.
Hmm
Celebrating freedom from bondage that I had created for myself.
Celebrating the son who realized he wasn’t a slave.
Celebrating the chance to explore relationships with people who I feel actually have my health in mind and not what I can bring to their program
Things like that get left unsaid. I'm sure it will be some mumbo jumbo about me seeking God and what he has for me, True and untrue. I already know what he has to offer me. Health, Abundant life. Sonship. These are all things that I have instinctive, experiential, and scriptural understandings of, both their presence and their absence.

Took a nap. Remember the spiritual significance of sleep. Here it is. I'm tired a lot. Even inside of the boundaries that I have set after discovering them in myself I still push right up to the edge whenever I can. And sleep for me is a powerful tool to seek God. I have dreams, I have visions. Do I talk about them much? No. But if you want to know how Sarah and kinda figured out that we should really look at dating one another, it started with a praying and fasting woman, and a praying and fasting man. And God giving us each dreams as an answer to each other’s prayer. Did we know this? Not at the time. Sarah was in Russia, I was in the States. I prayed that my wife would be revealing herself to me. Sarah has a dream. She then prays and fasts food for me for three days while I’m sleeping that I might have dreams. I dream the same dream 3 nights in a row. Which I finally tell her about on the third day. Sorta felt like Dan’s angle in the bible. The answer had already been sent, but she continued to pray and fast cause she didn’t know it yet. God has given me specific visions. Pictures from people’s lives. Words on their faces. A vision of the story of my life. Some times with phrases that I don’t understand but keep. The first was in the response to a gal I knew. Her life was in shambles but she was totally able to pass off that she was doing great and I believed her. Then a vision came. Took my breath away. No frame of reference for me just bam. And it was all that had happened to her over the past 4 years. And a word “Adultery”. Vision # 1

Vision # 2 a couple of months later I was praying, God I'm just having a hard time trusting, of following when I don’t know where you are leading. And I woke up, this time with a vision of my life, a bunch of snapshot, flipped through at high speed, photos of my life, past present and future with the phrase “Occupy the land”

Vision # 3 today; waking up from my nap. A crowd of people with large letters above them “Father to the fatherless” A description of God? A description of a new emphasis in my life? A description of need in my life? I don’t know. Still working on what it means

Then I went and had some sushi and went Christmas shopping.

So some things to consider and pray for.
Guidance
What my next step is to be
Strength to follow what he says
That I would embrace it when it hurts that I might know what it means to be a son and not a slave

And man does it hurt sometimes. I have the experience today of a huge range of emotions. Uncontrollably sobbing to elation. Sadness that comes at the death of a thing, and yet also the feeling of a lifted burden.

Oh God show me what it means to be your son.

Through Painted Deserts

Its friday.
I sat down to read a book last night. Not one of those carfully thought out books that I heard about and looked into. No, it was one of those randomly chosen, spur of the moment books that I picked up at the B&N when I was buying some books for my Islam class.
I got hooked at the intro:
"We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed"
Did you catch that. Everything will still be here when you get back.
It is you who will have changed.
And I was digging it. I started reading the first chapter. Not two lines into it I started thinking wow this sounds really familiar. Then I hit this line
"Paul and I are quiet, our thoughts muffled by the tin-can rattle of his 1971 Volkswagen camping van" I went to my shelf, pulled off a copy of "Prayer and the Art of Volkswagon Maintainace." Same book. Same author. Diffrent title.
I guess since donald miller wrote the "Blue like Jazz" he wanted to rerelease a book Ive had for 5 or 6 years. So I started reading it again. And you know what. He was right. It was me that changed.
"Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons." DM

Kicking and Screaming

God is not proud...He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.- Jack Lewis


In the Trinity Term of I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?-Jack Lewis

The Invisible

Curse the man who said all you need is the bible and God. (Not really, but he is a moron, a good intentioned and well meaning moron, but a moron none the less) The visable church (ie the parishoners who meet in the building on Sunday mornings) that visable and boring service, where the pastor wears the wrong color tie and the person in the pew next to you smells and sings off key, that visable church is our connection point to the invisable chuch, you know that scary all powerful one that streches across the centuries and sends satan and his minions quaking in his boots. Instead of thinking 'how does anything this pastor says apply to me', try 'how do I fit into the invisible church, into the bod of the Christ.'

Soul

Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.-Jack Lewis
Doenst it seem strange that the majority of my time is spent struggling aganst my self... that it is my inmost desires that cause the wellspring of selfishness and pride that leave me exausted; having given me my fill of sin while still leaving me so empty inside.
Sin is living insuch a way that we were not designed for. 
In the same way that our bodies need oxygen and food and water and cant live on certain things, our souls were designed to need Him. And how much more important are our souls. Because we are not bodies with souls, we are souls with bodies. And those things which we cling to so tightly, will eventually crumble till we are grasping for dust in the lonley places. 
And so I fell lost into that lonleyness...
But there the silence and the solitude began to overtake me. It rushed at me, deafening me with the roar of silence. Everything that I had been able to rationalize, every feeling, every thought, every action came back to me and the realization came to me that I was more broken than I thought. I had spent so much time away that I wasn't sure I was even His anymore. And I couldn't tell anybody. How could I? Here was a pastor who had reached the pinicle and found that he had been climbing the wrong peak. That what looks like success in ministry may not lead to that place where I find rest for my weary soul.
And in the lonleyness of my everyday existance, i began to hear a voice that had been calling the same thing since the creation of the world. "Adam where are you?" It had been so long since I had heard that voice that I almost didnt recognize him as friend.  And feably I called out with a voice parched from the desert, "Here I am."  
And thats when He takes me into His solitude, to that quieter, simpler life, where I can stop fussing and freting, to a place thats out of the wind.
What is the point of all this?
Though I hate to be lonley, it is often the prescription that my diseased soul need. It allows for that 'moment of reflection' where all that seemed so nessisary passes by the wayside and all that I had pushed to the wayside becomes absolutly nessisary.
Lonlyness and solitude and silence are not bad things.
They lead us to prayer.
They lead us to Him
And He has offered us rest for our weary souls.
-Adam Thomas

Noise

TV enthralls me sometimes. I don..t have cable or satellite at my house so normally I don..t watch TV, so when I see a commercial for the first time, I watch it, staring with intense interest and finding myself laughing at a lot of them. Like the one where the mobsters are dragging a body out of their trunk to dump in the river and the satellite radio starts playing ..I just died in your arms tonight.... Okay funny right? But other commercials, which most people either ignore or flip channels through really make me take a step back and think about what is really being communicated about our society.

