Letting go.........

Simply put, this could be one of the most difficult things for us to do in our lives, forgiving others for their transgressions that have offended us. Our compulsion to "get even" in order to bring balance back to the universe can be tenacious. There is not much that requires explanation regarding the dark nature that lives in each one of us...you know the darkness that tends to rear its ugly head in reaction to what we feel are violations against us. We have all felt infringed upon at some time in our lives, which undoubtedly, has summoned emotions to surface from the depth of our hearts. The question is....what do we do from there? Do we dismiss our feelings while swallowing the pain that will ultimately lead to rooted bitterness in our lives? Does forgiveness mean that the memory will dissipate from our minds? Will it ever stop playing like a sick movie in the far corners of our minds...over and over without ceasing...bordering on driving us to insanity? It is easy to speak of forgiveness but difficult to begin the process of releasing the death grip that we have on all of the iniquities that have found their way to our feet. For our own sanity and health we must, however, begin our recovery called forgiveness by simply letting go.

Luke 23:33-46

33 When they got to the place called Skull Hill, they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.

34 Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them; they don't know what they're doing."

the loving truth...

For many, this time of the year brings to the surface struggles of old and offers new challenges lying wait on the horizon for us to overcome. Although these battles are differing and personal to each one of us there is a constant that resides in all of our hearts…it is the desire to find seas of tranquility beyond the new horizon….for a more promising tomorrow? So I find myself grasping for words in order to fully explain what is surfacing in my own life while trying desperately to resolve the conflicts that quake through the canyons of my heart and mind.

These ominous cracks that exist in my own heart from past tremors of pain and the accompaniment of reactions that come as swiftly as death, due to those experiences, bleed relentlessly to the surface for all to see. The compulsion is to pay intense attention to all that is old….offer it more attention than it deserves and in doing so lose track of where I am going. Thoughts turn inward and the world begins to become drown out in the noise of self-pity. Cynicism sets in as the state of society becomes, evidently, to far gone into stormy seas to rescue. What could I really do anyway…there is far too much that is needed to make right all the transgressions that have darkened the doorsteps to the hearts of so many. Why spend precious time fighting the stormy winds of change? Since one will never truly “see” wind but only the evidence of destruction that is left in its wake…why even make an attempt if it will only leave countless memories of willing hands, clinched tightly, swinging furiously at the wind like those in a childish temper tantrum. In that very thought we find the sum of our self-produced love, or attempt there of, to be meager if measurable at all. It is a defining moment in our journey through the landscape of life that brings us into an understanding of how lacking of infinite power or the lack of power produced by infinite love, that we humanly possess. The need is great and the objective of affection will need exponential depth in order to feed the multitudes which are lacking the nourishment to face yet another mornings dawn. Awareness that humanity, at times, is far to stricken by the quakes that rumble beneath their feet to prevail over the paralysis propagated from glorious visions of self-sufficiency is at once indisputable. We are built to be used as instruments, that are in need of the breath of a living God to whisper through, in order for the hearts of those around us to be able to hear the harmonious melody of love produced by the exponential value of our willingness and God’s capacity to love at the depths necessary to bring life producing change.

As a follower of Christ, it is imperative to remember that “LIVING GREAT” is only one letter away from “LOVING GREAT”. The love that lives in me, powered by the love of Christ living through me, is multiplied to be exponentially greater…to reach deeper and farther than any other love and in doing so shatters cynicism and thaws the paralysis produced by the frigid heart of self-pity.

