Temporary or Life?

I've heard so many times that happiness and joyfulness are not the same. I agree, happiness is an emotion that comes and goes based on our circumstances and situations. Things make us happy or unhappy. Honestly it's a fickle emotion that is easily swayed by one thing. Joyfulness is different, one of the dictionary defines of joy is, "the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation" but I feel that this isn't enough.

1 Thessalonians 5.16 says, "Rejoice always" another translation says, "Be joyful always." To exist in a state of perpetual happiness is not possible, no one is happy all the time, so joy needs to be more than just happiness.

Philippians 4.4-13 talks about this, it begins very similar to the Thessalonians verse. "Rejoice in the Lord always." and the ending verse is "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." If you read the verses in between it gives this idea of fully focusing on God, dwelling on him, and in that finding contentment. That is joy, contentment in the moment. Paul says in Philippians 4.11, "Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am." That is joy, contentment with life.

This isn't complacency, it isn't sitting back and just letting life go by complacent with it. I think the way to live life is to be content but restless. To be satisfied with where God has put us, satisfied with what he has given us, but restless to do the best we can in that situation, restless to work with what he has given us as best we can, restless to live life to the fullest no matter where we are. We are called to a life of joy, a life of restless contentment.

I think this idea is true of other things as well. Lets look at fear. The Bible contains the idea of "Fear not" 365 times. It says, in 1 John 4, "There is no fear in love" I think fear is like joy, it is a lifestyle. It's ok to be scared, that is like happiness, a temporary emotion caused by a situation or our circumstances, but being scared is temporary. Fear is being in a constant state of panic of unease. When Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection the first thing he says is "Peace be with you." (John 20.19) It's that idea of fear not.

There will be moments in our lives when we feel scared, things like thunderstorms scare some people, big dogs scare people. Some things are scary, but when that feeling of scared begins to rule your life, when you are controlled by it, that's when it becomes a fear. We weren't made to have our lives ruled by things that scare us, we weren't made to live in a constant state of panic. "There is no fear in love."

Anger is another one. It's ok to be angry, they Bible simply says, "In your anger do not sin." There are things that will make us angry, and there are things that should make us angry. But when that anger consumes us it becomes hate, and that's where it consumes us.

"Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity." (Ephesians 4.26-27) If we hold on to anger it can consume us, it can grow into hate. Anger is like happiness and being scared, it is a temporary emotion, and it needs to remain that way.

Fear and hate, John Wesley said, "Give me 300 people who fear nothing but God and hate nothing but sin, and I will set this world on fire." The fear of God is not a fear of terror, but a fear out of reverence. It is God who has power and God who we are to be ruled by. But that fear is, again, not a fear out of being terrified by him, but a healthy fear out of reverence for his holiness and power. The only thing we are to hate is the thing contrary to God, the thing opposite God. Evil is the only thing that we are to hate. The rest of creation, including the people who make us the angriest, are made by God.

Finally, concern vs. worry. There are things to be concerned about, situations that need us to be careful and plan for them, to spend time and prepare for them, but to be consumed by the planning, the possibility of everything going wrong, that becomes worry. To live in a constant state of anxiety will ruin your life. You won't be able to have joy if you are constantly anxious about what will go wrong tomorrow. The test you have in school, the assignment at work, yes be concerned, study for it, prepare for it, but don't be consumed by the pressure of failing.

So what will be your life, Hatred, Worry, Fear or Joy?

Peace be with you

Dumping my brain

The reason I started this blog was to use as an accountability tool to make sure that I kept thinking and developing thoughts. Sometimes Monday morning comes and I have no idea what to write about, today was one of those days. One of the teens I work with texted me a couple weeks ago about wanting to talk through some stuff she's trying to figure out. Actually she asked for prayer about it and I told her we'd talk about it soon. We still haven't talked, but to prep me for the conversation she sent me a song to listen to, "More like Falling in Love" by Jason Gray.

Last night I was talking with one of my Proverbs 18.24 brothers about a sermon he's writing on James 4.11-12, he talks about something Mark Driscoll said about Joel Osteen and Rob Bell. That started us on a conversation about the sermon and the idea of judging vs. holding someone accountable.