Take for example one I saw for a broadband card for your laptop computer that allowed you to go online anywhere there was cell phone reception. It..s oft used and maybe over repeated mantra was ..Get connected.. Get connected? I asked myself. What was I supposed to be connected to? Does this mean that up until now I..ve been disconnected? I know, I know it..s just a marketing ploy, but the reality is that most of us are pretty connected. Take myself for example. Start with my computer. I was writing this on my laptop sitting in Starbucks. At the same time, I had a couple of programs open. One was my instant messaging. No body was on except for Aaron and I had already talked to him once that day. But just incase Willy or Glen or Sarah came on I had myself labeled as ..Available... The next program I had open was my mail program. It goes on the Internet every 5 minutes to check for new mail. (The original setting was 15 minutes, I changed it to every minute at first but found that it made my computer run pretty slow on the internet so I compromised) It goes and checks two different emails I have just incase somebody was to send me an email message. If that..s not enough it then the two blogs I have setup send me messages anytime something changes. If somebody leaves me a comment or posts a new blog I know about it within a few minutes. (Though I..ve never tested the response time.. hmm a new experiment for tomorrow). I..ve got a cell phone and two different work phone lines for a grand total of three emails.

And I know a lot of you have similar systems set up. What is it that drives our desire to be connected? Do I really want or need that much information at my finger tips? Or is something else that drives us; that drives me.

The desire to be connected, to be so available that we don't ..miss.. anything that happens, whether its online, at school, hanging out with friends, the newest band or the latest show, the sweetest skateboard move or crash, all of this is driven by a sense of loneliness. How do I know this? I don..t want to be lonely so I reach out for any sense of ..being connected.. I can find. Because loneliness is the edge of a much bigger feeling of being alone. When we are lonely suddenly all sorts of doubts plague us. I'm not good enough, nobody likes me, and nobody understands me. And I try to solve those problems by being ..more likable.. or wanting to change things up or by trying harder to be ..good enough.. for people. And it works for a while. Have you noticed that? It works, kinda I guess. But soon those feelings start creeping back into my life and all of a sudden I'm faced with having to deal with all those same issues again.

So what do we do about all of this? I keep coming back to a scripture in () that says that Jesus often withdrew to the lonely places to pray. I find myself constantly running form the lonely places in my life. Yet Jesus did the opposite. Why? Why would anyone in their right mind run towards some thing that leaves them feeling empty? Scripture says he went there to pray. I don..t know what your idea of prayer is, but here..s the deal, it..s a time to speak to the creator of the universe. Okay that..s kinda intimidating right? Like going to talk to the president. Except that he created you too. Lovingly created you. Lovingly created you to be lonely. What? Were created to be lonely? I think so. I'm not positive, but loneliness seems to be a constant theme throughout the lives of the Heroes of the faith, and in their loneliness they cried out to God. Read through the psalms sometimes. God created loneliness to draw us to himself. We try to fill ourselves up with all sorts of other things, I did and still do. But he created us as lonely needy creatures that he might show us his love and his compassion to us.

So if you..re feeling lonely, try turning off the cell phone instead of calling people to hang out. Turn off the Internet and stop checking your MySpace. Don..t flip on the TV. Instead grab a bible, grab some pen and paper and go have a conversation with God the one who made you and see what he has been longing to say to you.

Risk (an answer to a question)

"How often would you say you do something uncomfortable, scary or just against your general wants and needs because it is what God is asking you to do?" -Dave Snow aka Grace is the Thing

hmm

I wonder sometimes if im the only one that answers back to you on these things but anyway the word that comes to mind when you ask this is "Risk"
No not the board game, though i happen to like it (and by the way, future risk night soon?) But i once wrote a blog, when we first started doing the well that was just at the front of me starting to explore what God was doing in our group and in my own life. It was short and simple and to the point it said

Ive realized that I've never taken a risk in my life

Because everything has seemed to be a natural conclusion. Looking from the outside, my life might look a little risky. Giving up a schollarship to a prestigious school to settle in and do ministry, going to school for a degree in Christian studies, when the church I work at wont even hire me. Trusting God that He wants me in ministry, even though theres so much on my plate with work and stuff (read girl-friend).

Going into student venture wasnt a risk. It was just an extention of what i was already doing. Even starting the well didnt feel like a risk, just a conclusion of what God had already been teaching us about community and dicipleship and health. Even asking Sarah out had few risks, I knew she already wanted to, and so did I, just the next step in our relationship. 

The only risk I can think of
Is putting who I really am out on the line for people to see. 

Cause see the really risky thing that we can do is to make ourselves vulnerable before other people and ultimatly before God. Because I, like a lot of other people have an exterior persona that I present to the world and a private one which few, if any get to see. Few of us are lucky enough to have friends that are willing to support us in such a way that we might feel its okay to let just a bit of that inner person out, to "test the waters" and the more we let out, and the more we are accepted because of who we really are, the more our exterior persona becomes like our inner person. As this starts to happen we become less and less worried about what people who see this inner man might think because we have this group of support to fall back on where we know that we are Okay and accepted for who we are.

Ahh the risk in being true to ourselves. In front of other people. 

Mine started in my writing. I wasnt writing for anyone else, just me, and for my own thoughts and my own freedom. And then I started putting stuff online and the responses I got were largely along the lines of "Did you really write this? Is this what's going on in your head? Where is this Adam the rest of the time" Hes scared of getting shot down and hurt, thats where he was. 

But you cant run a ministry, or have real friends, or a girlfriend or even just live well if you are always putting on this mask, this out-in-front persona. Cause it will eventually kill you. It will. You will wake up one day in a cubical wondering what happened to your life and why it feels like it has passed you by and why you never lived any of your dreams. This will be a big part of it. Because you went along with everybody elses expectation of yourself, with you desperatly trying to conform to thier image of your persona. 

I guess it was not as much of a risk as i thought. Be real or die. The risk of being real was nothing compaired to losing who I am, and who God created me to be. 

And heres the deal: even if you find no-one inthis life who supports you as you really are, which I find hard to belive, but just supposing there was not one person who got you and was joyful with you being you, then remember that you were not a random conglomeration of ammino acids form in your mothers womb, but rather that you were crafted by the hands of the maker, crafted with desires and hopes and personallity that He abosulutely loves and wants for you enjoy as well. 

A big thank you to those who take me as I am
And encourage the things that God has placed in me.

Monday (for Dave)

Its monday morning and I feel electrisity in the air.
No not the static kind that messes up girls hair.
Nor the scary lightning-storm kind.

Just an energy and an excitement I havent felt in awhile.
I feel full and complete and more like the self of me that I actually like.

Not that life is peachy. I mean, my direct deposit didnt go through on friday so when I thought I had money I really didnt, my bunion on my foot is swollen so it kinda hurts to walk around and Im sorta hobbleing through my day, and I had spent most of the last four days being sick. But I rose early this morning, and spent some time reading the Bible, praying, and getting ready for my day. I went down to starbucks and got some tea (not because I really wanted starbucks but because my beautiful woman works down there. It was worth driving the 35 minute round trip just to see her smile) I guess I just felt ready to meet my day. Ready to see what God was going to do.

