Here's The Concept....Love Them....

I was reading this book at the local starbucks the other day and God started to speak to me. I've never started weeping in public before so this was a first for me. I just felt overwhelmed by love. That's when God spoke. He said that this was His overwhelming love for me and that I was designed to love the same. "Love my people." That's been resonating in my heart since the other day. And you know what? That wasn't a special word just for me. It wasn't, "Joseph, you alone are called to love my people." It wasn't "You alone are designed to love the same." No, WE are called to love the same. WE are called to love His people! It's funny how in the Presence of God, you can actually forget things. As I'm writing this, I'm remembering what He said, "Love what I love." How well thought out God. I think that sometimes as Christians, we get in this habit of trying to love each other as if that's enough. What God loves is humanity, not just those who have found Him. " "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16. Did you catch that? It wasn't, "God so loved those who accepted Him.." It was, "For God so loved the world..." No conditions. Zero. God just loves what He created. He wants to share that love with His creation. It seems to me that it was love that drew our hearts to our Savior. Is it any wonder that Paul says, "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13. I have to love. You have to love. We have to love. But remember, we love because we were so loved first. We can't conjure up love on our own. We receive love from God so that we can love others.

Starting to love....

Consequential Words

I'm growing tired of something within myself and within our culture today. We call ourselves followers of God. We worship Him. We pray to Him. And we demean Him all the time. What do I mean by that last part? There's a growing phrase that I catch myself saying and many people saying more and more frequently, "I hope so". Can I just say this? As a Christian, as someone who has a personal relationship with our Creator, should we be saying that? It seems like when a situation arises and we need to put faith into action, we back out at the last minute. It's kind of like saying, "I'm not confident enough to actually speak some faith into what I'm saying, because I'm not sure if God will actually come through." I'm not jumping on a moral high horse because I do it too and I'm having to catch myself. But of all the people on earth that shouldn't have to hope for something, shouldn't it be us? I like what the Word says, "Yet we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, I have believed, and therefore have I spoken. We too believe, and therefore we speak". 2 Corinthians 4: 13 Okay let's look at that for a second. Did you catch the last line? We believe, and then we speak. That's the order and that is what we are called to do. We don't speak with, "I hope so". We speak with a belief inside of us not because of anything we've done but because of who we serve! Or how about this? "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2: 20 When we speak, we don't speak on our own accord but through the power of Christ who lives in us. And if I speak with the power of our Lord, then I'm not hoping for anything. I'm speaking faith! There is a reason why we are called FAITH Chapel. So let's practice this together church! Let's watch what we say and start to introduce some faith into our words!

Prayerfully....

The Stepping Stone of Fear

There's something spiritual about running. I don't know if it is because we were created to run to our Father or if it's a focus that helps narrow the rapid pace of world moving too fast anyway but whatever the case, I know that it's in those moments of pure exhaustion, because I can't run any further and yet He keeps me on my feet, that God really likes to speak to my heart. There was nothing I could do to hide from what He was speaking to me tonight. I think it's a warning for all of us in modern words. I want to call it the stepping stone of fear because that's what He called it. Most of us have heard it before but it needs to be said again, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 2 Timothy 1:7 We were not created to live in fear. I hope that goes without saying. But far too often, many of us let ourselves be dragged into fear of the unknown. And as I was having this thought, another popped into my head. Imagine you are in the middle of a lake. You are directly in the dead center. It looks too far somehow to reach the other side and you begin to worry if you can get out of this. Water's up to your waist. You take a step back. You're standing on something but you've sunk a little deeper into the water. You think to yourself, "Now I'm further away then when I started!" You take another step back and another step down submerging deeper into the water. What you are experiencing are the stepping stones of fear. They don't bring you up, they lead you down. Is it any wonder that every time God speaks to humanity in His word, it's almost always accompanied with "Fear not"? God does not desire for us to live in this fear. I think in large part, it's because when we fear, we start to forget who He is. He is the one who protects us. He is the one who comforts us. He is the one who has promised good to us. He even tells us in Isaiah 41:10, "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." We are not suppose to fear because He's commanded us not to! He's given us every reason not to fear! Our God is smart enough to know what happens when we start to take those steps backwards and descend into our own fears. But there's a flip side. You've become mostly submerged in the water and you begin to realize, God's in control and He is strong enough to take care of this. You take a step forward. And instead of grabbing ahold of that stone you just walked on, there's another in it's place. It elevates you. You begin to rely on Him for your strength. You take another step. He becomes your deliver and He is the one who vanquishes your fear! You step again and soon enough, you're walking on water. There's another kind of fear that He wants us to cling to. It's the fear of the Lord. This isn't us being scared of God. No, this is us being awed in reverence in the knowledge that our God can do all things! Proverbs 19:23 says, "The fear of the Lord leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble." Why is there no trouble? Why can we live and rest in contentment? It's because we know that our God is is strong enough to overcome anything we could possibly face. 1 John 4:4 "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater then the one who is in the world." You have overcome the world Father, and as for me....I will trust in You.

