Pieces of me

i've always felt like God asked me to do more than i was comfortable. at times it seems to be what He does most. it's as if He knows something will come out of my willingness to do anything he asks.

sometimes it's good to look back and see what God has told us in the past. to see where He was taking us two years ago and see where we are today. this is one of the reasons i think journaling is important to walking with God.

i journal to commune with God, to vent, to think, to document what God is teaching me, what i'm learning, and what's going on in the world around me.

when i go back and read my entries, i discover that my future is in my past. God reveals Himself in ways that we miss. so today i share pieces of my past with you. these are portions of a few journal entries i share with you because i want to give you a piece of me.

sharing ourselves with one another is one of the most beautiful things about community, about fellowship, about walking with Jesus together because we were never meant to do it alone.

April 11. 2005
Lord, it feels like my addiction just seems to constantly being getting the best of me. Father, help me to be above reproach. Help me to not put myself in a situation to fall under temptation's spell. My heart and my mind cry out to you, but my flesh seems to overpower me. Today, God, may i decrease and you increase. My heart, mind, soul, and flesh are yours today. May i die to you.

May 28. 2005
i want to be crazy, insane, out of my mind for you. please God, drive me there.

June 12. 2006
over a week and still no sleep. the morning really is a beautiful time of the day. a couple of days ago i could hear birds beginning their day about 5:30. it was as if they could see the black horizon becoming lighter and they couldn't wait to get going.

??? Undated
i think i'm going to read "walden" again. i feel like i'm getting too connected to worldy things. i pray that God will use it to bring my mind back to the state it needs to be in. Thoreau does a great job of putting priorities in their place. he says, "what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates his fate." this is what we've talked about lately in house church.
i just walked for 40 minutes to get to a bench where it was dry and i could read my Bible and write in this journal. isn't God wonderful! i proclaim His Beauty and marvel at His Grace. thank you for a life that is gloriously beautiful. i pray that our church continues and it proves to be a time dedicated to you and not just the time we spend worshiping here but the time that we spend on our way to this place. take heed good servant and listen for the Heart of God. Listen for your masters voice. he will call on you and seek you. He loves you and wants nothing more than to be with you. i think it's time for us to stop allowing God to chase us and it's time to walk to Him.

March 17. 2007
God has renewed me today. He has reminded me and possibly for the first time caused me to realized that i need to allow myself to be weak and not focus on endurance. FORGET ENDURANCE. DELIGHT IN WEAKNESS.

July 24. 2007
it is pouring rain as i write. I'm sitting inside the front entrance of a small chapel with the door open letting fresh, rain-filled air mix with the damp staleness inside this room. it's funny how when i walk with God more closely, He shows things to me. well, maybe He has been showing me these things and i just started noticing them. perhaps our lives are like this room that i sit in and write. our lives are damp with the haunting of our past, damp with recent sins committed so effortlessly, damp with regret. and all that God would like us to do is open the door and let the fresh scent of His purifying, rejuvenating rain breeze into our dark, stale room. Maybe Christ understood that if we would only open ourselves up to Him, He could change everything. He wants us to be fresh. He wants rejuvenation for us. will we open the door and let Him change the total atmosphere of our lives?

March 11. 2008
oh how i've been in need of feeling and knowing God's Grace lately. Satan has plagued me with self-doubt, self-hatred, and riddled my thoughts of past sins that disgust me. He has caused me, on most days, to hate myself, but i feel the Grace of God pulling me away from this self-hate. Christ is showing me a piece of Himself in a me. it's crazy to even think about God being a part of someone who perceives themselves as being incredibly wicked and dirty. tonight, oh tonight, Grace is upon me, washin me clean and pure -- not because of me or my mind but because of my weaknesses, my short comings, because I NEED GRACE.

June 12. 2008
my heart is filled with an indescribable feeling. at first i thought it was loneliness, but as much as i think, loneliness is only a small part of it. i believe the rest is grief. TONIGHT I'M GRIEVING. i grieve for the people who's head get between them and God. i grieve for men and women who occupy our church seats who don't want Jesus. sadness overwhelms me at this hour of the night. will this grief be my driving force, a drive that urges me toward the oppressed. God, point me to the oppressed, the marginalized, and may they be the next generation of believers that changes everything.

may we pour out our hearts and souls to the world.

may we show people that we are just as broken as they are.

may our lives be lived with adoration of a God who brings us out of the dark places into the light.

may we come to see that sometimes sharing a piece of ourselves with others is one of the greatest ways to express our love for them.

peace be with you



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She Was An Amazing Priest

for some of us location has great significance.

location of a business.
location of a house.
location of a church.

where we are at can affect how we hear a message. it can effect how we view the world around us or the people we encounter.

it is the location of our childhood that has a tendency to attach baggage in our lives that acts as lenses we have to look through to see our world. sometimes these lenses distort truth and reality, but other times these lenses help us see things more clearly. it is up to us to discern which is occuring -- distortion or revelation.

in the book of exodus, the people have just left the oppressive powerhouse, egypt and are following God to a place called sinai.

sinai wasn't claimed by a nation as it's capital. it wasn't a central point for commerce or a location where east met west.

sinai was neutral.

