Created to Crave: Part 12

We Want to Matter

You and I have this craving in our heart that compels us to have some sort of significance in our lives.  We want our lives to matter!  In the movie Gladiator Maximus inspires the men following him: "What we do in life echoes in eternity."  That is the sentiment echoes in our hearts as well.

In the Gospels we meet a man who had been blessed by God, who was a leader in his community, and who had dedicated himself to moral living;  yet deep in his heart he craved for something more.  The young man came to Jesus with the question: "What must I do for eternal life."  He wanted his life to matter.

God is Pro-Life

Jesus calls us to live a life of unimaginable adventure.  It begins the moment we choose to follow Him.  It is not less than to pass from existence to life.  

Erwin McManus; Seizing Your Divine Moment

God told the Israelites:

“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!" (Deuteronomy 30:19; NLT).  

There is no greater desire God has for us than that of life.  To give us life is the very reason Jesus came; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10b; NASB).  God cherishes life.

Created to Crave: Part 9

The Life Giving Well of Intimacy

Very few people like to be alone.  Humans were designed to be connected with other people.  We find the greatest satisfaction when those connection are face to face, but even online connections can provide some of the relief that we seek.

The main problem we run into as we seek satisfaction for our craving for intimacy is sin.  Sin is destroys intimacy.  It rips apart the bridges of trust that have been built and sets fire to houses of love that were established.  I am guessing that all of us have experienced the pain of broken relationships caused by sin.

From Evernote:

Striving to be Authentic

Authenticity is one of the core values of our society.  We want people and products to be real and not some cheap imitation.  For this reason authenticity should be highly valued.  On the flip side is if a person or product is naturally bad, useless, or harmful authenticity is not something to shoot for.  We have all witnessed people, in the name of authenticity, be cruel or demeaning.  These people will say things like, "I am just the type of person who tells it like it is." When authenticity leads us to be unloving then it is time to rise above simply being authentic to truly becoming the person God created us to be.  That is what true authenticity is all about.

While we might be deceived into believing that following certain primal instincts is what true authenticity looks like, the reality is that we cannot be truly authentic until we embrace the person God created us to be.  Only God, the Creator, can tell us what it means to be truly human.  In Jesus we discover what. It truly means to be an authentic human being.  The reason we are so often dissatisfied with the way the people live and act is because in the deepest part of our hearts we know they are not authentically human.  We are being deceived about who they really are.

I believe this is why the New Testament teaches us not to be a hypocrite.  It is hard for a person to put their trust in God after a self-proclaimed Christ follower has deceived or hurt them.  Please understand this: what we accept as true depends on our perceived trustworthiness of the source.  Why would a person accept the Good News of God's love and forgiveness when Christians are gossips and grudge holders?  If our lives do not bear the fruit of the Gospel then people will reject the Gospel, no matter how will we might present it.

In order to communicate the Gospel we need to do more than just claim to be a Christian, we must demonstrate that we are truly following Jesus. How we live is the most crucial evidence we can offer for truthfulness of the Gospel.  Remember what the apostle Peter wrote: 

Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ (1 Peter 3:15-16; NLT).  

When Jesus sits on the throne of our hearts the way we live will be different.  Living lives of hope, peace, and love in the midst of a life filled with tragedy, despair, and broken dreams will compel people to ask about the difference in our lives. To live like Jesus in this world will make us stand apart from everyone else.

How do we begin to live like Jesus?  In Romans 12:1-2 the apostle Paul gives us four steps to help us become authentically human:

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect (NLT).

The first step is that we must remember (I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you). God has graciously given us many blessings.  From the gift of life to the provisions we need to the blessing of salvation.  We need to be intentional and reflect on all the ways God has blessed our lives.  This will help develop an attitude of thanksgiving in our hearts which will overflow into the way we live.

The second step Paul gives is a requirement we must obey (give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable). If we are to be authentic human beings we need to understand what our Creator requires from us.  Paul here uses the illustration that we are to be living sacrifices to God.  In the Old Testament we discover  sacrifices offered to God were to be without blemish and the best portion of the flock or the harvest.  The sacrifice always came at great cost to the worshipper.  How does this apply to our lives?  We need to recognize that the life of faith is will be costly to us.  Being authentic in a world of fakes is not easy. We are no longer pursuing the agenda that the world gives to us, rather we surrender to the original purpose of our Designer.  In other words our lives are to be totally devoted to what God is doing. We give ourselves totally over to God's way of life.

The third step that Paul gives us is the reformation of our minds (Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think).  We are not transformed or reformed by our own efforts.  As we surrender our lives to God He will transform us.  This reformation is a reformation of heart and mind. It is a transformation that is noticed in the change of our attitudes, desires, and thoughts.  The more we surrender to God the more we are changed from the inside out.  Understand that for this reformation to really have an impact we have to use it to change the way we live.  Reformation is God's way of directing us to the things He wants us to do.  If God transforms our hearts and minds and we do not respond by changing the way we live then we are being poor stewards of His grace.  We will return to the old way of thinking and being directed by the old passions.  When we respond to God's reformation of hearts that is when we will become more authentically human.

The last step Paul provides is discovering the reason for our life transformation (Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect).  The reason we need to be transformed is so we can live out God's purpose for our lives.  The bottom line is that is the only way to truly be authentically human.  We need to live out the original purpose of the Designer to be authentic people.  

To be effective in our communication of the Gospel requires us to be authentic.  It is through authenticity that people see the true difference Jesus makes in our lives. People can know what we say is true because they see it in our lives.  This is why we need to strive to be authentic.

From Evernote:

A Life Worth Celebrating

There are all sorts of highlights that we celebrate throughout our lives. We celebrate births, graduations, championships, new jobs, marriages, and personal successes. These things remind us that there is importance in everyday life.  We need to always remember that life is worth celebrating!

In spite all of this celebration we come into the harsh reality that life is hard. The tragedy of job loss, debilitating injury, messy breakups, terminal illness, and death are evidence that life is not what it should be. 