Its funny how we can slip out of things so easily. I mean it wasnt like this conscience decision to abandon God. I mean i was still reading (ocassionally) and heading out to the church to be involved with The Well and church and stuff, but I was lagging behind in the way I was taking care of relationships in my life, and generally being sort of self-involved. And you know what? Its a patern I see in my life. If I start to slide a bit, my "ministry" doesnt seem to suffer as much as my friendships and mentorship type relationships do.

I mean i guess Im sorta stupid. Filling my self up with all sorts of stuff that leaves me, craving more, appitite unfuffilled, when really I know exactly what I need to fill me up. Its like being thirsty and eating saltine crackers, i just get more and more thirsty. What i really need is a cool refreshing drink of water.

So Im reading through the book of Revelation, and this was the verse that stuck out to me this morning as Im trying to re-engage in this discipline of rising early and seeking God in the mornings. Its Jesus, speaking to one of the churches in Asia Minor in chapter 2 (and speaking to me as well.)

"I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don't tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting. But I have this complaint against you. You don't love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen from your first love! Turn back to me again and do as you did at first."

Setting the Stage

I wasnt sure where I was going with this when I started reading through Luke. We chopped up the first Chapter one night and said, okay, heres your section Dave, and heres your section, Willy and heres your section Adam and kinda started from there. So Im looking at the last half of Luke and all I can think about is Luke the Musical. No really. There are two people who bust out into song in just the little section I am reading. It just reminded me how in a movie someone might say, Boy I'm excited but in a musical they sing a 4-minute song about how excited they were. I have a secret confession that I like musicals, Fiddler on the Roof, Sing in the Rain, ones like that, where the music adds something extra to the story. Not just a statement of facts but rather passion filled verse.

So were going to pick up the story from last time. Gabriel, and angel of the Lord had come to visit Zechariah in the temple with a message from God. Okay, visit might be to tame of a word. This was Zechariahs one time chance to go into the Holy place and offer up the sacrifice of incense/ and the angel appeared and terrified him, just scared him silly. His message was that Zechariahs old wife Elizabeth, not old in the past tense sort of way, but old in the Ive got grey hair and cant have kids sort of way, that his old wife was going to be with child, that is shed would be pregnant, and further more that he would be filled with the Spirit form birth, and would bring the people of Israel back to their God. He would have the spirit of Elijah and would prepare the people for the coming of the Lord, the Savior. Wow, what a message. And Zech gah-faws, he doubts. And the angel makes him unable to speak.

So this is where we pick up the story today, we went from really old couple in the temple in Jerusalem to a place about 120 miles to the north called Galilee which was kinda the border land for the Jewish people. It was the last area still kinda under Jewish control, but it was also filled with Romans soldiers and Greek descendants from the Hellenistic invasions. It was an area of hodgepodge beliefs and cultures and ideas. The Romans were strong but decadent, given over to their passions; the Greeks filled with ideals and philosophies and the pantheon of deities such as Zeus, Hermes, Ares and Artimus. And the Jews, trusting in the one true God, waiting for their Meshia, the Messiah and Savior that was to free them from their bonds.

It was here that God chose to reveal himself. It was in this place that God said, I will send my son. And so He sends his angel to a young unimportant woman, to an unimportant town called Nazareth, in the border region of Galilee.

Luke 1:26
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. 28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, "Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!*"

29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 "Don't be frightened, Mary," the angel told her, "for God has decided to bless you! 31 You will become pregnant and have a son, and you are to name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel* forever; his Kingdom will never end!"

34 Mary asked the angel, "But how can I have a baby? I am a virgin."
35 The angel replied, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. 36 What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she's already in her sixth month. 37 For nothing is impossible with God."

38 Mary responded, "I am the Lord's servant, and I am willing to accept whatever he wants. May everything you have said come true." And then the angel left.

Okay so imagine you are in Marys shoes. An angel of the lord comes. Okay freaky right. I've never been visited by an angel that I know of. But every time they appear they do one of two things. Either a lot of people die. (Think Old Testament, angel of the lord comes and ZAP! Bad stuff happens to bad people.) OR the angel starts off my saying, Whoa hey its okay, dont be frightened ey For some reason I always hear angels in my head when I'm reading with Canadian accents, much in the way that peter gets an Italian mob accent, and Jesus talks like an old Jewish man. So I'm strange. So this Canadian angel appears and says, Greetings favored of God and follows that up immediately with Dont be frightened, eh! Why? Cause you are going to give birth to the Son of God. Right
Hes going to be great! We angels are just so excited! Hes going be called Jesus, and-and um hes going to be great and hes going to be called Son of the Most High, and hes going to rule on the throne of David forever and ever. Isnt that great? Um Mary you there, hello. And Marys thinking to herself, musta been something I ate. I thought that gelfetka fish I had for dinner tasted kinda weird. No but she is questioning, How can this be since I'm a virgin. Logical direct, to the point. But if her brain works anything like mine, I get pretty scared when something big comes up and I can only ask the really practical questions and have a hard time forming coherent questions about what I'm really thinking. Ill give an example, a professor of mine liked a paper that I wrote so much, he asked if I would firm it up a bit and come teach it to one of his classes. So the questions I asked him were, Okay what time, what room number, what date, when really all I was thinking was, oh crap are you freaking serious, you must be out of your mind, Even if I read the paper that would only last a half an hour and I would have another sixty minutes to fill up with something. But then my professor encouraged me and said; hey you have your head and your heart around this, dont worry about it, read the paper, share from your heart and field any questions. And so I was like o-okay Ill do it. I was so worried that I didnt even tell a lot of people cause I was afraid they would want to come and watch.

And so this is what we see with the angel and Mary. The angel says this will happen because God is the power behind it, and see here look at Elizabeth, shes pregnant too. Why? Because nothing is impossible with God. And her response was way better that my tentative o-okay- I am the lords servant and I am willing to accept what ever he wants.

Stop and think about that for a sec. I am willing to accept what ever he wants. For the most part I'm pretty accepting of what ever I want. When things go my way, I accept them, duh. I more than accept them, I embrace them, and I chase after them. But what about when I dont get my way. Someone else gets their way instead. I'm I sullen and angry. Do I try to make them trip up and fail? Do I go along, but grumpy and grouchy and complaining? Or do I accept those things. What if that other person is God? Do I accept when he gets things his way, or do I just go along hoping that maybe God will change something about those circumstances that will show to have been what I really wanted all along.

