Hope and Faith

Recently I started reading the children’s book A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.  The book is about a family who is missing their father and know one knows exactly where is or what he is doing, but they have hope that he is coming home soon.  The family encounters three mythical creatures and they take the two oldest siblings along with a friend to go save their father.  The mythical creatures are often quoting different proverbs in the original language.  One of the proverbs is about hope and how we all need it and have it get through life.  In essence, we all need something to believe in. 

            Not only does Hebrews 11 talk about hope, but it talks about faith, and in all reality faith is the mature aspect of hope.  Let me break it down, in my book there are two kinds of hope, the first kind of hope where we believe in something, but it doesn’t lead to action.  To put it in simple terms, this form of hope is thinking that your team is going to go out and win it all.  There are plenty of people who think that the Vikings are going to win the Super Bowl every year, but how many of them go out and buy the Super Bowl tickets or make plans to attend the victory parade at the beginning of the year.  My guess is that there are more people who don’t do that than who do.  Or to put it in more practical terms.  How many of us went out and bought supplies before our last major snow this month.  I would venture to guess most of us went out and got the milk, bread and snow melt before the snow got here.  With working at Wal Mart, we were busy they two days before we got hit with the snow, and our shelves were bare.  Now I am sure some of it was the chicken little the sky is falling, but people wanted to make sure they had food and other things before the snow got here.  If we do this, why don’t we do it with the Creator of the Universe who sits on the throne eternally.   

            As Hebrews 11:1 puts it, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  The author of Hebrews goes on and shares Bible hall of fame, or the hall of faith, of how different people through out the Bible had the faith and they put into practice what they knew.  Mature faith is knowing that we are not saved by our works, but we live out our lives as a response to what God has done for us and what He has promised us.  Through out the Bible there are references to God being there for us and guiding us through life.  To sum it up, God is reaching down willing and wanting to interact with us and through us, are we willing to reach out and do those things out of not only obedience, but having faith and hope that God will be there for us and will work through us. 

Stayin Connected

I am preaching this Sunday at a local church and the pastor asked me to preach on the churches vision statement and how it would look like to that specific congregation.  So some of the applications are very specific to that congregation, but I think that there is still plenty to chew on. I even included the churches vision statement on the top of the first page. 

SonLife connects with God and the world around us through the Good News of Jesus,
growing a church family to impact others with the grace and truth of Jesus.

43. The net day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.  Finding Phillip, He said to him, “Follow Me.”  44. Phillip, like Andrew and Peter was from the town of Bethsaida.  45. Phillip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and about whom the prophets also wrote---- Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  46. Nazareth! Can anything good come there? Nathanial asked.  “Come and see” Phillip said.     John 1:43-46

  

       As I read this passage one of the thoughts that came to mind is that how we connect with other people, is often a sign how we are connecting with Jesus and who He is in our lives.  Even though Nathanial’s comment may be taken as a tongue in cheek, there is still validity in the comment of “can anything good come from Nazareth?”  How often do we make those comments about such places like West Virginia or Arkansas.  We often make comments that people from there are backwoodish, their family tree is a straight stick and that they are uneducated.  Ma and Pa Kettle would be the ideal picture of our sterotypes.  As much fun as we have with these type of jokes and often are made in good fun, but there are other stereotypes that are more serious and are more dangerous.  Whether it is a stereotype of unfriendly family members/friends to nationalities/religious beliefs like Iraq or Afghanistan, we put ourselves on alert, whether justifiable or not.  We tend to make them lesser than what they are or we elevate ourselves superior then what we really are.  Let’s explore the three different ways we connect or disconnect with God and who Jesus is in our lives and how these affect how we connect with other people

            The first way is more of a disconnection with Jesus, because we view Him as a liar or a lunatic.  Jesus is must be some guy from a far off time where He was delusional and He drank His own kool-aide.  He was some random guy wondering around Israel claiming to be the Messiah and in all reality He had a mental illness and should be committed to a mental institution.  He really believed that He was the Messiah and was willing to die for His delusions. 

