Filed under: Culture, Gospel, Jesus, Mission, Renovation Church, Teaching, Worldview
March 10, 2010 • 16:41 0
Incarnation
December 1, 2009 • 17:07 0
Ordinary People : : Earnest Prayers
I was challenged this morning…. I had the opportunity to hear the heart of a young musician named Benny from India, who above all things shouldn’t be alive, but also, shouldn’t be able to play the guitar….and yet he does. God has given him amazing influence as a missionary to muslim countries particularly, but seemingly everywhere, as he has now been to over 60 countries and 7 continents…including antarctica!
I was challenged in two ways. You see I have this tendency, the same tendency many young, impetuous, entrepreneurial types have, I leap before I look…I act fast, make critical decisions without fear, but I often do so before ever uttering one word in prayer, or stopping long enough to listen to what God might say in light of what I think is the right way to go. This is a problem in more ways than I can list in one blog post, but one I openly confess, and am dealing with…even now…even through Benny’s challenge.
The second way it challenged me was in how I viewed people listed in the bible. As much as I hate to say it, even after several years of following Jesus, there is a tendency to make those in the bible heroic in some way…as though they are superior in some way to the “average” Christ follower today. To some degree this is healthy, especially looking at the lives of those listed in Hebrews 11, but, it is unhealthy when it begins to limit what we believe God will do in and through us because we will never be “that great.” What is most ridiculous about that thinking is that most of these people were jacked up in some way…form Noah the drunk to Peter the load mouth, arrogant denier, and if not severely jacked up, nothing more than ordinary…yet God worked amazingly through their lives, and often amazingly through their prayers to Him.
Benny shared this verse in the midst of sharing his story, James 5:17 “17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 18 Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”
One translation says that Elijah was just an ordinary man…like us…ORDINARY, and yet, because he prayed earnestly, God did things that defied reason…I have yet to pray and see it stop raining, but I have seen God do things beyond reason, and those moments were catalyzed by earnest prayer, not my greatest ingenuity, or ability, but praying that God would do the unbelievable.
What I am not saying is that if you pray you will always see what you wanted to see happen, and that it will be unbelievable. That is a popular television preacher mode of thinking, but it is not biblical. What I am saying is that if we lead with earnest prayer, as ordinary people, that God will, in His sovereign will, do the extraordinary, even if that extraordinary is opening our eyes to the beauty of a relationship with Him, and life of constant communication with Him.
We are ordinary, He is extraordinary, and yet we have access to seek Him for the unbelieveable…for those things beyond reason. Lead with prayer, know the character of God, and see how amazing He is….
Filed under: Discipleship, Gospel, Growth and Journey, Teaching, Worldview
November 4, 2009 • 10:57 0
John Piper and the Prosperity Gospel
John Piper discusses the heresy involved in the health and wealth or prosperity gospel… which is no gospel at all (Galatians 1)
more about "John Piper and the Prosperity Gospel", posted with vodpod
Filed under: Church, Controversy, Gospel, Growth and Journey, Jesus, Teaching, Worldview
• 10:54 0
The World Impact of the Prosperity Gospel Exported from America
A sad reality, and must watch video
more about “The World Impact of the Prosperity Go…“, posted with vodpod
Filed under: Church, Controversy, Gospel, Teaching, Worldview
November 3, 2009 • 08:29 2
Who’s Ya Daddy!!
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
So what does that text have to do with daddy’s? Everything! When I was boy I emulated everything my father did. I wanted to walk like him, talk like him…I wanted to be him, and until I came to know Christ, he held the highest place in my life. He was a great dad.
This is a natural outgrowth of our nature. We come to emulate, hold the desires of, and do the things that those we hold in the highest regard do, even if we don’t perceive that we do.
Jesus was pointing this reality out to a group of blinded men who believed that God was their Father, but looked and acted nothing like Him…as He said, these mens works, ways, and desires all looked like Satan. They were murderous, liars, deceivers, and falsely pious. None of theses are characteristics of God, but of Satan, the enemy of our soul. So what story did their lives tell? Though they said with their mouthes that God was Lord and Father, their lives betrayed their profession.
So the big hanging question is this…what or who do you hold ultimate in your life, and what story is your life telling? Does it match the story of your mouth? Does it match your profession? Or do you pay lip service in an attempt to create a reality where your life, though it doesn’t match that of God the Father, is excused by Him because of a prayer you prayed or profession you made?
There is no neutrality in this, you have a father, beyond the flesh and blood one you may or may not know, and your life tells of which one you emulate, and hold in the highest place in your life…so, who is your daddy?