The Line In The Sand

You don't have to look very hard at the world around us to see that the times are changing. It wouldn't surprise me very much to wake up one day down the road and start talking about how things use to be. To a certain extent, I probably already could. But it seems like things are starting to really change at a rapid fire pace right now. I think it's time to make a choice on a few different things church but one of the most important that I see is the decision of Passion. Most people don't think of it this way, but really, Passion is a decision. I choose to be passionate about the things in my life. If passion were just a given that was not a decision, there would be a lot more people sold out for Jesus Christ. But instead, I think we see that passion must be decided and acted upon. I think the time has come for us as a church to make a decision. There is a line in the sand and we must choose to either be passionate and sold out for Christ or to walk away. It may sound cold but that is truth of the matter. God is not looking for indecisiveness or a half hearted attitude. Revelation 3:16 says, "Since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to spit you out of my mouth." It's not enough to say, "Jesus has a place in my heart." He doesn't want a place in our hearts, He wants our hearts! He deserves it all. Simply put, we need to choose where we stand. Is it in a place of complete surrender to Christ or is it giving Him part of who we are? I deliberately choose to say, "The line in the Sand" because the line continues to increase. It moves, it shifts. It makes us go a little bit further each time. Passion is a funny thing like that. Even with the greatest passion's, there isn't ever a place where your passion's are completely satisfied. You continue to grow in that passion. That's the mark of a great marriage I think. Two people continually striving for something better is fantastic! As our passion increases, the line moves to stretch us. Day by day, we must choose to stretch and continually push for a greater, deeper, and more passionate relationship with our Jesus.

Ever in love with Him....

The Cross or The Christ?

So I was having a discussion the other day with a friend of mine in the military and He brought an interesting point to my mind. It seems like everywhere you go, you see the cross. It's become the new "icon" for a lot of fashion even among unbelievers! We have cross necklaces, cross rings, cross's that hang on the wall that are gold plated, cross's on our bibles, cross's cross's cross's. Now before anyone thinks I'm being blasphemous, let me clarify something. Thank God for the cross! What an awesome thing that was done for us! The cross fulfilled prophecy about Jesus' death and was such an important symbol of the lengths that God went through to purchase us! And that to me is the point. In our society, I think a lot of us almost worship the cross more then the Christ that was sacrificed on it. I love the cross and what it is, but I think this is just a quick reminder to all of us to keep our eyes on Jesus. That's what it's all about. That leads me to think about something else. If something that is so closely tied to our Jesus like the cross can distract us from Him, how easily are we distracted by everything else? We live in a world where we are not asked but expected to run as fast as everyone else. We are suppose to be going a hundred miles and hour and rushing through everything. And the times we are allowed to stop? Well, in those times, we have to find something else to keep us preoccupied. You all know what those things are just as much as I do. Somebody told me once to make a ratio. They said to me, "How much of your focus and energy is spent with Him and how much is spent with yourself?" When I thought of how little time I really gave Him, I was disgusted at myself. It's about relationship with Him. It always has been. It always will be. He desires that we would have a relationship with Him and not squander our time on things that don't matter at all. There is a place in life for t.v. There is a place in life for baseball games. But there cannot be a place in life for Jesus because he gave His life in place of ours. He deserves everything. So what are you going to worship with your life?

Choose Him....

