Victorious. Anchored in Hope.

This is some of what I hear the Bible tell us.  We where created to be loved, have abundant life, and Christ is victorious over all things.  However, when I encounter myself and other Christians this does not seem to be the message that is portrayed.  I am not going to tackle all three of things I listed, I just want to hang around the being victorious in Christ.  Being victorious does not tell of an event that will happen in the future that will cause us to have victory.   It tells us that something has taken place and we live in a victorious state.  When Jesus says, “it is finished” I understood that it was the end.  That whatever was to be done was done.  He came and died on the cross bearing the worlds junk and he finished it.  He finished it so that we could live in victory over death.

Somehow in all of this I have missed it.  We have missed it.  We sit around and look at the world and say “it is so bad, woe is me God help us from it.”  Maybe I am way wrong on this but I do not really think the world is that much worse than it has ever been.  When I think about it, it could be worse.  Jesus could have never done what he set out to do.  However, separation from God is separation from God no matter how much time has passed by.  But as followers of Christ we live in a state of continuous victory.  The battle has been won and it is finished.  When you have won a game or a sporting match of some kind you do not hang your head and sulk.  There is something innate in us that loves the feeling of winning.  To some it could be pride but I believe deep down it is our tie to the victory on the cross.  The message we carry of Jesus and the victory that has been planted in our spirits.  So no more lying on the deathbed waiting to be healed of the things that you have been healed from a thousand times.  Get up and live victoriously.  No more lying on the deathbed waiting for someone to tell you it is safe to come outside.   Go outside and get dirty because we are victorious.

Hebrews 6:17-20 says, “¹⁷ Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. ¹⁸ God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. ¹⁹ We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, ²⁰ where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

WE are the heirs of what was promised.  Jesus became the high priest forever.  That is the message you bear.  You are the hope to the world.  To be hope we must first have it as our anchor, anchored in victory.  Not anchored in defeat or the dream that someday we will be victorious.  Live in the now with hope for the future because you are the answer by the message you bear.

We have won so have hope!!

Give me some feedback

I came across this video sometime last year from a friends facebook page.  Francis Chan posted it on his blog in July of 2008.  It is a cool short video he did on a plane about Proverbs 30:7-9.  It is only about 2 minutes.  The content seems to be quite the contrary to typical American thinking on savings and retirement.  So watch it and give me some feedback on what you think about it.

 

Joy in the Process

I do not think anyone would disagree that we live in a society that is obsessed with what they can get now.  It seems at least in the western world that everything is driven and designed to make things happen immediately, and if they cannot happen immediately then as quick as possible.  From the “get rich quick” schemes to even the downloading of information, we do not really want to wait or fight for much of anything.  I mean no one likes getting stuck behind a slow driver because it delays wherever they are going.  No one has the patience to really slave in the kitchen to cook a good meal.  But that is ok because if you don’t get stuck behind a slow person on the road you can have your food now.  Someone just sticks his or her arm out a window and you just drive by and swoop it up.  It seems that in everything there is a short cut to get to where we are going because we want everything now.  All day long we are bombarded with ways to get what we want now.  What I am getting at here is that instant gratification and the desire to have everything now removes us from the process.

Have you ever noticed during Christmas time you can’t wait till Christmas morning?  Then when it comes it is gone very quickly and not really as good as you thought it would be.  However, if you look back at the process leading up to Christmas, that is where all the hype came from.  You got caught up in the process.  The process was the Christmas lights, the music, and the anticipation of being around family.  Lets not forget about the making of Christmas cookies, the shopping with family, the fat ham, and the weighted gained.  The process was the best part not the end result.  When we skip the process and are so focused on the goal and so focused on what we think we need now, we miss all the nuggets of truth and revelation the process has for us.  It is really in the process that all things take place.  Because once you arrive at whatever it is that you had to have now or had to learn now it is gone and something else has consumed our thoughts to obtain now.

I am going through the process right now.  I am living in Mijas, Spain serving at G42 Leadership Academy.  When I came I did not think I would be sweeping the floor and being the maintenance guy.  In this process there has been greater growth for me in humility and servant hood, than there would have been if I had been put in a leadership position from the onset.  I am also learning that in this process you can serve your way to greatness.  Jesus said in Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”   So what processes are you’re currently in that you are trying to skip over?  What are you trying to get right now that could have a process involved?  There is much joy in the process.  I will end with this quote from Donald Miller, “love the process more than the results.”