Filed under: Discipleship, Gospel, Growth and Journey, Jesus, Life, Teaching, Worldview
October 12, 2009 • 15:30 2
You Think You are Better than Most Everyone Else Don’t You
If you are honest, then you would say yes, I agree with the title to this post…and if you are content on lying, then so be it, that again is displaying the need to look better than the rest. It is amazing to me how easily we can slip in to this, even as those who profess to follow Jesus…actually especially as those who profess to follow Jesus. Yes, us, the one’s who are supposed to have the answers. We live in a bubble wrapped world, where, instead of measuring our lives next to that of the exalted Christ, we measure it next to each other…why, because if I can stay just one step ahead of you, then I can consider myself, and look as though to everyone else, that I am a good and faithful follower of Christ.
Lest you think this is some stinging indictment from some exalted pedestal that I have placed myself on, let me tell you we “pastor guys” have it the worst. Always wanting to present this aire of being just a step ahead, so that the people we lead can have someone worthy of following. But here is reality, this is not what Jesus called us to. He called us to radical life, committed to Him, and only being compared to Him in measuring our righteousness. Isn’t that the point of the message? That when we look upon the cross we all realize we are void of anything good, unless He, by His own discretion, give it. Because even the good we do, outside of Jesus, is wrongly motivated, and again, if you are honest(which most of us are not) then you could admit that.
This is at the heart of the peculiar interaction He has with the Pharisee’s in John 8. [3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.] They bring this woman, in their hypocrisy, to expose her broken-ness, and their righteousness in “finding her out”, and in an effort to test Jesus, and look like “good people” they exploit this woman…an Jesus’ answer is strange, but noteworthy. If you are innocent, and better than her, start slinging…of course they retreat, but the point is made. Religion leads to hypocrisy that seeks to expose and exploit the broken-ness of others, while exalting ourselves as righteous and without fault.
So lets recap…we all do this, especially those who are professing followers of Jesus…and He has given us a stout answer. Before you think yourself righteous, and quietly compare yourself to the person in the next row…look at the cross, contemplate the gospel, and realize how truly broken we all are. If you can still sling a stone after that, God help you….
Filed under: Biblical Insight, Gospel, Growth and Journey, Teaching, Worldview
August 25, 2008 • 18:16 0
Sell Everything
I can think of a hundred different scenarios that would hit home for any one of us in regards to not having all we need to accomplish a specific goal…the class we wanted to pass, the game we wanted to win, or the person that we wanted to be with, but in the end there was something missing, there was something we lacked, there was something that stood between us, and what we wanted or stood between us, and where we wanted to be.
And if we stretched this idea across the whole spectrum of our lives, it would ultimately hit a nerve on the one thing where we all often find ourselves lacking something. The one thing in our lives where we often find ourselves consumed by other things, and those things keeping us from following through. And that is our ability to cast everything else aside, and follow Jesus with reckless abandon.
I mean we have been there right. We want to follow Him, but there is still something that we lack, something that is keeping that from happening all the way. Sure, we have “lived the life”, and we show up for worship, we even give money, but still in our hearts we know that there is something that is still holding us back, something that we lack, that is still keeping us from being able to fully follow through.
This is the story of Mark 10…this young man had the opportunity to follow Jesus, but there was just this one thing. He loved money more than the idea of pursuing Jesus. And Jesus tells him, there is one thing you lack, not many, just one. Just one thing that separates him from having the ability to love and follow Jesus wih everything.
So what is it? What is your one thing, the one thing you lack, the one thing that consumes you, the one thing that has for so long popped back up again in your life, and Kept you from fully following Jesus? Kept you from becoming fully committed to giving your life to Him? What is your one thing?
I have found mine in pride, and I am in a daily battle to kill it where it stands, so that I can give Him my whole heart. My everything. Will one thing…just one thing, keep you from making the commitment that for so long your heart has wanted to make? Just…one…thing?
Filed under: Biblical Insight, Discipleship, Life, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Journey, Teaching
February 11, 2008 • 20:59 1
Entangled
New Video excerpt up from the latest teaching series, presented by ZAO community, and myspacechurch, ZAO communities online community/network. You can link to it through my videos which goes to youtube, or through the myspace church page…
Filed under: Teaching
February 10, 2008 • 15:16 0
ZAO Gathering
We had an incredible gathering of twenty somethings Thursday night, and it wasn’t too uncomfortable. Whenever you engage in difficult subject matter, you pray that God lead through it all. There are so many statistics that give a clear indication of the sexual nature of our society, so I hope this series is making an impact, and leading them to seek true intimacy, because love is not a four letter word.
Filed under: Teaching
February 8, 2008 • 13:55 0
The SE@#%L Revolution
I am so amped about what God is doing in the ZAO community. We had an incredible worship gathering last night, and really tackled a hush hush issue in church world. For this whole month we will be discussing sex…in right perspective. There are two major messages on this issue, one culturally that says if it feels good, go for it…the other, as a whole, is the silence of the church. With stats saying that 3 out of four people in my generation may have an STD, silence on this issue is the last thing we need. Aside from that, there are spiritual, emotional and mental repercussions that often go along with sex outside of a marital covenant. So this month will be tough, but God is behind it, and I am really expecting some incredible stories and triumphs to come out of this series…
Filed under: Teaching
