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God why do i look for joy and peace and happiness and comfort in anything but you?

thought of praise

How precious it is that You have chosen to be gracious to me.

my prayer

Psalm 51:10-12

Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

it's been awhile

Well it's been a little over a month since I've written a post on here. I have found myself so overwhelmed in my walk with God, that I have had a hard time even considering how I might put it into words. My heart is in a state of beholding an Almighty, Sovereign God, as if for the first time, and I have found no words that even begin to express it adequately. I find myself often pausing to love God, as a realization of His character overwhelms me. I feel like a slave who was sold, and just met his new master, only to find that this master just happened to be the epitome of everything good, gracious and wonderful, and who considers his slaves to be his own children. How does one respond to such a thing?

my daily bread

A prayer we don't dare to pray...

Proverbs 30:8-9 "Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you, and say 'Who is the Lord.'"

Solomon is saying: God I want to be in a place of dependence. I don't want to forget about you, and if I have too much, I won't have to depend on you anymore.

But isn't this the American dream? And isn't this how we live our lives? We set ourselves up in such a way that we don't have to depend on God for our daily bread... we have plenty stored up for today, and for many days to come. And that's how we can get through an entire day without even thinking of Him. (notes from a sermon by Francis Chan)

Have you ever thought that the prayers we don't dare to pray are likely to be the ones God would eagerly answer? The prayers of a heart that are turned towards Him?

thought of the day

"If we do not extend mercy, we demonstrate that we have not received mercy." - David Platt -

a new heart

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17

God is changing my heart. He has put in me a new heart, a heart for him. Therefore, what is close to God's heart, is now close to mine. What is dear to God, is now dear to me. What God cares about, I care about.

the grace of God

"No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother." 1 John 3:6-10

I am continually amazed at how clear Scripture is, yet I somehow couldn't see it's truth until so recently. How do we convince ourselves that we can continue living our life as we did before Christ was in us, when the Bible is so clear that we cannot? That if we do, our faith isn't real. I am slapped in the face with this absolute truth over and over again, every time I open the Bible. And every time I see it I am shocked all over again at my own blindness. I know how incapable I was of seeing this myself. Which proves as evidence that the meaning of God's words are hidden to us unless He reveals their meaning. And the truth that no man can come to God unless God chooses him, is ever so real to me. This is the true grace of God.

As Jesus said:

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him..." John 6:44.

And:

"...No one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him" John 6:65.

thought of the day

"We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." 1 John 2:3-6

who is our master?

"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." Luke 16:13

I am considering how we spend our lives, use our resources and what that says about who we are, who our master is. Most of us have honorable goals for our lives, we work hard to get an education, that leads us to a good career, so we can provide a comfortable life and a good lifestyle for us and our family. If we work hard, we move up, and our lifestyle reflects this. Every decision you make for your life, you consider a goal. Is this going to get me closer to what I am after? SO WHAT ARE YOU AFTER? WHAT IS YOUR MASTER? If we use our lives and our resources to further our lifestyles in this world- to further the kind of lifestyle we want, to further our security, to further our ability to have a nicer home, have nicer cars, nicer things, etc etc.- we spend our time, our resources, our money, to further these goals. Those goals are our master. We make our decisions with those goals in mind. We decide what we do or don't spend our money on based on the result it will have on those goals... if I do this, will it allow me to keep living the lifestyle I want to live? Will it further my goals?

But as a Christian, God is our master.

As a Christian, we have to rethink what is the goal of our life. The life that has been born again. That is now dead to ourselves, our goals and our dreams. For we have died, and now Christ is the one who lives in us. His goals, His priorities, His purposes have taken over. And every decision we make, we make considering, is this helping attain His goal in this world, and in my life?

It's a crazy mind shift to stop looking at what makes sense for your life in light of your goals. To stop considering how something will affect your lifestyle. When the goal becomes to reach people for God, and to bring glory to God in the world, you realize you can't serve those other goals as well as God's goals. Because they go two opposite directions.

"And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." 2 Corinthians 5:15

What is faith?

Maybe having faith is about believing what Christ says about my life here on earth, and how I am to spend it, and use it and give it up, and actually choosing to believe Him. To decide that I so firmly believe what Christ said, that I am going to live as though it were true. As though giving up my life, my resources, my hopes, my dreams, my direction, my decisions, my finances.... as though giving all that up and spending my life on Christ, really will be worth it. Believing it when Jesus said it would be worth it, it would be better, he was better, he is all I need. That in fact, I so firmly believe it, that I am going to live my life as though it were true. Maybe that's what faith is.

thought of the day

"Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God."

