Tag Archives: Go

Christian Living, Inspirational, Motivational

GIVE IT TO GOD & DON’T TAKE IT BACK!

Let-Go-and-Let-GodThe other day I was sitting in my living room speaking with a mature Christian woman, in age and spiritual journey, about life and how we tend bring things to God but seldom let go. Jokingly she said to me, I’m a pessimist and when I give things to God I want to always take them back. Honestly I, and most others, am not too different from this woman. A casual scan through the pages of history, and the Bible, will reveal a many persons who had a hard time letting go.  Perhaps they were possessions, a secret desire, an insatiable lust for power, wealth, sex or maybe it was our nearest belongings such as a loved one or birthright? Whatever the reason may be we are easily the people who say, for pious appearance sake, we will give it to the Lord…but in reality we still have both hands firmly clasped on what we presuppose to value most.

WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO LET GO? There is an extraordinary passage, in the Bible, about a man who let go named Abraham. Through a series of circumstances, challenges and tests of faith Abraham followed the call of God up Mt. Moriah to turn his closest possession loose, his son Isaac. In the moments preceding Abraham’s sacrificial journey God’s command was direct with little room for debate and parsing of words: “He said, “Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I’ll point out to you.” (Genesis 22:2 MSG)

Did you notice the direct nature of God in speaking with Abraham? Take now…not later. I find it a little unsettling when we debate with God once He has clearly told us to let go of a certain circumstance or situation. Even when we receive confirmation that God has spoken to us, in a certain matter, we often do our best to find excuses for not seeing the issue through at once. But this was not the attitude or disposition of Abraham. In fact, no matter how challenged and difficult it was for him to make preparations Abraham knew, within his spirit, his ascension to the apex of Mt. Moriah was where he would encounter God in a new and revelatory way by letting go.

“And Abraham rose up early in the morning, … and went unto the place of which God had told him” (v. 3). If you are a parent then you know how difficult the emotional, physical and mental challenge that warred within Abraham must have been and yet the Scriptures speak not of Abraham’s struggle but of his astonishing simplicity and faith! REMEMBER when God speaks to us He is not asking our “flesh” to make sense of the request or command. Just the opposite! When God is speaking he bypasses our sympathies and personal insights by targeting our personal relationship with Him. It is in your journey up “Mt. Moriah” you will confront self or trust in obedience to Him. The very nature of self always hinders our obedience to God; but our faith in Him (God), and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, can supersede the natural by allowing us to let go and truly trust the divine hand and purpose of God in the circumstance.
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A FINAL THOUGHT ON ABRAHAM (A MAN WHO LET GO AND TRUSTED GOD) Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. In fact, multiple times we read Abraham never chose the circumstances in which God would prove His covenant promise, love and blessing. Therefore, let us take a life lesson from the journey of Abraham and always guard our self against self-chosen sacrifice or even the “Mt. Moriah” of our selecting. If you have journeyed long enough, with Jesus, then you have experienced or met people where God has made their cup sweet with grace; and even bitter to draw us into communion with Him. We must be prepared to face the real twists and turns of outrageous fortune while daily living in touch with Him. When you are faced with a trial, circumstance or an event, to hard to bear, call on God! In a time of great need let go and resist the urge to take it back. God is always working for His highest ends until His purpose and man’s purpose finally become one.

Grace and Peace

JOSHUA

Christian Apologetics, Christian Living, Motivational

THE SACRED HOLY HEROIC PT. 1

luminous5THE SACRED HOLY HEROIC  PT. 1

It was the summer of 1997 and I was tossing and turning, in bed, just hours before I would walk down the wedding aisle. My final restless night was filled with worry, doubt, concern and excitement about the biggest transition of my young life. Almost twenty years later, and still happily married, I have had the opportunity to counsel many couples before their wedding and find myself telling them time and time again, you are never really ready to be married. After you have prayed, counseled and made your decision you just need to GO! I often chuckle when I observe people attempt to over plan their life. Often this type of person desires to have their income at a certain level, living in a certain neighborhood, planning enough trips and vacations, etc…and then, all of the sudden, a monkey wrench! Maybe it’s a baby, a temporary set-back, or a life-changing circumstance but “the plan” now has to be adjusted. Planning is great! In my family we live on a budget, have a yearly plan and even try to set some goals for four to five years out; but we have also shared in enough life to leave room for transformation. It is easy to imagine that we can get to a place where we are complete and ready, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished, it is a process steadily maintained and often adjusted with minor tweaks and, at times, major changes.

There was a time, long ago, when the sense of sacrifice appealed to a young Christian. Humanly speaking, the one thing that attracted us to Jesus was our sense of the heroic and being a part of narrative that special, sacred and mysterious. It was this inner working (by the Holy Spirit) that compelled us to be bold, courageous and go! But that has changed, especially over the past twenty years, with today’s modern church method attempting to reach people who are not longer seeking the mysterious and heroic. Despite the churches size, technology and budget today’s American Church experience, in large part, has managed to provided the seeking and searching with a perfectly planned and sterile environment that encourages a worldview that says, “what I (the church) can you do you.”  And something sacred has been lost in translation. (More on this later)

Community can be a funny thing. I live in a sub-division where I pay a monthly fee for certain community services. By the “letter of the law” I am apart of my community because I pay dues; but even though I am apart of the community it is still possible for me to live with limited relationships and connection to the events, and lives, of my subdivision. Likewise, this same dynamic can exist in a church community when we only view this habitat of faith as a place to “pay our dues” followed by an expectation of the community providing us a service. I would like to challenge our thinking as to how we really view the community of faith with a great moment is US history.

