Commitment

I always seem to wrestle with this subject more than any other in my life.  Not just with the people with whom I am called to serve but with myself as well.  “I therefore urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercies, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices that are holy and pleasing to God, for this is the reasonable way for you to worship.” Romans 12:1 ISV

That phrase ‘living sacrifice’ leaped off the page today.  No where else is there a reference that I could find to ‘a living sacrifice’.  Imagine how hard it would be to keep a living lamb from getting down from the altar and running off.  It would be a constant struggle to keep it in place; frustrated because it wouldn’t retain its position of sacrifice.  Doesn’t that example our every day lives?  Every morning that I wake up I am having to put something back on the altar. Pride that I thought had perished.  Anger and angst that I was sure had been alleviated the last trip I made into his presence.  Thirsts that I was sure were quenched and hungers that had been allayed and diminished by his living word.  But just like Paul, I find that I cannot expect what I put on the altar yesterday to still be lying there dormant and docile today. He is teaching me that this process is a form of worship.

Paul’s honesty and vulnerability are great gifts to me this morning. His freedom to acknowledge both his anguish and his joy in the same paragraph gives me tremendous encouragement and focus. Posing and pretending were crucified at Calvary. Despair and hopelessness were sabotaged by your resurrection. Fear and uncertainty are domesticated by your ascension and present reign.  And though I cannot cast out a work of the flesh, I am persuaded that your power and grace working in tandem within me can keep my life on the altar.

Jesus, in the midst of everything I’d love to fix, change or eliminate, help me to be far more preoccupied with the treasure within than with the pressures without. If your all-surpassing power will be shown most dramatically through my weakness, I surrender to your will. If your incomparable beauty will be most clearly revealed through my hardships, I surrender to your ways. If your redeeming purposes will be most fully realized through my brokenness, I surrender to you.

The altar in my life parades my level of commitment ever before me.  Surrender is never an easy proposition.  Use your word to highlight my blind-spots and underscore my shortcomings.  Let me chose today a deeper level of commitment.

Moses

Moses is probably the closest Old Testament example that we have to Jesus Christ.  The parallels are striking.  His character, his faith, the unique position that he held in the Old Testament as being the go-between for God and the people is very unique.  Moses was the child of a slave but he was the son of a queen.  Moses was born in the slave quarters but he was raised in the palace of a King.  He was born a pauper but he was exposed to virtually unlimited wealth.  This was a guy that led God’s Hebrew army to battle but he was also a man who led his father-in-law’s sheep to pasture.

He was educated in the courts of Egypt and yet he lived a majority of his life in the desert.  He had the wisdom of Egypt and yet he had the faith of a child.  He was backward in speech and yet he could talk to God.   He left Egypt as a fugitive but he came back to Egypt as an ambassador for heaven.

Hebrews 11 gives the summary account of this great life and according to the bible his life was a life governed ‘by faith’.  By faith his parents hid him for 3 months and paid no attention to the Pharaoh’s command.  They brought him down to the place where all the other male children went to die and it was here that Moses found ‘life’.  This was not the thinking of a carnal mind.  No sane, cognizant parent would take their child to the river and leave him there in an effort to preserve his life.  It was ‘by faith’.

No biblical record states that they ever heard a word from God.  But since what they did was clearly by faith; and since that kind of faith only comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, it’s fairly safe to say that these parents had heard from God.  Their obedience is displayed by their actions and continued the course of destiny that God had for this chosen child.  The lesson is simple; when unqualified obedience is demanded by God and we have the good sense to follow through we can expect the impossible to occur.

What am I doing in my life wholly ‘by faith’.  Am I blindly believing his never-failing words or am I allowing doubt to drown out what could be my life’s greatest miracle?  I want to do something today, this week, this year – by faith!

Likeminded

While studying the book of Romans I found a sub-heading called “Likeminded”. It is Paul admonishing the “strong” to help shoulder the burdens of the “spiritually infirmed”. Which made me wonder what that has to do with being “likeminded”.

And after reading a little further in the chapter I discovered that Jesus did the same thing for us. The strong Saviour lifted the burdens of a weak of the world. This is an area that I feel is not promoted enough in the body of Christ. The strong bearing the burdens of the weak. I understand that there are those who are perpetually struggling and need to develop discipline in their walk with God but this is not the Apostle’s present concern.

This concept is cyclical. I did a little exercise last night and found out that most of the people in our church that considered themselves spiritually strong had experienced very low places in the last 6 months and had coveted the prayers of their brothers and sisters. This is Paul’s point. Everyone is going to need some spiritual assistance in their lives. Who better to understand the plight of a wounded and tired soul than someone who has been there recently.