God and moses communed on "neutral" ground.

in exodus 19 we learn that moses went up on the mountain to God. it was here that God told moses what to tell the people, so he did. moses went back down the mountain, "summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak." the people responded in agreement to do everything God would say.

so, moses took their answer back to God. God in turn told moses to consecrate the people. moses did just that. he got down the mountain and consecrated the people, then he told them, "prepare yourselves" and he "led the people out of the camp to meet with God".

it was there on holy neutral ground that God speaks to the people. to His people. the very same people that God declared to moses would be His "kingdom of priests and a holy nation".

according to The JPS MIQRA'OT GEDOLOT Commentary this act of God speaking to a group of people all at one time has nevered happened again in human history.

what's interesting is that God doesn't choose to do so in a city, or back in egypt.

God speaks to a massive group of people in the wilderness. He does so on neutral ground and not one person or nation could claim ownership. God did it for the world to hear.

remember God said earlier in exodus 19, "although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

how can the world hear if God only speaks this to the Israelites?

i think the answer lies in the word "priest".

what does a priest do? what is their role?

a priest is the mediator between the people and God. they are the "middle-man" so to speak. a priest is your connecting point to what your god is and is not like.

if you've ever seen other religion's priests, they are the physical representation of whatever god it is they are representing.

what the priest says
what the priest does
what rituals they perform represents that god.

everything the priest does helps us get a grasp on what their god is about.

glancing back to exodus. when God tells moses that the people will be a kingdom of priests for Him, do you think God is inviting the people to show the world who He is and what He is like?

God announces to the people on neutral land that He wanted them to be His presence to the world.

don't miss that God wasn't simply talking to the men. often we hear the word "priest" and we think "men", but God is speaking to the "nation", to the entire israelite community --men, women, and children.

God calls us all to be a kingdom of priest.

if we think about that word, "priest", and we realize, as we mentioned earlier, that a priest is a mediator; the person people seek to be connected with God. what does that mean for us today?

we usually don't think of ourselves as being priests. we usually think of ourselves as being christians or followers of Christ, but never priest.

scripture clealy indicates that we are priest in the Kingdom of God. we simply need to find out what that means.

what we say

what we do

how we worship

how we react to situations

all give people the visual perception of who God is and what He cares about.

a priest (you and me) is the human representation of God.

in 1910 a young girl was born in albania who would one day become an amazing priest.

it was at the age of 36 that she realized what being a follower of Christ meant. recalling her call she said her purpose was to "help the poor while living among them. it was an order. to fail would have been to break the faith."

four short years later, she created a mission to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." this endeavor began with 13 members and today it has more than 4,000 people being the representation of Christ to the unwanted.

if that wasn't enough, she saw another need and five years later she opened an orphanage.

what began with 13 in 1950 now numbers around 5,500 across the world, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 different countries.

mother teresa took the call of being a priest to the fullest and yet most would say that she was just a nun. i think she truly understood that the way we act, what we say, and who we love shouts to the rest of the world, "THIS IS GOD.

THE GOD OF PEACE.
JOY
HOPE
LOVE
AND GRACE.
THE GOD OF RESCUE.
THE GOD OF LIBERATION.
THE GOD OF REDEMPTION."

are we being a true representation of God?

can we be called "an amazing priest"?

my hope lies in Grace. in the Grace of God, He works through my folly.

may we love the unloved.

may we seek out the lepers, the dying, the depressed.

may our perspective change today.

may we realize that we stand, called, on neutral, Holy ground.

may we be a great Kingdom of Priests.
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Just You And God

the busier our schedules become, the quicker we lose track of the things of lasting importance. in the mix and madness that is our lives we often forget what having a significant relationship with someone looks like.

jobs. hobbies. everyday run-of-the-mill errands. worries. kids activities. going to the gym. and many more that could be listed are some of the things that fill our calendars.

the majority of these aren't bad in themselves but when we do all of them all the time we begin to lose ourselves in our "to do" list. i'm all in favor of being organized, but it came to a point in my life where my list was running my day.