Have you ever though about the plan that God has for your life. When I do, the plan that I think of usually looks very much like the plan I had before I was a Christian. Find a wife, raise a family, do something I love for a living. I wonder what Marys dreams about her life were. The simple things, loving wife, nurturing mother, an ox that plowed well. I dont know. Most of us dont have illusions of grandeur (though there was this period of my life where I though I had super powers.) But I dont think that Mary woke up one morning and started praying, oh God, let me give birth to the Messiah. And yet wasnt that Gods plan? His son would be born of a virgin, born in Bethlehem, born at a specific time for a specific purpose. Yet the joy and stinking amusingness of giving birth to Jesus would lead her though ridicule as her son became a Rabbi in the land, and lead her to grief as he was beaten and executed upon a cross and then to joy as he was resurrected from the grave and given dominion over death, that we might have a part in the resurrection as well.

I once heard somebody say, and I cant remember who, that Mary was the first follower of Jesus; she was the first to accept him as the coming messiah. Was this obligation, the angel of the lord SAID it was Jesus the messiah I was going to be carrying around in my womb for the next nine months so I GUESS I better believe it. Okay Eeore. No she accepted it with joy. Mary went to see her cousin Elizabeth to tell her about the angel and the baby to come but before she could say anything John, who was still in Elizabeths womb, leapt for joy. I'm not sure how a baby leaps in the womb, but hopefully he didnt use the bladder for a springboard. And then Mary speaks these words.

Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.

Thats more that just a casual okay I guess I go along, thats Mary being so excited to be part of the plan of God, even if it might cost her something personal and valuable to her, she almost lost her husband, her status in the town, everything because a woman who was pregnant from someone other than her intended husband was thought to be an adulterer and Joseph had every right to put her out of his home or even to put her to death by stoning. Jesus was not going to make Marys life easy. In fact he was going to significantly increase her pain and suffering, as the story will show. Yet, much like those musicals that we talked about something exciting happens and she burst forths into song. She bursts forth into worship.

My soul magnifies the Lord.

I could sit for a week on that. My soul magnifies the Lord.

When you magnify something, say like a distant star, you see that thing more for what it really is, It gets bigger and brighter and closer. One of my favorite things to point out to people is a star cluster called the Squaw and the Papoose by Indians though I have no clue like the scientific name. When you look at it with your naked eyes it kinda looks like a star thats oval instead of round, but its hard to make out much more, but hold a pair of binoculars to your eyes, suddenly the start separates and become two stars orbiting around one another, get a big ole honking telescope and now theres four stars dancing around each other, its actually pretty amazing. Its amazing how our Christian life is like that too. We start maybe with the idea that there is a God and hes out there somewhere. Uh-hu something like that. And the more we start to look at Him and find out what hes like, he becomes magnified, bigger and brighter and more like he truly is. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.

And then three more months goes by and its time for Elizabeth to have her baby, the forerunner of the Messiah. The man who would prepare the way for Jesus. When Jews celebrate the Passover part of the ritual is to pour a glass of wine for Elijah and then to send the youngest child to check the door to see if he was there. Why, because his spirit was to come back and announce the coming of the savior of the Jews and the world. And so this John who would be called the Baptist was to go out in the Spirit of Elijah was born.

The Birth of John the Baptist
57 Now it was time for Elizabeth's baby to be born, and it was a boy.
58 The word spread quickly to her neighbors and relatives that the Lord had been very kind to her, and everyone rejoiced with her.
59 When the baby was eight days old, all the relatives and friends came for the circumcision ceremony. They wanted to name him Zechariah, after his father.
60 But Elizabeth said, "No! His name is John!"
61 "What?" they exclaimed. "There is no one in all your family by that name."
62 So they asked the baby's father, communicating to him by making gestures.
63 He motioned for a writing tablet, and to everyone's surprise he wrote, "His name is John!"
64 Instantly Zechariah could speak again, and he began praising God.
65 Wonder fell upon the whole neighborhood, and the news of what had happened spread throughout the Judean hills.
66 Everyone who heard about it reflected on these events and asked, "I wonder what this child will turn out to be? For the hand of the Lord is surely upon him in a special way."

Zechariah's Prophecy
67 Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy:
"Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
Because he has visited his people and redeemed them.
He has sent us a mighty Savior
From the royal line of his servant David,
Just as he promised
Through his holy prophets long ago.
Now we will be saved from our enemies
And from all who hate us.
He has been merciful to our ancestors
By remembering his sacred covenant with them,
The covenant he gave to our ancestor Abraham.
We have been rescued from our enemies,
So we can serve God without fear,
In holiness and righteousness forever.

"And you, my little son,
Will be called the prophet of the Most High,
Because you will prepare the way for the Lord.
You will tell his people how to find salvation
Through forgiveness of their sins.
Because of God's tender mercy,
The light from heaven is about to break upon us,
To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
And to guide us to the path of peace."

80 John grew up and became strong in spirit. Then he lived out in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.

Lukes a great story teller because at this point hes got us going, yeah, yeah, whats this great light going to be? The lord is coming and has already visited us? But really Lukes just giving out the story because God has set the stage, god has lined the characters up and God is holding onto the script and hes even the main player. The Jews had been waiting 2000 years since Abraham for the fulfillment of Gods prophecies. 2000 years. I get impatient at waiting for 3 minutes while my top Raman cooks. And God has promised something so much better than microwaved top Raman. The coming of the salvation of the world, Light for people in dark place, hope for the hopeless, and love for the loveless.

But the theme that is repeated over and over in Luke is how Gods plan for good and amazing things comes in when we least expect it, how he was setting the stage all along, for different things in the book of Luke, like the blind man who was blind from birth so that Jesus would have the opportunity to heal him. The stage had been set long before he ever got there so that this man might have a face to face with Jesus. And you know what?

Jesus has been setting the stage in your lives too. In my life too. Because all that unexpected stuff, the news that brought great joy, and the news that brought great sorrow, all of it set in motion to be used by God. A man blind for his whole life, healed in a moment. I wonder what he was thinking about the day before he met Jesus. I mean I wonder if he hated his situation, that he was a beggar and blind. And yet was it not God purposes to heal them for his own honor. And now his story is recorded for us, to learn from and take in. Elizabeth was barren all her life, well into old age. Willy talked about how that was seen as a curse on her for her sins, yet wasnt it a part of Gods plan so that no one would doubt that God did it. And Mary, who had to struggle though societal misgivings of a pregnant engaged woman who said she was to bear the Son of God. And you, what have been your struggles. Where were you taken through the ringer? Where has God set the stage in your life? What part are you to play.

We just watched this video for leadership about this guy who was praying for his daughters headache to go away and while he was praying it did. She died of a brain hemorrhage. Is this right, is this fair, yet the man didnt curse God, he stood afflicted but not destroyed? He knew this was just another chapter and that some of the chapters in the book wouldnt make sense till the last chapter, and that we dont get to see the last chapter in this life. He would know his dad died trying to share his faith with a tribe living in the jungle, but his family was continue on in his vision to reach the tribe with the Gospel.

