chaoticSoul

Super Summer.

Coming back from the mountain top I am reflected on all that has occurred in the past week. Jon Randles spoke this week and the Justin Cofield Band led worship and most of all God dwelt among His people. I love how God spoke through Randles and kicked my butt all week long. I never realized how unintentional about being a Believer I have been and I am still broken about it. I came to the saving knowledge of Christ at a young age and was called to the ministry of Christ 10 years ago. Life has not been easy with a lot of personal heartaches shaping me into who I am right now at this moment. But even that is a cop-out.. There are a lot of people in this world who have lost more than I ever will and they find a way to bless God and others in the midst of destruction and pain. And yet the biggest tragedy is that I have been a casual Christian for most of my life. And if you are reading this there is a big chance you are the same way right now. No more. I pray that I will never slump back into that pathetic existence. Harsh? maybe... But then I wonder what is the point of all this? Why are we here trying? I have one verse for you and you may not like this one...

Romans 8:29
"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers."

A majority of the time we all get hung up on the first part of this verse with the word "predestined". I challenge you to not get hooked there this time althougth that is an important peice but to look past it now.. look at the phrase "to be conformed to the image of His Son" how beautifully written is it.
The reason we go to church is because we have a faith in Christ Jesus the Son of the Living Most High God. The problem therein is that the object of faith and the supreme point to it is not salvation. Most of us if we are honest, recognize the need for a Savior and accept and believe in Christ and then stop. We then sing songs about how He is mighty to save and how great our Savior is and rightly so. Don't get me wrong here, Jesus is our Savior and He is holy and just but most of us just see Him as our Savior when in truth that is just the doorway to our relationship with Him. He is soo much more than just our Savior. He is the Healer, Rebuilder, Rewarder, Alpha, Omega, Destroyer, Judge, King, Friend, Almighty God and the list continues.. But it is just too easy to call Him Savior and we feel not close enough to call Him God. That is why the extent of our relationship occurs when we need something or feel convicted of sin. I'm telling you know that Jesus is wanting more from us. He desires to be close and most of the time all we give Him is our lip service.
The purpose of faith is not salvation but rather to be conformed to be like Christ. What does this look like? I've only seen in in a few people to be honest. They are the people that you want to be around. They shine when there is no light. They are addicting. They shine the character and love of Christ which usually means they are around the people we try to stay away from. They reach people in ways that I desire greatly to. They are relational and positive and they are intentional in doing so. The purpose of faith is not so we can become converts to a religion and believe that one hour of congregational worship and teaching will suffice for a week. No, the purpose of faith is so that we can become more like Christ.
So be intentional, relational, and positive. Be a Dangerous Disciple and not another Casual Christian.

Let me leave you with this thought.. what is your Number One in life right now? What is it that you give most of your time to?

It's finished.
A phrase that has been said in many different languages and meaning different things. This phrase has stood its ground in many ways and been declared in victory and in defeat. Right now at this very moment, I am dwelling on it's earliest use and undoubtedly it's most powerful declaration.
I wrapped up my reading of Mark Driscoll's "Death By Love" this morning and still each page of the beautifully written book ring out at me and pierce at the heart of my self-proclaimed righteousness.
Each of us deserve the very worst. We deserve Hell and yet we expect Heaven and continue to live like Hell. I have run across a few individuals who say that they can't believe in a God that sends people to Hell. They believe that by thinking that our Almighty God sends people to Hell they can justify their actions and beliefs and continue to live apart from God. The problem with this is that their view on humanity and God is flawed. God does not send anyone to Hell but rather we have chosen Hell for ourselves at the moment we enter this world. We are sinners at the very core and nature of who we are because of our first parents. Therefore, we are all sinners by nature and choice. Look at Ephesians 2:1-3

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind."

Thankfully, the next word in Scripture is a wonderful word! Verse 4 through 9:

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

You see it is that God in His almighty wisdom and kindness and compassion sent His perfect Son to us so that sinful nature and desires would be forever defeated and we could live a holy life with Him.
The crucifixion of our Savior was the most horrifying imagery this world has seen. A body so torn and broken even beyond the point of recognition - hung by nails. Evey prophetic word and vision had come to pass about Him... Words on a page that were written hundreds of years before He came to this Earth were now fulfilled. His body may have been broken but no bone was cracked. His blood ran out of Him but He never gave up. He was marred and spit at and stripped of dignity and finally with His last breath, He said "It is finished." Sin has been defeated and man's wickedness could be taken away by an everlasting righteousness. His sufferings were now over; both in body and in soul. The work of man's salvation and redemption was now complete and accomplished. What is important for us to realize is that He gave Himself to die. No one forced Him. No one made Him lay His arms to be nailed. No one could ever force the Son of the Most High God to die but rather He alone gave Himself away to be the price for our sin. His life was freely given up on that cross. Surely this is the Son of God. The greatest gift and sacrifice was made. A death by love.

