Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sitting across from the offering box, he was observing how the crowd tossed money in for the collection. Many of the rich were making large contributions. One poor widow came up and put in two small coins—a measly two cents. Jesus called his disciples over and said, "The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford—she gave her all." Mark 12:41-44
- Jesus was strategically positioned to watch the people give in the offering. He knew who was giving and the specific amounts they were giving. If Pastor's did that today, (in most traditions) they would be chalked up as money hungry, greedy and nosey.
- From a normal, natural and earthly perspective, the people giving large financial gifts were making more impact and their gifts meant more.
- From a heavenly, Kingdom of God perceptive, through the lens of Jesus (the only lens that really matters), the woman with the penny had a more meaningful gift. It was not the size of the check, but the size of the sacrifice.
- Again, Jesus sees things opposite of the normal, cultural, or practical understanding. This is one of those things that I love about Jesus!
- Finally, we need to give out of our reserve funds, not our surplus funds. This is NOT just a giving of money, but a giving of time, talent, and other gifts you have been entrusted with.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
- We will attack some elephants in the room. Things that you may not have heard discussed at church before.
- We will look at sex and marriage & sex and singleness.
- I plan to spend some time discussing homosexuality.
- We will spend some time looking at the power of sexual secrets and how to get help.
- We will redefine cheating, and look at the 12 steps to having an affair in hopes that we can avoid them.
- I pray we collapse some of the lies the enemy has fed us.
Monday, January 25, 2010
- My favorite son, Joseph is dead. I even have his special coat covered in blood to prove it.
- Simeon is gone now. He leaves with you and did not come back! What's up with that?!
- And now, you are telling me that you have to take Benjamin (my youngest son) with you and he will be gone.
- Forget it all. I think I just want to die.
- Joseph was living a life of blessing and favor...alive and well...and the very reason that the family had food, or life for that matter.
- Simeon was JUST FINE back with Joseph as he waited to be united with his brothers.
- And Benjamin's presence was desired so that the whole family could be together and experience redemption!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye." -Mt. 7: 1-5
- It is extremely clear that Jesus is saying we must not miss the oak tree in our eye! Stop right there. You have issues. Take notice of them. It is urgent that you work on getting the log out of your eye. First!
- At the same time, stop looking at others issues. They are nothing compared to yours.
- What is this doing? It is creating a huge sense of humility in us where we realize who we are and how broken we are, and then helps us love others where they are.
- This is NOT how most of us function. I am sorry to break it to you. It is WAY more natural to check out everyone else's speck and talk about it, then to look at our log. At least that has been my observation. And evidently the observation of many pollsters.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
- The kingdom of this world.
- The kingdom of God.
- It is everywhere! Signs of the two kingdoms are everywhere.
- Jesus wants "His Kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven." It's precisely how he taught he disciples to pray and live...in a way that accomplishes this.
- The beatitudes in Matthew 5 are whack! A new way of thinking. Jesus blesses the things that the world could care less about.
- Then, the sermon on the mount proceeds to lay out a totally opposite way of seeing everything....from money to law to anger to adultery to divorce to vows to revenge to love to......you get the point. The way we live, act and react should be totally opposite of what we see around us. Is it? The answer for me: NO!
- The kingdom of God looks like Jesus. Jesus is the living, breathing, earthly example of the kingdom of God.
- The kingdom of God is opposite most of what we see. Kingdom thinking and living is counter cultural, against the grain, radical, and revolutionary!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
- YES, he cares!!
- The entire Bible is a proof text for the fact that he cares.
- He cared about Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel.
- He cared about Moses and the Israelites as he tried his darndest to redeem them and call them into the promised land (despite the fact that they made it so difficult).
- He cared through the flood in giving a fresh start to his people.
- He cared in the story of Abraham from his call to the making of a people of God.
- He cared through the Old Testament.
- He cared through the New Testament.
- The whole human story seems to be about GOD CARING and us messing things up.
- Then....then.....then.....he expressed his care the most when he came himself in the form of Jesus, entered into our broken world and fixed the problem once and for all by caring enough to nail evil to the cross with Jesus, the son of God!