As I sat crouched down, muscles beginning to ache and joints stiffening from being in the same position for such a long period of time, the realization that the job was not nearly over was clear to me. There stood…. waiting with patience…. more than half of all the people who had gathered that evening. Waiting for there turn at the front of the line. I could do nothing else but continue to pray more fervently for every person as they, one by one, sat in front of me. Diligently pressing ever so deeply into prayer, the closeness that I began to feel to them moved beyond mere proximity. I began to be overcome with emotion as I received more revelation to this new sense of nearness. For in that moment I felt near to their brokenness…their brokenness that had led to all their pains….nearness to the joy they had of trials and tests overcome….I felt like for that brief moment in time, through this simple act of service, that I knew all of them. Not that I suddenly had the knowledge of all that they held captive, with and without purpose, in their thoughts since the beginning of their life but more importantly that there was a transfer in our spirits so that I could feel all that they had walked through physically, spiritually and even through into their emotions. All the more, shadowing these impressions on my spirit, in the back of my mind remained the constant image of what it must have looked like. Here we were two grown men, one from America and the other from Africa, who grew up in what some may consider being the most drastically different cultures life could have chosen at that moment to have collided. How could the two of us……what do the two of us look like….there we were…..sitting on the floor with water filled tubs praying words of encouragement, of unconditional love, of an eternal hope, of grace and abundant mercy over every person who chose to sit in front of us while we simply went about the business of washing their feet. So....in the memory of that very moment and the cultural significance of committing, what must have seemed to some to be such a ridiculous act, I am reminded of the non-negotiable fact……… love serves.

the thunder & lights

There is....or there should be a realization the world is rapidly changing around us. With that thought in mind it causes me to question where I am at in the stream of change we all exist in. Life is a constant change and change is the number one thing that shocks the core of society. We are all creatures of our own comforts that, when challenged, will be defended to extremes.

What part of my life is off limits to change that desperately needs it? Why am I so resistant to allowing that change to take place?

I am fearful of what may come to pass....... I am fearful of who society may label me to be.......I am overwhelmed by the opinions of many but should only be concerned with the approval of One. One is where we should begin.... allowing our love to flow eloquently into the lives of those around us with the grace of a tear falling from a mother's eye....with the intensity of the thunder that is accompanied by the brightness of unrestrained light. WE were created to lead the angels in chorus....WE were set apart for a time such as this....WE succumb to the LOVE of a living GOD and have no choice but to harmonize in concert with Him by living a life of unrestrained LOVE.....just like the thunder and lights!!!!!

Love…….from an experience to our expression!!!! Part 2

ex·trav·a·gance: unrestrained or fantastic excess, as of actions or opinions

1 John 3:18
Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.


This scripture is foundational to what we are to build our expression of love on. How are we doing at showing our love to each other as fellow believers? Further more, how are we doing at showing our love to those around us that operate in our lives like sand paper? You know the person I am talking about. The person that just has to walk in the room and they seem to get on your nerves without even saying a word or so much as glancing your direction. If you have no idea who that person is it is told that it may be good to look in the mirror……you may be the sand paper for someone else. To a lesser degree there may be that person who is just so intimidating to you that there is NO WAY that you are going to even risk smiling at them…….or should you?

To some degree it is always going to be uncomfortable, intimidating and even awkward to step out of our comfort zone and into the world of a bystander that is in as much need for love as we are. It must have been all of those and more for Jesus to step out and risk His life for the hope that we would reciprocate with our sacrifice of self. The first step is for us to except the love that Jesus was compelled by on that day when He walked that long road to His certain death. Do I believe with my inner most being and through my deepest insecurities that Jesus loved me that much? How can I even begin to understand the depth and purity of that kind of love that sacrifices without motive for returned value? As a human that is flawed it is difficult for me, with perfect motive, to love those around me. If we were to be honest we must all admit that there is an underlying hope that we all have of a reciprocated value as the result of our love in action. As I think through it more I realize that God, even Jesus, operated with the same underlying hope. Jesus went to the cross without guarantee, as mentioned before, but full of hope about our return to His father as our first love. It seems to me that all of us must love with reckless extravagance from the river (ahuva in Greek) of life that flows through us (Holy Spirit) and do so in such a manner that those around us would possibly drown under the rush of God’s love through us. All the while, we must hold onto a greater hope, a greater hope that if we do not get the chance to see this occur within our lifetime in those lives around us that another river of life and love will water the eternal seeds that Christ has planted through us.

So...do we dare to love with reckless extravagance....I say yes, how about you?

Love Defined........

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2 If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. 4 Love never gives up.Love cares more for others than for self.Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.Love doesn't strut,Doesn't have a swelled head, 5 Doesn't force itself on others,Isn't always "me first,"Doesn't fly off the handle,Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, 6 Doesn't revel when others grovel,Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, 7 Puts up with anything,Trusts God always,Always looks for the best,Never looks back,But keeps going to the end. 8 Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. 9 We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. 10 But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. 11 When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. 12 We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! 13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Love…….from our experience to our expression!!!!