The stage is set. What part are you going to play? Where has God called you? Maybe you dont know yet. Maybe hes still setting the stage, moving players and scenery into position. Will you be faithful to answer what comes your way like Mary did? I am willing to accept what ever God wants. Luke wrote down everything that God got in place for the coming of Jesus into 1st century Galilee, and tonight, God has gotten everything in place for the coming of Jesus into your hearts.

On Good News

There I was last night, sitting in my office wondering what in the world I was going to say about the book of Luke. I'm just supposed to be working on an intro to the book of Luke, you know who was Luke, why did he write his Gospel and Acts, what was his favorite toothpaste, you know, stuff like that. But it was like three in the morning and I was staring into space thinking, praying and listening to the Album Leaf. 

My mind had started wandering around, bouncing from weird thought to weird thought, feeling like I have to write something and the juices just werent flowing. And finally my mind hit on this though that Willy stuck in my head a few days earlier. We get to! Exclamation point.

Uhh. We get to what?

We were talking about that mental switch that happens in your brain from I have to do something to I get to do something I had this happen to me not to long ago when I moved into my new place. So one of my mental complaints when I moved in was that there was no dishwasher. I hadnt noticed before I moved in, and even if I had, I wouldve still rented the place. But either way I was now stuck doing dishes by hand. So I went to the store and bought some tools to help me out: liquid soap, a scrub brush and a drying rack. But every time I had the opportunity to pass off doing the dishes I would. I even made a rule that if I cooked for you, then you had to do the dishes. Some of you are smiling because you have done dishes under those conditions. And so the other night after I had made dinner for a friend of mine, I ran the water for the dishes and started washing them without a second thought. Okay there was a second though: I found myself incredibly thankful?- that I got to wash my dishes. It meant that there was now food in my belly when I know that there are so many people who know hunger. It meant that I had friends to spend some time with when so many are lonely, that I had a place to live and running water when a lot of folks in the world and even in our own city go with out shelter or clean water. And so I found myself incredibly thankful to wash my own dishes. There was amazing joy in it, but it still sounds weird to me. 

And you are probably wondering what the heck any of this has to do with Luke- Im getting there I promise, But one more story first. When I was in my sophomore year of college, both of them, I started taking ceramics classes. I ended up taking like 5 classes, Id come in early and stay late making these pots that were like 3 feet high and have geometric designs and sunflowers on them. I dont know why, but I just really liked sunflowers in that period of my life. I loved doing it; it was pretty relaxing and became a time of quiet refection when I would throw on the wheel. The pots were good enough that I was able to sell a couple of them. And that was cool. But then I got requests for pots. Can you make something special theyd ask. Id try to show them stuff that I had already made but no, they wanted something special. And they would nag and call, and I wouldnt want to make anything let alone something for them. What had started out as an absolute joy was now drudgery because my I get to! Slash I want to! attitude had been replaced with I have to 

I just heard this guy John Piper give a message that said kinda the same thing, when we have to do something that we would normally positively love, we get ripped off because we have to do it. 

Dave is thinking to himself at this point where is Adam going?
Here it is. The Book of Luke is one of four in the bible that we call Gospels. Its a word that simply means the Good News. 

Its the same word that the town crier would use to pronounce any good news that happened in the Roman Empire. Hed climb up to a special platform and basically yell into the air. Good news! The emperor has had a son! Good news! We have triumphed over our enemies in Germania! And its this sort of celebratory yell which Matthew Mark Luke and John wrote of in the Gospels, the challenge and cry that was given by Peter and Paul preached on, that all the fathers of the church for the last 2000 years and that we in this place have been proclaiming to you till this day. GOOD NEWS YALL: Jesus who is God loved us so much, that even though we had turned our backs on Him, he died on a cross so that we might be restored to a right relationship with him. Lets go shout that from the rooftops. 

And that is the mode and the voice of Lukes gospel. Its what the angels say in the beginning of the book to the Shepards. I proclaim to you the GOOD NEWS of great Joy that will be for all people. Its the last thought of the book at the ascension of Jesus. While he was blessing them he left and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Jesus, knowing in advance the sacrifice he was to make on the cross for us, said this: the Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach the Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lords favor. 

Luke was excited to share the Good News. Between the Gospel of Luke and the book of acts, which he also wrote, he contributed more verses to the New Testament than anyone else. Here was a guy who, by profession, was a medical doctor, that got caught up with Paul and ultimately with Christ, that he set out to discover if this Jesus who Paul told him about was really God, The book was written probably about 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. He had all sorts of people who actually knew Jesus that he could go and talk to. And being a medical doctor, he knew something about how to research and investigate and look into things and the language that he used is precise. In fact one of my professors said the Greek thats used in Luke and in acts is some of the hardest in the New Testament because some of the precise medical and nautical terms are not found elsewhere in the New Testament. 

So we are going to look into the same things that Luke did for the next couple of months following his research, his investigation until we can answer the question that Luke was ultimately getting at: Who was Jesus and what are we to do with Him?

Being Good

So last week Dave talked about being set free from sin. He read through Romans 6 and talked about our old nature, our sinful self being crucified and buried with Christ and how we are now new creations, resurrected with the living Christ, the old has gone and the new way has come.

And yet sometimes I dont feel so new. Sometimes I have to strain to see progress in my life and I'm left wondering, Is this it? Is this the abundant life I was promised? Where are the streams of living water? And then Jen shared about places in her own life where she had given herself up to a sinful life and how she had been set free from that. And it was amazing to see how that resonated in a lot of you guys hearts, how the spirit was moving to encourage you and me with the grace and peace and forgiveness of God. Some of us found forgiveness in the person of Christ for the first time that night and asked for God to start us down the journey through life with Him. Others of us had lost our way and found ourselves rededicating our lives, climbing back on to the trail. And others of us were allowed to drop our heavy load, our burdens that were robbing the joy out of our Christian life, which was quickly becoming back breaking and heart breaking work.

And so most of us who made decisions last week probably went home and back to school. And whatever promise, whatever commitments we made. We probably fell short of. I did there were things that I wanted to do and didnt, and there were things that I wanted to stay away from but didnt. I dont know if your felt the same. I mean for the first couple of days maybe we tried real hard. We knew what needed to do. I gotta change this relationship, or get into the bible more, or pray. I gotta not get angry or gossip or be prideful or lustful. And it took for a day or two. And then ever so slowly the old ways started creeping up and creeping in. Our momentary experience seems to have done no conversion of this soul.