most of christianity today has embraced the concept of a "quiet time". this is a crucial time for anyone desiring a more intimate communion with Jesus. we spend it at our kitchen table, at a coffee house, in our car, in our bedroom, on the back porch, and we strive to read and pray. this time is meant to be shared with God, immersed in His Word, reading, praying, journaling, or whatever it is you do that best connects you with Him.

to be honest the normal "quiet time" set up never worked for me. with accoustic coffee house guitar playinging in the background, i used to beat myself up when i felt like God wasn't revealing anything during my time in the word. the more it didn't feel "good" or "moving" the less i did it.

i eventually stopped having a quiet time in the mornings because i never felt like God was with me. but what i discovered was that God was with me eventhough i couldn't hear him amid the music and noise of the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

many of us struggle with finding time to commune with God. we can't get up early enough or we can't stay awake late enough. our lunch breaks are too short or filled with a business agenda. our mind is clouded; noisely cluttered with the "to do" list of our lives.

aren't we all guilty of being able to rise at the crack of dawn to get into work earlier so that we can do this or that, or so we can finish this project or work for a promotion, but we don't think to rise early for time of prayer, and meditation.

well, some of us do think about rising earlier, but it's just not very practical - is it?

one of the things in the Gospel books that i've been amazed by is that Jesus intentionally sought out a time of solitude with His Father. it was as if He knew that seeking out time with God away from the noise of the crowds and questions from his disciples was not a good idea, but a necessity.

the stories seem to convey to me that he lived with a different mindset than we do today.

when we first hear that Jesus made time to escape from his hectic life to commune with God, some of us might think, "He lived in a different time. a different world." --this seems to be the most popular argument for many teachings of scripture that we would like to avoid or discount as "non-applicable to today's world". -- don't fool yourself into thinking such a thought.

Jesus didn't have kids or soccer games to attend. He had swarms of people constantly pleading for a miracle. Pharisees with an endless list of questions. disciples who were young and said things that teenagers say and argued about things teenagers do. religious leaders that actively and publicly despised his exsistence. He had to walk miles upon miles just to find shelter to lay His head; no car, no plane, no bicycle, just hand-made sandals and the power of his legs.

in the midst of His restless life, He saw importance in solitude.

why would there be importance in solitude?

in Matthew 14 we find Jesus seeking solitude. He sends the disciples ahead of Him in a boat to cross the sea and He sends the multitudes away. He then "went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary." notice in the next verse that time had passed. the author makes it a point to tell us that "in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea."

He made time away from the masses and even from those who were closest to Him an essential part of His Faith.

i wonder, would Jesus have known that the disciples needed Him if he wouldn't have gone up to the mountain to pray in solitude? i'm not trying to discount the all-knowing nature of Christ.

i simply wonder if we don't hear who God is calling us to rescue because we never find time for solitude. we can never seem to commune with God without having 20 items waiting to be executed.

making time for solitude with God isn't a "good idea" it's a Biblical principle we can't miss.

we find time for our favorite TV shows, but struggle to find time to go deeper with God through absolute focus on Him.

we find ample time to teach our kids to throw a baseball and go to their games, but our time with God is one of the first to be trimmed to fit our schedule. it should be our Joy as parents to spend more time teaching our children about Jesus than how to throw a baseball.

solitude brings us into a state of mind in which we can concentrate on God and what He is whispering in our ear that we need to shout from the rooftops. i truly believe that if we made time for solitude with God everyday, our lives would look remarkably different.

our families would benefit.
our friends would benefit.
our community would benefit.
our country would benefit.
the world would benefit.

our goals would no longer be our own; it would look like us seeking God's will for our life.

the focus of our priorities would shift from "me" to "others".

our speech would sound more like scripture rather than the world.

our ability to meet the needs of the oppressed would increase while our need for more stuff would decrease.

getting away from all that occupies every minute of every day is essential. i PRAY that you make time to commune with God more purposefully, with the intent of completely focusing on His voice. when you do, He will begin to change your heart to look, love, act, worship, and pray more like that of Christ.

do you want to allow Jesus in your life fully?

may we delight in time alone with our Father.

may our hearts want nothing more than to hear His voice every morning when we rise.

may his Love, Peace, and Joy remind us that He wants to spend time with His us.

may our time with God pull us closer to Him, becoming more in tune with the Spirit with every breath we take.

