jason's blog-O-rama

Slowing Down

2010-01-14T11:31:00.001-08:00

The BODY - The Gifts

2009-07-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

The Body and The Gifts:
(Thiselton) - "To try to rank some gifts as "more essential" than others, let alone as necessary marks of advanced status to which all should aspire, is to offer a blasphemous challenge to God's freedom to choose whatever is his good will for his people both collectively and individually. The unexpected "greek word, see spelling on right" [hen hekaston auton], which in a different context might seem redundant, here intensifies the emphasis each single one of them (thus inviting single as a comparably redundant intensifying device in English). How dare anyone boast or exult in his or her own gifts as if these were a status symbol, or devalue other people's gifts, as if God had not chosen them for the other?"

Interesting botch of research

The Power of Sex

2009-05-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

THE POWER OF SEX

A story. I remember the first date I ever had was in the 3^rd grade, I fell in love with a girl name Gina Apa-something. Well, anways, I took her home from school one day – on my bike… and back then, I wasn’t rich enough to afford those fancy pegs on my bike, so the way that we worked it out was that she sat on the seat and I kinda stood on the pedals – and here we were, this awkward looking couple of kids biking home and I remember there was this Christmas tree lot down here on fairgrove, a couple blocks from this church and Gina had this wonderful idea – she told me that her family didn’t have a Christmas tree, and that I should get her one… and since we were by this Christmas tree field, I should go out and grab her one… and I remember this being one of the biggest mistakes of my life – we bike into this lot and I’m paying no attention to which turns we’re taking – and this place is huge. And keep in mind, I’m like 8 or 9 years old. And we finally find this tree and as I’m trying to pull it out of the ground – I hear someone yelling at us from somewhere in the distance, and I can’t see over even the tiniest of trees – and he’s yelling, the dang tree won’t come out of the ground, Gina’s freakin’ out, and all of a sudden we hear these dogs barking! And so next thing you know we’re trying to bolt out of this Christmas tree nightmare from hell looking for the exit and we’re just turning left and right, left and right with dogs barking somewhere in the distance until we finally make our way out.

And I guess the moral of the story goes something like this – don’t steal Christmas trees, but also, know that some things are really bigger than they seem.

And within our current topic today, SEX is bigger than it seems. What people say about having sex is totally different than the experience that follows it.

This month we’ve been tackling issues of purity. Just last week we talked about purity, how you and I are made in the image of God and because of this we are called to live these lives of purity. We are called to live lives that are in step with God’s demand for sexual purity.

And it’s this whole understanding that the body was not made for sexual impurity that we’re going to be talking on a very sensitive subject today – and that’s the power of sex.

There is so much power in sex. There’s the power that sex has to help you live your life to the fullest, and yet there’s enough power in it to destroy lives because of sex. I’ve seen lives and relationship reach these peaks of unity and bonding because of sex, and on that same token, I’ve seen lives destroyed by sex, lives torn by the destructive and deceptive nature of it.

Just by nature, the word “SEX” has great power. I mean, we live in this culture that is totally saturated in the topic of sex, and literally, you turn on the tv and you’ll bump into a commercial about sex, you turn on the radio, and there will be some mention of sex, you drive down the freeways or down the street, you may just see something that alludes to sex.

And I’m not just making this up, but there’s great power in sex. And if you don’t believe me here’s something for you to do. After service or Sunday school today, I want you to go to McDonalds, and while in line, go up to the cashier and say, “I’d like some food please”. And right after you, ask a friend to ask the same cashier, “I’d like some sex please…” and just see what happens to the place – there’s power in that word alone.

So I think we all agree that there’s power in the word, the thought, and action of sex – and what I want to try and cram into your heads within the next half hour is to get you to see that there is a huge difference between what the world teaches us about sex and what the bible teaches us about sex…

There is a huge difference between what you hear about sex from your non-Christian peers and how you, as a Christian are supposed to respond to that.

Last week we touched on one incident in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 5. And it is important to note that the Apostle Paul in this book of 1 Corinthians is talking about themes of spiritual maturity, themes of growth as a believer and almost abruptly comes this passage in 1 Corinthians 5 that reads:

“It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.”

So the apostle Paul abruptly incorporates this passage into his talks on spiritual maturity and living as an apostle or servant of Christ and he talks about this man, whom at this particular time in the Corinthian church is sleeping with his father’s wife!

And the way that the apostle Paul describes this practice is that he says this kind of practice doesn’t even happen among pagans. I mean literally, there are those outside of the church who would look at a practice such as this and their faces would just be in utter disgust over what is going on in this church!

And it was Farrar and Thomas who interpreted the situation saying, “Apparently this [person] was some nominal Christian, who was living in open sin with his stepmother, and thereby braving the curse of Leviticus 18:17” which reads, “Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.”

And it’s funny how just reading through a passage like this in Leviticus, or even here in Corinthians that I am reminded of just how far our culture has already come to suppress and forget about the severity of this issue…

You see, we live in this culture that thrives off of the idea that SEX IS NO BIG DEAL. But I’m here today to tell you that it is a big deal. I mean, did you know that when I LOVE LUCY came out that Lucy and Ricky were so afraid of communicating sex to the culture that they wore 19 pairs of pajamas and slept on two single beds that was 5 or 6 feet apart?

But today we see on tv shows the blatant opinion that sex is casual – that it is no big deal, that you can sleep with as many people as you want, as often as you want and walk away from it without feelings of guilt, without feelings of shame, and especially for those of you who are Christians… without conviction.

It’s been a while since we got into this war over in Iraq and the middle east. And I remember the moment the U.S. went to war – I mean, it was all over the news… every single station was reporting on this happening – “X” amount of soldiers killed in cross fires, missiles being launched, civilians and troops being massed murdered by bombings…

And I remember watching the tv and looking at the rows of dead people and thinking to myself, “this is BIG”. Those are dead people lying across the screen – but now, months later, the idea of dead troops and war is so suppressed and so widely communicated that it doesn’t seem as big…

And sex works in that same way – we learn at an early age that SEX IS A BIG DEAL, we learn that sex is something (especially if you’re not married) that creates these bonds between the people who do it right? You’ve heard about the flower and how every time you have sex it’s like you’re giving away a petal until you’re out, or casual sex as being like this duct tape on a hairy arm that eventually loses it’s stickiness – and somewhere between what you’ve learned when you were younger and now, sex has become… just sex –

But it’s not a small issue is it – the giving away of your body isn’t a small issue, isn’t it?

