Kingdom of God

Probably one of the most famous Bible verses has to be John 3:16.  I'm sure most of us know it by heart.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. " John 3:16 (NIV)

But what is lesser known is that this famous quote from our Lord Jesus came during a nighttime conversation with a man named Nicodemus that began like this.

"Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.  He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him."

Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." John 3:1-3 (NIV)

Nicodemus was showing respect to Jesus as a great teacher, referring to him as Rabbi, and acknowledging he was from God. 

But notice what Jesus says before launching into his lesson, before even mentioning being "born again."  Back up just a little further to three very significant words.

"kingdom of God"

There is a kingdom  which you cannot enter without a spiritual rebirth, because it is a spiritual kingdom.  And as such, it transcends nationality, political parties, even dare I say, church membership!

I'm challenged by this thought.  What does it really mean to be a part of this kingdom?  

The subject was of such importance that we find John the Baptist preaching about it up until his imprisonment.  And then Jesus' first message after being tempted by the devil in the wilderness was the same, 

"From that time on Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Matt 4:7 (NIV)

What is the kingdom of heaven? 

For the next few blogs, let's dive into this subject.  What does it mean to be a member of this kingdom?  How should our lives be different because of it? What do we do to build the kingdom?  Does this kingdom have an enemy?

I look forward to exploring this with you!

Old vs New

Last night I was changing the strings on my guitar, something I try to do regularly. 

The old strings look and sound OK.  But when I take them off and coil them up I can see how dark they have become.  Then when I compare them to the new strings there is a visible difference.  The new are shiny and bright. 

Once the strings are on, I stretch them a little and then play.  I'm always amazed at the brightness of the new strings.  The guitar seems to have new life.

Over time, these new strings will begin to darken, both in color and sound.  It's gradual, you really don't notice the change until you compare them, once again, to new ones.

I thought about how it's important to take inventory of our lives.  To see if there is anything in our walk with the Lord that simply needs to be refreshed, like those strings. 

Day by day we can miss a devotional time, or skip a service, our lives get caught up in busyness and soon we become dull.  It happens gradually, and it's not until we compare it to the brightness of the joy we once knew that we notice the difference.

That's why it's a good idea to pray the prayer David once did as a regular part of our time with the Lord.

"Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting. - Psalm 139:23:-24 (NIV)

That way, we can always remain bright and fresh and ready to shine for his glory.

Grateful Praise

I thought it fitting, with Black Friday upon us, to not let the Thanksgiving holiday pass without at least one more mention of giving thanks to the Lord.

I know the shopping has already begun.  The countdown to Christmas is here, but before we get caught up in that, let's just take a moment and pray the words of this Psalm.  I think it is good to ignore the shouts from all the advertisements, designed to get us to rush into a purchasing frenzy. 

Perhaps even print this one out and make it a daily prayer during the Christmas season.

Psalm 100 (NIV)

A psalm. For giving grateful praise.

1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2     Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is here, and before the turkey is cold and cut up into sandwiches, our thoughts will quickly move toward Christmas.  Many may even be shopping this very day.

But before we get caught up in the holiday rush, take a moment to maybe write down what you are thankful for from this past year.  Perhaps this has been a rough year for you.  Or maybe it's been an amazing year.  More than likely it is a combination of both, still, there is always something to be thankful for.

I do want to say, I am thankful to be able to share these times with you.  Writing the Daily Rock is a blessing to me.  To explore the Scriptures and be allowed to share with you what the Lord lays on my heart is a blessing beyond words.

God is good, all the time.

So, I will wish you a very happy Thanksgiving and leave you with this Scripture.

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

    his love endures forever. "(1 Chronicles 16:34 (NIV)

His Love Endures Forever!

When I think back to some of the things I did in my younger years, (and even my not so young years) I wish I could go back to that rebellious time and make better choices. 

That is the amazing thing about walking with the Lord, no matter how much we messed up in the past because of the foolish things we have done, he can take our broken life and make something beautiful with it.

Continuing with Psalm 107 as Thanksgiving day quickly approaches!

"17 Some became fools through their rebellious ways
    and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.
18 They loathed all food
    and drew near the gates of death.
19 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he saved them from their distress.
20 He sent out his word and healed them;
    he rescued them from the grave.
21 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
    and his wonderful deeds for mankind.
22 Let them sacrifice thank offerings
    and tell of his works with songs of joy.

