How do we make glorifying Jesus the passion, the desire of our souls?
Can life really have purpose? Can work, play, relationships, eating and ministry all flow out of ONE PASSION? You see, when you come to the place where you are not satisfied and you realize that you can be satisfied…and you realize that satisfaction comes only in delighting in God, His renown an HIs glory…you come to the place where you find a single passion for your life.
1 Cor 2:2 says "I am determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and HIM crucified."
Why would Paul say such a thing? Because he found the answer. He realized that the only way to be satisfied was to do what he was created to do-bring glory to God. And that is done by delighting in Him and knowing Him more. God wants us to see our lives with a single focus and for the cross of Christ to be that focus..to know Christ and HIM crucified.
What is your passion? What is it that you eat and sleep for? Maybe it is sports, music, education, movies, a relationship. But you will never be satisfied by those passions. God wants you to know that the only way you will be satisfied is by making HIM your passion, which is how HE is most glorified.
Phil 3 says it this way:
"Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ as my master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant-dog poo. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by Him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ. I gave up all the inferior stuff so I could KNOW Christ personally, experience His resurrection power and be a partner in His suffering and go all the way with Him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.
This is the picture of a man whose passion is Christ and Him crucified.
What is the ONE PASSION of your life that makes everything else look like dog poo in comparison? If it is not Christ, then your passion is not God's passion. Knowing Him must be the single most driving force in our lives.
Some of you don't know Him. Some know OF Him. Some know ABOUT Him. Some think you know Him…but if you knew Him…truly, you would be passionate about Him, for KNOWING breeds passion.
John 16:3 These things they will do (making those who live like this feel as outcasts in the church) because they have not known the Father, or me….Jesus.
ALL FOR YOU
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
wasted words
This week I was doing some writing on my new book. I need to finish the last chapter, so I can do some editing. I had worked for several hours and closed up for the day. Later, when I went back to re-open the file to read what I had written, I couldn’t find the words anywhere. The file was there. It opened, but I guess in my haste to close down, I had not saved my work. I was so disappointed. All that work and none of the words saved. Don’t you just HATE THAT?
I got to thinking about what the Lord might be trying to teach me through all of that and came to the conclusion that perhaps HE had different words for me to write or perhaps I needed to re-learn what I had written before He would let me put them to paper. However, I have since been thinking about how often our words are lost.
So, often in our haste, we miss the message God is trying to say and the Word is lost. It is not saved or hidden in our hearts, as it should be so that it can be recalled. It isn’t stored in the correct file, so that we can open it up and let it be read and re-read in the way we live our lives. Words are often lost, because they aren’t saved.
Words need to be saved. Whether you journal them, read them, write them or memorize them-words lost are wasted. Don’t waste your words…or HIS.
Ps 119:11-16
11 Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee.
12 Blessed art Thou, O LORD; teach me Thy statutes.
13 With my lips I have told of all the ordinances of Thy mouth.
14 I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies, as much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on Thy precepts, and regard Thy ways.
16 I shall delight in Thy statutes; I shall not forget Thy word.
ALL FOR YOU
I got to thinking about what the Lord might be trying to teach me through all of that and came to the conclusion that perhaps HE had different words for me to write or perhaps I needed to re-learn what I had written before He would let me put them to paper. However, I have since been thinking about how often our words are lost.
So, often in our haste, we miss the message God is trying to say and the Word is lost. It is not saved or hidden in our hearts, as it should be so that it can be recalled. It isn’t stored in the correct file, so that we can open it up and let it be read and re-read in the way we live our lives. Words are often lost, because they aren’t saved.
Words need to be saved. Whether you journal them, read them, write them or memorize them-words lost are wasted. Don’t waste your words…or HIS.
Ps 119:11-16
11 Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee.
12 Blessed art Thou, O LORD; teach me Thy statutes.
13 With my lips I have told of all the ordinances of Thy mouth.
14 I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies, as much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on Thy precepts, and regard Thy ways.
16 I shall delight in Thy statutes; I shall not forget Thy word.
ALL FOR YOU
Monday, January 11, 2010
ANew year…New goals…but perhaps, we need to return and not just look for the New. Let me clarify. Do you remember a time when your relationship with God was better than it is now? Do you remember when you were perhaps studying the Word, going to Bible study and engaged in discipleship or accountability? While those days may not have always seemed easier, you must admit, you were closer to God.
