Two words

There are two words in the Bible that I love. I love them so much because they give me hope. They give me a sense of security. They show me love, mercy, grace, kindness, patience and give me a reason to rejoice. They strengthen my faith. These two words show me that even when I am living in sin. When I have chosen to run from God. When I am mad, sad and rotten towards God, He is still there. These two words are profound and show us what kind of God that we have. They are two words that most of us when we see them in the Bible skip right over them because we want to get to the good stuff. But the truth of the matter is the good stuff is in these two words. Because these two words give me life that no one else can give. They give me a salvation that no one else can give. They show me that my life has nothing to do with me. They show me that no matter how much I try and do for God He will always out do me. They show me that no matter how much I try and be for God He will always be more. It shows me that I can't do it on my own, I actually can't do anything at all with out these two words. It shows me that God serves me, fills me, and gives me what I do not deserve but He graciously pours out on me and in me because He loves me. The two words are simply this... But God. Ephesians 2:1-10 says it all  
¹ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. ⁴But God, being rich in mercy,because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing;  it is the gift of God, ⁹not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 


Read over this verse and see yourself in those first three verses and then see in the rest what God does for us despite who we are. WOW we have an amazing GOD!!! Because without those two words I remain the person in the first three verses and I never become the last seven. Two of the most powerful words in the Bible...But God.

The weary world rejoices

Christmas time is one of those times that is crazy because of all the busyness that we find ourselves in. We go out shopping and the lines of traffic and in the parking lots and in the stores wear down our stress levels and patience. We get home and we are not only exhausted physically, but also mentally. This time of year also challenges our spiritual walk as we have to be patient and loving. Then we have the family time which can be sometimes exhausting yet energizing. It depends on your dynamics. You got in-laws and your own family and these times can just get crazy. For some of us it is a time of emotional pain as we remember broken relationships with family and friends. Or we remember lost loved ones.Then you have Christmas eve service, and this year Christmas Day service. Some of you go and serve those in need by preparing a meal or giving gifts. And don't forget about all those holiday Christmas cards of the family that you have to send out every year.  Are you exhausted yet? Let's just simply say that Christmas should be a time of celebration and instead more often than not when it is over we are looking for some time to take a nap. The holidays can make us weary. And I am reminded of a few things that I hope will energize you during this season. In the song O Holy Night there is a line that says "The weary world rejoices." As I pondered this line in my own life and as I looked at the words of Jesus who says "come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. Christmas I believe can be a time of healing in our lives. As we think about Jesus and we think of that line in the hymn that we will sing in just a few short days. I pray that your weary world can rejoice. That as you stand in lines buying gifts. As you wait patiently in parking lots, check out lines, and grocery stores. As you remember those broken relationships, and lost loved ones. As you spend time with family. Sit at Church. I hope that you rejoice because our world is weary because we forget that Jesus' birth brought us reasons to rejoice, to be patient, to remember our loved ones, to heal broken relationships. So I pray during this Christmas season that you rejoice that Christ was born and remember that when you are weary. Because Christ's birth gives us hope and a reason to rejoice in this weary world. All we have to do is come to Him and he will give us rest from all the busyness and heartache in our lives. So rejoice yourself out of your weary world because Christ was born so we could rejoice in Him forever.

