At a retreat, you have no doubt that the Holy Spirit is moving. The lights are dim and you are in a moment of adoration and deep worship while the deepest part of your soul cries out and you exclaim "Lord, use me!!!"
Use me...I've said it... you've said it...
...but do we know what we're getting ourselves into?
John 9:2-3 begins His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Read the next verse and take the time to pause.. "Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.'"
Am I truly a life that is willing to be used as a place for God to display His power? But...
...
How can people ever see our God as a Healer without the presence of sickness?
How can people learn the God of grace without the wounded having been afflicted?
How can we know God as Provider unless we have also known deep need?
Is it possible to understand "peace that surpasses understanding" without having been plunged into depths of confusion and pain?
How can we proclaim our God to be the Restorer unless we have first felt the pain of brokenness?
We all love to rejoice in a victor; but do we welcome the battle?
...
How easily do I grumble! When the battles come in my life, does the way I conduct myself bear witness to others that I KNOW in Whom I have believed! Or do I doubt God's presence, care or power in the midst of said hardships. Do I KNOW that He never leaves or forsakes me! That I KNOW He works all things together for good?!
...Holy Father, may I trust you completely... May I truly be able to say "Use me".
living sacrifice
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Be Still
For those of you that don’t know, I just finished the short marathon that is studying for the MCATs. During the last several months, I often felt myself burnt out from all the equations and memorizing. When we immerse himself in work worrying about getting things done and fighting for a favorable outcome, sometimes it feels like we can never do enough… or we don’t do things right. Our instinct is to prioritize, often times incorrectly. The To-Do List is never done. Psalm 46:10 has kept me in check during these times and I know will continue to do so as I live for Him.
God says: BE …not “do”, or “get”, or “go”. He says that WHO we are is more important than what we do.
In today’s American culture, sleep is becoming more and more of a scarce commodity. How does any one of us find time to get enough rest? There’s school, work, family, kids, work at church. Unending projects -at home and away- are almost (but not quite) enough to keep our minds off the 500 point dip in the stock market. Plus, we really want to have some time with friends…need some “down time”…
God says: BE STILL …He knows that we are strengthened in our rest. But, more than that, if we don’t BE STILL, we will undoubtedly miss that “still, small voice”. Satan, the master and author of confusion, wants us to live in the loud, overwhelming activity and movement of life. Our God does speak loudly at times…but most of the time the Lord will not compete with the noise that we create and/or allow around us. Being Still…taking time alone to pray and meditate on Him…shutting out everything and everybody…is part of the self-discipline that is required to develop and maintain a REAL relationship with God. We must make time and space to meet Him in silence and in stillness.
God says: BE STILL AND KNOW …I figure you can give me a few facts about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. You know about them… but you don’t KNOW them. In 5, 10, 20, 30 years… would we really KNOW the people we graduated with? Do we KNOW GOD or are we satisfied with KNOWING ABOUT HIM? To maintain any relationship, to KNOW GOD, requires ongoing communication…time spent talking, listening…learning and understanding His heart and mind through the Word.
God says: BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM …Our Father said “I AM”. He doesn’t remind us of who HE was, nor does He tell us who He would becoming. He never changes… His priorities, His rules, His commands do not and will never change. He is ever-present…forever the same.
God says: BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD We easily argue our point of view with people around us. We readily stand up for ourselves…or wear martyr-like self-pity. But the truth is WE DON’T GET TO MAKE OUR OWN DECISIONS. We are not our own; we’ve been “bought with a price” (1Cor 6:20). I’ve seen bumper stickers that say “God is my co-pilot” and I’d have to respectfully disagree. God, Christ and the Holy Spirit is to be the pilot and we are to “die to self”. Everything else is disobedience. We must remember that the greatest among us will serve (Matt 23:11)…and that our God is on His throne and He is the KING
Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth
Psalm 46:10
God says: BE …not “do”, or “get”, or “go”. He says that WHO we are is more important than what we do.
