The Power of a Statement

Have you ever heard a sentence that grabbed your attention.  A sentence that was perfectly harmless in the context of the message, but followed you along all week long?  That happened to me last Wednesday as I watched a pastor share his vision statement online.  It was a great message, and I appreciate the ministry of this pastor, but I found myself focused on one single sentence.  As I listened to the pastor introduce his vision, he began with the statement, "We want to have a vision that makes God sweat."  

Isn't that a powerful statement?  I have never heard it before, and found myself excited by the implications.  As the pastor continued preaching though, that statement kept bouncing around in my head.  The more I interacted with it, the more conflicted I became.  It was a statement that created excitement in the dreamer, but pride and worry in the naive.  It was easily remembered during times of boredom, but hard to forget during times of setback.  It was a statement intended to motivate others to consider their potential impact, but it unintentionally brought my false beliefs to the surface. Ultimately, the reason I was conflicted by the pastor's statement, was because it revealed some of my own false beliefs.  

There are things I believe about God that are not true.  There are also things I believe about myself that are not true.  These false beliefs create doubt, sin, and self reliance in my life.  These beliefs are eager for an opportunity to turn me away from God and render me ineffective for the Kingdom.  There are two false beliefs are fairly common to all people, but what are they?!

The first false belief is that we can put ourselves into a situation that is too great for God to handle.  

Do you ever worry that your problems are too big for God?  Do you feel as though a situation is so hopeless that even God has abandoned ship?  I know we all feel this way at times, but just remember, the bible is clear that nothing is too difficult for God.  He is in control over every situation, and will step in when He chooses to do so.  Your problem is not too large, but neither is your goal or vision.  If God spoke the earth into existence, don't you think He could speak a new job into existence?  If He is able to manage the universe, don't you think He can manage your upcoming project deadline?  But if this is such a fundamental idea from the bible, why is it so hard to accept?  Well, for two main reasons:

First of all, it's because people like being in control.  We want things to go according to plan and become frustrated when we are unable to dictate the course of our destiny.  That's fairly obvious issue for humans, but the second reason is much more complex.

So why is it so hard to accept God's sovereignty when it's obvious that there are forces beyond our control?  Because God's sovereignty means that He could have stopped all the bad stuff from happening in my life.  He could have saved my relatives from death.  He could have prevented me from failing at my job.  He could have stopped Ebola, ISIS, Katrina, the Twin Towers, the Crusades, the death of Jesus on the cross, the rebellion of Adam and Eve, etc.  He could have stopped it, but He chose not to.  So where does that leave us?  Does it mean God is evil?  Does it mean He doesn't care?  Does it mean that He is a bad leader?

I would say NO to all of those questions.  

God is not evil because evil is rebellion against God.  He doesn't rebel against Himself, but instead allows the rebellion to coexist for a period of time.  God does care, because He came to earth, entered into our pain, and then died on a cross to make us right with God.  God is a good leader, because He gave us freedom to either love Him or reject Him.  He is not a dictator who demands submission, and eventually He will protect His people from every form of evil.

I am grateful that God used this statement not only to excite me, but to reveal my false beliefs.  Just like that pastor, I want a vision that seems impossible for me, while simultaneously remembering that there is anything too difficult for God.  

Next time I will share the second false belief that this statement revealed in my life.  

The MORE of God's Love

My pastor did it again!

On Sunday, my pastor shared a message which reminded me of God's great love for me.  I feel as if these messages are an answer to prayer, because for the past month I've been trying to understand God's love.  For two weeks in a row, God used my pastor to help me understand His love more.

There are two ways to interpret that last sentence.  The first is that God wants me to understand more of His love, but the second is that He wants me to understand the more of His love.  It is the second interpretation that stood out most this week.  Let me explain:

As my pastor stood on stage addressing the congregation, he mentioned what God told him during his morning prayer time.  While my pastor was praying for the congregation that morning, he felt as though God had impressed the idea of "more" onto his heart.   As my pastor was reminding us that God wants to do more through our congregation, I felt God impressing that He wants to do more in me.

