Lions Come in Prides, Do You?

Recently I've been reading More than a Story by Dani Tietjen and Henry Graf.  I started the book a while ago, and decided that I wanted to finish it.  The writers each write a story and then discuss the deeper meaning behind the stories.  In one of them, they talked a lot about pride and helping others.  The chapter in question is Shiny Red Blessings.

What is pride?  Well, it is a family group of lions, but in humans, it is where someone thinks of themselves more highly than they should.  This can be in the form of choosing your way over God's or can also be found in different areas of our lives such as deciding not to forgive, choosing who you will help, and by thinking you're a cooler cat than you are.  I think that in part, we as people are inherently prideful.  We want to talk about ourselves and spend time making ourselves look good to others.  We also tend to think that we're the ones who decide if someone deserves forgiveness and decide who and when we want to be a blessing to others.

Now that we've spent a little time talking about pride, let's spend some time looking into what it means to be a blessing to others.  I've learned that being a blessing to others means a couple of things.  The first thing that I've learned, is that it means helping anyone you can.  You can't be picky when you decide who to help, because that means you're being prideful as it's YOU who decides.  I've also learned that it means helping however you can and in a way that is actually beneficial.  If you help someone in only the way that you want and not in the way that they want to be helped, chances are you're not actually being a blessing.  The last thing I've learned is to be cheerful when you're blessing others.  If you have a rotten attitude, it shows and no one wants that.

All of this said, I hope that we as a Christian community can learn more about blessing others in a helpful way!

Just Some Thoughts on... Racism

Lately my Facebook Feed has been blowing up with news, reports, and posts about racism.  Which, is kind of annoying to be honest with you.  It's really sad to see that America today is still not only dealing with this, but is also relishing the fact that there is this scourge.  That isn't to say that all of the people on my Feed are posting things that are for or against it, but it's still super frustrating to see.  I understand that's what is going on in America, but why can't we just stop it?

I think there are several things at play here.  First off, I think that there is overt racism in America.  I would argue that the KKK and other groups like that are overtly showing racism towards individuals who aren't white.  I would also like to suggest that there is a more subvert form of racism where  individuals of color who work minimum wage jobs can't get housing they can afford and the like.  I know this is mostly an outright form of hate, but it leads to segregation in cities.  The last major kind of racism I've noticed is the kind where individuals are just plain treated differently.  What does that mean?  Well, when we treat individuals with "kid gloves" or whatever you'd want to call it, we end up saying things like of course that's how this people group would act, that's the only way they can voice their opinion.  However, I don't think this is the case.  Individuals are allowed to voice their opinions in the way that is deemed appropriate and they don't have to choose violence or riots.

I think it's important to become friends with as many individuals as possible who are different than you.  That way, you can see their stories, how they think, and what they feel.  I know being friends with people who are different than you is hard, but it's the best way to learn about people of different groups.

If you read the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32, you find that God treats you as His child.  One could surmise that anyone reading this passage is God's child.  This means that the words that Paul writes in Galatians 5:14, "For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself." is not only simply about loving the other individuals, who happen to be your siblings in Christ, but also means that the other laws God gives us are summed up in this little statement.

As a Christian, it's important to spend time finding ways to practically love on those who are different than you, and also pray for them.  It's important to find ways to bridge gaps between individuals and discover who they are.  We should be loving others in response to the boundless love of God and not to earn God's love.  What better way to showcase this, than by loving everyone around you?

I've Got My Eye on You

Hey everyone, I hope you're all doing well!  Today I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about our sight.  I know it's a weird thing to talk about, but I think that it's an important thing to talk about.

Jesus made a very interesting point in Matthew 6:22-23, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"  I think this is something that is important to understand because Jesus is saying that we need to think about how we see others.  I've found that when I'm an angry person, I see other people as being rude, stupid, and many other negative things.  My eyes were clouded by darkness, and it reflected what was on the inside of me.

However, when we as humans are full of the light of Christ, we are able to see people in a way that more clearly reflects how the Father sees them. We see people who need to be shown God's love.  We see people that we can serve in various ways.  We also see people who are broken just like us.

When we spend time with God, we realize how much we need God.  We begin to notice that we can't do enough on our own and it's the love of God that pulls us through.  We also begin to understand in a very small way how much God loves us and how much love God has for those around us.  We are tasked with the all important mission of loving others in response to how much the Father loves us.  However, we can only realize this when we are spending time with God and we are full of light.

What is Grace Pt. 2

In my last post, I talked about who God is and what sin is.  I did this, because we need to understand both of these things in even the most simple way before we can figure out what grace is.

By definition, grace is undeserved favor or a gift that is not warranted.  I think an excellent illustration of this is when my nephew, Michael was asking my sister for a piece of candy at my parent's house.  My sister, LeeAnn told Michael to ask Papa.  So my dad gave Michael two pieces of candy instead of one.  LeeAnn promptly asked why he got two pieces of candy; the response was simply, "because he's at Papa's house."

