New Year

I am usually pretty reflective during the end-of-the-year holidays. This year I have not been too reflective or goal-planning...but I have decided that I want to improve my life in one key way that involves all areas of my life:

Surrender.

Bad things happen to [____] people

You might think I am crazy, that is okay. I think that bad things happen to all people because all people are fallen sinners who live in a fallen world. No one is inherently 'good': “There is none righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). Because of that reality, suffering is universal.

What is beautiful is that the story does not end there! The God that loves us offers grace and forgiveness and wants to help make us good. He offers the love and forgiveness to everyone: the oppressed, persecuted, the poor, the rich, everyone.... the question is : Will you accept it? God offers His grace to all, but many people reject it.

God blesses Us for His Glory

We are blessed by God by and through his Grace for His glory.

Yeah I've been listening to David Platt as he reads his book Radical to me in my car.

This is not a new message to me. I've read Piper's Desiring God. In which Piper proves through Scriptures that the great business of life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

We can enjoy our blessings and life. God wants to make us happy but ultimately He is blessing us for His own glory. So we will share the Good News of God and tell others about the blessings from God. They are not to be selfishly absorbed but shared.

Does this make God selfish?

Yea, but would He really be God if His chief goal was to bring glory to something other than Himself? NO. Whatever He was bringing glory to would be a Higher, more important thing and therefore should be "God."

This is one key theological point that challenges our thinking but also our living.

It is weird to think about and kinda fun, but ultimately, now what?

Now with this truth processed we must live it!

When we are blessed and happy, let us not get complacent and focused in on living with our blessings, instead let us give God the credit and make sure to use these blessings to bring Glory back to the One who first loved and blessed us.

IT is so easy to live caught up in the American dream. It is easy to take the blessings and forget the One who has blessed us.

Isn't our faith a relationship? Are we sharing the Good News and the blessings and the ultimate Blessing with others?

The gift-giving

I love it and hate it.

Of course I love receiving gifts, who doesn't?

But honestly I love giving gifts too because I enjoy making other happy.

What i hate is the fact that I am dirt poor.

I never have enough money to give good gifts to everyone who gives me good gifts, forget about anyone else I love and would like to get gifts for.

Comfort in knowing God is in complete control

Earlier this week my pastor (and mentor) gave me some advice that has stuck with me and already changing the way that I am thinking and living.

He said that ultimately God is in control of all things, ultimately where you at is where God wants you to be....I'll spare you the details... (I am more reformed in thinking than my pastor, he is a free will baptist pastor! but ultimately we both agree that God has ordained things to be the way that they in the end will be....the "how" we get there details can vary depending on how you view free will issues)

So in ministry where ever you are at physically (a chaplain in the Army, a pastor of a church plant, an associate pastor of a long established church, a business person in a large corporation, a construction worker) is where God wants you to be.

He said we all have doubts sometimes...instead of living in the moment of emotion, we can live in the moment of the Spirit. We can stand firm in His Word and in His Sovereignty.

He was saying all of this to help prepare me for my calling into chaplaincy. Where ever the government sends me I will go. It will be exciting and an adventure. There will be things I will see that I have not ever seen yet before. There will be people hurting. There will be a lot of opportunities for love, service and ministry. There will be hardships and times of frustration and maybe even doubt.

While I am not there yet (in the Army) I am able to use this advice already! At UPS Freight, where I work, it is so easy to get so caught up in my work that I ignore people. I ignore the Spirit. I just live in my little "lala" land or I live in the emotions of work: not good. (There is a lot of anger and frustration there)

I told myself tonight at work, "God wants me here now. He has a reason and purpose for me to be here. I might be the only Jesus some of these men will ever see."

I tried today to be a leader. I tried today to love and listen to people. I tried to do all things at work for the glory of God. This is just practice for future ministry. I want to be living it now before I go off to the Army.

What is legacy about anyways?

Think about it with me for a minuet.
The things we do to impress people...
like wearing certain clothing, buying a nice car, building a big house, working for the right company, planning a nice career, knowing the right people, etc...
The reality is that in a century (give or take a few decades), all of our generation will be dead. You (and myself) and everyone that knows/knew you as well. Eventually everyone who has ever have remembered you will pass away...for many people, that is all legacy is. A few memories. Far less will anyone remember your nice clothing, cars, homes, career, etc.
The few exceptions, the few people that have left a memorial legacy (you know the people who made it into the textbooks) are not in their, are not remembered by their things: clothing, homes, cars, etc....they are remembered by their actions. Besides, there are a lot of names in textbooks that people who read the books ignore...they say "who cares?" It is history.

Legacy, what will you be remembered by? And who will care? Who will remember you?

thought of the day

In American culture tolerance is a virtue and conviction a vice

I'm old school

I'm a young postmodern body but living in me is old school personlaity

I don't fit into my own generation. I am an ancient old school man living a culture of new and change.

Albeit not everything about me is old school, when my parents, grandparents, uncles need computer help they call on me. I love the conveniences and technologies we have but that is not really what I am talking about here.

I am speaking and thinking of the way I think, the way I live, the way I go about things, even ministry; I am old school.

I stick out like a cold sore.

This culture is fast paced, I am slow and patient. This culture knows the fastest short-cuts. I have to experience things myself first the hard way. Maybe I am just stubborn.

I preach truth straight from the Bible I don't focus too much on illustrations and stories.

I will tell you something from the Bible and sure there is room for personal experience and illustrations, that is fine.

For me though, I spent my time studying the Word. I will depend more on the Holy Spirit's help to communicate the message properly. He is better at that than I am! I am going to preach the Word

Wanting

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Psalm 23:1

If am left wanting something but have already prayed about it and supposedly already surrendered it to God; I should have no more longing for that desire, I should though have the continued longeing to draw closer to God but not for that want anymore.

Great Devotional for today

The next best thing to do

Seek if you have not Found. “Seek, and ye shall find.” Luke 11:9.

“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” If you ask for things from life instead of from God, you ask amiss, that is, you ask from a desire for self-realization. The more you realize yourself the less will you seek God. “Seek, and ye shall find.” Get to work, narrow your interests to this one. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you only given a languid cry to Him after a twinge of moral neuralgia? Seek, concentrate, and you will find.

“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” Are you thirsty, or smugly indifferent—so satisfied with your experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a gateway, not an end. Beware of building your faith on experience, the metallic note will come in at once, the censorious note. You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have.

“Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” “Draw nigh to God.” Knock—the door is closed, and you suffer from palpitation as you knock. “Cleanse your hands”—knock a bit louder, you begin to find you are dirty. “Purify your heart”—this is more personal still, you are desperately in earnest now—you will do anything. “Be afflicted”—have you ever been afflicted before God at the state of your inner life? There is no strand of self-pity left, but a heartbreaking affliction of amazement to find you are the kind of person that you are. “Humble yourself”—it is a humbling business to knock at God’s door—you have to knock with the crucified thief. “To him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”

Chambers, O. (1993). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (NIV edition.). Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co.

For me today, this really got me. I had been seeking and dreaming of the "next best thing." M dreams. Today I surrender those even to Him. It is a never ending process of seeking Him and His will, the daily journey of asking for His will....but not just asking for something....but really truely seeking Him with clean hands and clean hearts. Amen