In today’s American culture, sleep is becoming more and more of a scarce commodity. How does any one of us find time to get enough rest? There’s school, work, family, kids, work at church. Unending projects -at home and away- are almost (but not quite) enough to keep our minds off the 500 point dip in the stock market. Plus, we really want to have some time with friends…need some “down time”…
God says: BE STILL …He knows that we are strengthened in our rest. But, more than that, if we don’t BE STILL, we will undoubtedly miss that “still, small voice”. Satan, the master and author of confusion, wants us to live in the loud, overwhelming activity and movement of life. Our God does speak loudly at times…but most of the time the Lord will not compete with the noise that we create and/or allow around us. Being Still…taking time alone to pray and meditate on Him…shutting out everything and everybody…is part of the self-discipline that is required to develop and maintain a REAL relationship with God. We must make time and space to meet Him in silence and in stillness.
God says: BE STILL AND KNOW …I figure you can give me a few facts about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. You know about them… but you don’t KNOW them. In 5, 10, 20, 30 years… would we really KNOW the people we graduated with? Do we KNOW GOD or are we satisfied with KNOWING ABOUT HIM? To maintain any relationship, to KNOW GOD, requires ongoing communication…time spent talking, listening…learning and understanding His heart and mind through the Word.
God says: BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM …Our Father said “I AM”. He doesn’t remind us of who HE was, nor does He tell us who He would becoming. He never changes… His priorities, His rules, His commands do not and will never change. He is ever-present…forever the same.
God says: BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD We easily argue our point of view with people around us. We readily stand up for ourselves…or wear martyr-like self-pity. But the truth is WE DON’T GET TO MAKE OUR OWN DECISIONS. We are not our own; we’ve been “bought with a price” (1Cor 6:20). I’ve seen bumper stickers that say “God is my co-pilot” and I’d have to respectfully disagree. God, Christ and the Holy Spirit is to be the pilot and we are to “die to self”. Everything else is disobedience. We must remember that the greatest among us will serve (Matt 23:11)…and that our God is on His throne and He is the KING
Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth
Psalm 46:10
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Wisdom of Einstein
"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving..." - Albert Einstein
How much more should we exert ourselves then, knowing we are not only the products of the trials and tribulations of those around us, but also from God Himself?
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Oh, How He Loves Us
There are two things that come to mind when I first read this quote. Firstly, concerning love and relationships: I'm not a believer in love-at-first-sight. I believe in a love that blossoms through continued friendship and respect and a true desire for the well-being of the other.
.love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from it's green sheath." - LM Montgomery (Anne of Avonlea)
Secondly: As I was growing up, like some other Christians, I went through periods of bitterness against God. There's the normal era of teenage angst and frustration. And then in my particular case, with my brother, I often asked myself "Why did God put me in this situation?" I'm forever tied to my brother in more ways than some people realize off the bat. For so long, my family has had to schedule our lives around his needs solely. What hours I was available to work (having to drive my brother to and from school, that cuts out most 9-5 jobs). Sometimes where we could travel (places where we could keep him at arms length without him disturbing others too much). And many other things.
And then I started seeing the so many blessings I've been given in life that I've taken for granted for so long. I have two wonderful parents who have prayed over me and continue to support me to this day. Through the years with my brother, he has shaped virtues in me that I have never realized before. Over the years, realizing these subtle yet powerful examples of how He has molded me into the young man I am today can only be His absolute love for me.
Just because we aren't loved in the way we want to be loved, doesn't mean we aren't loved at all.
Sometimes it means we're loved more than we realize.
"but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
First Love
I had the sudden urge to look for my DC Talk CDs. Their songs are cheesy, yes, but Jesus Freak and Free at Last were my first Christian CDs. I would argue these are the quintessential albums for young Christians of my generation. People may sell these short, thinking DC Talk was only about the title cut, but there are so many amazing songs on these albums.
Imagine my elation after saving up for weeks to finally be able to walk into Borders and check out at the register with my own saved up allowance. And then to hurry home and listen to the CDs on repeat through the night. I still have the lyrics of "In the Light" ingrained in my head after all these years.
There's nothing in the world that captures your heart like that feeling of your first love. Whether it is with a significant other, or a hobby or your profession, your first love has an immense stronghold in who a person is. It drives how a person acts, how a person thinks, the decisions they make in life. Mozart understood this fully, saying this:
I want to remind myself and everyone that it is not our performance that He desires. He just desires our heart. Once we find ourselves in that place of rediscovering that first love we felt in Him, everything else will fall into place.