Sometimes we abandon what is hard for what SEEMS easier. But there is a way that SEEMS right that leads to destruction. (Prov 14:12) We tend to live in what we “think” or understand to be better. And easier SEEMS better…but that is a road that leads to destruction. If you really think about, although those days when you were pursuing God were hard, they were better. Why? Because your greatest joy is not found in the easiness of life, but in the pursuit of God Himself, who is our greatest joy.
You have to admit that while things might be easier when you don’t pursue, there is great loss in that for you. Less God, Less Jesus, Less Holy Spirit…Less guidance, less satisfaction, less in your relationships, less in your heart. It is just less apart from Him.
Jesus looks at us and says….
Rev 2:4-5
4 'But I have {this} against you, that you have left your first love.
5 'Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place-- unless you repent.
Perhaps New year and New goals look a lot like what you did at first or previously, when you were chasing Him and loving Him and not this life. We can choose what easy, but it is not better and the cost is great…He will remove your lampstand…the Light…unless you repent.
ALL FOR YOU
Sometimes we abandon what is hard for what SEEMS easier. But there is a way that SEEMS right that leads to destruction. (Prov 14:12) We tend to live in what we “think” or understand to be better. And easier SEEMS better…but that is a road that leads to destruction. If you really think about, although those days when you were pursuing God were hard, they were better. Why? Because your greatest joy is not found in the easiness of life, but in the pursuit of God Himself, who is our greatest joy.
You have to admit that while things might be easier when you don’t pursue, there is great loss in that for you. Less God, Less Jesus, Less Holy Spirit…Less guidance, less satisfaction, less in your relationships, less in your heart. It is just less apart from Him.
Jesus looks at us and says….
Rev 2:4-5
4 'But I have {this} against you, that you have left your first love.
5 'Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place-- unless you repent.
Perhaps New year and New goals look a lot like what you did at first or previously, when you were chasing Him and loving Him and not this life. We can choose what easy, but it is not better and the cost is great…He will remove your lampstand…the Light…unless you repent.
ALL FOR YOU
somebody else?
Somebody Else?
Can’t somebody else do it? I don’t want to get involved. Let someone else do get in the middle of it, serve, fill the gap, help out, get involved. It’s none of my business, let someone else do it. I have too much to do, let someone else.
OMG….will somebody please tell me who “else’s” name is? Because I am so tired of hearing about this anonymous person named “else”.
I realize that we are busy people. But the truth is we are selfish people. We make time for what we want to do. We don’t want to get involved, get in the middle of it, serve, help out, etc. Why? Because it will cost us something, it will keep us from what we want to do, it will force us to lay aside self and serve another.
But at the people of God, isn’t this at the very core of who we should be. We should be people involved in one another’s lives, helping, serving, standing in the gap, getting in each other’s business so that they are accountable and kept from falling. We KNOW this to be true…because we say…Let someone ELSE do it. We know SOMEONE needs to do it? But who is the someone ELSE?
The someone else is YOU. The someone else is Me. If God has allowed us to see a need, a problem, a place to serve, a place that is lacking…then WE are the people to fill. But in our selfishness and in our laziness, we just want to talk about the someone ELSE who should, making ourselves feel better cause we have talked about it, but we never do anything.
Will you be the SOMEONE ELSE everybody is talking about it? That was the question they asked Jesus.
Matt 11:3 and said to Him, "Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?"
He was the Expected ONE….and they didn’t need to look for someone else. Jesus lives IN YOU and you are the ONE He expects and HE is not looking for another.
So, will you be the someone else God is looking for…or will you continue in the laziness and selfishness and just talk about the someone else who should do something?
ALL FOR YOU
Can’t somebody else do it? I don’t want to get involved. Let someone else do get in the middle of it, serve, fill the gap, help out, get involved. It’s none of my business, let someone else do it. I have too much to do, let someone else.
OMG….will somebody please tell me who “else’s” name is? Because I am so tired of hearing about this anonymous person named “else”.
I realize that we are busy people. But the truth is we are selfish people. We make time for what we want to do. We don’t want to get involved, get in the middle of it, serve, help out, etc. Why? Because it will cost us something, it will keep us from what we want to do, it will force us to lay aside self and serve another.
But at the people of God, isn’t this at the very core of who we should be. We should be people involved in one another’s lives, helping, serving, standing in the gap, getting in each other’s business so that they are accountable and kept from falling. We KNOW this to be true…because we say…Let someone ELSE do it. We know SOMEONE needs to do it? But who is the someone ELSE?
