The Defeat of the Impossible

"For nothing is impossible with God." -Luke 1:37, HCSB

How many times have you heard that verse, right? It is a favorite verse of the underdog and athlete, the troubled and addicted.

 "There's nothing God can't help us achieve, and there is nothing that can stop us with Him at our side."

This is very true, but there is a definite asterisk next to this truth: nothing is impossible with God when He decides to do so. The passage that this verse comes from is the same passage in which the angel Gabriel is telling Mary that she will give birth to the Son of God. She is obviously flabbergasted and confused by this news, and so she asks (very humbly) how this could happen, considering that she was a virgin.

The angel proceeds to tell her of how her relative Elizabeth was currently preggo at an old age, and that "nothing is impossible with God." God is all powerful, but this verse is not meant purely to inspire us on fourth-and-goal with time expiring. It is showing that nothing will stop God on His mission. Nothing will prevent God from ruling the world, and nothing can stand in His way.

Old age? Nope.

Virgin? Not an issue.

Your past addictions? Nothing He can't overcome.

Your physical condition? Not a handicap in the working of God.

God can use whomever and whatever He so chooses to accomplish His plans. He's running the ship, and nothing can slow Him down.

You may wonder in this moment: "what role do I play in this? If God is in charge, and He is looking to accomplish His goals and plans, what do I do?" You do exactly what Mary did.

"'I am the Lord's slave,' said Mary. 'May it be done according to your word.'" -Luke 1:38, HCSB

We humbly accept God's power and lordship, and do as He says. We are His slaves, and He is our Good Master. He will accomplish great things through us, so long as we are humbly looking to accomplish His great things.

Perhaps God's purpose in your defeat of the impossible is to win a football game and give Him glory for it. Perhaps His purpose in your defeat of the impossible is to overcome your physical limitations to show the love of Christ to others. Perhaps His purpose in your defeat of the impossible is to share your story of addiction and redemption in order to help someone else see the love and freedom of life with Christ.

You never know what impossible task God may want to overcome through you, but He already did one. Your salvation through the blood and resurrection is a miracle in and of itself; who's to say He doesn't have something else for you? Humble yourself, and look to accomplish His plans with His power and might.

You And Your Slavery

"For I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries, and will bring you into your own land." -Ezekiel 36:24, HCSB

In this verse, God is speaking to the Israelites, telling them that He will bring them back to their homeland. But why aren't they there already?

Israel, for the uninitiated, was a hot mess during biblical times. They were a constant roller coaster of spirituality: some years they were on fire for God, and other years they were worshipping idols and hosting child sacrifices.

Due to their foolishness of turning away from worshipping God, they got taken captive by the Babylonian empire and were enslaved in a foreign land. Idiots, right? Don't speak too soon.

We're very much the same. We are often foolish. Just think with me: how often do you have a reason that you don't worship and chase after God?

"I'd read my Bible more, but I'm really busy..."

"I'd pray more, but I don't really know how..."

"I'd go to church on Sunday mornings, but I had this thing on Saturday night..."

You may not have had one of those exact excuses, but I promise you've had at least something similar at some point in your walk with God. Probably in the past few days, honestly. We all have.

These foolish excuses do two things: they pretend that our relationship with God doesn't need priority over everything else (and He is worth infinitely more than anything else in our lives, I promise), and it lowers our defense against evil.

You see, God is our Shield. He says that all over the book of Psalms. When we stop pursing Him and put other things over that pursuit, then we lower our Shield in the middle of battle. Lowering a shield in battle is NOT a good idea.

The forces of darkness are always looking for one of His followers to lower their shield and become vulnerable for an attack. They will strike, and without a tried and true relationship with God, we will fall. We'll become enslaved to a sin, incapable of freeing ourselves.

Israel couldn't save themselves from captivity, and neither can we. Both groups of people need God. Fortunately, Ezekiel 36 continues.

"I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all of your impurities and all of your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place My Spirit within you and cause you to follow My statutes and carefully observe My ordinances." -Ezekiel 36:25-27, HCSB

Beautiful. Not even beautiful; this is beyond words. We foolishly turn from God, which leads to our enslavement to darkness. And yet, God is a God of freedom. Not just literal freedom of the flesh, but freedom of the heart. He wants His people to be saved and to have new hearts. He wants His people to be clean. He wants to give us His Spirit to free us to follow Him, and to kick sin to the curb.

Is this the year that you allow God to give you a new heart? Maybe you still have a heart of stone, and are turned away from Him. Maybe you're already a Christian, and just need to be reminded that our God has saved you from sin, so quit re-enslaving yourself. Regardless of your situation, run to Him. Run to our God and turn from foolish ways of ignoring Him. Make 2013 a year where you are dedicated to following Him.

We were dead, and now we are alive. We were enslaved and foolish, but now we are free. Remember that. Embrace that. Live your life based off of that.

-Inspired by Louie Giglio's talk "Main Session 1-Passion 2013"

A Letter to You, Self-Centered Christian

Dear Christian,

Should you go to church? Should you be in a bible study (or two or three)? Should you give money, or fast, or put the Jesus fish on your car? It depends. Are you going through the motions, doing it all for yourself?

In Zechariah 7, the prophet Zechariah is talking to God about Israel, wanting to know if a certain period of fasting should continue. God's response was as follows:

"Say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?" -Zechariah 7:5-6, ESV

God ain't interested in us just doing stuff for our benefit. Sure, He wants us to find pleasure in Him. If the point, however, behind your prayers and church attendance and tithes is getting a warm and fuzzy feeling, a pat on the back or a check off on your cultural Churchianity checklist, then don't bother. Don't go through the motions just to benefit you; instead, your Christian walk should be God-focused.

