I’ve decided I will follow Dr. Dobson’s suit, and I will never vote for a candidate who supports the killing of innocent babies.
I won’t do it.
But its not the only issue?
In 1861, neither was slavery.
I Feel Old.
I’m almost 24, but I feel old right now.
Yesterday I was eating lunch with a 16 year old that I mentor. He told me something he was going to do, and I asked him, “Are your parents down with that?”
He said, “What?”
I repeated, “Are your parents down with that?”
“Are they what?”
Again, I repeated “Are your parents down with that?”
Then he laughed at me. “Are they ‘down with it’? Man Adam, I had to think about what that meant. That’s old school. Nobody talks like that anymore.”
Readers – please tell me I’m not the only one who uses the phrase “down with it”! At least I’ve backed off my usage of words like “tubular” and “rad” (yes, I really did say those words quite often).
2007 In Blog Review
To close out the year, I wanted to take a minute to link back to a few of my most favorite blogs that I wrote in 2007. I tried to describe each of them so you can pick and choose which (if any) you’d like to read.
This post would have to rank as my number one favorite blog post. It’s pretty heavy. It’s about the time that I almost killed a man, and the lesson I learned in it. Go read it.
I’m not sure how many times I’ve linked back to my “Don’t Be Such A Sissy” post, but I’ll do it again. It’s right on. Christianity isn’t for sissies.
This one explains why I believe we do not see drastic spiritual renewal/revival in the American church today.
I’m a worship pastor, and I occasionally write about Worship Teams. This is my favorite of those.
I think many of us misunderstand how evangelism is supposed to work. I love this post about evangelism.
One of my favorite things is interpersonal communication and how personalties plays into it. I complied one “interpersonal communication driven post” about the backbone of all relationships. Check it.
Well, God Knows My Heart. – That’s No Excuse!
Let me do my best to make a series of generalizations of American Christians. Absolutely none of these instances are associated with personal or specific events, so don’t try to figure out specifics — there are none.
Our Christian teenagers are holy on Sunday, but do oral sex later in the week. When confronted they say, “Well, God knows my heart.” (I’m not even joking).
Christians claim to want to know God yet do nothing to know him better; they lie to themselves. When confronted on their spiritual passion and fervency for Christ they’ll say, “Well, God knows my heart.”
Christians — knowingly or unknowingly — will watch movies with pornographic scenes, and they’ll just sit there and watch it; they don’t even look away when its obvious what will occur. When confronted, they say, “Well, God knows my heart.”
Christians are supposed to be holy; set apart from the world around them. Yet they throw around bad language like it doesn’t matter at all. When confronted, they’ll say, “Well, God knows my heart.”
Christians seem to feel bad for the less fortunate; the homeless and lost around the world. Yet they don’t volunteer at these ministries or go on missions trips, they don’t give to those ministries, they don’t pray for those ministries. Nothing. They just pretend to feel bad. When confronted on this hypocrisy, they say, “Well, God knows my heart.”
Enough said about that. Those are obviously generalizations — they aren’t always true, but they certainly are sometimes. God looks at your heart in that he looks at your motive. That much is true. But that doesn’t mean your works don’t matter. Our salvation is a free gift and the power to live a holy life comes at the moment we receive Christ. But that’s just when our sanctification begins.
Let me do my best to list a series of scriptures of what God says he looks at:
“I know your deeds…” Rev. 2:2; 2:19; 3:1; 3:8; 3:15
“…and each person was judged according to what he had done.” Rev. 20:13
“What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?” James 2:14
That’s all I can list in a short “one-liner” scripture reference. But consider the story of the sheep and the goats where Jesus rejected the “goats” from entering the kingdom of heaven and welcomed the “sheep” into His presence. The only difference between the sheep and the goats is what the did and didn’t do. Just read Jesus’ teaching!
Airport Terminals.
My previous post was about the need to live a life of a crescendo – never be lacking in zeal but always holding your spiritual fervor. If you’ve been a Christian longer than 7 days, you probably know that keeping your spiritual fervor is easier said than done. Today I want to present an idea of how to keep living with zeal and spiritual fervor for a lifetime.
Have you ever noticed that airport terminals have a lot of chairs? What are those chairs for? –they’re for waiting. I am on my way to a conference this morning and my flight was canceled. I was put to a later flight to the same city. So here I am — sitting in an airport terminal. In the chairs. Waiting.
***
If we want to live a life of continual zeal for God, we must live a life of consistent spiritual renewal. Oh, how I wish that God would have told us how to live a life of consistent spiritual renewal! Oh wait, he did. Check it out, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Is. 40:31). The NIV says that “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” After looking up the original language, I think a great translation would be, “Those that earnestly seek after God will renew their strength.”
Do you want to maintain a high level of zeal and fervor for Christ your entire life? That’s the secret – seek Him. Wait for Him. Expect Him.
***
It’s really annoying to have to wait for this next flight. I’m waiting for my flight and I’m hoping and trusting it will depart timely. But after the waiting – I know I’m going to get on my flight. The Good Thing can only come after the wait — the hoping — the seeking.
One Big Crescendo.
Crescendo is the musical term that means to get louder. Decresendo is the opposite — it means to back down and get quieter.
