Days Journey

I was listening to an interview of a young person the other day. I don’t remember the show, but they were being asked why they were attending the church they were at. The only thing that I remember the young person saying was how much the passion of the congregation attracted her. It was one of those times when everything in your mind is pushed away and that one truth just knocks you right between the eyes. I thought of the book by John Piper, “Let the Nations be Glad”, in which he stated that missions exists because worship does not. How can I live a life of worship? As I was thinking about that today, I thought about the guitar lessons I would be teaching tonight and how these lessons will impact my students. Then it hit me, my worship lifestyle must be a learned behavior. When I give a lesson, the goal is to play. No matter how much the player knows, playing is the desired activity. With each lesson, the player understands more, has improved on the first lessons, and can attempt more difficult things. With all this study, the outcome is playing. The student continues to play.

As a Christian, my goal is to worship. We were created to worship God and bring Him glory. All of life’s lessons prepare us to worship. As a student of God, I study His word, I pray, and I have fellowship with other believers. All of this is used by God to enable my worship. We should not study for the sake of study or to obtain wisdom. Our study should sharpen our focus on God and who He is, and open our eyes to ourselves and who we are. As we recognize God and His majesty we can not help but stand in awe and worship. Jesus said, “..If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto Me…”. I commit to making a more concerted effort in living all of my life to bring Glory to my God. As I worship Him, my faith grows, my love for Him grows, and my desire to accomplish His will in my life grows. As I see God work in my life, I worship Him more and the cycle continues.

I believe we need to demonstrate a true passion for our Saviour. I don’t mean a bunch of contrived actions or planned manipulations of peoples emotions, but an honest expression of a life sold out to our loving Lord. That can only happen as we spend time getting to know our Saviour. I confess, that way to much time goes by between my conversational times with God. It is a struggle to shut out the noise and distraction of the world and take time to invest in our relationship with God, but that is what we are called to do as believers. We were created to glorify God, and we can only do that to our level of understanding. Let us not wait until we have a certain level before we worship. Just as the musician plays and uses his study to improve, let us take on the same mindset and worship, using our study to have a greater understanding of God to fuel a life lived to worship God in Spirit and Truth.

Father, consume me, Fill me with a passion to know You so that my life honors Your son.

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Here is a note to let you all know that Lincoln Brewster will be leading worship at The Oaks Fellowship on July 20th. I have provided the info below along with a link to Lincoln’s web site. Get to know this dynamic Christian performer and I hope to see some of you at The Oaks for a wonderful time of praise and worship!!

Lincoln Brewster

We would like to try to create a song with input from any who wish to respond. The theme of the song will be the Eternal attribute of God, expressed in the Holy Trinity. Please state a scripture reference and a phrase or sentence to express your thought. My first thought is from Gen. 1:1, “In the Beginning….God”. Now all I need is a phrase or sentence that expresses this idea.

This past week I had the honor of preaching my grandmother’s funeral service. Make no mistake about it, there were plenty of tears. We will miss her very much. However, there are few things in life I’ve desired as much as the privilege of preaching her funeral. Sound odd? Yeh . . . maybe a little bit. But, let me explain. My grandmother was everything you’d want and expect a grandmother to be. She was very hospitable. Her cooking was simple, but excellent. To this day I’m chided about having consumed the last of her green beans from her garden a number of years ago. Yes. Her green beans. They were that good. She was unpretentious, honest, loving, treated everyone as equals, and well . . . you get the picture. But, the key thing about my grandma that I keyed in on in the message was that she lived everyday of her 102.5 years with purpose.

As I reflected on the significance of that, it occurred to me that people attempt to answer the fundamental question of life “Why am I here?” in different ways. Some people effectively avoid the question most of their life. However, the stark reality of our mortality comes into full view when we’re at someone’s funeral or perhaps the emergency room. Perhaps a larger group of people seek to fulfill purpose (value, dignity, self-worth) by means of self-fulfillment. They are in a constant pursuit of things, power, or pleasure. The problem with this is that they are often more temporal than we are. The pursuit of these things is an endless cycle that results in futility. The last group I could think of was the group of people who consider themselves to be worthless. Attitudes and actions in their lives reveal that they don’t believe they have any purpose or value in life. Habits and addictions of various kinds destroy every facet of their lives. Some ultimately result to suicide.

My grandmother however, never seemed to fit any of these categories. When she moved to an assisted care center after her 100th birthday, she would occasionally say, “I don’t know why the Lord still has me here. But, I think it’s so I can share the gospel with people here (at this facility.)” I was certain this was the case. Her purpose was to live her faith by sharing her faith with a hope and conviction that this life was not the end.

The author of Hebrews writes to his audience with the understanding that some of his readers are tempted to abandon fellowship with other Christians and return to the temple with the priests, sacrifices, and rituals of the Mosaic Law due to persecution. The author however, encourages them to stay with it despite the potential consequences. His reason is that there is nothing to go back to. All of it was temporal in and of itself and only served to foreshadow what God would accomplish through Jesus Christ, God’s Son. Through Him, our purpose is on that which is eternal and perfect, not limited and temporal. In chapter 12 he says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,¹ we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, 12:2 keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set out for him he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.² 12:3 Think of him who endured such opposition against himself by sinners, so that you may not grow weary in your souls and give up.” (NET Bible, www.bible.org)

The author had just listed a number of the heroes of the faith and argued that what they had done to be pleasing to God was to obey His word. And so he concludes that in light of all these people who have obeyed God by faith, we must do the same by obeying God’s word about His Son Jesus by faith. Salvation (justification) may come in the instant you believe the good news of Jesus Christ (See 1 Corinthians 15:1-11). However, true and satisfying purpose in living comes through a daily “fixing our eyes on Jesus Christ” and running this race with endurance. Get rid of those things that detract us and wear us down.

