Freedom

"So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in Him, 'If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'"  (John 8:31-32, NASB)

We like to think of freedom on the 4th of July.  It is a natural thing to remember all of the freedoms that we have this time of year.  But when you get right down to it, we are not free.  We have liberties that have been bought for us with a price, but liberties are bound in the confines of the society that exercises them.  We do not understand real freedom.  We are always enslaved to something.  We are enslaved to time.  We are enslaved to the confines of our background and our families, which we cannot be free from.  We cannot be free from past choices.  And even those choices we will make in the future are not free in the truest sense of the word, but rather influenced by a large variety of factors. 

That is why when it comes to this national celebration I like to stop and think about the verse above.  We CAN have true freedom, but it does not come through the sacrifice of soldiers, but through a servant who died for you and for me.  Those of us who place our faith and trust in Him are truly free.  We are free because we are bound by nothing except our love for the one who paid the ultimate price of our freedom.  We are free because we know the truth.  And we are free because we willingly commit ourselves to the Word of God.  It seems counterintuitive that we would be free by committing to obedience but that is precisely what the Scriptures tell us.  When we commit our lives to Christ we find freedom - true freedom.  The kind of freedom God has in Himself.  This is true freedom, and it cannot be bought except with the precious blood of Jesus. 

So this week, remember the search for true freedom.  And remind someone of the freedom that you have found in Christ!

VBS

We are in the midst of our VBS program.  I have to say that this is the one time a year I am most reminded that as a pastor I cannot do it all and that I am so grateful that God has given us a church body to help fill roles and do things together that none of us could accomplish alone.  I am so grateful for those who have organized it, teach each day, help with the crafts, clean up all the messes, hold the children who are crying, help keep order in the midst of what quickly can become chaos.  I am thankful for those who are daily praying.  Thankful to those who lead singing, who help at the sound booth, who man (or woman!) the registration table.  I am blessed by those who do the skits each day - to those that guard doors and make sure the children are safe and taken care of.  I am privileged to work alongside people who take the time to make snacks, help decorate, fill in wherever is needed.  I cannot fail to mention those that mow the yard so it looks nice, clean the facilities at the end of each day above and beyond their normal responsibilities.  And this is just for one VBS program.  Following our week we will have a parade for the 4th of July and hand out water.  Each Sunday many of these same people are faithfully teaching or helping in some way.  I cannot do all of this and if I even tried to remotely do most of it, I would quickly lose my sanity, but the faithful service of God's people accomplish together far more than any one person could do on their own.  And to the glory of God our VBS is going so well.  Lives are being impacted with the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ and the lives of children are being changed as they learn that they are a treasure to Jesus.  Thank you to all who are helping bring honor and glory to God through their faithful service.

Psalm 139

"I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well."  Psalm 139:14 (NASB)

I recently got the opportunity to take a short vacation to travel and see both my parents and my wife's parents.  During part of this trip we were staying at a campground and got the chance to simply see the beauty of what God had created.  Through the bugs and heat we were still able to see that which God created.  We can look around and see the grandeur of the trees and hills.  The majesty of a bird in flight.  The power of flowing water.  The immensity of a storm.  And at all of these things we tend to marvel.  But have you considered the marvel that is you? 

God spoke the world into existence, and the pinnacle of His creative action was the creation of mankind.  The psalmist personalizes this when he recognizes that He is fearfully and wonderfully made.  But he goes a step further to recognize that when God works at something there is nothing wrong with it or bad about it.  Puts my receding hairline into perspective.  Puts those age spots and even gray hairs into perspective.  (I never thought it fair to go bald and gray simultaneously) 

We tend to think of ourselves and find the things wrong with us.  Do this long enough and we begin to question our value.  This is as contrary to Scripture as pride is!  We are to seek and find our value in our position as a creation of God.  We are to recognize that God does not make mistakes and that if we are here we are a creation of the Heavenly Father who loves us enough to make us for His honor and glory.  It is not that it is all about us, but it is about giving thanks to a Creator who cared enough to make us special. 

Love

"We love, because He first loved us."  1 John 4:19 (NASB)

Our culture is enamored with the concept of love for each other.  We have a whole segment of the movie industry dedicated to perpetuating a faulty concept of what love is.  We have young people growing up who think about love in the context solely of personal pleasure.  We have this because we have generations of adults who have demonstrated that love is simply about personal pleasure.  As a culture we can fall into love and fall out of it just as easily.  And we have a divorce industry that demonstrates our commitment to self love.  For our culture, love begins, and ends, with me. 

I believe that this is the foundation for a number of critical problems within our culture.  The acceptance of homosexuality and other forms of sexual deviancy is because of the base of love being centered in me.  I have heard good Christian people tell me that they do not know how they can stop their child/friend/co-worker/family-member from choosing to live in sin because it "makes them happy".  This is the reason politics is so divisive.  Everything begins and ends with me. 

This one simply verse from John contradicts all of it.  Love, and the ensuing understanding of life, does not begin with me.  Instead, love begins with God.  When we consider this it means that there is someone we must look to outside of ourselves to define for us what love is, and God certainly has defined it for us.  Love is self-sacrificial.  Love is patient.  Love is kind.  Love keeps no record of wrong . . . and it goes on and on.  When we think of love in this way it changes our perception, not only of the concept of love, but our concept of the world and even ourselves. 

