Stop and Reflect

I just finished teaching a lesson to a # of 8th grade students on a retreat about stopping long enough to reflect on the past and plan for the future. To NOT repeat the mistakes of the past and be all that God has intended us to be in the future. To work our salvation with fear and trembling, to build on the foundation of Christ with Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones. I need to stop more and be silent and reflect.

One Dimensional Salvation

I have recently been challenged with how one-dimensional I tend to see and therefore share Salvation. I have been taught to see salvations mainly in terms of a legal transaction. It is about me and the debt I have owed and what God has done to pardon freely that debt through Jesus. All of this is true and good, not just good but amazing.

But, that is not the whole story. Salvation in Jesus is so much more! It is God ransoming back the entire universe. God saving me to make me into what He originally intended at the creation of me. Redeeming me and making me whole in all of life, NOW! Not just after this life. God is working in and on me now, right now, even as I type and this is salvation. It is not about me and my eternal state, as much as it is about joining God and His ransoming back of the entire universe. Joining the empire of God and His amazing work in this world.

Lord, forgive me for missing this so often in the past and continuing these thoughts of shallowness as I have taught many others. Please, continue to grow my so limited view or YOU!

Those Darn Canadians!!

I did the Ski Mag Reader Resort Survey this year and entered in the Sweepstakes for the ski trip for two. On the "Official Rules" letter they sent with the entry form there is something REALLY FUNNY!

In the paragraph explaining how the drawing will be conducted is this sentence:

"Canadian winner will be required to correctly answer, unaided, a time-limited mathematical skill-testing question in order to receive the prize."

"If a train was heading from Boston to Denver at ...
And another Heades from Denver to Boston at...
OK 30 Seconds, GO!"

Man I am glad I'm not Canadian! I stink at math!

I sent it to Leno for his Headlines bit!

I felt old for a minute

For the first time I can remember I really felt old the other day. Even though I'm NOT! I was at a carnival for our oldest at the Elementary school she will be attending next year. I was looking around at all the people there with their kids playing the games and such. As I people watched (one of the greatest sports ever) I was noticing how old everyone seemed. Then the though accrued to me that I belonged here with all these old people! Freakey!

Just a small taste of what happens at the dreaded mid life crisis. O' it's coming! But not YETTTTT!

Be Careful what you Blog, I am pretty sure God Reads it!

So the day after I post "Freedom in Christ" God shows me how un-free I still am even thought I have come a long way.

ARE YOU BOTHERD BY "IT"?

By it I mean sin, any sin. The answer is most likely yes. But, how are we "bothered"? Yesterday I went to the Denver campus of CU to talk to a professor about some schooling I am looking into. I needed to go to the student union and purchase a catalog from the bookstore. As I walked through the union I was excited to be there and looking forward to engaging culture. Then I happened to walk by the Gay, Lesbian, and alternative life style office in the union. It bothered me! But not the bothered me like “there is a bunch of people who really need love”. It was the bothered that “I can't believe an office like that is allowed in a student union”, condemning bothered. Definitely the WRONG kind of bothered! God new I would be walking there that day and knew what I just wrote (freedom in Christ) and I am sure He thinks it is funny! And it is funny! He really knows how to reopen our eyes to our shortcomings and I am sure He is amused as He does it. I like a God like that and I am happy to admit that He is still working hard on me to be like Him each and every day. I want to be bothered by "IT” what ever it is. But bothered as God is, not as I can be in my self-righteous little world!!

Freedom in Christ

My faith has changed a lot in the past couple of years. With my very conservative background the world and the people immersed in it used to almost scare me. Today God has given me a newfound desire to love and interact with all those not-yet-Christians in my life. I also want desperately to get out of my naive Christian bubble and get to love many more of them. I am not content simply ministering to those in the church and in my ministry. In fact I tend to grow tired of the monotony of it all. I feel free to love and care for those around me who once just bothered me. And many who now bother me do so because they are just sitting on their duffs and content with their safe, Christian, Suburban bubbles. God has really been changing me to be more like Him. The God who ate with tax collectors and sinners and truly loved them. To me this is a new understanding of freedom in Christ. I can be free to dance with the Spirit, to be “in tune” with the God song going on all around me and not be hindered by my naive Christian surroundings.

By clicking on Freedom in Christ you will be directed to a Nooma video called "Rythem" I would highly sugest purchasing and watching.

Revival, from an easy chair???

Can there be true revival if there is not a willingness to really change? Can revival happen when we plan for it?

I think NO, to both!

I don't see a real attitude of surrender to God's leading. We all want to see God work but it feels like there is an attitude that if God were to radically change our directions we would not be willing to go there. Our mission never changes but how that mission is accomplished constantly changes. It seems our bigger, Suburban churches are just not willing to go there. We spend time in prayer asking God for wisdom but already have a plan. We are so concerned with us and are so comfortable that we can't even think radically. I am sick of it! In myself! In those around me!

Lord help us all change and be ok with change because everything changes even when we don't see it over the edge of the easy chair!