Going back quickly to our passage today in 1 Corinthians 5, the consequences of indulging in our sexual appetites or cravings is something that most times isn’t taken as seriously as it should be.

Another lie that our culture tells us about the power of sex is that SEX IS PURELY PHYSICAL. If there is anything that I pray that you get out of this message, this is what I pray that you will get and stick into your memory banks… but sex is not purely physical – there is no way that you can have sex with the person of the opposite sex and not experience something…

Sex is highly emotional and in my very strong opinion, highly spiritual. Because not only are you giving away your physical body, you are emotionally attaching yourself to this person.

I remember talking to a good friend of mine once about the idea of casual sex, and don’t worry, he’s a guy – but I wasn’t as shocked as I was very heart broken over the idea that the idea of casual sex, or sex being purely physical was something breaking into the seams of our youth culture today.

But you see, we fail to recognize that not only is there no such thing as casual sex, but along with sex comes the attachment of the soul, and all the emotional insecurities of non-commitment.

God created sex to be with one person for the rest of your life…

Which leads me to another false view that culture teaches us, and that’s that GOD IS DOWN ON SEX.

Or in other words, God doesn’t want us to have sex. You know growing up in church, we heard many different messages on purity, on sex, on anything and everything on this topic – but for some reason during these sermons and Sunday school lessons, all I heard was NO, YOU CAN’T DO THIS, NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT… and slowly but surely I began to develop an inner dissatisfaction with the church and with Christianity because I felt like God didn’t want us Christians to have sex!

The idea that God is down on sex is a horribly, uneducated comment. The reason it’s horribly uneducated is because God created sex. Sex was God’s idea. If you believe that God created humanity then you believe that God created sex. He said Adam and Eve go for it! Do it! Have sex! He created them that way. It wasn’t an accident that Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel – but it was God’s intended purpose for man and woman to have sex…

Feeling a bit queezy yet?

I got a couple more of these… but here goes, another lie that our culture teaches us is the classic argument that EVERYONE’S DOING IT…

Does this phrase still get passed around today? I remember growing up in high school – apparently everyone was doing it, and I was the only person in school that wasn’t. But anyways, this has got to be one of the lamest lies I’ve ever heard of in my life – everyone is not doing it. As a matter of fact, abstinence and saying no to sex is going way up. Statistics tell us that 40% of all high school students will graduate from high school without having an intimate date…

You are not the only one that’s not doing it.

And there are so many other lies that go around about sex and this is why it is important that we as Christians speak the truth about the realities of sex and not let a subject as big as this become taboo within the church.

Going back to our biblical passage in 1 Corinthians, I want you to join me in chapter 6 starting in verse 12 where it reads,

“’Everything is permissible for me’ – but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’ – but I will not be mastered by anything. ‘Food for the stomach and the stomach for food’ – but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”

Paul states that the body was not made for fornication – like we spoke last week, we were made in the image of God, and because of this newfound value, we are to live certain lives according to who God created us to be…

Like it says in 1 Thessalonians 4:7 “God has not called us into uncleanness, but to holiness” and further more like we read in Romans that we are to present our bodies “as instruments of righteousness unto God”, we are called to present our whole bodies as a living, holy, reasonable sacrifice to him…

The extent of our very existence is “glorify God and enjoy Him forever…”

How do we do this when we constantly encourage others around us to belittle the beauty of God’s creation?

How do we do this when we say nothing to our friends when they pressure us or others into following a worldly philosophy of sex?

How do we do this when even though we may fail at times, without anger, without conviction, without authority, continually to push God, the reading of the Word, and prayer out of our everyday lives?

I’m telling you this, that you will never be able to reach that solid foundation, you will never feel satisfied no matter how much sex you have in your life, if your intimacy is not founded in Christ and so long as you continue to live in sexual sin, you will never find what you’re looking for…

Just like that U2 song – “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for” – look to God and I guarantee you’ll find it.

Similarly – we are taught by are peers that having a physical relationship is good. We are pressured everyday, have you kissed your girlfriend? Have you given yourself to your boyfriend – brothers and sisters – true intimacy is never going to be found there! And isn’t that what you’re looking for?

Girls, isn’t there a longing deep down inside you to be found, to be sought after, to be valued, to have someone who loves you for not just what you are on the outside, but your personality on the inside – aren’t you looking for someone who would appreciate even the weirdest qualities you may possess?

Let me tell you how to ruin that… pursue having sex with your boyfriend, and you’ll quickly see that the advice that the world gives you regarding sex is a complete 180, a full world’s length distance from what your heart is craving.

Guys, you want to know the quickest way to fail in life and to be divorced before you turn 40?

Continue indulging yourself in sexual sin. Carry that mindset that you can get whomever or whatever you want and if you ever become dissatisfied move on to the next one, and I guarantee you, you will grow up to be exactly who you don’t want to be by 40.

Young people listen up. I’m sorry if I’m guilt-tripping you. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to preach the Word of God faithfully, and what I’m seeing from the Word is that there is a huge disparity, a separation between what premarital sex, and indulging in sexual immorality in the world’s perspective and what that looks like through the eyes of Christ.

Let me close chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians, I’ll read it to you…

Verse 15 reads,

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body…

And the apostle Paul closes with the statement, “Therefore, honor God with your body”.

Hey church – I’ve heard this verse misused and abused by people saying that this is a verse that goes against piercing your bodies or tattoo-ing yourself, but it’s not saying that at all – this passage refers to the damage that goes on by indulging in sexual impurity.

