A Strange Thing Prayer: Connecting With People

A strange thing happens to Christians as we pray for others, we somehow come to love those we pray for.  I have cried for those I have never met, I have come to love people who I once detested, all through genuine prayer for them.  For it through prayer that we are able to come closer to Him, through true and authentic prayer that we begin to realize that we are coming to the living God who created us, that we are not even worthy to stand in His presence and yet He allows us to come to Him and present prayers to Him.  I think of the story Christ told of the Tax Collector and  the Pharisee found in Luke 18:9-14.  “Then Jesus told this story to some who had great self-confidence and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a dishonest tax collector. The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery, I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored.”  Notice how the Tax Collector prayed, he came and before God and was humbled.  He realized that  was  broken and needed God’s forgiveness.

If we allow God to bring us into the center of His will for us, through prayer true and authentic prayer.  It is through this type of prayer God not only brings us to the center of His will, but as we pray to be more like Him, He allows us to begin to love others as He loves them.  I do not pretend to understand how all of this works and I am not ashamed of that, for God is Love.  If God is Love then we too must become love.  I can however say that I know it is true, as I have prayed for those I have never met I have come to have a deep love for them.  The first time this happened to me was over a year ago as my wife and I begin to pray for a child that we had been told we were going to adopt. We both begin to pray for this unborn child, we had agreed with the birth mother on what the name of child would be.  We had our bags packed, we had been promised by our agency that the mother was not going to back out.  As it would turn out she not only backed out but we found out she had been lying to us the entire time.  We were both devastated, we both went through a great amount of pain, a pain we both carry to this day.  I could have easily written this mother off and no one would have blamed me or my wife.  Only one problem I already had a love for her son.  I choose to instead forgive her for the pain she had caused.

I have since continued to pray for both her and her son Josiah, I pray for a mighty work in both their lives.  I pray the same prayer for Josiah I had before he was born.  I believe because of prayer God placed a love in my heart for a person I will most likely never meet while on this earth, He also taught me what it feels like to love someone who is never going show love to me.  He showed me that in the center of His will is love, love for people, the people He created and wants to have a relationship with.  A people that He decided even though they deserved death and condemnation He would create a way for them to come before Him and humble themselves and be saved from their sins.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. “There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants.” (John 3:16-21)

Change Should We Really Hate It?

Recently where I work we have been going through a lot change, nothing that’s new to me, or anyone else.  We all go through changes, yet it is one of the most hated things.  Most people do not like change they tend to really dislike it, at best most times they hate it.  I find myself in an odd spot to complain about change, since I have at times made changes that have been disliked.  I understand that change is not always fun and sometimes comes at inconvenient times.  I wondered why we hate change so much, after all isn’t change happening all the time.  If we didn’t change we would never grow, think about that for a second. If we were born and stayed a baby and never changed then the simple conclusion is none of us would be around.  At some point in history someone said we should build our houses out of wood instead leaves.  What if when electricity came around everyone said stop right there, we have lived long enough without it so let us not go any further with this crazy notion. We don’t want change.

We all have that friend that changed how they ate and started working out then lost a bunch weight, most of us congratulate them.  Ever think of how much of a challenge it was for the person, around every corner was someone saying, skip working out, you can eat unhealthy it’s ok.  I think, and I may be wrong but, I think we all dislike change because it scares us.  We are afraid of change because it means we have to start doing things differently, we are worried that we might miss out on something big.  We don’t want to start budgeting because then we are going to see what we have to get rid of in order to save money and pay off debt.  We are scared that people are going to talk bad about us if we tell them that we stopped eating out to save money, or worse yet think we are going broke.  We are worried if we change that we are going to lose friends.  What if we began to embrace change, and really look deep into our lives and say what do we need to do to live a better, more satisfying life.

What if instead of fighting change we began to embrace change, I’m not talking about change at work or who gets elected.  I’m talking about taking a good long look at our lives and saying what do I need to do to become the best person I can be.  Maybe you have always wanted to be finically free, but you have been too afraid to make the changes you need to make because you like living life as you have been and you’re afraid of what you might miss if you get rid of cable, vacations, eating out.  Maybe you have been wanting to get in shape but you are afraid to take the steps needed to lose the extra weight, you are afraid everyone is going to stare at you when you walk in gym (trust me they won’t), you’re afraid of starting and not finishing.  Who knows what is holding you back from doing what you want to do.  What if we started living life, embracing change, and saying I was once afraid to do new things and I never realized how much I missed because of it. 