Michael did nothing to earn one or even two pieces of candy, but he got both.  It's because my dad loves Michael that he got this present.  Christ has something to say about this, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Matthew 7:11.

Jesus talks about about being poor in spirit, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3, but what does mean?  In the context, being poor in spirit means that you know you have nothing to offer.  It means knowing that you are broken and have not one thing to barter with.  The kingdom of heaven is in reference to God's blessing more than it is to getting into heaven.

I think in light of Matthew 5:3, we can gather that God delights more in us loving Him than being pious and focusing on being people who just do good.  In the Lutheran church there are three means of grace, or ways of experiencing God's love and undeserved favor.  These are: Communion, Baptism, and Scriptures.  I absolutely love how God shows His love for us through these things.  I also think that there are "common" means of grace in the form of fellowship, prayer, and worship.  God shows us He loves us through all of these avenues.

God is able to do so much more with us when we admit to not being able to stand on our own.  Paul talks about how God's power is perfected in our weakness, 2 Corinthians 12:9.  This doesn't mean that God is perfected in sin mind you.  This means that when we are able to admit that we don't have it all together God can work in our lives much more powerfully.

What is Grace Pt. 1

Lately I've been rereading The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning.  This book is beautiful because it's all about God's grace for us.  I think before we look at grace, we need to understand who God is, what sin is, and why they are both such a big deal.  In part two, I'll spend time actually talking more about God's grace.

Who is God?  This question is too big to answer in any concise way, but I'll do my best.  God is first and foremost, holy.  What does that look like?  It means that God is set apart from us.  God is by nature perfect on top of being holy.  This means that God can't be in contact with anything that is unholy or having sin.

What is sin?  I think it's pretty hard to summarize as well because it's such a large thing to understand.  When translators tried to translate the words for sin in Greek and Hebrew into English, they had a hard time finding a way to encapsulate what sin is.  They picked the word "sin" because in archery anything less than a perfect bulls eye is considered as such.  Sin can literally be translated into anything that is short of the mark.

If you've ever read Leviticus, the third book in the Bible, you've gotten a pretty good idea of what sin is.  Granted, these laws were written for a specific people in a specific time.  God had rules for everything from how to eat to how to handle dead animals.  There were ways to make yourself ritually clean after coming into contact with sin and death.  These laws were created to not only keep God's children safe, but also create an understanding that we can't make it to God apart from God Himself.  As a result, the Israelite people had to sacrifice animals.  The blood of the animals covered the debt in blood that God's people owed.

Jesus Christ was sent to atone for our sins, or the ways that we miss the mark of what God calls us to.  This is really powerful because the Bible states "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 6:23. We all sin because humanity is inherently sinful.  You can argue that this is not the case, but who teaches toddlers to lie?  No one, but they still do it.

Sin equals death and God equals life.  This is really important to remember because apart from God we are dead both on the inside and will be eternally separated from God in death.  We need Christ in our lives to become alive and be united with God in Heaven.

The Inside and the Outside

I started a new job three weeks ago.  I clean windows with my new job.  It isn't the most exciting job I've held down when you look at just the title, but it is an amazing job for so many reasons.  I am able to work with some fantastic Christian guys and spend a lot of time with God as washing windows is pretty mindless.  I'm going to talk about those two things here.

Recently, I've found jobs where the people I work for aren't Christians.  This in of itself isn't an issue, but it does make going to church consistently hard.  My new boss doesn't like to make us work on Sundays as he thinks that we end up worshiping money and not God if we work too many Sundays.  It's also been hard to talk to people about my faith in a way that I'm not being belittled.  However, on the first day of washing windows, we were talking about theology, which is one of my favorite things to do.  My coworkers and I eat together as often as we can, which I absolutely love.  It's been really awesome to be able to spend time with such quality guys.

For the past several years I have been struggling with an addiction to tobacco.  It's been really easy to hide as I was chewing.  My clothes and my hair didn't stink so people wouldn't be able to tell I just had a pouch in my mouth.  It has been really cool to hang out with Brandon, who has overcome many addictions and be able to pick his brain about not only theology, but giving up addictions.  Anthony, my boss has been super supportive of me quitting and even let me schedule a doctors appointment to talk about quitting.  I am very excited to be able to finally let this habit go.

Like I pointed out previously, washing windows is pretty mindless.  So it's very easy for me to spend my time praying and thinking about God.  A lot of the houses where we wash the windows are very big and beautiful.  However, they have their flaws: smudges in the paint, dying leaves on their plants, and so many more small issues with their beauty.  This makes me think a lot about how Christ talks to the teachers of the law in Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."  These houses and often times the people are nothing more than whitewashed tombs.  The people we work for spend lots of time trying to look good for others, but on the inside they are rotting without Christ.

