what do you worship in worship?

There are lots of things to worship in a worship service when the only one we should be worshipping is Jesus. If you think about it, many times when we are in church during the worship time we base our experience on lots of things. If we like the songs that we are singing then we probably get into worship more or sing more. If we like the band and the sound of the band then it seems easier to enter in and worship God. If we like the worship leader and the tone of their voice and if they sing in a range that we can sing in then we are all good. I am not pointing fingers at anyone who goes by those set of rules when they come into a church worship service because my whole job is to make sure that people at my church have a good experience with worship and the service in general. I guess I am just saying that we really need to think about who we are worshipping in Jesus and not all the “things” that make up our worship experience. We can get caught in a place of pleasing ourselves instead of taking ourselves out of the equation and pleasing God with a heart that says we don’t care what the music sounds like or the songs we sing or the way we sing them. We just want to honor the God of the universe with a heart that says “more Lord”. We have a lady in our church that some people would maybe consider strange because of the way she worships God. I see her every Sunday morning and I wish more people would enjoy their worship experience like her. She wouldn’t care what song we were singing or how it was sung because she is so into worshipping God that she doesn’t have time to “evaluate” the worship experience. God give me a relationship with you that goes beyond my mind and straight to my heart.

the church vs. the storm

Another interesting observation tonight – we had our church service tonight and it went pretty good. The only problem is that we had about half the people we normally have. My observation was not being able to count the less people in the sanctuary but the fact that they stayed home because of the weather. Now, I live in Colorado so its not like people don’t know how to drive in bad weather around here. The interesting observation is that we could have four feet of snow on the ground with blizzard conditions in the mountains under a storm warning with all chain laws in effect and people would find a way to get to the ski hill or snowmobile area…but not church. It really is about what we think is important in our lives. So instead of pointing the finger at them I need to look at my own motivation for being in church besides the fact that I am paid to be there. I know that I need to be motivated to be in church because I want to be there and not because I feel like I have to be there. I will only get out of church what I put into it and seek to get from not just the preacher but from God for that night and specifically listening to what God is trying to tell me. I know that if I can connect with Jesus at church it is really more enjoyable than skiing down some double black diamond at Copper Mountain or going sixty miles an hour down some snowmobile trail. I think that we feel church is about learning the “rules of life” instead of looking at it as an opportunity to connect with the God of the universe and listen to what he has to say. Make church a priority. I know its not about “organized religion” but there is something supernatural about the church body meeting together to worship God and study the Bible which really is the guidebook for life.

easy is attractive

Anything that is easy in life is attractive. Attractive is anything that can get or keep our attention and is something that we want. Easy is essentially stuff that doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to get or accomplish. The problem with that is that you probably won’t respect or take care of something that took you nothing to get. I know that my relationship with Jesus has been tested these past years and it has not been easy but it has been a time of searching my heart and belief system to say, “What do I really believe?” God lets us go through things in our lives to make us stronger and to help us value the things that take effort by going beyond knowing God with our minds and into living a life that shows with our actions. The easy part is knowing God with our minds. the hard part is living it out with our actions. I think a main reason why people fail or turn their back on God is that they just try to have a mental relationship with him instead of living a life that reflects his character. Not an easy thing to do.

value

What do you value? It’s an interesting question. Before I got sick with my eye I had a very different “scale” that I would use to put a value on something. I was thinking about this with Christmas coming up and all the issues that have come up with the new video game system the Playstation 3. It is a video game system that cost between $500 and $600 dollars just for the system. That doesn’t include an extra controller or any games or the special video cable that you need to make it high definition. If you look on ebay right now people are buying these systems for at least twice and sometimes three times what they are worth. People are wiling to pay that kind of money if they see the value in it. If you put a great level of value in something you are willing to pay anything and willing to do just about anything to get it. To someone who doesn’t play video games that kind of money for a game system can seem like a pretty stupid investment but to a hard core video gamer that seems like a reasonable price to pay for such a great piece of electronics. I then thought about my relationship with Jesus. Is it something that I put enough value in that I would do anything to have or maintain that relationship with him and would the people around me see that I valued Jesus so much that I would be willing to make any sacrifice for him? It says in 1 Corinthians 1:18 that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing or dying, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.” I think that the more time that we decide to spend with Jesus the more we see the value of having a relationship with him and the better we can understand his love for us. Before I got sick I didn’t really put a great value on being able to see. Now that I have been dealing with this eye condition for the past two and a half years I understand the power of vision and the value in it. Today ask God to keep your perspective correct in what you put value in over the holiday season and ask God to maybe change the “value evaluator” in your life. I know for me that I don’t want people to have to go through what I have called “dangly eyeball time” to help change their perspective on what is important and what has real value in their lives.

the storms of life...

