Well this week has been a blessing in so many ways. First, our congregation confirmed the Elders recommendation for a new lead minister on Sunday and we are excited about the direction that we will be taking as a body of believers. Then on Saturday we had a block party for the local food pantry which is supported by 6 local churches. It was truly an amazing event. As I reflected on both of these events I made a couple of observations that I wanted to share with you.
At the block party there were over 100 servants (volunteers) assisting and helping the various families in need. These volunteers ranged from Junior High in age to senior adults. They represented six different churches, and they all shared a common goal of reaching out, in the name of Jesus, to help those in need. It was truly a blessing to be a part of this. There were stations for face and fingernail painting, free haircuts for the kids, and free school clothes for those in need. They had various games and free lunch for everyone. It was a great way to be the hand of God in the local community to the people who needed to feel it.
The great thing about the event is that people were able to see Christ projected through the servants that were helping. Isn’t this what we are supposed to be doing everyday? Projecting Christ in our lives and showing how our life has been transformed by Him. As I thought about my own life, I know it is real easy to project Christ in my life when things are going well, but when the difficult times come along, it becomes harder. It will only be with the help of the Holy Spirit that I am able to do this, and it is a learning experience everyday for me. We are conditioned by the world to react and act out when things aren’t going our way, but because of Jesus we are transformed and that should show in our actions and words everyday.
As Christians we need to be projecting Christ in our life every day. When things are going lousy at work and the boss is on your case…project Christ. When the kids at school are being mean…project Christ. When you are having a disagreement with your spouse or your kids…project Christ. It is not easy, but we are called to do it. We are not to conform to the ways of the world but we are to be transformed by God. (Romans 12:2, 2 Cor. 3:18) So be aware this week of what you are projecting, because we live in a world that needs to feel, see and hear Christ-like words and actions.
The second thing I thought about concerned the confirmation of our new lead minister. There is always a certain level of excitement and apprehension when there is change involved in our lives. We humans don’t like change on any level because it moves us out of our comfort zones. Well, God has a way of challenging us and moving us into areas that we are not comfortable with. It is through change that He is challenging us to grow in Him. Remaining the same and doing the same things allows us to maintain, but maintaining is not what God desires for our lives. So as each of us encounters change in our lives, let us look for the ways that God is challenging each of us to grow. We serve a BIG God so let’s prayerfully anticipate the vision and directions that God will lead each of us as we encounter change in our daily lives.
In Christ,
Greg
John 3:16
A Prodigal's Journey
Showing posts with label Christian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Religion or Relationship?
Regardless of our age, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ presents some hurdles for us that often trip us up. Recently, I was engaging in a conversation about evangelism, with a young man from our youth group, whom I will call Jeff. He proceeded to tell me a story about a conversation he had with a friend about his faith. His friends response was that he didn’t have a religion yet, and was still looking for what religion he was going to be apart of. For young people like Jeff, I believe the hurdles present in sharing their faith are even more daunting than they are to us as adults and his friend’s response is becoming an all too common answer.
The answer Jeff’s friend gave him is a microcosm of what our country is facing. Recent statistics from 2008 indicate that 92% of Americans consider themselves religious and believe in God, while 76% call themselves Christian. The number of Christians has declined over 10% since 1990 while the number of people who claim no religion at all has climbed to 15%.
There are a couple of things that stand out to me. One is if 92% believe in God and 76% are calling themselves Christians, then why is our country in the shape it is in? Two, what God are we serving? My guess is that some of them aren’t serving the God that created all of this!
It leads me back to Jeff’s conversation with his friend. Jeff’s friend was searching for the same thing that we were seeking before we became believers, but he is getting derailed by a worldly point of view. As a Christian and a follower of Jesus, I don’t have a religion. I have a faith and relationship with Jesus Christ and there is a big difference. Jesus didn’t come to earth, suffer the things he suffered, and die on a cross so that you and I could have a religion! He came so that we could be in relationship with Him. He came to bridge the gap created by our sin, so that we could be in relationship with God! I believe God looks down at America and says “these people just don’t get it”. We are really not that much different than the Israelites when they made their golden calf. We take the parts of the Bible we like, the ones we can live with, and then we make our own little mini religion and mini god out of it. We go to church when it’s convenient and live pretty good moral lives, so we call ourselves “Religious” and “Christian”. That is not what Jesus died for.
There are people that are very religious about their sports teams and never miss a game or a score. There are people who religiously arrange their schedules around their favorite TV programs. The list of things we are religious about can go on and on. If we reduce our faith down to a religious exercise of going to church and living life a certain way then the label of Christian doesn’t mean much. We are to be servants, so everyday of our life, including Sunday, shouldn’t be about what God can give us. It should be about serving and giving back to God. It should be about a relationship with Jesus Christ. We were made to serve and Jesus served us by dying on a cross.