Trust Is The Uncommon Choice

Lately, I feel like I've been in that season of life where things definitely haven't turned out how I expected them to. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying things haven't gone well or that things have turned out bad. That is very much not the case. God has worked everything for my good and He has proven once again that He is faithful. It just is one of those times where my human head imagined things one way, and God's infinite wisdom had something very different in mind. And that got me thinking. How often do I sit back and say, "God this isn't what I expected but I'm going to trust you anyway." As I contemplated that, I couldn't find that many instances. More then not, what I was filled with was, "God, this isn't what I had planned at all!" I'm sure God was laughing in those moments and saying, "Exactly son, it's not what you had planned. It's what I had planned." I just wonder how many times we choose not to trust in God even when things aren't going wrong? Stamping that on our money and practicing it are two very different things. It's far more difficult to imagine things working out given, "Nor are your ways, My ways says the Lord...". That leads me to my main thought. We choose a lot of things but I don't think it's normally trust in Him. Trust is the uncommon choice. So where does that trust in our Father get you? Look at every single great man and woman mentioned in the bible and I think you will see a group of people readily willing to make the uncommon choice. I'm sure it wasn't easy for Moses to follow God's direction into the wilderness but He did it anyway. I'm sure Abraham was probablly pretty nervous to go sacrfice his son because the Lord had told him to. It must have been hard for Hannah in some ways to trust God completely with the child He had just given her, Samuel. But even through those choices, they decided to trust Him. I think we need to strive for that. Trusting Him with everything is not a good idea, it is The Idea. It seems to me that this is part of what He desired all along. He wanted humanity to know, He could be trusted. So let's strive for that in our lives church. In the big decision, in the small decisions, in the good outcomes, and in the bad ones, let's trust Him.
Trust is the uncommon choice for all of us.
What choice will you make?

The Fire of Freedom

Freedom, Freedom, Freedom. I keep hearing that word. It's such an interesting thing about freedom that literally, freedom can unchain us and enslave us. We always think of freedom as just inherently good and we move on and in it's purest form, I believe freedom is good. But it also comes with great responsibility. I have the freedom to worship our God however I choose, but, I also have the freedom in this country to go drink until I can't stand up or look at explicit material if I so choose. In that light, I think it becomes evident that freedom is mostly likely dependent on our heart. Maybe a better way to think of this is that freedom is a reflection of our heart. If our heart is seeking purity and righteousness, then so will how we choose to display our freedom. On the other hand, if our flesh is in control and we are actively seeking our own gratification, then the freedom we possess will most certainly be after something much darker. Freedom is like fire. It can destroy, but, it can also purify. But that is just the precursor to what I really want to say. It is extremely important that we don't take freedom lightly. But here comes the really exciting part. As we pursue the Father together, we see more and more what His heart is for humanity and it is truly and awesome and wonderful thing! And if freedom is a reflector of the heart, then it makes sense why we love the Freedom that He gives so much! 2 Corinthians 3:17 "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord's Spirit is, there is freedom." He so desires for us to be free in Him. There is no better place to let someone be free then in perfect love. If there is something that has chained you down, whether it's addictions, your finances, stress, you name it, He wants to break those chains in our lives. He wants to release the prisoners into a life of perfect freedom, a freedom made even greater by a perfect love by a perfect God.

Break the chains Father....

There Is No Backup Plan

There's something that is becoming obvious to me each day. We are required to live a life of faith. I know I've said several times that as the body of Faith Chapel, we are suppose to be people of ever increasing faith but I think it really goes far beyond that. I was sitting there thinking about faith and God simply spoke to me and really said, "there is no backup plan." I had no idea what that meant. And as I started thinking about it, God introduced me to a new concept, His heart. Sounds crazy right? God was speaking to me about His faith in us! He still knows what we are going to do and yet I believe His faith is unwavering in us. I have a calling on my life as does every single one of us and we have two choices. We can either do exactly what we are designed to do or, we can choose not to. But all the way through the journey, I believe that God is believing in me to succeed. It's like, His faith is so strong, that He's saying, "There is no backup plan! You are it!" That really didn't compute to me for a while. How can there not be a backup plan God? What if something goes wrong? And that's where the human head in me started melting away. We humans really like to have security in things. So much so, that we are willing to trade faith for security. Well, I could have complete faith in my calling but in case it doesn't work out, here's my backup plan. It saddens my heart to ever think that I was there once. And yet, God is a clear picture of how we are suppose to live our lives. "There is no backup plan!" That is faith to the extreme! Can you imagine knowing someone was going to do the wrong thing ultimately and still having faith in them? I can't. But the good thing is, He does and because of that, I know what I'm suppose to do. It's a lifestyle of faith that we are suppose to be leading for Him. He has faith in us. Let's have faith in Him.