The word love has so many meanings in our culture today. We use the term loosely, as if it is some spare change being thrown around because of its lack of greater value. Over-rated, misused, unreal, impossible, all of these and more describe how a generation feels about love today. How do we feel about love in context to our future? Is there a hope for a love that is stronger than death, a love that is full of grace or full of mercy? Will there be a love that will overlook who I was or who I struggle to not be? Do we realize the love that compelled God to send His only son is the same love that we are commanded as Christ followers to extend to our neighbors? However, the same neighbors that have beliefs that are misaligned with the core beliefs we may have as followers of Christ are the very people that we are called to love. The truth is that many of us would find it difficult to define what love even is. In general terms we could agree that love, at the least is best described as a verb. Meaning that it requires, even compels us, to do something with the emotion we call love. There is something that wells up in us and there is a split second that we must decide whether to dismiss it or put it in action. The voice inside says, "Give a kind word to that person standing in line waiting for their food……..quick". What do you do with that simple yet compelling impulse? There is a split second that you are in contact, potentially to the end of time, with a person that needs... that is crying out inside for someone to say something…..anything…..please someone just notice that I am alive today…..that I matter and I am crying out for someone to tell me that it is ok to feel like this and that I matter. What do I do….what do I say…..what if they think that I am crazy….what if they tell me to shut up? The truth is that it does matter…you should say it…it may not matter what you even say….you may indeed look crazy and if you say nothing at all you have already shut up.

As a believer in the word of God, as absolute truth and not just some well written guide to a better life and success, there is compelling evidence that points to the expressions of God’s love for us. Read here how it is put so plainly in The Message: John 3:16 "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” God did not send His one and only Son so that He could merely experience life here on earth as a human as a test to His creative skill set. God, the creator of all things, was compelled by His love for us to send Jesus to overcome death so that we have the opportunity to spend eternity with Him in heaven. We are an object of His expression that can be summed up into one word....love. In our growing understanding of God’s love for us and what that means in direct proportion to those around us we must take love from an experience.... to an expression!!

Conviction of Love!!

10-30-08 Blog Draft

There is change in the air and the freedom that God designed each and every one of you to experience is quickening. Stand firm in the convictions that burn deep in your being. Take hold of your dreams and abundant vision that have been given for the purpose of creating a future hope. A future for yourself and the people around that are in desperate need of the living and true God.

We are all vessels of Love and Hope.

There are no proclamations that were made, only actions toward the result in which He was sent for. When asked who He was, when challenged, it was left to them to decide. “Who do you say that I am?” The answer, based on the influence He had in your life, was differing, changing but constant. He was all things to all people. The drunks, dead, whores, murderers, they all responded to the reality of His nature, to who He was. The response was not to exalt, not to hype but to move in His expression of who he was and who He was compelled to love. He was a revolutionary of a culture, a hope, an eternal perspective for us to hold up in plain view for us to gaze on and run passionately toward exampled all by action. He was at His core an Anti-Hype Revolutionary.

So we are change agents by which we are compelled to ask, “who are the sick, who are the dying, who are the outcast, who are the broken hearted?” Whoever says, “I am” is an object of our affection, an inspiration for Hope in our future produced by Love and Faith. All things to all people, brought out of the ashes and into the light to overcome death and breathe life into the lifeless. Beware though, in reading this statement of conviction you have now been impacted by the ANTI-HYPE REVOLUTION.

Holy is the Lord. He reigns and is on the throne. Holy is the Lamb who was the sacrifice that was laid down. We all cry Holy, Holy, Holy! Jesus is alive, He is alive and we are alive in Him! Let all of us rejoice in His glory!

Passion & Purpose!!

What is my purpose? What is my calling? Simply put, what am I supposed to do with my life?

Josh 6:27

27 So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout all the country.
NKJV

Joshua continues to move in the direction that God has given him direction in. In doing so he continues to make God famous and God promotes Joshua in his popularity throughout the country.

