Messy Games

This past summer, I worked as a summer staffer for Crossings Camps.  One of the Points of Impact that is available for students to do throughout the day is Messy Games.  For some reason, kids love to go multiple feet deep in a horribly rank and disgusting mud pit.  So one day when I was working this POI, one of the middle school girls was complaining about her mascara and lip gloss getting messed up.  She nearly left the mud pit to go put more makeup on.  I couldn't decide whether or not to laugh or just think about how sad and pathetic that is.  I did both.  But God convicted me about how often I act like that spiritually.

I thought of the old expression "putting lipstick on a pig", which refers to making superficial and exterior changes on the outside that cannot change the true nature.  That girl was disgusting and caked in mud from head to toe.  Putting on makeup wouldn't do anything.  But I do the same thing.  I'm a sinner.  My nature is messy.  Nothing that I can do can change who I am at my nature - a filthy sinner.  Even my best attempts at righteousness fall woefully short.  They are like "filthy rags" (like the clothes we had on in the mud pit).

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64:6

After being in the mud pit, we bring the students over to a large and powerful fire hose to wash them off.  Of course, the hose is a symbol of what only the sacrifice of Christ can do to us.

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:22

Only the blood of Christ saves us from who we really are.  We can try to make ourselves look good with our good works.  We can put the best face on, try as hard as we can, and be good enough for God.  Good works are done out of love for what God has done for us, not to gain His acceptance and save ourselves.  Just like putting makeup on ourselves won't change our state of nastiness in a mud pit, trying to fix ourselves will not deal with our heart problem.  Our sin problem.  Only washing ourselves in the blood of Christ will cleanse our filth, and cleanse who we are at our hearts.

"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. Isaiah 1:18

Church

As many of you know, we live in an individualistic culture.  America and our Western society is all about each person having his/her own identity.  While this can be a good thing, it's not such a good thing when it comes to the Christian life.  The Christian life is designed to be lived in a radical and intentional community of believers.  When people say, "I love Jesus, but not the church," they have no idea how unbiblical that statement is.  One cannot love Jesus, and not his Bride.  They go together.  He is the Head, and the church is His body.  You cannot have just part of Christ, you must have all of Him, which includes His church.

"This idolatry of privacy and individualism is one of the greatest detriments to sanctification in the church today. God has placed us in a family because we don’t grow very well on our own. It’s still not good to be alone. We need the encouragement, correction, and loving involvement of others who are willing to risk everything for the sake of the beauty of his bride." -Elyse Filtzpatrick (http://theresurgence.com/2012/04/23/the-idolatry-of-individualism)

Our church community must be radical.  It must be difficult, and outside of our Western comfort zone.  It's not enough to just show up and shake a few hands during the welcome portion of the Sunday morning service.  Coming only on Sunday is not Biblical; it is NOT New Testament community.

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Acts 2:44-47

This is what our attitude towards our church should look like.  Laying down our lives for those in our fellowship, even if we don't have much in common with them or don't really like them that much.  We must love them.  We must labor in prayer for our pastors, teachers, elders, and church family.  This picture of a Christian church in Acts doesn't look like a 21st Century American church.

"Anyone who claims to possess this love for God's people, but avoids their regular gatherings, needs to reexamine his relationship with the Father of this family." -Donald Whitney

Going to church doesn't save us.  We can't earn God's love through church attendance, tithing, or other good works.  However, to not be apart of an daily and intentional church community would be evidence of a false Biblical Christianity, and maybe that one doesn't know the Head of the Church.  We follow God not only individually, but relationally.

"That's how participation in congregational spirituality builds our individual spirituality.  When we're with God's people, the Spirit strengthens us in ways that do not occur when we're alone." -Donald Whitney

The church is not some human invention.  It's God's idea, and it's how God chose to reach the world.  It's not an option, but a command.  We cannot live comfortable lives without the laboring of a radical community.  The author of Hebrews speaks directly to "Christians" who are not apart of a body.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.  Hebrews 10:24-25

 I'll end with another great quote from  Donald Whitney that sums up the message I'm trying to get across.

The New Testament knows nothing of the individualized spirituality of today and nothing of a Christianity that exists apart from the local church.

YOLO

YOLO.  "You Only Live Once".  A motto made famous by artist, Drake, in his song "The Motto".  It's taken the college culture by storm.  The acronym spoken while people get wasted partying like there are no consequences and no tomorrow.  "If we only live once, we might as well party hard and have fun."  It's an excuse to live promiscuously, and to fully enjoy sin.  It's sad to think that the sin many boast and gloat in will one day separate them eternally from the only One who could give them what they are looking for.


If we only live once, why are we drinking out of broken cisterns?

My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.  Jeremiah 2:13

A broken cistern is the runoff of water where all the water has drained out and only sludge and disgust remain.  So not only have we run away from God (our living water), but we have gone to drink out of an atrociously disgusting pit that we have created for ourselves (the sin we boast in).  


