the art of following darkness

It's tragic and grieves my heart that so many people, believers and non-believers, walk through life being comfortable with mediocrity. They are not troubled with the fact that sin continues to reoccur daily with little or no remorse. Not many of us truly grieve for the sins that we've committed. We are taught at some point in this lifetime to look through "the eyes of reason" (Oswald Chambers). Surely, if we can educate ourselves and acquire the basic knowledge we need to make it, then we will someday evolve into a life passionately lived for God. It is sin that has caused this mindset. One will never be able to control sin without the Father. Sin is impulsive, foolish, and unmanageable. It is a simple fact of life and we go on everyday not recognizing that it will overshadow God in our lives and it will kill the life we have with God. For too many of us this is accepted or overlooked. We let sin get in the way of our thinking. It changes our focus from being on God to the worries we have, the relationships we are in, the hassles of everyday life, etc. We must choose to abide in Christ or have sin in our lives, because we cannot have both. One must kill the other.

When will it grieve your heart to sin against God? If sin does not bring grief to your heart read two passages for me (Hebrews 10:26-39, Isaiah 53) and then if it still doesn't, I ask you to examine your heart. We are content with the art of following darkness. The art of following darkness can be several variations of a believers walk, but it comes down to this:



they follow their own selfish ambitions, they won't let go of their old self, and they confuse or make their ambitions the false will of God in their life. They are following darkness when this is occurring; there is no lamp to lead them through the paths in the darkness (2 Samuel 22:29). If this is the case, I ask you, where is your heart? Our relationship with God has become second, third, or nineteenth to other "more important" things. The thought process of believers is like this so often. It's not that God is always in some other position than first in our lives because at times He is our main focus but what will it take for us to, daily, make God our supreme focus. "When God is the supreme hunger of our hearts, he will be supreme in everything." John Piper
Reference -- Desire and Hunger for God: Psalm 42, Psalm63, Psalm 73:25, Psalm 143:6, Isaiah 26:8&9, and Amos 8:11.

Do you want to base your life on your business success or worldly goals, or do you want to build your life with God (John 14:23, 1 John 2:15-17). When I was approaching graduation from Levelland High School, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So I turned to those closest to me and we pondered and discussed what I would be good at. We (I say we because it was never fully my decision, I always listened to others) came to the conclusion that I should major in engineering. I mean it made perfect sense. I loved math and science and I had a foot in the door with an oilfield company. My decision was made and for two and a half years of school I stuck with it. Everything was going as planned, the deeper in got into school the closer I was to getting a job and being a success. I would graduate from Texas A&M University and I had a job practically waiting on me. Nothing could stray my focus away from my goals and I would be wealthy and totally happy, with financial security, within five years. I was set. Then, it all fell apart. The girl I had been dating for the past three and a half years was no longer apart of my life. To my recollection we broke up just to see if we would stay broken up, basically. I hated engineering and I decided to drop out of all of my classes for the semester. It was at this point that God began to push my eyelids open that I might be able to see him again. One night in my parent's house in the first of January of 2001 He broke me. I've never seen my ambitions the same. In fact, those desires of wealth and prosperity have been gone since that day. I had once been a person who worked God into my life. I was once a follower of my own selfish ambitions and I always had good intentions of changing them, but it would be on my time, at my convenience. I was apart of, as A. W. Tozer said, "A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions, and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit; these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul." Have we become an age of believers that adjusts God to our lifestyles and ambitions? Yes, far too many of us have. And I'll quote Tozer one more time. He said, "Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and bring Him nearer to our own image." Are our egos this big and our pride too hard to swallow, that we would attempt to change the God that gives us life every morning?