There are millions of people in this world that are searching for God. Unfortunately, Satan does his little game of trickery and takes the good things of the Bible and twists them around. He tells us, just like he told Eve, “Did God really say” and “you will not surely die”. He is telling us the same lies! Satan plants the seeds of doubt and discontent in our heads. We tell ourselves that surely God didn’t mean it the way it is written. I mean he loves me, and if he loves me then he would want me to be happy right? Justification…it is what we do so well and it is Satans master ruse. He is deceiving the world. The world has found religion and lost it’s faith in the process.
Jesus said in John 15:4-6, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned."
There is a world full of people seeking to find something that makes sense to them. They are people that you and I come into contact with on a daily basis in our jobs, our families and our social and leisure activities. We need to introduce them to Jesus and help them to have a relationship with the only person that can make sense of a chaotic world. We need to remain in Him and produce fruit in our lives.
In Christ,
Greg
John 14:6
The answer Jeff’s friend gave him is a microcosm of what our country is facing. Recent statistics from 2008 indicate that 92% of Americans consider themselves religious and believe in God, while 76% call themselves Christian. The number of Christians has declined over 10% since 1990 while the number of people who claim no religion at all has climbed to 15%.
There are a couple of things that stand out to me. One is if 92% believe in God and 76% are calling themselves Christians, then why is our country in the shape it is in? Two, what God are we serving? My guess is that some of them aren’t serving the God that created all of this!
It leads me back to Jeff’s conversation with his friend. Jeff’s friend was searching for the same thing that we were seeking before we became believers, but he is getting derailed by a worldly point of view. As a Christian and a follower of Jesus, I don’t have a religion. I have a faith and relationship with Jesus Christ and there is a big difference. Jesus didn’t come to earth, suffer the things he suffered, and die on a cross so that you and I could have a religion! He came so that we could be in relationship with Him. He came to bridge the gap created by our sin, so that we could be in relationship with God! I believe God looks down at America and says “these people just don’t get it”. We are really not that much different than the Israelites when they made their golden calf. We take the parts of the Bible we like, the ones we can live with, and then we make our own little mini religion and mini god out of it. We go to church when it’s convenient and live pretty good moral lives, so we call ourselves “Religious” and “Christian”. That is not what Jesus died for.
There are people that are very religious about their sports teams and never miss a game or a score. There are people who religiously arrange their schedules around their favorite TV programs. The list of things we are religious about can go on and on. If we reduce our faith down to a religious exercise of going to church and living life a certain way then the label of Christian doesn’t mean much. We are to be servants, so everyday of our life, including Sunday, shouldn’t be about what God can give us. It should be about serving and giving back to God. It should be about a relationship with Jesus Christ. We were made to serve and Jesus served us by dying on a cross.
There are millions of people in this world that are searching for God. Unfortunately, Satan does his little game of trickery and takes the good things of the Bible and twists them around. He tells us, just like he told Eve, “Did God really say” and “you will not surely die”. He is telling us the same lies! Satan plants the seeds of doubt and discontent in our heads. We tell ourselves that surely God didn’t mean it the way it is written. I mean he loves me, and if he loves me then he would want me to be happy right? Justification…it is what we do so well and it is Satans master ruse. He is deceiving the world. The world has found religion and lost it’s faith in the process.
Jesus said in John 15:4-6, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned."
There is a world full of people seeking to find something that makes sense to them. They are people that you and I come into contact with on a daily basis in our jobs, our families and our social and leisure activities. We need to introduce them to Jesus and help them to have a relationship with the only person that can make sense of a chaotic world. We need to remain in Him and produce fruit in our lives.
In Christ,
Greg
John 14:6
Thursday, July 16, 2009
My thoughts from 3 days at Spirit Song
This past week my wife Katie and I attended the Spirit Song music festival at Kings Island amusement park in Mason, OH. It was a great three days! We spent each day at the parks enjoying the attractions and the time spent with our friends. Our evenings were filled with music from some of the most well known Christian artists and bands in the country. It was an opportunity for us to hear some great Christian music from several artists all in one place. There was a wide range of musical genre and while some of these bands were newer, up and coming artists, others were well established. If you get a chance, go next year because you won’t be disappointed.
Now, for the sake of full disclosure, my idea of fun at an amusement park consists of sitting on a park bench watching people and eating “Dippin Dots”! Although I have always been a little bit of a daredevil during my life, my daring feats were usually on a level not more than 15 ft off the ground, so riding a rollercoaster that has two hills over 200 ft tall is not my thing. If it’s your thing…Great…but God made this guy to stay on the ground! As a side note, I will have you know that I didn’t succumb to the peer pressure either…even though it was all in good fun...I think.