I don't know about you, but I am a results-oriented person.  I love progress, and become discouraged by setbacks.  My love for progress has become so distorted, that God decided to teach me a lesson about faithfulness this past year.  It was during times of hardship, that God taught me that He is more focused on faithfulness than progress.   Just read what Ecclesiates 3:12-13 says about this:

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.

Do you see that?  God created us to be satisfied by the "toil" in life.  Even more, we should not only be satisfied in the toil, but we should see it as a gift from God.  We should feel blessed to do our job, regardless of whether we are making forward progress.  But that raises a new question: if it's possible to experience satisfaction in the toil, why do I become so frustrated when I fail to make progress?  I believe it's because I don't understand the difference between faithfulness and progress. 

Focusing on faithfulness is a decision to seek God's approval above man's; focusing on progress is the decision to seek man's approval above God's.  The reason we lack contentment at work is the same reason we are a result oriented society: we have take our eyes off of God.

"OK," you ask, "but what does all of this have to do with the idea of God's love, and your pastor's message?" 

As my pastor was sharing that God wanted to do more through us, I felt like God was saying that He wanted to do more in me.  As I thought about that idea for a moment, I realized God's desire to do more in me, is more precious than God's desire to do more through me.  Why?  Because His desire to do more in me increases my value.  

At first I didn't understand this, but that's because I had a misguided view of value.  

Unfortunately, I often see my value in terms of purpose.  I feel more valuable when someone entrusts me to a greater purpose.  Although it's honorable to have a great purpose, a greater purpose doesn't doesn't necessarily mean I'm more loved.  Take an example of serving overseas. 

Serving as a missionary or soldier overseas is a great purpose, but how many mothers want their kids to go overseas?  None that I've met.  And why is that?Because those mothers love their children too much to give them a great purpose.  

The value of an object is dependent upon the purpose it provides to another, the value of a person is dependent upon the love it shares with another.

When God says He wants to do more IN us, it means that He wants to share a deeper and greater love with us.  I don't think there is anything more awesome in the world than sharing a loving relationship with the God who created us and then died to bring us back.  But what about you?  Do you see your value in terms of your purpose or in terms of God's love?

An Impossible Love

This past year was a combination of really great things and really painful things for me.  I experienced the birth of my son, yet the death of 3 grandparents.  I graduated from a masters program, yet failed to find a job ins my field of training.  I purchased a house, yet miss family in WI.  As I mentioned in my last blog, these highs and lows create havoc in my life, because I fail to maintain a biblical perspective through it all.  Unlike a man named Job, I struggle to accept the good and the bad.  

Job is a man in the bible who showed great endurance during extreme hardship.  He was blessed with family, health and success in business, but lost his children, health and wealth in the course of a single day.  Could you imagine that type of pain?

It was in the midst of this depression that his wife encouraged him to curse God, but Job refused.  His reasoning?  "Should we accept the good from God, and not the trouble?"  Wow, what a great perspective, but unfortunately, I'm not like Job.  

During the good times, I fight against God to maintain a pleasant life.  During the bad times, I begin to believe that God is fighting against me!  Instead of having Job's perspective on life, I lose focus and become angry with God.  Fortunately, God uses other believers to help me regain my focus.

While I was at church last week, our pastor said, "It doesn't matter the struggles you are facing or the sinful habits you are struggling to overcome, God can't love you anymore than He already does."  As my pastor continued to speak, the word "impossible" captured my attention.  Not only does God love me regardless of my attitude, it's actually impossible for God to love me more than He already does.

See, God can be more or less pleased by my attitude and behaviors, but His love remains constant.  For God, love is choosing to do what is best for each person.  Sometimes this means He embraces and comforts us.  Other times He needs to discipline and rebuke.  Regardless of the action He takes in our lives though, it is always with the goal to bring us closer to Him.  We see in the book of Revelation, as Jesus rebukes an immoral church.

After Jesus rebukes a greedy and selfish church, He says something unexpected, "Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me."

 

Do you see the love in that command?  In essence, God is saying, "You are corrupt and running after evil, yet I love you and will straighten you out if you let me."  Although they have rejected Him, God wants to be with them.