This part is for those who follow God, or those who want to follow God.  I realize that many times the church is extremely anti-change, yet it is unavoidable, everything changes.  I have lived through some of the most interesting times, I have seen more change in music, movies, television shows.  I realize that it’s not all bad, but it is not all good either.  I am going say that we know that God’s love has not changed, God’s law has not changed, God’s perfect Judgment has not changed.  But we as Christians need to be changing, not how we worship God, not the church buildings, I am talking about our relationship with God, we need to begin to take a long hard look at how are we living our lives. Are we truly living our live to bring honor to God?  Are we looking to draw closer to God, are we doing things that are separating us from God and therefore damaging or walk with Him?  What are we as Christians afraid of? Are we afraid of losing friends, being made fun by our peers, what we might be missing out on?  Christ came to change us, to bring light into a dark.  Christ said in John 3:16-20; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it. “There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants.”

Who Are To Judge?

As I think about what Paul told the Jews in Romans 2:17-3:31, I cannot help but think how does this impact how I live, what about today’s church.  I am by no means perfect I’m still working on being a better husband, friend, co-worker, and pastor.  I say all this because what I am about to say may offend some people and I am ok with that, it most likely won’t offend most though.  But I have a feeling that Paul’s letter to the Romans offended some people but not most.  If we notice as Paul talks to Jews he points out that they are not perfect, that they are indeed hypocrites for not being able to follow the law, yet criticizing others who are not Jews and judging them.  What law is Paul talking about?  He talking about the Law that God gave Moses on Mt. Sanai the code that the Jews were to live, the Ten Commandments are a summary of the God’s Law.  Let us go just a bit further, if you recall there are also ceremonial laws with how the Jews were to worship to God.  These ceremonial laws are no longer needed with the death and resurrection of Christ; we are cleansed from our sins by way of the Blood.  So anytime Paul talks about the law he is talking about the ten commandments.

In these Verses Paul calls out the Jews about how they condemn the gentiles and yet they too are also sinners (read Romans 2:17-29).  He tells them because they think they know the law it is for you to teach them how wrong they are, then ask them what good is teaching if you don’t follow it yourself.   He says to them; “The Jewish ceremony of circumcision is worth something only if you obey God’s law. But if you don’t obey God’s law, you are no better off than an uncircumcised Gentile. And if the Gentiles obey God’s law, won’t God give them all the rights and honors of being his own people?” (Romans 2:25-26) This is what got to me how many of us are acting like the self-righteous Jews? How many of us are looking down on people saying I’m better than they are because I go to church and I know that what they do is wrong.  Yet we completely ignore what is wrong in our own lives, we ignore the fact that we are to be humbling ourselves in prayer to a Holy God, we ignore that we accept some sins yet others we harp on as if they are worse than others.   What if I told you that we are called to live out God’s love, forgive those who have wronged us, and we are not to judge others, if they are not believer’s.  Christ even warned his followers about this.  “Stop judging others, and you will not be judged.  For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged.  And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” (Matthew 7:1-5)

How many times have you judged others, how many times have you said “at least I’m not as bad as”, or just looked down on someone?  How is this living out the commands of God?  We are not called by God to place judgment on this world, we are called by God to seek out God and proclaim His love for others.  I feel that we are going to be much more effective as a Church if we begin to reject sin as being ok, all sin, and stop focusing on just one or two sins.  we as individual’s really need to begin to focus on our relationship with God and live a life that reflects that.  Paul told the people in romans 2:28-29, “For you are not a true Jew just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the Jewish ceremony of circumcision. No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not a cutting of the body but a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit. Whoever has that kind of change seeks praise from God, not from people.”  How many of us are living to please others, or even living to please ourselves?  We need to realize that we are all sinners, Paul explains in chapter three how the more we understand the Law, the more we realize that we are sinners.  But that there is hope, that Christ took our punishment, we only need to accept the gift.  We did not earn this; we cannot redeem ourselves.  We must stop looking at others and judging them, and start looking and digging into God’s word, seeking out God in prayer, sincerely asking for God to give us understanding of His law, and working toward living out a life that brings glory and praise to God.

Isn't About Time We Start being Adults?

Have we noticed a strange trend in this country, of people not wanting to be adults?  I just heard about a place where adults can go and pretend to be in preschool, no joke they charge a crazy amount of money per week.  We now have gummy vitamins for adults, I am continually hearing wives’ compline about their husbands playing video games.  All off this seems strange to me, I enjoyed certain things when I was a child, but as I grew up and became an adult I begin to enjoy being an adult, I took on responsibilities, a job, home repairs, making sure that we have the money to pay all of our bills.  Knowing how to dress for certain occasions.  Knowing that if I so chose to do so I could stay up past mid-night, which I rarely do unless we go to Drive-In movies or have company over.  I have actually heard grown adults say I don’t really want to be an adult.