The Bible does not sugarcoat this reality. God makes it clear in His Word that life is difficult, and if we are not careful these difficulties can rob us of the true joy of life: the love of God.

The apostle Paul wrote:

Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.") 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39, NLT).

What makes the achievements of life worth celebrating, what makes the tragedies of life worth enduring is the love of God. It is God who infuses our lives with meaning and purpose.  Without God there would be no reason to celebrate, for even our biggest victory will one day fade away.  Thank God that in Jesus we have a life worth celebrating.

Inadequate Messengers

God uses human instruments to bring to men the message of his truth and love; but it is he alone who wakes the hearts of men to new life.  As he alone created the heart, so he alone can re-create it.

William Barclay, DSB: The Letters to the Corinthians, p. 31

Followers of Jesus are called to be be ambassadors and missionaries to the world.  We cannot escape from that responsibility, it is woven into the fabric of what it means to be a Christian.  It is a huge and important calling to be sure and most of the time we feel inadequate for the task.  After all we lack the resources and the talents that we think are necessary in carrying God's message of love and truth to the world.

First I want to pause for a moment and say that is true.  The mere presence of sin my life makes me inadequate, not to mention the lack of knowledge we have about the way the world works, the Bible, and the circumstances of other people's lives.  So let us hang out here and confess that we are inadequate for the job at hand.

Now there are two pieces that I want to add to this.  There is the piece that being a citizen of God's Kingdom begins with being "poor in Spirit." Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with; "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3; ESV).  Part of being a follower of Jesus is having the realization that we don't have what it takes and that we must depend on God to provide us with everything that we need; whether that is our daily bread, patience to deal with difficult people, or the words to share with those who are searching for truth.  

The second piece is the importance of being true to who God created us to be. The apostle Paul reminds us of this truth when he wrote:

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; 8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness (Romans 12:3-8, ESV). 

This isn't just about having a certain talent set, but about figuring out how to use those talents God has blessed us with for His Kingdom.  It is through using our unique set of talents for God's Kingdom which enables us to find our purpose in life.

With that being said we need to remember that the only person that we have any control over is ourself.  While God has given us the responsibility to take His message of love and truth to the world He has not given us responsibility to change the hearts of other people.  That responsibility lies with God Himself, and therefore we do not need to worry about how people will respond we just need to focus on the best and most effective ways to use our gifts and talents for God's Kingdom.  What a sense of relief that reality should give us.

The Way of Faith is Obedience

If life is a quest to become the people God created us to be how do we discover which way to go?  There are many roads out there on which we can travel, but only one leads us to God.  If we are unwilling to follow this road we will miss out, not only on God, but also the life He created us to live.

Henry Blackaby in the workbook Experiencing God wrote:

God’s commands are designed to guide you to life’s very best.  You will not obey Him, however, if you do not believe Him and trust Him.  You cannot believe Him if you do not love Him.  You cannot love Him unless you know Him (p. 63).  

The road we are to travel is the road of obedience.

This quest to become the people God created us to be begins with our knowledge of who God is.  We cannot love, trust, and obey God unless we first know Him.  Knowledge is the foundation of faith. This is what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote:

But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news! (Romans 10:14-15; ESV)

Without a knowledge of God it is impossible to have faith.  And what is faith?  This is the definition that I use: Faith is the combination of trust and action and is demonstrated by our obedience.  Without faith there is no true obedience.

The great biblical example of faith is Abraham.  In the land of Ur Abraham heard the call of God.  How well did Abraham know God at this point in his life?  I know that it has been suggested that at this time Abraham may have worshiped other gods rather than being a worshiper of the One True God.  Blackaby in Created to be God’s Friend makes this point; "To our knowledge, Abram was not seeking God; God was seeking him"  (p. 16).  In other words the beginning of this journey is actually found in God’s desire to have a relationship with us and not in our desire to have a relationship with Him.

The revelation of God, found primarily in the Bible, provides us with the initial knowledge that we need to trust God and obey Him. This revelation provides us with enough knowledge to make that first step of faith, and as we continue to trust and obey God with our live we begin to develop a deeper relationship with Him.

The relationship Abraham had with God at the beginning was not very strong.  Abraham knew God well enough to trust God to lead him to the Promised Land, but based on the biblical account know that there were other areas of Abraham’s life that He did not trust God.  Yet over time Abraham learned to trust and love God like few people in history have.  At the end of his life Abraham knew God a whole lot better than he did when he first left Ur to follow God into the unknown.

The apostle John talks about the relationship between obedience and a relationship with God:

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:3-6; ESV)

The only way to know God and thus become the people God created us to be is to obey God.  There is no other way that will happen.  We can spend time talking about purpose and goals and self-improvement techniques, but if we don’t turn to the Life-Maker we will miss out on life.

Remember we will not begin this quest to become the people God created us to be if we do not have a minimal knowledge of God.  If we do not believe God exists we will not seek to know Him better let alone discover the life He created us to live.  This quest begins when we act on the little bit that we know about God.  Through living this journey and experiencing God along the way we begin to know God better and better.  Ultimately our knowledge of God is not increased through study and church attendance, but through living a life of obedience.

By traveling the road of obedience we not only discover who we are, but we discover God as well.   Only as we obey God do we begin to experience Him at work in the world around us.  It is this experience which helps us understand the heart of God, and thus brings us a little closer to Him.

The Freedom to Do What is Right

The goal of faith in Christ Jesus is not heaven but Christlikeness.  Heaven, which is being in the presence of the Triune God, is the result of our commitment to be like Christ Jesus.  The apostle John reminds us that; “Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did” (1 John 2:6; NLT).  We can’t be with God if we are not on the road towards Christlikeness.

Much of what we find in the letters of the apostle Paul are about this reality.  Over and over again we find Paul urging his readers to take off the old way of living and put on the new life.  To actually clothe ourselves with Christ. For this reason Paul writes:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in 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 2:5-8; ESV).

Jesus could have clung to His rights as God and remained in heaven but instead He put those rights to the side and obediently serves humankind out of the love He has for the Father and the love He has for His creation.  Part of becoming like Christ, according to Paul, is to adopt humility as a way of life.