This is a perfect picture of what happens when we are obedient with what God has given us. When we take our gifts and our passions and we are disciplined with them. I believe that God has built inside of each one of us a unique purpose that will be manifested through our gifts and passions. Let’s start by asking a question. What are you passionate about?

I remember sitting across the desk from a man who had been helping me in my early walk with God. We were having a conversation based on my curiosity to whether there was more to life, more than making money and building a great life for myself and my family. Please don’t take this out of context, I was in a position that was leaving me unfulfilled and I knew that there was more to life than what I was experiencing. This gentleman asked me a simple, yet difficult question that left me momentarily speechless. He asked me this, “if money was not an issue and it was impossible to ever fail, what would you do with your life right now?” Wow!! For how simple that question is it brings a lot with it! What would you do if time and money were no issue and there was a guarantee of no failure? What is it that rises up inside of you that get’s your heart beating a bit faster and leaves you trying to talk as fast as your mind is moving? What is it that you find yourself doing now, that if possible, you would do a whole lot more of with this proposal of time, money and never failing? I asked a youth this question the other day and he answered and said that he would play music. He already is a musician and he is passionate about it. You know how to tell that he is passionate about it. He spends his own time, without someone offering payment, playing for hours into the late night. He is going to play music regardless of who is paying attention or if someone is paying him for it. In fact, those are the last things on his mind. He just simply wants to play music. It is what resonates in him and comes out of him with joy. What are you passionate about? What would you do if no one was looking, nobody was paying you and nobody had to motivate you to do it? There is something inside of each one of us that breathes life back into us when we partake of its activity. Helping others, speaking, teaching, learning, loving, unifying, making jokes, being an athlete, these are merely some of the things that people find passion in. I am professing that we run as disciplined as possible into our passions and we will find a fulfilled life here on earth while making a maximum impact on others around us. Why? No matter what happens you will be driven by something deeper than what the world has to offer you for the display of your passions. You will be driven by something special that God has placed inside of you for the PURPOSE of having abundant impact on those around you. Whatever it is that you name when the question is asked, that is what has an abundant potential of fulfilling you and changing the world around you. That very well may be your PURPOSE!

10-13-08 Upcoming Merge!

Who are you? How do you define yourself? Does God care about who we are? Does he care only about what we are doing?

One of the things that most of us, not just high school students, struggle with is identity. Here is the scripture that we are going to use for Thursday night. Joshua and the Israelites are going to cross over the Jordan and into Gilgal. Upon doing so the Lord gave specific instruction for the priests and Levites to gather twelve stones each representing an individual tribe. There was to be an altar built with those stones for a specific purpose.

Let's read together and find out what the purpose was.

Josh 4:14 - 24

On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they had feared Moses, all the days of his life. 15 Then the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying, 16 "Command the priests who bear the ark of the Testimony to come up from the Jordan." 17 Joshua therefore commanded the priests, saying, "Come up from the Jordan." 18 And it came to pass, when the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord had come from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests' feet touched the dry land, that the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks as before.
19 Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. 20 And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. 21 Then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying: "When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, 'What are these stones?' 22 then you shall let your children know, saying, 'Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land'; 23 for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over, 24 that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever." NKJV

The potential question, "what are these stones?" is brought to the children of Israel in verse 21. This question of "what" it was meant for will lead us to the answer of "who" it was meant for. Those stones that were laid there to build an altar were done so for the purpose of reminding the Israelites "who" they were. It would serve as a reminder, to all of those that had just crossed the Jordan and all of the future generations, that they were a chosen people by God. It is important to remember that there were many roles that the Israelites played within their primary role as a chosen child of God though. Some of the secondary roles were named in this passage as priests, Levites and even Joshua is playing a secondary role as the leader of the entire nation. We too play secondary roles to our primary role as a child of God. Our culture has conditioned us to be driven, even obsessed, with the secondary roles that we play in our daily lives. There is no mistaking the importance of the multiple secondary roles that we all play as husbands, sisters, dad, employees, employers, politicians, doctors, teachers etc. All of these roles serve as doors in the overall structure of our being. We are primarily children of God that have gifts and talents that, as doors, decorate our primary role and should be used for others to gain access into "who" it is that we really are as children of God. Therefore, making the question of "who we are" more important than "what we are". The question "who" speaks to the primary role, and the "what", although important, speaks to the supporting cast of gifts, talents or even careers we are decorated with as we live out this temporary existence here on earth.