Unity of OUR Body and THE Body

I am not the first person to see that we, as the body of Christ are not very unified.  We have the propensity to want to create our own things and have our own followers even though we believe in the same Jesus.  Because we don’t like how they do it over there or how they say it across the street.  We say things like, “Man I cannot believe they would let people come into their house like that.”  So with these thoughts and dislikes we create a “body” with likes that cater to us.  Therefore from the onset we dis-unify ourselves from the others operating as the body of Christ.

Sometime in 2004 John 17 really began to hit my spirit.

John 17:20-23 (NIV)

^“20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³ I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

After reading this my heart began to change about the way I viewed the body.  It also changed my heart towards what others brought to the body.  There was then a strong desire to see unity brought to the body.  If we could operate in complete unity then we could truly bring the Kingdom of God to earth.  And in this process I think I missed the starting point.  To unify outside of yourself you must first be unified.

Hebrews 4:12 (NASB)

“¹²For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

The word of God pierces the division within our own body and bringing unity to the soul and spirit.  When this takes place within us then we can bring about unity to the rest of the body of Christ.  I do not claim to have a how-to to make this happen.  However, I know we must posture ourselves to allow the word to pierce us in such a way that brings about unity in our soul and spirit.  So that we can love one another as he has loved us.  Setting aside our own agenda and picking up an agenda of Christ, which is unity amongst those who have chosen to follow him.

1 John 3:23 says, “³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”

Passion and Ambition

This is some thoughts from a journal entry on January 11, 2011.

Does passion drive ambition?

In my mind it does.  The more passionate I am about football the more ambitiously I will try to watch it and be apart of it.  The more passionate I am about my marriage the more ambitiously I will work at it.  The more passionate I am about the word of God the ambitiously I will consume it.  The passionate I am about discipleship the more ambitiously I will disciple.  The more passionate I am about the Kingdom of God the ambitious I am about bringing it to earth.  We go at this for days but I think you get my point.

Can passion be taught?

Kind of rhetorical but I do not think it is something that can be taught but must come from within.

If passion drives ambition what drives your passion?  The Word of God?  The Holy Spirit?

The word and spirit light the fire of passion, sustain it and allow other factors to contribute.  What factors contribute to your passion?  Is it the 7 billion that God desires to lavish his love upon?  It is the legacy you have to leave to the next generation?

Let the passion and ambition flow from you to fight the good fight and achieve the dreams of your heart.

The Chase is On!

We all have things we want to do in life.  Some call them goals, aspirations, or dreams, but whatever they are they are deeply rooted in our spirits.  They have some sort of motivational factor that causes us to listen as it beckons from within us.  It is almost like a caged animal eagerly pacing, waiting for the smallest opening to be released into freedom.  However we seem to do an amazing job at taming the animal feeding it tranquilizers in the form of fear and uncertainty.  Once the tranquilizers have taken effect the animal inside us grows weak and apathy sets in.  Soon the door is wide open and no lock is needed to keep the animal in, because it has become content in its boxed in life.  The dream never dies it now just lacks the motivation it once had to call out to us and spur us on to greatness.

What does it take to release it from within us?  To allow it to drive us to uncertainty?  To cause us to act in complete faith?  It wants to be released, chased down and caught.  I have never hunted but I can imagine when the chase is on nothing else matters.  You don’t care where your are going, what you are stepping in or the scenery along the way.  However, when you catch it, it has to be a feeling like nothing else.  Mark Batterson wrote, “Your greatest regret at the end of your life will be the lions you didn’t chase.”  So lets release the animal out of its cage.  Lets release the dream within us and not worry about where it is taking us.  Lets be motivated by the chase because we were created for greatness.

The Good Ole Days

My father-in-law sent this to my wife and I thought it was awesome.

“First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.  They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.  Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps, not helmets on our heads.  As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.  Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.  We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.  We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And we weren’t overweight.  WHY?  Because we were always outside playing…that’s why!  We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.  No one was able to reach us all day.  And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scrap and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.  We did not have Play Stations, Nintendos and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.  WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found  them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from those accidents.  We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand, and no one would call child services to report abuse.

We ate worms, and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.  We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and -although we were told it would happen- we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.  Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.  Imagine that!!  The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!”

This just made me laugh and think about how we are raising our children.  Are we really protecting them or just really afraid?