I was thinking about something the other day about when the disciples were out on the Sea of Galilee with the storm and Jesus sleeping in the bow of the ship. When we went to Israel a few years ago I got to go out on one of these fishing boats and it was pretty amazing to think that I was out on this sea like the disciples of old. I guess storms can get pretty crazy out on the sea even though its not like being in the ocean and having a storm brewing. I thought about the request from the disciples to Jesus to calm the storm and he did, but I thought of something very interesting; they still had to row back to shore. Jesus didn’t stop the storm and magically transport the boat to the shoreline and everyone got out of the boat and kissed the good old solid ground. I think we need to realize that in life as well. When we ask God to intervene in our lives and “calm the storm” he is not going to also take us to where we are headed before that storm started. We still have to do the things in our lives that are going to “get us to the other side” and believe that God is right there in the boat with us wanting us to continue to row away and complete the journey that we have started out on. If we really believe that He has our best interests in mind we will know that he will only let things happen to us that either he knows we can handle now or that will teach us something that will benefit us in the future.

heap those coals!!

I just read a verse this morning that I felt I needed to explain to everyone because for a long time I didn’t understand what it really meant. Its Proverbs 25:21-22. I am reading and it starts talking about my enemies and what I need to do to them and for them. I read verse 21 and it says that I need to feed them and give them something to drink which sounds like a pretty hard thing to do if they are considered my “enemy”. I keep reading into the next verse and I read something that sounds good to me with dealing with enemies; heaping burning coals on their head. I’m thinking, “thank you Jesus for giving me a little vengeance for myself and dealing with people that would give me a hard time”. I am imagining scooping some coals out of a stove and dumping them on an enemies head and watching their hair start on fire and then I win $100,000 on Americas Funniest Home Videos. Then the rest of the verse says that the Lord will reward you! I mean, how much better could it get than that; a cooked head of hair on my enemy, $100,000 from AFV and blessing from God. Then I studied that verse and got an education about what it really meant. Back in Bible times, burning coals were put in a head dress to keep a person’s head warm and not to cook their hair off. So I not only am supposed to give food and drink to my enemy but I am also supposed to make sure that their head is warm and they don’t catch a cold. The whole verse is not about what I can do to make myself feel better but about taking care of even my enemies. It is not hard to love and care for someone you like. It is another thing to live life on purpose and take care of those that you know probably don’t have your best interests in mind. For any of you who were misinterpreting that verse sorry to take away a reason to be mean to your enemies. Take time today and think about how you can bless your enemies which is not a real easy thing to do but worth it.

Why are you here?

The best thing that can happen to us as humans is that we can discover why we were put on this earth. If you are having a difficult time figuring this out you possibly have a view of life that revolves around you more than others. Remember, the value of your life is only as great as the positive change in the people around you.

Have you ever thought about what God wants you to be? I think that we evaluate that question based on life circumstances instead of the Word and who God says we already are. God already knows who we are but wants us to see who we are by allowing us to go through things in life to direct us towards trusting in him in all things. I think that is why there are verses in the Bible that say things like in our weakness He is strong and counting the trials that we go through all joy. In the human realm, that is just not right thinking, but to God that is normal thinking.

a cheat code life

I love to play video games. I made an interesting observation about cheat codes for games. Once you have cheat codes you are pretty much done playing the game. To me, the game becomes boring especially if it is an unlock of all the characters or abilities for your character that you play with. I thought about the crap that we go through in life and wanting to get the “cheat code” so that we can get to the end of what God is trying to show us. If we did get that kind of advantage in life I don’t think that we would be learning anything and basically life would be too easy. If you are going through something major in your life you need to look at what you are learning in the midst of it instead of wanting to just get to the end. The question is not “if” we are going to have crap that we deal with in life, it is more the “how” are we going to come through those issues and what are we learning on the other side of them. If we live a life of “cheat codes” we limit our ability to learn from losing the game sometimes and trying harder next time.

Jesus is my hero

Have you ever thought about the qualities of a hero? I used to have heroes like Michael Jordan and thought that he was the greatest person I could think of then I thought; why? What has he ever done for me? What does he even stand for? Heroes are people that you would want to be like or they have personal qualities that you want in your life. When you are picking out a person that you consider a hero think about their qualities and if you would want to be like them. Jesus is my hero...who's yours and why?

thank you for my eye

I told God tonight thank you for what happened to my eye. No, I am not drunk and have not been taking any drugs (at least not the non-prescription kind). I really think that God had this happen to me to get my spiritual attention because of where I was at in my mind and heart. I am going to work on consistency with my Bible reading and prayer time this next month. It is a month from today that I am scheduled for the needle in my eye biopsy so no time like the present!!