Imagine my elation after saving up for weeks to finally be able to walk into Borders and check out at the register with my own saved up allowance. And then to hurry home and listen to the CDs on repeat through the night. I still have the lyrics of "In the Light" ingrained in my head after all these years.
"What's going on inside of me? I despise my own behaviorBeing an awkward adolescent that had no idea how to express himself, discovering these song lyrics was like striking gold. I was hooked and in love.
This only serves to confirm my suspicions
That I am a man in need of a Savior
I wanna be in the Light, as You are in the Light
I wanna shine like the stars in the heavens
Oh Lord, be my Light and be my salvation
'Cause all I want to be is in the Light"
There's nothing in the world that captures your heart like that feeling of your first love. Whether it is with a significant other, or a hobby or your profession, your first love has an immense stronghold in who a person is. It drives how a person acts, how a person thinks, the decisions they make in life. Mozart understood this fully, saying this:
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.Too often do we forget that first love we felt in Christ. It's amazing how subtly the world distracts us from this fact, isn't it? As we age, we only get busier and busier with our lives. From school, we get a job. Most of us will get married. We might have children. Bills pile up. Older loved ones pass away. Circumstances arise in life that need our attention. It becomes too easy to cope with the ever-piling load of responsibility by going through the daily motions. This becomes a slippery slope towards a path of works-righteousness; that we ultimately have this need to perform in our lives to gain favor in the eyes of our loved ones, even God.
I want to remind myself and everyone that it is not our performance that He desires. He just desires our heart. Once we find ourselves in that place of rediscovering that first love we felt in Him, everything else will fall into place.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
A Year and a Half
I only just remembered I had this. Call it a desperate attempt at escape from outside responsibilities (aka studying -_-;; ). But I suppose it's a more wholesome distraction than say... building more pylons and Zealots, or seeing the a Heat player's next attempt for an Oscar.
"Hollywood as hell" as Joakim Noah likes to put it.
Let's talk about the church. More specifically, what is the church, and His Kingdom supposed to look like? How is it that we are able to easily welcome newcomers to our church, but so easily also show so much disdain and contempt for people that have wronged us, even within the church? I wish for my church, and for all churches out there, that people walk in and think "These people are happy."
A place where there is that freedom the bondage of having to perform at a certain standard.
But so many of us don't do this. We expect people to act a certain way, to do or not do certain things, and we begin to build walls around us. And we only allow people that fit or act a certain way into those walls.
The Old Testament is familiar to us. The time when God had His people go through ceremonial cleaning in His temple in order to worship him. How that turned from recognizing/remember that God was so holy that we as man couldn't attain it, to turning it into legalism... saying "We're going to protect the law, we're going to live out the law."
We know how this goes, better than we even realize ourselves. You know we have Jesus that we all believe and we follow. And this Jesus that we know and follow, we feel the need to protect Him. Protect the Bible, protect the church from those kind of people who can or has defiled it. Right? Those people that we think if we allow to sit in our pews or if allow ourselves to know them that the church will become dirty or unclean. We've become like the spectators when Jesus saw Zacchaeus and said he wanted to stop by his house; we grumble. We start on the path of ostracizing them in our hearts.
Well guess what. Jesus was walking around, and a bleeding woman comes up to him and touches His robe and becomes clean. Why is she healed? Because with Jesus, there is nothing that can defile Him. But rather He has the power to cleanse and redeem. But for some reason we've adopted this stream of thinking that we need to protect the church. If the Gospel were to come in contact with something that happens or people that are dirty, that it will defile and impurify the Gospel. That is all wrong.
The church has so many subtle ways of living in this old paradigm of thinking, that Jesus came to undo.
With condemnation of sin also comes restoration.
We need to see how utterly powerful the Gospel is, and see the grace, mercy, joy and forgiveness that flows from that.
"Hollywood as hell" as Joakim Noah likes to put it.
Let's talk about the church. More specifically, what is the church, and His Kingdom supposed to look like? How is it that we are able to easily welcome newcomers to our church, but so easily also show so much disdain and contempt for people that have wronged us, even within the church? I wish for my church, and for all churches out there, that people walk in and think "These people are happy."