That's not the only place we see God's love laid out lavishly, in fact, the very reason that Jesus came to earth was to reveal the fullness of God's love by going to the cross.  John 3:16 says, "for God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."

What many people don't realize is that the Greek word for "so" means "like this."  This is why some translations of the bible say, "For God loved the world like this...He gave His son."  

Do you see how that translation validates my pastor's words?  God can't love us anymore than He already does, because He has already gave us His greatest gift.  By dying on the cross, Jesus demonstrated how much God loved us, and what His love looks like.  God reveals His love by making enormous sacrifices so that we can be with Him.  He wants to be with us so badly that He is willing to die for it.  He doesn't want our money, our volunteerism, our charity, etc: HE WANTS US.  

The difference between God and I, is that I want your stuff and what your stuff will do for me.  God on the other hand, wants you.

Maintaining Perspective in a "Sour Patch Kids World"

I just realized that the Sour Patch Kids slogan is a lot like life.  Their slogan is "Sour. Sweet. Gone," and isn't that the way life is?  You have good times, you have bad times, and then all of a sudden...you're dead.  It's strange to think of life in such simplistic terms, but it's that type of thinking that gets us through the hard times in life.  During life's "sour" seasons we need to be reminded that the "sweet" is around the corner: we need to be reminded that the "sour" won't last forever.  Maintaining a hopeful perspective in the midst of pain is a challenge, but for me, that's not the hardest part of living in a "Sour Patch Kid's world".  My struggle is in trying to maintain a proper perspective through the rest of it.

I don't know about you, but I'm a big fan of fun, pleasure, comfort, joy, happiness...really, all the good stuff in life.  I seek out the sweet life, and I get myself into trouble once I find it.  It's not necessarily because my idea of fun is evil, but because my idea of fun is unrealistic.  I desperately want the sweet to be permanent.

Wanting the sweet life and believing the sweet life is permanent are two different things.  Unfortunately, I struggle to separate them.  I find myself in the midst of a "sweet" season, and begin to believe that I've finally arrived in heaven.  No more trouble, no more pain.  I've finally received the prize I was desperately seeking.  As you can imagine, this is a recipe for disaster.  

All of a sudden life takes a nose dive, and my faith is shaken.  "Why did this happen?  What did I do wrong?  Why are you doing this to me God?"  Those seem like very stupid questions for a person to ask while living in a broken world, but I ask them nonetheless.  And why do I ask these questions?  Because I've failed to maintain a realistic perspective in the midst of a "Sour Patch Kid's world".  Instead of seeing "sweet" as a gift from God, "sweet" has taken the place of God.  But unlike God, "sweet" is temporal.  

To maintain the proper perspective in life, I need to remember that my idea of "sweet" will not last forever.  In fact, the whole "Sour Patch Kids world" as I know it will soon be gone, and a new slogan will replace it: "Sour. Sweet. Eternal."

According to the bible, "sour" and "sweet" become permanent after this life passes away.  You may not agree with the bible and the words of Jesus, but I do.  I'm convinced that God uses the bible to reveal reality to humanity, and the reality is that our temporal world will eventually be replaced with a permanent one.  This replacement will happen sooner for some than for others, but it will happen to all of us eventually.  After this life ends, we will either live with God forever or we will live without Him forever.  It is the presence or absence of God that determines whether eternal life is "sweet" or "sour," and His presence is determined by our relationship to Jesus.  We can either accept Jesus as our God and savior, or we can reject Him.  By believing that Jesus died and rose again from the grave, and confessing that He is our Lord, we can experience God in our lives both now and forever.  And in the next post I'll explain why His presence is so "sweet."

Seeking the Real Deal

Last Monday my boss called us into the conference room for a team-building session.  It had been awhile since we all gathered together, so he wanted to spend time sharing highlights from our holiday season, and list any New Years resolutions we created.  Once it was my turn to talk, I explained that I wanted to grow in my love for God, but then confessed that I didn't know how to do that.  "How do you grow in your love for someone you can't see?" I lamented.

