Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all you blessed enough by God's grace to have children! And happy Father's Day to all you who serve the body of Christ and have spiritual children you help nurture into the kingdom and who you mature into righteousness that comes from our Heavenly Father alone! It truly is one of the best blessings that God has bestowed upon me. He continues to show me what it means to be a father, as He teaches me lessons about parenting my kids and how He treats me, His child. My prayer is that all my brother's in Christ with kids will teach the next generation the hope of the gospel and the power of life Jesus gives to us!

I lived a certain way in the past, and so God has given me both the desire and the resolve to live differently this year. My exhortation to all us fathers out there is this: This Father's day, stay humble like Christ(Plp2:3-8) and allow others to build you up(Ths5:11). Do not exalt yourself(Pvb27:2) with expectation(Jas1:15) because you think you deserve it(Mtt5:5). We deserve no more than our sin gives us(Luk23:41). It is by grace that we are blessed with anything good(Psm103:10,11).

• "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus[many translations say "the same as Christ Jesus"], who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Philippians 2:3-8
• "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." 1 Thessalonians 5:11
• "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips."Proverbs 27:2
• "Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." James 1:15
• "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Matthew 5:5
• "And we [the thieves on the cross] indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man [Jesus] has done nothing wrong" Luke 23:41
• "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities." Psalm 103:10

Allow me to expand on this exhortation. Firstly, Dads, remember to stay humble and allow others to build us up!  Sometimes we get confused about what it means to be humble.  We think a humble person is someone who rejects gifts or blessings that he is being offered because he wants to receive nothing. While that is sometimes the case (especially when someone is offering a gift which praises self above God) sometimes not excepting gifts is actually a prideful and selfish thing to do. What I mean  is while God calls us to be humble he also calls us to build each other up. So if we take our "humility" to an extreme and therefore do not allow others to serve us, we might as well say any blessing we receive is bad. Because we want to be "humble" we reject other peoples act of service and, in essence, stop them from serving when they are trying to be like Christ. But true humility will recognize that self praise is bad, and not allowing others to serve can be just as selfish. So then real humility is not just the sacrifice of self, it is forgetting that the self has needs or desires, and fully supporting Jesus' cause and his bride (the church). If we want to build up the community of Christ, we have to allow others to serve us because it is one very real way they can imitate Christ as it says in Philippians 2 quoted above. This will present others (especially your wife) as righteous servants of Christ. The distinction can be difficult to make.  Do we allow ourselves to be served so that others can be built up, or do we  allow others to serve us so we can feel loved, or served, or blessed?  Father's day, despite American belief, is not now, nor will it ever be, about Father's. Like all other special and ordinary days alike, it is about remembering the blessings Christ gave us, and celebrating Him and His blessings.  Sometimes He blesses us by allowing others to serve.

The second part of this exhortation to Fathers is to not have expectations or to exalt ourselves. This is to combat the pervasive idea in America that on Father's Day, all men everywhere have the excuse to be lazy, to neglect responsibility, and to let people celebrate us. When we have expectations about what we deserve, things can go very badly. For one, if people do not meet our expectations, we end up sad, disappointed, or upset. If we come to any celebration with zero, absolutely none, no expectations, then everything we receive will feel like a huge blessing.  We will be so grateful. It also guards our hearts against feeling like we deserve anything. If we start to feel like we deserve something, then we get proud, and celebrations don't feel like a treat, they feel like a necessity to fulfill the idea that we deserve something. I know as a father I find myself feeling like I deserve certain traditions, or rights.  Especially as an American father. Then I am reminded of my Sacrificing Savior and the call to be as He was on this earth (again Philippians 2). To give-up equality with a father, and make myself nothing is my new goal this Father's day. A far cry from my usual self seeking attitude on a day of celebrating me. Please pray for all us father's as we seek God's Spirit of sacrifice-and deny our flesh.

Learning to Lean

Proverbs 30:8b-9
...give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the Lord?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.

