We do what we want to do.

We do what we WANT to do.  That is the truth of it.  We do what we want to do.  We don’t do what we don’t want to do and we do what we want to do.  I have become a master of holding on to things that I call “values” and “beliefs” but not allowing them to be manifest my life except in ways that coincide with my personal desires.  The short way of saying that is I am a hypocrite.  There is no way around it.  I hate it, but there is no denying the truth. 

It is no use comparing myself to someone else.  Saying, “well sure I’m a hypocrite but not as big a hypocrite as that guy over there!” is just a waste of breath.

I need deep soul reality and I need for that reality to be made manifest in WHAT I DO EVERYDAY.  Let me clarify even further.  Going to church, being involved in church activity, singing in the worship service, for me these things DO NOT QUALIFY as holiness, righteousness, or any sign that I am on the right track.  I can do all of these and be completely lifeless on the inside.  For me personally these things have militated against  soul reality.  They have been my hypocritical hiding place, my shield, my mask held up to fool myself and everybody else (but mostly myself) into believing I am doing ok.  Ministry was my way of pacifying my own guilt at my lack of Christ-like character escaping a real investigation of the contents of my inner man.    

I have decided that I cannot settle for less than a complete renewal of mind.  The way I react to my wife and my friends, the way I act when confronted with a situation, the emotional states of my heart at all times, the way I FEEL not just what I do; all of these must be changed.  I must BE and not just do.  I want to BE like Christ and I want that inner reality to flow out of me through my actions, my eyes, my words, my facial expressions.  These changes only happen by the power of the Holy Spirit at work on the inside of me.

Here is the thing.  I am completely ok with this looking ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like the modern Christian subculture characterizes it.  I heard someone say the other day that Christians are thought of in the outside world as looking and acting just like Ned Flanders from the Simpsons.  If we do we have totally failed. 

I want to look like Bono.  No really.  He is a Christian and I think in some ways the kind of Christian I want to be.  Sure he cusses, drinks, smokes, and gets it wrong a lot of the time, but who doesn’t.  I’d rather be a cussing, drinking, smoking Christ-like person than have a clean mouth, a blood alcohol level of 0.00, and clean lungs and be nothing like Jesus on the inside.  Not only that but Bono can speak credibly to the world and they stop and listen.  Ned Flanders can’t do that.  I tell you it isn’t the clothes or the songs that gives him that right.  It is the passion of his heart for the poor and suffering in Africa and the Billions, that right Billions with a B, of dollars that he has been able to mobilize to meeting the needs of those people.  That is Christ-likeness and the world responds.  I am NOT advocating drinking, smoking, or cussing!  I am just saying that THOSE things are not what makes a person like Jesus or not like Jesus.  Caring about what Jesus cares about and being driven by that compassion to ACT THAT is what makes us like Jesus, and that is how I want to be.

We do what we want to do and I want to WANT to do WHAT JESUS WANTS TO DO!  I long for the day when my desires are aligned with His.  All of my desires, and my friends that day is coming, slowly but surely, that day is coming

Come Holy Spirit take from what is Jesus and give it to me.

Amen

 

 

Called to do the impossible

I was considering this recently…

We are called by God’s word to “do everything to the Glory of God”.  That is a high calling.  Indeed the highest calling there is, but how do we do it?  If we look at ourselves with honest eyes we know that no matter what we do, even if we do it exceptionally well, it will never be good enough to give Glory to God.  We make a mistake in the planning, in the delivery, or in the follow up.  We lose focus and get off track.  There is the issue of motive.  Nothing we do has a completely sinless motive we are sinful people and I honestly believe we never know our own hearts well enough to know that there is not a sinful motive in us.  The reality is that the Apostle Paul said “God is not served by human hands”.  What a paradoxical statement coming from a man who spent his WHOLE LIFE serving God!  Yet it is NOT a paradox.  We CANNOT give anything to God.  My life verse is Romans 11:33-36 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.  Did you catch the question in verse 35? “Who has ever given a gift to Him?” the obvious answer is NO ONE!  He made everything including us and He made every capacity we have of making other things as well as the stuff that we make other things out of.  No matter what you do you cannot add to God.  He will never be a debtor to anyone.  So how did Paul serve God?  How do we serve God?  The answer is easier than you might think.  Faith.
The author of the book of Hebrews said that, “without faith it is impossible to please God”, and faith is what?  (If you were in the Assemblies of God Junior Bible Quiz you would say that faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” That is absolutely WRONG by the way.  That is a description of faith NOT a definition.  That would be like someone asking you what a fire-truck is and you saying “it is red and long with sirens”) The definition of Faith is “a workless receiving” isn’t that good!  So how do we please God?  The ONLY WAY to please God is to receive!  Everything we do, everything that goes out from us we received from him first, and we received the ability to do it from Him.  Therefore HE gets all the glory he is the beginning middle and end of everything we have done and everything we do. 
When we really understand that it does a few of things:
1.It keeps us humble – when we look at things we have accomplished and we understand that everything we see was done by receiving Grace from God or it was done in sin it is REALLY difficult to get proud. (Although I think I could manage it!)
2. It takes the stress off – when we understand the we are only vessels through which the resource, influence and creativity of the Lord flow the need for us to be worried about where it is going to come from, or the size of the job is eliminated.  The only thing we have to be sure of is that we stay in a place of Faith and obedience.  God will do the rest.
3. It helps us rejoice in what God has done whether we were involved or not! – A lot of times we struggle with envy about the work of God happening through someone else.  When we know it was God and not them envy is no longer an issue.