The someone else is YOU. The someone else is Me. If God has allowed us to see a need, a problem, a place to serve, a place that is lacking…then WE are the people to fill. But in our selfishness and in our laziness, we just want to talk about the someone ELSE who should, making ourselves feel better cause we have talked about it, but we never do anything.
Will you be the SOMEONE ELSE everybody is talking about it? That was the question they asked Jesus.
Matt 11:3 and said to Him, "Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?"
He was the Expected ONE….and they didn’t need to look for someone else. Jesus lives IN YOU and you are the ONE He expects and HE is not looking for another.
So, will you be the someone else God is looking for…or will you continue in the laziness and selfishness and just talk about the someone else who should do something?
ALL FOR YOU
Friday, January 01, 2010
Big God
What would happen if we defied the odds, didn’t focus on our disadvantages, didn’t make excuses or try to avoid hard situations? What if we could actually believe that God is bigger and more powerful than anything we face? We could thrive in tough situations and know that despite impossible odds that amazing miracles were possible. This is how God reveals glory and blesses us at the same time.
Sometimes God chooses not to intervene until we are at a place where the supernatural is necessary. He is not merely looking to equip us to answer and fill our own needs, but to bring us to the brink of brokenness and desperation so that we NEED Him, depend on Him and not ourselves. Why would we need God, if we can provide for, fix and depend on ourselves. He lets us go our own way, try to find satisfaction in this life and leave us to ourselves to discover that nothing compares to His way and His provision.
Too often we try to reduce God to our plans, our desires and what we can comprehend or understand. What we like or what makes sense to us. But when God does something it is indescribable, undeniable and often unexplainable….so that it can only be explained by HIS doing. This is where we learn what true faith is…trusting Him with those we love even when we don’t understand. Awaiting a divine intervention so that HIS glory is seen and not our demands.
Tozer says, the most important thing about any man is what comes to mind when you think about God.
“the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like…were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to this question, we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.”
Most of our problems are perceptual. In other words, they can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of who God is. We THINK we know, we are satisfied with what we THINK we know, we are comfortable with what we THINK we understand, but our biggest issues and problems stem from the fact that our view of God and what we THINK about HIM has given us a perception of life that is inadequate and inaccurate. We reduce God to what we can see, understand, like, comprehend, explain and justify.
We are not okay with the unexplainable. We constantly are looking for ways to make it all “fit” into what we can understand. We do not have a HIGH VIEW of God. We THINK we do, but it is evidenced by how we live that we continually want to reduce and reproduce faith into what we can manage.
“a low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils.” (tozer)
The greatest tragedy in life is that as we grow older our God gets smaller and smaller with each passing day, instead of unfathomable. We are not okay with a God that is so big and His ways are so not ours, that we could not fathom or grasp the depth and height of what He might do. When we begin to be okay with NOT understanding…God gets bigger and bigger and what He can do become indescribable and indestructible, inconceivable and incomprehensible…and we glory in that…not trying to reduce Him to what we can see, manage, justify, understand, put into a comfortable box. We miss so much of God because we are trying to “fit” Him into what we can fathom instead of embracing how big He really is.
ALL FOR YOU
Sometimes God chooses not to intervene until we are at a place where the supernatural is necessary. He is not merely looking to equip us to answer and fill our own needs, but to bring us to the brink of brokenness and desperation so that we NEED Him, depend on Him and not ourselves. Why would we need God, if we can provide for, fix and depend on ourselves. He lets us go our own way, try to find satisfaction in this life and leave us to ourselves to discover that nothing compares to His way and His provision.
Too often we try to reduce God to our plans, our desires and what we can comprehend or understand. What we like or what makes sense to us. But when God does something it is indescribable, undeniable and often unexplainable….so that it can only be explained by HIS doing. This is where we learn what true faith is…trusting Him with those we love even when we don’t understand. Awaiting a divine intervention so that HIS glory is seen and not our demands.
Tozer says, the most important thing about any man is what comes to mind when you think about God.
“the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like…were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to this question, we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man.”
Most of our problems are perceptual. In other words, they can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of who God is. We THINK we know, we are satisfied with what we THINK we know, we are comfortable with what we THINK we understand, but our biggest issues and problems stem from the fact that our view of God and what we THINK about HIM has given us a perception of life that is inadequate and inaccurate. We reduce God to what we can see, understand, like, comprehend, explain and justify.
We are not okay with the unexplainable. We constantly are looking for ways to make it all “fit” into what we can understand. We do not have a HIGH VIEW of God. We THINK we do, but it is evidenced by how we live that we continually want to reduce and reproduce faith into what we can manage.