Where is your heart? Is it focused on your plans for your future or is it consumed with the Word of God and the desire for Him? Ask God to examine your heart (Psalm 26:2). He has called us to search our hearts so that the desires we harbor are revealed to us (2 Corinthians 13:5, Lamentations 3:40). I urge you not to be worried that God will reveal your shortcomings. He will rather reveal to you his love and let you know the nature of your heart. If your heart is focused on God, He will most definitely encourage you and push you in the direction to grow. I challenge you to not only examine your heart but when God reveals things to you, do not turn your back (Deuteronomy 28:14) to him like you've done in the past but kneel before Him.
Father, I bow my head at your feet realizing that you are my God. Every ounce of you radiates your glory, and I ask you to allow me to glorify your name in my life. Take my heart and show me. My desire is you, my hunger is you and I pray that you will take me deeper with you. Increase this appetite for your knowledge and truth. May I be able to speak of you in the morning and throughout my day, please bless me with those opportunities. Take my heart in your hands and mold me. You are my love, my rock, my heart and soul. I love you. -- Amen

read the rest of this blog:.

a dot on the timeline

When I think about “God’s timing” I often think of how He provided something for me at just the “right” time or how I received something I wanted. When we look at the issue of God’s timing are we really looking at the timing of when things do or do not occur? Or is this an issue more along the lines of trust and faith?

Hebrews 11:1 is a well known scripture about faith, “now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

What do you hope for?

Are you still in waiting?

What kind of evidence can you have if you can’t see it?

What does it mean by “the substance of things hoped for”?

For so many of us, I feel that we have faith in the things that we “hope” will happen. We hope we get that job, we hope the right person will come along, we hope that the sickness will be cured, etc.

But that mentality raises a question: “does our faith stay intact if what we are hoping for doesn’t become a reality?” what if you don’t get the job we were hoping for, what if you’re single at 45…still, what if the cancer continues to spread regardless of medicine, chemo, specialists and prayer?
What if none of the things you’ve been praying, hoping and telling yourself, “it will happen when God is ready for it to happen.”?
What do you do when the grad school you’ve been working toward getting into for the last 5 years doesn’t accept you?
How do you respond when it feels like God slams the door in your face?

Will your faith stay intact?
Will you “always” praise Him?
Will your faith be shaken so hard it is reduced to rubble?

and if your faith is shaken when your hopes don’t become a reality, did you ever have faith in God or was your faith in what we have been hoping for?

All too often we, as Christians birthed into a world of convenience, think that God will and should give



us what we pray for. Isn’t this what God is supposed to do. We take scripture and abuse it, twist it and distort it’s original intentions to comfort our own version of God. But when we do this, aren’t we killing God and replacing Him with our own warped version so that we might be able to explain why things have been going the way they have. Because there is absolutely no way that all of this stuff could be our doing….right?

How do you wrestle with the scripture that states, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” when you’re praying daily for something and it never comes?

Do you feel like God gives you the desires of your heart? Why? Or Why Not?

There are a couple of ways you can look God giving (or not giving) you the desires or your heart: 1) you can turn around from the closed door and find an open door. Isn’t this feeling why we’ve always been taught, “when one door closes another one opens?”

The other outlook: Perhaps God is not trying to shut a door in your face to show you the correct path to take, but maybe He wants to see how persistent and passionate you feel to go through that door.

Maybe, just maybe, He wants you to push harder in the direction you’ve been asked to run.

Maybe He is trying to teach your persistence and endurance?

Maybe He is giving you a taste of what Job felt with the hardships of life to see if you’re faith is strong even when it’s shaken?


Romans 5:1 – 5 says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”


Don’t miss that Our Faith is backed by our Hope.


Many people have confused the idea of having faith in an answer to prayers and having faith in the Will of God.

Have we confused faith in God with faith in an answer or a solution?

I think these are two totally different outlooks. Faith in God requires patience. It requires an understanding that God is outside of our realm of thinking, our realm of time and therefore our realm of “timing”. We think of time as past, present, future, but all that we can see is the present. We can only see where we are at on the timeline at this moment. Think of it as you being a dot on a timeline. All you see is what today brings. God sees time in a whole different realm of understanding. He is like a man holding our timeline in His hand. He can move it up, down, left, right, etc. He can move it in any direction He wishes to see what He needs to see. He can see the past, present and future; the beginning and the end. We see a two dimensional world while God lives in a three dimensional world.


