Snuggle up to God

For years I’ve heard one of the ministers here at the church use the phrase ‘snuggle up to God’ and I’m not going to lie I kinda dismissed it as a cheesy gimmick but as the Lord has been growing me in the past few months I’ve come to realize how much it’s not a gimmick but plainly just the truth. Even when we think everything in our lives is starting a downward spiral into the pit He is there just waiting for us to draw near to Him and rest in the peace that only He can bring. And the best part about it is there is nothing we can do to drive Him away no matter what stupid things we do to test Him and make our lives a wreck He will still be there. We continuously ask ourselves how could He ever still want us after all we have done to cause Him pain? The answer is simply its not a conditional thing it’s a God thing that our finite minds can’t even begin to truly understand.

Psalm 91

John 15:1-11

John 6:53-58

Landslide

‘ I wish you, my precious children, knew what it is to give your hearts to Jesus to keep every day. I used to keep my own heart right, but it would always be going wrong. So at last I had to give up trying myself, and to accept the Lord’s offer to keep it for me. Don’t you think that is the best way? Perhaps sometimes you think, “I will try not to be selfish or unkind or disobedient.” And yet, though you really try, you do not succeed. But Jesus says: “You should trust that to Me. I would keep that little heart, if you would trust Me with it.” And He would to.’ -Hudson Taylor

This is a continuation of the note ‘The Dam’ refer back to it if you dont understand the metaphor or just message me and ask.

A major caution we have to have as believers is that as we strive to break down the dam we become too overzealous with our pushing out what we see as bad and end up bringing down a filthy landslide of self-righteousness which not only rebuilds and reinforces the dam but taints the flow of love that does flow through us to the point where instead of being life-giving water it turns into a destructive poison ready to destroy in the name of doing good. in order to prevent this really is just keeping in the forefront that its not us doing the changing it God working through us renewing us into a new creation, and that without Him we are but filthy rags unusable for any good work.

He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. ~ 1 Timothy 3:6

The Dam

The Christian life is like a dam where the water is God’s love and the wall is are own sin, fears, failures and general hindrances we allow to get in the way of pouring out of God’s love on the barren land in desperate need of the living water. When Gods love initially touches the dam it begins to weaken Unfortunately we tend to immediately work to fix and repair it causing us to be more destructive to ourselves than anyone else but if we allow the cracks to remain and His great love to seep through sharing it with the great barren land it will continue to break down the dam causing more and more of His love to flow through us to the wasteland turning it from a barren land to a fruitful land. The hardest part is not repairing the dam and allowing ourselves to become stagnant once more. This came to mind tonight so i thought I would share it, its not an overnight change to run the race it takes time and effort on our part and if we forget it we will end up destroying ourselves in the name of bettering ourselves.

Verses to Live by

For class this past week I was ask to share some verses that helped us get through issues, so I thought I would it with yall to.

If I had to pick a passage of scripture that has helped me deal with issues as of late it would have to be Philippians 3:13,14. ‘Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.’ What is Paul saying here? That he is not perfect, that he cant change the past and the only thing to do is continue pressing towards Christ. I have lost count of how many times I start to dwell on past mistakes and let that bring me down, but in these verses says ‘forgetting what lies behind’ if you look at what Paul had behind him I mean before Christ got a hold of him he was zealously hunting down and killing followers of ‘the Way’ later to be know as Christians. If pressing on towards Christ helped Paul with that kind of guilt. It can push you through anything so I challenge myslef and others to take these verses to heart and not let the past bring us down but to continue to press on towards the upward call of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Dawk

Quit Your Bitching

At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” ‘ Daniel 4:34,35

That is probably one of my favorite chapters in the Old testament, why? Because here we see the pinnacle of pagan humanity, Nebuchadnezzar was the golden head in chapter 2, acknowledging that God is all-powerful and the we as humans are absolutely nothing in comparison. Now I will admit it took him going crazy for a time to realize that but still if the most powerful man on the earth can come to terms with that why can’t we? I mean seriously if we are so arrogant as to think just because things aren’t going our way we have the right to shake our fist at God and say, “How could this happen if you are a loving God? How is this just? Why would you allow this person to be put in authority over us?” The thing is we don’t have that right and the only thing that saying all those things is going to accomplish is more strife and hatred. That doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen, just that we cant change the past. We are told in Philippians to put the past behind us and press on towards Christ, how is complaining about things that have already happened pressing on towards Christ. In the next chapter Paul says not to worry about anything but to pray about it. How is it that we get ourself caught up into whatever the newest complaint bandwagon just as soon we hear it, while all the while there are many around us that haven’t heard or experienced the love of Christ. Ok well I’m starting to ramble on so I’ll wrap this up with this. We as Christians need to quit bitching about the state of the world and let Christ’s love flow through us to change it.

Stand Strong

Life is not always easy but what are we supposed to do when we supposed to do when things do not go the way we think they should? Well in James it says to ‘Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,’ Now why would we want to count it all joy seriously we are being bombarded by things big and small and we are supposed to be happy about it? Lets continue on to see if there is any method to this apparent madness in the next couple of verses we read ‘for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.’ Did that say lacking in nothing? So if we continue to be steadfast then we will eventually be perfect and complete, well I personally would love to do that but I also know that I have this thing called the flesh thats corrupt and clouds my resolve most of the time. How am I supposed to know that the decisions I make are the wise ones? ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.’ So what it is saying is God will give us the wisdom to make the right decision if we only ask for it. Even it they just flippantly ask without really believing the it will happen? ‘But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.’ Wow ok so no doubting God in what He says will happen does, So we have to ask for wisdom in faith so that we can remain steadfast and joyful when the trials come because without them we can’t become complete. So what does it matter if we are joyful in since we have our whole lives to live? ‘Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.’ So since we fade away in the midst of our pursuits what does that say about American culture where one of our inalienable rights is the pursuit of happiness? Ok I digress thats a question for another day. But back to the verses at hand. Does that say that the lowly brother should boast in his exaltation? That sounds like common sense right? But wait we are talking about trials still since when would that be a trial? Is it a test to see if we will still boast in the Lord, or take the credit for ourselves and rely on our own understanding that is proven to pass away. Well thats enough ranting through the scripture for now. Just remember to stand strong in Christ power. ‘Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.’