A young, optimistic and confident President Kennedy once challenged Americans to reconsider not what their county could do for them but what they could do for their country. Perhaps no truer secular words summed up a consecrated creed for the sacred community. What we have lost, within the message of the Church USA, is the sense of what I call the Sacred Holy Heroic. I mentioned earlier the unique church experience where our worship services, along with support ministries, are so programmed that they actually are designed to manage your expectations. I have sat in countless planning meetings where the entire service is planned down to the very second and nothing occurs without it being planned our predetermined. One such successful and popular church pastor / planter proudly said he hoped a visitor would experience the exact same service in any of their satellite churches.

To be victorious, he/she must appeal to voters throughout the state. sildenafil tablets 50mg In the erected state, the medicine increases the time and a male can provide better secretworldchronicle.com prescription viagra pleasure to a female. The system at present is so standard within the US that almost fifty p.c of patented medicine have their cialis sales australia generic equivalents. During rehabilitative your visits will be less frequent and strengthening care is less often still. cheap cialis So what does such programming create within our community of faith today? In a race to keep up with current trends, and measuring analytics, our building must get bigger, our outreaches must become louder, our video’s look edgier and our pastors and teachers perform as rock stars or CEO’s while the message, of the Gospel, sounds less sacred and more like an echo of our society. Seldom do we now gather with the expectation of seeing, touching, living and experiencing the sacred, mysterious, holy and revelatory. Even more dispiriting is the purely western notion of building projects and glamorized ministers serving as a new frontier for heroic Kingdom action. The raw community of faith needs to exist outside the created bubble of “self” and reconnect with the Sacred Holy Heroic that is only  rooted IN HIM (Jesus). Today’s church, as with the church of every age, is called to reconnect with the same heroism and sacrifice of the ancient and historical church and GO BOLDLY INTO THE SACRED HOLY HEROIC !

The “go” of preparation is to let the Word of God inspect deep within and force us to answer the call and commission of heroic sacrifice. If we are to enter into the narrative of the mysterious, sacred and historical Christian faith then we must also be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to detect, in us, the nature that will never work in His service. No one but God can detect that nature in us. While we may be tempted to plan every last detail, in preparation to go; we must also understand, like with marriage, we are never fully ready. But, in all of our planning, if we leave room for His Spirit to guide us we will join in the Holy invitation of true community and fellowship (Biblical Koinonia).

Once we understand the holy invitation is one of heroic participation and sacrifice we will no longer get trapped by a selfish or self-serving Gospel but live courageous and bold for the selfless and sacrificing Gospel. Planning is good, preparation is great; but never over plan and prepare, in such a way, where the Spirit is disinvited and the mystery of the sacred holy heroic is lost. If you pack away your lights, building, designer jeans and programs, and welcome people to join in the mystery, then you may just discover who is really in your true community and hungry for the message of the sacred, holy and heroic.

Grace and Peace

JOSHUA

Christian Apologetics, Christian Living, Inspirational, Motivational

DESTINATION: HIS!

keep-calm-you-belong-to-jesusDESTINATION: HIS!

Have you ever thought about who holds the deed to your life? Is it you? Is it fate? Is it God? Maybe another way of asking the question is to answer, who do you belong to? For the person who is still asking such questions you have probably experimented with several possible solutions only to discover these conclusions are unsatisfactory. If you are a Christian you probably answered something like, “Well I belong to God…but I am my own person.” I have personally taken a lot of time considering my destination and deed and come to the conclusion the true disciple of Jesus is one, whom the Holy Spirit has revealed, and therefore, you are not your own. Honestly to say and live in such a reality, ‘I am not my own,’ is to have reached a great point in Kingdom perspective. The true nature of a person, in love with the King, is one of deliberate sacrifice of “self” to “another” in sovereign preference, and that “other” is Jesus!

Without the Holy Spirit the very life and purpose of Jesus is obscure and easily dismissed as a wisdom teacher among other guru’s or moral activist among other social pioneers. But when the Holy Spirit illuminates your understanding, with Kingdom perspective, then you see Jesus in a new understanding and revealed light. The life, revived by the Holy Spirit, takes the person of Jesus and removes him from “just another good teacher” to a real and tangible solution to all of your concerns, cares, worries, fears, sins, hopes and joys. Think carefully on how Jesus sent His disciples…Jesus never sent any of the disciples out on argument of, “Once you follow me life is without adversity.” It was not until after the Resurrection, when the disciples had perceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, He was the Son of God. Jesus then sent His disciples out as Apostles telling them to ‘GO!’ and preach the message of the Kingdom of God.

In the 1970’s movie Jesus of Nazareth there is a classic scene of the disciples talking about miracles and what people are saying about who Jesus was. It was in this moment Jesus asked, “Who do you say I am?” the look on the disciples faces was shock, stun and horror. Finally Peter looked at Jesus as said, “You are the Christ.” What was Jesus’ response? (Loose paraphrase) Flesh and blood didn’t tell you this…it was revealed by the Spirit. The message of the Kingdom has often been defined to be many things but in brief the message of the Kingdom is the message of the Gospel. Go! Preach the good news of repentance from sin, Jesus is Lord and forgiveness and freedom from the slavery to the old man (the sinful nature).  

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Our Lord makes a disciple His own possession and when He does so He becomes responsible for him. “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.” The mystery or sacred secret of the believer is—I am His, and He is carrying out His enterprises through me.

So be entirely His! “Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me.” (John 17:6)

Blessings – JOSHUA