Paul says that our bodies are members of Christ himself, so not only are we made in the image of the Almighty God, but in partaking of communion with Him – we are members of Christ himself, we are consequently united with our Jesus Christ – that means that we share a common love for that which is holy, righteous and pure, and on the reverse end, we share a distaste with God for those which seek to defile that…

And in closing, the wise words of Paul where he says, “flee from sexual immorality” – last week we spent some time talking about how sin within the church is like this yeast, this tiny amount of yeast that spreads throughout the entire body… and sin similarly has this way of creeping into the church body and destroying relationships.

The Apostle Paul, with wisdom says, flee from sexual immorality. And guys, I may have mentioned this before, but I believe this is something that applies to all men, at all ages, in all different walks of life, whether you’re a father or 10 or a son of 10 years old… In the midst of temptation, especially sexual temptation, don’t fight… run.

Run because often times we have this “macho” personality right? We have this mentality that “it really can’t be that bad”… and it’s only until we’re face-to-face with these trials and temptations that we begin to see one of two things, (1) I can handle this (2) or I totally underestimated this battle.

Ladies, again we’ll close this sermon with something for you. Offering yourself physically to a guy is something that will only benefit you within the context of marriage. Don’t buy into the lies that sex is no big deal, that it’s purely physical, that everyone’s doing or that God is down on sex… Don’t be afraid to shut off that tv or that radio when someone or something is trying to advertise to you that you are not pretty enough either –

Remember, we need strong women of God in these years to come.

Finally, brothers and sisters, let me close with the Psalm that reads,

“How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.”

Do not neglect your relationship with God and your reading of the Word… implant it into your brains and pursue purity in your everyday walks…

PURITY MESSAGE

2009-05-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

MESSAGE ON PURITY GIVEN: SUNDAY, MAY 17,2009

PURITY

I remember the last time that I ever spoke on something remotely close to the topic of purity was about 2 years ago when I had the opportunity to speak at a retreat for another youth group. But it was because of that day that I had been fearful to ever preach on this topic again.

One of the main reasons why I had this fear of preaching or speaking on the topic of purity, or even as we’ll talk about in the weeks to come, SEX, was because of the dangers that could possibly follow or couple with speaking on such a sensitive and hands off topic…

But you see, one of the biggest problems with churches today is that there is little talk on the issue of purity and sex and even smaller communication on what how sex and the Christian faith are related… and instead of taking the opportunity to speak and give Christ’s input on purity, you guys get exposed to teaching on sex culture by the media or by popular culture…

And what ends up happening is that we dip so deep and so normally into this idea of American sexuality that we slowly begin to forget where the church stands on issues of purity, what the Bible says about living a life contrary to the impure…

And we’re left callous – distant – we’re left with the thinking that people in the church know nothing or are highly unqualified to talk about issues of sex and purity. I mean Pastor’s never have sex right?

Okay, if you’re feeling a little awkward today – good, it just means that it’s been a while since you’ve heard the word SEX from the pulpit…

Our study today starts in the book of Genesis – where we will be reading about how early innocence was shattered because of wrong decisions and how those decisions ultimately lead to a realization of impurity…

In Genesis chapter 3, the author, who is assumed to be Moses writes about the account of Adam and Eve, and how they stumbled into sin.

It’s here in Genesis where God creates the entire world, the universe! And the first two chapter of Genesis describe God’s interaction in the creation of this world and how he creates light from the darkness, how he creates the Earth, the water, the trees, the plants and animals and all the while while creating – there are these pauses in which the author of Genesis writes, and God saw that what he had created, was GOOD!

Good… or in other words, “tob” in Hebrew meaning – unlike anything else, he made this creation that was tob, so impressive and amazing

And the Bible in Genesis starts off with this amazing picture of the way God created the world, the way that he intended it to be and it was TOB!

And on one day he makes human beings, in chapter 1:27 the Bible reads,

“SO GOD CREATED HUMAN BEINGS IN HIS OWN IMAGE. IN THE IMAGE OF GOD HE CREATED THEM; MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM…”

And guess what, I’ll say it one more time, when God looked over all of creation he saw that it was GOOD…

And the reason why I start off with the background of this passage is because that even within the first few verses of the Bible we read something important to know about God’s creation – that not only does he create this inherently “good” world, but he creates us humans all in the likeness of his image – imagine that will you? You and I are made in the image of God…

And so God places Adam, because he created Adam first in this garden, and he looks at Adam and says Adam, why don’t you name all of the animals in this world? And Adam starts naming off these animals, and you know it must not have been too long before God realized that Adam wasn’t filling the loneliness in his heart by naming the octopus, or the elephant – because there’s only so many things a man can do before he gets lonely…

So God creates a woman!

And everything in the garden is going great until we reach this point in chapter 3 today and everything goes south – out of all the goodness going on in the garden, SIN creeps into the picture and we see how the introduction of sin into the garden of Eden has this ripple effect that destroys the purity originally intended for God’s people, men and women made in the image of God.

There’s this pattern that continues to develop within the lifespan of the Israelites – after the fall in the Garden of Eden comes this moment where there’s this loop. It’s this vicious cycle that we see the Israelites making a pact with God, then slowly but surely, they face temptation and although sometimes they succeed through tests and trials, many times they fall and fail hard…

And in the moment of their failures, they cry out to God, and God would hear them and send a savior… and all will be okay until the moment they sin once again.

And this is where our story leads us to today – Purity… well what is purity? The word purity is used throughout the Bible over a hundred times, and somewhere within those hundreds of times that it is used, Christians are commanded by God to live these upright walks with God…

Christians are called to turn and run away from impurity, to flee from filling our minds and bodies with thoughts and images of the impure.

In Hebrews 13:4 we’re commanded to honor marriage by keeping the marriage bed pure, by abstaining from adultery and immorality.

We are called to crave pure spiritual milk seen in 1 Peter 2:2 – we do this by developing a hunger for God and a desire for maturity.

In the book of 1 John, the author says in chapter 3, “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!

