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1. Pray for the Kheng people of Bhutan.
2. Pray for your enemies.
3. Pray for a national return to Christ and His teachings.
4. Pray for the persecuted Christians in other countries, that they may remain strong in Christ and His love.
Have you ever wondered why the world hates Christians now days? Well, upon reading Oregon States newspaper, “The Daily Barometer”, I found out why. I picked up the paper, and on the front page was an article entitled “Preaching to a Campus Full of Questions” with the following picture:
The rest of the article can be read here http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2008/12/02/News/Preaching.To.A.Campus.Full.Of.Questions-3565164.shtml
Upon seeing this artcle on the front page, I was filled with disgust. This is what the world sees Christianity as today. Crazy, off whack, preachers, condemning every person to Hell. That to me, isn’t a very good example of love. I look at his sign, Evolution is a Lie, and think “Does he have anything to back the up, or is he just making a statement?” This is what has given Christianity the lable of “intolerant”. Yes, while as Christians, let me use the words followers of Christ, for Christian has no meaning to me. As followers of Christ, we do believe the consequences of sin is eternal damnation, and apart from Christ, it is inevitable. But is this really an effective way of demonstrating this point? Standing up, making yourself appear better than others, telling them they are wrong in everything they do, condemning them to Hell unless they repent right now. This may have worked in Billy Sunday’s day, but in today’s society, it only degrades “Christianity”.
I decided to venture to his website, www.salvationjunction.com, and was horrified. It isn’t a spectacular website, no gospel message what-so-ever, only a little counter that shows how many people have died while you spend time on the website, serving as a guilt trip. I think 50 people died while I was wasting time on his website. Why even have a website? Also, there was the “good” test, with the primary purpose of determining whether you were a good person or not. I venture to guess at the end was something to the effect of “You may be good, but you are still going to Hell.” What a way to show the love of Christ, no?
So my point is this, we hear about these lunatics every so often, and we read about the aftermath of their antics. People are angry, hate Christians more, and harden their hearts towards the life changing love of Christ. What if this man, this Rev. Shawn David Holes, had instead decided to set up a few tables and serve the students lunch, and talk with them, caring about them? What if he had decided to BE the love of Christ, instead of trying to DISTRIBUTE it forcefully? What Shawn Holes did to me, was not an example of the love of Christ, but rather of legalistic Christianity. Had he rethought his strategy a little bit, maybe, just maybe, some of the students would have reconciled their lives with Christ, having experienced His love in a real way, from a realy man, not some preacher, caught up in himself and “serving” the kingdom.
Love is patient. These words come from the infamous chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13. I read this and think “What does it mean by patient? How was this patience exemplified in the life of Christ?”
Well, I’m going to try and answer those questions today. I looked up the word used for patience in this verse, and found that the Greek word used is Makrothumèo, which means “to suffer long, be longsuffering, as opposed to being given to hasty anger or punishment, to forbear, to endure patiently as opposed to despondency, involves exercising understanding and patience toward persons”
To me, this seems to be on of the most difficult concepts of love to grasp. So many times we lose patience with people, sometimes in the most ridiculous, worthless ways. A great illustration of this type of patience is found in 2 Peter 3:9. God demonstrates this aspect of love in a very, very real way.
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering [patient] toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
Here, Peter states that the Lord is patient with us, waiting for us, he forbears, waiting for us to come to Him in repentance. He is God after all, He could have destroyed us. He could have left us for something else, but He didn’t. Knowing that God chose to be patient with us, knowing our sins, knowing our desire to live for the flesh, yet He still loved us enough to wait…and wait some more…and continue to wait, so that all, undeserving as we are, can come to Him, with our arms outstretched, desiring Him.
Another instance we see this patience is in Hebrews 6:15. Here the author is discussing the promise made to Abraham via God. It says
“And so, after he patiently endured, he obtained the promise”
First we saw God’s patience, and here we see the reciprocate. Many times, I think we as Christians think that certain things are for God, and God only, i.e. patience. We think, how are we to be patient? We’ll leave that up to God. But as we see in Hebrews, we are to reciprocate that patience as well. God is patient with us, and we need to be patient with Him. In my personal opinion, our patience towards God is more important. So many times we get ahead of God and his plans. We want things to happen now, blessings to come now, healing to happen now, etc. and we forget that maybe God doesn’t want it to happen now. Maybe God has us in this position for a reason, for a time of learning, for a time of blessing others. So, as a consequence of moving ahead of God, things begin to hurt, things begin to get complicated, and things begin to fail. It is imperative that we wait on God, for He waits on us to run to Him.
How do we see this patience exhibited in the life of Christ? The most apparent example to me, is Jesus’ relationship with His disciples. Everytime Jesus taught something, it seemed as though the disciples never understood. Yet, despite this, Jesus still taught. loving them with His entire being. If they didn’t get a concept, Jesus was always sure to explain it.
