The Blessed Life: A Heart of Generosity

The "bag" is not enough.
The "basket" is more than enough.
The ''barn" is infinitely more than enough.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to watch this week's message from lifechurch.tv before reading on- click on this link to watch. http://www.lifechurch.tv/message-archive.

From time to time, Craig will take us through these kinds of messages, those that demonstrate a progressive level of commitment to Christ. In this message, the bag mindset is what we were pre-programed with, and the barn mindset is that which we hope to posses.

Most of us have a hard time graduating past the bag mindset because the bag equals security. it equals comfort. it equals our control of our lives. moreover, it seats money on the throne of our lives. If we don't have enough in the bag, we strive to spend less or make more so we can live the lifestyle that we want, have the security we desire, and to ultimately live comfortably. The foremost problem with the bag mindset is that the bag and what it contains is the lord of our lives, and not God.
The funny thing to me is that as tightly as we cling to the bag in our hand, God has already given us a basket and a barn. In order to experience barn blessings, we have to let go of the bag, because the barn requires stewardship (for it all belongs to Him anyway), and you can't steward the barn with a bag mindset. But a change of mind requires a change of lordship over our lives.

When God is on the throne of our lives, we turn to Him for all of our needs - He is our provider. Yes, this is difficult because it requires FAITH- and not just faith in faith, but faith IN God. And it is not blind faith or faith with out reason. He is faithful, and we can trust Him. Because His ways are higher than our ways, because He loves us, because He is a good God, we can trust Him- even when our prayers are not answered the way we wanted Him to, even when tragedy comes, because He is sovereignly in control, working all things together for those that love Him, that are called according to His purposes (Romans 8:28). As long as Christ is not King of our lives, we will continue to endure disappointment, dissatisfaction, frustration, and discontentment.

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." Matthew 6:24.

Closing thought: Our money has the words "in God we trust" written on it. Shouldn't this be a reminder to us that it is God whom we trust, and not money?
Which one will we serve? can't have it both ways. How have you experienced the change from the bag mindset to the basket or the barn mindset? Share your thoughts- many of you reading this may be like me, just now becoming aware of our condition, and desiring to take steps towards trusting God and not money.

the importance of authenticity

Here's an exerpt from the current Christian Research Journal about the importance of authenticity of our faith in Jesus - great article!

...be authentic. The importance of this became clear to me when a young
nurse named Maggie, who had experienced abuse at the hands of people who claimed
to be Christians, began attending our church. Soon she was part of a small group
of spiritual seekers who were meeting with a Christian couple to investigage
faith issues. Maggie ended up writing this poem about those two leaders:

Do you know, do you understand
that you represent Jesus to me?

Do you know, do you understand
that when you treat me with gentleness,
it raises the question in my mind that maybe He's gentle too.
Maybe He isn't someone who laughs when I am hurt.

Do you know, do you understand that when you listen to my questions and you
don't laugh,
I think, "What if Jesus is interested in me, too?"

Do you know, do you understand
that when I hear you talk honestly about arguments and conflict and scars
from your past
that I think, "Maybe I am just a regular person instead of a bad,
no good little girl who deserves abuse."

If you care, then I think maybe He cares-and then there's
this flame of hope that burns inside of me and for a while I am afraid to
breathe because it might go out.

Do you know, do you understand that your words are His
words?
That your face is His face to someone like me?

Please, be who you say you are.
Please, God, don't let this be another trick.
Please let this be real.
Please!

Do you know, do you understand
that you represent Jesus to me?

Blogging: where i've been and where i'm going

As my rookie-year of blogging is coming to a close, I thought I'd take few lines to share some conclusions about the whole experience. When I started, I really had no idea what I was getting into. I had an unrealistic expectation that I would have hundreds of followers, just dying to read the next awe-inspiring post by Yours Truly (slight exaggeration... good thing I can laugh at myself!).

Seriously though, I had an expectation that each of my posts would have at least ONE comment, but the past year shows that that experience was the exception, and not the rule. I often thought, was my post not interesting enough? Did people not like the topic? My conclusion or opinion?

