If You Can?!

OK, so I know that I said that I was starting a series. I said that I'd post every week. And Tuesdays are supposed to be the days that I post. However, I'm feeling a bit like James Dean this week, and I have put off the JESUS Film series for a week. Maybe I'll write Part Two on Tuesday. MAYBE.

This week, however, we will look at a verse that seems to define our lives, either in one extreme or the other. The section we will be looking at Mark 9:22-27, which reads:

"22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." 23 And Jesus said to him, "'If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes." 24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said,"I believe; help my unbelief!" 25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again." 26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, "He is dead." 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose." -Mark 9:22-27, ESV

How many of us are like the father in this episode? We have a desire to see God work in our lives, but we are not willing to put the faith in Him to do His work. This is a massive problem in churches. We have processed and processed and processed the modern church and worship service like the insides of a chicken nugget (that is a lot of processing). We have timed everything out and put Jesus in a box. And why is that, one may ask? We keep saying what the dad here said: "But if you can do anything, have compassion and help us." IF?! What do you mean IF?!

It's really easy for us to look at the father here and say, "he clearly doesn't believe in an all-powerful God that can do whatever the crap He wants." Yet, think about it: do you REALLY live like God can help you in anything? Do you think that Jesus Christ is right beside you, watching over you, or do you tend to be a bit headstrong? Do you tend to want to take control of the situation, and pull God out of the equation?

If you answered no, you probably are lying or you fit into extreme number two: you expect God to do everything. This involves a refusal to take control of anything, and you just sit idly by, waiting for God to bring His work to you AND do it for you. Too bad Scripture says; "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men" (Colossians 3:23). Working heartily for the Lord doesn't seem to allow room for letting the Lord work for you.

We must find the balance between these two in our lives. It is a struggle, but well worth it. We are made to depend on God's strength and leadership, but we also are expected to carry our portion. Let's try to find a happy medium, and rely on God do His part while we gladly do our part. And how do we do this?

"This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting." -Mark 9:29, HCSB

I challenge you: pray and fast before God, asking Him to reveal the areas in your life that you need to let Him work, and also to reveal where you need to step up and do it yourself.

JESUS Film Series, Part One: Jesus Is Your Friend

It has been a while since I last did a series, as I usually just write free-standing blog posts. Starting today, and going for the next four weeks, though, I'll be doing a four-part series on Jesus and what He is really like. I'll be basing this series off of four videos made by Vintage21 Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Each post will feature one of these videos, and then we will look at what the video is displaying about Jesus, and how it isn't a Biblical version of Him.

DISCLAIMER: This video is not meant to be offensive. It is a satirical look at how Jesus is usually portrayed. No disrespect is intended by this video.



Ok, so, let's look into this. Peter is a bit bummed out because Jesus is apparently too busy for him. Jesus doesn't have time for Peter's silly games, and is indifferent to Peter's problems. Another guy is bugging Jesus with what he wants for Christmas. He claims to be Peter's friend, He just doesn't have time for him.

According to this view of Jesus, He is an incredibly important and busy heavenly Being that is far too concerned with running the world and "heavenly things" to worry about being Peter's friend. Let's look at this.

Yes, Jesus is an incredibly important heavenly Being. In fact, He is the most important Being in the universe. He is the Alpha and Omega (Rev. 1:8, 2213), Head over everything (Eph. 1:22), and the Judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42). Those are some pretty important titles, and it only scrapes the surface. Jesus is the Son of God (Mt. 4:3), the Savior of the world (John 4:42). He is holy, God of the universe (2 Peter 1:1). It doesn't get more important than Jesus.

Yet, there is another title that is found in the Bible, and it seems to stick out. Look with me at this curious verse.

"19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'" -Matthew 11:19, HCSB

The Son of Man, another title of Jesus (Mt. 8:20), is a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Jesus is a friend of people who sin. Guess what? That's everyone. You, me, your neighbor, Uncle Timmy: all sinners. Yet Jesus says that He is your friend. But does He have time for you?

The overwhelming answer is: yes. Proof that God (who Jesus is) has time for us is all over the Bible.

-He listens to us (Jer. 29:12)

-He watches over us (Ps. 33:18)

-He protects us (Ps. 23)

-He loves us (Ps. 36:7)

-He wants to hear your problems (1 Pt. 5:7)

No, He is not the cosmic vending machine that you pray for your Christmas list to. But Jesus cares deeply about you, and has more than enough time for you. After all, He's God. There are no limits on Him. He can love you and be the best friend that you can have because He alone is capable of unfailing love.