BUT… he says, the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him… we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure…

Hey church, we are called and commanded to live lives that are pure before God – and a life of purity, to be made simple is a life that lives in honor of God…

And as I read through the beginning pages of the Bible in the book of Genesis, I did a character study on the person of Adam and the person of Eve. And in doing this I recognized that the sin that gripped Adam and Eve, the first humans ever to walk this planet, the two people who understood, communed, and walked with God, the sin that they stumbled upon is the same sin that we repeatedly see throughout the Old and New Testament and EVEN today… it’s the sin of desire.

And it was Adam and Eve’s desire and crave for MORE that led them to pursue turning their backs to God.

Often times in our lives, the stumbling into sin falls into that one instance, that one moment where you have that decision to make –

1) On one end there is the desire to please God – and although this is the guaranteed, sure-fire way of experiencing the riches of God’s blessings… it is often times the most difficult, the most painful, the most heart wrenching situations

But on the other end…

2) There’s the hunger to indulge in impurity by turning our backs towards God. And although going down this road is always guaranteed to leave you unsatisfied and thirsty – It often times offers the seemingly most reasonable, most entertaining, the quickest solution to all of your problems…

And that’s how believers stumble into impurity – that’s what blinded Adam and Eve from seeing that although they bit into the fruit wanting to be like God – they failed to see that they were already made in the image of God…

They already were living a life of unfathomable purity…

Brothers and sisters allow me to present this to you in black in white… that you’re either living lives of purity, lives that are upright and following hard after God – or – you’re living a life of impurity… one in rebellion to the commands of God.

1 John 3 starting in verse 7 says,

“Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning…

And he goes on to say more about the Christian walk saying,

“Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.”

But even today, despite the fact that we know so much about the bible, the truth about purity is being attacked in our culture. We’re living in a culture that teaches us to be okay with living a life of sexual impurity that runs contrary to the core values of our faith.

In the early Corinthian church, Paul writes about the condition of the church where he says,

1 Corinthians 5…

“I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you – something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame… [In verse 6] Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?”

The apostle Paul talks about a situation in the church where the sexual impurity is so deep that there are members within the church participating in sexual impurities that aren’t even common to those that pagans practice!

He makes this illustration that partaking in such impurity within the church although it seems harmless to other individuals is like a tiny amount of yeast –

And I don’t know if you’ve ever dumped tons of yeast onto bread before baking, but it only takes a little bit of yeast to get the bread to rise!

Listen up young people – there maybe those of you in this room today that are allowing yourselves to take part in a lifestyle that is opposite of what Christ demands… maybe there are some of you in this room that truly don’t care about your relationship with the opposite sex…

Your sin affects the church – whether you see it or not.

I remember years ago being able to see the negative affects of sexual sin and how fast it could’ve torn apart the church…

1) Someone stumbled into sexual sin

2) His sin was made known to the church

3) Although he was repentant, gossip and slandering of this guy just pushed him away from the church

Finally at the end of chapter 6 in 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about avoiding sexual sin, avoiding impurity:

He says, “You say, ‘I am allowed to do anything’ – but not everything is good for you. And even though ‘I am allowed to do anything,’ I must not become a slave to anything. You say, ‘Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.’ (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies…”

Folks – You and I are created in the image of God – and guys, to me this message is not as important for me to get to you as it is for the women…

Ladies, you were made in the image of God – you are worth a value that is more expensive than any money can buy – and don’t… I repeat don’t listen to the first hunk of man that passes by you with an eight pack.

I’m telling you those men are a dime a dozen – Any man that spends that much time getting that muscular can’t be spending much time with God at all – well maybe, but I want to challenge you to look DEEPER.

Next week I’m going to be speaking on the power of sex, and how sex carries a very misleading price tag along with it – and ladies I want you to know – If the man of your dreams is not centered in Christ, if he desires to be with you more than he desires to be with God – you better run as fast as you can the other direction…

Forget about those 8 packs, 12 packs, 24 packs – it’s all about the mind pack, the heart pack.

Because, now listen up, this is pure experience talking… He won’t have that 10 pack in 10 years, then what do you do?

Boys listen up… don’t think just because you know that God is the author of love that you got this whole purity thing down… the truth is, you don’t. You have got to deal with your bouts with impurity before you think about taking on a relationship with any woman because she is worth that much…

You were created in the image of God, and she was created in the image of God… I want to challenge you all to live lives of purity – lives that aim for righteousness, and what does that look like…

That means:

- Turning off the tv when you start to lust

- Refraining from listening to music that impairs your judgment or stirs up thoughts of devaluing in your head

- Striving for God and putting to death the physical desires of your flesh

Now listen up, next week we’re going to be talking about a very sensitive subject – and I want to start off by saying now – if you’re living a life that runs opposite of what Christ commands, plain black and white, you ARE NOT LIVING A RIGHTEOUS LIFE BEFORE GOD…

Consumer Christianity

2009-05-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

SERMON GIVEN APRIL 26, 2009

CONSUMER CHRISTIANITY

If you remember last week, I touched on the topic of sin. Within that last sermon, I talked about how there are Christians in our community today that have this mentality that “I’ll take whatever I like about Christianity and throw away the rest…

In other words, we’re living in this culture today that teaches us that Christianity is easy, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to take it.

And it’s this very image of Christianity that teaches those outside the church that we’re nothing more than people who aren’t self-sacrificial. For example: How many churches out there are not only preaching the truth, but also living out the truth that God died for all sinners!? You see, the danger of believing and trusting only in what makes you feel good is what makes Christianity look like hypocrisy to those outside of the church.

We talk so much about evangelism, love, and more importantly how Christ loves the world – and it’s so easy for us to preach and shout out the words that “GOD LOVES YOU,” but it’s just as easy to turn our back and say to those who test our patience “I DON’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU!”

Today, we’re going to be talking about a subject that strikes at the very heart of Christianity, a topic that I believe is something we all wrestle with as Christians in America – it’s the topic of CONSUMERISM.

But before we do that, let’s pray.

Although we will be jumping in and out of bible passages today, I want you all to go to the book of Luke where we will be dwelling in for a little bit.

Luke 9:23 where it reads:

[Jesus said] “IF ANYONE DESIRES TO COME AFTER ME, LET HIM DENY HIMSELF, AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS DAILY, AND FOLLOW ME.”