The cultural external vs. the eternal internal

Our culture is ever changing. It is a culture that loves one thing one moment and the next that same thing is in the trash and irrelevant. Clothing styles have come and gone. Hair styles have come and gone. Technology changes about every five seconds. And in order to keep up with the culture that we live in we must be ever changing as well. One of the struggles I have with the Church is that we try to keep up with culture in a way that is not good. I am not speaking in terms of music, technology, teaching etc. because I fully believe we need to adapt and be relevant in these areas. But what I see is that the culture can shape externals like music, technology, etc. But what I see is that the culture shapes more and more internals in us than we think. For instance I work primarily with Middle School and High School students but for every student there is a parent or two. And I often see a dip in our attendance during certain times of the year when sports, drama, music etc. are in full force. Now these things are not bad but what I find is that these things are shaping our thinking about God. The externals of the culture are shaping the internal heart of our lives. For instance if a student has a game or practice for something they will not miss it. Even if the student does not want to go. The parent will say something like you have made a commitment to this and you need to keep our commitment. Now take this same scenario and apply it to Church. The student does not want to go because they "have to much homework," or they are tired and usually they are allowed to stay home. Now wait a minute we are committed to an external thing like sports, music, drama etc. but we are not committed to the Church of Jesus Christ. This is always interesting to me that the cultural things have more priority over the things of God. That the cultural things which are really only going to shape you externally in your life have more power over us than Church or the internal things that will shape you forever. Is not interesting that we excuse not just our kids but even ourselves from Church for the externals of the world. For most Christians they would rather do anything else besides go to Church. They would rather play in the culture of externals than sit in the house of God and grow internally. No wonder that most Church's are declining in the world. No wonder most Church's can't meet their budgets. No wonder most Church's have massive amounts of debt. Our loyalties are with the external culture and not with the internal Jesus. Our commitments are to what people can see and what they think of us. Rather than to Jesus. Our cultural allegiance is shaming the Church and our allegiance to Jesus is so weak that it is proving to the culture that everything else is more important than our faith. Think about the scenario of making a kid keep his commitment to a team but then in the same breath not making him keep that same commitment to Church. So in essence you are telling that child that a commitment to a team or the culture is more important than their commitment to the Jesus. Or take how we spend our money on new toys that most of us do not need, and take a look at the financial status of the Church. What you buy and spend your money on tells you that you care more about the culture and the toys than you do about the Church of Jesus. You can play this scenario out in so many ways. Now I realize that there are things that we should be committed too. I realize that there are things that we need to spend our money on. I am not condemning these things but I am asking myself this question and I as you the question as well. Where is your commitment? Is it with the external things of the culture or the internal things of Jesus? How will you live? And if you have kids what will you show them is most important? I have been looking at this in my own life and have realized that more often than not my heart is torn, which tells me one thing that I need more internal focus on Jesus so that so that as I live and breathe in this world I can focus on the internal struggles of those around me and not just give them external solutions for internal problems. But the only way to do this is to commit to the internal heart of Jesus because the internal things will last and the external things will fade away.

Compare, Complain, or Pray

I have had crohns disease for 12 years now and it has been a battle. You have ups and downs in life. Your weight fluctuates. Your moods can swing from one extreme to the other sometimes. You have no energy most days, yet you get up and do what you need to do. As I have been thinking about my disease and the toll it has taken on me I have to be honest and say it is hard. There are days where I want to do nothing because of the exhaustion but I keep moving. There are days where I want to crawl into a hole because I am very sick, but I keep moving. I always find it amazing that God has given me strength through all of this. I think of what Jesus went through for me and what I have does not even compare. I also think of Paul  and his troubles and mine does not even compare. I often think of those who have cancer or other diseases that sometimes take their life or make their life very difficult. There is always someone who has it worse than we do. But I am not sure God calls us to compare our lives, our struggles with others. For very person their struggle is real to them whether it is big or small. There are real emotions tied to it. There are personal struggles with everyone. I think one of the struggles that we have is that we sometimes don't deal with our emotions and feelings because there is someone who has it worse than we do and we think that we are complaining. But Jesus wants us to cast all cares on Him. To come to Him when we are weary or heavy. I don't think that Jesus wants us to compare but to cast our cares to Him. He wants to know what is going on in our life and not hide it from Him. I think that our comparing culture has kept us from interacting with our Savior in a real and honest way. Our comparing culture has driven us to hide our feelings, hurts, pains, and sickness. And as a result we stay hurt, and sick rather than be healed and restored by Jesus. So maybe we should stop comparing and start praying to Jesus. The other side of the story is that sometimes we look at people and we compare them to us in a ways that say "they have it better than I do." I think that when we do this we begin to complain to God and others rather than pray to Him. So I have to make a choice in my life and so do most of us... will we compare, complain or pray.

Remember Verse 11

Growing up we had this tradition in our house where we would read the Christmas story before we opened gifts. So go grab your Bible and read Luke 2:1-21. 

How many of you read this story before you get to open gifts on Christmas morning?  Now it is really hard to listen to this story on Christmas morning, is it not because you have all these gifts sitting in front of you and your dad or mom or someone who is half asleep is reading the story and you just want to know what is in those packages. And besides you have heard the story about a million times anyway. You practically know it by heart right? You know there was an innkeeper, and no room in the inn, there was a manger, Jesus was born in a smelly stable around all the animals, there were shepherds and wise men that came. You know the story. 

And because we know the story we sort of just tune it out, or we are trying to make our siblings laugh and giggle. Or trying to figure out who is getting the big huge box and what the heck is in it. But I think as we think about this story, as we process the Christmas story we forget on one major thing.

You know I love christmas, I love giving people gifts, I enjoy getting things that I need. I love spending time with family and eating all the christmas goodies. I love seeing all me nieces and nephews open their gifts. It is so awesome to see the joy and excitment on their faces and their little hearts and lives are changed for a few moments. And this is how we are too I think when we get gifts we are excited and joyful, hopefully thankful. 