I look at the sermon I'm trying to work on for April 11, the Religious or Relational one I've preached several times, and basically my hope for the church, and it all focuses on that idea of genuine Christianity, not being blinded by the religious rituals and rule, but just captivated by the love of a the King of kings.

So this song, "More like Falling in Love"

Give me rules, I will break them. Show me lines, I will cross them. I need more than a truth to believe, I need a truth that lives, moves, and breaths, to sweep me off my feet. It's gotta be

More like falling in love, than something to believe in.
More like losing my heart, than giving my allegiance.
Caught up, called out, come take a look at me now.
It's like I'm falling, oh, it's like I'm falling in love.

Give me words, I'll misuse them, obligations, I'll misplace them. 'Cause all religion ever made of me was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet. It never set me free. It's gotta be

More like falling in love, than something to believe in.
More like losing my heart, than giving my allegiance.
Caught up, called out, come take a look at me now.
It's like I'm falling, oh, it's like I'm falling in love, love, love

Deeper and deeper, it was love that made me a believer in more than a name, a faith, a creed. Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me.

More like falling in love, than something to believe in.
More like losing my heart, than giving my allegiance.
Caught up, called out, come take a look at me now.
It's like I'm falling, oh, it's like I'm falling in love.

I keep just hitting replay on youtube. I think about that, it's gotta be more like falling in love. It's all about a relationship. I hear people talk about politics, and this doesn't have any thing to do with health care, but the government can't fix anything. Making something legal or illegal doesn't make someone do or not do it, it's the mindset the person has. The song says it, "Give me rules, I will break them" but it also says "falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me."

If the church would be the church it was called to be we would have no need of politics. If Christians would live the life they claim to be a part of the world would be a better place.

I make it sound so simple, and honestly, I think it is that simple. God knew what he was doing, and if we would simply be who he calls us to be things would be so much better. If we stopped focusing on the rules that simply show us how messed up we are and simply fall in love with the best friend any of us could ever ask for, things would be so much better. I'm not saying that we'll have no problems, Jesus tells us we will, but if this idea of genuine Christianity caught on, what would happen in our lives? In our families? In our churches? In our cities? In our nation? In our world?

"It's gotta be more like falling in love, than something to believe in. More like losing my heart, than giving my allegiance. Caught up, called out, come take a look at me now. It's like I'm falling, oh, it's like I'm falling in love."

Peace be with you

Prepare, don't wait

James 4.13-14 says, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." Recently a friend and I were talking, she was sharing with me how she's trying to make decisions about the future and trying to see what the will of God is for her life. She's had people tell her not to worry about it, and to just let it all happen as God wills.

To a point I agree with that, but at the same time I think that's a horrible idea. God doesn't just want us to sit and wait for Him to work and show us what his plan is, he expects us to be ready.

Luke 12.35-40, "Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them. Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves."

Jesus is talking about his return here, and I feel this is how we are to live, ready but not sitting idle. I said this to my friend, "Spend today preparing for tomorrow, don't spend today waiting for tomorrow." We spend today working for the future, but if it never comes then what have we lost? If we are preparing, nothing. If we are preparing that means we are working towards something, not sitting idly by wasting the breaths God has given us.

St. Irenaeus said, "The glory of God is man fully alive." When we live life to the fullest, we glorify God. Billy Graham once said, "Live every day like Jesus will return today, but live every day like we have to plan for the next thousand years.:

I think this is the way Jesus wants us to live, ready for when he comes, but not sitting by terrified that the end of the world might be near. The Bible tells us that perfect love casts out fear, so we don't need to be afraid about the end of the world.

I look at my life, there are things I want to do; Bike across America, climb Mt. Everest, spend Holy Week in Israel, that's just a few. So I live preparing for these things, glorifying God as I do them, but if I never get to accomplish any of them, then that's fine too, and I glorify God all the same. We weren't made to be miserable, we were given life to live it, and when we live it fully we are glorifying God.