Another idea to go along with this is the idea that Jesus was nothing more than a liar.  Jesus knew that He wasn’t the Messiah, but He didn’t care and it was all about deceiving people into following Him.  It was all about the deception and He had such an ego and Savior complex that He made up that He was the actually Messiah.  He played into the idea that the nation of Israel was looking for the coming Messiah to set up the kingdom.  He was willing to live this life so He could gain the status and the stardom from the people.  Both theories lead to the idea that this guy named Jesus died a pointless and meaningless death and He never came back from the dead.  To wrap this idea up is that since Jesus is not alive, His followers were delusional enough to create stories that Jesus did come back from the dead and they continued the lies that Jesus started.  So why believe in or put your trust in someone who is dead and had followers who kept the lies going.  Jesus at best is some historical figure who lived in first century Israel and now is dead.  With this idea, someone would discount Jesus and Christianity along with viewing them as either liars, naive, or even delusional.  So why would we even connect with someone who believes this and they connect to some other faith.

Another way we connect with Jesus is that our relationship with Him ranges from either a good teacher to He is my homeboy.  This view is that Jesus was a good teacher and that He was sent from God.  More or less that Jesus is a prophet sent from God to reveal something to us about God and how we should live.  But being God’s Son and the whole death and resurrection thing is out of the question.  Jesus was just a prophet and a good moral teacher, nothing more, and nothing less.  This idea puts him on the same level as Buddha, or Gandhi.  They are all equally human and they are someone that we can learn from and aspire to be.  In essence they are just good teachers.  The other end of this spectrum is that Jesus is our homeboy.  We believe that Jesus is God and that He did die for our sins and came back from the dead.  Jesus is more of a person to meet our needs and be our best friend.  This form of Christianity is really a self centered Christianity where I will follow Jesus and His rules as long as my needs are being met and that He gets me into heaven.  To put it in monopoly terms, Jesus is my get out of hell card or fire insurance.  If you are a movie/comic book fan, this form of Jesus is Tony Stark.  For those of you who don’t know, Tony Stark is Iron Man, and even though he has his enemies, most people want to be his friend because of his confidence, money and he can save the day.  This view of Jesus is that all Jesus needs to do is to be my friend, with all the warm and fuzzies and His sole purpose is to keep me safe and comfortable, I will follow Him.  How we relate to people through this idea is that as long as we follow the Golden Rule and to treat people the way you want to be treated.  The downfall of this is that without pushing them to have a deeper relationship each other and with God, our relationships with each other and God will never grow and we will become stagnant.

The third way is that we make Jesus the Lord of our lives.  Not only do we believe who He is, but He calls us to a deeper walk with Him and each other.  God’s will for our lives is the center of our being and who we are.  It is loving Him with everything we have and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  It is not sitting in some room locked away hoping to grow and staying away from the world, but it is letting God change us so that we can change the world.  Its not about what God can do for me, or even what I can do for God, but it is partnering with God and what He is doing.  It is allowing His Lordship to permeate everything we do and change who we are.  I think that when we take this Lordship of Christ for real in our personal lives and the life of this church, it will radically change everything.  How can Son Life be like Phillip and say, come with me because I have found the Messiah. 

The first one is that as a church, there needs to be intentional discipleship, no matter if you one or one hundred, it is learning how to be God’s vessel in a broken world.  Discipleship is more than just attending church, reading my Bible, or reading the latest Joyce Myers book.  Discipleship is more than learning facts about Jesus, or Bible characters, or how long it should of taken the Israelites to get from Egypt to the Promise Land.  A lot of these facts can be very informative and help with conversations, but here is the thing, if it doesn’t lead to maturity that results in action, what’s the point of knowing it.  True discipleship is not so much knowing facts, but doing what we know to be true and continuing to learn more and put that into practice.  In essence, it is growing up or maturing.  This can be done through prayer, our devotions, coming to church and putting it into practice.  It is also putting away things that are a hindrance to our relationship with God and others.  Just as a three piece suit would hinder a marathon runner, there are things in our personal lives that also hinder us.  It is dealing with them and putting them in their proper place. 