1 Peter 4:1-2

no servant is greater than his master

I've been thinking about how Jesus says if we are to be his disciples, we must follow him, do as he did. But follow him where? Where did he go? What did he do? What lengths did he go to to love us, to meet us, to find us, to draw us, to help us? To save a lost world.

The answer is stunning. A God who had everything, who enjoys endless riches, pleasures, wealth and power, who needed nothing, came into a world that is poor, wretched, full of pain, and decided to live here. He became one of us, like us, and related to us by being one of us. A King, decided to lower himself into our situation, to give up all he was entitled to, and become a lowly servant not just to humankind, but to the least of us: the sick, the poor, the sinners. He did this as an ultimate effort to love us. How more could he love us than to actually come and live with us in our wretched condition and touch us and experience life as we live it?

"When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." John 13:12-17

Consider the extent Jesus went to to reach a lost world, to serve us, and to love us, and then consider that he says we are to go to the same extent in our own lives to reach a lost world, to serve and to love. But are we willing to make the sacrifice for others that he made for us? Are we willing to sacrifice our status, our resources, our quality of life, our comfort, our very lives?

it doesn't matter

We judge people and determine who is worthy of our love. Who is worthy of our help. The reason someone is in the state they are in is not our concern. It just doesn't matter. Until we realize this, we can't love the way Jesus loves.

A man who discovered this truth said, "When Jesus met a blind man, he was not concerned with how the man became blind."

His story here:

http://virb.com/chronicleproject/videos/1750915

A life changing sermon series by a guy named David Platt

http://www.brookhills.org/media/series/radical/

the wisdom of the world; foolishness to God

And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '

"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." (Luke 12:16-21)

The world might call this man a good businessperson; the church might call him a good steward. Jesus said to him, "You Fool." (from sub-merge by john b. hayes)

better to not know the truth, than to know it and ignore it

It is by God's grace that I have come to know Him, and he has revealed His Word to me in a new light. I read verses I have read over and over again, but now it's like I am now reading them for the first time. Understanding them in a completely different way. I wonder how I read them before and did not see. And I know it is because God has opened my eyes and my heart to his truth. I am extremely aware of the responsibility this gift bears. I now know what God requires of my life, and I am fully responsible for whether or not I choose to give Him what he requires. We are all responsible for our sin, whether we know it is wrong or not. But I can no longer plead ignorance or hide behind lack of understanding. Jesus' words are clear:

"That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." Luke 12:47-48

Today, I'm reading 2 Peter and find this again, as I'm sure I will find it many more places...

"If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them." 2 Peter 2:20-21

thought of the day

When is dying really gain? When the only thing we are living for is Christ.

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Phillipians 1:21

When you get to the point that you are no longer living life for you own agenda, when your life is spent only on Him, you realize you have nothing to gain from this life. Dying is then gain for you. Living, is simply Christ.

the reality of my life, in light of Christ

There is a story of a town in Maine that was bought out, and was going to become the site of a great hydroelectric plant. A dam would be built across the river and the town submerged under water. When the project was announced, the people were given many months to arrange their affairs and relocate. During those months, a curious thing happened. All improvements ceased. No painting was done. No repairs were made on the buildings, roads, or sidewalks. People knew how pointless investing in their current lives within that town would be. For in a few short months, the town would be destroyed and everything in it would be gone. What a terrible investment to invest anything at all into their current life in that town. How pointless to spend anything making their short time there more comfortable. Instead, suddenly everything they invest in is for their future life in the new place they will move.

I also think how suddenly all the stresses of anything that has to do with life within that town, suddenly vanishes. The little stresses that are wrapped up in a life in that town can no longer exist, because the reality is, none of it matters anymore. The weight of things that people were worried about for their lives there, no longer have any weight. Likewise, you are no longer concerned with the concerns you had about your life in this town. Instead, you look ahead and begin thinking of things that will affect your future life.

This is the reality overtaking my new life in Christ.

better to be poor

I'm thinking about how Jesus said the the gospel is good news to the poor. In contrast, the rich man, walks away sad when he hears the gospel. Isn't this a revealing comparison?