Thomas C. Reeves, author of the book The Empty Church once said that “Christianity in modern America… tends to be easy, upbeat, convenient, and compatible. It does not require self-sacrifice, discipline, humility, an otherworldly outlook, a zeal for souls, a fear as well as love for God. There is little guilt and no punishment, and the payoff in heaven is virtually certain. What we now have might best be labeled ‘Consumer Christianity.’ The cost is low and customer satisfaction seems guaranteed.”

And you see, Thomas Reeves’ observation of Christianity hugely contrasts with our passage in Luke today because in Luke, Jesus mentions that the life of the Christian is one of self-denial, one of humility, one that requires you to take up the cross (define “take up cross”), one of obedience…

On the flip side, Reeves’ observation of Christianity is one of self-service, American Christianity takes on the perception that, if I am not pleased with how the church takes care of me, then I’ll leave….

And don’t we see that so much today? So many Christians are getting up and leaving the church because they feel like they’re not being taken care of – and although it maybe true that the church has abused their comfort in some way, the church was never meant or established to be a “people-pleasing congregation” but rather a “God-honoring and worshipping congregation”…

And I believe this is true because church and congregation gatherings isn’t primarily meant for fellowship but MOST IMPORTANTLY for worship… we’re not just here to get together and chat about what we did this past week – which is not a bad thing to do, as a matter of fact I’ll tell you about all the fun stuff I did this week after service, but that’s not the main reason we are here…

The reason why you and I are here today is because we share a common love right? And it’s because we share this common love for Christ and the church that we also share a common thirst to worship Him…

The object of Christianity isn’t to offer you a simple life. If you became a Christian because someone came up to you one day at the mall or something and said, “man, being a Christian is the best thing that’ll ever happen to you because it’s comfortable or because everyone will like you,” or maybe they said something like, “being a Christian is easy, or you only have to show up to church and not do anything else.”

I really hate to tell you this, but you got “dooped”.

The Christian life, although there are times of comfort and times of ease, there are also times of persecution, there are times of stress, and times where you really need to discipline yourself to follow hard after God…

Do you believe that today brothers and sisters?

Haven’t there been times where you woke up in the morning and you found it so hard to read the word? Or aren’t there times when you sit down to pray but you find it extremely difficult to stay awake? The walk and disciplined life of a Christian is no walk in the park, but a truly practiced and disciplined life.

Bill Hull, an author on several different books on discipleship making said, “We live in a world where two ways or philosophies are at war. It is the worldview of Jesus where God is at the center and his disciples live for others… the other philosophy… is the consumer culture. It is a world of consumption, assertiveness, speed, and fame. In the consumer world it is all about me.”

“IN THE JESUS WAY JESUS BECOMES MORE – IN THE CONSUMER WAY, MAN BECOMES MORE”

And it’s so easy to become disillusioned with Christianity when we carry on the mentality of consumerism because of this huge contrast…

Verse 24 of Luke 9… Jesus continues by saying, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

Brothers and sisters, the Christian life isn’t a life where we have the luxury of carrying on with the mentality, “how can I serve God and get something tangible in return?” One of the many things that I mention to the core leadership group is that ministry is anything but consumerism. As a matter of fact, ministry is all about delayed gratification… in other words, you’re planting seeds in people’s lives that you may never see for years…

And yet, they’re still here serving.

Bill Hull, whom I mentioned of earlier, talks about four different examples of conflict between the life that Jesus led and the consumer-driven life…

--- all thoughts mentioned below are from Bill Hull worded almost verbatim from www.bible.org ---

He says, (1) “The consumer life is dependent on competence before prayer.” In other words, we live in a society that says, do first, then pray. On the other end, Jesus modeled prayer as a priority. His actions demonstrated that his relationship with his Father was the basis for ministry. He prayed all night before important decisions.

The consumer way is to act now, to make an impact, to get things done. The consumer lifestyle carries on this view that we can get by just fine without practicing disciplines such as prayer, solitude, meditation – all of which build our dependence on God except ourselves…

And there are so many stories of Christians who have built their entire lives on their own capabilities that stumble hard because they fail to learn what it means to submit their lives and talents over to Christ…

I’ll never forget what my mentor once told me about the power of prayer and the dangers of relying on yourself when he told me that there is a list of a few thousand pastors in California alone who have stumbled hard into affairs and issues of lust and out of all these pastors, it was found that each and every single one of them openly admitted to having little or no prayer, devotional, biblical reading life whatsoever…

Brothers and sisters… the life of the consumer Christian relies on what you can do vs. what God can do.

Secondly, Consumer Christians rely on individualism instead of Congregation.

We touched on this a bit earlier, but this is the whole idea that the church is not about us… these meetings at church are not all about me or you, but about GOD….

As Christians we are not called to lives of selfishness, but to lives of sacrifice… THAT IS TRUE WORSHIP! Again it was Bill Hull who said, “We, like Jesus, then chose to live the life of submission to others, to put their needs equal to ours, even, I dare say, more important than our own.”

So where consumerism says I want this, or you need that – Christians should be carrying the mindset, what can I give back?

Thirdly, Consumerism relies on impatience rather than endurance.

I’m totally blown away by how quick and easy it is to get almost whatever you want now a days… it seems like whatever pops up on the television, I can buy and get within the comforts of my own home in days!

A couple years ago, I had the pleasure of watching the movie Supersize Me… and the whole movie revolves around this guy who gains 30 pounds in 30 days by buying into the fast food diet. Similarly to this movie, there is no such thing as fast spirituality without patience. There no such thing as instant satisfaction without effort. Finally, there is no such thing as a Christian walk without tests of perseverance.

But our culture teaches us all of these neat-O short cuts right? By a show of hands, how many of you in this room use “spark notes?”

Basically, whoever created sparknotes must’ve been a genius because he knew exactly what to sell and he also knew that what he had to sell, people would crave for. So whenever we get assigned to read stories or books, as an excuse to NOT manage our time, we pick up spark notes! It’s genius because it gives us a grade that we probably don’t deserve without requiring us to put in the effort that we should be putting in!