It has been said that we are a microwave society. We expect answers quickly. We want results now, not tomorrow and surely not next year but NOW.

I wonder if this mindset killing our faith in God?

Is it causing us to give up on Faith too quickly because we can’t see all that God is doing behind the scenes? We don’t see what needs to take place for three years before our next step can be taken. It’s hard to realize that one small step for us effects everyone around us and vice versa.

God constantly works behind the scenes.

Take a look at a few facts about the Birth of Christ and see how God worked behind the scenes to orchestrate everything with precise timing for the birth of Christ as well as how the times helped the quick spread of the gospel.
• Jesus was born in the reign of the roman emperor augustus. There are countless things we could talk about with Augustus. The fact that he set up a 12 day celebration called the advent of ceasar. He was known as a god who was sent to save the world from their sins.
• Before the birth of Christ was an extended period of wars which racked the Mediterranean region and gave Rome the power that it needed to gain control. After Rome gained control over the region political unity was no longer an issue which freed up traveling problems between nation to nation… it was all Roman territory.
• The Roman Government established roadways between provinces for quicker travel and trade, which would make an escape from the country easier -- if needed.
• Once the Romans came to power a unified language came into existence. Just think how difficult the gospel would be to spread if the language from region to region would have been different.

If Christ would have been born 200 years earlier, how would History have been different? Would all of the prophecies have been fulfilled? Would you be where you are today, reading this?

It takes us being alert and in tune with the spirit to understand and appreciate God’s timing. There isn’t an easy formula for doing God’s will, and we shouldn’t be too quick to think we grasp his plans. God has dramatically different plans for our lives. All of us are on different timelines and His way doesn’t always make the most sense or look the most appealing.

Consider:
• a young, teenage jewish girl conceives a child miraculously. At times God is ready for us to move before we think it is logical to do so.
• this teenager gives birth to a son who will save the world in a humble stable. Sometimes we think we’re unprepared to do something because we lack certain material luxuries. These luxuries may not be necessary to carry out what Christ wants us to do.
• Christ calls two young brothers, who were most likely around 15 years old, from a small fishing village of 300 people -- they were uneducated; they were mere fisherman (a lower occupation on the totem pole); they were what we would consider to be “the JV team”. We don’t always have to have the “proper” qualifications (by the world’s standards) to serve God. God changed the face of the world with the JV team!

What does faith in God look like?

How do we practice a trust in God’s timing?

Perhaps are prayers haven’t been answered yet because we aren’t to that scene of the movie yet.

Perhaps we aren’t focused on God.

Perhaps the situation around us isn’t ready for us to do what we feel called to do.

If we want to have a peace about God’s timing, we must be willing to give Him our time.

.:rustinklafka

read the rest of this blog:.

the humdrum church

i wonder how often we do things just because we've always done them. how many times have we given our 10% on sunday mornings just becuase it's what you're "supposed to do". for goodness sake, it's what a "good christian" does... right? or have you ever stood up in church to sing a hymn because everyone else was standing to sing? have you ever taken communion and not examined your heart before doing so? do you even know what communion symbolizes? i mean, you take the bread and the "wine", or grape juice in good churches because christians don't drink wine, much less drink wine in church, and we take these elements, we chew, swallow, and then it's done???

we could sit and go through countless rituals that we participate in on a regular basis. some every sunday, some every quarter, some once a year. the point is that we do so much stuff because we've always done it and because our parents did it. have you ever wondered why some churches are so stale on sunday morning? ever wondered why sometimes church is incredibly boring? let's be honest here, some churches feel more like being in prison than having freedom.