To help justify the existence of this blog, I tried many things. I used twitter to notify the world when I had a new post. I then linked my blog to facebook, so it would update my status when I added a new post, and then would tag my facebook friends, hoping that they would read and leave a comment (annoying, I know... sorry :\ ). I even signed up with a website that monitors activity on a particular website, giving information about how many visitors the site was receiving. There was traffic on the site, which was a good sign, but I was frustrated that no one was leaving comments. Combining my comment-frustration with a lack of post ideas that I wanted to write about and time to produce them lead to the practical flat-lining of my blogging life.

This is where I've been the last few months, and why I haven't posted very often. At the same time, I think this time off has been good for me. I have learned some things about blogging that I didn't realize before, and am ready for a new blogging season. I've learned that most people, including me, don't like to read long blog posts, nor do they have the time. I've also learned that blogging doesn't necessarily have to be for my readers--- it can be for me.

I'm looking forward to re-entering the blogging world, recharged and focused. It's time to do the things I once did, to remember why I started this blog in the first place:

a collection of my thoughts, notes from time with God, embracing the life that i have been given and yearning to ignite a generation for Christ, to awaken the apathetic, and to be a catalyst that takes Christians from luke warm to absolutely on fire, to bridge people to the love of God through relationships, to lead people to the indescribable joy of calling Jesus their Lord and Savior, to be a fully devoted follower of Christ. leaving the gray

I'm hoping you'll read along with me, and maybe even add your thoughts. Comments or not, my greater hope is that you run after Jesus along with me, that we would seize the opportunity to seek Him, to know Him, to read His Word and be transformed by it, that we would be the salt and the light of the world that He has made us to be, that we would leave the gray.

The Gospel in a nut shell

3 At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved
by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated
and hating one another.4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior
appeared,5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but
because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by
the Holy Spirit,6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ
our Savior,7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become
heirs having the hope of eternal life.
8 This is a trustworthy saying.
And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may
be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are
excellent and profitable for everyone. Titus 3:3-8

Oh, how He loves us...

"Oh, how He loves us, oh - how He loves us..."

... the chorus of a beautiful song that sings the heart of those that know the risen Christ, who have have been forgiven a debt that could never be repaid, who know peace from accepting a pure and holy grace matched by none, offered freely by the One and only one capable of offering such a gift.

So often, we fall into patterns of thinking that our salvation in Christ is associated by our performance of doing the "do's" and avoiding the "don'ts". And though we may have seasons of seemingly "good performances", our flesh will inevitably remind us that we are sinners to the utter core, incapable of living a sinless life.

In these moments, when we are reminded of our humanity, we tend to drown ourselves in remorse, so ashamed of our inability to do that which we are incapable of doing apart from Christ. At times, we may even wrestle with God - though we know that there is no quantity or qualitative sin that He can't and won't forgive, our flesh tries to convince us that we have some how disqualified ourselves from His grace.

I believe this song captures the moment when we finally realize that His grace is sufficient, that it is more than enough for us. When we stop trying to get our life cleaned up, carrying the baggage of guilt, trying to earn God's grace and forgiveness, we experience a freedom that the world cannot understand. We have been forgiven, just as we are, and then we remember that the Lord of heaven and earth, the lover of our souls loves US - EACH of us, uniquely, individually - again, Just..................As....................We.....................Are.

Have you let go of your guilt, your shame, your bondage? The Lord Jesus is able and wants to free you, to forgive you, to save you, to sanctify you, just as you are. Will you let Him? Click on the link below as you consider His amazing love for us...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUbImPNsmng&feature=related

1 Corinthians, Chapters 2, 3 (NTDRC-3)

NTDRC-3: New Testament Daily Reading Club, Day 3!

Catching up here on 2 days' worth of reading through the New Testament, continuing in 1 Corinthians. Deep and heavy stuff here, but don't let that keep you from discovering what a gem these two chapters are!