Hey church, do you see how we are slowly being taught that the “simple life” is what’s best for us?

Fourthly and lastly, Consumer Christians worship celebrity over humility…

Psychologist Robert Hogan once researched that humility rather than self-esteem was the key trait of successful leaders…

In other words, “pop” Christian culture teaches us that it’s worth it to celebrate ourselves in essence tuning our worship to become about us, about our tastes, our likes, and our dislikes…

Once again all of these things are seen in Christian culture today! We see so many people following hard after trends, and it’s this trend that there are these name brand preachers, teachers and bands who teach us how to live our lives and dress as our attention slowly falls away from Christ.

If it doesn’t indulge the senses, it’s not true worship.

There’s a story that once goes like this,

There was a person who once came out of a church service complaining, “I didn’t really care for the message.” And this person’s friend walking right next to him said, “Good, because we weren’t worshipping you…”

Brothers and Sisters… what am I trying to get into your heads today? Let me sum this up for you…

CONSUMERS FOCUS ON SELF, CHRISTIANS FOCUS ON CHRIST

You are living in a culture that teaches and provides for you everything that you can possibly need to phase God out of your life. You are living in a culture that teaches you to worship what man can do versus what God can do…

It’s this culture today that teaches us to rely more on ourselves and our capabilities over what God can do in his infinite power.

We learn so much on how to rely on ourselves that we forget the value of taking things slow, praying before we jump into taxing situations, reading the Word before blurting out what’s on our minds.

CONSUMERS FOCUS ON ME, CHRISTIANS FOCUS ON COMMUNITY.

Stop coming to church with the mindset – I need to have this, I need to have that, because the next thing you know you’re going to start to say things like – if I could only have had more time, I would spend it with you God, or if I had a better Pastor, maybe I would be a better evangelist!

CONSUMERS CAN’T WAIT, CHRISTIANS CAN’T STOP

Consumer Christians lack the patience it takes to pursue God before everything else. Christians endure by looking at trials and issues with the mindset that GOD’s gonna get me through this…

CONSUMERS WORSHIP SELF ACCOMPLISHMENT OVER HUMILITY…

Brothers and sisters – what mindset did you bring with you when you walked through these doors this morning?

Are your intentions for being here motivated by selfishness?

IF ANYONE DESIRES TO COME AFTER ME, LET HIM DENY HIMSELF, AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS DAILY, AND FOLLOW ME. FOR WHOEVER WANTS TO SAVE HIS LIFE WILL LOSE IT, BUT WHOEVER LOSES HIS LIFE FOR ME WILL SAVE IT…

"Shall We Keep On Sinning?" Rom.6:1-14

2009-04-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

Paul – author of some great books in the New Testament wrote this in Romans 6:1-14

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

For the past few weeks, you’ve been hearing several different speakers, like Tim Gauci who spoke on this tension between what our physical and fleshly nature wants to do versus the things that we are called to do in Christ Jesus.

And a couple of weeks ago, you got to hear Pastor Paul speak on the Evidence of Spiritual Maturity… and today, I want to continue this study by speaking on yet another important topic… and it’s the topic of sin.

The reason that I want to conclude our series on this topic is because of the many Christians, and maybe those in this room, continue to live their lives in sin with no desire to change or to repent…

They live these lives of sin without true repentance. It’s these same Christians who are perverting true Christianity, picking out the things they like in the Bible and tossing out the rest that makes them feel bad.

AND it’s here in this passage today at Romans, where we see an issue that MULTITUDES of Christians wrestle with everyday, and every single day I flip on the television, it seems to get worse!

But before we get into that, our passage today is found in the book of Romans, one of the main reasons that Paul writes to us this book of Romans was because Paul noticed some things about the Roman church, and he’s old-school “blogging” about them – he’s writing about his concerns regarding the Roman Christians.

Paul pulls us aside today in this passage of Romans and gives us several important points! He reveals this key, this road map to eternal life by telling us what a true Christian walk looks like– and it’s because of this very important issue that we are able to conclude that this topic of sin and eternal life, is something that shouldn’t just be important to those of you in this room who proclaim to be Christians, but also for those who do not even believe in God because an understanding of this concept today is what will get you into heaven.

It applies to every single person wanting eternal life! Paul begins chapter 6 by saying,

“So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I hope not!”

He begins this passage by addressing to us that in no way… NO WAY do we, now that we’re Christians, just because we know that we are forgiven – no way should we continue living on in sin!

And I like how Eugene Peterson words the next verse in this passage saying, “If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good?”

Brothers and sisters – we left the lifestyle of sin the moment we became followers of Christ – you know what I mean, the moment where (1)maybe you prayed that prayer asking Christ to come into your heart, or that moment when (2)maybe you were in the church and the Pastor asked you to raise your hand if you wanted to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior – in that moment… we, as Eugene Peterson put it… left the country, or that lifestyle of sin, and even though sin occasionally arises within our lives from time to time, we know that SIN DOES NOT FIT IN, IT DOES NOT BELONG IN OUR LIVES!

Amen?

John 14:21 says this... “If we love him, we will keep his commandments.”

Sin separates us relationally from God – how can we profess to love him if we don’t keep or pursue keeping his commands?

Even as I speak, I am reminded of so many Christians who abuse this by saying they love God, they keep his commands, but they repeatedly sin the same sin over and over again – AND NEVER ONCE SHARED THEIR FAITH – NEVER ONCE SHARED JESUS TO THEIR FRIENDS & FAMILY –

Friends and family who don’t even know that they’re Christian…

IN SHORT, the forgiveness that we receive from Christ isn’t really grace if it’s motivating you or encouraging you to keep on sinning…

On the other end, our love for Christ and the forgiveness we receive from him, should serve as motivation to stop us from sinning.

And it all boils down to how we perceive our relationship with Christ… Which is why from time to time, I’ll talk with several of you about

- different issues

- different problems that arise between

o you and some school friends

o you and your family

o or you and a significant other,

and most if not all times, I’ll pause in the midst of speaking and ask…

“How is your walk with God?”