How can we exhibit the patience in our lives? I think we all know of areas where patience would be a necessity. In practically every area of our lives, we could use an ounce more of patience. Personally, though, I think that if we start by being patient with our Heavenly Father, patience will flow into other areas of our life. Being patient with our Creator, gives us the peace to know that He has all things under control, that all things are planned for a purpose. With that in mind, it will really help us to be patient with others, to be patient in all circumstances.
“The times we find ourselves having to wait on others may be the perfect opportunities to train ourselves to wait on the Lord.”
Joni Eareckson Tada
I’m sorry for this large period of inactivity. School has been super stressful. I’m just so busy trying to be the President, trying to be a student, trying to organize activities, and trying to nurture my relationship with Christ. As I write, you probably wonder why I am using the word trying. Well, that is all I can do is try. I can’t do. Well, at least I can’t without Christ. All I can do is try and try and try, but with Christ I can accomplish.
I think so many times, we stress ourselves out trying so hard to accomplish things that in our human weakness, are impossible to achieve. I don’t know how I am staying afloat with everything on my plate, I don’t know how I’m going to continue to do so, but I sit here and think, with the love of Christ in my life I can do this. Your prayers would help alot. I know I said I was going to do a series on love, I still intend to do that, but man, I have to find the time. But I guess, in my headachy state, what I’m trying to say is, as humans, we need more to keep us afloat. We need more than our own power to help us accomplish the things we need to get done on a daily basis. We need Jesus, we need his power. I remember, I think it was Josiah (if I remember correctly) who was in a desperate situation, and he cried out to God, “I don’t know what I’m doing, LORD, I need your help” So many times, we are lost, trying to accomplish too much outside of God. We need to get inside of God so to speak and with Him, we can do all things. So yeah.
Frequently we go around, hypothesizing about situations with the common phrase “What if”. Alot of the times, these what ifs, while they may be realistic, are highly unlikely. Like, “What if I get hit by a bus?” (spoken in the middle of a desert). The flip side, in the Christian world, are the “If onlys”. These things, that are realistic, and could very likely be achievable, but never happen. This makes me think back to Romans 8:30 “What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” And we know that with God, ALL things are possible. So this is my list of “What ifs”. Feel free to add your own in the comments. These could all be attained, if we, the body of Christ as a whole, come together. Also, as my pastor pointed out last night, these can’t be separated from the Gospel message, or they are nothing.
1. What if every Christian was concerned with the evangelization of the world?
2. What if the glory of God was the focus of every Christian’s life?
3. What if we gave more than received?
4. What if the church truly cared for the poor, and the widows?
5. What if, instead of arguing over “trivial” things such as the pre-wrath rapture position, we came together and agreed that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and the only way to Heaven, no strings attached. (I use trivial in the sense as not as important as the Gospel message)
6. What if every person in the church was involved in some aspect of ministry within the church?
7. What if every church returned to the truth of the Gospel, instead of “What ideas can I come up with today?”
8. What if the church saw each other as brothers and sisters in Christ?
9. What if church planted church, and continued doing so?
10. What if we seriously cared about the unreached people of the world?
11. What if we truly desired to have the Bible in every language?
12. What if we committed to live as Christ did, on a daily basis?
13. What if we weren’t complacent with sin?
14. What if we died to ourself on a daily basis?
15. What if we truly let God use us?
So in my last post I mentioned that I was a leader at a high school youth retreat this last week. When I first got contacted about going, I thought to myself, sure, no prob, just a few high schoolers doin stuff. Cake. Then as the retreat drew nearer, I began to think, “What was I thinking?! I don’t want to spend MY spring break with obnoxious high schoolers!” That sentiment grew stronger when I found out there were myriads of girls going. So as I got ready to leave Sunday, I was dreading it. In between the girl talk and the listening to High School Musical, things only seemed to get worse on the way to Yachats. To me this trip was just going to be high schoolers wanting to have fun. I didn’t think they would really care about the reality of Christ. I mean, I didn’t when I was in high school. But to my surprise, I was totally wrong. When we arrived Sunday night, things didn’t get off on a great start, one of the other leaders had to take some girls aside and chat with them. On top of that, the other girls were screaming. It came time for worship and teaching time. As we worshiped and Daniel taught, I looked around and just saw the kids staring off. I was thinking “They don’t care. They don’t want this.” But I regret thinking that. Quite a few of these kids had no relationship with our Heavenly Father whatsoever, and I believe that it was at that moment that Daniel was teaching about the reality of our sin, when God was beginning a most marvelous work. My frail, weak, human eyes couldn’t see what was happening spiritually. It wasn’t until Tuesday evening, that I really begin to see the hearts of these kids. Slowly over the course of time the kids became cool, okay so it was the next day. They were removed from their groups, exposed and vulnerable. They didn’t have their other high school friends to influence them. They were raw, and some of them broken. When I realized that, my whole outlook changed. The high