Prayefully

Knowing Who You Are

I'm almost home from vacation and God has made something very clear to me the last couple days. We all need to have a firm grasp on who we are. Some of us are younger, some of us are older, some of us have kids, some of us don't. And even through all of those things, it's amazing that when confronted with the question of "who are you?", many of us can't answer. I use to spend a lot of nights trying to answer that. I'd have elaborate dreams of what I thought would be great for myself. I'd picture things I could accomplish and try and sort through the ones I liked. And somehow, it completely missed me to ever turn to God and ask Him. If you ask a craftsman what they created and what it's purpose is, they can tell you. I don't think it's any different when it comes it to us. We were all created by an awesome Creator. So why are we trying to define ourselves or figure out why we are here on our own? We all happen to serve the very God that can tell you who you are. And that is the point I'm driving at. If something is never defined, what is it good for? Take a chair. If no one had ever said, this is a chair, you sit in it, no one would have any reason to use it and the purpose of that chair would go completely unused. We need to know who we are. There's something inside of us that in many ways, longs for definition. I'm learning who my Creator has created me to be because to be anything else would be a lie. I hope you all consider this at some point this week church. Let's not be a church of uselessness. Let's be a church of purpose, of passion, and of definition.

Prayerfully

How Much Do You Love Me?

As I read through God's Word, I am struck that He is constantly reminding us through each book of His unfathomable love for us. I like what this says, "For great is Your love, higher than the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the sky." Psalm 108:4 He loves us that much! When we chose sinfulness over Him, we drove a deep wedge in this relationship and created the infinite divide between us. And yet, His love is so great that He looked past that divide and found something that was even greater. With the price that was paid by Jesus, He closed the divide that we may know Him and His incredible love for us! I say all that to say, I feel like the Lord is asking, "How much do you love me?" I guess I'm reminded of the song we learned just a week or two ago now, Center. Are we plugging our lives into Him or are we trying to plug Him into ours? I think that's one of the greatest expressions of love, to choose what has loved you. I'm sure there might be love in a prearranged marriage. But there is just something about loving something enough to give it a choice to love you back. When a man gets down on his knee's and asks, "will you marry me?", he's really saying, "I love you but I want you to choose to love me as well." And I think the same thing is far more true with our relationship with God. He's already expressed His love for us. Then when we chose another suitor, sin , He paid the price so that we could choose Him again! He did not send Jesus so that everyone would instantly accept Him. It was still a choice. Are we choosing Him in our decisions and in everything? Are we choosing to wrap our lives around His life? He has made is position very clear. And now the question rebounds back to us. It falls back to us who have accepted His gift of redemption. How much do you love me? I will love you with my life, with my soul, with my heart, with my mind, and with my strength Father. 

You deserve my love

God's Plan is Perfection

Something God has really been speaking to me recently, and especially today, is about His plan for us. Hopefully, we all are seeking the will of our Father over what we desire for ourself. We all know that His way is best. But something above and beyond is what I feel that He's trying to convey right now. His plan is about perfection. Most people don't believe that God is going to plan something bad for there lives but few grasp that His way is not just good, it is perfect. And more then that, it is about perfecting us. Many times, we wonder why God is letting us go through the trials of life? "Why me God?" "What did I do to deserve this?" We are allowed to go through the fires of life so that we may be sculpted to look more like our Creator. And by extension, that would mean Perfection right? So what about the good times? It's the same thing! "I'm so thankful God!" "Thank you for blessing me!" We truthfully are being tried through another fire. It is called reaction and response. When we are blessed by God in the good times, do we say thank you to Him or do we say something like, "It's my lucky day!" We need to be aware that He deserves a response. You would not go to a friends house, let them serve you dinner and say, "Man am I lucky that this just happened!" No. You would turn to that friend and say thank you. Of course, I cannot forget about the second name of that fire. It is response. What do we do with that blessing? Remember Abraham? He was blessed that He would be a blessing to others! That's the response. I can keep what I've been given to myself or I can pour out into others. And yet through all that, everything is for our good! How incredible is the love of our God when both good and bad are all working at us to be like Him? God's plan is working Perfection into us church. God's plan is Him. Please prayerfully consider this during your week. I know I will be.

Blessings