These words have been challenging me lately.  We've lived on very little money in our married years, and riches haven't been a desire or temptation for either of us in the way these verses describe.  Instead I've been challenged by the concept that these words represent.  I've found myself praying like this often recently: "Lord, give me no more or less than I can handle."  This prayer and idea has both challenged and encouraged me as I live life that is constantly filled with frustrating moments with a crying, itchy baby; or two almost three year olds who are trying to push the limits; or that life long battle of figuring out how to love the people in your life who are o so difficult for you to love.  If God would give me only the challenges that he would also allow me to overcome than I would be unstoppable!  I would just continue to grow and be amazed at how the Lord can work in my life!  And so I face each challenge confident that if the Lord has put it in my life that He has seen that I am ready to face it.  And if I don't get lazy, or overburdened, or impatient, or selfish I will be able to bring His name more glory and honor!  Amen?!

The Pressure is off!

I was reading in Proverbs the other day, something I hardly ever do (HA!  I actually read them daily).  Anyways I read a proverb, one that I have read many times, and it just struck me in a different way than it ever has before.

• "There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord." Proverbs 21:30

This is such a relief.  It is so in two very different ways.  First we can be reassured that no one in their evil schemes can succeed without the Lord's allowance.  So we know that nothing being done is Satan controlled, but instead is allowed by our Lord God.  If we can see things through this perspective, then we also know that God is trying to teach us something so we can better serve him and bring him more honor and glory for His Name.


My second point can get a little messy... well both points can be rather messy actually (God allowing bad things to happen to good people for instance), but the Bible is very clear. Even in our sinful human nature there is nothing that we can do to mess up God's plan: the pressure is OFF.  Sometimes we (Christians) fear that we aren't making the right decisions.  But there is NOTHING we can do to mess up God's plan.  If everything we do is an act of worship to God, the details are not a concern, it is our heart attitude that is important.

• "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship" Romans 12:1

Some people use this as an excuse to be allowed to do whatever they want.  We can act on our human desire to fulfill our needs while saying, "We can't mess up God's plan anyway."  That is by no means what the Bible gives us freedom to do.  In fact God tells us to:

• "Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God." 1 Peter 2:16

Perhaps the problem is that Christians fail to see that we are bought with a price and no longer are our own. That means our time, our reputation, money and thoughts do not belong to us.  They belong to Jesus.  We fail to recognize that even though we can't mess up God's plan, if we choose to live for something other than God's glory, God does not have to use us.  We should live so others know we belong to Christ.  Another verse in Peter says:

• "For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men." 1 Peter 2:15
• "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35

How can we claim the name of Christ, and neglect what God commands us to do?! Just because we have a ticket to Heaven and we cant mess up God's plan, should we go on acting in our own self interest?!

So then, since we cannot mess up God's plan, but we still cannot be free to do what "we" want where does that put us?  Well God tells us that if you:

• "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 

I believe this verse is saying that if we delight ourselves in the LORD, he will put in us the desires he wants for our lives. If we give our lives to Him, His desires fill us up.  Its not that if we first delight in the Lord he will let us waste our time and resources on things that used to matter to us.  As we find ourselves drawing closer to Him, our desires change more to bring him glory than what our old selfish sinful nature desired.  I love that God does this.  We're all like, "Man if I delight myself in the Lord he will let me play sports and watch TV and hang with my friends ALL DAY LONG, and have zero responsibility, 'cuz that's the desire of MY heart." But little do we know how awesome God is.  As we get to know him, he changes our hearts.  That's called the regenerative work of the Spirit, and I am so thankful everyday for Him working daily on me!

Don't be fooled! This is what happens to those who think they can't foil the Lord so they do what they want because they already got their free pass to heaven.  They call themselves Christians because their parents are, or their girlfriend is, or they don't want to go to Hell, etc.  But then, since they got the free pass to heaven, they don't live like Christians should, and don't give up everything they are to follow and pursue Christ.  Here is what the Bible says about those people.

• "Then he (Jesus) told this parable: “A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?'"Luke 13:6,7

So....what does it look like if we do bear fruit and are useful to God's kingdom.