have you ever wondered why we do some of the things we do as christians? no, no, no.... my mistake... if forgot that we don't question the church. because questions are bad. where did all of these rituals and traditions that we participate in on sundays come from? and what would people think if you didn't stand up and sing the first hymn, but instead you sat with your head down and prayed for God to prepare your heart for that day? am i saying that traditional church is wrong.... NO. my question is this: WHY DO WE DO THE THINGS WE DO IN CHURCH, OR IN THE NAME OF THE CHURCH?

have we reduced walking with God down to a list of rituals and traditions that have somehow come to be "the way" to commune with Him? did you know that 80% of christians say that they can't remember the last time they truly felt connected to God... 80%!!!!

why is that?




maybe, one reason, is because every sunday is the same old thing.
you get to church,
sing your first song,
then a prayer,
then another song,
then meet and greet time (if you're at a baptist church),
the a couple of more songs, but no more than three because that would put us past our alotted time to be in church,
then a prayer so the band sneak off of stage magically without anyone seeing and the pastor can come up to the pulpit,
then the message comes with it's 3 points that all start with the same letter or rhyme or something to help you remember,
then prayer,
an alter call (again a baptist thing),
and here is where we switch it up, some do an offering now along with anouncements, others just a song and you're done.

wow, what a glorious treat. i don't want to sound like i think the church is doing things wrong, because God definitely teaches me on sundays, and He is definitely present. i am simply curious as to how much we limit Him when we give 25-35 minutes to speak through a pastor and a total of 50 minutes to an hour to work in our lives one day a week.

let's face it, for many of us our spiritual life exist on sunday mornings only... which is a prime reason why christianity has the wrap it does. so many people claim christianity but have no clue what Christ was about. some of us support oppression. some of us support murder by way of execution. some of us support peace by way of war. some of us look the other way so we don't see the poverty stricken, the homeless (and i've heard the arguement that "i don't give money to the homeless because i don't know where they'll spend it." what kind of outlook is this. i'm glad Christ didn't say, "i'm not giving my grace to rustin because there will be times when he abuses it and takes it for granted.") we fail to lay down our lives next to scripture to see how we might need to change. instead we take our americanized minds and let our culture, traditions, rituals, etc. regulate what scripture says and how it applies to us. do we change God to fit into our plan or do we allow God to change us to fit His plan.

it just seems that we've turned this beautiful thing (church) into a short list of meaningless rituals and traditions so that we can stay comfortable. it sounds remarkably like stories i've read about the pharisees.

why are we so scared to change?

isn't change a good thing when you're searching for God?

when did we start teaching that the church has to do this, this, this and this in order to be consider a Godly establishment? where are we taking the church when we aren't willing to suck up our pride and allow God to reveal the things in us that need to change. i guarantee you, everyone of us, has something that must change. if we go to church, because it is what we've always done... why go? and if you're going to church but you're unwilling to look more like the Jesus of scripture, not the domesticated Jesus of american, why go? i can tell you alot of other things that you could do that would be easier and you get to sleep in on sundays.

just think (i love this analogy), on the way home today i buy my wife her favorite flowers. she is very surprised and excited but then she asks me, "why would you do something so sweet?" what if i said, "well, they were on sale, so..." or what if i said, "the shop was on the way home and it was right next to the gas station i filled up at, so it was convenient." or what if i said, "haven't you been saying you wanted flowers?" after hearing something like this, does she even want the flowers anymore?

NO.

WHY?

because she doesn't want flowers to be given out of convenience or cause she asked me to. she wants me to give her flowers because it is what i wanted to do FROM MY HEART. she doesn't want flowers, she wants my heart.

is this the way God feels?