When you pray, is God the center of your prayers? If not, make Him the center.

When you go to church, is it to truly worship the holy Lord of all, or is it to give you a "Jesus energy boost," like chugging an energy drink of religion to get you through the week?

We must keep our focus on Him, not on ourselves. He's Creator; we're creation. He's master; we're slaves.

As my friend Won Kwak posted on Twitter yesterday (as a quote from another person),

"To me, Christianity was more about being a good person and a means to seek comfort... I knew a lot about Jesus, but I didn't know Jesus."

We must know the Lord, not just know about Him in an effort to seek comfort. We must make the goal to know and praise Him. All of the comfort and behavior change will naturally flow out from that.

Sincerely,
A Self-centered, Wanting-to-know-God-more Disciple

Money and Possessions: It's All About the Heart

"But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property. However, he kept back part of the proceeds with his wife’s knowledge, and brought a portion of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
Then Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the proceeds from the field?  Wasn’t it yours while you possessed it? And after it was sold, wasn’t it at your disposal? Why is it that you planned this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God!”  When he heard these words, Ananias dropped dead, and a great fear came on all who heard.The young men got up, wrapped his body, carried him out, and buried him.

There was an interval of about three hours; then his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.  “Tell me,” Peter asked her, “did you sell the field for this price?”
“Yes,” she said, “for that price.”

Then Peter said to her, “Why did you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out!”
 
Instantly she dropped dead at his feet. When the young men came in, they found her dead, carried her out, and buried her beside her husband. Then great fear came on the whole church and on all who heard these things." -Acts 5:1-11, HCSB

Every now and then, the Bible gets intense. Everything will be going smoothly, then BAM! Things get real. Quick. This is one of those times.

The book of Acts flows smoothly (relatively) from the beginning to here: Jesus ascends to heaven, the Holy Spirit descends to the Church, Peter preaches, the Church grows, the disciples do some other stuff, the Church grows more. It's a pretty fluid deal, until we get to Acts 5. Here, we see a man and wife named Annias and Sapphira, respectively. They didn't apparently jive with Acts 4:32-37, which speaks to the massive generosity of the early Church.

They sold a plot of land, and then decided to keep part of the profit. This isn't wrong, but it appears that they gave the money they gave a) under the guise that they were giving all the proceeds, b) making a show of their giving, or c) both. Regardless, the issue here is the same: they had a heart problem.

The whole attitude for giving in Christ is found in Matthew 6, specifically verses 1-4. Here, Jesus makes it clear: giving is a heart deal. We aren't to make a show of ourselves when giving, saying "hey, look at me! I'm holy and give so much!" That defeats the point of giving; we are to make much of God, giving Him what is already His. Making much of ourselves in giving takes the focus off of the Gifted and puts it on the gifter (whom is giving to God what was already His to begin with).

Also, if they simply wanted to hoard, Matthew 6:19-24 is Jesus' answer to that. He talks here about gathering up treasures and such here on earth, and how stupid and pointless this is. We're all going to die (or be raptured); there ain't a single one of us taking our crap with us. If Annias was wanting to hoard, then his problem was Matthew 6:24; he had made himself a slave to money, not God. One cannot be a slave to two masters.

Are you a slave to money, or God? Are you giving to make much of you, or to make much of God? What's at the core of your approach and attitude to money and possessions?

Are You a Doulos?

After taking a bit of a break from blogging over the Thanksgiving holiday (hope yours was great!), I'm back this week to focus in on a single word that appears over and over in the New Testament: slave. More specifically, the word we are looking at is the Greek word "doulos." Now, I've been told that since I haven't formally studied Greek, that I should refrain from talking about it. Yet, I was listening to a sermon preached by Louie Giglio (pastor, Passion City Church, Atlanta, GA) on November 15, 2012, and one of his points from James 1:1 was about being a doulos for Christ, and I just really loved what he said. So, without further ado, I'm going to go against what I've been told at times and share a bit about what I've learned about this word.

Doulos is featured in the New Testament 120 times, most notably a combined 57 times in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Also, almost every Pauline epistle includes the word (all except the two Thessalonian letters). The word is typically translated into English as slave or bond-servant. The implication of the word is not necessarily one of just servitude. Often, the word is referring to a person who has voluntarily gone into the service of an individual.

This person may have had a debt or a some need, and the only way that they were able to get rid of their debt was to give themselves into another's will. Christians, this is us! We had a massive debt: our sin put us so far into the red that we'd never be able to work our way out. We could never receive enough wages for our good, as we aren't naturally good. We are, according to Romans 3, "unrighteous...no one understands...no one seeks God...all have turned away." It goes on to say even more, but the point has been made: we were born into a God-hating, sin-loving flesh that, as Romans 3:23 makes clear, was heading for death. Not even physical death, but eternal death. We had no hope.

Our only way to avoid this fate is to give ourselves up to God and His will, becoming slaves to the Lord of the universe. And yet, through this servitude, we will find ourselves free. We are now free from sin, free from death and free from and eternity of punishment. Our servitude and giving in to the Lord God is precisely the way to become free.

Jesus says, in Matthew 6, that no one can be a servant of two masters. He says that you'll either love one and hate the other, or vice-versa. I would even argue, based on the book of Romans, that all of us are slaves to something. We are either slaves to sin, or slaves of God. Will you give yourself as a doulos to Christ and His will, or are you going to stay underneath the heaping trap of sin's slavery?

Be freed, and join the household of God, where it is better to be an outside doorholder than to be in the house of anyone else (Psalm 84:10)!