I hear people talk about how the spiritual encounter at a church camp will fade away. I’ve even been told of “youthful zeal,” and that one day it will also fade.
That’s pretty stupid if you think about it. If you want to say that I have “youthful zeal” I hope you’ll be saying that until I die. What’s “youthful” about it? — that only implies that it will fade with age. My Grandpa had youthful zeal for Christ – he drove around town with big signs on his car that read, “JESUS SAVES.” I’m serious. That youthful zeal continued his whole life until the day he died and he left an amazing legacy. One year ago this very day, I met an old preacher who had tears come to his eyes every time he thought about the faithfulness of God and who was leading people to Christ in the nursing home. That’s youthful zeal in an 80 year old with Parkinson’s.Â
Youthful zeal my butt.
Youthful zeal should just be “zeal.” It’s always supposed to be there.
Zeal was never intended to fade (I’m not just talking about “youthful” zeal, either). Zeal for Christ is supposed to last our lifetime. In fact, we’re instructed to do so in Romans 12:11, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.”
Our spiritual life will be filled with all sorts of ups and downs – there are no plateaus. Ultimately, God has called us to live a spiritual life that is one big gigantic crescendo. Let’s keep living louder.
The Christmas Blog.
Last year I shared this wonderful audio file for Christmas. This year I wanted to share a wonderful music group from Indiana University called “Straight No Chaser” getting confused on their Christmas repertoire. This is fantastic on so many levels. You’ll love it!
How Do You Think God Feels?
My father and pastor has mentioned several times (while on stage) that he gets frustrated sometimes. Understandably so — he gets frustrated when he prepares a weekend message for the church about how to heal a broken marriage – and then all throughout that week, couples call him and ask for Godly counsel on how to heal their broken marriage. They would have heard all of it had they just came to church. I get frustrated occasionally as well in a similar way, only with my blog, not a sermon. Think about how frustrating that must be — we go through the work to help people, but the people that are thirsty for that specific thing — the ones needing it — don’t care enough to show up.
It made me wonder how God must feel.
We claim we want to know God’s will. If we’re really on fire we’ll shout out to God, “Speak to me your plans! Let me hear your voice!” And then get mad at him when he doesn’t answer. Think about that – that’s really what we do, isn’t it?
God already spent 1500 years writing down his plans for us. Not only that, but he inspired a group of early church leaders to compile all of it together into one organized book. It’s called the Bible! He did all this – yet we ignore it and holler out for God’s voice saying, “Why won’t you tell me anything?!”
It’s a wonder we can be so stupid and still breathe!
I’m not saying that God won’t speak through Divine Revelation – he certainly does. But Divine Revelation will never contradict scripture and we should always start with the Word of God that He as ALREADY given to us.
Let me end with some strong words that were said to me once:
“You want to know God? How DARE you say that you want to know God when you haven’t even read His Word — all of it — Genesis through Revelation. –the whole thing straight through.”
That same night I started Genesis 1. I’m reading Hebrews tonight. It’s been amazing how much more I understand God when I’ve read things in their context.
Joy.
If you are not aware of my feet disability, please click here to read my previous post about that. This post is more of a personal journal entry, but its one I want to share with my readers.
My left foot has been giving me a lot of problems the past few days. It’s been getting worse and worse every day this week. I think its because of the weather and also because my church has a big drama this weekend and I’ve been working a ton of extra hours on my feet this week getting the lights set for that. But today my left foot actually hurts even if I’m just sitting here.
It’s hard to stay positive when you hurt, know what I mean? I just want to lay down with my foot elevated and feel bad for myself – but I just don’t have time to feel bad for myself. I have to keep going for now. But more importantly, I have to keep my joy.
It’s not my joy, really. It’s more like God’s joy – but he gives it to me. My pastor preached about joy a few weeks ago and one of his points was: “To get joy, you have to take back what the devil stole.”
Here I am, 23 years old yet aching with the joints of a 70 year old (bad feet mess up your leg, hips, and back as well), and today is a “bad day” for my feet. Obviously my temporary crummy circumstances could lead to feeling down; losing your joy — the internal happiness. Discouragement is the easy road to travel – honestly I feel like heading in that direction! This isn’t fun!
But I know my circumstances are completely irrelevant to the love of God which gives me joy.
My circumstances are irrelevant to the Calling God has for me.
My circumstances are irrelevant to living with God’s joy.
Knowing God.
There are two kinds of “know.” There’s a common “know” — like how I know the mailman or how I know some friends. But there are a few people that I really know. I know what makes them tick. I know if they’re having a bad day before they even tell me so. I know their dreams, their passions, and their deepest struggles. I really know a few people.
Consider this verse in Matthew 7:21 where Jesus said, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'”
Can I please see a show of hands from anyone who has driven out demons? Even to some of those that have, Jesus will say, “I never knew you — Away from me.”
Whoa.
I think too often we say we “know” God . . . but we know God like we know our mailman or even as common friends. “Am I a Christian? Yea. I know God.” But do you really know him, or do you know him like you know the mailman? — you acknowledge that he’s there everyday and gladly welcome and accept whatever he brings, but that’s it.
“I never knew you.” Those are some strong words, and Jesus will say those to some who think they’re living a Christian life. Let’s know God. Really know him. Know his heart – know his desires – know his passions. This starts with the Bible.