Because I believe it’s most important that we focus on our relationships with Christ instead of focusing so much on how our sins/struggles make us feel – that’s the heart of the issue.

You see, sin creeps up and takes over our lives when we fail at keeping a consistent relationship, or walk with God. And it’s because of this sin that we start to see issues rising up in our lives – these road bumps or even road blocks in our walk when it comes to family, friends, loved ones, and whoever else…

Brothers and sisters, do you understand what a relationship with God looks like? Going back to the beginning of our passage today, Paul’s rhetorical question (the question that needs no answer), he says, “are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? BY NO MEANS!”

In other words… sin should have no place in your lives, because the moment you feel yourself becoming comfortable in sin is the moment you should start to realize (hopefully) that you are falling away from GOD.

In verse 3 Paul says, “do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, WE TOO might walk in newness of life…”

In other words…

1. When Christ died, believers died in him and with him.

2. When Christ rose, believers were made alive in him.

3. Because of this, believers are commanded to model this (WRITE THIS DOWN): to be dead to sin and alive to God.

“When Christ died, believers died in him and with him”

- Just like it says in verses 5, 6, and 8 of Romans 6:

o (v.5) “For if we have been united with him in death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his…”

o (v.6) “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin…”

o (v.8) “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.”

- In other words, those that believe in Christ, these Christians are unified with him… dead people don’t automatically pursue sinning, but rather, it’s this pursuit of Godliness, a pursuit towards pleasing God…

“When Christ rose, believers were made alive in him.”

Just like the practice of baptism that we perform within this church – you are dying to your old self and come up, it’s this symbolic representation of your raising up into a new life, a “RENEWED” life.

And the last point “…believers are commanded to become in practice what we are in Christ: dead to sin and alive to God.”

- And it’s this final and last point that I want to spend some time on today talking to you about…

- HOW CAN WE BE OKAY WITH SIN DOMINATING OUR LIVES WHEN PAUL SAYS:

o (v.11) “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

- HOW CAN WE EVEN FATHOM IT EVER BEING OKAY TO LIVE IN SIN WHEN PAUL WRITES:

o (v.13) “Do not present your members (any part of yourselves) to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness”

This, beloved brothers and sisters, is the essence of this series that we’ve been sharing to you…

be dead to sin and alive in Christ..

But we’re so quick to make excuses about our sin – we know exactly what to say and do to get out of addressing our sins.

We keep licking the knife until we realize that… (1) you’re either dead or (2) you realize licking this blade, indulging yourself in sin is getting you no where.

One of my biggest secrets in life comes from Jr. High… and this was no joke – but I’m going to share to you a short lesson that I learned in Jr. High that up until now didn’t realize how much it relates to what we’re talking about today…

But in Jr. High I was a part of an elite club – and this is no joke – we’re not talking little kid stuff here, but this was what all the big boys were doing… but…

I was in the chess club…

And I LOVED CHESS SO MUCH! – sometimes we’d meet at lunch time, sometimes after school.

Chess is so much like life and more importantly reflective of what our walks as Christians can be like – you see, Paul unearths this issue in the Roman Church that although people were claiming to be Christians, they took advantage of their relationships with God by sinning and using sin as an excuse to receive more grace.

And like chess, believers backthen and even now continue to be these great excuse makers, or responders…

Like in chess, someone makes a move, and you respond, and you know all the while that if this challenge presents itself, you respond this way, and if they go this way you go that way… and it’s this back and forth momentum that develops and we become so systematic in our thinking that we come up with these excuses, these defenses, this seemingly robotic lifestyle when it comes to our relationship with Christ.

Until finally you’ve come up with the greatest excuse ever!!!

You keep on justifying the repetitive sins in your life that you start to say

– “I’m forgiven, so I’ll keep on sinning!”

Instead of saying “Oh God I realize that sin tears apart my relationship with you!!!”

Do you get that? Our first inclination as believers shouldn’t be sin – what do I mean by that? I mean that in moments where our integrity is tested, although we may be tempted to sin, we, as believers are always weighing out with the question, “how will this affect my relationship with God?”

Because ultimately– SIN SEPARATES US FROM GOD and whether instantaneously or not, SIN DESTROYS OUR LIVES… so there’s wisdom in what Paul says in this passage of Romans that WE WHO ARE CHRISTIANS SHOULD SIN NO MORE!

Brothers and sisters, believe me when I say this, you may be getting away with sin in your life right now, and God’s allowing it, sin might feel like the best feeling in the world for however long it lasts, but believe me – living a life of sin is like living underneath a flooding rooftop – eventually it’ll catch up to you, eventually the weight of all the sin you’re stacking up there will come crashing down and flooding you to the point of exhaustion –

And in that point, you may or may not be able to see the God who loves you and has been gracious in the midst of it…

So what do you do now? What application can we hope to draw out of this passage today? I mean, can I honestly give you a play by play and say – to live a Godly Christian life FIRST!!!:

1. Stop sinning?

2. Fellowship with those who will encourage you to sin less?

Can I really give you a step by step on how to live out your relationship with God? Or maybe this is the time you start asking yourself the question… “HOW IS MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD DOING?”

Finally, let me close this series with the question: What fruits are you bearing in your life as a Christian right now… be honest to yourself and to God –

are you living a life that displays the fruits of the spirit listed in Galatians 5? Or are you living a life that goes against your walk and relationship with God?

Current thoughts on life

2009-04-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

This week has been quite challenging in terms of work/profession/calling. I recently had the opportunity to have lunch/dinner with my good friend Tim. I've never had my brain picked at at the intensity level with which he had picked it with.

Youth Pastor-ing is not easy. Pastor-ing in general, is not easy. I mean, we're suppose to act as event coordinators, counselors, public speakers, managers, trainers, and so much more all in a weeks time?

Don't get me wrong... I LOVE IT!! I LOVEEEEEEEEEEEE DOING IT!

I remember going to one of my friend's graduation ceremonies (from nursing) and they would have their own lingo, term, or adage that would get them through their schooling, through the vigorous and seemingly impossible work ahead of them - and I thought back to my undergrad days where every week we'd talk about getting through only to find that ministry is delayed gratification.