Will you remember that you have a friend in Jesus, or will you continue to think that you are a bother? Approach Him today as the friend that He wants to be for you.

How Do You Pray?

FINALLY a day has come that I'm not too busy to write a blog post. Today's post is all about prayer. This a topic that is very dear to my heart, and one that I continue to pursue knowledge in.

Prayer can be tricky. In theory, it's a brilliant thought. Who doesn't want to talk to God? The problem arises for many, myself included, arises when God doesn't talk back. We pray and pray and pray and we receive a dial tone on the other end. This can be frustrating, and lead people to have difficulty in finding a purpose for prayer.

I personally found prayer particularly difficult and troublesome for many years, and still struggle to pray as I should. If everyone as an Achilles heel on the Christian journey, prayer may likely be one of mine. And that is a problem, because prayer is vitally important, and truthfully, indispensable.

I was recently asked by someone "how do you pray?" This question seems simple enough, but it really is a legitimately difficult question. How does one pray? Does it need to be aloud, or internally? Big words or not? Long or short? Must you gather together with others and hold hands, or do you have to kneel beside your bed? The four-letter question I was asked is really a massive, loaded question!

To start, let's look at what Christ says about prayer when He says "you should pray like this."

"9 "Therefore, you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
Your name be honored as holy.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
[For Yours is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen.]"

-Matthew 6:9-13

OK, that's loaded. There's a lot of information in that prayer. Let's break it down a bit, because really this prayer can be cut into a few sections that are easily applicable to our lives.

V. 9: This prayer starts out by honoring God, coming humbly before Him. We are to acknowledge that God is holy, and because of His holiness, we should worship Him.

V. 10: Now we see Christ praying that God's kingdom would come and that His will would be done. God's kingdom has already come; He runs the universe. Everything from galaxies to atoms are in His kingdom. Instead, we are to pray that His kingdom to come more and more complete as we near the end times, when everything in His kingdom will be made perfect and untarnished again. Praying that His will would be done shows that we are following into His plan for His kingdom, and causes us to humbly follow Him.

V. 11: By asking for our daily bread, Christ means that we ask God for our needs. God will provide for us. Every day we should feel comfortable asking Him to sustain us and provide our needs for us.

V. 12: We ask for forgiveness. We sin constantly, like we are producing sin on an assembly line. We need to confess that sin to God and ask for Him to forgive us. The verse goes on to say that we ask for forgiveness, just like we forgive others. If we expect God to forgive us, it is only logical that we forgive others in the same way.

V. 13: We pray for God to keep us safe from temptation. We sin constantly, like I said above. We need to lean heavily on God to avoid falling deeper and deeper into sin and sinning more and more. Only God can help us overcome Satan and his temptations; we must rely on God to protect us from him.

Tell God He is awesome. Be excited about His plan for the world. Ask for what we need. Ask for forgiveness. Ask for protection. Those are some pretty straight-forward prayers to go after. But is that all?

-Matthew 6:5-7 says not to pray like a show-off. Long, lengthy, "babbling" prayers are not biblical and not what God wants. He wants gut-level honest prayers. Keep that long-winded, hypocritical, show-offy stuff outta here. God isn't impressed when you use big words (unless you naturally talk with big words. Then use them all over your prayers). Instead, we should just pray with whatever is on our hearts, alone if possible.

-The books of Job and Habakkuk have some prayers that are borderline crazy. These two guys got upset with God, and went off on Him. Guess what: you can too. If you feel like God has abandoned you, left you, and forgotten about you, tell Him that. Tell Him you're mad. He can handle it.

-1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 says to pray constantly. Pray all the time. In the bed, in the shower, in the bathroom, in the car, and in your football game. Pray at work, school, and home. Think of it as texting God. You don't usually send long texts, do you? Just quick little prayers like "thank you God," "help me God," or "you're awesome God" are fair game. Short and sweet works.

These are all things that have helped me in my prayer life, and I hope they help you, as well. Let's all try to follow these tips from God on how to talk to God. He wants to hear from us; don't leave Him waiting by the phone.