Christmas is one of those times that you see all the presents under the tree and you hope that you get the one thing that you asked for. The one thing that is going to change your life. Maybe its a new piece of technology so you can now be up to date with that. Maybe its some new clothes so you can fit in with your crew. Whatever it is we hope we get the things that are going to change our life.

Growing up there was a tradition in our house that someone would get what we called the BIG GIFT. Now this was no ordinary gift, it was not your socks and underwear gift. This was something better than all the gifts under the tree. And there was a rotation of this gift between my siblings. So someone different got the BIG GIFT every year. And it was always the last gift. My dad would say something like oh there is one more gift and he would go and get the Big Gift from the garage where he was hiding it. Then he would make whoever it was for close there eyes and he would proceed to bring it in and put it right in front of them. 

Well I remember when I was maybe 10 or 11 I learned that it was my year for the Big Gift and so we opened all the meaningless gifts and then it was time for my dad to make his voyage to the garage to bring in my gift so he goes out and gets it comes in with it tells me to shut my eyes so I do, my heart is pounding out of my chest but of course I am trying to keep in my excitement and be totally cool about getting the Big Gift even though I want to scream with excitement. So he brings it in and sets it in front of me and says open your eyes. And there in front of me sits a big box so I open it quickly and inside is no other than a Huffy BMX bike. Now at 10 this Big Gift is life changing. It’s like getting your license when you are 16 except your only 10. You now have freedom, and can go wherever you want, as long as your parents say it is ok. You can go out and do tricks and pretend you are a BMX rider. You can make jumps, show off to your friends, start a bike gang with all your other 10 year old buddies. I mean this is awesome. This bike was going to change my life. And I rode that bike into the ground until I was 16 when I got my license and then it was bye bye bike hello car.

And that gift that I got was so momentary but I thought it would change my life forever. And I think that this is how we often think in our lives. That on Christmas morning we pass quickly through the story of Christ so we can get to the things that we think will change our lives. And we spend so much money on these things that for most of us end up in a closet or the trash a few months or years later. And we miss a really important part of the Christmas story. Check out verse 11 for me. It says this “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a SAVIOR who is Christ the Lord.”

Listen I know that at this time of year all us preachers talk about how we can’t forget the most important gift which is Jesus. But here is the reality in our lives, every year Christmas comes and we forget about the BIG GIFT of Jesus Christ. You see I think that for a lot of us we treat Jesus just like we treat most of our Christmas gifts. He is awesome when you first get Him. He is going to change your life. He is going to make everything better. Then like my bike, you take Him for a ride, for a few weeks, months maybe a few years and then all of the sudden we upgrade to something better and Jesus once again gets put in the attic for awhile.

But if you look at verse 11 it says that “unto us a Savior was born who is Christ the Lord.   The Lord came, Jesus came to be our Savior, to be our everything. To be our Big Gift. But I think for a lot of us we are still looking under the tree for our Savior. Yeah we might have Jesus but more often than not He is just like the socks and underwear we get every year and so we put Him aside and look and hope for something better. We look for the Big Gift that will be our “savior” to our friends, our job, our emotions our habits and just as soon as we get that gift it is not enough to save us from our insecurities. It does not save us from our emptiness. It does not save us really in anyway. The only thing it does is distract us from the real Savior who was born to you and he is the Savior because He is the Lord.

And He is the only gift that will save you from your insecurities, from your emptiness, from your habits. He is the only gift that gave back to you in a way that no other gift can.  He is the only gift that not only gave himself to you but continues to give himself to you so that you can not only know the Savior but you can be saved.

So this Christmas when you are sitting around the tree reading the christmas story remember verse 11 “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a SAVIOR who is Christ the Lord.” Remember that no gift will ever save you from anything unless that gift is Christ the Lord. 

Youth and the Church

For many years all the attention of the Church is on adults. Most of the literature that you read on the church is for Adults. The budget is geared around the adults. The attention for most things is on the senior Pastor who works with none other than the adults. Now I am not saying this is bad but I think for far to long the youth and the Church have been separate issues. They rarely interact with each other. Usually they are segregated to some wing of the church where they don't have to be seen or heard and most people don't care a whole lot about what they are doing until something bad happens. But this needs to change. The Church needs the youth and the youth need the Church and the pastoral staff of the body needs to make this happen. We teach adults theology and deep Biblical truth's the same thing that the youth need. There needs to be interaction between generations. There needs to be common ground between generations. Parents need to get involved in their kids lives. And Youth guys need to stop trying to entertain and be kids best friend and teach them the Word and be their Pastor. They need a Shepherd. The Church is in desperate need of some revitalization in the youth ministry area.