Just as we want to grow in our important earthly relationships, we should have the same desire for our relationship with God. Rules are not in relationships so we can check things off, but it is so we can set parameters in the relationships and have healthy boundaries. Our relationship with God and others isn’t so much about rules, but growing in our love for them and living in those boundaries.  Just as we don’t want to make our spouse mad because we love them so much, shouldn’t this be the same with God.  It is growing up and giving God our everything.  When God says love our enemies, He really means it, and its not a suggestion.  It is following the guidance of the Holy Spirit and not putting off what God is calling us to.  True discipleship always leads to maturity, and maturity leads to action.  Our works can not save us, but they are a response to what God has given us.  When we think about discipleship we often think of not doing things, whether it is drinking beer, gambling, gossip, pornography, but here’s the thing, if we don’t replace it with something Godly, something else will creep in and take its place that can be just as destructive.  I can not stress enough that true discipleship is Christian maturity.  It is putting into practice what we know about God and what He is calling us to do.  Christian maturity means we do things differently, whether its dating, raising our kids, interacting with coworkers, or dealing with people that you just don’t like.  It is loving God with everything we have and loving others as ourselves and through these two commandments, we do life.  It is a daily process of growing into who God has made us to be, which is not only holy, blameless and mature, but we are sons and daughters of the most High God, and if that doesn’t get you excited, you need your pulse checked

With discipleship also comes community.  As much as we try sometimes, we can not do this Christian life by ourselves, not matter how hard we try.  The Apostle Paul shares with us in I Corinthians that we are the body and the body has many parts.  If a part of the body isn’t doing its job, but body gets sick and becomes inefective.  Community is more than just coming to church on Sunday mornings and going to small groups on Sunday nights.  It is interacting with each other and pushing each other to grow.  It’s not asking how someone is doing and giving a response of everything is great.  So often we do this in our culture and not even think about it.  If I were to venture a guess why we do this, is because we do not want to do the hard work that requires us to be in community. Do we really want to tell other people that our marriage is on the rocks, or that I might be struggling with an addiction issue?  Not only do we not want to share these types of things, but we often think that I can make it better all by myself, I just have to pray harder.  Or when the church is taking prayer request, it is easy to give a praise or pray for someone else and their sickness, but it is never easy to ask for payer with our struggles.  It’s probably because we feel like we will be judged and that people will look less at us and maybe even gossip about us.  Its more than do we care enough to share, but do we care enough to do something about it.  Community requires trust and honesty, no matter how brutal it is sometimes.  It also requires forgiveness, understanding, communication, and listening.  Community does not mean we all agree the same thing on the same issues.  It is ok that someone likes the Packers or Cowboys, or dislikes the music of Prince.  We have to be willing to listen to, disagree, console, pray with and pray for people without calling them poopy heads.  It is also challenging each other to grow and calling each other out with God’s grace and love on certain issues.  If you know someone has an addiction, it is coming around them to not only to confront them out of love, but being there through the recovery process, know matter how messy it gets.  If a church always gets along and never gets into fights, or is always fighting there is something wrong.  Christian community starts with the Apostles Creed uniting in what we essentially believe and with the non essentials, we give grace and latitude.  

The third thing that I think SonLIfe is called to is outreach or evangelism.  There is the idea of personal evangelism in the areas of friends, family and work, but there is also this idea of how can the church reach out to the Wrenshall community.  So here is my question for you all.  If for some reason SonLife would drop off the face of the earth and no longer be around, would the Wrenshall community know the church is gone?  In essence, what kind of impact is SonLife having on this community?  Are the actions of SonLife more inward or outward focused?  In order for the church to survive there needs to be a healthy balance of both.  How do you all see yourself engaging the community around you?  There can not be true discipleship or community without outreach into the community that we live.  Knowing Wrenshall and graduating from this very school, there is a great impact that this church can have on this school and community. 