When God Looks Like Cousin Itt

Recently, I listened to a message by Won Kwak, lead pastor at Maranatha Grace Fort Lee in Fort Lee, New Jersey. In the message, he was talking about the part of the Trinity that we often forget: the Holy Spirit. As he was discussing the Spirit, he said that we often look at the Spirit as an "it" instead of what the Spirit of God is. Specifically, he said we think of the Spirit as Cousin Itt, and I love this analogy. So, let's watch Cousin Itt real quick, and then look into how we wrongfully view the Spirit as such (This is a 10-minute video, so feel free to watch from 2:26-4:52 just to get an idea of Itt).



Ok, so let's look at how Cousin Itt is like the Holy Spirit. First, we look at the Holy Spirit as an "it." We tend to think of the Spirit as a mystical wind that blows around and messes up our hair. Much like Cousin Itt, we don't know exactly what the Spirit is, really. We just look and stare, afraid to go near and discover the truth.

"19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" -Matthew 28:19, HCSB

Here in Matthew, we see Jesus, the Son of God and part of the Trinity of God, referring to the Spirit as equal with the Father and Son. If the Father and Son are both God, and the Spirit is equal to them, then the logical conclusion is that they are all three God. The Spirit is not an it, but a He. He is as much God as the Father and Son. That makes a huge difference. No longer is the Spirit a tool of God, but He is God. That gives Him ultimate power and makes Him deserving of ultimate respect.

Second, the Spirit is heard as gibberish to the outsider, much like we can't understand Cousin Itt. Until you learn to speak the language of the Spirit, you cannot understand it. How do you learn the language of the Spirit? Just like Cousin Itt: you're part of His family.

The Sciptures are inspired by the Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), so therefore they are the Spirit's words, written by man. The only way that the Scriptures can be seen as the living, applicable life-changing Word of God is through the Spirit revealing the Truth to us (2 Corinthians 2:10-13). And who does the Spirit work through?

"14 All those who are led by God's Spirit are God's sons." -Romans 8:14, HCSB

Those who have the Spirit leading them are the family of God. Just like Cousin Itt, the family of God understands the Spirit through the Spirit helping us understand.

Finally, we view the Spirit as a moody visitor like Cousin Itt: sometimes helpful, sometimes complaining; sometimes here, sometimes gone. This couldn't be any different.

"19 God is not a man who lies, or a son of man who changes His mind. Does He speak and not act, or promise and not fulfill?" -Numbers 23:19, HCSB

God is never changing, and the same applies to the Spirit. Once the Spirit is guiding you, you have a permanent guide. He will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5), and the Spirit will even live IN you (1 Corinthians 3:16). He won't change His mind about you. He won't just come for a visit. Once you have the Spirit of God, you always have Him.

Will you remember that, or just think of the Spirit as a foreign gust that doesn't consistently blow the same way?

For more on the Spirit and His awesomeness, check out Forgotten God by Francis Chan.

New Blog Announcement!

Hello everyone, and happy Saturday! This post is a bit different than normal ones on here, as you can see by the title. I did a post like this once upon a time, but for different reasons. Allow me to explain.

About ten months ago, I started this blog. I had a previous blog, but due to the radical changes in my life that God was imposing, I felt led to entirely make a new blog with a new focus. This morning, I have been lead again to start a new blog, but it is not at the demise of this one.

Instead, I will continue to write periodically on here, as I have been doing for quite some time now. In addition, I have started a new blog, which can be found at www.lttchurch.blogspot.com. The purpose of my new blog, entitled "Letters to the Church," is to write a series of letters to churches in different places, much like the apostle Paul did with the churches of Galatia, Ephesus, etc.

These letters, the first of which was just written a few minutes ago, will be posted a bit more often than my "Lightning Bug" posts, as they are shorter and require much less work to write. I was inspired by my recent purchase of the book "Operation World," a book which tells of prayer needs in every country in the world. It also encourages you to pray for churches (or parts of the Church) in that nation. Therefore, I will be praying for different nations all the time, and will be writing short letters of encouragement to these parts of the body of Christ. I hope you will look into these posts and also pray for the churches. Many believers in foreign countries have it much worse than we Americans do, and I pray that we keep their troubles and triumphs in our hearts.

Have a great weekend, and keep those most affected by 9/11 in your prayers this weekend. A post on this will come on this blog tonight.