Lip Service

In my last blog I ask the question, where is your heart? Which originally was supposed to lead into this next question, but the Lord had other plans, anyways ton to this weeks question. What is worship? According to Webster its ‘reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power also : an act of expressing such reverence.’ Wait a minute that said nothing about singing a bunch of emotionally charged songs, so that we stay awake during a twenty minute sermon, so who is wrong us or Webster? I remember back in junior high hearing someone say that we should check our hearts before singing the songs because they were prayers we were offering up to God, and so I became very aware of the words to some songs, and wouldn’t sing all the songs because I knew that they were not my heart’s desire and thought it was demeaning to the almighty, all-powerful Lord of all, that I just give Him lip service. An example the song ‘I want to know You’ in the chorus there is the line ‘I want to see Your face’ I didn’t want to see His face back then because if I saw His face that meant I was in heaven and there was too much I still wanted to do here on the earth. Yes I understand how petty and selfish that might have been, but I was younger, more naïve and wanted to experience life. The real irony of the whole situation was that I would get in trouble for not participating in the worship with all the other kids. So what are we teaching this generation about worship? We force them into an emotional high at camps and retreats so they will say all the right words at the right time and what ends up happening is they continue singing the songs to try and recapture the emotional drug, when really it is not about the emotion at all its about the devotion to God on high. It seems to me that all we are doing is making a generation of double-minded people who are blown to and fro by every emotional high that comes to sweep them up. So now that the problem has been laid out how do we as believers rectify it? How do we convey to the generations to come that it is not all about the emotional highs? How do we live our every breathing moment in full obsessive devotion to the Lord most high? I am not so arrogant as to say I have all the answers, because I am just as screwed up as the rest of the world. Thankfully it isn’t all about us its all Him and the Lord has provided His word and the holy Spirit to guide us if we will only listen. I just have this fear that in this post-modern emotionally driven society, that we are creating a generation that though they proclaim great things in the Lord’s name and yet on the last day hear the tragic words “Depart from me I never knew you.”

Where is you Heart?

Over the years I can say my heart has been tugged many different ways, a few times I’ve let it be consumed with a passion that really wasn’t healthy. But always in the background there was the knowledge that many years ago I had given my heart to God, and so even when I was at my most depraved moment I knew that my life was not my own, and that I shouldn’t be doing what I was doing. The question proposed in the beginning is ‘where is your heart?’ In truth our hearts should be completely consumed with the worship of God most high, and I’m not only talking about singing songs. To take a line from Casting Crowns our lifesong should sing to Him, every moment of our lives should be glorifying to God. And while some of us may say but ‘I don’t know how or you don’t know what I have done.’ That’s the beauty of it all no one knows how at the beginning , and as for what you have done God already knows what you done even down to your darkest thoughts. Here is the mind-boggling part God gave us His Word to show us how plus as you study it you realize He has promised to forgive us from everything and all we have to do believe and follow what He says. So really we don’t have an excuse because it’s nothing we do it’s all Him.

Matthew 12:34b

Tired

I’m tired. of just everything really. I’m ready for the summer to be here so I can just escape for awhile, not that I don’t care about all my friends here its just seems so monotonous and I’m tired of it all. I also have noticed that I have been becoming more critical later, like my patience with people, and may tactfulness which I normally try and maintain at least to some extent seems to have flown completely out the window. So whoever actually reads this please pray for me because I can’t do this on my own anymore.

Creep

*Warning Explicit Language in the Lyrics*

When you were here before
Couldnt look you in the eye
Youre just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
And I wish I was special
Youre so fuckin special

But Im a creep, Im a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I dont belong here.

I dont care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice
When Im not around
Youre so fuckin special
I wish I was special

But Im a creep, Im a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I dont belong here.

Shes running out again,
Shes running out
Shes run run run running out…

Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
Youre so fuckin special
I wish I was special…

But Im a creep, Im a weirdo,
What the hell am I doing here?
I dont belong here.
I dont belong here.
~Radiohead

So I know i am not the status-quo male, Im insecure, awkward, quiet, sarcastic, have no inclination toward feats of strength, dont have any of the attributes assoicated with classic masculine beauty, and sometimes my ineptitude at all things social amazes even me. On top of that I have little to no ambition, I have been saying I wanna go do the same thing since I got out of high school but my heart truely is no longer in it. What I feel I’m being called to now is still requiring school which I cant seem to focus on for more than three weeks at a time which really doesnt help me since a semester is normally around fourteen weeks. Yet with all those shortcomings I still have an amazing group of friends that still stick with me through thick and thin. How the hell does that happen?

The only answer that really makes any sense to me is God. He takes all those weaknesses and uses them to make me rely on Him all the more. Then when I rely on Him, He amazing me all the more by the glorious work of His hands. So even though I have to wait until I am in His presence on the new earth for the perfect  body and soul, I do know I will get it. Until that day comes though Iwill continue to rely on the Lord. and hopefully not let pride get in the way too much.