One way this church can get involved in this school is volunteering for different activities and building those relationships.  One easy way is maybe contacting the school principle and seeing if there are opportunities to volunteer.  One way is to offer tutoring to students who are struggling in school.  Through tutoring, it’s providing way in for a relationship with that student and that has endless possibilities.  Or maybe helping chaperone a school event, to helping a new teacher with classroom decoration or making copies.  Or how about the church adopting a class, preferably an elementary class and following them through their education.  Whether its tutoring, providing things for the classroom, chaperoning events, and willing to help pay for background checks are all great ideas to get plugged in.  While I was in college, I had a husband and wife “adopt” me and a few of my friends.  We would go over to their house a couple times a semester for a meal a great home cooked meal (because college students are always looking for those) and even better conversations.  There are many great memories there and I am still in contact with my adoptive parents. 

There is also providing needs to the members of not only this church community, but the Wrenshall community.  Most guys I know like to do projects, whether it is building something or taking something apart, it feels good to work with our hands.  Not only is it a great way to do something for someone else and connect them with SonLife, but also take time during these projects to connect with the people of the church.  A lot of formative memories and bonding experiences are formed , especially with guys.  It can be a chance to invite people who are loosely connected with the church to this project, and it allows the building of relationships in a non threatening way.  It could lead to the opening of doors for a deeper and more meaningful conversation.  Another way to connect with people is knowing families that have had a major life event and either providing child care, meals, or even mowing lawns to help ease some of the stress.  One of my favorite things to do, is sharing a meal with someone, especially if it’s a home cooked meal.  The kitchen table is one of the most intimate places in the house in my book.  It shows community, solidarity, and openness when a meal is shared around the kitchen table.  One of my favorite memories is one day I stopped over at the Johnson’s to see Chad and Sarah.  It got to be dinner time and I was invited to eat with them and that meal was a lot of fun of the sharing back of forth. 

So in closing, here is my question to you SonLife, how do you see yourselves connecting with God grace and the world around us with the good news of Jesus?  How and who we see Jesus as, is how we are going to connect with our world and here is a reminder, He is Lord of All irregardless of what we think.  So when we make Him the Lord of our Life, not only can we change the world, but even maybe even light it on fire with the grace of God

Dwelling in Unity

  One of the things that my church is doing is that we are going through the book of Hebrews and this may have caused a few jokes about coffee.  (How do you know that God drinks coffee?  Because He Brews it)  My pastor mapped it out where we started wit Hebrews 1 at the beginning of Advent and the book will take us right through Easter.  My pastor put together a daily reading plan for the sermons that are going to be preached.  The whole church is encouraged to do the daily readings and it will help with the understanding of that weeks sermon.  Also, the small groups of the church are going along with the sermons and discussing them and finding ways to help apply that weeks sermon.  This is really nice because the church is on the same page and hopefully we are discussing, learning and applying the same things.  This has gotten me thinking about not only being on the same page, but this idea of dwelling in unity. 

  We all talk about unity and how we need it, but what does it look like.  Does it mean we all think alike?  If it does, life would get boring really fast.  Does it mean striving for a goal? There is that, but whats the goal and who or what decides that goal?  Once we decide what the goal is, how are we getting there?  The NFL playoffs are starting this weekend and the goal of every team is to win a Super Bowl, but how its done can be different.  If we look at the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, they had a great defense and an offense that got the job done.  The San Fransisco teams of the late 80's had a prolific offense, and a good defense. Once you know who you are and what you want to accomplish, the net steps are before you.