But we too soon lose sight of the valley after we begin our ascent to the mountain top forgetting that soon we will be right back in a season of want and will need someone to bear our cause to Jesus on our behalf. If you are in a season of plenty it would do you good to find someone in a place of spiritual famine and do something to help. And when the cycle of life brings a period of “want” back to your life maybe they will return the favor.

definition

I am finding that the older I get the more my definitions are changing.  The definition of cool for instance.  What was cool for me at 18 is anything but at 32.  I parked my Infiniti next to a new sports car at church a week or so ago and the students came out and were gaga over the sports car and I thought 15 years ago I would have been dreaming of the sports car as well but now there is no way I would trade.

I just can’t see myself having a mid-life crisis (buying a harley or two-seat death trap) because I am too practical.  I guess that is life.  I dream of the future (perhaps too much) but I rarely if ever find myself looking back lamenting over “what might have been”.  I am a dreamer; there is no denying that but not about the past.  It is always about the future.  All I can envision are the days ahead, finding (and doing) the will of God.  I know that there is no future in looking back.  That change is inevitable and must come.  Can I stay fluid and change with the times?  Some things must change and some things must be defended at all cost against change.

What things am I defending today?  Am I defending my comfort zone or my carnality?  Am I living in a vacuum that is constantly getting smaller?  The truth doesn’t need defending.  Lies don’t triumph over truth.  My commitment to the truth however does.  Just thinking today.  Rambling, incoherent babbling? Perhaps.  What are you defending today?

it’s complicated

David had lived a simple life before the priest and prophet Samuel charged into his father Jesse’s house and demanded to see his sons. He was the baby of the family.  He was charged with one task and that was to see to his family’s flock of sheep.  It was a simple task that included leading them to green pastures for grazing, making sure they were supplied with water and keeping a keen eye upon the perimeter for any danger that lurked against them.

But Samuel’s visit complicated things.  Now he has been anointed by God to be King and Israel already has a king that David loves.  His brothers not only don’t respect him now add jealousy to the mix and things in David’s life went from simple, regimented and safe to complicated and full of worry.

We long for our lives to be simple.  The more we long to remove the clutter and clamor from our lives the more we sink into the abyss of anxiety and fall prey to worry.  David understood the simplicity of the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep.  It was one of complete confidence and total trust.  He knew that the flock did not fear the perimeters being breached by a predator – that was the Shepherds job to worry about.  They didn’t wonder about the water; they had no doubt that the Shepherd would see to that.

They just had to listen for his voice and obey it…no more; no less.  Let us take some time to practice the 23rd Psalm.  Listen and obey.  And allow the anxiety to disappear from your life.

Mathew 6:34

Jesus is Coming!

What a wonderful weekend of life-changing services.  Sunday Morning was so timely as Pastor Andy Wilson from Gateway Church in Auburn, Al ministered to GUPC.  Then Sunday night was capped off with a very special person connected to our church family renewing her relationship with Christ.  A first time visitor prayed in our altar and wanted to be baptized immediately so we without hesitation we took her a to a local rest area site and baptized her.

Things are certainly moving here.

Check in for more details.

weekend!

What an awesome weekend.  I feel a break in the spirit and have a great expectation that God is about to add to our church in an exponential fashion.  It is a combination of the Spirit’s timing and a people who are finally pressing beyond carnality and genuinely seeking the will of God and saying “yes” to Christ.  I know I am ready to feel that this storm is passed and I know beyond all that we have faced in the last few weeks are going to make us stronger.  Looking forward to what is next.  Are you on board?

cry of the oppressed

Egypt, the superpower of its day, was ruled by Pharaoh who responded to the threat of the growing number of Israelites in his country by forcing them into slavery.  They had to work sunrise to sunset without a break making bricks, building storehouses for Pharaoh.  Egypt is an empire built on the backs of slave labor; brick by brick.

Imagine a little slave girl living in Egypt during this time asking her father why he has a bandage on his arm.  And he tells her that he was beaten by his master today.  She is of course inquisitive as to the reason.  He explains that his recent quotas have been changed and he is now required to make the same amount of bricks as before; only now he must gather his own straw.

He tells her he has been falling behind on his brick production and that is why he has been beaten.  She asks why the master couldn’t just let it slide – Why the beating?  He explains that if his quotas aren’t met then his master will be beaten by his master, and if his master doesn’t meet his quota then his overseer will beat him and so on up the chain of command all the way to Pharaoh.  The father tries to make his daughter understand that yes – the beating came from one particular man, but that man is just a part of a larger system, a complex web of power and violence and industry that exploits people for its expansion and profit.  The bandage on the father’s arm is from a wound inflicted by one man, yet it is from an entire system of injustice.  This girl’s family is facing an evil in the individual that has gone unchecked until it gathered a head of steam and is now embedded in the very fabric of that culture.