So love the way God intended love to be.  Because our love is dependent and secondary upon the love that God has for us.

Involvement in Your Local Church

We all want something out of our church.  This in itself is not a bad thing - after all, the Scriptures are fairly clear that we are going to gain benefit from gathering together.  It is commanded that we do, but we gain encouragement and edification and growth together in Christ.  We gain the chance to serve one another and love one another and in doing so, we are served and loved.  I think that many people have a wrong idea about what church is and what church does.  For many, church is just something to do.  This "doing" concept of church involves people who are just there on Sundays and check off a box on their to-do list.  They have done church and can wait a week or two before feeling as though they need to do it again.  Some people do church and are really involved in church.  They tend to get burnt out because they are simply doing what they know to be right.  Many times, these people have a hard time saying, "No."  They fill our positions and things seem great, but they too are simply doing church.  There are people who have been "doing church" for so long they now believe it is someone else's turn to "do church" and believe they have earned the right to sit still for a while and just observe and sometimes complain.  In fact, there are many different ways that people "do" church.  They can be involved or uninvolved.  They can be long time members or first time visitors.  They do not however develop authentic relationships within the context of church.  They may have friends, but their church friends likely do not know the real person, they are able to "do" church in whatever way they deem best. 

So often when we consider the work of the church we are thinking in the context of doing church together and the old 80/20 principal comes into view.  20 percent of the people are doing 80 percent of the work.  But notice the word between the numbers - "doing".  We must break free from this unbiblical mindset of doing church. Instead, we need to "be" the church.  The church is not something outside of ourselves that we do, but something that we are.  It is an identity.  We are the church.  We talk about this in theological terms, but then when it comes to our practice we revert to doing church together.  If we are the church, it changes our perspective on things.  First of all, there would be no one who was unwilling to participate.  Paul talks about one body and many members and all the members are critical to the function of the body.  If you are a church you are indispensable to the work of the body of Christ.  It does not matter how much you do, it matters that you are being you - using the gifts that the Spirit has given you to serve the body you love dearly because it is YOUR BODY!  You are the church. 

I believe if we could think in these terms it would solve a lot of issues that all churches face.  If we are doing church it is easy to fight over ways that church is done.  If we are being the church we would set aside personal differences for the glory of Christ.   If we do church we can complain it is not done right, if we are being the church we realize every time we say something negative we are insulting ourselves.  It helps us avoid burnout because we are not doing church but being Christ's representatives and it is for Him we serve.  It would help because all of us would be involved in some way.  It would help in a number of other areas as well.  So, be the church this week.  And I hope to see you, because the body is not the same without you!

Summer is Upon Us

My how time flies.  It seems like just yesterday that we were thinking about shoveling and the snow and here we are on the doorstep of summer.  Cookouts, beaches, and the glorious wonder of children without school.  Vacation is truly a wonderful thing, and yet as an adult I am reminded that for parents, summer is often a stressful time as they have to figure out what to do with the kids because work schedules do not allow three month summer breaks.  Going to the beach is good fun because we have to pack up the chairs, make the picnic lunch, remember to buy the sunscreen and all of the other details that a simple day at the beach requires. 

This line of thinking reminds me that sometimes we think of life as summer break.  We want God to give us the fun and the joy of play but we do not want to even think about the work that goes into life.  God holds the whole world in His capable hands and the expectation of 7 billion people is that He is bending to our will rather than orchestrating the most beautiful trip we could imagine.  He is the one who packed the car with everything that we would need to make the journey, and we complain because we don't have one of our toys - nevermind that He packed 5 things that were more fun, we complain about the one thing we want but don't have.  He protects us every moment of every day but we complain in those moments we have to wait for 1 minute for the sunscreen to be applied.  It is as if He is killing our joy because we cant be in the water right NOW!  He packs a beautiful lunch and we envy the guy next to us who is grilling instead of picnicking. 

The analogy goes on, but I think you get the idea.  This summer be reminded that God is faithfully loving us every moment of every day and providing all that we need for life and for godliness in His glorious Word.  He has given us all good things in Christ and provided for an eternal home for us.  Let us not whine on the trip about momentary discomfort, but rejoice in the destination that God has provided for us - an eternal fellowship with Him!

A Series of Jokes

Sometimes it is good to just stop and laugh.  So in light of this revelation, I thought that the blog for the day would be a series of jokes.  I hope that you enjoy!

A Sunday School teacher asked the children just before she dismissed them to go to church, "Why is it so important to be quiet in church?"  After a brief pause, one girl raised her hand and said, "Because people are sleeping?"

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Visiting his grandparents, a small boy opened the big family Bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out. He picked it up and found that it was an old leaf that had been pressed flat between the pages. "Mama, look what I found," he called out.
      "What have you got there, dear?" his mother asked."
      With astonishment in his voice, the boy answered, "I think it's Adam's underwear!"

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After explaining the commandment to honor your father and mother, a Sunday School teacher asked her class if there was a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters.
      One boy, the oldest in his family, immediately answered, "Thou shalt not kill."

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Three boys are in the school yard bragging about their fathers. The first boy says, "My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calles it a poem, and they give him $25."
      The second boy says, "That's nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a song, and they give him $200."
      The third boy says, "I got you both beat. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a sermon, and it takes eight men to collect all the money!"

I hope that you have a day that is filled with laughter!