  So what does unity look like, especially in the church.  I don't think that it means we are all to look alike, think alike, and all do the same thing.  That would be boring and I think that would really limit God and how we see God.  As my home church goes through Hebrews together I hope that we become unified in Christ Jesus and that we can be of one accord, not only with our relationship with God, and others.  This is how I see it happening. 

  The first idea can be found in the High Priestly prayer found in John 17.  This is where Jesus prays for the church, He not only prays that we are one as He is one with the Father, but that He dwells with in us.  The only way we can start to be of one accord is having a relationship with God and being in right relationship with Him.  Just as the Trinity dwells in a relational unity, we need to be in that same relationship with others.  The only way that is possible is through a relationship with Jesus.  Jesus is the one that makes unity possible, the Holy Spirit is the appler/convicter and God the Father came up with the grand scheme.  In essence, our relationship with others is a reflection of how our relationship with God is going. 

  Not only do we need to dwell in unity with God and others, we to remind ourselves that we are one body.  We have to know where we fit in the body and use those gifts.  When we try and use gifts that we don't have or dont use the gifts we have, the Body of Christ suffers and the world does not get a full or a wrong picture of who God really is.  God has given each one of us gifts to use for His glory and when we use those gifts, we are glorifying God and it is an act of worship

  The third idea of unity is that we put into practice what we know and interact with each other.  In Colossians 3, Paul exhorts the church and tells them and us to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  Most importantly, unity is not only an interaction with God, but it is interacting with others.  It is letting God live through us in everything we do and our interactions with others.  This means that we do life together, and it is more than just having fun together.  It is worshiping together and apart of it is coming along side each other and correcting attitudes and actions with grace and humility.  It is not lording over, but it is helping a brother or sister out.  It is helping each other grow in grace maturity. 

  Unity does not always mean that we all think the same way or do the same things, but finding having the end result be the same.  It is helping each other grow in grace and maturity, and being able to have difficult conversation.  We just might be able to learn something if we focus more on listening first and then reacting.  Tod often we want to get our point across and in the process we are bringing other people down.  When we have the mind of Christ, dwelling in unity often means interacting with each other in grace, humility, love and understanding.  It is being firm and gentle on the essentials and providing grace and liberty on the non essentials

The Comming Kingdom

We just got done with a political season where the two presidential candidates raised close to two billion dollars between them and here is the thing that not only intrigues me, but makes me sad.  Who gets elected from the President of the United States to local city and state government, people voice their opinion.  It ranges from the elected officials are going to get us back on track and save us, to they are going to ruin this city, state, or country by running it into the ground.  These two opinions and every other one has been voiced since September.  Here’s the thing, not much has changed since the birth of Christ in the first century. 

            The nation of Israel was in an uproar because not only were they trying to follow God through a list of rules and waiting for the Messiah, but they were under Roman rule as well.  Which means that when in Rome, you play by Roman rule, which didn’t sit well with the Nation of Israel.  The Israelites were hoping that their Messiah was going to come and over throw the Roman government and set up God’s Kingdom.  With in this hope, there was a group of Israelites known as Zealots, who took it upon themselves to initiate the coming Messiah by taking on Rome and trying to defeat them.  There was even this thought among Jesus Disciples that He was going to over throw the Roman Empire to set up God’s Kingdom and Jesus rebuked them.  So my question is that what does the Kingdom of God look like and how does it get put into practice on a daily basis. 