Through my job, Anthony has been able to tell two hardcore Muslim women about Christ.  They both asked why we as a crew were so patient with them when they were being so demanding.  Anthony responded with "Christ in me" and was able to talk about Jesus.  Before we do commercial jobs we pray for opportunities to share the love of Christ with those we are serving.  It has been amazing to be able to pray with my boss in that way.

Going back to Matthew, I spend a lot of time thinking about being a whitewashed tomb.  I know that as a sinful human, I can spend a lot of time being a hypocrite.  In fact, we are all hypocritical in some ways.  As a result, I pray a lot asking God to wash me as I wash windows.  I know that on my own, I'm nothing more than just a tomb that looks beautiful on the outside and is full of death on the inside.  I also know that with Christ living in me, both my insides and my outsides are made clean.  Sure, I still wrestle with sin, like everyone else, but in realizing that I sin, it allows the grace of God to have that much more of a hold in my life.

When I know that I am nothing besides God, it forces me to lean into His embrace all that much more.  When I spend time reflecting on where I fall short, it gives me that much larger of a chance to ask God to pick up the slack.

Father's Day and Some Ramblings About Marriage

So today is Father's Day.  Which, is pretty cool, as being a dad is a pretty big deal.  As I'm getting geared up for marriage, I've been thinking what being both a father and husband of God looks like.  I'm going to talk about being a Godly father first.

God says a lot about being a dad as it turns out.  I think we can also learn a lot about being a father by looking at the way God interacts with the people of Israel.  A lot of people look at the Old Testament God as one who is full of wrath and angry.  I can see why people would think that.  However, I encourage you to think of God as a Father to His people.  What do good fathers do when their children disobey?  They punish their kids in the best way possible right?  God told His kids many times that He would send other nations to punish them if they didn't listen and lusted after other gods.

What did God do in response to the often times apostate nation of Israel?  He sent in other, pagan nations to enslave them.  God is way more just than any human could ever be, and if that's the punishment God needed to use in order to get His children to turn back to Him, then that's what God had to use.  "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28.  God is amazing at working even awful situations to the good of His people.  Good fathers are men who justly punish their kids when needed.

God also provided for the people of Israel many, many times.  He brought manna in the desert, He led his people in the desert, and He also provided the promised land of Israel.  Those are just three examples, but you can find so many other ways that God has provided.  Godly fathers are men who provide for their kids.

God was also present to His people.  Granted, it wasn't in the form of walking and talking with them, but He was present in the Temple.  He was only available to a handful of people, but He was present.  Good fathers need to be present in the lives of their children.

I was told recently by a guy that being a good husband is like being the Bible to your wife.  Which, kind of confused me at first, as there is a lot in the Bible.  However, when I thought about it some more, it means embodying what is in the Bible.  It means being patient and kind to your wife.  It also means being gentle as you lead her.  It means walking beside her even if you don't want to because you love her.

Loving both your wife and your children means choosing to every day even when it is a lot easier to not.  It means putting them before yourself and others.  It means walking with them as they're struggling.  It means choosing to act like Christ to them.

Also, as a quick update, SEND is almost over, so I will be moving back home in less than a week.  I will be working with a Christian and I'll be working with my church.

The Purpose of the Church

Recently I watched the Revival Hymn, which is a 30 minute video made of audio clips from various pastors who saw revival.  One of the pastors talks about how Christianity has become muddled by humanism.  Humanism is the thought that people exist simply to be happy.  Therefore, Christianity has been warped to portray God as a ticket to eternal happiness and not the all powerful God that He is.  This pastor talked about how God sent him to Africa to reach the heathens there.  When this man got there, he found out to his dismay that they were perfectly happy in their ways and didn't want God.  When he was in his room, this pastor was telling God how he was so upset that God had dared send him to Africa.  God's response was, "I didn't send you to Africa for their sake, I sent you there for My sake."

The Church is the Body of Christ, so we should be moving and doing things to bring God glory.  However, it seems like we spend a lot of our time, effort, and money on things that bring us glory.  We build big, beautiful buildings and we have pastors who worry about how big their paycheck is.  This isn't at all about glorifying God.

In SEND we learn about Life Shapes, which are shapes that help explain ways that followers of Christ live.  One of the ones we focus on the most is the Triangle, which breaks down our relationships UP with God, IN with other believers, and OUT with people who aren't yet Christians.  In churches, it's very easy to focus on the UP and IN and just become a country club, or a place to be involved for the status.  We're just bringing ourselves glory by being a country club and this needs to stop.

We need to stop focusing on building our churches and pulling people in with gimmicks.  Christ NEVER tells us to build His church.  He tells us He will, Jesus just commands us to make disciples.  This means we need to teach each other how to have a relationship with God, reach those outside of the church, and also continue to build disciples.  As a part of discipleship, we need to be real with each other.  That's the only way we can hope to build relationships with those who aren't yet Christians and bring God glory through that.