Learn

As a pastor I think that it gets difficult to not look at other Churches and see what they are doing and see how explosive they are and want to be like them and even be like their pastor's. But as I look at them I don't want to be like them I want to learn from them. God has given them wisdom and insight that He has not given to me and this is why I want to learn from them. I want to be like Jesus, and when I start wanting to become like them I have traded Jesus for a man and this is not a good place to be in my spiritual journey. But I think that we do this with Churches as well. We see a lot of Church hopping within Christians and we want to go to the latest and greatest thing. But when we do that are we making Church an idol and have we lost what is truly important which is Jesus. And so now our identity is in our Church and what we get out of it and not in Jesus and what He can give us.

Reality

This past week my family experienced a tornado in my home town of Springfield, MA. As well as other people have all across the country. What I find interesting in y life is that my compassion has been numb to others except for the "that is horrible" statement. But when something like this hits home all of the sudden I feel as though I should go and help and be there. I know there is a personal connection and that always makes your compassion run deeper. But should it be that way? Should I feel the same compassion for others as I do for my hometown? Or has my life become numb to other things because I see so much destruction, hurt, and pain in the world that it is normal now? Is this a good place to be? I know I can't help everyone but we can pray for them, support them in other ways which I did not. Have we as Christians grown numb to what goes on around us? I feel in my life the reality is that I have grown numb unless it effects me personally. I don't think that is good or what Jesus has called me to be or feel. I think I need to look into my heart and my reality and see what has gotten me to this place.

Physical/Spiritual health

I started running this week for the first time in a long time. I bike and kayak but I loath running but there is nothing like a good run. You sweat, get your heart rate up, and you feel good after (minus some soreness). After I ran today I realized this same process is true in our spiritual life and how interconnected our physical life and our spiritual life are. For instance you run, get in shape, usually eat better and your body feels better. In your spiritual life you read the word, pray, fellowship, worship, meditate, fast and your spiritual life "feels better." But when I am not working out my physical life I feel drained, tired, I overeat, get lazy, moody and the list could go on. When I don't work out my spiritual life I get the same way. I am spiritually tired, short, impatient, live in sin and this list could go on as well. How interconnected our physical and spiritual lives are.  I think for so many of us we do not realize how being healthy both physically and spiritually not only gives us a personal sense of accomplishment but also a sense that we are drawing close to the Lord. I have had crohns disease for about 12 years and I have not been the best steward of taking care of it but now that I am realizing the spiritual ramifications and the physical ones that my disease has it becomes more serious to me. I think for so many of us the first thing we let go of is our either our spiritual health or our physical health because we can control them. But the realization is when we let these things go we change as a person both in the physical sense and the spiritual or emotional sense. I think that we often forget that we are not just to maintain our spiritual health but also our physical health. And I realize that there are stresses in our world and we all have crazy out of control schedules and often causes us to stress eat, or overeat or not eat healthy. And this same life also causes us to run our lives as if everyone else controls it except God and our families. Think about it when yo ask someone how things are going 9 times out of ten they will say they are so busy. And this business leads to physical and spiritual "disease." Most of us know this but we do nothing about it. As I have been learning this in my own life I realize how unhealthy I have gotten spiritually and physically and as I journey through the process of getting healthy in these areas I realize that they go hand in hand. I think that we would all do well to reclaim God's time in our life and in our families lives. We would all do well to reclaim our spiritual and physical health. We would all do well to reclaim God's time instead of giving it to everyone else. Because after all our bodies our his not ours. And time is His so let us figure out how to give it back to Him and not to everyone and everything under the sun. To reclaim it and give it to Him and our families.