How do we imitate this attitude of humility?  I think it begins by recognizing that God has given us certain rights.  I have the right to pursue a self-centered life, that doesn’t mean that is the best decision to make, but it is a choice God has allowed me to freely make.  The nature of freedom is that there is more than one option open to us.  While I have the right to pursue a self-centered lifestyle I also have the right to put others ahead of myself.  For example, in the evening I have the right to sit on the couch and “unwind” while watching television.  Couch sitting and television watching is an option open to me if I want to do it.  Yet, another option is to take my dog Barkley for a walk since he has been in his kennel all day long.  I much rather “unwind,” but Barkley needs to be walked, and I am free to choose to go for walk and not live a life that is totally about me.

If we are going to be like Jesus requires that we don’t focus simply on what we desire the most in the moment, but to do what is right.  Adam and Eve were free to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but that wasn’t the right choice.  God told the couple not to eat from that tree and that there would be negative consequences if they did.  The right choice was to freely eat of any of the other trees that populated the garden.

Ananias and Sapphira were free to use their land, and the money, anyway they wanted to use it, but giving only part of the money and lying about it wasn’t the right choice.  Freedom is a dangerous responsibility because people have the ability to choose the wrong thing.  If we are going to be like Christ Jesus we need to discover the right choice and then commit our lives to doing it.

The apostle Paul said that Jesus chose to obey the Father.  In our freedom how do we know what right option is?  The right choice is what lines up with God’s will.  If we just base this choice off of feelings we will often choose wrong because more often than not our feelings are contrary to God’s will, and therefore we will end up living a life of disobedience rather than a life of obedience.

The apostle Paul also wrote; Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (ESV). In order to know God's will and be able to make the right choice, we have to submit to God as He transforms our minds.  That requires the humility to admit that we don't know what is best, and trust God to do the right thing.

We make the best use of our freedom, not through indulging every little desire that we have, but by choosing to serve people.  When we demand that people acknowledge our rights we push people away from us, but when we choose to love we open up an opportunity for people to see God.  Christ chose to serve His followers and we must make the same choice.

Entering into a Covenant Relationship

"All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant." ~ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, p. 341

On Sunday as worship was beginning I was asked if I would read 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 before Communion.  I agreed to do read, but I also decided to take the opportunity to talk about Communion as Covenant Renewal.  Afterwards, including last night at small group, I was not only thanked for my words, but was also told, "I had never heard that about communion."

I think we have tended to overlook Covenant when it comes to our relationship with God. This means that we have talked about "getting saved" or "having a personal relationship with God," but have missed out on why we can be secure in those things.  Our security comes from the commitment that is founded on God's New Covenant that was ushered in through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So if the security of our salvation as well as the promises and blessings that God has for us is found in a Covenantal relationship, then it is very important for us to ask: "How do I enter into a covenant relationship with God?"  The fact that many people haven't heard that communion is a time of covenant relationship renewal means that many people have never heard how to enter into a covenant relationship with God.

Some time in the next week I want to write a post devoted to Covenant, but right now I want to throw out that it is through baptism that we enter into a Covenant Relationship.  I will make the case for this later on, but for now I want to point out two very important passages.

The first is Matthew 28:18-20:

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (ESV).

Regardless of your feelings on baptism we discover that according to Jesus baptism is part of the disciple making process.  Jesus establishes baptism as the moment when people are set apart from the world in order that they may follow Jesus.

The second is Romans 6:1-4:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (ESV).

According to the apostle Paul it is through baptism that we are united with Jesus.  It is the moment that we declare ourselves dead to sin and to the patterns of this world and discover that we now possess the life of Christ in our lives.

What I would invite you to do is to take some time and look at all the references to baptism in the New Testament, read the context of the passages, and identify the things of which baptism is a part.  Things like being set apart as a disciple and being united with Christ.  Perhaps that will lay the foundation of why I say that baptism is the way in which we enter into this great Covenant God has established with humankind.

To go along with my initial thoughts on baptism here is an essay by Greg Boyd that further explains my views on baptism: The Case for Believer's Baptism.

A Life Lesson from Tim Tebow and the Broncos

I am a fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes, the Boston Celtics, and the Denver Broncos. I don't pay much attention to sports outside of those teams.  You can imagine that I am pleased with the way the Broncos, led by Tim Tebow, have been silencing the critics for the last three weeks.  Now, truth be told, when the Broncos used a first round pick last year to get Tebow I was not very happy, and I still have questions on whether or not he can have success over the long haul in the NFL, but I am cheering for the guy.  Not only because he is a man of character and faith, but also because he is showing the world that you can be different and be successful.

People who cover the NFL tell us that you need to be a drop back pocket passer to be successful, and that is not who Tim Tebow is.  The Broncos tried that, and in his second start this season, Tebow and the Broncos got embarrassed by the Detroit Lions.  That sent John Fox and the Bronco coaching staff to the drawing board to come up with a scheme that will enable Tebow to have success, and in the last three games they have.

That is the lesson that we, as followers of Christ and as Church Families, can take away from this.  In a world of sameness, God often requires us to be different.  For us to be obedient to the call God has placed on our lives requires us to use the unique skill set He has blessed given to us.  That is part of what being a member of Christ's body is all about:

For even as we have many members in one body, and all the members don’t have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, if prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith; or service, let us give ourselves to service; or he who teaches, to his teaching; or he who exhorts, to his exhorting: he who gives, let him do it with liberality; he who rules, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness (Romans 12:4-8; WEB).

We don't have to be a great preacher, writer, singer, or missionary to make a difference in the world for God's Kingdom. What we need to do is be faithful in using the gifts He has blessed us with to build His Kingdom. Our Church Family doesn't need to adopt the same programs that the successful church across town or across the country uses, but rather we need to think of creative ways to use the spiritual gifted and talented people who make up our Church Family. We are not called to copy our neighbor, but to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us.