- Now, evil has been conquered and overcome by love.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
- I long for us to see the lives of people in other nations as being EQUALLY as valuable as the lives of Americans.
- In turn, I long for us to be as broken for others when tragedy strikes as we would be for ourselves.
- In fact, I would take it a step further....with Christ as the selfless servant example that he is, we should be more worried about others than we are ourselves.
- We are joined together as the kingdom of God (first allegiance) and we need to beware of dividing our joys or our pains according to the kingdoms of this world!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
- Illegal behavior (especially if it leads to jail or makes the news)
- Poor Stewardship
- ALL sin is a big deal because it messes up God's awesome intention for us!
- Overreaction to "big-deal-sins" alienates and hurts people, makes them feel unforgiveable, and runs counter to the grace of God. Stop freaking out. You are NOT helping people by dropping your chin and acting like they are the only one on earth who is gay (or you fill in the blank)!
- Some of the "no-big-deal-sins" actually lead to a dirtier heart than the "big-deal-sins."
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
- Nursery for the Babies
- AWANA for kids 2 years through Grade 6
- REAL Teens youth ministry for Grades 7-12
- Bible Study with Master Teacher, Pastor Nelson
- Live Worship
Sally and I have been married for almost forty years and are still best friends. We love Jesus, our kids and our grandkids, non-shedding dogs and a good bowl of ice cream! I love to hunt, hike and experience anything adventurous! Sally loves a quiet day, a good book and browsing in antique stores. We got engaged on an outreach to Jamaica, while standing in a food line with three hundred other noisy students. Not very romantic, but I was in love, we were going to be separated for two months on different teams, and I didn't want to "lose" her to another guy. So I wrote Sally a note while standing there in line. It said, "I love you. Will you marry me" She fell for it! And here we are, almost forty years, two kids, two grandkids, numerous pets, and countless airline miles later, more in love than ever.
After living in Kabul, Afghanistan and Amsterdam, Holland for more than 20 years, Sally and I discovered that we are most fruitful in doing three things: making disciples, training leaders, and planting churches. We love serving God. We never cease to be amazed that God uses us. As a "mother and father" in the Lord, we feel we are entering the best years of our lives.
Our calling is to help people discover their gifts and passions and utilize them to spread the worship of Jesus where He is least known. We have gone to the hard places of the earth to tell people about Jesus, and now we are called to ask others to do the same. And when they do, we promise not to forget them when they get there!
That is why we started All Nations but that is another story!
Monday, January 11, 2010
The Bible was written over a span of fifteen hundred years by more than forty writers. God inspired Kings and poets and prophets and shepherds. They wrote out of very different personalities in very different circumstances. Some wrote in the plush setting of a palace, while others etched their words during an island exile. Some wrote out of the agony of personal tragedy, while others wrote in the ecstasy of epiphany. Written in three different languages on three different continents, there is no other book like the Bible. Despite the fact that it touches on thousands of complex subjects and controversial topics, it possesses a supernatural harmony from beginning to end. And it is omnirelevant to every person on the planet.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
- 30:1-13- This is the first time I can remember noticing this baby making contest/competition. Pretty wild. Check it out. It also exceedingly clear that there is a super strong correlation between a woman’s child bearing and her self worth. This is a repeated theme.
- 31:44-45- Here we have another treaty and monument. We see this over and over again.
- 32:2- “This is God’s Camp!!”
- 35:3- Love this verse!! (“Built an altar to the God who answers me in distress and who is always there!”)
- 37:4- Parents: if you show partiality, you are inviting hate on that kid!
- 37:5-7 Joseph had a lot of nerve to tell his Brothers about this dream. Would you have? Why or why not?
- 37:19- “Here comes that dreamer!” I want to be accused of that!
- 40:8 and 41:16 tell us that Joseph KNEW that interpreting dreams was something that only God could do…but then he proceeded to do it. Hence, it is assumed that he was doing it under God’s anointing.
- 40:23- we all need to be careful to not forget what people did for us or take credit for things that we did not do!
- 41:14- Look clean and well dressed for people in authority. SHAVE!