God doesn't want us to give 10% because we have to, He wants us to give because we want to and forget 10%. God wants us to give what we feel led to give. it talks about this in Corinthians. when we give out of habit it is an empty ritual. God tells us in scripture that He doesn't want empty rituals, He wants our hearts. if God doesn't have your heart, then all of your words, and actions don't mean anything. without heart being the basis for all that we do, it is all empty. we can go to all of the bible studies, prayer groups, sunday services, mass, retreats, conferences, we can bless all the food we eat, but if we are simply going through the motions it doesn't mean anything. what's the point?

are we becoming like the people in the book of isaiah? scripture says that these people honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him.

why give to a church? does God need that money???? NO. Psalms 53 says,

i don't think God can stand it when we sit and put on some religious entertainment on sundays and then we leave through the big doors to go out into a world filled with brokenness, hopeless people, addicts, prostitutes, the poor, the hyper-religious, and we do nothing to help change the world.

well, we say we care but a caring heart produces action. when you're heart breaks for the homeless and you actually do something to help change their situation, you're becoming more like Christ.

God wants our hearts. when God has our hearts, then we will start to care about the people God cares about. we will no longer be able to ignore them. our heart will be burdened by anyone who is broken in anyway. this is when we will realize that we can change the face of the earth; you can make a difference.

remember, "the church" isn't a building. "the church" is the people who follow Christ. it is a people who's hearts are beating more like that of Jesus every day.

we are the church. we are the church.

and perhaps you've been turned off by the hyper-religious and judgmental people who occupy pews, but guess what... so is God. so am i.

please don't confuse "religion" with God. some people do this and end up walking away from both. the point isn't "christianity" or baptist, or methodist, or catholic, or church of Christ... the point is following Jesus.

it's being connected with all that is true, and right, with all that reminds us that there is more going on around us than we realize.


peace be with you

.:rustinklafka


read the rest of this blog:.

ripping apart my reality

the closer christmas gets the more excited i get. my heart gets all worked up thinking about the books on my "wish list" that i'll be receiving. i look forward to exploring life, love, the Word, God, with men and women like abraham joshua heschel (one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century -- read him), brennan manning, shane claiborne, rob bell, neil cole, donald miller, brian mclaren, dallas willard, margaret feinberg, dave eggars and john sanders. it's going to be a good year for reading.

even though these books get me excited, they don't cause my heart to pound with excitement like giving presents to those people i've bought for. i can't wait to give l'ray her gift, i put so much time into. i'm really excited to give my nephew and my son their first pair of vans.... how cool is that.

but (there is always a "but" isn't there?), God has began to rip apart my reality of Him and where the gospel lives. as if wrecking my concept of Him isn't enough, God has began to cause me to search for what the church looks like.

the more i read the gospels and examine the life of Christ, the more i see a God who surrounded himself with the poor, the marginalized, the outcast. about six weeks ago a group of around 8 of us went to downtown lubbock to hangout with the homeless. we went not armed with gospel tracks telling the homeless how a regurgitation of words can save them, but we journeyed, armed with bottled water, sandwiches and clothes stuffed in the back of a suv. we had no intentions of making "converts" we went simply to minister to the broken.

the funny thing is, we were ministered to. that morning my heart was heavy. i didn't talk to anyone we encountered for the first 45 minutes of our time downtown. an increasing weightiness fell upon my soul and i just sat on the steps of the library and cried and prayed. finally i stood up and walked over to a veranda just east of the library and sat down next to a man; a scruffy, dirty, smelly and oddly positive man. as i sat and talked with russell i learned that he had been homeless in the central texas/dallas area (i give the region because the homeless are nomads) and early this summer his lost all of his possession, not that he had much, in the floods. as russell continued to talk about farming when he was young and how he couldn't remember what happened to cause himself to be homeless i saw him not for his dirtiness, but rather for his ordinary nature. his life was a gradual slide, down the hill from middle class farmer past the coldness of poverty and into the ravine of homelessness. the more he talked the more his smile faded and five minutes into our conversation he wasn't as cheerful as he was when i first handed a couple of ham sandwiches and a bottle of water. russell went on to tell me that he lost his best friend in the floods this year, that's why he moved to lubbock.

