Offensive Worship

Are you surrounded by enemies, struggles and fears on all sides? Lift up your weapon (voice) to the Lord! He is enthroned on the praises of His people.

The walls of Jericho crumbling beneath the weight of praise was no fluke. It is a model we'd be wise to follow. In fact, the same strategy was used several other times in history as God sent his worshippers to the front lines of battle. Suicide right? You'd think so, but no. The singers sang and the musicians played, and God used their worship as a vessel to destroy Israel's enemies right in front of them.

The next time you feel the weight of the world becoming almost too much to bear, lay down your worries.  Lay down your fears. Lay down your plans. Lift up your voice to the Lord and watch Him rescue you.

The Greatest (& Riskiest) Gift of All Time

Grace - unmerited mercy and approval ; a virtue coming from God

The economic and societal system that we live under in the modern age is one that prides itself in self-advancement. "Do whatever you can to climb the ladder of success. I had to work hard for everything I have. I earned it." These declarations are applauded, hence a self-made-man is held in reverence. Obviously working hard, diligence, and vision are all good things when stewarded correctly. But in God's kingdom, the things that matter the most, we cannot earn. In fact, the harder we try to earn our own salvation, righteousness, and grace, the more imprisoned we will become. 

Jesus fulfilled the law completely. Therefore, how could we ever expect to further fulfill it by following the rules it established? Did Jesus not do a good enough job? By holding the law up as something that still needs to be followed to live a righteous life, we are deeming the work of Christ incomplete, and taking the role of savior onto our own shoulders. No wonder we are so weighed down by our sins and shortcomings. We were never meant to carry them, and if we choose, they will crush us. 

We must learn to receive gracefully, to inherit the goodness of God in Christ Jesus. We must renounce the lie that something is not fully ours unless we earn it. That sounds good to our flesh, even humble, but it is really just a form of pride and arrogance. We are walking, talking, living beings and we have done nothing to earn our own lives. We didn't earn our DNA. We didn't earn our place of birth in this world, our gender, our heart, our spirit, our mind. All of these priceless gifts were lavished upon us by our Heavenly Father. It's time we take Him at His word and believe we are "the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus."

Just as we received life at conception, we must also receive the new life that Christ is offering us through his death on the cross, and triumph over the grave. It is in this grace alone that we are actually made free: free from our sin, free from pride, free from striving, free from the curse of the law. 

If we fully receive Christ, we fully receive the life He offers. 

Use Your Imagination

Lately, I've been running across the idea of "setting your imagination on God" and it strikes me I suppose because the idea is somewhat foreign to me. I know that many people (perhaps more in modern times) have expressed a fear that heaven will be boring, and as absurd as that sounds, I have gone there in my mind as well. Obviously, we must have terrible imaginations because we couldn't be venturing further from the truth. Heaven is going be to all that we've ever wanted, imagined, desired, all for which we have longed.

Men smarter than myself have said that heaven is not going to be something foreign and other. God is making all things new. He made a great thing when he made the universe and all that is in it, the vast wonder of all the life on earth and the infinite complexity of human beings. He is going to reclaim this earth and make it perfect. I don't know all that heaven entails, but I know this is part of it. There will be eating, drinking, dancing, singing, laughing, talking, embracing, and yes, we will have bodies. We aren't going to be spirits floating about the universe. The scripture speaks multiple times of God transforming our bodies, making them perfect and everlasting. No more plastic surgery, wrinkle cremes, miracle diets, 20 minutes abs, organ transplants. We will be perfectly and gloriously ourselves.

Even more amazing that what heaven is going to look and sound like is who is going be there. God will be there, and we will know him: as our best friend, as our Creator, as our Savior, as our Father, as the Alpha and Omega. Try to imagine that. Imagine you die and instead of floating into a white light as an orb, something much more real happens.

You open your eyes to the doors of a beautiful banquet hall but you can barely see in. The door is cracked just enough to tantalize you. You hear booming sounds of laughter and joy and loving conversation coming from inside. You eventually muster up the courage to stick your nose in through the door to take a peek around. As soon as you do, at the far head end of the table a man stands up, and with him everybody else does as well. Although you've never seen him, you feel like you know this man, and then it hits you; the man is Jesus. Stunned by the revelation you then realize, every person's eyes in the room are glued to you and they are smiling from ear to ear, on their feet because you entered the room. Then Jesus exclaims "Welcome, my friend. We've been expecting you. Come sit by me. I saved you a seat and I hope you're hungry!"

Sounds like heaven to me.

We need to let our imaginations run wild about God, about his plans for us, about his infinite love, about his unmatched greatness, about the depths of his heart for his people like you and me. Nothing we can ever imagine will be too much for God.