What is so wrong with being an adult, is it the fact that we have to become responsible for our own actions?  As an adult there’s no one to blame, we can’t blame mom and dad for not telling us it was time to go to bed.  Do we not enjoy having to go to a job most days so we can pay our bills?  I feel one of the worst things happening in this country is that adults are no longer being adults.  They have decided that they want to stay teenagers, play video games, take gummy/chewable gummies.  The thing they also want is all the benefits of being adults without having any of the responsibilities.   Want a good marriage? You have to work at it.  You have to carve out time to be with your wife, you have to talk to your wife and listen to her, same goes for you wives.  The problem is many people want to be teenagers so instead of actually working at being married they end up living in the same house but grow apart because they don’t want to work it out.   Many people want to move up in their place of work, they don’t want to work hard at it though.  They just think you need to give them the promotion without working all that hard.  You know a lot like how high school worked, you didn’t need to work that hard to keep moving up.

I feel this is even more important for those of us who have decided to follow Christ, we are so excited when we come to follow Christ, but then we decided we love just being young Christians.  They decide that is where they want to stay, they don’t want to grow in Christ because that would mean they might have to change.  The writer of Hebrews scolded his readers for this, “There is so much more we would like to say about this. But you don’t seem to listen, so it’s hard to make you understand. You have been Christians a long time now, and you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things a beginner must learn about the Scriptures. You are like babies who drink only milk and cannot eat solid food. And a person who is living on milk isn’t very far along in the Christian life and doesn’t know much about doing what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who have trained themselves to recognize the difference between right and wrong and then do what is right.”^[1]  What if we began to work towards being adults and putting away our childish things and really begin to experience a new and experience in adulthood.

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^[1]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Heb 5:10-6:1). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

Sunday Thoughts: Self-Centerdness Is It Really that Bad? ( A Study On Romans 1:18-2:16

If we are going to have any type of study or discussion on the book of Romans, we have to take a look at Paul’s introduction.  The problem with the introduction is the fact that Paul gives us a lesson on the topic of sin.  People really don’t like this idea of sin, or that it exists.  We want to go on with our lives and to do what we want to do without any real consequence, the only problem is if we want to proclaim the gospel to be true then we have to admit that sin is real.  In Romans 1:18-2:16 Paul makes the argument that sin is real and gives us a clear definition of sin.  He explains how people from the beginning of time ignored the laws of God.  In Romans 1:28-32 Paul tells us, “When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents.  They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God’s death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And, worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.”^[1]  Take note at how Paul describes the sinful nature the words that he uses, I underlined them for you.  It would seem all of those describe one who is centered on themselves, they care for only doing things that make them feel good.

As we look deeper into what Paul is saying it is that they choose themselves, their own wants, and desires instead of living for God.  After all isn’t that what Satin tempted Adam and Eve with?  “God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil.”^[2]  When we begin to dissect sin we begin to notice something interesting at the center of sin is self-centeredness.  The idea is that we must do what we want, and do things that feel good.  What’s wrong with doing what makes us feel good as long as it doesn’t harm others?  As long as we are good people and know God’s word, isn’t that enough to get into heaven to have eternal life?  Is God really going to punish us for doing things that goes against His own law if doesn’t affect anyone else?  “God will punish the Gentiles when they sin, even though they never had God’s written law. And he will punish the Jews when they sin, for they do have the law.  For it is not merely knowing the law that brings God’s approval. Those who obey the law will be declared right in God’s sight.  Even when Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, instinctively follow what the law says, they show that in their hearts they know right from wrong.  They demonstrate that God’s law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right.  The day will surely come when God, by Jesus Christ, will judge everyone’s secret life. This is my message.”^[3]

We have hope, we have the gospel, and we can put our faith in God, and in the Blood of Christ, but we must turn from our sin and begin to desire the things of God.  The prophet Ezekiel told Israel; “Therefore, I will judge each of you, O people of Israel, according to your actions, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn from your sins! Don’t let them destroy you!  Put all your rebellion behind you, and get for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O people of Israel?  I don’t want you to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn back and live!”^[4]  The problem is that our self-centeredness doesn’t want to die, the world around is going to encourage it.  The world does not want to be told that what they are doing is wrong and the world wants to encourage us to live as we want to, do what we want to do.  Christ said; “There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God. Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants.”^[5]

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^[1]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Ro 1:28-2:1). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

^[2]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Ge 3:4-5). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

^[3]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Ro 2:12-16). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

^[4]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Eze 18:30-19:1). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

^[5]Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 1997 (Jn 3:17-21). Tyndale House: Wheaton, Ill.

Can We Really Talk or Have A Discussion?