Has your life  been restored?  Do you look at all the mistakes you made and realize (with a shudder) where you would be had the Lord not reached down and saved you from that path? 

Then give him thanks for his love that never fails!

...for He is Good

Continuing with Psalm 107 today...

10 Some sat in darkness, in utter darkness,
    prisoners suffering in iron chains,
11 because they rebelled against God's commands
    and despised the plans of the Most High.
12 So he subjected them to bitter labor;
    they stumbled, and there was no one to help.
13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he saved them from their distress.
14 He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness,
    and broke away their chains.
15 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
    and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
16 for he breaks down gates of bronze
    and cuts through bars of iron.

Some chains do not have to be made of iron to bind us. 

Some years ago I rebelled against God in an effort to find some kind of "freedom".  But the more I sought what the world had to offer to make me free, the more in "utter darkness" I dwelled.  It took some time living that way before realizing my need for the Lord. 

What amazes me about the prisoner is this, he is in chains because of his rebellion to God, yet when he calls out to that same God, he is freed and forgiven. 

If you can relate to the prisoner, then take a moment to give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his ability to cut through the bars of iron that enslaved your soul.

Give Thanks to the Lord

With the approaching Thanksgiving holiday being within days, I thought it only fitting we take some time to read through Psalm 107. 

Life can often be difficult, and we can struggle to find something to thank the Lord for.  But this Psalm is a wonderful reminder of where we were when the Lord found us, and how to give thanks for his hearing our cry for help.

Psalm 107 begins with an exhortation to give thanks to the Lord for his goodness and love, and then for the redeemed of the Lord to tell their story.

Psalm 107 (NIV)
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
    those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
3 those he gathered from the lands,
    from east and west, from north and south

What's amazing to me is the honest depiction of the different types of people there are out there, and how when they reached an end, cried out and found the Lord.  Perhaps as we read through, you and I will identify with one or more of these.

Let's begin with the first, the wanderer.

4 Some wandered in desert wastelands,
    finding no way to a city where they could settle.
5 They were hungry and thirsty,
    and their lives ebbed away.
6 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
7 He led them by a straight way
    to a city where they could settle.
8 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
    and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
9 for he satisfies the thirsty
    and fills the hungry with good things.

Can you relate to that, were you the wanderer?  Perhaps you were not literally wandering about, unable to settle.  But maybe, like me, you wandered through different kinds of escapes, trying to simply find peace.   And then, when all energy was spent, you cried out to the Lord and he heard you!

Take a moment to recall that time, the time of wandering and the time of deliverance, and give the Lord thanks!

Next we will read about the prisoner.

Wisdom

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)

This is a well-known proverb, but sometimes it's easier said than done isn't it? 

It is so hard for us to let go of our own opinions and wisdom and simply trust that the Lord truly does know what is best for us.

From the time we were small, we were driven to rely not on others, but ourselves.  Now some of this is good.  A baby, driven by this need, learns to walk.  But that same drive to handle things, to fix problems on our own, or even use our own wisdom to decide what is right and what is wrong, these are hard habits to break.

But truly, to live a life of peace, we need to give up control.  We need to trust and obey.  For this is the heart of this proverb. 

What are you struggling with?  Is it time you abandon your own wisdom and accept God's instead?

Eyes to See

"Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest  and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem." Acts 9:1-2 (NIV)

Sometimes when we read something familiar in the Scriptures, it's good to just stop and think about it for a minute before moving on.

Saul was rounding up Christians and executing them.  That meant men and women.  Picture some of the brothers and sisters you know, now picture a man coming in and taking them away to their death simply for believing in Jesus. 

That man was Saul. There is no way to gloss over it.  He was a murderer of innocent people.  In his own words he described himself as, "the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. " 1 Cor 15:9  (NIV)

I'm sure in the eyes of the Christians he was a man who needed to be stopped in anyway possible.  Perhaps some of them even reacted the way many of us do when we hear of the very same acts being committed today, with anger and fear. 

Many of us, had we lived back then, would want Saul executed.

But God had other plans for Saul.  Jesus interrupted Saul's path and he was never the same.  For Jesus saw him as, "my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel." (Acts 9:15)   Saul would become Paul and  be used in the salvation of many, the forming of the early church and to write roughly 1/3 of the New Testament.  He would eventually die for the faith he tried to destroy.

God knew all that when Saul was still killing Christians.