A place where there is that freedom the bondage of having to perform at a certain standard.
But so many of us don't do this. We expect people to act a certain way, to do or not do certain things, and we begin to build walls around us. And we only allow people that fit or act a certain way into those walls.
The Old Testament is familiar to us. The time when God had His people go through ceremonial cleaning in His temple in order to worship him. How that turned from recognizing/remember that God was so holy that we as man couldn't attain it, to turning it into legalism... saying "We're going to protect the law, we're going to live out the law."
We know how this goes, better than we even realize ourselves. You know we have Jesus that we all believe and we follow. And this Jesus that we know and follow, we feel the need to protect Him. Protect the Bible, protect the church from those kind of people who can or has defiled it. Right? Those people that we think if we allow to sit in our pews or if allow ourselves to know them that the church will become dirty or unclean. We've become like the spectators when Jesus saw Zacchaeus and said he wanted to stop by his house; we grumble. We start on the path of ostracizing them in our hearts.
Well guess what. Jesus was walking around, and a bleeding woman comes up to him and touches His robe and becomes clean. Why is she healed? Because with Jesus, there is nothing that can defile Him. But rather He has the power to cleanse and redeem. But for some reason we've adopted this stream of thinking that we need to protect the church. If the Gospel were to come in contact with something that happens or people that are dirty, that it will defile and impurify the Gospel. That is all wrong.
The church has so many subtle ways of living in this old paradigm of thinking, that Jesus came to undo.
With condemnation of sin also comes restoration.
We need to see how utterly powerful the Gospel is, and see the grace, mercy, joy and forgiveness that flows from that.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Titus 1:10-16
10 There are many people who refuse to cooperate, who talk about worthless things and lead others into the wrong way—mainly those who insist on circumcision to be saved. 11 These people must be stopped, because they are upsetting whole families by teaching things they should not teach, which they do to get rich by cheating people.12 Even one of their own prophets said, "Cretans are always liars, evil animals, and lazy people who do nothing but eat."13 The words that prophet said are true. So firmly tell those people they are wrong so they may become strong in the faith,14 not accepting Jewish false stories and the commands of people who reject the truth.15 To those who are pure, all things are pure, but to those who are full of sin and do not believe, nothing is pure. Both their minds and their consciences have been ruined.16 They say they know God, but their actions show they do not accept him. They are hateful people, they refuse to obey, and they are useless for doing anything good.
On the whole, this passage pushes us to be active in building up our spirituality and knowledge of the Truth given to us in His word (the Bible). There are a couple very important reasons for this. Firstly, it serves as training for believers to be on the lookout for people who teach wrong doctrines and can potentially lead others astray. This can be anywhere from well-intended teachers who are simply confused and speak opinions without thoroughly checking them against the Bible, to others who have truly evil motives and only pretend to be Christians to get more money, to network, or to attain status/power by being a leader in the church.
The other key reason to continually learn God's truth is that it transforms your mind and world-view. Reading and meditating on His word molds our souls to become filters through which we perceive situations in our lives. A heart that is truly Christ centered will learn to see even the goodness in this world. But an evil and corrupt heart will always find something to taint even the good that they see and hear. Whatever a person chooses to fill their minds and hearts with will change how they act and think.
On the whole, this passage pushes us to be active in building up our spirituality and knowledge of the Truth given to us in His word (the Bible). There are a couple very important reasons for this. Firstly, it serves as training for believers to be on the lookout for people who teach wrong doctrines and can potentially lead others astray. This can be anywhere from well-intended teachers who are simply confused and speak opinions without thoroughly checking them against the Bible, to others who have truly evil motives and only pretend to be Christians to get more money, to network, or to attain status/power by being a leader in the church.
The other key reason to continually learn God's truth is that it transforms your mind and world-view. Reading and meditating on His word molds our souls to become filters through which we perceive situations in our lives. A heart that is truly Christ centered will learn to see even the goodness in this world. But an evil and corrupt heart will always find something to taint even the good that they see and hear. Whatever a person chooses to fill their minds and hearts with will change how they act and think.
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