Can we talk, no really I mean can we as Americans have a discussion with one another?  I come to realize that people can’t have differing thoughts or opinions then others.  If someone disagrees with someone all of sudden name calling starts.  Let us take for example how when Sony released the new Ghostbusters trailer, many people came out and said it looked like a horrible movie. Sony pictures began to trash the naysayers, calling them sexist, nerds who lived in their parent’s basements, and continued to name call anyone who didn’t like the trailers.  The movie critics then came out and praised it saying how great it was, but the people I talked to who went and saw it based on the critics said it was a horrible movie.  All that said to make a point that all of sudden in the last few years we have gone to a strange phase of calling people, racist, sexist, religious fanatics, and so on, if they do not believe the same as us.  It would seem that instead having a discussion to talk about other people’s views and thoughts on things we brand them and scream about how horrible they are.

What if we stopped branding so fast, what if we sat down talked about ideas realized that sometimes we are not always going to agree.  This also means we must not force people to do things that they do not believe in.   It means that we begin to respect other people’s point of view, we are not always going to get them to agree with us and that is ok.  I believe that we beginning to group everyone as extremist, most people are not extremist.  The problem is that the news covers the extremist. Why? Because they are the ones making the most noise.  Most of us are trying to live our lives, sometimes we are afraid to tell people what our viewpoints are because then they are going to say, “oh you are one of them.”   Meaning we are with who the extremists are trying to make us out to be.  I believe that is what happened with the critics for Ghostbusters, they were too afraid to say what they really thought of this movie, they didn’t want Sony pictures coming after them and labeling them.  Being a Christian I can only speak from what I know.  I realize that many are trying to make Christians out to be some radical hate group.  Saying that we are wanting people to do it our way or else, saying that we don’t love certain groups of people.  For some who call themselves Christians this might true, but it a small minority of the church.

I believe this to be true with every group, but the problem is we no longer talk in this country.  We have taken on this idea of not being able to have our own beliefs and if you don’t believe the same things I do then forget you.  Instead of trying to talk and openly discuss ideas on religion and politics we are becoming afraid to say anything because we might offend someone.  So now the smaller parts (extremist) of all the groups are busy trying to lobby for laws forcing people to do things that they may not agree with or believe in.  What if we took a collective step back took a deep breath and said let’s talk, not scream, not hate on, not name call or label each other.  But let us talk and at the end we may not agree with each but we can still be friends and not be ashamed or afraid to speak our beliefs with one another.   We understand that we are people that need love, as a follower of Christ I believe we are made in God’s own image and because of that we need to love one another, respect one another, even those who disrespect us.  After all Christ told this, “^You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ^But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, ^that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ^For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ^And if you greet your ⁷brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? ^Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”(Mt 5:43-48)

Goals Part Four: Relationship With God

As we come to the fourth goal, if you recall I had four areas that I wanted to begin to make goals for  in  life, these four areas were chosen because I felt that these were the four most important parts of my life.  For you these may not be, but I would encourage you to think about it and try to come up with four areas’ you think are important and begin setting goals and keeping track of them.  As I was saying this fourth one I took a long hard look at how I could make goals for it, how does one measure their relationship with God?  I pondered this and prayed about it, I realized that my relationship with God trickles down to every aspect of my life.  I was thinking about this as we began to study Charles Spurgeon’s book, The Power Of Prayer In A Believer’s Life.  I bring this up because as I was reading the book Spurgeon talks about  John 15:1-17, This piece of scripture talks about how Christ is the vine and we are branches.  I have read, listened to, even preached on this verse who knows how many times.  But as I read it here and as Spurgeon talked about it, it took on a whole new outlook for me.  I think it was when I read this part, “take care that you abide in Christ when you are being pruned.  A brother says ‘since I became a Christian, I have had more troubles than ever.  Men ridicule me, the devil tempts me, and my business affairs have gone wrong.’”  As I thought about this it struck me that we are always being pruned, we are always growing and as we grow we must be careful.  Careful to protect our faith, to abide in Christ, what does it look like if we are abiding in Christ?  John 15:5 Christ says; “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”  Notice the part where he says “apart from me you can do nothing?”  That is an important part right there it says a lot.  If we are going to abide in Christ that means that we are always growing in Christ. When we stop growing then we have allowed ourselves to be separated from Him.  He is the vine, it is through Him we are nourished, and through His love that we grow to love others we once hated. Through His forgiveness that we are able to forgive those who wronged us.

What does all this have to with goals?  A lot, as I thought and pondered on this piece of scripture I realized that I need to make it my goal to truly abide in Christ, to focus on His words, on the bible, and prayer.  To allow myself to take off my self-pride, self-justice, stop doing things to make me look better.  The thing about when we realize that Christ is the vine we realize that we are able to gain so much more if we allow Him to guide and direct our lives. When we realize that we are the branches we allow God to begin to prune and cut away at the things that need cut out of our lives.  It can be a painful process and I am sure at times it will be but my goal is to allow Christ to become vine and for me to be the branch.  