Perhaps it's best, before reacting in anger and fear, to simply pray for the eyes to see people as God does, to love our enemies as Jesus commanded us to do, and to pray for their salvation.

The Real Enemy

Reading Matthew 16:21-23 (NIV) 
"From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"

Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." 

There has been a lot of evil acts committed these past few weeks.  And because of that, there is a lot of anger, fear and outrage at this "enemy".  I see a lot of this in the news and social media.

I understand that, but I have to wonder.  Who is the real enemy here?

It may be hard for us to grasp, but Jesus died for everyone, even the people doing these terrible things. 

When Jesus was confronted, he saw right through to the real enemy.  In fact, he seemed to ignore that Peter was even in the room, or that the words had been formed by Peter's lips.

 "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." 

Satan is the real enemy of humanity.  People may go along with his works, but he is the real enemy.  Anyone can become a child of God by repentance.  Satan, however, is beyond redemption, and he knows it. 

But I don't see any Facebook postings against him. 

Of course, that's because his favorite trick is to pretend he doesn't exist. 

Let's never forget the instructions of our Lord during these times.

 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:43-48 (NIV)

What it means to be Lord

Sometimes we can read something in the Bible that we are familiar with, and just skip on by it without really thinking about what it said.

Reading John 6:16-19 (NIV) today,  "When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake,  where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them.  A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough.  When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened."

Think about that for a minute.  Jesus walked on water.

The last time I checked, this is not possible.  But Jesus is not limited by how the laws of physics tell us this world works. 

He simply decided he needed to get into that boat and that, in this particular instance, the  laws of nature simply would not apply to him. 

That is what it truly means to be Lord.  It's one thing to have unlimited wealth, or an army, at your command.  It is very much another to decide where and when to do the impossible.

But being creator, he could do that.

And it is this same Jesus who humbles himself and calls us friend.

After 30 plus years of serving the Lord, I am still amazed at just how much there is to know about him.

Questions and Answers

Reading Mark 11:27-33 (NIV)

"They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him.  "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?"

Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.  John's baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!"

They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?'  But if we say, 'Of human origin' …" (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)

So they answered Jesus, "We don't know."

Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

This is the same Jesus who once said, "Ask, seek, knock" (Matt 7:7), yet here is flat our refusing to answer a question placed before him.

Why is that?

It's because the heart behind the question is everything.  Often there are unspoken issues behind our questions, issues we may not even be aware of.  It is easy to see with these men they were not looking to know Jesus, but to confront him. 

Yet we can often be like them, we too can ask questions with wrong motives.

And questions like that often go unanswered by the Lord.  

James tells us, " When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."  James 4:3 (NIV)

Are there unanswered questions you have been asking the Lord?  Perhaps take a moment and ask him to help you see the real reason behind the questions.

As Michael Card once said in a song, "Could it be that questions tell us more than answers ever do?"

Heavenly Father

This past weekend I got to spend some time with my 23-year old son.  He lives about 200 miles away, so we don't get that much time together.  Normally we just text or talk on the phone every once in a while.

But we got some real quality time together this weekend, I got to hear his voice and laughter, share stories, to just enjoy being with him.  It was refreshing to me, and he told me he enjoyed the time as well.  

Phone technology is great, but there is no substitute for face time.  After he left I could not help but think of my love for my son and how much I enjoyed just being around him. 

Now thinking about the weekend, I can't help but wonder if I truly grasp how much our heavenly father just wants to spend time with us.  To have us tell him about our day, not just bring our requests before him.  To maybe even share a laugh with him.

I'm challenged by this thought; what does it truly mean to be a child of our father in Heaven?

"For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.  The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." Romans 8:14-16 (NIV)

Victory

Last night I had a Taekwondo belt test.  Since I've only been practicing for about four months, most of the students testing with me were young.

Very very young. 

In fact my son, who is visiting for the weekend, joked that he was worried one of the parents would ask him, "and which one is yours?" by which he would have to reply, "that one" and point to the old man towering over the other students!

During the test we have to break a wooden board.  Not an easy task to do. 

There was this one young girl who was having trouble doing it.  She tried over and over again.  Even with the other students and parents cheering her on, she could not break the board in her own strength. 

Finally, Master Kim came and stood beside her;  he said, "ready?" then together they punched effortlessly through the board while the whole class cheered her victory!