By the way: Happy Birthday Michael! My little brother has turned 18 today. :)

The Day of Adversity

A couple of years ago, my spiritual life looked quite different than it does today. I had been dealing with some depression, stuff at work wasn't going how I liked it, and our church was struggling with conflict. This, along with random other things, caused me to seriously doubt the presence of an all-powerful, loving God. In fact, I was quite sure that the God I had learned about my entire life, the Christian God, was not the real God. I didn't know who the real God was, but I wasn't even sure I cared. I'd been doing the Christian thing for quite sometime, and the only reason I was concerned about the God I assumed was there was so I'd have a bit of fire insurance in case Hell was a real place. As far as my life was concerned, though, God didn't seem to care much about me, and the feeling was going to be returned.

How often in the darker times of our life do we feel like God isn't there, or that He doesn't care? I mean, crappy stuff happens to us, and we don't like it. If we don't like it, then why would God let it happen to us? Does He enjoy our suffering?

God does not enjoy human suffering. We were not made for that. Suffering didn't come into the world until humanity screwed up and rebelled against our Ruler. It's ultimately our fault for anything bad that happens to us. Anything good and perfect, though, comes from God (James 1:17). So why does suffering happen? Look at Ecclesiastes 7:14 with me.

"14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider: without question, God has made the one as well as the other." -Ecclesiastes 7:14, HCSB

Just like we doubt God's being around when bad stuff is happening, we are quick to praise God when good stuff is happening. We can recognize that God causes good things, but is it possible that He sends bad stuff our way sometimes? Every day we live on earth is from God, good or bad. Yes, bad stuff is ultimately our fault. Our sin causes it to exist. But perhaps God uses that bad stuff to work in our hearts? Perhaps God is still around, watching over the whole thing, using everything good or bad to glorify Himself?

After I had been in a pit of despair, relying on myself to get through life, I realized that I had done nothing to fix my life on my own. In fact, my life was getting worse without God. I began reaching back to Him, realizing that, in the dark moments, He might still be there. Guess what?! He is.

Deuteronomy 31:8 says that God will not leave you. He will not ditch you. When bad things are happening, don't turn away from God. Those bad times may be teaching you something. I was a proud, arrogant teenager that thought I could run my life as well as God can. I needed to learn to depend on God to run my life, and realize that He is in charge, not me. I learned more about the love and passion of God during that stretch of my life than I ever did before. God is constantly working to form you to be more like Him.

To make a car, you cannot take a block of metal and simply mold it into the shape of a car. You have to melt it and pour it into a mold and let it cool and harden and pull it out of the mold. It's a process. God will not mold you into perfection in a day, a week or a century. It's a process, and in order for the process to work, you must participate. Instead of running from hard times, embrace them. Let God mold you in the rough times. If you will run to Him in the hard times, you'll come out closer to the finished product than if you want just the good of God.

So will you let God work in your life in the bad times, or will you reject Him in times of need? Will you be formed by Him?

Refresh

I want to start out by thanking Rachel Rummell again for being a guest blogger last week. I have been in contact with several others since, so hopefully this blog will have other new voices join mine from time to time. Today, however, you have me again.

Have you ever heard the saying, "what goes around, comes around?" This theme is all over the world. Buddhists believe in karma, and that doing good things will cause good things to happen to you. It's the boomerang effect, right? Today, I'll show that while the Bible doesn't necessarily line up with Buddhism, there is a theme that is quite similar. Let's look at Proverbs 11:25.

"25 A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed." -Proverbs 11:25, NIV

It says that if you will give, you will be given. I'm not saying that doing good automatically makes you eligible for material possessions (See: Avoiding the Feel Good Fever). The Bible is instead saying that to those who give generously, God will bless them generously. It may very well be material blessing. It may be interior blessing. Regardless, you will never give generously out of faithfulness to God and receive no compensation for it. I've experienced this myself; the more you're willing to give, the more God will bless you.

Some of you may think I'm talking only about money. Sure, money is an option. But that's not all we have to give. We also have time, passion, energy, and other things that are less tangible than money, but equally as giveable. Look at the end of that verse: "whoever refreshes others will be refreshed." You can simply refresh someone: send them a nice note or text, smile at them, or buy them a Coke. It doesn't have to be something big. Most people can be refreshed by simple things. And that's not all: refreshing them also refreshes you!

When you make someone smile, you smile too. When someone is having a bad day and you can lift them up, it lifts you up, too. It's a cycle that can never end, if kept up. Do you know of anyone that needs refreshing today? Or perhaps you need refreshing. It only takes one person to start the refreshment cycle. Will it be you today?

Below is a video that just screams this principle. It's a commercial that shows exactly what I'm saying.