schoolers became cool. I realized, that wow, they actually cared about worship, they just may not have known how to worship. They cared about Christ, but they may just not have know Him…until know. Over the course of those three days, it was firmly laid out that we are indeed sinners, consumed by sin, redeemed by Christ, and in debt with our lives to Him. The most beautiful thing was, that 4 kids (I think four) realized that with the utmost sincerity and made Jesus Christ the Lord of their lives. That is when I saw what was going on spiritually. These kids needed answers, they needed love, and they were finding it in Jesus Christ. Earlier in the post I mentioned in caps MY spring break. How selfish was that? I wasn’t going on the retreat for my benefit, I wasn’t going on it for the kid’s benefit, because I certainly had nothing to offer them, or maybe so I thought. I was going for the Lord’s use, and I failed to realize that at first. Now, granted, I have no clue if I had any impact in any of those kids lives, but none the less, I was there for God’s use, and His use only. I was there as a leader. Yes, leaders enforce rules and whatnot, but most importantly, leaders try to point those that are following towards the love of Jesus Christ. That is what those kids needed, and praise God, that is what happened those days at the retreat. I doubt that a single one of those 20 kids went away WITHOUT seeing, and possibly experiencing the love that Jesus Christ has to offer. After all, that to me at least, was the focus. I feel bad about being selfish about things, it wasn’t about me, it necessarily wasn’t about the kids either, it was about Jesus, and pointing the kids towards Jesus. That was all that mattered. To me, everything could have been a flop, but if those kids came away with a deeper, more committed relationship with Christ, it would have all been worth it. Now, I am pumped to work with these high schoolers this summer. I can only hope and pray that God will use me more. I realized that these kids are no different than me (except younger and lacking decent music tastes 
, they are humans in a desolate sinful world, looking for the eternal, everlasting love. The only real difference was, at the time, that I had found it in Jesus Christ, and some had not and still haven’t. I want to do my best to show that love to them. As David said in Psalm 63:3, “Your unfailing love is better than life itself” (combination of different versions). How true that is, and I so want those kids to know that, and experience that fulfilling love. As Pastor Jeff Stewart said this last Sunday, Christ is the only one that can give you peace, when you don’t know what is going on. That also falls into the category of love, Christ is the only one that can love you when you don’t know what you’ve done. I hope that my life will be an example to these kids and to everyone, of the love that Christ has for us.
Just a side note: A couple hundred words ago, I mentioned the kids being away from their peers, their cliques, their groups. It was when they were open and vulnerable that Christ started His cleansing work. This is so evident in my life, and the lives of others, that when we get within our groups and are influenced by them, we sometimes tend to shut Christ out. This is soo sad. He may want to use us to change our friends lives as well, but He can’t when we won’t let Him. We need to make ourselves open and vulnerable, no matter how much it will hurt, in our groups of friends. We need to make ourselves ready to be used by God. We need to let go. As one of my favorite sayings goes “Let go and let God”
I know, I know, it has been awhile since the last time I posted something. But here I am, posting something again. This one doesn’t have to do with any particular revelation, or something superb, just something simple, at least to me.
The other day, I was at One Voice, actually it was a couple of weeks ago. As the worship was proceeding, I just stood their and looked around. observing the people there. There were those with their hands in the pocket, appearing as if they had something better to do, those who were silent and praying, and those who were worshiping with all of their being. As I observed this act of love, and adoration, something struck me. I thought, “What an awesome, special relationship we have with God!” Now this may sound rather obvious, but let me put it into context.
All of these other religions out there have some form or another of god, regardless of whether they acknowledge it. And the majority have some form of worship towards this god. So now the question asked is, what is my point? Well looking at a lot of these religions and their forms of worship we see that the worship is out of respect, and that it should be, but it is also out of obligation AND to some degree fear. A fear that the person may be struck dead, not fulfill the laws of god, not get to a certain level of heaven, etc. But then when I look at Christians, and our worship, I notice something very different. I notice a key element the others are missing, and that is LOVE. The other religions lack this love for their god. Why is this? I believe it is because of the relational element we have with Jesus Christ. We don’t exist merely as pawns to try and please our Creator, or we get eternally punished. We were meant to have a relationship with our Creator. God designed it that way from the beginning with Adam and Eve. It was the sin that destroyed this beautiful relationship and the sacrifice of Christ on the cross that restored it. And here we are in our worship, giving thanks for that. Giving our all for that. Showing our love, the best we can, for that. That is what impressed me. The fact that we have a relationship with God, in which we can give back love, in which we can show love, in which we can give our lives for His glory. Tell me, what other religion has this awe and intimacy. So, next time, when worshiping ,think about not the act, but, rather I guess I would say the significance of this. What does worship show? What does our worship show? Does our worship show fear or love?
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