Chapter 2 continues the theme from chapter 1 of contrasting worldly wisdom vs wisdom from the Holy Spirit. This is one of those passages that you have to read over and over again to see the beauty of what God is saying through the apostle Paul... Wisdom is simply applied knowledge. Worldly wisdom speaks from worldly knowledge. Though there is much knowledge in the world, it is OF a fallen world, and is incomplete and corrupted by sin. Apart from Christ, we will all revert to humanly wisdom. It is important to note that this passage is NOT a passage that is pinning "hyper-spirituality" against the rational application of knowledge. Rather, it is showing how inept that worldly wisdom is! Paul says it best in verses 10-16.

Chapter 3 deals with the worship of our spiritual leaders. This includes those spiritual giants in our day like; those that we aspire to become, those that lead us to be fully devoted followers of Christ. But these are no different than any believer - they have simply been found faithful with what they were called to do. These are our brothers and sisters in Christ, but are nothing apart from Christ. "What, after all, is Apollos: And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe - as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God mad it grow." 1 Cor. 3:5-6.

Much more could be said... what about verses 10-23? Did you see a connection between these verses and the previous verses in chapter 3? What stood out to you in chapter 2? Click the comment button below and share your thoughts!

"I'm just not being fed..."

"I'm just not being fed..."

Unfortunately, this is a complaint being expressed by far too many Christians in churches today - the message isn't deep enough for me; I'm not being taught the Word of God; my pastor isn't teaching me the Bible verse by verse...

I believe that these complaints are serious, and should not be taken likely. The church plays a critical role in developing the Body of Christ - no doubt about it. The topic of discipleship is worthy of numerous separate posts dealing with this issue. For the purpose of this post, however, I would like to submit a question to those that share these dissatisfying feelings about their pastor:

Why is it someone else's fault that you are not being spiritually fed?

I would lovingly yet firmly state that if you have a Bible and you can read, you are responsible for feeding yourself.

Never before have we had access to more Bibles, more personal devotion materials, and more means to get the Word of God into our hearts. We now have the ability to receive daily bible verses emailed or twittered to us, daily reading plans - we even have access to view the Bible for free on our cell phones (http://www.youversion.com/). With all these things available - not to mention that some in other countries can't get enough Bibles - why is it that we are not taking more responsibility for our own spiritual growth in Christ?

I used to share this critical sentiment against my pastor. For a season, instead of "feeding" myself, i would spend much of my time and energy criticizing my pastor and church because they didn't teach me the Bible, verse by verse. Looking back, I failed to realize that it wasn't my pastor's responsibility to feed me. His job is to equip the saints to do the work of proclaiming the gospel to the world through the spoken and lived lives of the Body of Christ, who live in submission of Holy Spirit's leading.

And there was no doubt that he was doing exactly that - comforting and confronting, bringing the application of God's Word deep into our hearts so that we would be moved, challenged and convicted by the Holy Spirit, and mobilized in to the faithful ministries that God has called each of us to. He simply was operating on the understanding that every believer was feeding themselves, and that he was simply helping the body connect the dots, drawing biblical application, and confronting us with a call to action.

What's more, I had DAILY access to pastors that were gifted to teach the Bible verse by verse, via my radio (http://www.bottradionetwork.com/), bible study groups, life groups, and about a dozen Bibles and commentaries laying around my house to help me get God's Word into my heart!

To be clear, I believe that the church has a role in the spiritual development of every believer, and there is a season in the beginning of every believer's life where they need spiritual milk, where they need to be spoon-fed. But at the end of the day, when we should already be well beyond milk, when God calls us to give an account for our stewardship of the resources that were plainly available for our spiritual development, every believer is responsible for "feeding" themselves.

There are numerous resources available to help every Christian get the Word of God into their hearts, to help them in their growth and understanding. I would love the opportunity to help anyone needing some help to get started - please leave your questions or comments and I will gladly offer any assistance that I can to help move any honest seeker move towards being a "self feeder."