Are We Supposed To Look For Happiness In Life

Over the weekend I went to a wedding, it was like most wedding I have attended or had the pleasure to be a part of, beautiful.  It was a joyful occasion and as always the bride was beaming with happiness.  As I listened the toast and words of wisdom handed out, I couldn’t help but notice how many times it was mentioned that they made each other happy, don’t worry I am not about to say how that is a bad thing.  I’m glad to hear that they make each other happy, but it made me think about being happy is that something we should strive for in life.  I have always come under fire for my thoughts on being happy I’m just going to put that out there so you understand I may say something you disagree with and I am ok with that.  I have never been of the belief that being happy is all that important, I have moments in life where I am happy, I have moments where I am not happy.  But I have never felt that I need to go out of my way to be happy.  I have found that the statement “do whatever makes you happy” somewhat of a dangers statement to make to someone.  We don’t really know what makes someone happy, maybe its sitting on the couch watching football, or maybe it going out to a fight club, if that is the case they can’t tell you.  We all know that the first rule of fight is you can’t talk about it. 

I have always thought of being happy more of an emotion more than anything it is a set of circumstances that makes one happy.   The problem is people want to be happy all the time, this is unrealistic it just isn’t going to happen.  Some will say doesn’t God want you to be happy? I could answer this with a simple yes or no but that would not do either of us any good.  Let’s think about this for just a second, we live in a broken world.  What I mean by broken is that we live in a world that was created without sin and then sin was brought into this world and broke it.  Because of sin we have murder, lies, hurtful words, death, you get the picture.  The question of if God wants us to be happy is not important for us in the world we live in.  Why? Because in a broken world their only fleeting moments of happiness, but we can find joy in God’s word.  In John 15:9-12 we read; “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you.”  You may be saying wait a second isn’t joy and happiness the same thing?  No they are not, have you ever said to someone “you have no idea how joy I am to see you”?   No because joy is not happy you cannot replace the one for the other. 

I believe that we need to strive for joy in our lives not happiness, again I have nothing against being happy.  But joy is something that is stronger the happiness, with joy comes hope.   Joy is much deeper than circumstances, it stays with us during the tough times and the happy times.  If we are to live our lives here on earth, which we are, we don’t have choice, then we are never going to really find happiness, but we are going to be able to find joy that is deep and pierces our hearts.  As I said in the beginning you may not agree with me on this and that is okay with me.  I don’t always agree with everything I read, but I hope that this is challenging you in how you think about happiness and joy. 

Are We Supposed To Look For Happiness In Life

Over the weekend I went to a wedding, it was like most wedding I have attended or had the pleasure to be a part of, beautiful.  It was a joyful occasion and as always the bride was beaming with happiness.  As I listened the toast and words of wisdom handed out, I couldn’t help but notice how many times it was mentioned that they made each other happy, don’t worry I am not about to say how that is a bad thing.  I’m glad to hear that they make each other happy, but it made me think about being happy is that something we should strive for in life.  I have always come under fire for my thoughts on being happy I’m just going to put that out there so you understand I may say something you disagree with and I am ok with that.  I have never been of the belief that being happy is all that important, I have moments in life where I am happy, I have moments where I am not happy.  But I have never felt that I need to go out of my way to be happy.  I have found that the statement “do whatever makes you happy” somewhat of a dangers statement to make to someone.  We don’t really know what makes someone happy, maybe its sitting on the couch watching football, or maybe it going out to a fight club, if that is the case they can’t tell you.  We all know that the first rule of fight is you can’t talk about it. 

I have always thought of being happy more of an emotion more than anything it is a set of circumstances that makes one happy.   The problem is people want to be happy all the time, this is unrealistic it just isn’t going to happen.  Some will say doesn’t God want you to be happy? I could answer this with a simple yes or no but that would not do either of us any good.  Let’s think about this for just a second, we live in a broken world.  What I mean by broken is that we live in a world that was created without sin and then sin was brought into this world and broke it.  Because of sin we have murder, lies, hurtful words, death, you get the picture.  The question of if God wants us to be happy is not important for us in the world we live in.  Why? Because in a broken world their only fleeting moments of happiness, but we can find joy in God’s word.  In John 15:9-12 we read; “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you.”  You may be saying wait a second isn’t joy and happiness the same thing?  No they are not, have you ever said to someone “you have no idea how joy I am to see you”?   No because joy is not happy you cannot replace the one for the other. 