But right away in the book of Exodus there is a disruption.  Things change; and the change begins with God saying,

Exodus 3:7

And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

The Israelites are slaves, they are in misery, they are suffering and they cry out.  They are starved, beaten, oppressed.  Their children are mistreated.  Their wives are second class citizens in a foreign land.  They live in poverty and degradation.  The culmination of 400 years of growing oppression at the hand of a tyrant dictator.  They begin to make their supplication known and the bible says that God hears.  This is central to who God is: God always hears the cry of the oppressed.

It is this cry that inaugurates history. It kicks things into gear.  It shakes things up and gets things moving.  The cry is the reason God moves.  The plea of his people is what attracts the involvement of God. We focus on the miracles, the signs, and wonders of deliverance.  We focus on the joy of deliverance but before they are carried on eagle’s wings to deliverance there is a cry of desperation.  There is a voice of pain and weeping.  The cry is the catalyst, the cause and the reason a new story unfolds.  And it is all because of the cry of the oppressed.

Think about your life.  What are the moments that have shaped you the most?  If you were to pick just a couple, what would they be?  Periods of transformation, times when your eyes where opened, decisions that you have made that have made you the person you are today.  How many of them came when you reached the end of your rope?  When everything fell apart?  When you were confronted with powerlessness?  When you were ready to admit your life was unmanageable?  When there was nothing left to do but cry out?  For many people it was your cry that set in motion your deliverance.  It was their desperation, their acknowledgement of their oppression; that was the beginning of their liberation.

When we are on top, when the system works for us, when we are capable of managing our lives ourselves we have very little for God to do.  But when we have exhausted all tangible resources the trajectory of our complaints begin to shift.  When there is only one option and no other alternative, you lift up your head and raise your voice and begin to cry unto the Lord and he will doubtless deliver your life from destruction.  It took Israel 400 years of back breaking oppression to finally cry out to God.  It is a testimony of human dependance  and self reliance.  Shift your posture and realign your cry; stop complaining and cry out to some one who can actually do something about it.  He always hears the cry of the oppressed.

Here!

Great afternoon spent at the school.  Megan sang at honors day for her school and she did a fantastic job.  Looking forward to a great weekend with family and friends.  Speaking in Humble, TX next weekend for pentecost sunday and starting to get pumped about that.  Shaping up to be a busy summer and that is a two-edged sword.  Cool to be busy but at times stressing as well.  Will be back soon… have a productive friday.

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progression

I had a very stimulating conversation with one of my mentors today about progression.  Progress in church, ministry, friendship, ect.  Progress seems to be a very catchy word in our vocabulary and as well it should be.  Progress – every one claims to desire it, some strive to reach for it, but few really pay the price for it.  One thing that I have discovered in seeking progress, is that no matter how hard I try, how much vision casting I engage in, how long I wait for some to catch the call, inevitably some one always gets left behind.  No matter how hard you pull and push there are those who are satisfied to stay behind.

Let us consider God’s first church – Israel.  They started on the journey of progress led out of bondage by God’s man Moses.  No one is left behind; all are wanting to leave Pharaoh’s land of bondage.  We seem to trend much easier to going forward when we are leaving pain and injury. No complaints are heard the morning after the death of Egypt’s first born.  But the true test is leaving our sphere of comfort.  Especially when we are enjoying a measure of success – like survival!  It amazes me the amount of people who are satisfied with simply surviving. They seem to be tethered to this invisible ball and chain that restrains them from going to higher heights and deeper dimensions in God. The hardest lesson in progressing in God (that I have experienced to this point) is learning that a tangible move of the spirit in my life does not equate spiritual progress.

They had genuine, tangible, real moves of the spirit every day of their lives.  The pillar of cloud and fire was present every day for 40 years.  Undeniably that was a move of God.  I don’t see those when I wake up each day.  When the dew ascended there was manna in its place.  No matter how far they traveled there was a rock that gushed water every stop along the way.  In fact, it followed them for 40 years.  God never failed to provide for them.  Their shoes grew with their feet and never wore out.  They had a real move of God.

But one by one each of them died in the wilderness.  It is apparently possible to have genuine, tangible moves of the spirit and never make progress.  I have preached in churches that shouted and danced and there was no mistaking that God was there but they were at exactly the same place as they were 40 years ago. Passing by the same spiritual landmarks week after week and revival after revival.  I believe it is possible to have a move of the Spirit and never allow the Spirit to move us.

There is no substitute for a move of the Spirit (in fact don’t recommend living without one), but don’t accept the mentality that is still present today that you must have revival over the same square mile patch of ground and never conquer new territories in the Spirit.  That is surviving; I’m seeking progression!