            I think there are three ideas that help us usher in God’s Kingdom, and by no means is this list exhaustive and the end all be all of.  The first Kingdom concept  is focus on ones heart and our relationship with Him.  If we are not growing in grace and maturity, are we really participating in God’s Kingdom.  God’s Kingdom requires a focus change from being a me first kingdom, where everything circles around me and my happiness, to putting God first and others second.  It is a realization that doing it our way ends in destruction, not matter how good our intentions our.  The other two kingdom ideas really come out of this idea of putting God first and not only making him our Savior, but the Lord of our life as well.  The second Kingdom is loving God with everything we have and others as ourselves.  It is realization that the world is bigger than my needs and wants and its not always about making sure that I am happy.  It is living that transformed life and maturing in God to who He has created us to be.  The third Kingdom concept is that we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.  In other words, what does our earthly relationship look like?  Are we showing mercy to those we like and to those we have a hard time of liking.  How about acting justly, are we giving back the extra changed we received at the local store, not for who we claim to be, but it is the right thing to do.  Being a part of God’s kingdom is being in right relationship with God and others and how we interact with them on a daily basis.  With in this, we are not only bringing God’s justice, but we are bringing people into right relationship with us, others, and God.  This means praying for God’s blessing on people, even the ones we don’t like and who may be “out to get us.”  It also means forgiving people and seeking forgiveness, because being in right relationship often requires not only forgiveness, but it can also mean restitution.  So where are you at in God’s Kingdom? 

Worshiping Attitude

  As I have done some pondering lately, especially on the idea of worship and the attitudes that we carry into it.  I am probably not the only one, when I get to church, my mind is often anywhere but there.  Some of it is because I worked late the night before, or that I have to go to work after church, or some other reason.  There are times where I struggle just to pay attention.  There are many times I wish I could just focus in on the worship service and the Worship of God, but there are other distractions.  Through this thought process, I thought of King Saul and his leading of the nation of Israel.  Saul was in the hill country of Bethel with the Israelite army taking on the Philistines.  As the Philistines were gathering, the Israelite's were becoming outnumbered quickly and Saul got scared.  He waited seven days for Samuel to come and provide a burnt offering to God as an act of worship to God, so Saul did it himself.  As he was finishing up, Samuel showed up and Samuel rebuked Saul.  There are two directions we can take with this story, the first one, is validating ordain-able ministry which is another post, or how we worship God, especially in the time of adversity.  I chose the latter because I think it is applicable.

  If we were to go on reading 1 Samuel, we would find out that after Samuel rebukes Saul and that not long after that he cuts off all communication with Saul (with an exception of the Witch of Endsor incident).  This was a sign of God rejecting Saul and his lineage as king, and that Saul's rule did not finish well.  One of the things that got Saul in trouble is that he not only failed to wait for Samuel to perform the sacrifice, but performed the sacrifice himself.  Not only did Saul get nervous, but he got cold feet and took things into his own hands.  I think when we get nervous and cold feet during life circumstances and with God, we tend to do things our way and develop three dangerous attitudes.

   The first one is that we get desperate.  Not only do we try to do anything and everything, we often become irrational. Its the attitude that something has to be done and I am not going to wait.  We make it all about ourselves and what we can do, and we often do what has worked in the past, but the trick is, it God is not there or in it, we will fall flat on our face.  We often are looking at the gathering army and wondering how its going to be defeated and we get scared. We either carry that hero mentality that I am going to save the day and I am hoping and praying that God shows up through my effort and that He ordains it.  We make it all about us and we fail.  We tend to do this in worship, and thinking worship is about what we can bring to God and how well we can do it.  I don't want to diminish this thought, but true worship is more than just bringing sacrifices, but it is living in right relationship with God and others and that takes trust and sometimes patience and trust.

  The second attitude is the one of defiance.  I work at Wal Mart, so I see defiant toddlers quite often where if they don't get something, it is an all out scream fest.  I have seen some epic tantrums in my day.  How often do we get defiant of God, especially with our worship with God.  One of the causes of the worship wars in the church is because of tantrums we are having with God and others.  In other words we are telling God that we want things our way and we aren't budging.  The only way we will worship God is either through particular song, liturgy, or action.  In essence we are wanting God to play by our rules.

