Monday, April 24, 2006

The Faith of a Child

The Faith of a Child

Good morning! I hope your weekend was restful and refreshing.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to my daughter pray and talk about Jesus. Her eyes lit up and she prayed with such enthusiasm and wonder. Her prayers were not jaded by life’s doubts and troubles. She prayed with trusting innocence, expecting God to respond.

It is with this thought of child like faith that I bring you this morning’s encouragement.

Matthew 18:2-4 (NLT)

Jesus called a small child over to him and put the child among them. [3] Then he said, "I assure you, unless you turn from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. [4] Therefore, anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

One of the things I appreciate about children who are my daughters age is their honesty. My daughter is at the age where she will “gladly” fess up to being disobedient. There is a transparency in her life good or bad. She has no ego to boost, no corporate ladder to climb, no image to uphold. She is simply Caitlyn and all that being Caitlyn entails.

Unfortunately too many of us have lost our child like faith. We have forgotten what it means to approach the Savior with wide-eyed amazement and wonder. We have become calloused by the hard knocks of life and we have created for ourselves an image we feel we must uphold.

One of the greatest detriments to our faith and our witness is our need to project a certain image. We have settled for living artificially instead of authentically. Unfortunately at some point our image cracks, we let our guard down and others see the real us and not the image we have tried to project. So instead of the image we have sought to portray we instead seem hypocritical or superficial.

Sadly, we forget that God sees right through our facades. He knows what we are truly like and is never fooled by our projected image. One of the most refreshing things I have ever learned in my life is to be authentic. As a pastor it can be a scary thing to let people see your faults and weaknesses. In the long run it creates an environment of greater trust and openness.

If we are to ever experience the fullness of childlike faith we have to learn to be transparent. To let people see us warts and all. It is through this transparency that God’s power and presence become more visible in our lives.

2 Corinthians 12:9 (NLT)

Each time he said, "My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me.

As you begin this week, I encourage you to strive for authenticity. It takes effort to hold up the facades that we hide behind. Approach God’s throne with a childlike faith and ask Him to reveal His strength in your weakness, trusting that your prayer has already been answered.

Until next Monday, may God’s richest blessings be yours this week.

Carl

Monday, April 17, 2006

The Cost of Citizenship

Good morning! I hope your Easter was a blessed time of reflection and celebration with family and friends.

Today is the deadline for those of us in the U.S. to have our income tax returns filed. I always seem to owe some money, so as always I will drop my return in the mail today before the midnight deadline.

This morning I want to challenge us with the thought of obligation and duty. For our backdrop this morning I want to use the following verse:

Mark 12:17 (NLT)

"Well, then," Jesus said, "give to Caesar what belongs to him. But everything that belongs to God must be given to God." This reply completely amazed them.

Jesus was being tested with a question of whether it was right to pay taxes or not. This answer goes much further than a simple question of tax management. In America, we enjoy the freedoms to express our views openly and to worship openly. We have an expectation that our nation is defended by our military and that our government is guarding the freedoms we hold so dearly.

There is a cost to being a recipient of those freedoms and benefits. We each are obligated to do our part in supporting that process. Paying taxes is one of the ways that we act in obedience to that obligation.

Jesus of course concludes this answer by reminding us that we are also citizens of God’s kingdom. And with that citizenship comes responsibility as well. Our lives were bought and paid for with the precious blood of Jesus. We have received blessing beyond measure, grace beyond what we deserve and the promise of abundant life forevermore.

The cost of citizenship for us is commitment and obedience. Just as taxes come out of your paycheck before anything else does, God’s will should be the first priority in our lives. Our commitment to him should take precedence over our careers, hobbies, and other interests. When we plan out our day we should “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness” and then fill our calendar in from there.

The second component in good citizenship in God’s kingdom is obedience. True obedience requires a yielding of our will to his. Jesus himself prayed “not my will but yours be done.” The only alternative to obedience is rebellion. Obedience often times is the most difficult assignment for us. We fight daily with our will and our desires wanting to take priority over the will of God. But when we yield and allow ourselves to be truly obedient, we enter into a sweetness of fellowship with God that is intimate and refreshing. As odd as it sounds, in God’s kingdom, obedience will always bring spiritual freedom.

This week I encourage you to look over the tax statement of your life. Are you giving God what is rightfully his? Spend time in prayer recommitting yourself and ask God to help you in the areas of faithful obedience that you most often struggle with.