For the past couple of weeks I have been reading "Death By Love" by Mark Driscoll (http://theresurgence.com/md_blog). In this book Mark has brought together several stories of times when he has met with and counseled various people with different backgrounds. I've decided to do a review of what I have read and encountered in this powerful and provocative book. I know that provocative is a strange word to use when describing a book written by a Christian pastor but that is just what this book is and is meant for. We'll get into that here in a minute. What happens is there are people that Mark has encountered and talked to and these are his letters to them describing their wickedness and boldly calling them out in their sin and then presenting the cross of Jesus as the way for forgiveness and repentance. I've grown up inside the baptist church and in the baptist way of thinking about Scripture and Jesus and all things "religion". Thankfully in my experiences with church work and ministering I have seen God do amazing and wonderful things. Through the saving power of our Savior I been ransomed from religion and now serve the true King who is Jesus Christ. One of the men that Pastor Mark speaks to is a man who goes to church when the doors are open, is married and has two children, serves in his church. Here is what Mark writes about David,

"David is, by the standard of most people, a "good" Christian guy. He shows up on time to his job every day and does what his employer asks of him. He comes home every night to eat dinner with his wife and children. He pays his bills on time every month. He cuts his grass every week and maintains his home like a good neighbor should. He eats healthy food, avoids tobacco and alcohol, and exercises daily. He goes to church every Sunday without fail and even serves in his church faithfully. He gives 10 percent of his income to God. He votes Republican, pays his taxes, and thinks abortion and gay marriage are both sinful acts. By his own admission, he grew up in a Christian home, made a personal decision to be a Christian while in elementary school, and has been a moral, God-fearing, self-disciplined person his entire life.
... Yet his wife and children live miserable lives under his leadership. He is a controlling, insecure man who governs his family at a distance with rules instead of relationships. Subsequently he is a distant and passionless Christian, husband, and father. To make matters worse, he is also incredibly self-righteous because he does not truly see himself as a sinner; rather, he sees himself as a mature Christian who avoids certain sins. He conveniently overlooks the fact that he does few things that flow out of love for God. He rarely reads his Bible, prays, serves anyone, or repents of any personal sin... His religious life has no need for God, but only need for God's rules.
One thing is for sure - he has no functional understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ and, subsequently, no idea how someone can be seen as righteous before a holy and righteous God."

Mark continues from there to write David a letter hopefully getting across not only that God calls sinners to repent of their unrighteousness, but religious people like him to repent of their righteousness.
We tend to lose sight of the true Gospel and replace it with a gospel of righteousness and feel-good tactics aimed at getting more people through our doors. But did Christ die for our preferences or our righteous piety? I dare to say LOUDLY.. NO! We have established a law of righteousness that is the exact opposite of the true Gospel. The righteousness of the law is basically idolatry. We idolize our "Sunday Best", our programs and schedules, our time spent in the church (because please forbid it that we spend more than an hour singing and listening to the Word of God), our seat that we have sat in for the past 6 years and now someone else is sitting there, our songs that we sing that make us feel good about worshiping, our feel-good sermons because we don't want to feel bad about ourselves. Maybe you noticed the trend in that last rant... "our"

Paul writes this in Philippians 3,
"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

When will God be tired of hearing our heartless songs and our mediocre worship for the hour we gather together every week? When will He judge each of us for what is in our hearts and not by what we just say? When will we finally understand that church and Christianity is not about us?! It is about our loving and just Father who sent His only son as a substitute for all our wickedness and evil so that we might spend eternity with him. He bore his body to tremendous pain and suffered a horrifying death upon a cross. The pain was soo much that a word had to be created just to describe it.. excruciating. And then days later in all of His glory Christ defeated death and sin forever as He came back to life. It is this that defeats righteousness gained by the law and it is belief in the death and Resurrection that rescues us from our preferences and religion. You must see that religion leaves no room for relationships. Religion is what spurs idolatry because once religion takes you over then you desire to be bound by the rules and regulations and are consumed with obeying them because that is what you think will save you from eternal damnation in Hell. But it is religion that says that God will not love you until you obey His rules enough to earn His love. Driscoll says that is like him telling his five children that if they obey his rules for the next year then he'll be their daddy. Religion says that it is about what you do and not about what Jesus has done. Religion is about what you are getting from God and not about getting God Himself. Religion is about punishment through hardships and not about purifying discipline.
It's now time that you let go of your religion and grasp ahold of the only way to enter the Kingdom of God - faith in the one true King Jesus Christ who through His death demonstrated true love.

Putting on a strong and brave face gets tiring. You can withstand soo much and take a lot of hurt and beating but eventually people will start to see beyond the rough exterior and into the reality of who you really are - what you're really feeling - the real me. A daily routine becomes this infatuation with pleasing the balance of this world as if we are supposed to do what we do repeatedly for 365 (or 364) days a year. Eventually we all realize that we have become conformers. Freedom is a word we like to throw around especially as Americans but are we truly free from the confines of this world? I say indeed not. Yes- it is Christ who sets us free but most of us will not let go. We wont let go of our pasts or our thinking or our preferences. And when this bombardment of pain and hurt falls on us we shudder and hide because that is what we know.
It is the picture of surrender that scares us. Because our culture is so very caught up in being the best and the strongest we comform to that way of thinking ourselves, at least I do. The idea of standing on our own two feet and being able to take anything this world can throw at us seems more appealing than being seen as vulnerable. That is why when we do fall, we fall hard and rarely stand right back up. Our foundation is built on not who Jesus is but on who we are. And it continues to be this big circle that we tumble around in until we can see clearly.

The clear vision of life comes when we are the weakest and finally are able to hear the truth instead of the old familiar lies. Finally we can feel the power of the hands that created the universe from the largest stars to the smallest grains of life. To understand the sovereignty of the One who made the lame walk and the dumb talk and opened blinded eyes to see. To realize that the sun rises on His time and yet He knows our deepest desperate need. (BDW) To know that we don't have to prove a thing to anyone because Jesus is the One who is saving us and we don't have to do this alone. That is God's truth. And no matter how far we want to run we can't get away from it or Him.

I know that with each personal stuggle that I am facing right now I don't have to be soo tough and I don't need to work soo hard to be strong enough. I am nothing without the love of my Savior. He is with me. He knows what I am going through. He sees what is in store for me in the future. So my faith is in Him. He is everything I'll ever truly need.