People who are successful in athletics share a couple of traits regardless of their skill sets.  First, they work hard and develop their physical talents.  You can't be successful without hard work.  Second, the don't give up.  When they get knocked down they get back up and try again.  To follow Christ requires us to share certain traits with our fellow followers.  One is to live with faith, faith like Abraham's faith.  Regardless of your skill set this is a must, for you can't follow Jesus without it.  A second one is love, for love, we are told, is what defines us as followers of Jesus.  Love for God and a love for people.  As we use our talents in the context of faith and love we will discover that we are being transformed into the people God created us to be.

Minds Prepared for Action

{1 Peter 1:13-16; NASB}

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,  but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;  because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

One of the obstacles that I am facing right now in my obedient walk with God are unhealthy thoughts and attitudes.  I feel like I am on the cusp of the next thing God has called me to do, but I am distracted from doing it, not by outside forces, but by the workings of my mind.  These distractions take the form of dwelling on past failures, doubts about my ability and God's call on my life, and retreating into procrastination to avoid the hard work breaking through.
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Peter tells us that the first step in obedience happens before the task is set before us for we are to prepare our minds for action.  One of the exercises some top athletes will use before the big game is imagining what the game will be like and thinking through how they should respond if a certain situation arises in the course of the action.  Not only do these athletes use their imagination, but they will also use their knowledge and they will learn the play book, the signals that come in from the sidelines, and the terminology the team uses so they can know precisely what they are expected to do.
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Let us pause for a moment and ponder what implications that has for us as we follow after Jesus. First, we need to think about how we will respond in certain situations.  Imagine the difficulty you would have to respond in obedience to Jesus' command to sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and come follow Him.  By imagining such scenarios it makes it easier for us to respond in obedience when similar situations come our way.  Second, we need to spend time using our knowledge to learn what God's Word says about who we are, what we are to do, and the means that we have at our disposal to make those to things a reality in our lives.
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If we are to avoid the former lusts, the way of the flesh that guided our way of living before Jesus, then it is absolutely essential that we start with our minds.  Peter says that we lived that way because of ignorance.  We didn't know the will of God, we didn't know the weakness of our flesh, we didn't know the promise of life and new creation that is available in Christ Jesus, and we didn't know the great of the Holy Spirit who works with us to transform into the image bearers that God created us to be. To live in ignorance is to live below the wonderful life that God makes available to us in Christ Jesus.
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How do we do this?  I think it begins with surrendering our lives daily to God.  The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:1 and 2:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (ESV).​

We come to God and offer our lives, each day, as a living sacrifice to Him.  It is no longer our life that we live, but it is His life.  As we surrender our lives we ask God to show us His will and to transform our minds.  Ultimately we need to remember that we don't have what it takes to bring about this transformation on our own, we need God's help to make it possible.  This falls into line with what Paul prayed for the Colossians:

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:9-10; ESV).

Pray that God will fill you with the knowledge of His will and with spiritual wisdom and understanding, that is the only way it will be made real in our lives.  Third, is we need to dedicate our selves to doing what God has called us to do.  This of course ties in with the first point of surrender, but it is one thing to say the words, and it is another thing to obey.  James writes:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if ​anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:22-25; ESV).​

If we are not committed to doing God's will, then we when push comes to shove we won't do it, instead we will do whatever is easiest to do.  In the process we will miss out on the blessings God wants us to experience in life, blessings that can we can use to bless those around us.
​
To be obedient children we must first prepare our minds for action.  Don't neglect this, for it will enable you to do what God has planned for you to do.

Transforming Our Choices

Henry Blackaby in his book Created to be God's Friend wrote; "We are free to make the choice, but not free from the consequences of the choice." Think about that statement.  One the one hand it is wonderful because it means we have the freedom to live the way we want to live, but on the other hand it is terrible because it means we are responsible for our choices.

We have the wonderful freedom to make our own decisions. God has not programmed us to respond to certain stimuli in a certain way. Instead He created us with a free will, the ability to choose. We can choose between McDonalds and Burger King, the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Wisconsin Badgers, and even between what is right and what is wrong. We have free will to make these types of decisions.

This is a wonderful freedom God has granted to us, but as wonderful as it is free will is also full of danger. If we make our own choices that means we are responsible for what happens because of those choices. We will benefit from good choices and be hindered by bad choices. The path we are on in life is ultimately a path of our own design.


No wonder the apostle Paul is concerned with the way we think.  In Romans 12:2 Paul wrote; Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (ESV).  If we are conformed to the world's way of choosing and deciding then we will continue to fall short of God's will.  It is only when our minds are transformed that we are able to make the right choices which enable us to be the people God created us to be.

To aid us in the transformation of our minds God has provided us with Truth.  This Truth provides us with the solid foundation from which we are able to make correct decisions. If we are willing to obey God and follow the path that He has laid out for us we will have to learn to rely on the wisdom that we discover on the pages of the Bible, and thus discover that our lives are built on a solid foundation. If we insist on doing our own thing and making choices determined by what we think is best we will find that the foundation of our lives is no better than sand.

Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount with this teaching:

Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won't collapse, because it is built on rock. But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will fall with a mighty crash (Matthew 7:24-27; NLT).

This is not a promise that Christians will not experience hardship in their lives, but it is a promise that during the hardships of life they will be able to stand strong. Why? A Christian is able to remain strong amidst the tragedies of life because they have the hope which comes from doing God's will and the hope that waits on God's promise to make everything new.  We discover these twin hopes on the pages of Scripture.

Poor and sinful choices led to bad and negative consequences. Think about the tragedy and hardship we could avoid in our lives if we would just be willing to follow Jesus. Women wouldn't have to worry about who are the fathers of their children, parents wouldn't have to suffer they loss of a child from a drug overdose, children wouldn't be put through the pain of a divorce, and diseases like AIDS would be virtually unheard of. Yet when we insist on building our lives on the sand of conformity to the world and refusing to follow Jesus we ensure that our lives will not stand the test of tragedies.