Be careful what you sing, you just might get it

There are some songs that we sing in church that I never really paid much attention to until after I got sick. I can remember lots of songs that say I’ll serve you God no mater the cost and if it costs me everything, I’ll obey. When life is breezin by and everything is going good you don’t really think much about those words and the subconscious verbal promises you are making God. When I got sick my perspective on the words that came out of my mouth changed. I am in a place now that I really think about the words that come out of my mouth in a worship service. Why would I have ever thought that God would put me in a place to so completely test my faith and to make me put actions behind those words that I have sung since I was a kid in church? We come into a worship time with God and think that it’s just about singing nice and feeling warm and fuzzy instead of realizing that we are making verbal proclamations to the creator of the universe. Next time you are in church think about what you are singing and realize that some day you may have to put actions behind those words. One of the things that I say now whenever I lead worship in any setting is “don’t sing it unless you mean it”. Realize today that your words have power and that you can affect your destiny by the things you speak over your life. That is a hard lesson I am learning right now because of all the crap I am going through with my eye and physical health. I want to speak what I see in the physical when I know I need to be dwelling on the supernatural.

time to think

Finding God’s presence in your pain is definitely a hard thing to do. I think that the process of searching for God in the midst of the crap that you go through is important because it focuses your mind on asking God for his will instead of giving you time to complain about what you feel like God has you going through. I think that time is one of the greatest enemies of the mind when you are going through issues in your life. I can remember when my eye was at its worst about a year and a half ago and I was out of a job and had all the time in the world to sit at home and consider my life and how much I hated it. It was time that I had to consider suicide; it was time that I had to think about going blind and time to think about how much I was not providing for my family with finances. I know that I cannot give my mind time to think things that don’t line up with the word of God. The doctors don’t really think that the medication that they have me on is working and they want to have me go to St. Louis and get a needle stuck in my eye for a biopsy and see if it could be some kind of tumor or mass in my eye. I am listening to the doctors that I believe God has put in my life, but I also want to put my mind in a place of believing for God’s healing touch. Time is such a huge commodity in our lives and we need to think of how we spend it. If we don’t learn how to be stewards of the time that God has given us, we get caught making the mistake of giving the devil inroads to our minds and the ability to cause confusion in all areas of our lives.

more than a promise

I was thinking about Noah and the rainbow that God gave him after the 40 days and 40 nights of the flood as a promise to never flood the earth again. I thought about what was going through Noah and his family’s mind about the 39^th day of everything that was going on and wondering if it was ever going to end. That rainbow that God gave to Noah was not just the promise for the future but a changing of seasons in the present. It was going from a season of rain and destruction to the earth drying out and life to begin again. When I think of the “season” that my wife and I are going through right now it is hard to believe that it will ever end. I really feel mentally like Noah on the 39^th day of rain and asking God if there is really ever going to be a change of seasons. We have 286,000 miles on our car and my wife asked me if we were ever going to have a new vehicle and I gave her some smart-aleck response and said with the way life is going right now probably not. I was speaking honestly out of how I felt but I know that it’s not about what I feel it’s about what promises God has given me that says we have seasons in our lives; seasons for growing and seasons for dying. I also know that in Hebrews it talks about how the trials that I go through will only produce good things if I am trained by them. If you are going through something in your life remember the rainbow that God gave Noah as a promise but also an assurance that life is made up of seasons and to ask God for the patience to learn what he is trying to teach you in the crap you face today to develop strength for your tomorrow.

selfish listening

We have become a society of selective hearing. I really believe with all the marketing of what do “you want” and a ridiculous level of self consumption that we listen selfishly. Listening selfishly is when you only hear what you want to hear and say anything you want to say. This is not only true in human relationships but with God as well. I remember when I was in what I call “full complaint mode” when my eye was doing really bad and was saying continually that God was not listening to me and my needs and didn’t really care about what was going on in my life. I know now that God is always talking to us and the greater question is whether or not we are going to listen to what he says. When I don’t listen selfishly and spend time waiting to hear what God has to say I have to put myself in a place of submission to what he wants and not what I want. To listen in this way, I need to realize that whatever he has to say is way more important than what I have to think and that his words have the power to alter my destiny if I will let them. Today, practice the fine art of listening. Just because you have the ability to listen doesn’t mean that you are good at it. It takes work to be a good listener to God as well as people but it is worth it.

Do you ever have one of those days that just feel like a "throw away day"? Don't make that today! As Christians we are to focus on the things that bring life and not death and an attitude that says I don't care has death written all over it. Look past the crap of life today and look to help the world around you. God knows they need it!

victory

I read this in my Watchman Nee book today and it really challenged me to think differently about the crap that my wife and I area going through and looking for God to break through all the issues in my life.