- 42:36- Jacob felt that he was losing 3 sons, when he was actually losing NONE!! Isn’t this true of life? Everything can look and feel way worse than it really is.
- 43:11- Yummy! Pistachio nuts.
- 43:3- Hide those tears, Joseph.
- 44:30- Parents need to be careful to “bind their lives up in their kids lives.”
- 45:5- You know that “bad” thing that happened to me? Yeah, God did it!
God clearly called and chose Abraham for awesome purposes! But there is this aspect of his story that reveals something humorous about the nature of God. Or perhaps about the nature of man…
In Genesis 15:2, Abraham is basically telling God… “Thanks for all these blessings (that I am not really asking for)…but, how about you give me a son (that I am asking for)!”
Then, in 17:17, Abraham laughs sarcastically after God tells him that he will give him a son through his (old) wife. “Then Abraham bowed to the ground, but laughed in disbelief.” Ha, ha, God! Yeah right!
Next, in 18:11-15 there is this account of Sarah doing the same thing…laughing at the idea of having a baby. “Yeah right, I am too old.” I wonder if this was possibly even some nervous laughter?
Then in 21:6 something really neat happens. It says “Sarah declared, ‘God has given me a spirit of laughter! All who hear about this will laugh with me.” After the “yeah-right-type-of-laughter”, God brings Sarah a real, God-induced spirit of laughter.
Makes me wonder…what is the significance of all this laughter? I think that it says something of God. "So, Big Abe and Sarah…you thought it was funny? Welcome your new baby to the world!" Thank God, they didn’t live in one of those 50+ age qualifying communities that we have now. They'd have been short.
My takeaway: Go ahead and laugh if you want. God will do his thing and defy the odds as he sees fit whether we laugh at his plans or not.
Last thought: Here in these passages, we see them laugh at God. I wonder how often God laughs at us?
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Last night I read Genesis from 1am to about 3am. WOW WOW and WOW. Like is 700 years old like the new 30? Are you kidding me? Enoch was like the 1st rapture guy? One guy follow god on the whole planet? Even the birds & animal were bad? What did they do? Abraham got his freak on at 100+ with no Viagra? 300 guys defeated an Army??? An Army??? So that makes the movie 300 more like 3 minutes and a commercial! By the way they lost to the Turks!! Abraham got back his stuff, his women, children, dog, livestock, nephew and the gold!!! Shaft is like mini mouse compared to him!!! My GOD and father got my back...and u don't want none of him... homie!! Step aside while I step with me peeps to the field and build me an altar! I cant wait to read some more tonight!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
- No more sorrow
- No more pain
- No more suffering
- No more sickness
Monday, January 4, 2010
"The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you." Genesis 12:1
- Leave what I know
- Go where I don't know
Sunday, January 3, 2010
"Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." -Gen. 1:26
- Let "us"! After five days of "God creating", all of the sudden "we" create. This is the first introduction of what we will come to know as the Trinity and reveals something of the nature of God in community. Puzzling. One God. Multiple dimensions.
- "Make man"! Two words and we get the masterful creation of the human body. There are thousands of processes happening in your body all the time, trillions of chemical reactions taking place in every cell every second, millions of electrical impulses are firing across billions of synaptic pathways and "they" just "MADE MAN"?!?!?! Are you kidding me?
- ...in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish, birds, animals, etc. Lots of God's original intentions were revealed in the first few chapters of Genesis, and think that we need to pay attention to God's original intentions! One of them is revealed in 1:26--God intended that people rule over animals, not other people. In fact, he did not set it up for men to rule over men until after the fall...a result of sin and needed to keep order. But, it was not his original plan.
God,I pray that the words written and things posted on this blog site this year will honor you. I pray that there will be many moments when people read something and the result is them hearing from you and not me! I hope that the holy spirit changes people that visit this site through what you lead me to share. Lord, I pray that you help me keep YOU and your glory my main motivation. I don't desire to lift me up, but rather to lift you up and bring you praise! Thanks for modern technology and this extension of the ministry to which you have called me. Take it! Use it!Amen.