This morning that image made me think of the verse, "I can do all this through him who gives me strength." Phil 4:13 (NIV)

Just like that young girl, we cannot accomplish what we need to do in our own strength,  Even though we try, over and over. 

But when the Lord is standing by our side, we have access to a power that allows us to live a life of victory!

"But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Cor 15:57 (NIV)

My Father's House

My son is coming to visit us this weekend.

So last night I got the guest room ready for him.  I was making sure everything was just right for his visit.  He lives about 3 hours away and is having car issues, so now I will drive 3 hours to go get him and then bring him back to stay with my wife and I.

Getting the room ready, and traveling 3 hours to pick him up (and 3  hours back) are a pleasure to me, because he is my son, and I love him.  I'm excited to see him, even bought him an early Christmas gift!

While I was doing this, I could not help but think about the Lord.  What Jesus is doing now, at this very moment.

"My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14:3-4 (NIV)

Jesus is preparing a place for all of us, far more beautiful than anything we can imagine.  He knows we are not able to get to that place on our own, so he will come one day and bring us there.

And the Christmas gift he gives us, is nothing less than himself.

Simple - but hard

Yesterday I shared the answer Jesus gave when asked, "What is the Greatest commandment?" (Matthew 22:37)

Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. 

But Jesus didn't stop there.  He then continued and quoted Leviticus 19:18, 

"And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." vv39-40

I love how simple Jesus makes this for us. "It's simple," as Preacher Mike says, "but it's hard!"

To love people when they don't deserve it, to love people when they have done us harm, to love people when they misunderstand us...  sounds like the life of Jesus doesn't it?  When he tells us to love others, he is not saying it flippantly, after all, he knows how to love people even when they nail him to a cross.

Love God, and love people.  They are two sides of the same coin.  Loving God leads to loving people, and we love people out of our love for God.

Think for a moment about the people in your life.  The ones you truly enjoy spending time with.  And then some that you could quite frankly, do without.

Can we make the choice to obey Jesus and love them all?

What is the greatest commandment?

Jesus was asked this question once.  He answered by quoting part of Deuteronomy; Chapter 6:4-5

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. "

But notice what comes after that verse, let's keep reading...

"These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."  Deut 6:6-9 (NIV)

Basically we are to be saturated with the Word of God.  There is a direct connection here between loving the Lord and knowing and obeying his word.  If you think of love as a feeling, this is hard to see.  It seems almost cold. 

But if you think of love as how it is described here, as an action, then it is pretty clear that the Word of God will help us know God, and therefor love him with everything that is in us.

Increasing our time spent in the Word of God, talking about it, thinking about it, praying it, singing it, can greatly increase our knowledge and love for the Lord.

The Holy Spirit at work

Sometimes the Holy Spirit will communicate a truth to us by having the same Bible verse brought to our attention from a number of different sources. 

A verse has been on my mind lately, then Preacher Mike used it in his sermon on Sunday, and today it again came up in a very unusual way. 

I have a habit of buying replica swords from time to time.  After a while, I got so many that I began giving them away.  So I started a tradition.  When I buy a new sword, I give away the old one.

I had given my last sword, a Gladiator sword, to a co-worker.  He had it for a week or so, and then he noticed that I had a Bible verse reference scraped into the blade.   What was the verse?  You guessed it, the very same verse.

So today he "happened" to send me an instant message, referencing the verse, saying it was a fitting one to have on a sword.  This is the Holy Spirit at work.

Here is the verse,

"I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." Acts 26:18 (NIV)

This was Jesus' words to Paul, and I believe they are his words for us all today. 

The next step is to pray about how we can take up this charge. 

Love God, love others, do something about it.

The Word of God

Why do we read the Word of God? 

Reading the Bible is not like reading any other book.  The words we read are life to our very souls.  It's like storing away a treasure for the time when we will need it the most.

Have you ever had a time when you have  been going through something and a Bible verse just "pops" into your head?

That is a direct result of the Holy Spirit using the word of God that is hidden in your heart.

In Psalm 119 we read, 

9 How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
    By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
    do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart
    that I might not sin against you.
12 Praise be to you, Lord;
    teach me your decrees.
13 With my lips I recount
    all the laws that come from your mouth.
14 I rejoice in following your statutes
    as one rejoices in great riches.
15 I meditate on your precepts
    and consider your ways.
16 I delight in your decrees;
    I will not neglect your word. -Psalm 119:9-16 (NLT)

Have you taken the time today to hide his word in your heart?  The more time we spend just reading the word, the more we store it in our hearts for when we really need it. 