The Image of God is Fleeing

If we are made in the image of God why do we spend so much time trying to look like everything else but Him. Why do we spend our time money chasing the image of the world. Why do we look at the world and say I want that. I need to look like that. Dress like that. Spend my money like that. Have that. Eat like that. Act like that. Our days and hours are filled with trying to conform to the world. But Romans says not conform to the world. Maybe the problem in our world and in our Church is that we are spending to  much time trying to look like the world. Trying to fit in so much that we are not even noticed as a Christian. And this is not just for us as individuals but I think for us as families. We have lost the balance in our culture to be in the world but not of the world. I think we have embraced both of those concepts. Yet our image is to reflect the Lord. Who we are is supposed to reflect who Jesus was. What if we spent our time forming our lives in Him. What if we wanted to look,  and act like Him. What if we wanted to give like He did, love like He did. What if we spent our money as He wanted us too. Ate and took care of our bodies like he would want us too. What if we spent more time tending to our soul than tending to all the needs of the world and who they want us to be and do. What if the Church embraced this mentality? Would there be less activity and more sol care int he Church and in our families? What if the church stopped looking like the world in its activity and started to act more like Christ by tending to people's souls. What if the church was not a place where we just continued the activity of life when I came. But it was a place of refuge for tired and weary souls where the activity was limited and effective and soul care was abundant and overflowing. What if our lives were like this as well? I think if it was we would see the image of God more and it would not be fleeing in our lives and in our Churches. 

The Preacher

I believe the Church has many pastors or shall I say preachers that love the sound of their own voice so much that they cannot hear the voices of others. Let's face it many preachers call themselves pastors but are they really pastors? A pastor is someone who listens, and takes care of the body through thick and thin, through good times and hard times. One who listens with an earnest heart and an open mind. One who is willing to love his people out of the pulpit. One who is willing to guide, and lead in the best interest of his people not himself. When their people are hurt, upset, angry, and discontent he does not just get up and preach about it but goes and spends time with those people, agonizing with them, allowing himself to become the so called "punching bag" for their anger, learning why they are discontent. Then in humility guiding, leading and praying and striving for the body to be healed and feel loved and cared for. But I think that we have come to a place in the the Church where we have lost the role of pastor and we now just have preachers. A preacher who gets up on sunday and pontificates their thoughts on the Bible. But what is the Bible if it does not relate to the people? Is it just another book? Did the author's write the Bible so that we could preach it? Yes, but preach it first into our lives before we ever dare to preach it to people. But I think preachers are not preaching it into their lives but the have begun to force it onto their people with arrogance that they are preaching it into their lives when in reality their people are a broken mess... and they do not care for the souls of people but only about themselves in the pulpit. They do not care that people leave their church upset or broken or hurt because all they want to do is preach. But the preaching my friends is obviously not enough because if it was many of our Church's would be healthy. Many of our people would stay put where they are at. And the Church would be alive not sick. The problem is the preacher's voice tends to get so loud in his own ears that all he can hear is himself and he begins to think he is actually doing what he is preaching but more often than not he is not and the people in the church don't lie when they say there is a problem we just can't get our own voice out of our head for a few moments to listen and maybe realize that the problem could be us and even if it is not, it should always be the first place we look  as a leader. Preachers create not just an unhealthy pulpit but an unhealthy church. I do not believe that health will come into the church from men who ONLY preach but will come from men who can preach and pastor. Because as you pastor you begin to to be broken for your people, your hurt with your people, you rejoice with your people, you love your people. You hate when their is unrest and you do everything you can to bring health into their lives and the Church. I believe when you go and love your people your preaching no longer becomes just your voice to them but becomes a voice filled with Jesus, filled with compassion, joy, love, and grace. But when you neglect the hearts of your people for the sake of hearing your own voice in the pulpit you have neglected the very thing God has entrusted to you. There have been times in my life where this has been true, but I pray that today my heart is with the people God has entrusted to me. To not preach to them but to pastor them. To get out of the pulpit and get into the messiness of their lives. Preachers, get out of your pulpit! Preachers stop hiding behind your pulpit because your a to much of a wuss to go and engage in the lives of your people. Preachers stop talking and and start to listen. Preachers stop trying to control your future in the pulpit and give up control to the Lord while you do the messiness of pouring into the lives of your people. Preachers get out of your books and get into some lives. Preachers ask yourself not how much time you spent studying this week but how much time you spent with your people. Preachers stop yelling, pointing the finger, and putting guilt on people you have spent no time with. Stop doing these things and saying you are just preaching the Bible. Stop being a "strong man" in the pulpit on sunday and a coward during the week. Put your people before your pulpit.  Preachers go and be a pastor for awhile and your preaching will fall on open hearts and souls not on deaf ears. I realize we must preach the word but let our preaching be a result of our pastoring. Let our love of preaching come from a love of Jesus and a love for our people as we strive to bring people's souls health through the power of the Holy Spirit so that our preaching becomes real to life because we have pastored. Let those of us who preach, preach out of a heart that know Jesus and the people he has given us. Let our voices not just be a preacher's voice but a pastor's voice. I pray that this is who I am striving to be a pastor and a preacher and I pray that those of us who have been entrusted with this responsibility are pastor/preachers so that we can bring health back into the church.