the more he talked, the more i could see the memories flow behind his eyes and fill his heart with grief.


you see, the homeless form networks of communities. they form families with others that are homeless. they are a family of outcast in a world of "normalcy". so for russell to lose his best friend, meant he lost everyone he loved and everyone that loved him... something else that i noticed about the homeless -- they don't take more than they need. i tried to give them an abundance of water, or clothes (particularly socks... homeless people need socks the worst) but they wouldn't take it. they would look at me when i offered a third sandwich for the 8 time, "we don't need it, it's too much".

i was taught more about God in two hours of conversation with 5 homeless people, than i've learned on sunday mornings in the past 5 years. sad but true. men and women of no education (russell dropped out to farm when he was 10) blessed me with a new understanding of God unlike anything i've had before. and the funny thing was.... they didn't even know what they were teaching. they were simply being open and vulnerable.

i could tell you about how i've learned that the vast majority of the homeless would love to change their situation but it's hard to get hired when you look like and smell like them. therefore it's hard to push up off the ground when you can't get a start. i could tell you how God was in russell, in marlin, in "cowboy", in an older couple who sleep in mackenzie park, and how He began to reveal to me that He can't be defined by theology. i could tell you how my "doctrine and belief statements" had no merit in the wake of the homeless. i could tell you how God started opening my eyes to the fact that theology is a funny word to Him. i could tell you a million things but i haven't started that book yet, so we'll stick with one thing.

as i sit in the comfort of my life God tears my heart apart for the poor. He opens me up and pours in the reality of the kingdom. the kingdom of God is a kingdom of service, not a kingdom of power. every time God begins to teach me something, He starts by breaking me and causing my mind and heart to search not only the depths of Him but of myself. With every self searching moment, He places a question in my heart. today the question has evolved into questions. "why do we wait until christmas to give a can of food or give our excess to charity? how can we truly live a life that resembles that of Christ and not know the poor?"

"christmas giving" is a beautiful glimpse into the heart of Christ and His generosity, but it's only a glimpse. i'm struggling to remember the scripture in which Christ tells us to give to our local salvation army and they will clothe the poor. it's vague but i don't recall scripture saying, "when i was hungry, you brought a can of food to the food bank at christmas and they fed me." i'm not sure i've got those right....

Christ specifically says in matthew, "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’" for many christians today (or grouping us into "churches") the poor and oppressed are kept in an alternate world, but we can access this mysteriously misread world through our local food bank. shane claiborne said, "the church becomes a distribution center, a place where the poor come to get stuff and the rich come to dump stuff. both go away satisfied (the rich feel good, the poor get clothed and fed), but no one leaves transformed... Jesus did not set up a program but modeled a way of living that incarnated the reign of God, a community in which people are reconciled and our debts are forgiven just as we forgive our debtors (all economic words). that reign did not spread through organizational establishments or structural systems. it spread like disease -- through touch, through breath, through life. it spread through people infected by love."

are we so obsessed with creating multi-million dollar buildings to "reach" thousands so that we can build more, preach more, and sing more? i'm beginning to wonder where Jesus is in all this expansion. i wonder where Christ fits into our five year plan when all it involves is having more services and a fuller sanctuary while the hungry stay hungry and the homeless stay homeless. i'm struggling with our focus on expanding our territory and target demographic all the while spending millions on metal and wood; metal and wood that don't construct anything significant. we are so focused on the latest culturally relevant idea to pull more people in that we've forgotten about what millions of dollars would do for the homeless in our area.

WHAT WOULD A MILLION DOLLARS DO IN LUBBOCK TEXAS FOR THE HOMELESS?