So we only live once.  We all know that.  So why not live a life that we were created to live.  We were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  We were created to be fully satisfied by the Living Water. The consequences from this one life we live are way too high to just "party and live it up".  Eternity hangs in the balance of whether or not we chose to follow Christ and have a life transformed by Him.  

For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. 1 Peter 4:3-4

It's amazing how timeless that is.  We've spent enough time shouting "YOLO!"  Our friends may be shocked that we don't shout it with them.  But we should live our lives as if we "Only Live Once".  We might as well live it for the glory of Christ, our only true joy and satisfaction.


But don't forget about the life after this one.  So while we only live a life on earth once, there is one that comes after that won't last 75 years.  It lasts forever, either in the joy of our Master, or in the horrible emptiness and anguish of separation from Him, burning in our broken cisterns.  #YOLO

Selections From Psalm 119

I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your Word.
Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.
This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.
I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words.
Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise!
I rejoice in your word like one who finds great spoil.
I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight.
I have gone astray like a sheep; seek your servant.

Psalm 119 is really long.  These are my favorite verses from the chapter.  May we delight in God, as well as his law and his commands.  There is a difference between following God begrudgingly and doing it out of joy and in love.

Thoughts on Missions/The American Church

Over Spring Break, I took a trip down to Woodstock, Georgia with my old youth pastor, Trent Chambers.  Trent is planting a church with Sojourn from Louisville in Woodstock, just north of Atlanta.  Of the 470,000 people that live within ten miles of downtown Woodstock, 15% attend church.  This is quite shocking because I, like many others, assume that everyone in the heart of the Bible belt like northern Georgia would be attending church.  The fact is they aren't.  Around 400,000 in the Woodstock area do not go to church.

Over my three days visit, God taught me several things.  One of the main lessons is that we are all missionaries.  You don't have to go to Africa or Haiti to be a missionary.  Too many times, I think that we put missions into a box.  I'm guilty of this.  Missions is a daily adventure that is not reserved for foreign countries and church trips.  Our next-door neighbors, classmates, sports teams, and people we come into contact with everyday need Christ just as much as people in a jungle.

I talked about this with another person, and we started talking about why people go on mission trips.  Are we really laboring for the sake of Christ getting His reward for His suffering, or do we just want to look good in a cool Facebook album with some needy kids?  Or are we really laboring at all?  As important as those short-term mission trips are, we do not in fact labor.  Our laboring is done in where we live.  The mission field is whatever a Christian is engaged in daily.

Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."  Matthew 9:37


It was neat to see the church, which consists of about five of six families, meet in a house.  There are house churches all over the world, many of which meet in secret.  To be in one for the first time really put the American Church into perspective.  Is Church about buildings, programs, numbers, cool music, etc?  Is the Church serving it's purpose of exalting the name of Jesus and doing life together within a radically loving and intimate community?

"A church is a community of individuals who have lost their lives to follow Christ.  Surely it follows that we would be willing to lose our programs and our preferences, to sacrifice our budgets and our buildings, to let go of our most cherished legacies and reputations if there is a better way to make his glory known in the world." -David Platt

As many problems as I have with the American Church, it's our job to help fix it.  God deserves the utmost praise, love, and glory that we can possibly give.  We cannot hinder that with an incorrect view of missions and church.

If you want to join the prayer team or support Trent and his family, visit http://sojournwoodstock.com/

Not What My Hands Have Done

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogV7Xpn0-3Y


I stumbled upon a worship song by artist Aaron Keyes called "Not What My Hands Have Done" that I found very profound.  Here are the lyrics:


"Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul;
not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God;
not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.

These guilty hands are raised, filthy rags are all I bring
And I have come to hide beneath your wings
These holy hands are raised, Washed in the fountain of your grace
And now I wear your righteousness

Thy work alone oh Christ can ease this weight of sin
Thy blood alone, oh Lamb of God, can give me peace within
Thy Love to me, oh God, not mine oh Lord to Thee
Can rid me of this dark unrest and set my Spirit free

Thy grace alone oh God to me can pardon speak
Thy power alone oh Lamb of God can this sore bondage break
No other work save thine, no other blood will do
No strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through

I praise the God of grace; I trust his truth and might
He calls me his, I call him mine, My God, my Joy, my Light
My Lord has saved my life and freely pardon gives;
I love because he first loved me, I live because he lives."


So much amazing truth contained in these lyrics.  The song really encapsulates the beauty of the gospel.  It's not what we can do that brings salvation, nor our toiling, or how we "feel".  It doesn't matter what we feel.  What matters is that all the good works we can muster will only produce guilty hands and filthy rags.  Even our "righteous acts" are filthy to God.


All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.  Isaiah 64:6


So what changed?  How did we go from having guilt hands and filthy rags to having holy hands and wearing righteousness?  The work of Christ.  The blood of the Lamb.  It eases the weight of sin, gives us peace within, rids us of the darkness of our sin, and sets our spirits free.  Nothing more and nothing less than the blood and work of Christ.