I don't know if this makes sense, it is all so clear in my mind, and I hope that I've been able to get that idea out.

"The glory of God is man fully alive." Live you're life to the fullest, glorify God in all you do.

Peace be with you.

The Goal for the Christian

What is the ultimate goal that followers of Christ strive to attain? Many would probably say something along the lines of getting to Heaven and spending eternity in the presence of God. This idea is presented heavily in churches that I have attended, not always explicitly, but this is the general idea I pick up from the places I've been.

It's an idea that is presented in many songs. I look at hymns like, Wayfaring Stranger, "I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger traveling through this world of woe, but there's no sickness no toil no danger in that bright world to which I go. I'm going there to see my father, I'm going there no more to roam." The song, When we all get to Heaven, "When we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory." There are many others that point to this idea of, "Let's just hold on, one day we will get to Heaven which is the goal."

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing the hymns, that is not my intention at all. I love them, they are full of so much great Theology, and I believe they truly are a treasure we can not afford to lose. But I think we've lost sight of the true goal, of what we are supposed to be striving for.

Heaven is a wonderful place, but I don't believe that Heaven is our goal. When God first created the world it was perfect, there was no sin, no death, and therefore no need for us to have heaven because the world was perfect. The goal was never to leave the earth, and I don't want to get into a discussion about my views of where Heaven is, but the purpose for us was never to die, and therefore Heaven wasn't what we were to strive for. And I honestly don't think anything else has changed.

Romans 8.28-30 says, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified."

Here we are told that everything will work for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. It is not that everything works for good because we love God, it works for good because we are following the purpose of God. Next we see that we are called to be conformed to the image of his son. The word predestined, according to William Greathouse, refers to an invitation, not an order, God did not select some to become like Christ and others not to, he makes the offer to everyone, but because of love God does not force it upon anyone. It is a plan, not a script. So we are predestined to become like Christ, only after that does glorification happen, and glorification would be Heaven. So the goal is not heaven, the goal is becoming more like Christ.

Paul says, in Philippians 3, how he has counted everything as loss compared to knowing Christ. He talks about how he will share in Christs suffering, and even his death because he will be raised to a new life in Christ. He says that he is forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to the goal, the prize of the upward call of God. This call is not to make it through life to get to Heaven, the call is to become like Christ.

I really believe that is the true goal, that is the true purpose, to become like Christ. Heaven will be great, and I can't wait to get there. I can't wait to see Jesus, to fall at his feet and say thank you, if I'm even able to speak at all. But I don't want to live my life waiting for Heaven, and I don't think I'm supposed to. I want to be more like Jesus, every day I want to become more like him. That is what this is all about.

Peace be with you

He calls me Friend

Over the last few weeks there as been a verse on my mind, Galatians 4.9a, "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God" the more I think about it, the more amazed I get.

I think back to one of my theology classes in college, we talked about the vastness of creation. Look at the universe, not simply our solar system or our galaxy, but the entire universe. The current estimates I found is that there are somewhere between 100 and 200 billion galaxies in the universe, a universe that we don't even know how big it is because we can't even see it all!

Louie Giglio has a DVD called Indescribable, where he talks about the vastness of the universe, he mentions a verse in it, where God measures the universe with his hand. He can hold it in his hand! If we look at our galaxy the world doesn't even show up. Even in our solar system it appears as a pal blue dot. But to that pal blue dot God came as a human, not to live a simple life, but to die a painful, humiliating death.

John 15.13-15

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you."

He died for us, he calls us his friends! The creator of a universe so big that we can't even comprehend it, loves us so much not just to create us, but to be involved in our existence, to die in order to redeem us, and calls us his friends! It truly is indescribable.

Galatians 4.9 says, "or rather to be known by God." Who cares that we know God? We should know him, he made the universe, he holds it in his hand, so what's the big deal for us to know him? But for him to know us, that's what's so incredible. The fact that while we exist in an incredible universe, amid countless stars which God knows by name (Psalm 147.4) he calls us his friends, truly is indescribable.