WHAT IF CHURCHES STOPPED CONSTRUCTING BUILDINGS AND STARTED BUILDING COMMUNITIES?

community doesn't come through the front doors of a church. community leaves the front doors and goes to the masses pushed to the margins and sits with them in love, in encouragement, sharing everything they have.

when did we make Christ look like a sunday morning preacher?

what does your congregation look like? anyone homeless? anyone poor? anyone different than you? if not, then do something about it?

excuses for disregarding the outcast aren't enough anymore...

where did we go astray?

i think i'll leave this one like this... open ended for you to search for yourself. i don't want anyone to feel guilted into relationships because all that does is cause more hurt for someone else.


may you search today. may your heart be troubled. may you cry for the broken and be led to do something about it.


peace be with you,

.:rustinklafka

read the rest of this blog:.

is the blood of a bull enough?

it seems with every high there is a low to follow. Perhaps I'm the only one who experiences life this way, but this cycle of ups and downs sometimes seems exhausting; doesn't it?

the holidays were fantastic, as a whole. I had only a day and a half of work and then just rest and relaxation the rest of the week, or so i thought. immediately following thursday's festivities with the family, my exhaustion began to set in. it wasn't the tired physical exhaustion, it was something much heavier and much greater. this exhaustion was a spiritual thing (since we know there is no separation between the physical and the spiritual). by the time sunday rolled around, i simply wanted to lay down and die. my spirit was spent.


i woke up sunday morning, not wanting to get ready for church in the slightest way, but my son (kye) was being dedicated and i wasn't going to miss that for anything. when church finally started, worship seemed stale for me, and then brad gets up to speak and i didn't hear a thing he said. i began to journal. i wrote more than i have in years.

all of these things started flowing out of me.

the entire weekend i had been praying for forgiveness and asking God to relieve me of my sins, so that i could move on and not feel so burdened. i had been praying for release. but when i was journaling, God was revealing to me what was holding me back. He was trying to show me what i had in front of my eyes causing me to not be able to see Him.

during the message sunday i wrote this, “father, why can’t i shake the things that cause me to fall? i want to. every time i fall i don’t know what to do next. when i fall flat on my face it’s always harder to get back up than it was the last time. what shall I do out of my mistakes? should I forget my mistakes? should my memories be forgotten?

so, if Christ has forgiven me and put my sins behind Him (out of His memory), that’s what I should do. i need to forget my shortcomings. IT’S HARD FOR CHRIST TO USE A MAN WHO ISN’T CONSUMED WITH HIM BUT RATHER IS CONSUMED WITH PAST MEMORIES THAT HE GIVES TO SATAN TO USE.”

it's funny how Christ reveals our thoughts, our beliefs, our hearts to us when we dive into deep conversation with Him or even when we dive into great discussion with someone else and we are totally open and vulnerable. God has always had this unique ability to show me my true nature when i have deep, rich conversations with the people i'm closest to.

God began to reveal to me just exactly what holds me down with the greatest strength. For me, the greatest thing that holds me down are the memories of my sins. It’s not the sins themselves, it’s being reminded of how I’ve messed up. It’s not my sins that cause me to stop focusing on God; it’s the guilt of doing what I’ve done. In essence, it’s my thoughts that hinder my walk the most.

my thoughts hinder me… how crazy is that idea?

and after sunday things were going pretty well. i began to feel relief from these thoughts that held me so captive. then... sunday night i had the strangest dream. it was so vivid. it was one of those dreams that you wake up from and think, "man, was i just dreaming or did that just happen?" it was that real.

it was a dream filled with my past. issues that years ago i struggled with. issues of the gigantic "what if?" it's those thoughts that kill us in themselves much less having a dream that brought them all back up again. so, needless to say, all of monday my head was full of these memories. i had no intentional communion with God.

once again my memories were killing my soul.

my thoughts were not mine, nor did God have my focus.

that night i began to wonder, "who am i giving my thoughts to?"

funny enough this wasn't the first time i had this thought. i wrote this in my journal on sunday: "are we giving our thoughts to Christ, so that He might use them for His glory placing them in the wake of His grace and mercy? o r are we giving our thoughts to satan, so that he might take them, twist them, trampling our heart by distorting the reality of forgiveness? it’s not just the sin that kills us, it’s our memory of them and the guilt that follows on it’s coat tail."

for most of us we have this perception that in order to be forgiven enough to be trusted with anything, we must earn it. m aybe you weren’t taught this concept but for so many of us, rather we realize it or not, we have this skewed view of forgiveness, trust, and love; which in turn effects how we view our own faith, salvation, and grace.