Moving on… there were two things that I observed and thought about over these 3 days of fun that I wanted to share my thoughts on. The first one is how fickle we are as humans. We live in a society where we will run over people to get to where we are going, and then we’ll willingly stand in a line at an amusement park without complaint for 2 hours! Some of these people standing patiently in line, will also be the first one’s to run you over in the parking lot when their leaving! Our society doesn’t like to conform to anything, so watching people being herded around through a maze of bars and ropes was interesting and thought provoking to say the least.
After watching this play out several times each day, I started thinking about my life as a Christian. Is my Christian faith conforming to the worlds view? The bible tells us in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will”. These park goers were willing to conform for a period of time so they could have the chance for a brief moment of exhilaration. The questions for each of us revolve around our willingness to be transformed to God’s plan for our lives. Are we willing to walk between the boundaries of God’s narrow path for the promise of eternal life with God? Am I allowing my life to be transformed to what God’s word tells me my faith is supposed to be or is it being conformed by the world?
Over the years, I believe that Christians have allowed our faith to be conformed to what the world and our leaders have told us it should be. Rather than seeking God’s divine plan for us, we have chosen to conform. If we did make a stand, we chose to use the world’s tools to address our countries problems and issues. We tried to use our alleged political clout to legislate morality and our Christian beliefs. I think history is showing us that this approach has not worked real well and I don’t believe that approach is biblical or was ever modeled by Jesus either.
We need to be what we are supposed to be as Christians…different!! We need to be different is such away that it causes those outside of Christ to want to know why we are different. Our lives need to project Christ daily during the good and the bad times. Instead, we conform to the what the world tell us we should be and we further alienate the very people Jesus cared most about…the lost. We need to be praying and building relationships with those that are lost. We need to turn our face back to God and put him back in the forefront of our country. Real change in this country will not happen until the individuals within this country start to change themselves first. That means that for those of us that profess to be born again Christians we need to get out of the line the world has us in and stop conforming to its ways. We need to put God back at the front of our lines.
The second thing that stood out for me came from a point that Jeremy Camp made during his concert. He told a story about how his young daughter would tell him “I love you this much” while she stretched out her hands as far as she could. It’s easy to relate to this because we have all done this when we were younger or heard our own kids say this. One day Jeremy’s daughter had an ice cream cone in one hand and he asked her how much do you love me? She paused this time, looked at her ice cream, and then repeated the same line, “I love you this much”, but this time only one hand was held outstretched while the other was held close to her, firmly clutching her ice cream cone. He went on to talk about how Christ held His arms out wide on the cross and as the nails pierced his hands He said to each of us, “I love you this much”!
What are we holding onto in our life? What do we have in our life that we love more than God? Maybe it’s our hobbies or our possessions? Could it be our spouses, kids or family? I think all of us have something that we are clutching onto. It’s easy to surrender the things in our life that are not going so well and say “Uh, God, I need your help down here!” It’s not an easy thing to let go of everything, but Jesus says we must. In Luke 14:26 Jesus tells us, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. Jesus isn’t meaning “hate” as you and I understand it, but instead He wants you and me to love Him more than anything else in our lives.
One of the great gifts that a Mother has is the gift of sacrifice. A mother will sacrifice everything for her kids. She is often the last one to eat at dinner and no matter how hungry she is, she will surrender every bit of the food on her plate to take care of her children if they are still hungry. If we’re going to serve God the way he wants us to, then we have to be willing to surrender every single thing on our plate of life for Him. We have to stretch out both arms and let go of everything we’re hanging onto, no matter what it is. When we let God have every area of our lives, then He can truly use us to do some great things for His kingdom.
I have always been willing to let God have what I think He should have. It was usually never anything good though, because it has mostly been the areas in my life that I have made a mess of. While I am learning everyday how to let God have all of my life, it has not been without some struggles. It’s hard to let go of all the areas of our lives, but when we keep Him in front of us then the big picture becomes much clearer. That’s what faith is all about. We serve an awesome and a gracious God. He is not some abstract entity, but a loving and living being that knew us before he formed us. We were created for a relationship with Him and when we decide to engage in a true relationship with Him then we find a peace in our lives that we never knew existed.
I come away from this weekend knowing even more how much God loves me. I will be doing some soul searching this week and asking myself, “What’s my ice cream cone? What’s keeping me from stretching both arms outward and saying, “I love you this much, Jesus”!
Choose to have a good week!