For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.  Romans 3:23-26

Lukewarm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMIiMBJj8cI&feature=player_embedded

So I came across this video of Skip Bayless, who is on ESPN’s “First Take” show that airs Monday through Friday during the afternoon.  When I first saw it, I was shocked that ESPN would allow Skip, an outspoken Christian, to basically preach a mini-sermon during the show.  Of course it was about Tim Tebow, but I thought what he said was filled with truth.

Skip says that Christians are to be out-spoken and “over-the-top” with their faith.  I feel like we live in a time when faith, especially Christian faith, is supposed to be a private matter, not to be shared or talked about in the open.  Many professing Christians have this mindset and choose to keep their faith private, living Sunday-only, apathetic, moral lives that look nothing like the disciples Jesus commands us to be.  If we look at Scripture and what Jesus commanded, going through the emotions and living as lukewarm Christians, is blatant disobedience to God.

The cost of following Jesus is high.  The Christian life is not something we can coast through.  Salvation is not our work, but if we truly love God, we will not live an average, lukewarm life.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.  Philippians 2:12

We are instructed to work out our salvation, striving to become more and more like Christ, with a hatred towards out own self and our sin. 

Lukewarm Christians is an oxymoron.  A love for God and an apathetic Christian life does not happen at the same time. 

Being moral and having "Christian" as your religious beliefs on Facebook won't cut it when we stand before God.  The only thing that will is what Christ has done for us, and if we live in Him.

“Lukewarm living and claiming Christ's name simultaneously is utterly disgusting to God.” –Francis Chan, Crazy Love

Jesus Isn't A Crutch

I recently was talking to someone who isn't a Christian.  We were debating, talking, reasoning about whether or not Jesus Christ, the Bible, and Christianity is truth and what this life is all about.  


He said something to me that I'm sure he expected to be a really good point.  He said, "You know, I just think that Christians use this whole thing as a crutch to make themselves feel better."


I thought about it a little, and then it dawned on me.  Jesus isn't a crutch.  Jesus goes way beyond a crutch.  To say that Jesus is a crutch would mean that I lean on him, but also rely mostly on myself to walk.  I think it would be more accurate to say that Jesus is a wheelchair, or that He just simply carries me though life.  


If it wasn't for God, I'd still be dead in my sins, I'd probably still be depressed and so deep in anger, bitterness, and every other sort of sin that I'd be way worse than the guy in a roadside ditch off the DirecTV commercial.  For me to be out of that position and where I am is not possible if I were to use Christ as a crutch.  It's only possible if He carried me here.  It's not my righteousness that will save me or my works, but His righteousness and His finished work.


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. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, evenwhen 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.  Ephesians 2:1-9


God made me alive with Christ when I was dead in my trespasses.  God raised me up and seated me with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.  God saved me by grace.  It's not my doing and it's not because of my works.  


It's all about Jesus.

Bringing Christ to the Campus

In a conversation I recently had with a couple of friends, we were talking about our time in college regarding our spiritual growth and engaging our campus for the Kingdom.  One of my friends said something that really hit home for me.  I'll paraphrase it, but it went something like this:


When we are trying to engage the campus and fellow students and ultimately bring them to Christ, it won't be by what we don't do.  They won't come to Christ when they look at us and see that we DON'T have sex, we DON'T drink and party, and whatever other worldly sins we DON'T do.  What they see that will bring them to Christ and display the Gospel is by what we DO.  Our love, our generosity, our joy, and our genuine concern for others above ourselves.  This is what people see and want.  Keep in mind, this isn't us doing these things, but it's Christ living in us that displays his glory and brings students at UK to Christ.


By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.  John 13:35


This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?  Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.  1 John 3:16-18


Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.  1 Peter 1:22

The Good Shepherd

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.  Psalm 23


I find it interesting that God is referred to as our shepherd.  I also find it very comforting.  A shepherd looks after a sheep, cares for it, provides for it, loves it. As our shepherd, God guides us and comforts us.  The other part of the analogy of God being our shepherd is us being the sheep.  There is probably no animal dumber than sheep.  They tend to wander off.  They get distracted very easily.  They don't know what's best for them, which is being under the care of their shepherd.


I found something else interesting in this Psalm.  "Your rod and your staff, they comfort me."  A shepherd's rod and staff are meant for discipline and correction.  


Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?  If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.  Hebrews 12:7-8


My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.  Proverbs 3:11-12


Discipline is good.  Sometimes the Shepherd has to prod us and make sure we are going where we are supposed to go.  He knows what's best for us.  We just need to trust Him and follow where His staff takes us.



Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’  I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.  Luke 15:1-7


Every one of us is a lost sheep or has been a lost sheep.  Even when we as sheep wonder off because of our stupidity, poor judgment, horrible decisions, and our pride and self-righteousness, he comes after us.  When we reject Him as our Shepherd, He still pursues us.  He will stop at nothing until he finds us.  And when He does, He picks us up on His shoulders and will carry us home to be with Him forever.