 

Josh Hawkins

BDS

 

 

The indefinable priority

Have you ever been asked about your plans, future, and or dreams and had nothing to say?  That’s where I am right now.  Not because I don’t have plans, and not because I don’t have dreams, and not because I don’t have some inkling of the path that lies ahead, but because I don’t know how to make the concrete realities God has placed on my insides expressible to anyone else.  There are people all around me who love me and are….concerned, or wondering, or maybe even slightly worried about what my next steps are.  I have stepped out of the ministry that consumed my life and I am not stepping into anything else right away and I understand why that might confuse some people.  So they are asking me what I am doing next.  I don’t have plain English answers for them, or at least not one solitary answer, I have a thousand!  I have found myself simplifying my answers down to phrases people can get their heads around but I feel bad about that because I’m not being entirely honest.  The truth is I simply don’t have words for the phase of life I am in.  The closest I’ve been able to come is “preparation and consecration” but I don’t have an answer to the questions “preparation for what?” and “consecration to what end?”

 

What I know is that I am running after Jesus.  I know it is not supposed to look like what “running” looked like before.  I know it is not supposed to BE like what “running” looked like before.  I am after deeper, more valuable treasures than I was after before.  I am after living a life that is incarnational.  I want to BE like Christ or at least be the tiny reflection of Him that I was created to be.  What does that look like?

 

I just don’t know, but it doesn’t look like what I look like now, and I can’t stay on the path I was on before and get there.

This is the indefinable priority.

 

 

Discipleship

A pastor at my church and I were talking about discipleship today.  He and I agree that this is one of the deepest needs in the church today.  He had been to fantasy football the night before and these guys there could name the top 12 quarterbacks in the NFL and give you every stat on their lives but they cannot name the 12 disciples of Jesus.  There is something broken in that.  We talked for a while about what the church should do to change that but we didn’t really come to a conclusion in the end. 

 

I think most pastoral teams would try to find human answers to this problem.  I don’t blame them.  This is their job and they feel responsible so they want to DO something to fix it.  Practical minds devise practical solutions.  “If we have a study plan available for them” or “we teach them how to study the word” or “we need more classes” are the suggestions that come out.  I’ve been right there with them time and again suggesting things myself and getting excited about what we were going to accomplish, and without fail, I have been disappointed.  Yes there are some success stories this program will touch this person and that one that, but the change in the culture of the group cannot come that way. Programs or classes or challenges from the pulpit can do very little to change this reality in the church. 

 

The problem is not ability or even time although I promise both of these will be thrown up as excuses.  No, the problem is very simple and very powerful it is a lack of desire.  When the masks are dropped away and the truth is revealed the normal everyday guy does not want to study the Bible or pray.  They have no desire to really run after God.  They may say that they do, they may even work themselves up into doing it for a while but the truth is they do not.  I hear the Lord in Jeremiah 2:13 calling the Heavens and Earth to bare witness, they have been given the opportunity to drink from the fountain of living water and they have chosen the broken cisterns!!!!

 

I am indicting myself here!  I am guilty!  I choose brokenness over the water of life everyday in little and large ways. 

The problem is desire.  So what do we do about it?

Make it known that HE is the most desirable reality in the universe!  He is the most enjoyable reality, the most satisfying reality, the most soul thirst quenching reality in the universe!  In truth he is the only desirable, enjoyable, satisfying, soul thirst quenching reality and when our hearts know that, FOR REAL everything will change. 

 

Oh God! I repent of my cold heart!  Let me taste and see that you are GOOD!  Teach my heart that you are the only air for my asphyxiating soul!  Let all the other lovers fade away before the fire of your Eternal beauty and Glory.  Satisfy me in you forever.

Amen