God Doesn't Speak to Me...

If that sounds like you, my initial encouragement is do not lose heart. There is hope. And you're going to have to fight for it. First, let's see what we can find in scripture about the idea of God speaking. We want to make sure we begin with a valid foundation before we move forward. Jesus sheds some light on this subject when he explains to the disciples that He is the Good Shepherd and they are the sheep. "The sheep hear [my voice, and I call my] own sheep by name and lead them out. " John 10:3  What an intimate picture. Not only does he call out to us, but he knows us by name, and leads us towards Himself. I can just picture Jesus saying, this way guys. This is the way to life. Follow me!

Now, if we're unable to hear Jesus's voice, why would this example be given in the scriptures? That would just be cruel to get our hopes up. Well, Christ is not cruel. He desires that we know Him "just as the Father knows me and I know the Father." John 10:15 If your earthly father was mainly a source of pain and disappointment for you, that may not sound like much. But God the Father and Jesus are the most united, strong, intimate relationship in all of the Universe, and they are inviting us into that fellowship. And there is no way that we can become that close to Jesus if we cannot speak to Him and hear from Him.

All through the ages, and all through the Scriptures, God speaks to His people. He spoke to Adam. He spoke to Moses. He spoke to Jonah. He spoke to Elijah. He spoke to Daniel. He spoke to Abraham. He spoke to Jesus. And He will speak to you. The responsibility falls on us to listen.  It's not a question of if he speaks, but when. In the book of Hebrew it says "Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness." 3:7-8 The truth here is huge!When you hear His voice! Wow. There's more here though. When we hear His voice, it's our choice how we respond. He gives us free will. If you choose to you can rationalize His voice away and say that wasn't really God. Or you can choose to believe it was indeed God, but choose to disobey. God forbid we choose the latter.

There is another component to keeping your heart sensitive to God's voice, and that is the simple fact that we have an enemy. Call him what you wish: Satan, the devil, the evil one. He's real and he wants to destroy. He is constantly planning on how to steal the life God is trying to offer you through Christ and His spirit. One of the primary ways Satan does this through deception. He did it to Eve in the garden. And he does it to us all the time. He'll whisper in your ear, "God doesn't speak to you. He doesn't even care about you."

Here's the really scary part. Often, we believe Satan's lies. We swallow them hook, line and sinker. Once we've made an agreement with the evil one, he now has a foothold in our life. Believing that God won't or doesn't speak to you can actually keep you from hearing God's voice. Why? Because it kills your faith. You have to take back the truth and renounce that agreement you made with the evil one and take your freedom back. To do this you literally have to pull Satan's hook from your heart, and ask God to remove the lie from your body. Once you've discovered what the lie is bring the Cross and all of Christ's power against the lie, and break your agreement with it. Ask Jesus to fill you His Spirit. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom." 2 Cor 3:17 Then with faith, ask Him to heal you, to speak into your life and He will.

Healing at Starbucks?!?

To be honest, I was nervous. Even though it was just for my close friend, I was still nervous to pray for his healing. Doubt in God's goodness wasn't the problem. It was more that I was doubting whether or not I had enough faith. 

I felt the nudge to pray over my friend's injured neck the second he told me it was bothering him. We met up at Starbucks to talk about life and faith as we often do, but I could see in his eyes that he was not quite right. So I asked him what was wrong. He said "I pulled my neck the other night while praying." I was like, "huh?" What a crazy way to injure yourself! He said "Yeah, I was praying over somebody and I got a shake." By this point, I was chuckling. "That sounds perfectly in the realm of something God wants to heal for you" I offered through a smile. He agreed, and turned to buy some coffee. He was obviously in pain and could barely turn his head at all. That's when it got really interesting.

Many Began to Trust in Him

“Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him” John 2:23

Miracles build trust in God. Nobody would have believed a man claiming to be the Messiah, the savior of the world, without
signs & wonders. But Jesus did the works of His Father and the multitudes believed, and now we can trust fully in Him as our saviour.

The Inner Circle

There are a handful of things in this world worth fighting for, or better yet, worth really living for. One of these, that I deeply yearn for myself, is true friendship - specifically, a group of close friends forming a spiritual community. When true friendship is shared within a group, and each member values honesty, trust, and allows the Holy Spirit to speak through them, that group becomes a spiritual community. In a true community everybody makes the person next to them better, because each member pours themselves into each other, bringing out the best parts of each other. Sounds good right? But we all know how hard to find it really is, mainly because it's scary. It's risky. It requires people to be real.But it is definitely worth the risk. We are designed to be relational. It's been said that we were birthed out of the laughter of the Trinity.