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Sculptures of Jesus

most of us are familiar with the story in exodus 32 in which the hebrew people make for themselves a golden calf. often the scene runs through my mind of a charlton heston-esque moses running down a mountain for the sole purpose of throwing the ten commandment tablets onto the sculpture of a golden calf. as the tablets hit, sparks and flames erupt in an explosion.

that is the story i've always pictured in my small mind. as i read the story again today, a question popped into my thoughts -- was their motivation for sculpting the calf based out of their fear of God? and if so, what were they afraid of?

in exodus 20 we learn that God had come upon mount sinai in the visible form of smoke and fire. scripture tells us that the mountain was covered in smoke and God spoke with sounds of thunder, flashes of lightning, and sounds of a trumpet. in verse 18 and 19 of chapter 20 we learn that when the people see and hear the presence of God, they moved farther away from the mountain.

the people even tell moses to speak to them because they believe if God speaks to them they will die. i think that we miss the beautiful response from moses because of our focus on the idolatry of the people. moses tells them to not be afraid, but rather to understand that God has come to instill in them awe and wonder within their souls so they won't sin again.

as we follow the story, we come to the scene in exodus 32. moses is up on the mountain communing with God, receiving instruction for the hebrew nation. the masses are at the base of the mountain awaiting the return of moses.

i would assume that the people grew tired of waiting for moses to come down and share the word from God. i'm sure some even thought he might have died. it had been 39 days since they saw him last. out of their desperate impatience, they approached aaron, asking him to "make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."

it's interesting to note that the word they use here for "gods" is the plural form of Elohim, one of the names of God. most often we are taught that the sculpture of the calf was an image of some new god for the hebrew people to worship, but what if that wasn't the case?

from further study, i wonder if the people weren't making an image of another god but rather of God Himself.

if they made an image of God that appeared more acceptable for their minds, then they could worship. they needed an image of a god that didn't act, appear, or speak like God did. God spoke through thunder and lightning in dramatic fashion. He didn't appear like anything they had been used to.

the people are coming out of a very religious culture who had a god for everything. the egyptians not only had multiple gods, but the pharaoh himself was a god. all of the gods the hebrew people had been surrounded with in the egyptian culture for the last 400 years could be seen and they had human or animal traits. they needed to see God differently than the way he presented Himself.

do you think we ever do this today?

do we ever create our own portrait of who God is that fits our feeble minds?

do we create an image of Christ that is easier on the eyes? easier to understand? easier to follow?

don't answer to quickly. think. dive into your soul and search yourself.

does the Gospel look like an american way of life or a radical way of living opposed to all that is worldly?

we, as humans, have a tendency to sculpt a Jesus who teaches ideas that support our own thoughts and beliefs.

we have painted a Jesus that looks and thinks more like a 30 something, white, upper-middle class, republican rather than an earthy, jewish rabbi.

it is much more comfortable to take scripture and say that it supports wealth and selfishness, rather than seeing that scripture calls us to regard others higher than ourselves and take on the status of a slave (Philippians 2).

it is much more comfortable to take scripture and read that God simply wants us to believe rather than seeing that God desires for us to change the world with our actions, not just our words (James 1 & 2).

it is easier to think of God as someone who thinks and acts like we do, rather than a God that is not limited by our minds and cultural baggage.

all too often it is the culture that we are raised in that influences our perception of God the most.

it's easier to think of God as a God who supports american ideas because we're american.

it's easier to think of God as a God who supports republican ideas, because we're republican.

it's easier to think of God as a God who supports democratic ideas, because we're democrats.

it's easier to think of God as a God who aligns with baptists beliefs, because we are baptists.

but what happens when God doesn't fit into who you have Him sculpted Him to be?

do your thoughts, beliefs, and the way you live change or do you step back from the mountain and say, "you go to God and tell me what He says."

will you step up to the mountain and look deeply into the heartbeat of God and ask Him to reveal Himself to you? if you do... be ready to change, because as soon as you ask God to reveal your depravity to yourself, He will. and there is much that we can all change.

the question is: are you willing to see God for who He is and not what you've created Him to be?

may we see that God is bigger than us.

may we understand that God is more than we've sculpted him to be.

may God show us a little more of who He is today.

Father, reveal Your Truth to us in such a way that we are in absolute Awe of You.

free us from our religious and cultural baggage.