This was what my grandma did. All of the other good things about her flowed out from this single purpose in her life.  She was the “witness” that ran this race extremely well and her legacy is the testimony that continues to speak even after her death “Fix your eyes on Jesus and keep running.” -Amen

We are praying for Ian as he prepares to enter the Air Force. His time frame for entry is February ‘08. All things seem to be on track to get that accomplished. I ask that you pray that he will maintain his current focus and be able to start Basic Training in February.

thanks

A few years ago I started eating some pre-packaged meals that I thought were good for me. But, one day a friend made a passing comment about the amount of sodium in those meals. I had not thought about checking out the nutritional content of the meal. It appeared appetizing, it tasted good, the name suggested “healthy.” I had made some assumptions without whether or not the content of this meal would really help facilitate good health.

Upon examining the nutritional contents, I discovered that the meal (not a large portion) contained 50% of the recommended daily allowance of sodium and more grams of fat than I really needed.  There was no continuity between what the name suggested and the reality of what was inside.

Unfortunately, we sometimes see a similar problem within the Christian faith.  The Apostle John writes in his first of three letters:

“3:1 (See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called God’s children – and indeed we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know him. 3:2 whenever Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that it is revealed we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is. 3:3 And everyone who has this hope focused on him purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure).” (1 John 3:1-3, NET Bible, www.bible.org)

Notice the “label” God’s children that is given to those who are in Christ. That is a pretty serious label. If you think about it, what higher calling is there? If we’re not careful, we can fall into the prideful thought that some other criteria (denomination, church involvement, etc.) makes us a better kind of Christian. But, that kind of reasoning has no Biblical foundation. Rather, the text in view emphasizes that the label of being God’s children is a demonstration of God’s amazing love for us.

But, the text doesn’t just say this to make us feel good about ourselves. It serves to inspire our attitude and to motivate our actions. It challenges us to question whether or not the label we wear is consistent with the contents.  I believe that one of the “contents” John suggests is necessary is “faith.” This is evident by the fact that while we are now called God’s children, we have not yet arrived at the complete transformation into what God will make of us. That will come in the resurrection. John’s words indicate that he understands that his readers have faith that they will really be raised from the dead and transformed into a “pure” state.

Just in case someone might think, “Well, if I’m going to be made pure in the resurrection, I can live however I want right now” John says that “everyone who has this hope focused on him purifies himself, just a Jesus is pure.” (3:3) His point is think about how God has loved you and will fulfill his promise to you in giving you eternal life. Let this motivate you to honor Him by seeking to live a pure life.  Let the contents be consistent with the label.

May the Lord help us cooperate with His Spirit in putting to death the deeds of the flesh.  Amen.

I was reminded today of an interesting thing to ponder. That is, before the printing press was invented in the 15th century, most people did not own a personal copy of the Bible, nor other books for that reason. In light of this, how are we to think about the Bible in relation to our daily lives as Christians? From childhood I was taught in the Church that Christians should read “their” Bibles. That it was part of the Christian life. But, what did people do before the printing press?

I have always had a problem being disciplined enough to read the Bible every day, and I’m a seminary student! On the other hand, I feel like the Word is part of my life on a daily basis, though I might not read it every day. This is not to say that I don’t think we should strive to read it every day, but maybe we should reconsider the different ways the scriptures are learned and applied in everyday life. Before Bibles (in common languages) became available to the masses, Christians learned scripture by listening to readings at church. The liturgical calender for scripture reading was developed so that the entire Bible would be read in a year. Today, sermons tend to be more centered explaining the scriptures than presenting the scriptures (at least in non-liturgical settings). I guess this is because preachers assume parishioners are failure with the scriptures from their own readings.

My point is, that it seems that the history of Christianity tells us that the scriptures are the important thing, not the means by which you learn the scriptures. We must be careful not to substitute the means for the end.

“Now I saw in my Dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go, was
fenced on either side with a Wall, and that Wall is called Salvation. Up this
way therefore did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty,
because of the load on his back.
He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending, and upon that
place stood a Cross, and a little below in the bottom, a Sepulchre. So I saw
in my Dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross, his Burden loosed
from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and
so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the Sepulchre, where it fell
in, and I saw it no more.”

-John Bunyan; the Pilgrim’s Progress

As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me. Night is coming when no one can work. (John 9:4)

“Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger men, do not pray for tasks equal to your power, pray for power equal to your tasks!”

–Phillip Brooks

Hi All,

My wife works with a family that has run into extreme medical situations. The mom and daughter work with my wife. The mom and son-in-law both have cancer and the daughter has used up all of her time off to be at the hospital with her mom and husband. My wife’s boss is holding a benefit night to help the family offset medical and living expenses. The benefit is Sunday, Sept. 23rd at 6:30pm at Park Meadows Baptist Church in Waxahachie Tx. There will be Praise and Worship music, a bake sale, and a silent auction to help this family. Thank you for prayerful consideration of this event. Come out and be a part of this ministry opportunity!! For more information please call 972-345-8546.

btw: Church info:

Park Meadows Baptist Church
3350 North Highway 77
Waxahachie TX 75165
972-937-0073