In Christ,
Greg
Phil 4:13
Now, for the sake of full disclosure, my idea of fun at an amusement park consists of sitting on a park bench watching people and eating “Dippin Dots”! Although I have always been a little bit of a daredevil during my life, my daring feats were usually on a level not more than 15 ft off the ground, so riding a rollercoaster that has two hills over 200 ft tall is not my thing. If it’s your thing…Great…but God made this guy to stay on the ground! As a side note, I will have you know that I didn’t succumb to the peer pressure either…even though it was all in good fun...I think.
Moving on… there were two things that I observed and thought about over these 3 days of fun that I wanted to share my thoughts on. The first one is how fickle we are as humans. We live in a society where we will run over people to get to where we are going, and then we’ll willingly stand in a line at an amusement park without complaint for 2 hours! Some of these people standing patiently in line, will also be the first one’s to run you over in the parking lot when their leaving! Our society doesn’t like to conform to anything, so watching people being herded around through a maze of bars and ropes was interesting and thought provoking to say the least.
After watching this play out several times each day, I started thinking about my life as a Christian. Is my Christian faith conforming to the worlds view? The bible tells us in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will”. These park goers were willing to conform for a period of time so they could have the chance for a brief moment of exhilaration. The questions for each of us revolve around our willingness to be transformed to God’s plan for our lives. Are we willing to walk between the boundaries of God’s narrow path for the promise of eternal life with God? Am I allowing my life to be transformed to what God’s word tells me my faith is supposed to be or is it being conformed by the world?
Over the years, I believe that Christians have allowed our faith to be conformed to what the world and our leaders have told us it should be. Rather than seeking God’s divine plan for us, we have chosen to conform. If we did make a stand, we chose to use the world’s tools to address our countries problems and issues. We tried to use our alleged political clout to legislate morality and our Christian beliefs. I think history is showing us that this approach has not worked real well and I don’t believe that approach is biblical or was ever modeled by Jesus either.
We need to be what we are supposed to be as Christians…different!! We need to be different is such away that it causes those outside of Christ to want to know why we are different. Our lives need to project Christ daily during the good and the bad times. Instead, we conform to the what the world tell us we should be and we further alienate the very people Jesus cared most about…the lost. We need to be praying and building relationships with those that are lost. We need to turn our face back to God and put him back in the forefront of our country. Real change in this country will not happen until the individuals within this country start to change themselves first. That means that for those of us that profess to be born again Christians we need to get out of the line the world has us in and stop conforming to its ways. We need to put God back at the front of our lines.
The second thing that stood out for me came from a point that Jeremy Camp made during his concert. He told a story about how his young daughter would tell him “I love you this much” while she stretched out her hands as far as she could. It’s easy to relate to this because we have all done this when we were younger or heard our own kids say this. One day Jeremy’s daughter had an ice cream cone in one hand and he asked her how much do you love me? She paused this time, looked at her ice cream, and then repeated the same line, “I love you this much”, but this time only one hand was held outstretched while the other was held close to her, firmly clutching her ice cream cone. He went on to talk about how Christ held His arms out wide on the cross and as the nails pierced his hands He said to each of us, “I love you this much”!
What are we holding onto in our life? What do we have in our life that we love more than God? Maybe it’s our hobbies or our possessions? Could it be our spouses, kids or family? I think all of us have something that we are clutching onto. It’s easy to surrender the things in our life that are not going so well and say “Uh, God, I need your help down here!” It’s not an easy thing to let go of everything, but Jesus says we must. In Luke 14:26 Jesus tells us, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. Jesus isn’t meaning “hate” as you and I understand it, but instead He wants you and me to love Him more than anything else in our lives.
One of the great gifts that a Mother has is the gift of sacrifice. A mother will sacrifice everything for her kids. She is often the last one to eat at dinner and no matter how hungry she is, she will surrender every bit of the food on her plate to take care of her children if they are still hungry. If we’re going to serve God the way he wants us to, then we have to be willing to surrender every single thing on our plate of life for Him. We have to stretch out both arms and let go of everything we’re hanging onto, no matter what it is. When we let God have every area of our lives, then He can truly use us to do some great things for His kingdom.
I have always been willing to let God have what I think He should have. It was usually never anything good though, because it has mostly been the areas in my life that I have made a mess of. While I am learning everyday how to let God have all of my life, it has not been without some struggles. It’s hard to let go of all the areas of our lives, but when we keep Him in front of us then the big picture becomes much clearer. That’s what faith is all about. We serve an awesome and a gracious God. He is not some abstract entity, but a loving and living being that knew us before he formed us. We were created for a relationship with Him and when we decide to engage in a true relationship with Him then we find a peace in our lives that we never knew existed.
I come away from this weekend knowing even more how much God loves me. I will be doing some soul searching this week and asking myself, “What’s my ice cream cone? What’s keeping me from stretching both arms outward and saying, “I love you this much, Jesus”!
Choose to have a good week!
In Christ,
Greg
Phil 4:13
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