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Anonymous Christianity (inspired by Francis Chan)

from the moment we begin our day we are bombarded with choices. choices of what to wear, what to eat for breakfast, where to get coffee, what to eat for lunch, where to buy groceries, clothes, shoes, etc. it is a never ending cycle of abundant choice.

just take a look in your closet and notice how man pairs of shoes you have. how many shirts (even though we only wear our top 10)? how many belts, purses, watches, rings, coats, do you own?

we can't escape from these choices. everywhere we go these choices are an arms length away. if we don't like a pair of shoes by this company, then we can walk across the mall and look for a different pair, and if that store doesn't have it, there are a hundred more stores that sell a hundred different shoes for us to choose from.

we are spoiled by our abundance in america. anything we decide we want -- we can find. we can find anything we want specifically designed to meet our "needs" and preferences at any time, day or night.

what you might notice is how this consumerist lifestyle effects us. we don't like what products this store provides, we simply find a different store that meets our wants and expectations.


we've made our walk all about us.everything in america is about "me". what can you do for me? how can you provide this or that for "me"? this is "my stuff". it's "my life". my hopes. my dreams. my job. my money. my spirituality. my future.

american has become a place where people are isolated bringing glory to themselves.

what happens when we start following Christ and we try to marry these two mentalities?

the mentality of "everything is about me" infiltrates the church. too many people today walk into the doors of churches across the nation on sunday morning with a checklist of wants, desires, and preferences ready to be checked off as they are met. what's crazy is that we expect churches to cater to that mentality. we expect our local church to create a "better program" for our children, "better" music for us to sing, "better" facilities to meet our standards, et cetera. we expect our church to cater to our "church shopping list" and we'll go to such church that meets the greater majority the items on our list.

if the church we attend can't meet those expectations, then we leave and go down the street.

our mindset becomes, "i come to church for me. what did the church do for me? are my kids catered to? did i like the service today? i'm not sure they took care of me. when will they have this for me? was the worship to my liking? did the pastor preach like i think he should?" it is all about ME. it's all about our individual relationship with God and how the church can bless us.

in 1 Corinthians 3 paul speaks of "you" being the temple. This "you" written here is a plural form. in other words, "we" are the temple. it is a collective "you".

not one person i've ever spoken with, no matter how holy, has seen God. but if we love each other collectively, then there is this physical manifestation of God on earth.

the new testament teaches that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. the world can't see God, but if we actually serve each other with Love and Grace, then there will be a physical manifestation of Him on earth that the world can see.

it's not about us as individuals when we begin walking with Christ. God tells us in the old testament that we are a nation. how many of us look around and tell people, "i am a nation." we don't do that. we are a nation together.

God is involved in something so much bigger than you or me as individuals. it's about us.

have you ever thought of why it's so tough for an atheist to be convinced that God exist when it's a one on one conversation? have you ever been able to show someone that God forgave you when it's just you and them talking? no. we can't show forgiveness by ourselves.

but when people are sitting and talking, gossiping about the latest drama and your name is thrown in the mix and they begin to slam you left and right and the things they are saying are just terrible. then a couple of weeks go by and you hear about what one particular person, who you know, has been saying about you, what do you do? most of us would dismiss them, or set them straight and then never have anything to do with them again. but what if you displayed forgiveness by sitting down, talking through things that were said and trying to restore the relationship and you begin to pursue that person again as a friend.

people see this and say, "how are you forgiving them for what they said about you? did you hear about all of it? why are you still pursuing them? why are you still friends with them? are you crazy? who does that?"

GOD DOES THAT!

suddenly the world sees a love, forgiveness, grace and mercy that is supernatural. they see a picture of God.

it is our actions that best represent God today. in a world where everything is being exhaustively explained and analyzed, words have lost some of their power. actions are our most powerful representation of the Gospel.

the younger generations today have heard the church talk but have yet to see them love one another in such a way that the church becomes the temple and displays the transforming Love of Christ. the only thing people in america have seen the church do well is divide.

this is why it's crucial that we understand that it isn't about us as individuals anymore; it's about the collective "us", the body united as one. God didn't call one israelite alone to declare His glory. He called them as a nation.

in Deuteronomy 4 God tells His people that He gave them the law so that other nations would "hear about all these decrees and say, 'surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'" and the new testament doesn't differ. 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that we are one part of the body of Christ. God desires for us to work together to point the world to Him.

what the world needs to see more now than ever before is a people group working together serving the world. we display God by our actions as a family, then by our actions together as a community, and finally by our actions with our local church body.

we should be the people leading change, not watching change.

we should be the people directly effecting the world for good, not by just our words, but by our actions.

we must be the people leading social reform.

we must be the activist.

we must be the people ridding our communities of poverty.

and we must remember that it has nothing to do with us as individuals, or what the church can give me, or how i will be blessed.

we should want to be anonymous.

may we understand that in order to create change in the world we must first live radically different than the rest of society.

may our hearts be challenged to grow together for the Glory of God.

may we come in to church on sunday and ask, "what can i do to serve others?" rather than expecting to be catered to.

may our hearts be broken.

may You take everything from us that we don't need so we can see you more clearly.

God, make us uncomfortable.

make us anonymous. read the rest of this blog:.