“a low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils.” (tozer)
The greatest tragedy in life is that as we grow older our God gets smaller and smaller with each passing day, instead of unfathomable. We are not okay with a God that is so big and His ways are so not ours, that we could not fathom or grasp the depth and height of what He might do. When we begin to be okay with NOT understanding…God gets bigger and bigger and what He can do become indescribable and indestructible, inconceivable and incomprehensible…and we glory in that…not trying to reduce Him to what we can see, manage, justify, understand, put into a comfortable box. We miss so much of God because we are trying to “fit” Him into what we can fathom instead of embracing how big He really is.
ALL FOR YOU
12 words
I am struck today by 12 words that I think will both define and determine the journey from this point forward. I am not sure why I missed them previously…and I am not sure why I didn’t clue into their meaning. But even after studying Daniel for a month, I missed it. Yet, Last night, minutes after the New Year came in, sitting in the tub, praying, reading and setting my heart….these words came to my attention. These words spoke volumes of where we have been and where we are going. They ring with truth and determination, depth and a confidence of both where they are going and what they know. They ring with evidence of people who are holding the rope, steadfast immovable.
They have reminded me that people will NEVER understand. And even those with the “authority” over us will try to exercise it and cause us to bow to other things, particularly their desires. Much like Nehemiah…there will be those who try to keep you from doing the good work…and our answer has had and will continue to be…we are doing a good work, we will not come down.
These words….
“O King, WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER.”
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo stood before the ultimate of earthly authority in their lives. They stood when the King wanted them to bow, to cower to his demands, desires and threats. They stood despite what it could cost, dependent on a God that would deliver, confident He would save them-but even if didn’t, trusting that they would not be deterred or bow. And when the authority pushed, tried to cause them to bow….their words RANG out. When the King tried to pull the authority card, the cost card, the power card, the death card, the threat card….When he didn’t understand and tried to force them…their words brought clarity…..
WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER.
Throw us in the fire if you must, for our God will meet us there….but we don’t need to defend our choice.
Heat it up 7 times hotter…but we don’t need to defend why we choose what we choose…not even to the ultimate earthly authority.
For God RULES over all and we do not choose to bow….Clearly…this is more important that pleasing you.
WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER.
I don’t need a reason. I don’t need to convince. I don’t need for them to understand. I don’t need to talk them into it. I don’t need words or actions that demonstrate why. I don’t need to defend, justify, compromise or even delay in hopes of understanding. I don’t need to explain or make plain. WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER.
It is what it is…there is no explanation that will make you understand…except to watch me choose despite the threat…so that you might briefly glimpse the power, love and depth I am willing to face-and not defend…just keep on…
NO RESPONSE>…will not change, stop, defend or delay.
WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER>…..12 words that will define and determine.
ALL FOR YOU
They have reminded me that people will NEVER understand. And even those with the “authority” over us will try to exercise it and cause us to bow to other things, particularly their desires. Much like Nehemiah…there will be those who try to keep you from doing the good work…and our answer has had and will continue to be…we are doing a good work, we will not come down.
These words….
“O King, WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER.”
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo stood before the ultimate of earthly authority in their lives. They stood when the King wanted them to bow, to cower to his demands, desires and threats. They stood despite what it could cost, dependent on a God that would deliver, confident He would save them-but even if didn’t, trusting that they would not be deterred or bow. And when the authority pushed, tried to cause them to bow….their words RANG out. When the King tried to pull the authority card, the cost card, the power card, the death card, the threat card….When he didn’t understand and tried to force them…their words brought clarity…..
WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER.
Throw us in the fire if you must, for our God will meet us there….but we don’t need to defend our choice.
Heat it up 7 times hotter…but we don’t need to defend why we choose what we choose…not even to the ultimate earthly authority.
For God RULES over all and we do not choose to bow….Clearly…this is more important that pleasing you.
WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER.
I don’t need a reason. I don’t need to convince. I don’t need for them to understand. I don’t need to talk them into it. I don’t need words or actions that demonstrate why. I don’t need to defend, justify, compromise or even delay in hopes of understanding. I don’t need to explain or make plain. WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER.
It is what it is…there is no explanation that will make you understand…except to watch me choose despite the threat…so that you might briefly glimpse the power, love and depth I am willing to face-and not defend…just keep on…
NO RESPONSE>…will not change, stop, defend or delay.
WE DO NOT NEED TO DEFEND OURSELVES BEFORE YOU IN THIS MATTER>…..12 words that will define and determine.
ALL FOR YOU
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