Part the reason for confession was a fear of pursuing a misguided love.  I didn't want to be ignorant in my love.  I didn't want to love the "idea of God," or allow a false love to make me proud and selfish.  I've been in those places before.  I've allowed my false piety to make me "holier than thou."  I've allowed a false view of God's love to make me feel entitled and self absorbed.  I've even used "God's love" to create false hope; believing that God would give me anything I want.  As a new dad, though, I realize that these things are not love, and I don't want to continue living ignorantly.

So after work that day, I began to think of ways that I could grow in true love.  I could studying all the places that the word "love" is found in the bible, I could read a book about love, I could focus on how Jesus loved the disciples, I could meditate on specific passage, or journal my feelings to God.  As I continued to go through my the week, I decided to begin by listen to theological podcasts at biblicaltraining.org.  Although it felt like a small step, I quickly discovered that this was the direction God wanted to use to grow my love for Him.  

During one of the online lectures, the professor addressed my initial fear head on.  He explained that our sinful nature wants to build a false notion of God instead of letting God reveal His true nature to us.  It's like saying, "I believe God is like..." and then filling in the blank with something we don't find in scripture.  As I look back on life, I can clearly see times when I have done this.  

I used to believe that God was not active in the lives of Christian, and therefore, He was not bothered by immorality.  Later I believed that God was angry at my enemies, but never angry at me.  As I continued to listen to the professor, I realized that these false notions were not unique to me.  In fact, a very famous group in history use to hold these same notions.

As the professor continued, he explained that the reason Jesus was rejected by the religious leaders of His time was because they had built a false notion of God.  They didn't want God on His terms, they wanted God on theirs.  They wanted a god they could control, and in essence, made themselves their own god.  Wow, my false notions of God can cause me to reject who He truly is.  So this generates a very important question: how do we combat our false notions?

I found a verse that I believe puts us on the right direction.  Jeremiah 29:13 offers this promise: "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."  Therefore, the "secret" to combating false notions of God is by committing to seek Him with all your heart (through prayer, reading the bible and joining a community of believers), and then trusting Him to reveal Himself.

This is an important idea, so I want to repeat it for clarity.  Our job is to fervently and intentionally seek after the God of the bible.  His job is to remain true to His promise and reveal Himself to us.  Over these years I have learned one thing: God keeps His promise.  The question then becomes: will we seek with all our hearts?

Remembering to Think Ahead

Last Sunday I went to a church that I haven't been to in 4 years; a church that helped me rediscover the Lord, introduced me to my wife, developed my love for ministry, and sent me into the world as a missionary.  As a person who experienced radical life-transformation while attending that church, I was surprised by how familiar the church felt.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from the experience, but it wasn't familiarity.  We live in a culture that loves change.  "Progress", "novelty", and "creativity" are all words that elicit excitement and validate success.  So what does it say about a church that hasn't changed much in over four years?  Faithfulness.

The church had changed over the course of 4 years, but the change was overshadowed by the consistency of the pastor's passion.  Throughout all of these years, he has remained passionate about intentionality.  He wanted the congregation to grow closer to God, and he knew that growth required intentionality.  But what does it mean to be intentional with God?

Intentionality is the processes of remembering to think ahead.  It's the discipline of adjusting your current direction to accomplish your future goals.  It's the commitment to focus on the correct priorities, but isn't this were we tend to struggle?  I know that I do. 

As I thought about prioritizing my relationship with God, I struggled to know how to prioritize, and what to prioritize.  Do I resolve to sin less?  To give more?  To build my intercessory prayer list?  As I thought upon these questions, I realized that although these are all good things, I think they are secondary issues.

I believe that I will only accomplish these things, if I learn to love more.  Being intentional in my relationship to God will require me to focus on His love for me, and allow that love to transform the way I love Him.  As my love for Him grows, my obedience will grow as well.  It's just as Jesus said in John 14:23, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching."

As we begin a new year, I want to model the faithfulness of my former pastor by choosing to intentionally focus on letting God's love transform my relationship to Him.