It is also important to point out that when we follow the wisdom we discover in the Bible our lives will turn out for the better.  We will be able to experience good relationships with friends and family.  We will have the opportunity to hear people tell us thank you for the difference we have made in their lives.  We will not have to worry about the past catching up to us.  We will be able to live a life of purpose and hope.  Following Jesus creates a better life than following the ways of the world.

We have freewill, but that also means we are responsible for the consequences of our actions. Part of the Gospel is that God has not abandoned us to the hopelessness of this world. God has revealed Truth to us so we can have a solid foundation to build our lives upon and have the knowledge we need to transform our minds.  In the end it is possible for us to live lives that honor our Creator and Savior.

Surrendering My Entire Life

Following Jesus is not easy.  If it was everyone would do it because the what Jesus offers us is so great.  I believe following Jesus is the best way to live your life, but it is anything but easy.  It is a radical commitment that requires our entire lives.

John Ortberg wrote; "Millions of people in churches these days could be called 'pew potatoes.' They want some of the comfort associated with the spirituality, but they don't want to risk the challenge that go along with actually following Jesus" (If You Want To Walk On Water, You've Got To Get Out Of The Boat; p. 22).

Take a moment and consider your life. Examine the way you live and the desires of your heart. Now answer this question, "Is that what Jesus wants from your life?"

While we might have desire to follow Jesus our lives tell a different story. We want the promises of God, we want the hope which comes from being a Christian, but we are not willing to live like a follower of Christ. We put on a religious show so people may think that we are spiritual and love Jesus, but we still primarily do what we want to do.  We have not fully committed out lives to Jesus, but we go through the motions of religion so we can tell ourselves that we are following Jesus.

To follow Jesus means that we have died to our idea of what it means to live.  The apostle Paul wrote:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20; ESV). 

Remember the story of human history is that we rebell from the Creator's original design, that we have decided what it means to be human, and as a result the entire world is messed up.  We have proven that our way to live life is a bad way to live.

Jesus came to save us from the consequences of our rebellious and sinful actions as well as to show us what it means to be human.  In Jesus we see the way we were meant to live.  For us to do that we have to reject the world's definitions for life, and follow Jesus' definition.

This is where things get uncomfortable and challenging, because we go against what people in our culture (even our church culture) find acceptable.  We truly become foreigners and aliens living in a strange land (1 Peter 2:11).

The foundation for living differently, for getting out of our pews to being disciples of action, is our commitment.  We will not follow through with the life change or the transformation of our beliefs and thoughts if we are not first committed to Jesus.  So the apostle Paul wrote:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2; ESV)

In light of all the great things that God has done for us, including saving us from the power of sin and death, we should offer our lives to Him.  Not just 10% of our lives, but our entire lives.  We are to be, as Paul says, living sacrifices.  Our bodies, minds, actions, and desires are offered to God so they can be transformed, and we can understand His will and how that applies to our lives.

Offering our lives to God is not easy.  The reason is because we still want to be in charge of our lives.  We want to be able to decided what we want to do.  All we require of God is to bless us now and again, but that type of thinking misses the point.  The point is that the only way to truly be human is to living according to God's will.  He is the Creator, and He knows what it means to be human.

So the question we have ask ourselves is this: Do I trust God enough to surrender my entire life to Him?

Living By Faith in the Unknown

In The Touch of the Master’s Hand Max Lucado wrote; “Regardless of what you don’t know about your future, one thing is certain: You are intended to contribute to the good plan of God, to tell others about the God who loves them and longs to bring them home.”

The future is a scary thing. No matter how much we plan and prepare for it, the future is still outside of our control. We could get hurt in a car accident and lose the use of our legs. There is the possibility of cancer or another disease that will cut short our time one earth. We can suffer through the death of our parents, our siblings, or our friends. Our lives could be blown apart with us trying to gather the pieces, but unable to make things all right.

No matter how scary the future may be, God has a plan for our lives. God did not create us so that we could live a peaceful 70 years. That may sound nice, but God has something much better in store for us, but we need to be faithful to Him.

The bottom line is that God wants our lives spent in service to Him. The plan God has for each and every one of us is to tell and to show a lost, hurt, and dying world about His great love. We are to get involved in the lives of people. God wants us to give to the poor and reach out to the rich. His desire is for us to invite the healthy and visit the sick. The list could go on and on, but what God wants from us is to be His hands, His feet, and His mouth in this world. No matter what your future may hold you are to align your life to God’s will.

Yet another thing we need to keep in mind is that we are not in this alone. The apostle Paul wrote:

As God’s messenger, I give each of you this warning; Be honest in your estimate of yourselves, measuring your value by how much faith God has given you. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are all parts of his one body, and each of us has different work to do. And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others (Romans 12:3-5; NLT).

When the future hits and our lives become difficult we do not have to face life alone. Yes, we are still to give our lives away in service to God, but with the help and the encouragement of other Christians. The reason the future seems to be overwhelming and the reason we struggle with obeying God is because we think it is all up to us, but it is not. You and I are part of a great body, a wonderful family, and in the Church we are to find the help and the support we need to make it through

We may not have a whole lot of control over our lives, but we do know how we are to live our lives. We are to use the talents and resources God has blessed us with to be a blessing to other people. When that is our motivation then it doesn’t matter what comes our way we can be certain that God will get us to the place that He wants us to be. In the end that place will be so much better than what all our planning and worrying could have created. We need to be faithful to God in the moment and He will take care of the rest.

The Proper Response to God's Will

This morning in my devotional reading I read this from Oswald Chambers:

"It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we mistake panic for inspiration.  That is why there are so few fellow workers with God and so many workers for Him.  We would far rather work for God than believe in Him" (My Utmost for His Highest, p. 153)

There are opposite extremes that Christians make in their relationship with God.  The first extreme is that we sit and do nothing and call it waiting on God.  I know that this is the extreme I am most guilty of doing. I will fill my life with reading, meditating, and praying to avoid what I know God has called me to do.  Why do I do this?  This is my response to the fear I experience in the face of obedience.  I justify my lack of obedience and trust in God on my dedication to hearing His voice.