• "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law" Galatians 5:22,23

Scary thoughts for some!  If we call ourselves Christians but the fruit of the Spirit is not pouring out of us.

So lets recap....
-There is nothing we can do to mess up God's plan.
-We either get in line with Jesus through the work of his Spirit so we can be used by him
-Or we fail to recognize Jesus as our King and Father and he punishes us justly.

Prom Season 2011

That's right everyone.  I'm ready to join the ranks of the honorable Joe Dietrich and all others that get shamelessly made fun of for offering a sound warning about the temptations you'll face this prom season.  prom (or Jr/Sr Semi Formal Banquet or whatever else you want to call it) can be a really magical time.  I can say that I was blessed to experience two amazing proms with Sean back in the day.  If you've been to my house, you've probably seen the frame of pictures that we have displayed filled with pictures from our high school days together.  Like these...

Prom 2002

Prom 2003

We have some great memories from those times!  We thank God for the ways that he protected us and for the fun that we were able to have together and with our friends.  Since then we have had to walk with others through dark times related to poor choices they made on prom night.

So let me share some wisdom from scripture with you.

I adjure (or urge) you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
that you not stir up or awaken love
until it pleases.

Song of Solomon 8:4

Solomon is famous for his great wisdom, so listen carefully to what he is saying.  Love is a beautiful thing!  But it is also a very powerful thing.  We should NOT take it lightly.  Love is not to be rushed or forced.  So slow down!  Think things through and PRAY!

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12

We all have a deep desire in us to love and especially be loved.  Its part of what draws us to God the author, introducer, and source of love. This desire is a good and necessary thing.  But when we look to fulfill this desire for love in a way that doesn't involve God, that's when we end up with sick hearts.  Allowing God to fill you with His love and waiting for him to fulfill your need for love will give you life.

 A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul,
but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools.

Proverbs 13:19

 

 We are getting ready to take a closer look at fools and foolish living at youth group in the up coming weeks.  The fool can't help but do evil.  Don't be like him.  Wait for the Lord to fulfill your heart's desire.

W O R D S

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good,

and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil,

for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.  Luke 6:45

Words are so powerful.  Isn't it interesting that all God had to do to create the world is speak?  He used words to create everything we see and know.  Think about some of the healing miracles that Jesus performed.  Did you realize that many times, all he did to heal people was speak?  He used words to restore, heal, and build people up.  Words are so powerful and so important.

In Luke, Jesus talks about one reason why our words are so important.  He says that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."  He is saying that our words can tell people what is filling up our hearts.  Often times we think that we are the only ones that truly know what is in our hearts but this verse says otherwise.  We can't help but show whats in our hearts unless of course we stop talking all together!  Duct tape anyone?!

You must remember the good old recess saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but names (words) can never hurt me."  Isn't this statement so untrue?  God's choice to use words to create and Jesus' choice to use words to heal display the overall power that words can have.  Deep down we all know how powerful words are and really its why WE choose to use them in hurtful and negative ways.

So, think about it. What do your words say about what's in your heart?  How are you going to choose to use the power of your words from here on out?

Mom

This is my mom....

With Timothy on New Years 2011

With Silas, Apple Picking on family vacation October 2010

With Lily, the smallest grandbaby she has, for now :) January 2011

Our relationship hasn't come easy.  I haven't always appreciated her.  As a teenager, I was responsible for most of her daily frustration.  I gave her plenty of opportunities to grow in patience, the art of being slow to anger, self control, and much much more.  There was so much I didn't know about my mother then.  Let's say, there were things that I didn't have eyes to see.  We certainly aren't the best of friends now, and we certainly have much to learn about each other but I can honestly say that I am delighted to honor her on this Mother's Day!

My mom had motherhood tough from the beginning.  She was determined to be one of the first to break a cycle of hurtful mother/daughter relationships in her family for generations.  She knew she couldn't do it on her own and leaned heavily upon the Lord to help her as she raised us all.  She knows she's not perfect.  To this day you can hear here saying things like this to us kids: "I'm sure I did damage.  I'll pay for the counseling.  Send me the bill."  She always says that with a smile.