I believe that we need to strive for joy in our lives not happiness, again I have nothing against being happy.  But joy is something that is stronger the happiness, with joy comes hope.   Joy is much deeper than circumstances, it stays with us during the tough times and the happy times.  If we are to live our lives here on earth, which we are, we don’t have choice, then we are never going to really find happiness, but we are going to be able to find joy that is deep and pierces our hearts.  As I said in the beginning you may not agree with me on this and that is okay with me.  I don’t always agree with everything I read, but I hope that this is challenging you in how you think about happiness and joy. 

Goals Part Three: Job

As we continue in our discussions of Goals and I have used the four areas I felt a need to set up goals in my life.  Of course the four areas I set up may not necessarily be the same four areas you feel you need you need for your life.   The third area I feel is important is my Job or in my case jobs as I have two.  I feel it is important for those who follow God to work hard for whoever they work for.  One of the best things for us, not just as people but as the church, to do is to bring a good light on us is to work hard, and show respect to our co-workers and bosses.  Peter tells us this in 1^st Peter 2:18-25; “You who are slaves must accept the authority of your masters. Do whatever they tell you—not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are harsh.  For God is pleased with you when, for the sake of your conscience, you patiently endure unfair treatment. Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong. But if you suffer for doing right and are patient beneath the blows, God is pleased with you.  This suffering is all part of what God has called you to. Christ, who suffered for you, is your example. Follow in his steps. He never sinned, and he never deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when he was insulted. When he suffered, he did not threaten to get even. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. He personally carried away our sins in his own body on the cross so we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. You have been healed by his wounds! Once you were wandering like lost sheep. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls.”  Replace slave with employee and master with employer and we see how this piece of scripture talks more directly to us than we thought it might. 

Peter encourages the people of God to work hard and bring glory to God through their work.  We must work to bring glory, not to us but to God.  So I have sat down and thought about this, what can I do to be a better worker.  I could go into detail and tell you what my plans are for my goals but instead I am going to talk about the importance of working hard and trying not to worry about what others do or get away with.  I realize that in every work place it is easy to look at what others are doing or not doing.  Saying hey way do they get away with that.  Yet I have learned that by doing this it doesn’t help us grow as a worker or as a person.  If we focus on our work and job at hand and worry about whether or not, we are truly working to our full potential we are going to improve ourselves.  Every so often I realize that I have begun to worry about what others are not doing and when that happens I never work to my full potential.  I come to realize that best place to be an example of Christ is at work, that I represent more than myself.  I represent Christ and His Church, I have to make sure that I am doing what I need to be doing at my job.  I should not be slacking or taking short cuts. I need to be working hard and when asked why I work so hard my answer should to bring glory to God. 

As I’m writing this I feel that there are many areas in which I can improve on in both my Jobs, I plan to do just that.  I plan to work hard, try my best to encourage others around me.  I want to be as Christ like as possible at work.  I understand work can be stressful and people don’t always do what we think they should. I realize that people get promoted by taking credit for work they didn’t do, but at the end of it all we must realize that we live in a broken world.  In this broken world we are going to come across all kinds of work problems and how we handle these problems are what is going to define us.  Are we going to be defined as, patient, kind, hardworking, encouragers, able to endure through tough times?  Or are we going to be, complainers, judgmental, and lazy?  We have choices in life, we can choose to work hard and bring glory to God, or we can choose to compare ourselves to others and just do enough.  Which will you choose?

What I Learned from My Accidental Day Off

The other day I had a day off but it wasn’t a planned  day off, I’m referring to it as an accidental day off.  The thing is I really don’t take days off, I take vacations where I walk away from all my work, but I normally work every day of the week.  On my days off from my Job that pays the bills I normally work between 4 to 5 hours on church things.  But on this day I had planned on going to meetings, but do to an unforeseen 5 hours of talking to tech support I decided to skip the meeting and use the day to catch up on other work.  Autumn’s aunt was wanting to come over and see us so Autumn had told her this day would work.  We had to do some running around town in the morning nothing that big just had pick some odd and ends.  Once we got back I figured I would get some work done then when Autumn’s aunt got here I would take a break finish up later in the evening.  We got back home I sat on the couch and somehow completely forgot about all the work I wanted to do.  Autumn informed me her aunt was going to be later then excepted.  I remembered we had some movies on the DVR we wanted watch. Truth be told they have been there for months maybe some longer than a year.  I said let’s see what’s on the DVR, we started watching “The Intern,” which was a great movie.