The other extreme is what Oswald Chambers talks about.  It is being so fearful about what is happening around us that we decide that doing something is better than doing nothing.  Rather than waiting on God's timing we try to create our own perfect opportunity.  The classic example of this is Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar.  Abraham and Sarah's fear of being childless overtook their trust in God's timing and so they decided to give God a hand rather than to wait on His plan.

So how can we find the balance in the midst of these two extremes?  I am not really sure I have an answer for that question, but I think it would begin with daily surrendering our lives to God.  One of the passages I that I have kept coming back to is Romans 12:1-2.  In this passage the apostle Paul writes:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (ESV).

I think part of our daily prayer needs to be a time when we surrender our lives, our bodies, as living sacrifices to God, to be used as He sees fit.  In this act of surrendering we open ourselves up to discovering God's will.  Once we understand what God's will is it will still require us to act in faith to do it according to His plan, but it does help us understand the type of response God desires us to have.

Trusting God With Our Lives

{James 1:1-4; ESV}

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 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.

It is no secret that life is filled with heartbreak, disappointment, tragedy, and all sorts of different trials.  We understand that God has not promised us an easy life, and that He is able to use the junk that happens to us to mature our faith and transform us into the people He created us to be.  That is why we should find joy in our suffering, because God is redeeming our pain to make us new creations.

Yet, we also know that this is easier said than done.  When our lives are going smoothly, or at least manageable, we can say, "I trust God no matter what happens."  Then the clouds descend and the storm hits and before long we are questioning God's heart.  Some times we will even begin to question His existence.

How do we make the rubber meet the road here without sounding like a cheerleader?  You know the person who says, "Just try a little harder.  You can do it.  Hang in there."  That type of encouragement is worthless.  It is like trying to encourage a guy with a compound leg facture to get up and run a marathon, "You can do it.  I am in your corner.  I will pray for you."  We would recognize such behavior as cruel, and rightly so, because the problem isn't a lack of effort but a broken leg.  Spiritual growth often isn't about a lack of effort, but it is about a wounded heart.  A heart that doesn't trust that God is good.

So how can we use the tragedy and trials in our lives to mature our faith?  I think first we have to lay a solid foundation.  This has to be done before the storms hit, because once the rain starts to fall it is going to be awfully difficult to make any progress.

Jesus said:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it" (Matthew 7:24-27; ESV)

The reason it is so important to do the listening and the obey before the storm hits is because that gives us the experience we need to remind ourselves that God is good.  He can be trusted to bring us life, even if at the moment the flood waters seem to be winning.  Yet, even in the midst of the storm this is where we need to begin.  We will not survive, we will not find healing and life, if we do not have the firm foundation of Jesus.  So even if it is pouring down rain and the flood is rising we need to spend our time trying to find the rock that will keep us from being swept away.

Second I think we need to daily surrender our lives to God.  Read what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2; ESV)

In other words we have to give up control of our lives.  The only way we will be changed is to allow God to change us.  If we are going to insist on doing things our way we will never experience the life that God wants us to have.  We won't be transformed. We won't be the salt of the earth or light of the world because we will be conformed to the world around us.  This is scary because we our handing over the reins of our lives to God, giving Him control, and trusting Him for the results.

That is where the rubber meets the road: trust.  Spiritual maturity isn't about trying harder, but it is about trusting more.  We learn to trust through experience and so prayer and obedience become the route through which our faith is grown as we come to know that God is one we can trust with our lives.

Creating Our Future

The future is the sum total of all the choices that are made in the present and in the past.  Fortunately, that sum total includes the choices made by God.

Erwin McManus, Uprising, p. 237

If we took a minute to think about it we would realize that the world we live is the product of billions of choices.  Each of every person who has every lived has had a hand in creating this world.  I think this is why the idea of parallel universes is so appealing because it helps us to think about the what ifs of life.  We can imagine what life would have been like if we would have gone out for the football team, ask a certain girl out of a date, or applied ourselves in the classroom.  Just think there might be a universe out there where I am the President of the United States!

Though we know in our hearts of hearts, as the great theologian Eddie Money taught us, we can't go back. The past is the past and we can't go back and make different choices.  Even if there were other parallel universes out there the alternate me making different or better choices doesn't affect my life.  The only life that really matters is the life that I am currently living.

I have to realize that the life that I am living right now is largely the product of the choices I have made.  Yes, I have been affected by the choices of other people, but those choices still required that I would respond in a certain way.  So it all comes down to choices.  Each day we are faced with hundreds of little choices, and those choices mold us into the people we are becoming.

This can sound a little scary.  After all I know myself and I know how often I make the wrong choice.  I know how easy it is not to exercise because I am to tired or how easy it is to eat the wrong thing (is that a Reeses Peanut Cup Blizzard calling my name?) because my body is craving it.  Each and everyone of us have tired to become a different person, we have had the good intentions, and we have fallen short.  Let me encourage you: Things can be different!

First we have to realize that our problem with making the wrong choice often comes from the fact that we are lead by our flesh.  Our flesh focuses on the immediate and satisfying our bodily desires.  It is our flesh which leads us to sin.  It was Eve's flesh that convinced her to listen to the voice of Satan and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It was Adam's flesh that caused him to desire Eve more than he desired God.  

Read what Paul wrote about the flesh:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:5-8; ESV).

When our choices are guided by the flesh we are unable to please God and to live the way He wants us to live.  Thank God our lives and our futures are not totally dependent on our choices.  We can have different lives because of the choices God has made.  That is the good news!  God's choices are added into the equation of our choices to shape the future.

Earlier in Romans Paul wrote:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:6-11; ESV)

You see because God made the choice not to give up on humankind He did whatever it took to save us from sin, to rescue us from death, and to give us new life.  He did this, not based on our good choices, but based on His character.  God desired that we would be able to live lives which were guided by the Spirit and not the flesh.  In this way we would have the resources we need to make good decisions.