I mean, Ive got a general idea what Im supposed to do. I take the Ten Commandments you know, dont kill people, dont take their stuff or their wives, dont make gods out of earthly things. Add to that the great commandment out of Mathew 19 you know love God and love people, and the great commission of Mathew 28 teach people to follow Jesus. Throw in a pinch of all sorts of other commands in the bible. Pray with out ceasing; give money joyfully to the church. Take care of widows and the poor. Fast to train your self and go witnessing and encourage people. And yet, sometimes that whole concoction is like eating a spoonful of flour, like the dry stale dust you find in the attic. I get to the end of my week tired, tired and worn out from all the struggle with sin and the stirring onward towards the good. I find myself shouting out to God in my exhaustion.

God I just cant take it any more. I just dont want to do it anymore. It all seems like a bunch of works and trying to be good.
And so this person (point to self) is the kind of person that I think Pauls has in mind in this next chapter of Romans, so if you have your bibles turn to chapter 7 of Romans. If you dont have your bible you can borrow one of ours, and if you dont even own a bible I would love to get one into you hands. Yes I really wrote this. Any ways. Lets read.

Now, dear brothers and sisters*-you who are familiar with the law-don't you know that the law applies only to a person who is still living? 2 Let me illustrate. When a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. 3 So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.

So this is the point:

I love when Paul does this, he spells it out cause I'm a dunderbrain sometimes.

So this is the point: The law no longer holds you in its power, because you died to its power when you died with Christ on the cross. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, you can produce good fruit, that is, good deeds for God.

Did you guys catch that little phrase- As a result?

You see the Christian life is not primarily about being good moral people and doing good things. Hear me on this. The Christian life is not primarily about being moral. All the great thinkers of the ages have said we ought to be moral people. Plato, Aristotle, Confucius. All of them have said the key to a good life is to choose to do the good moral things and not the bad things. It doesnt matter what it takes or what it costs you personally- choose to do the good.

You see, morality through the power of the self is exactly what the unbelieving world believes in. Our society as a whole leads us to believe that as long as you are pretty good and mostly moral then you will be okay. I cant tell you the number of people that I talk to who see themselves as a basically good person. They dont steal or sleep around or kill people so they must be okay. If a conversation with a stranger goes on long enough the subject of Christianity will come up. I cant help it its what I do. Its in my blood. Or I guess its in His blood. Whatever. And when it comes up they hold up their hands and with a little shake they say, Whoa there, I believe that theres a God but this religion stuff just seems all out of whack. I just try to be as good a person as I can be and I think God will sort it out in the end.

Realize this- this is precisely what we have been saved from.

We have been saved from bondage to sin- halleluiah this is what we talking about last week

But we have also been saved from bondage to the law. We just read in Romans the Christian life is primarily about being united with Christ, about the life that is connected to God, grafted into the vine.

Its out of that connection and condition that our good fruit will start to grow. And when trees produce fruit, its not because of straining or striving but because with all the right ingredients a tree produces fruit naturally.

Let me give you an example from my own life and walk with Christ. When I first became a Christian and unfortunately for some time afterward I struggled heavily with anger. I was angry at all sorts of things, but ultimately I think it was a selfish anger born out of any thing that didnt go precisely the way that I thought that it should. But I was told, Christians dont get angry. We dont get mad. Love your enemies Mind you there are times when a righteous anger is okay when it empowers you to take a stand and make a difference. This wasnt that. This was just me getting pissed at people. But knowing I wasnt supposed to be angry, I took those feelings and stuffed them back inside. I just kept tucking it all back into my heart to where there was this ball of angry that sat just below the surface; seething, churning, boiling until the dam would break and some unsuspecting person would become the object of my wrath.

Slhjdogaiphspguhapodkhgpaohsdghaowuhpahsoghaoprghaohgolsg!

And the other person would stand there with wide eyes going Oh crap I never dealt with this before I was a Christian. I would just get mad at somebody, make disparaging remarks about their matronaige, and then proceed to some fisticuffs action. And at the end of it we usually wouldnt be mad at each other. Yeah wed be bleeding and bruised but that would be the end of it. And I only got angry like that every so often, going days or weeks or even months (okay so rarely ever months, this is before I became a Christian.) I wouldnt hardly ever think about it once it happened. Ah but once I tried to control my anger, theres where the battle was. Because my struggle was one of days and hours and sometimes minutes then. I was constantly trying to keep shoving the monster back in the box, to keep it from leaking out. Knowledge of the law brought death to my heart.

Where is my peace oh God?

Where is my abundant life that You promised?

Where are the streams of living water?

And then a peculiar thing most peculiar thing happened. A man in a white pickup truck ran a red light, cut me off, leaned out his window, and flipped me off while shouting obsinities as if his running a red light were somehow my fault. And I thought to my self boy that was odd. How true those words were, but not about that mans driving ability, but rather about my response to them. A bland and simple that was odd. Its probably not the first person that I didnt respond to in anger that quite justifiably I could have. Its just the first that I remember. I know exactly where it was the time of day and even the date it stood out to me so much. You see in my connection with God, He had begun to heal the anger that was in my heart and I wasnt even aware of it. He was shaping me even then to love people, this community and ultimately to serve this community and to make my service a joy because of the love that He had given me. And it didnt come from my own efforts to push back anger, but rather from the prayer, Lord God, help!
And God met that need by filling my heart wit love through my connection to Him.

I remember coming across this verse in John 14 through all of this. I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing.

What!?!?! Are you joking me? Apart from you I do a whole bunch of things here. And by the way where are those streams of living water? And the easy yoke and the rest you promised.

My yoke is easy, my burden is light. He would say.

But i'm an expert at twisting peoples words around. If any of you have younger siblings you know what I mean.
Gimmie my dollar back
Thats right it my dollar
No its not your dollar
Thats right its not your dollar.

Well I do the same things sometimes with God. He says my yoke is easy and by burden is light. Then how come my burden isnt easy and my yoke isnt light.
You see how this goes.

And so. I get to Romans eight which says

There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of the sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering And so we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, for this hope we are saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have we with for it patiently. In the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express/ And he who searches our heats knows the mind of the Spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with Gods will.

And so tonight I pray that we would begin to open our hearts to God, opening up all our struggles with sin and our strivings for good and asking the Lord simply to be God over all of it. God be my God. Jesus be my sin sacrifice and Lord. Spirit come and make your home inside me.

139:1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. [1]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain! [2]
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts! [3]
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting! [4]

Under construction...sorry for the mess...