At some point about half way through the movie a thought entered my mind, “so this is what it feels like to have a day off.”  Along with this piece of scripture, “On the seventh day, having finished his task, God rested from all his work.  And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from his work of creation.”(Gen 2:2-3)  As I had this thought accord to me I thought maybe God is trying to tell me something, you can ask Autumn I don’t forget about work and I don’t just relax all that easy when I have a list of things I want to get done.  I’m a bit more high strong then I should be.  I complained for almost two days about being on the phone for over five hours with tech support and how much I should have gotten done.  But I had forgotten how important a day of rest is for us.  God even commanded Israel that they are to take a day of rest.  Now Moses called a meeting of all the people and told them, “You must obey these instructions from the Lord. Each week, work for six days only. The seventh day is a day of total rest, a holy day that belongs to the Lord. Anyone who works on that day will die. Do not even light fires in your homes on that day.”(Ex 35:1-3)  As I began to realize I was no longer allowing myself to truly rest, I would come to a point of exhaustion push myself to go a little further, then I would collapse on the couch and just zone out.  I would come back from vacations feel rested for about a week and then be exhausted again.

I told Autumn I now realize that I need to take a day of rest, a day where I relax, a day where I do things with family or around the house that need to be done.  On this day I do not work on sermons, try to figure out what my next series is.  I am allowed to write my blog, record my YouTube show only because these are things that I can do and relax while doing them although I am going to do my best to have all my blogging done by day off.  I can work around on projects such as our yard and so on.  But I am going to train myself to relax and take a real day off a full day.  I’m going to learn to relax more and not worry about the work that is not yet done, let us not forget worrying is also a sin.  So I challenge you to Take a day off every six days and reenergize your body and your soul.  It is important to remember to make time for God on your day off as well.    

Goals Part Two: Finances

As we talked about in Goals part one there were four sections in my life I was working on, we already talked about fitness goals.  Today I want talk financial goals, financial goals are important for a number of reasons.  Biblically speaking the bible tells us we cannot have two masters, we either serve God or we serve Money. Christ tells us “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

 (Mt 6:24) If we are living in a great deal of debt it is the debt that begins to control our lives.  We have become extremely dependent on Credit Cards.  The average American carries about 15,622 dollars according to Nerdwallet.com.

I feel it is important to discuss how Autumn and I have come up with goals for our finances.  We decided that we do not want to be controlled by debt.  We have a car loan and the house mortgage, we have a credit card and normally pay it off every month.  Notice I said normally this is what we are working on in finances.  We have realized that we make a budget every month and with every intention to follow it, but we get busy and forget to sit down write down we are buying.  What happens is we overspend on groceries, or entertainment or whatever.  We have come up with a plan we have put partially in place. The plan consists of rules to help guide us so we don’t have to dip into our savings to pay off the credit card at the end of month. 

Rule number one:

 we have to tell each other what we are buying, this isn’t asking permission, it is more of making sure we know what has been spent.  But we do ask each other, here is an example.  The other day I was on Amazon and saw a movie we both really enjoyed, we do not normally buy movies anymore because we found we never watch them enough for it to make sense.  I asked Autumn and she said do you really think we are going to watch it that much.  I stopped and thought about that question for a few days and decided not to buy it.

Rule number two:

We are going to start working on the budget together each week to see where we are at and how our spending is going.  What this does is makes us think more about where the money is going and do we really want to spend our entertainment money on that or maybe we want to save it for another event. 

Rule number three:

Slowey get rid of recurring payment on things we really don’t use that often.  The biggest item on that list is our cable bill, we have been very slowly getting rid of it, we need the internet but we really do not watch that much T.V. we have found other places that would allow us to watch football live and news stations that would be cheaper.  The big hold up on this is the cable company I call them about every three months get more cable taken off, but they are not wanting to give us a good deal on just high speed internet and phone.  It is a process that I feel in the end I will win.

 The goal for our finances is to become good stewards of our money, so we can give more to charity and people in need.  The other part of that is so we can save money for projects around the house and retirement.  We are use a budgeting tool I found through Dave Ramsey’s site called EveryDollar.com.  We are working to get complete control of our money so it never controls us.  

Taking Control Of Your Day

As I have been looking at my goals one thing I have begun to understand is in order to achieve any of my Goals is I must begin to control my days better.  Can we really have complete control of our days?  I don’t believe that is ever going to happen, just the other day I ended up on the phone with tech-support for 5 hours, side note never call Microsoft tech support they won’t fix your problem.  That is a prime example of how I did not have control of my day, and there was nothing I could do about it.  What if instead of trying to control our whole day we took control of different parts of our day?

I have realized that I have lost all control of my mornings, I get up and nothing gets done, for almost two hours because I sit and watch the news and drink coffee then frantically get ready for work and rush breakfast.  As I analyzed my day it made sense to begin to grab control of this part of my day, what a great part of my day to get work done.  I have done some things to help with this, I have started getting as much done before bed to help me out.  I pack my gym bag and lay out my clothes for the next morning.  With my wanting to fit back into my suit in two months I have decided that I should go ahead and start the day by doing an Insanity Max workout, this may be replaced with something else such as reading or studying depending on goals at the time.  At one time in my life I had great control over my mornings and have always felt that during that time I was more productive.  The other part the morning is going to be spent in time of reading and getting things ready for my Sunday message and blogs and so on. 