Recently she came to my church to watch my kids and some of their friends while we were busy with a youth event.  There were 5 boys to be watched.  She came with camera in hand ready to capture any fun activity for us all to remember.  Of course, the boys happened to find a little frog in need of rescuing.  She got the whole ordeal on film!  You can check out the on photos FB.  At one point it came time to pick the frog up off the ground with our hands and get it into a dish of water.  We had a crowd of boys but none of them wanted to touch the frog.  It took a short while, she was behind the camera after all, but my mother reached down, scooped up that frog and got it into that dish for the boys to see and enjoy!  She grew up in the heart of the city.  She spent most of her childhood reading books.  She is so not the type that you would expect to do such a thing as touch a frog.  But she did!  She is always surprising me!

Sometimes she stops by on her way home from work.  We always get to talking about life, for lack of a better word.  She has shared so much with me during these talks!  She has given me biblical counsel and deep insights from the struggles in her life.  She has been able to encourage me as a mom, wife, and surprisingly enough as a youth worker too.  I haven't told her yet, I promise to tell her today, but I so cherish these talks!

I've always thought of myself as sort of a pioneer.  I love trying new things.  A challenge is so thrilling to me.  I never realized that, really, I get that from my Mom.  She has faced so much, and covered so much new territory that no one in her family had done before.  College, biblical marriage, the role of a pastor's wife, moving across the country to a farm town are just a few of those things.  I feel so ultimately blessed to have her as my Mom!

She started out as my protector and provider.  She has been my teacher, my disciplinarian, my dress code checker, my guardian and more.  Now I can call her my friend, wise counselor, and guide.  I love you Mom!

Me and my Mom in 1986

El Roi

El Roi is one of the ways the Bible refers to God.  We can read about El Roi in Genesis 16.  Its the story of Hagar, an Egyptian slave to Sarai and Abram, that encounters God as El Roi.  Isn't it interesting the God chooses to reveal this part of His character to her?  An Egyptian (not a chosen one of God), a slave, someone who has been treated wrongfully by someone whom we later find has found such favor with God.  Strange.

Hagar meets God at a well and it is there that He reveals Himself as The God Who Sees.  The omnipresent one.  The one who knows everything, both the good and the bad.  And watches everything, both the good and the bad.  Proverbs 15:3 says:

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good."

This can be such a puzzling statement.  If God's eyes are really in every place, if He really does see both the good and the evil that happens in this world daily then why is it that bad things still happen to people by the hand of another?  Why is it that people are abused and mistreated by others?  If God sees it and allows it to happen, how can he really be good?

These are some of the hardest questions to answer.  I've been trying to find answers for these kinds of questions lately.  I've been feeling the pain of some close friends and family members lately who are really and truly suffering.  I knew that I needed to find an answer for them just in case one of them asked the question.

I'm reading a book recommended to me by my dear friend Beckie.  Its called Lord I Want to Know You by Kay Arthur.  Through this book, I'm learning all about the different names of God, how each of these names reveals His character, and how to grow closer to God by knowing who He really is.  It was in this book that I first learned about God as El Roi.  Arthur asks "How can any abused person, any person used for another's perverted pleasure ever be whole?  Whether abuse is sexual, mental, or physical, can there be healing?"  She answers "Yes, healing has to be possible.  Otherwise, a sovereign God of love would surely have intervened." (page 32)

I know plenty of people who are still waiting on some healing.  I know that although I have never been abused in the sense that many of these other people have, at times I'm still waiting on healing too.  It is a comfort to me to remember that as scripture says, God is sovereign.  He has a plan.  He sees everything.  He will intervene or bring healing no matter what suffering lies ahead for my life and for the lives of my friends who know Him. 

"Thus says your Lord, the LORD, your God who pleads the cause of his people:

'Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering;

the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;

and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors'"

Isaiah 51:22-23

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

Psalm 147:3