  The third attitude is art of distraction.  This is probably the most popular because we try to make the most of our time and multitask, which in the end, we are not being as productive as we could be.  Another reason that we are distracted during worship, is that we are not getting prepared before hand.  How often do we take time to prepare ourselves for worship.  It is usually a rush to get out of the house so we can just to make it to church on time.  When we are rushed, we aren't focused or prepared.  There is a story of a pastor of a small church who tried everything to get the church to grow, but nothing was working and he was at the end of his rope.  One day he was lamenting to God about this and God spoke and asked if he was ready to stop trying so hard and join in with Him.  God challenged the pastor to spend every Saturday night in prayer and preparation, and the pastor agreed.  When the pastor did this, God took over and the church became one of the fastest growing churches in the United States.  We often let things, not matter how good they are distract us, and we need to remember the Lords prayer of They kingdom come Thy will be done.

  Now these attitudes are far from exhaustive, and they are just many of the ways the enemy tries to distract us from doing the will of the Father

Sunday Sermon

     This past week I got to provide pulpit supply for a pastor friend of mine.  He had just started a series out of the book of Numbers, and to keep up with the flow of things and to challenge myself, I continued with the series.  This was the first time I preached out of Numbers 3:1-13 and it was a great experience.  Here are some of the highlights of my sermon.

     The first observation is that God not only called, but also consecrated the tribe of Levi to not only be His representation to the nation of Israel, but also for them to be the voice of Israel back to Him.  Among the tribe of Levi, there was the Levites, who were responsible for the day to day happenings with the Tent of Meeting.  Whether is was moving, the leading Israel in the worship of God, or the general care of the Tent of Meeting, they took care of it.  They were also the "Judge Judy" because they took care of disputes and acted as judges along with the keeping of records.  The Priest were not only the overseers of the Levites, but they were the ones responsible for performing the sacrifices.  Whether it was the sacrifices of the individual families, or the nation of Israel, it was their responsibility to perform these task.  They communed directly with God and God with them.  Not only were they the official voice of God to the nation of Israel, they were interceding for them and helping the Nation of Israel be in right relationship with God.  They were also the moral compass for Israel.  As moral and upright the priest were, so was the nation of Israel.  Or if the priest were immoral and broke God's commandments, so did the Nation of Israel.  God set the Tribe of Levi aside as consecrated for a particular purpose and a calling to be holy.  He has called us to do the same. 

   The second observation I made was this idea of what it means to be consecrated/set apart.  When I think of this, two meanings come to mind.  The first one is that I think of my mom's fine china where we only use it for holiday meals, and the rest of the year it sits in the china cabinet looking all pretty.   The danger with this is that we are set apart and holy, but we are not being that agent of Change that God has called us to be.  The second idea of being consecrated/set apart means that we have a specific purpose to go out and change the world.  I agree with this, but we have to be careful of the extreme that we forget that we are holy and set apart and we come away looking like the world. 

  My third observation and conclusion to this whole idea of being set apart/consecrated means that we are to take the Biblical commands seriously that we are to be holy as God is holy.  Being consecrated means that we are holy.  I tend to see holiness as perfection, not as I have done nothing wrong, but as maturity.  This means that we are living in right relationship not only with God, but with our fellow man.  It means that we are putting away things that hinder our relationship with God and others while continuing to grow in Gods grace and mercy.  In essence, its maturity or growing up and the end result is that we love God with everything we got and we love our neighbors as ourselves.  As the Apostle Paul states that we should not stay on spiritual milk forever, we need to grow up.  One sign of immaturity is that we continue to struggle with the same issues.  A sign of someone who is maturing is the over coming of those issues.Just as we need to grow up from teen to adulthood, we need to mature spiritually.  So how does this look practically.