Our futures are created by the choices that are made.  Our lives are affected by our choices, the choices of the people around us, the choices of Satan, and most importantly the choices of our Heavenly Father.  The reality that God is active in the world and in our lives is the good news that has the ability to change the trajectory of our lives. We can be different people and our futures shaped when we open our hearts to the choices God has made in this world.  Thank God our futures are not totally dependent on the choices we make!

Momentum in Our Finances Part 4

(I am teaching three sessions at a local Christian Conference called Momentum on March 19.  The first session deals with our finances and using them for God's Kingdom.  I have broken the talk up into 5 different sections.  This is part number 4.)

To have momentum in our finances means to have the financial freedom to use our money for God's Kingdom.  In these tight and troubling economic times it is difficult to feel like we are able to do that.  Financial freedom begins with trusting God.  There are two thoughts connected with trusting God with our money.  The first thought is that we have been called to be stewards.  Too many of us see ourselves as consumers rather than stewards and so we don't live disciplined financial lives and we pile up debt.  Remember we are managing God's wealth.

The second thought is: We are called to be generous. Followers of Jesus Christ are not to hoard the gifts we receive from God, but we are to share those gifts with other people. As responsible stewards we are to direct God’s resources so they can benefit other people. This is what we see in Acts 2:

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. 

A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47; NLT)

These early Christians shared what they had with one another so the people who were in need would not be in want. The reason they lived this way was because they didn’t see what they owned as their personal property, rather it belonged to God. So the extra coat in the closest wasn’t their coat, but it was God’s coat, and they were responsible for making sure it was put to good use.

The concept of being generous is tied to our giving. One of the commands God has given to His stewards is to give. Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount said; “Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow” (Matthew 5:42; NLT). It isn’t up to us to ferret out the swindlers from the truly needy (though I do think wisdom needs to be involved in our giving, but it is better to error on the side of being duped), it is up to us to give to those in need. That doesn’t mean that we give the person exactly what they ask for, but rather what we can afford to give or what we think will best meet their need. Peter and John didn't have money to give to the crippled beggar (Acts 3:6), but through the Holy Spirit they had the ability to heal the man. So maybe it is buying groceries for the person rather than simply giving them money or giving a person a ride rather than allowing them to use your extra car. They might reject your help, but that is on them and not on your lack of generosity.

We also give to share in the work of the Church. We are not all called into the same level of ministry, and that is okay, because we are all part of one big body, and the body needs the talents, gifts, and resources of each member. It is proper then for people not called into paid ministry to provide for those who are. 1 Timothy 5:17-18 reads:

Elders who do their work well should be respected and paid well, especially those who work hard at both preaching and teaching.  For the Scripture says, “You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain.” And in another place, “Those who work deserve their pay!” (NLT)

It is not a bad thing to have a ministry staff that gets paid for their efforts. In fact it is a very beneficial thing because it provides for a division of labor. The person who is paid is freed to use their time teaching, preaching, studying, and praying. It is in this manner that we can become partners with those people doing the work of ministry. In Philippians 1:3-6 Paul writes:

Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy,  for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now.  And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. (NLT)

The primary way the Philippians have partnered with Paul in his mission is through their financial support. They gave the fruit of the labors to Paul so Paul could spend his time preaching, teaching, and praying. So while we might not be gifted in these areas of service, we can make it possible for those who are to focus their lives in doing ministry.

So how much should we give? That is the question we want to know. There are many thoughts out there on this topic, and I will share mine. The standard for giving that runs through Scripture is generosity. The Law laid out that this generosity began with a tithe, 10% of the first fruits of a person’s labor, but there was other giving required according to the Law so the poor would be taken care of, the needs of the priests met, and sins atoned for. Remember a sacrifice was an additional expense families had to pay in order to worship God.

I think a good rule of thumb would be 10% of our income be given to our local church families for the purpose of supporting the ministries they have decided are important (local ministries and mission work), but that our are giving also includes supporting missions, ministries, and organizations that we think are important.

This concept of generosity is also tied to our hospitality. Peter writes; Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay (1 Peter 4:9; NLT). Paul writes; When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality (Romans 12:13; NLT). We need to open up our homes and set a table for people so they can share in the abundance that God has given to us.

 In God’s Kingdom our homes do not become our castles where we hide behind the walls from the rest of the world, instead they become places of rest and refuge for people traveling through the world. We should pray that our homes be a place of love, light, truth, and rest so that the people who visit us will be blessed by being there. We need to be willing to open our homes to other people, because we remember our houses are not ours but rather God’s property.

Why can we generous with what we have? Because we trust that God will provide for our needs. Paul writes to the Philippians:

At the moment I have all I need—and more! I am generously supplied with the gifts you sent me with Epaphroditus. They are a sweet-smelling sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God.  And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:18-19; NLT)

God is able to provide for all of our needs through His glorious power. When we are generous we are able to experience that power at work in our lives providing for what we need.

Momentum in Our Finances Part 3

(I am teaching three sessions at a local Christian Conference called Momentum on March 19.  The first session deals with our finances and using them for God's Kingdom.  I have broken the talk up into 5 different sections.  This is part number 3.)

In these uncertain economic times, when prices get higher and our bank accounts get lower, it is important to trust God.  Only by trusting God can we experience momentum in our finances.  What do I mean by that?  When we trust God we discover the freedom to use our financial resources for the glory of God's Kingdom.  What does it look like to trust God with our finances?  Let me give you two thoughts.

The first thought is: We are called to be stewards. We are the recipients of a number of great blessings from God. Paul wrote:

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. (Romans 12:6-8; NLT)

The apostle Paul tells us that God has given each of us gifts and our responsibility is to use those gifts to the best of our ability. Peter has this same thought in 1 Peter 4:10-11:

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen. (NLT)

In essence this is what stewardship is all about. Stewardship is the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care, and that is exactly what the two apostles tell us to do with the gifts that we are given, which includes our money.