God's given me this vision of seeing my hometown, Ypsilanti going through a revival.  It seriously makes me cry every time I think or pray about it.  I want nothing more than to see God moving in the lives of the people.  I would even give up my favorite bar if it got shut down because of this.  I have a vision of the strip club closing and people filling their lives with Christ.  I think that God will bring revival with or without me, but I want to be a tool that God uses to bring revival.

As a part of this vision I see God using the churches to find and remember those who are lost and forgotten.  As a Christian, we need to listen to God's voice in finding people to reach.  God is always preparing people for us to reach out to, but we need to know where God is sending us.  I had a meeting with a guy named Tom today and he said that he plays tee ball with God.  He just waits for God to put the ball on the tee so that he can hit it.  This is such a good way to describe how mission work should be.

How can we reach others?  By asking God to open up opportunities for it.  At work my manager isn't a Christian, but he asks me questions about God sometimes.  I've been praying that God would continue to open the door in my boss's life.  Sure, this means bringing up Christianity to my boss, but if I truly love him, wouldn't I want him to know God?  Wouldn't I want my manager to bring God glory?  Who has God put in your life to bring into a relationship with Him?  Who has God put in your life to disciple? If you could please join me in praying for my boss, I would greatly appreciate it!

What does this mean for the Church?  This means actually learning how to make disciples and how to be real with each other so we can reach those around us.  It also means having an attitude where we want to bring God glory over bringing ourselves glory.  Is what you're doing really bringing God glory?  God deserves all of our time and effort, because He is worthy.

You May Have Noticed

For those of you who are new to my blog, welcome! I have decided to use this space to spend time writing about what God is doing in my life, how I am serving God, and write reviews of books.  I haven't been reading a lot lately, so I don't have any new reviews to write.  Hopefully I start reading more soon.  I do have some leadership books that I am about to start, but I am not sure if I will include these in my reviews.

Now, for those of you who have stuck around with this blog for a while, thank you for being a loyal reader.  It means a lot to me!  I have decided to delete a bunch of my older posts because they simply weren't reflecting where I want to take the blog.

I also wanted to take this post to take some time to explain how I decided to lay out this blog.  I feel that God is calling me to reach out to the people that "normal" church goers don't want to reach.  This means those who are found in the "smoking sections" of life.  I don't mean I feel called to reach those who are smokers, but it means that I want to find a way to reach those who are often forgotten by society.  I might get a lot of flak for listening to the music I listen to and watching the films I chose to watch and that is okay with me.  I know that there are people out there who enjoy these things just like I do.  If God can use my interests to reach a single person, then it is worth it in my mind.

I've been given a sense of empathy because of the experiences I've had in life, which is awesome because it means I can understand where people are coming from in many different ways.  When coupled with the SEND training I am receiving, it makes for a very interesting way of looking at the world.  Today we had a teaching from Kent Hunter about culture.  I think understanding culture is an important part of being a missionary.  The culture in which you're operating needs to be understood to be effective.  I also think that it is important to remember not to live in a way that you are participating in the sin you find in that group of people.

I know that I have decided to choose an interesting background image for my blog.  I think the barbed wire represents in a modern way, the thorns used to make a crown for Christ.  It also reminds me of the prisons we all find ourselves in.  I think it is important to remember that we are all imprisoned in some fashion in our lives.  This truth really hit home when we went as a group to Ohio to learn about prison ministry through SEND.  Even though some people are behind bars for their actions, I am no better, because I live in prisons I've made myself through my actions.  This is a good reminder for any Christian that we are called to help redeem the lives of people to help them find freedom from sin.

I know that is impossible in a few ways, as we live in a world where no one is perfect.  In fact, I John reminds us that anyone who says they are without sin is a liar.  On top of that, the truth is not in them.  However, we are saved when we repent of our sins.  Repent literally means to turn away from something.  We are called to turn away from our sins as Christians and turn to Christ instead.  Christ is the ultimate place to be freed from our self made prisons.

This blog is a place I am dedicating to writing about how God is moving in my life.  This can be in any way that God decides to move, whether that is through SEND or if God gives me a clearer vision on what He wants in my life.  I know God is calling me to be a pastor and it will be interesting to see how God takes me on that path as I know that there are only two avenues for me in the Lutheran church.

I also feel that God is calling me to bring life back into the Lutheran denomination, even though this is a huge task.  I know that if it's God's will, God will foot the bill. I know it isn't the exactly same application, but it has truth.  If it's God's will, God will make it happen.

I am excited to see where God calls me and even though I'm feeling kind of beaten down by what is going on in my life right now, I am reassured knowing that it's in these times that God grows me the most.