     Since we are set apart and consecrated, we are called to be God's hands and feet in a very dark and broken world.  With Christ becoming the ultimate High Priest, He is inviting us to be apart of the Priest Hood of all believers.  Just as the priest of the Old Testament were interceding for the nation of Israel, Christ does the same.  If Christ is interceding for us on a daily basis, how can we not do the same for the world in which we live in.  It is being the dispenser of God's grace to this world.  It is more than just getting people saved (which is important), but it is bearing each others burdens, interceding for those who can't, it also is bring justice to a broke world.  Justice is not just bringing punishment, but it is bringing people back into right relationship with not only each other, but God too.  It is the dispensing of forgiveness and reconciliation not only with God and others, but ourselves as well.  As mentioned earlier, we need to put away things that hinder our relationship with God and others.  We can only change the world in ways we are willing to grow up and change.  This isnt meant to be works orientated, but as we grow in grace of the living God, it will change the world we live in. So in closing lets be the presence of God in a broken world interceding and being that agent of Change God called us to be and that Christ is working through us

An hour at the art museum

  I have developed a fascination with photography over the last several years.  I like looking at pictures, especially sport orientated photos.  When I heard that a local art museum (Tweed museum on the UMD Campus) had a new showing of someones photography work, so I went and I checked it out.  The pictures were good, but what caught my attention was a big painting that was on the wall.  The painting was of a person in chains wearing noting but a loin cloth and he has been beaten.  The person is looking towards the sky with a smile on his face.  There is also a solider and other people surrounding him.  As I learned with art, it is open for interpretation.  Five people can look at the same piece of work and get five different meanings.  So, I asked about the painting and a person who works at the museum went and found some information on the piece.  The piece of artwork happened to be a rendition of the martyr of St Blaise, who was a fourth century Christian who liked to spend time out in the woods in prayer and contemplation.  He was also a friend of animals and people often compared him to St Francis.  There is a fokelore has it that he also had the gift of healing. 

 As I did some pondering over the painting, it really had me captivated.  I thought of the Apostle Paul and how this picture could be him.  He had spent much time in prison and he even written several of his epistles from the jail cell.  During these letters, Paul is not only praising God despite of his circumstances, but also encouraging others from his cell.  Paul had a different view of prison than I would if I were ever in prison.  he wrote to the Philippian Church that because of him being in prison that others were coming to know Christ as their Savior (1:12-14).  Or in His letter to the Ephesians is that he was a prisoner of Jesus Christ for the sake of the Gentiles (3:1).  Or that he is an ambassador in chains and that he must boldly speak the cause of Christ (6:20.  Or to the church in Colossians  that he was rejoicing for suffering for the others and those who have done the same (1:24). 

   I have never been locked up in jail for any amount of time, and I would imagine it wouldn't be a very pleasant stay.  But here is the thing, no matter if we have ever been in jail for a day, week, month, or years, or never, we all have or had life opportunities where we felt like we were in prison.  Could it be the loss of a spouse, a bad health diagnosis, a troubled relationship, a bad job or no job.   In each of these situations, it we are given the opportunity to get out of, make it better, or just make it go away, we would.  Here's the thing, are we grumbling about our current circumstances, or praising God.  God has a bigger purpose than just to keep us happy.  There things that happen because we live in a fallen world and we have to suffer the consequences.  Are we going to let life's circumstances where us down, or are we going to give thanks in all things, no matter how bad they get.  When I give thanks to God for every situation, it is a realization that it is not about me.  It is also realizing that even if we live in a fallen world, we still have a Savior that holds the future.  When giving thanks for the presence circumstances (even though we might not like or enjoy it) to move forward.  Every day we are given the opportunity to grow in grace and maturity, or to do nothing, which usually ends up as regression.

  Having a grateful heart is not the last stop in life, it is what we do with that gratitude is what makes the difference.  Having a grateful heart means action.  It means living at peace with family and friends.  Seeking forgiveness when wrong is done and bestowing forgiveness when wrong is done to you.  It is loving and being patient with people who are just plain hard to be with.  It is having joy in every circumstance, not matter if we just got a batch of homemade cookies or cut off in traffic.  The Apostle Paul was in prison for preaching the Gospeland he had every right to be mean, hateful and bitter, but he chose not too.