This week we are going to help the students define who they are. We will only find fulfillment in our temporary existence as a being when we are living out our primary role as a child of God.

PL

10-09-08 theMerge Lesson Notes

Ok....I am not a scholar by any stretch of the imagination so please extend grace and mercy on me as I simply share my heart and thoughts on what the Lord is speaking to me about on a weekly basis. Remember the purpose of this blog is for all of us to have a unified understanding of what the Lord is speaking about. This means that if you feel compelled to share something with me in regards to what I have scribbled down please do so. It is always encouraging to hear your hearts!



Week1....


Josh 3:1-6
Then Joshua rose early in the morning; and they set out from Acacia Grove and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they crossed over. 2 So it was, after three days, that the officers went through the camp; 3 and they commanded the people, saying, "When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. 4 Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before."

5 And Joshua said to the people, "Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you." 6 Then Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, "Take up the ark of the covenant and cross over before the people."

So they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people.
NKJV

The Israelites had walked in the “wilderness” and had seen the worst of times. Is the Lord real if He is willing to let us walk in the desert? I know that there are signs of His existence but if He was for me, why would He allow all of us to walk in such dry, hot and deadly deserts? Does this sound like some of the same questions that we hear asked on a regular basis? Truthfully, is it not that what we sometimes ask about our own past or current circumstances? This week we will talk about the fact that despite all that the Israelites had seen in their past and their current circumstances, the Lord had yet again given them a sign of Hope for a promised future. Day by day, moment by moment, this nation of orphans numbering more than two million would cling to the sign that the Lord would send to them on that day. Moment to moment and truth to truth we all move forward toward the Hope of our eternal future, our promised land.

In this current scripture the people are given a simple command of waiting for the ark of the covenant, the priests and the Levites. The verse says that they were to “go out after it” and to keep a specific distance from it. We are to give chase to the Lord daily in our lives in accordance to His command. Imagine though if by giving chase we came upon the “ark” or the Holiness of the Lord in its entirety. We have no way of holding captive the fullness of the Lord’s power, goodness, righteousness, holiness, or knowledge. His character is to vast for us as His creation to be a vessel for. It is best for us to be given the sign that leads us today, the knowledge of now, so that we have the Hope to step into tomorrow. There is no possibility for us to hold, understand and act upon the knowledge of eternal things. Therefore, we will always be in a position of partial understanding when it comes to the nature and the ways of the Lord. We must not fail the continued pursuit of the Lord due to our human conditions. We must be resolute in our commitment to a more passionate pursuit of the timely understanding of what the Lord is doing now. Clearly we must chase after God and have a healthy understanding of the distance in terms of knowledge that the Lord keeps with us. Like the scripture, we have not passed down these roads of life before. This is all new landscape for our eyes and we in our thoughts want to see the whole view at the risk of disrupting our firm footing on the path we travel today.

Interestingly enough the Lord wants to do the miraculous through us even while in our human or limited state. Is this possible? What is required of me to see the miraculous occur through my life? "Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” is what the Lord commanded the Israelites to do through his oracle Joshua with the knowledge that there was going to be “wonders” happening. What is sanctification? Does it apply to us today? To sanctify is to make (pronounce or observe as) clean (ceremonially or morally). Some other ways of understanding sanctification is to appoint, bid, consecrate, dedicate, defile, hallow, (be, keep) holy (-er, place), keep, prepare, proclaim, purify, sanctify (-ied oneself,), wholly. Should we not be in the constant state of sanctification in our relationship before the Lord or is it a destination that we arrive at for the completion of our living sacrifice before the Lord?



Pray this week over the health and sanctification of our students. Ask the Lord to give us words of encouragement, wisdom, and supernatural insight as we prepare ourselves to walk our students through communion this Thursday. Prepare our hearts for the partaking of communion and sanctification.