David understood the power of God to affect change in the lives of the people of Israel. He knew that he needed to have God on his side if he was going to hold off the enemies of Israel. Do we understand that power today? I mean God says that he wants to do great and mighty things in our lives, changing and shaping us till we are perfect and complete and lacking nothing (James 1:4), that we are the very craftsmanship of the hand of God (Eph 2:10). He said that through the work of the Spirit of God we would be perfect because of Him. (Math 5:48)
One of my favorite authors compared the growth in the Christian life to that of a house or building.
Okay, Imagine that I had a dripping faucet, or a squeaky floor or a leaky roof, and hired a guy to come out and fix it. The guy shows up at eight on the dot and I leave him at my house and go off to do errands or go to work or school or whatever. Imagine my surprise when I turn into my driveway, pull back up to my house a few hours later and find absolute pandemonium. The front lawn: covered with stacks 2x4s and plywood. Pallets of concrete bags are sitting in the drive way and where the roof used to be now stands the skeleton of framing that was once hidden. My Eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, I walk through the front door, which has been painted in a fresh coat of green rather than the blue that it had been a few hours ago, to the bustling of activity. One guy seems to be tearing out sheetrock with the back of a claw hammer while another is busily running electrical cabling through the hall and still another is moving all my furniture into the back yard where there is a backhoe digging a large hole in the ground. What the heck is going on?!?! I start frantically looking around for the guy that I had hired to do the work this morning. I bound up the staircase (wait a minute, I dont remember stairs here, I dont even have a second story!) that opens up onto the remnants of the roof where I find the original contractor, sledgehammer in hand, poised to swing. The slow motion kicked in as I ran in front of him and yelled NOOO!!!!! WAAIIITTT!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Startled he looks up and says what are you doing? W-What am I doing? The nerve of this guy. What am I doing? I only asked you here to fix the little things, the faucet and the squeaky floor that would have been good enough for me. But he said to me, I know but I am making it perfect.

And what if I told you that you and I are this house and the impertinent handyman was Jesus. Most of us invited Jesus in at some point to fix some leaky faucet of sin in our lives. Being angry, lust, disobeying parents, but we soon found that He wasnt satisfied in fixing only those things but moved on to fixing self-centeredness, vain thoughts, and hurtful ways. Jesus says, be perfect (math 5:48) this is my house an Im coming to live in it (1 Cor 3:16) that he is the foundation for the building of our lives on Himself (1 Cor 3:11) and that he is the only foundation that will stand the test of trials (Math 7:25)

Cs Lewis says this in Mere Christianity from the voice of Jesus

Make no mistake, if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in my hands that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose you can push me away. But if you do not push me away then understand that I will see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs me I will never rest nor let you rest until you are literally perfect- until my father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you as he said he was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.

But we are still all works in progress. I dont know about you guys, but I need a sign that says Under construction, sorry for the mess I may not have flipped anybody off on the free way lately but it hasnt stopped me from wanting to. I dont struggle with looking at girls on the Internet but I still have struggles with seeing them as my sisters, daughters of the Living God. I cant remember the last person that I cussed at, though there was this door where my key wouldnt work. Still under construction, sorry about the mess. But still moving forward.

Finishing

May 6th is Graduation day.
I did not think that I would feel excitement. I'm glad its over and theres a sense of relief, but theres a happy feeling in my heart that I wasnt really expecting. While I was wondering what it was I realized that it was the sense of accomplishing something, the feeling of finishing a task which I started which lead me to think about other things I have started but not finished. Books that Ive started and left uncompleted. Articles and stories that need more sentances. Woodworking projects that are still in pieces. People whom I continually see and never become friends with. So I started making a list. And I was a little frustrated with its length. Mind you, this is not a list of things I want to do with my life, mearly a list of books, tasks and people with which I have never completed an already started task.

Finish what you start. Its the fourth rule of living put forth by a hero of mine when I was little named Captain Kangaroo (The other ones are 1-Say please and thank you, 2-Be On time, and 3- Do what you say) Im not entirely sure what it is, we tend to start things with gusto and then we peter out, we loose the momentum, and then stop with out completing our task. If starting something new is hard, then seeing it through to the end is even more difficult. There are consequences to seeing something through to the end. School is easy compaired with the task of graduating and then looking around and saying God now what?, of putting to good use the things which you have learned so that you can now do something a little more important that flipping burgers at MacDonalds.

When I go to die, I want to feel an even greater excitement. I'm not trying to be morbid, but I want to be excited because I finished something, because I got it done right. But to get to that point at the end, I've got to start on the right path now. Ive got to choose the right things to pursue, the passions and desires that God has given me, the person who He has created me to be.

Are you choosing the right things to start and pursuing them with all you have?

Just a thought

Risking Selflessness

One of the things that I have been thinking about latley is the risk. When I read through the book of Acts or the Old Testament or the Gospels or just the whole bible, I get a great sense for how much the people of God were used by God to do amazing things. And I started wondering why. And I think that some of it was the fact that they were willing to risk all that they had to accomplish the work of the kingdom. They were willing to risk themselves. And because of that God was able to use them. I mean, start to thingk about some of the things that people were asked to do in the bible. Moses standing up to pharoh, jerimah preaching naked, hosea marrying a prostitute, peter preaching to all the religious leaders, and so on. They stopped thinking about what they wanted and started focusing on what God wanted for them.

Yet that is probably one of the biggest struggles that I face, letting go of my own desires and clinging to the desires of God. The Bible says that God wishes that none would perish, and that my mission is to go into the world making disciples, but when I go and talk to people, I mostly just want to be liked and accepted. God says that we should rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those that weep, that we are a part of a living organism and when a part of the body hurts, we all should hurt and yet its so much simpler to stay on the surface with our relationships. The Bible says that when we gather, we ought to be supporting and encouraging each other with scripture and prayer and singing and yet its more fun to play games and goof off.

And a lot of the time, all those things that I thought Id rather do leave me feeling pretty empty afterwords. And I need some sort of fix to get me going again. Seven nights in a row hanging outwith people doesnt do anything to fix lonleyness. Its prayer and seeking God and reading the scriptures and fellowship that is about encouragement and admonishing. Letting the Holy Spirit examine us, taking that time to say okay God, what do you want to work on now is a good thing. But for some of us, including myself, we start to focus inward. We start to look at what we dont have, what we need, what we want for our own lives to go down the path that we have chosen. Some people call this introspection- looking inward. I have come to realize that its more than just looking inward, its focusing inward. Call it what you want, its self-focus, self-centered, and ultimatly selfish. The world is self-focused. Media and school and sports tell us its all about us but its not. We as Christians ought to be others-focused and ultimatly Christ-focused. Its interesting to me that at mental institutions the treatment most often utilized treatment involves getting the patient to serve others. It is in the service of others that they often loose that self-focus on their own problems, starting to see that the world is much bigger than them.