"Victory should be the Christian's normal experience, and defeat should be abnormal. According to the Biblical standard, it is deemed to be strange if you do not overcome, and reckoned as common when you do overcome."

That challenged my thinking to change from begging God to heal me to working on expecting that my situation will change because God knows where I am and what I need.

billy graham

I was watching the Billy Graham birthday special on TV yesterday and heard him say something awesome that really challenged me. They gave him a star on the walk of fame and he said that they had talked to him a few years ago about giving him a star and he refused because of the “company” of who was on the walk. He said that he reconsidered his stance and decided to let them honor him. When he started explaining the reason why he changed his mind it made me cry. He said that in the future if some kid was walking with his mother and he asked “who was Billy Graham? Was he a rock star or movie star?” His mother could tell him that he was a great preacher and it would give the mother an opportunity to share about Christ with her son then it would be worth being on the walk of fame. Basically he was saying that it was only important to him to have a star if it could bring glory to God. What an amazing perspective on life and bringing honor to God in his life. I want my life to be the same; that everything I do reflect Christ and what he has done for me.

what's really important

I used to think that the most important thing about being a Christian was what I did for God. This eyeball time, as I like to call it, has really changed my concept on Christianity. If our walk with God was based on the things that we do for him then we would develop a false understanding of the expectations of what it means to follow Christ. I used to think that my greatest calling or purpose in life was to win souls for the kingdom of God or to read my Bible everyday and pray long extensive hours but those things are not true. They are all very important elements to a true Christian walk, but my highest calling in this life and on this earth is to know God. That sounds so simple but it is not something that is looked at as a priority in this life. It is about the doing for God instead of the being with God that we emphasize. When I focus on wanting to get to know him, then the other things I mentioned flow out of that. It takes me from a place of having a servant mentality to having a son mentality. It takes me from the obligation to serve God to the privilege of serving him. Anytime in life when we feel like we have to do something out of obligation we will always be looking for the end. When we want to do something we are not looking for the end but enjoying the time we spend on the journey.

effect and affect

For whatever reason, I always have screwed up these two words. They sound alike and are the same amount of letters but mean something different. If you change one letter from “Effect” to “Affect” you change the entire meaning of the word. Effect means the result of something while Affect means influence or to act upon. In this life there are products and by-products; you are either producing something with your life or you are the byproduct of someone else’s decisions and choices. You are the one that is going to decide what happens in your life and not someone else. I think with being a Christian all my life I have expected Jesus to not only give me direction for my life but to take me there as well. It’s almost like we expect Jesus to his part and ours as well. The Bible talks about the working together of God and his will and our actions. We are not exempt from the process. Think about it; to accept Jesus into our hearts (action) to giving our life to him (action) and the constant reminder to spend time with him and reading his Word (action). These are the foundations of having a walk (action) with Christ and completely our decision. In fact, each of these actions elevate the honor of Christ in our lives because they have a level of voluntary action to them. I want my life to be the product of positive actions that move me towards Christ and not the by-product of others decisions.

anger of man

James 1:19-21

19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

It is so true that man’s anger has power but that it doesn’t bring any glory to God in our lives. As humans, we screw up the first part of that verse on a regular basis and most times it involves us dealing with some sort of pain in our lives. When we go through things that cause us pain I think our first reaction is to be slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry. All these things lead to man’s anger and not God’s righteousness in our lives. When we feel like we have been wronged or we feel like people don’t understand the pain, whether its physical or emotional, we react to situations to be noticed. If we would have the perspective that God knows what we are going through then we are not in such a hurry to be justified in our pain that we deal with. I want the kind of life that God desires for me and not the one that I think is best. If I am slow to listen but fast to speak I am usually setting myself up to temporarily feel better but not to have a better life. If we live our lives in a state of reaction instead of action we let circumstances dictate to us the direction of our lives. That means that the devil can throw something like physical disease at us and it has the power to alter our destiny and the quality of the life we live. Don’t be governed by emotional responses to life. Ask God to help you to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. These are the things that turn us from ordinary humans into extraordinary people.

Complaining

I had a type of revelation today. I don’t remember if I brought this up in a previous blog or not, but I really think we need to realize that God is not going to be convinced that we need to have a change in our lives because we complain about it. In fact, I think that we prolong the process with growth and maturity with Christ when we complain about the things going on in our lives instead of asking God to confirm his presence in the midst of trials and crap. This is so easy to say and so hard to live as I am experiencing right now in life. If you are at a place of being able to complain about something in your life or being able to ask God for the strength to learn from your situation please choose the latter of the two options. Its like my situation with my eye; I can either ask God to give me peace with everything, or I can complain and get nervous, raise my blood pressure and make life crappier for me. By complaining about where I think God has me right now I put myself in a place of prolonging the process. Please, speaking from experience, don’t prolong the process.