When your week was not so good...

The weekend is here, what kind of week did you have?

If it was anything like mine, it was full of challenges and trials.  There were some where I won the battle, and some I'd just rather forget and move on.

Reading Psalm 43 today; I love the honesty in this.

Psalm 43
1 Vindicate me, my God,
    and plead my cause
    against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are
    deceitful and wicked.
2 You are God my stronghold.
    Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?

Have you ever felt like this?  Rejected by God and alone?  Let's read on...

3 Send me your light and your faithful care,
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
    to the place where you dwell.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
    to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
    O God, my God.

Here the Psalmist prays to the Lord.  Many of us can stay at this point, we pray and think, "Ok God, do your thing!

But he goes one more step, he actually speaks to himself! 

5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Sometimes prayer is not enough, we need to encourage, even challenge ourselves to put our hope in God!  And then, actually do just that.

Psalm 100

There are times when I pray for something to share and a scripture comes to mind; a scripture that I simply feel I cannot add anything to. 

Today is one of those times.

Take a moment, pray, and ask the Lord to saturate you with the truth of this Psalm.

Psalm 100 (NIV)
A psalm. For giving grateful praise.

1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2  Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Do you have a price?

In Refuel we are going through the book of Acts.  Last night we were discussing the stoning of Stephen.

"When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.  But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."  Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep." Acts 7:54-60 (NIV)

There was a question in our work book that I couldn't come up with an answer for this week. 

"How does Stephen's example encourage you?"

I left it blank, because I simply did not have an answer.

But last night a brother in our small group time answered the question; rather simply, he said, "He was a man without a price."

And that hit me pretty hard.  Do I have a price?  Do I have a point where too many stones are flying and I would say, "enough!"

Or could I let all the stones fly and keep my eyes on Jesus?

It's a sobering question, one to chew on for a while. 

Do you have a price?

What are you focusing on?

As many of you already know, one of the dangers in riding a motorcycle is something called, "object fixation."  What happens is you fix your eyes on something on the road, a branch, or a dead animal, and then your body leans causing the motorcycle to travel right to whatever you are looking at. 

This causes a lot of accidents. 

It's the same with our walk with the Lord.

It's easy to take our eyes off Jesus.  Maybe we are looking at our past sins, or perhaps we are looking at other peoples faults?  Then there are those times we are looking at things we know we shouldn't be looking at. 

The result is the same, we will eventually run right into whatever we are looking at.

The writer of Hebrews exhorts us, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith." Heb 12:1-2 (NIV)

So how do we focus on Jesus?  We focus on his word, we focus on what pleases him, we focus on what we know is true and right.

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. " Phil 4:8 (NIV)

Can it be any clearer than that?

Allegiance

Who is calling out for your allegiance today? 

Reading 1 Peter...

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." 1 Peter 2:9-10 (NIV)

There are many things out there that call out for our allegiance.  Everything from motorcycle brands, to sports teams to political parties; they all want us to wear their logos and pledge our allegiance to them. 

They are successful because they know we want to belong to a group that is bigger than ourselves.

Now, I'm not saying that any of these things are wrong in and of themselves, but they must always take second place to our calling in Jesus Christ.

Peter tells us here that we are "God's special possession,"  just as Paul tells us, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. " 1  Cor 6:19-20 (NIV)

Let us pray today that if there is anything that takes place before our calling and position in Christ, we have eyes to see it.

Our first and only true allegiance should be to the Lord.

Borrowed Grief

I didn't get much sleep Saturday night, and that had something to do with not being very good at math, combined with a tired mind.

Saturday night was supposed grant us something that  only happens once a year, an "extra hour" of sleep. 

But, to start with, I wasn't feeling that great, then I kept waking up with my brain wanting to do the day-light savings math!  You know, "the clock says it's three am, but that means my body thinks it's four am, so I can get more sleep because instead of  waking up at seven, I'm really waking up at... wait... six or eight?"

I stayed in that endless loop, off and on all night...  I didn't get much sleep.

It's crazy, some of the things our mind can get caught on.  And that is how worry can work as well.  We continue to stay in an endless loop of "borrowed grief," especially when we worry about things that haven't happened, or may not ever happen.

Jesus knew our tendency to worry, let's look at what he said on the subject.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)

Words to live by.