What an interesting couple of words... delayed gratification. Yesterday, while I was at church, I spoke to one of the seniors who told me that he had shared a story to a starving family in the Philippines saying, "we will be fasting a day a week for you!" and in response, one member of this starving family said...

"...fast for one day? Over here it's like we're fasting for weeks at a time!"

When we're hungry, we eat. When we're thirsty, we drink. When I need entertainment, I head out to target. When I'm bored, I flip on the tele and watch a show...

Delayed gratification? Does that even exist in this culture?

-------

Another topic... the church

I am recently aware of some changes that need to be brought into our ministry context. Not for the sake of incorporating change, but for the sake of accomplishing the overall mission (set aside by Pastor Paul) of the church.

How often or more importantly, HOW ACTIVE should each member of the church be in ministry?

People come in and out of church whenever they please. Culture is showing us that people hop churches to get what they want - you want to sleep in? catch an afternoon service at another church... but is that truly the way to go?

LESSON: Commitment

Where we spoke of delayed gratification early, we will now speak of commitment. Commitment to the body of Christ. Now more than ever before in my life am I seeing the value of church membership. We used to blow aside the idea of church membership 101 during Sunday schools in the past... but now, I'm beginning to see how effective it can be.

Incorporating a solid church membership can benefit the church by allowing us to keep track of those who are solidly committed to the church, what gifts they possess (so we can place them where they can enjoy using their gift), tracking whether or not our church is growing (if it's growing, praise the Lord, if it's not, through church membership we can find out what's going on!), and finally, it gets people on the same track... i.e. we're not always mixing the teaching content of mature believers to the foundational 101 lessons of those new to the faith.

But with the lack of commitment to going to church - moving forward is a huge difficulty.

What do you think about that? PosMos (post modern culture people) are starting a trend within emerging churches that reveal that their average attendance is 1-2 Sundays a month!!!

It can be pretty tough encouraging people to go to church if they've already made up in their mind that the church has nothing for them...

Was it JFK who once said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"? Isn't that true of the church? Sometimes we come in with the mentality that I need this, I deserve this, the church should give me that.... which is true for most new believers within the church, but what if you've been attending for a while? What then?

Commitment - the thought of sleeping in on a work day, although tempting, never actualizes (well, maybe sometimes), but for some reason, meeting up in fellowship with other believers... for some reason, less effort is made on the part of the church.

Young people that do stumble across this blog: Keep that fire going. Those of you that serve in the church, your work is not in vain, you are truly making a huge impact for the kingdom of God!

Older young people: Love the church that provides for you, and if the church sucks at providing for you, find ways to feed into the church...

AGREE? DISAGREE?

Thanks for reading!

Truly Blessed

2009-01-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

I am at a loss for words by the workings of God in my life.

Now I start off this blog with that note, but it is also important to note that despite the openness and optimistic ring to that statement, to the public and uniformed eye, this statement carries with it access baggage.

Challenging. The past year has been challenging. I accepted the call to be youth pastor at the church I now serve in... it's been almost a year since I've started. This past Sunday, I was ordained, Pastor Jason, for Cornerstone Church. What a mind trip... but what really challenged me the most was the idea that despite my "title," despite my "calling," there is a character deep beneath words and claims...

I sat broken this morning in front of one of the men who had lead me to a deeper relationship with God... I was broken over the fact that I am struggling. Should a "Pastor" really struggle?

I guess depending on where you're from and who you've mentored under, the answers may vary, but what really kicked me in the butt was that these past 2 days, I've been face to face with an inner struggle. I've been face to face with my own weaknesses - and as a Pastor, that is humbling.

My good friend, from across the table at IHOP said to me, "Who are you?"

The question puzzled me, "who am I?" What did he mean?

As I sat and pondered the question, I had come to a frightening discovery that despite the countless hours that I had spent investing in the bachelor's degree from the distinguished college, I had not intentionally taken the time to ask myself the vital question linked to everything I do... who am I?

Although I can dig deep and piece together parts of my life that make me who I am - I answered the question horribly...

Then came the task... my friend took me on top of a mountain top to speak with God... Although God is everywhere, being here was challenging. Once again, face to face with my shortcomings... what was I to do? I have re-discovered that my life has not been as disciplined as I have wanted it, and also that I do not have the relationship with God that He wants from me... I've been using Him, and the love that I've been using Him for has not been reciprocated on my behalf...

But no matter how distant I had come when I arrived to that mountain top... through stubbornness (on my part), he answered me. Redeemed, although broken... Given though undeserving...

This is my God...

make sense? Well, to you it doesn't have to...

Getting There...

2009-01-06T00:11:00.000-08:00

I just finished applying for a job... not just any job, but a "job, job."

What's funny is that i've spent so much time being busy with school and work that once I finished my schooling and got my bachelor's, i'm noticing all the little things i've been missing.

Now is definitely a time to work on "character". Character... that word gives me chills. I have been trying to read the first chapter out of Dallas Willard's Divine Conspiracy, and although it racks my brain... the pearls of wisdom are amazing!

There is a desperate need for connecting the intellectual with the practical - do we do what we know, and do we know what we do? Are we truly living out what we say we're living out, or are we babbling and carrying ourselves out to be what we profess?

It's not a religious philosophy... it's common sense right?

We're in a generational era where we want "real" - real life dramas, reality t.v., real time speeds, etc... what about real character?

Do we even know who we are? Are we in touch with our character?

The answer... well, I guess that's personal and subjective... For me, the quest of developing solid character begins... tonight.

Am I going to do this, or do that? So many different decisions to make...

Character...

As I sent the final product of my application and resume, I am feeling hopeful, anxious and yet, optimistic on what bright new things God has in store for me and my future.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

- jA.

just set up

2008-12-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

I just started blogging again... why? Possibly because I feel the need to divulge my inner most thoughts somewhere, whether private or public - I feel a deep urge to express the random experiences that pass me by, the troubling or insightful quotes that fill my mind, and so on, and so on...

Cheers, to the start of a new relationship.