Jesus says if any one wants to follow Him, then they need to deny himself, take up his cross and start following. Everyone here, at some level, has the first part down, the desire to follow Jesus. But its just so hard for us to do the next step: deny yourself. Theres a couple of things that help me with this and if you are having trouble getting over yourself (which is the highest mountain youll ever climb) try these or seek out your own ways.
The first is Prayer. I keep a record of people that I pray for. Its a reminder to me that as a Christian, we are to pray for one another. So often I can get caught up in my own needs that I forget to pray for other people, I forget that the primary work of the ministry is prayer, that above every thing we need to be people of prayer and people of one book. So the first is commiting to pray, and then regularly praying for others.

The second is Fasting. Fasting helps us cut the fat in our lives. We give up things which we are so accustomed to, which have attached themselves to our lives, and fasting helps us dientangle ourselves. We tend to think of food only when we fast so maybe I should use a different word. Maybe we need to learn the art of Simplification. Of reducing all the distractions that point us back at ourselves. I love music and I got super connect to the White Menace that is the Ipod. No seriously, Id carry it every where and used it as a means to block people out. So when it broke it was a good thing, even though it eventually got fixed. When it got fixed, I gave it away cause I no longer wanted that attachment and I knew it would bless the person I gave it to. There was a list of things that Dave gave a few years back about how to simplify our lives. One of them said make a habit of giving things away. So I did. So fasting and simplifying our lives from all the things that we just cant live without.

The third is Service. Jesus did it. He said if anyone wants to be great in the kingdom of heaven then he must serve everyone. Theres a subtleness that goes on right there. Did you know that we are supposed to serve people. That ultimately our service is towards people. Even if we clean toliets, our service becomes a service to the next person who sits there. You want to get out of a self focused funk? Then go find somebody to serve. They are out there. In church, at the well, at school, your friends, your teachers, your parents, your family. It was Jesus vission that leaders would be the biggest servants. MacDonalds got it right with their question How can I serve you today?

Are we willing to change? To deny ourselves and follow Him? Then get ready to see him move in amazing a powerful ways in our lives and in the lives of our community.

A game of hide and seek death match with the ultimate champion

Last week we talked about meditation on the word of God even when life seems to be going every way but the right one. Willy shared about his week of having to struggle though his time in the word and the choice that he made to meditated upon it. 

But why? Why bother with it? I go to read my bible and it seems there are suddenly a hundred other things to do, and sometimes even washing the dishes looks better than cracking open a bible. Every thing of this world pulls and tugs at my soul. Its a constant noise inside my head. Bigger, better, stronger, faster. This other thing is what will really make you happy. This other way will lead you to success and self-fulfillment. 

You can call it slick advertisement, a good campaign, media marketing, or what ever, but I call them lies. Willy was right last week when he said that commercials have the ability to manipulate our thinking. I wasnt even thirsty but now after that commercial all I want to drink is a big, old refreshing coca-cola. After watching the commercial I was convinced of my need for something to satisfy a desire I didnt really even have. 

And it rips us off. Because we have some real needs in our lives that the world would love to just ignore and push in the corner. Because the world cant package it, sell it, or market it in a way that makes them a buck. 

But Christ came that we might have life and life to the fullest! This is not an empty promise. I have become such a skeptic some times because nothing ever seems to live up to its promises. The refreshing taste of coke that makes you go AHH! is actually the acid in the Coke burning away the lining of your esophagus. Its the same stuff you use to take chrome off of metal. And I'm afraid that Christs promises might not actually be TRUE. Draw near to me and I will draw near to you. He says to us. So because we have been burned by every thing false in this world, we fear to draw towards the one true thing, the one true reality in this world. 

We are so messed up we are not even sure what truth really is. The word gets thrown around all these days. Wanna be rappers say true that, double true. People go in to court and promise to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth when in fact they are totally prepared to lie. Philosophers and poets say they are searching for the deeper truths while espousing nothing more than their own personal take on life. Even Pilate when he was questioning Jesus said, What is truth?

When I go to describe a particular aspect of an object, the chair is white, the wall is brown, 2 2=4, these are all statements that can be either proven or disproved. No the chair is actually yellow and the wall is green but 2 2=4. And then theres another sort of truth. The yellow chair is better that the white one. Well why? And then I list off a list of reasons why I think this to be true, and none of them really convince you and you say well its great that you think the yellow one is better but I think the white one is better. Are you right or am I right. We cant both be right, right? This is where we realize that we maybe using words like truth and right far too loosely. I would say that what we call truth actually falls into one of two categories. The first is a description of reality the other is an expression of opinion. Often times its easy to see which category something falls in. Two plus two = four. Thats a description of reality. Rocky road is the best flavor of ice cream. Thats an opinion; it would have to be, why else would they make other flavors then. Some times its not so easy. How about Texas is big Well it is right? Thats reality. Well big compared to what? Big compared to New Hampshire, absolutely. Big, compared to South America, probably not. Its actually a statement of opinion. Now the statement that Texas is 3 times the size of California is a description of reality 

Now one of the reasons that it can be hard for us to distinguish between the two types is that a successful marketer is trying to get you to believe that their opinion is actually a description of reality. And then they take things that are reality and call them just an opinion

Because theres lots of opinions out there about Jesus. He was just a man. He was a good teacher, a prophet. He didnt really die and rise from the dead. Wasnt he married to Mary Magdalene, didnt he come to America and preach to the Indians. And then what about Muslims, and Buddhists and triibalists, what about their traditions and beliefs. Doesnt that make Christianity and Jesus just another opinion among many. 

No. Jesus himself said, I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except though me. Thats pretty exclusive language. And what backs that up? What makes that not just Jesus opinion, but a description of reality? Wheres the proof.

I know lots of guys who could give you good reasons how I can know that God exists, that Jesus was God, and that the bible is true. They are good reasons, I know some of them and Id be happy to share some of them if you want to come talk to me about them or drop me a line over the Internet.

But reason I know that Jesus and the word are true is because of a changed lives. Because of my changed life. You see theres third category of truth. It describes reality, but not reality as we see it. Its the reality of God. When we went to Chicago one of the guys speaking hit on this. He said 2 2=4 but that doesnt change your life. It is the truth in Gods word to us that will make an impact on our lives. But is it up to us to sort through every thing thats thrown at us during the day? In a way yes. We are to take our thoughts captive, which means examining what we are thinking about and then realizing where that thought comes from and what to do with that thought. 

But we have a helper in this. Thank God that we have a helper. When Jesus was hanging out with his disciples the day before his execution, he spoke in detail about the Holy Spirit who was to come, John 16:13 I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 

Do you get that? God himself has promised to lead us into the truth, to teach us the truth and yet few of us take the time to listen an follow God who is waiting to tell you great and mighty things which we do not know (Jer 33:3) We just need be willing to listen. And that requires being in the word on a regular basis, of meditating on the word, and of struggling through the drawings of our own flesh.