The evenings can be another part of our life we lose control of with realizing it is easy to begin to get home and sit down and say I exhausted.  Next thing you know you have spent the whole evening watching Netflix, HGTV, Hulu you get the point.  I have been realizing how many evening I have spent doing just that.  One of the best things I have started doing is going to the YMCA directly from work I get a workout in that is already mapped out for me and even on the nights I don’t feel like it I force myself to do it.  This works better than me trying to come home and workout at the house.  I have started putting down on paper what it is that I want to get done that night.  I have been finding that this works great I also let Autumn know and then she can encourage me to get things done.

I am still struggling but I am working hard on this, maybe your like I was and are saying I just don’t have the time to do all the things I want do.  If so I would encourage you to begin to take control of your life. Here are some ideas to help you get started.

·         Make a list of things you want to do, goals, hobbies, house work etc

·         Start writing down what you’re doing during your free time, be honest about how long it is.

·         Study the list of things you do and how long they take, this key for figuring out where you lose your time

·         Decide what can go and begin to take control of your time

I understand that things are going to happen out of our control that are going to take away our control and that is okay.  Things happen but we need to begin to realize that our time can be better controlled then we think.  The days that I do control my time are the days I enjoy best.

Disciplined Life: Part One

I have decided it is time for me start blogging again, I actually have decided it time for me to start doing a lot of things.  I realized some days ago I had become somewhat lazy, got into a funk, I made all kinds of reasons for it, I was sick, I'm busy with other things, I deserve to be a little lazy.  Then I realized a few things, one, all the reasons I listed were really excuses for not doing what I knew I needed to be doing to move forward in my relationship with God, relationship with others, and moving forward.  The next few blogs are going to be about the changes that Autumn and I have decided we need to start making in our lives.  I decided to take you on the journey with me and I hope that along the way my experience is going to help you. 

I have for some time believed that God desires for those of us who follow Him and have a relationship with Him, to live a disciplined life.  Some may try to say that there isn't any scripture to back this thought, I would say your correct in that.  No place does it say "man shall live a disciplined life."  Although as we go through and read and study scripture it seems to indicate that we are to be disciplined in how we live.  Let's just take proverbs for example it seems that Solomon is indicating that laziness leads one to living a godless life.  The seven deadly sins would indicate that one needs be disciplined in how they live. 

With this thought in mind I realized that I need to become disciplined in my life, I came up with four things to work on in the next two months, made four goals and shared them with Autumn, I am in the process of writing them out and making a plan for each of them in the next few weeks I will share them with you explain why I feel each of these areas are important for each of us to be disciplined in and through my weekly Vlog I'll keep you up to date on how I am doing in each area.  I came up with four areas that I feel I need to constantly be working on and creating goals in these areas of my life. These four are, 1) Physical Health, 2) Spiritual Health, 3) Financial Health, 4) Job Health. 

This week let us talk about physical health, I know it is not said anywhere in the bible that we are to make sure that we stay in tip top shape.  But if we are really honest with ourselves we can find enough scripture that all but instructs us not to live unhealthy lifestyles.  But let us also realize that being unhealthy brings a great deal of complications in ones life.  Autumn and I have decided it is time that we both get in better shape and eat healthier.  There are many reasons for this for one on both Autumn's side the family has diabetes and other health issues which is do to both genes and weight issues.  I have realized that I have in the last year put on some weight and can no longer fit in my suit and many shirts comfortably.   The other major reason with us hoping that for Autumn to become pregnant in the next year, we would love to see our child grow up eating healthy and learning from our example on living a healthy life.   

We have both outlined a plan on becoming what we both realized was that in order to do so we had to gain control of our days, we realized that we had been spending too much time allowing our days to control us.  I will go into further details on that in my next blog.  upon realizing that we came up with a plan, for the next two months we decided to put a great deal of effort into becoming in shape.  I am going to outline my plan for you and here and I hope that this is going to help you as well I will post my updates on what I lose on my vlog and let you know when I can comfortably fit into my suit again.  

Goal: Fit Into Suit 

1. Eat Healthy 

2. No processed sugar (except for on Sunday Cheat Day) 

3. On Sunday Cheat Day I will only eat one dessert 

4. Workout 

5. I will go through Insanity Max in the mornings 

6. I will go to the YMCA after work 

7. Work toward running  6 miles in under 60 minute 

8. Stay focused