The key to this is remembering that the things in our possession are ultimately not ours, but they are on loan from God, for everything is His. It is up to us to use what we have been given for His purposes. Now stop and consider for a moment what that means, not only for your money, but all your possessions. Yes, some of these things are necessary for life, but that doesn’t give us the freedom to be wasteful or sinful with what we have. The bottom line is that many of us struggle with our finances because we forget that we are just stewards of God’s resources.

That is why the #1 thing we must do when it comes to being good stewards of God’s financial resources is to live by a budget. What happens when we don’t live by a budget, and I know this from personal experience, is that our money slips through our fingers in small but non-essential purchases. A budget gives us the ability to direct our money to go where we want it to go, in a prayerful and thoughtful way, rather than letting it go through impulse or immediate gratification.

If we are going to be good stewards of God’s resources not only do we need to live by a budget, but we also need to avoid debt. The major contributor to our present economic crisis is debt. We are under the false impression that a healthy economy requires many consumers, and that even if people go into debt in order to consume it is a good thing because the money that will flow from the consumption will cause job creation.

One of the reasons we know this to be false is because a lifestyle of credit and debt is unsustainable. We cannot continue to spend tomorrow’s money today without having to face the consequences of those decisions. Debt is what happens when we see ourselves as consumers rather than stewards. As God’s people we are called to avoid debt. Consider this from Proverbs: The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender (Proverbs 22:7; ESV). In other words when we are in debt, when we have used money that was not in our possession, our time and money belongs to the person who lent us the money, and usually the privilege of borrowing comes with a fee (interest). How much of your monthly budget goes to pay-off past obligations that you are now responsible for?

Debt restricts how we can use the financial resources God sends our way. No wonder the apostle Paul wrote: Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law (Romans 13:8; NLT). Now we might want to justify ourselves and say that we need to have credit in our society, but that just isn’t the case. Yes, much of our society is now built on the assumption of people using credit, but we do not have to live that way. In fact, what God wants us to understand is that good stewards refuse to go into debt, let alone allow the debt/credit cycle be a way of life.

Just as an aside, since this reality isn't something we consider, is that credit also inflates prices.  In other words the easy availability of credit makes things more expensive then they need to be. The reason it does this is because easy credit creates artificial demand. That is in part what happened to the housing market, easy credit was extended to people which enabled more people to buy houses, which created what seemed to be this huge market for houses, so existing house prices skyrocketed in value and new homes were built to satisfy this apparent demand. The reality was that there wasn’t enough real money to support that demand, and thus you had the housing market bubble burst. The best thing to do is buy with your savings, which is the essence of free market capitalism.

God has given us the gift of wealth and we are to be good managers of that wealth. That means we are to use it for His purposes first and foremost and it also means that we should not be wasteful of it. Our money ultimately isn’t ours, but it is a loan from God. May we manage it well.

Making the Choice of Freedom

{Romans 6:15-20; NLT} 

Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living. Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right.

While freedom is a God-given gift there remains certain choices that will either help us live a life of freedom or a life of restriction. For example, if you decide to murder someone, that choice will rob you of freedom. Even if you were able to get away with the crime and therefore didn’t have to spend the rest of your life behind bares, the guilt of the deed you committed and the constant fear of being caught would hamper your ability to enjoy being on the outside of the prison bars.

Here is another, much more practical, example. The choice to use credit to furnish a lifestyle way above your means will lead to the reality that you will be enslaved to your creditors. By spending tomorrow’s morning today you limit what you can do in the future because there is already a group of people who have a legal claim to your money. Not only that, because of the interest that will also have to be paid you will actually be paying more for your things than what they are worth. Your freedom is hindered by the choice that you made.

Our choices will either lead us to greater levels of freedom or they will restrict the freedom that we already enjoy. There are many choices, both large and small, that we make that will end up taking away our freedom. Our freedom and our choices are eternally connected. Ponder for a moment what Erwin McManus wrote:

“Not all free acts lead to freedom. The choices you freely make may cost you a life of genuine freedom. This is why the Bible talks about the human experience in terms of being slaves to sin. Sin creates the illusion of freedom; it fools us into seeking freedom from God rather than finding freedom in God.
“Whatever else Jesus came to do, one thing is clear—He came to set you free. God is not a warden; He is a deliverer. And so earnest is He about your freedom that He was willing to be taken captive and crucified on your behalf just so you can run free” (Stand Against the Wind; p. 14).

If we are going to be free we have to make those choices that bring and enhance the freedom in our lives. This requires that we look towards the future and not just live in the moment. We have to think about the consequences of our actions and ask the question; “What is the true cost of my behavior?” Ultimately we have to realize that a life lived apart from Christ Jesus is a life that is devoid of freedom. Only Jesus has the power to rescue us from the slavery of sin.

In Romans 6:15-20 the apostle Paul tells us that we have to make a choice. We can choose to continue to allow sin to control us, or we can give ourselves over to righteousness. What Paul is asking us to do is to establish disciplines in our lives that help train us train to live lives of holiness, and in this way experience freedom.

The follower of Jesus is free because they have given themselves over to Jesus’ way of living life. We devote our lives to the study of God’s Word, to being part of a Christian community, to taking time to celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death, and to seeking God’s guidance and blessing through prayer (Acts 2:42). There are other disciplines that I could mention, but these are the basic four that the early church used to grow in faith and freedom.

We need to be devoted to disciplines because that is the way we learn to live in freedom. A person of faith is like a jazz improviser. This musician has learned the chords and studied the music so much that they understand where the song going. The discipline of practicing the music gives them the ability to stay true to the song, even when they go off on their own. The jazz musician has freedom to improvise because they have been a slave to the music.

When we devote ourselves to holiness through observing the spiritual disciplines of the Christian faith we are able to live with freedom because we know our purpose in life and we know where life is heading. These to realizations help us make the right choices in all the thousands of different situations we face in our lives. We are able to do the right thing because we have chose to surrender our lives to following Jesus.

True freedom is not found in doing whatever we want to do, but it is discovered in choosing to do the right thing. We discover what the right thing is when we train our lives in righteousness, but that is a choice that we have to make. Jesus came and opened up the way to freedom, now we have to decide whether or not we will take it.