Until next Monday, may God’s richest blessings be yours today.

Carl

Monday, April 10, 2006

It Was All For You

Good morning! This week many churches celebrate a variety of activities for Holy Week. I hope that as you participate in this time of reflection, you would truly grasp the personal nature of Jesus’ sacrifice for you.

It is with this thought that I bring you this morning’s encouragement. Today as a background verse I want us to look at Isaiah 53:4-6:

Isaiah 53:4-6 (NLT)
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! [5] But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! [6] All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all.

During this week it is easy to take God’s grace for granted. We find ourselves getting wrapped up in the purchasing of a new Easter dress or hiding eggs for an Easter egg hunt and somehow the reflection upon the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord slips by without much thought.

This morning I want to bring your attention to the personal nature of Jesus sacrifice. Notice in verse 4 that it was “our” weaknesses he carried and it was “our” sorrows that weighed him down. Jesus bore your burdens. He carried a weight that was not his, but instead he chose to offer himself as a substitutionary sacrifice for you.

Verse 5 reminds us that Jesus was wounded and crushed for our sins. It was his body broken for you that provides you peace and healing. It is so easy to read these verses and gloss over the whole picture. For those of you who saw the movie “The Passion of the Christ” a few years ago, you probably came away with a new appreciation of the brutality that Jesus endured. I hope when you read this you come away with something else, a new appreciation of the ugliness of sin. Each scourge of the whip representing the ugly toll that sin takes upon our soul.

Verse 6 points out the sinful condition of human behavior. Every single one of us has strayed away from God’s standard. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, but God laid our iniquity upon Jesus. Our guilt, our shame, our punishment was transferred to our precious Lord.

This week take a few moments and find a place of solitude and silence. Thank God for his love for you. Thank him for the precious gift of Jesus. Acknowledge that it is only by the blood of Jesus that your sin has been forgiven and thank him for his cleansing.

Until next Monday, may God’s richest blessings be yours this week.

Carl

Monday, April 03, 2006

Fear of Change

Good morning! I hope you’ve had a great weekend and that your week is off to a good start. This weekend was a busy one for me and the semi-annual re-adjustment of the clock didn’t help my state of rest any either.

This morning I want to speak to you about being open to change. As people we are most generally creatures of habit. When we go to a restaurant we tend to order the same selections. We take the same routes back and forth to work. We follow the same routine each and every morning or each evening when we got to bed.

This consistent ongoing routine creates an environment of familiarity. When we are then challenged with a new idea or practice we tend to fight, resist or flee. Today I want us to think about being open to the challenge of change.

When I assess potential church planters I often ask this question: “Describe for me a time when you resisted a change that really needed to be made?” Many times God allows us to come to a crossroads of faith or as Henry Blackaby calls it in his book Experiencing God, “A Crisis of Belief.” This is a place where God challenges your comfort and routine with a decision of faith. This decision often requires you to leave your comfort zone and step out with God, trusting in His sovereignty and strength or remaining where you are, “safe” within you comfort zone.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites came to one of these crossroads as well. God had promised to give them the Promised Land of Canaan, but when they spies returned, they gave a report of giants in the land. The people had a choice, take God at His word or give into their fears and stay put.

Psalm 106:24-25 (NLT)

The people refused to enter the pleasant land,

for they wouldn't believe his promise to care for them.

[25] Instead, they grumbled in their tents

and refused to obey the Lord.

The Israelites chose to stay put and because of their actions faced another 40 years of wandering in the desert. They could not see past their fears and discomfort to the promise of deliverance that God had already given them.

So many times I find that when God brings me to these crossroads of faith, He is trying to take my relationship with Him to a new level. What He asks me to give up and surrender is always difficult. Maybe it is a long held belief, a tradition, or even issues of comfort (financial, relational, lifestyle, etc..). What I find is that each time God asks me to give up something, He always has something better that He wants to give in return.

Ultimately my decisions come down to personal obedience. When I refuse to allow this God inspired change to take place in my life, I am refusing to allow Him to mold me as He sees fit.

This week you may find your self having a “Crisis of Belief.” If so I want to encourage you to admit your fears to God. Share with Him your reservations and doubts, but then commit to follow His lead, even though it means change in your life. In the long run you will be blessed by your step of faith and your intimacy with God will increase.

Until next Monday, may God’s richest blessings be yours this week.

Carl