Hebrews 10:8-18 says, "First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin."

v.8: “sacrifices and offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” Wow, we don’t have the time to go into this tonight, but just think about this concept during the week – God was not pleased with sacrifices for sins, guilt, etc. (for further reading look at Leviticus).

v.11&12: “Day after day the priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.”

If the sacrifice couldn’t take way the people’s sins, why was it a law?

From the time the Law of Moses was established and the people of Israel began to sacrifice goats, bulls, sheep, for sin offerings, guilt offerings, Passover, the priests and High Priest would be the ones carrying out these religious duties. They were the ones who would stand at the alter in the temple and offer the sacrifices on behalf of the person, everyday. They slaughtered so many animals that historians recorded that the river running next to Jerusalem ran red from the blood of the sacrifices offered during Passover.

God had given the people, starting with Abraham, a visual symbol that their sins had been forgiven. NOTICE: it was never the blood that flowed onto the alter that saved them from their futility; it was their faith in God. But like any other provision God gives us, we begin to focus on it rather than on God. Over time, the people began to focus too much on the blood of the bulls, and rams to “forgive” them of their sins. They began to think that they needed to offer something to God for salvation.

We don’t do this today, do we? We don’t try to achieve the favor and grace of God by “staying consistent”, “going to church”, “having your quiet time”, “getting in the word”, etc, etc.

what do you do to make yourself feel better about your mistakes? it just seems that confessing our sins or praying for forgiveness are more about us. because the reality is that God has already forgiven us. so, if we could see ourselves like God sees us -- beautiful, clean, righteous, worthy -- then we might not walk around with such a great amount of guilt and shame.

it’s like we have to do something for ourselves to know that we are in God’s “good graces”.

do you attempt to “earn” grace by doing things that make you feel like you are in right standing with God, even when you know grace is free.

what are you “sacrificing” to make yourself feel better about your sin? granted, it's not a bull on an alter, but what do you routinely do when you find yourself broken and down?

verse 17&18 say, “then he adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’ And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.”

what a beautiful truth!

i'm reminded of a story in a book by brennan manning. there was an older lady in a community about the size of lubbock and it was being reported or rumored that she was having visions of Christ. not only was she seeing Christ but she was talking with Him. naturally, the local leader of a church went to investigate (because we can't have people having visions of Christ). as this church leader sat down with the lady he began to investigate the validity of her visions. as the conversation drew to a close he decided to ask her to do something.

he asked her if the next time she had a vision if she would ask Christ what he confessed at his last confession. he also asked her to let him know when she did this so he could come talk to her. talk about a slap in the face and yet she politely agreed.

weeks went by and the man began to hear that she had another vision, so he went back for a second visit. he sat down with the woman and asked, "have you had another vision?"

"yes i have", the woman said.

the man replied, "did you ask Christ what i confessed at my last confession?"

"yes."

"well, what did He say?"

"He said He doesn't remember." the woman replied.

He said He doesn't remember.

Let it sink in...

I love all of you.

A word of Blessing:
May your mind be held captive by the beauty of God’s Grace.
May you drop your coat of memories and guilt down, letting it slide off of your back, landing behind you so that you may leave it there.
May you realize that the blood of your sacrifices do not save you.
And may you see that God doesn’t remember your last confession.
You have been forgiven, despite all that you do and all that you don’t do

peace be with you,

.:rustinklafka



read the rest of this blog:.