What is the difference between a rich man and a poor man? Worldly goods, things, stuff. The rich man, hindered by the way he clings to his riches, cannot accept the gospel of Jesus, because this gospel requires a man to lose himself... to devote all he is and all he has to something other than himself. The rich man, has a lot to lose. But to a poor man, who has nothing in this life, and has nothing to lose, the gospel is purely good news. Wouldn't it then be better to be the poor man? Perhaps... and Jesus does say, "blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

When you become a new creation in God, the Bible says the old has passed away. You have died to yourself, your ambitions and goals and dreams for your life. You lay those down, and you take up Christ. And Christ in you will use your life for a drastically different purpose than you would have.

thought of the day

"Why are we saving for potential future need when we are surrounded by present dire need?" -David Platt-

I believe Jesus meant what he said, and it's breaking my heart

Letting yourself believe that Jesus meant what he said is devastating... it's devastating to your way of life, but also to the reality of the lost. As you begin to realize what a life truly given to Christ looks like, you are faced with the heartbreaking reality that many professing "christians" lives don't look like this. I know in my heart being a follower of Christ isn't just calling Him Lord, but making Him Lord of my life. But how many "christians" are doing just that: calling him Lord, making a profession of faith, and then basically doing what they want with their lives. Continuing with their plans and dreams and goals for their life, instead of dying to themselves, and taking on new dreams, new goals....God's dreams, God's goals. And I know in my heart when we fail to do this, we have missed it. And it's a crushing reality because I know in my heart "christian" people I know and I love dearly, still need to be saved. In Luke, Jesus says:

"Not everyone who says to me "Lord Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only He who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?" Then I will tell them plainly, "I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!"

As I read this verse, I can't help but picture these people on that day. People who called him their Lord, but never made him Lord of their lives. Jesus isn't talking about atheists and muslims here. He is talking about people who called Jesus their Lord. Who called themselves Christians. Who did things in His name. Who thought they were on the right path. Who will be shocked to find out that they weren't. And Jesus said they will be many. What a sick, dreadful feeling when they realize they missed it. That this God required their lives, required that they lose their own dreams, goals, and direction in life, and do the will of the father. It isn't enough just to acknowledge that he is Lord, and slap a label on our current lives. I think about people I love experiencing this despair and it breaks my heart. I want to tell myself it will be ok. Surely it will be. These people love God, go to church, serve in their churches, and are just really good people. But I know in my heart the truth. And I don't know what to do about it.

a song

You are changing me from the inside out

Something deep within is welling up in praise
You're compelling me with unfailing love
Oh to lose my life in You that I might live.
Oh You loved me and love me
And You gave Yourself for me.
You have resurrected my heart from the grave
I'm alive.
You are telling me who I really am-
I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but He lives in me

And the life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.
Oh Who loved me and loves me
and Who gave Himself for me.
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I'm found
Was blind but now I see.

("I'm Alive" by Shane and Shane)

God, what are we doing?

Today, I'm going about a typical day. And throughout all the mundane details of the day, I find myself bothered by the question: God, what am I doing? What am I really doing with this life that I have supposedly given to you? We say we have given our lives to you, but I ask this: If Jesus actually possessed my body, and were actually walking around and living in my body today, what would my day look like? Or better said, what would His day look like? Would our lives match up? Is what I'm doing this very day what You would do with it? Is that not what you meant when you said to follow you I must give up my life? I must deny myself. That my life is no longer mine. That I have died, so that YOU may live in me? God, I think we've missed it. We call ourselves "christians" but our actual lives look nothing like yours. I can no longer fool myself into thinking that I can live a life that looks little different from my unsaved neighbor's, yet consider myself saved. If I am living a life that looks successful and "on the right track" to this world, then I simply can't be living the life Jesus outlined for us. He assurred us that His way of life would make no sense to the world. His way does everything backwards, goes against our "take care of ourselves" instincts, and doesn't put us on the track pointing to success in this world. So if my life isn't causing people to turn their heads and ask what the hec I'm doing, then I'm probably not on that narrow road Jesus was talking about.

As true followers of Christ, we can't just let God reign in areas of our lives that make sense, or that allow us to stay on the path of the life we want to build for ourselves. He wants to control the whole thing. He wants us to literally do our lives according to His way, according to what He said. But instead of taking what Jesus said literally, we live life re-interpretting what what He must have meant when something he said would mess up our lives. "Well you said this God, and I believe that, but this is _____ (fill in the blank)."  Isn't this where faith comes in? "God, this doesn't make sense, and this isn't the safest choice, but hey it's what you said to do, so I'll do it anyway, and trust that you know what you're talking about, and that in the end, no matter what happens, you'll take care of me." Maybe that's what God meant when he told us to have faith. To live by faith. That without faith it is impossible to please God.

And this leads me to think that we aren't actually living by faith in God. We are positioning our lives in a way that requires very little faith in God. We have stored up much for ourselves to secure us on a "rainy day". When maybe we should trust God to get us through that "rainy day" and live with open hands... open for God to use us and our resources however he chooses. 

What fraction of our life does actually belongs to God? And when did God ever say he would accept just a fraction?