And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.

Source: Matthew 21:22

Complaints

I am not a morning person. In fact, I am probably the worst person to talk to in the morning. I have difficulty waking up and most of the time my morning conversation is more of a grumble than it is discernable vocalization. Why is it so difficult for me to be a morning person? Because I take comfort in the sleep that I have, and to be disturbed from said sleep earlier than my physical body believes I need triggers the inner grouch. I grumble because I am displeased with the situation and frankly just want to go back to sleep.

We can have a tendency to grumble or complain when we are taken out of an area that we feel comfortable or safe in and are forced to do things that we believe that are not meant for us to do. In the Church, we have the belief that we are locked into a specific role and that only requires a minimal effort from us in that role. So when we are required to go beyond the bounds of that role we begin to grumble and complain. Maybe it is not even our actions that cause us to grumble at times. We can find the most insignificant things to complain about or find wrong even when everything is going right because it is outside of what we believe to be normal. We complain because things are not going our way.

Paul tells the Philippians, “Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. Holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain (2:14-16).” His warning here is that grumbling and questioning can lead us down a dangerous pathway that can corrupt the body of Christ from the inside out. Questioning can lead to blame and guilt being placed on the children of God that would have not been present if they had just done as God had instructed them through Paul.

We have difficulty taking marching orders sometimes, and it can lead to a cancer of complaining within the body of Christ. The questions raised about insignificant matters of decision can lead to questioning of leadership about things that are their responsibility to bear.Paul told the Philippians to do those things with out complaining so that he could run with a clear conscience and be confident that they were living a full Christian life. He knew that he had the responsibility to direct these followers in the right way, and our leadership (elders, deacons, ministers) have the same responsibility placed on them. When we grumble or complain because it is outside the realm of our comfort, we begin to question the legitimacy of our leadership and of God’s word on the matter. We grumble and complain because things are not going the way we want them to and an attitude like that can well keep us from reaching our heavenly home.

Should I not have pity on Nineveh?

In my personal Bible study, I am making an attempt to look back on the stories of the Old Testament and see their relevance today in my life. There are so many stories that we learn when we are young, but miss the point entirely in our older years. We treat them as childish fables and move on. As I was studying this week, I began to rethink the situation of Jonah in relation to what expects of those who answer his call. It is in this call to Jonah that we can understand our search for our calling in life.

  1. God placed a very specific calling before Jonah. Go to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1). Time and again God tells Jonah where he wants him to go. Nineveh was described as a great city that had done terrible things against God.
  2. Resistance to God’s call is impossible- Jonah tried to avoid the God’s demand. He ran away and boarded a boat for Tarshish to escape the presence of God. However, God had set this on Jonah, and would not let Jonah escape this calling.
  3. Jonah was seemingly proud of his calling-  Jonah felt some weight from this call, and was not afraid to tell those around him why he was traveling (v 10).
  4. The calling brought with it a sense of responsibility - Jonah was remorseful for the trouble that he cause the sailors because of his attempt to run, and offered to throw himself overboard (v 12).
  5. Jonah nearly died because he did not answer God’s call- The prayer of Jonah described in Chapter 2 of the book provides some insight into the mind expanding experience of Jonah. What he describes here paints a picture of his own drowning but rejoices in being saved by God.
  6. Jonah’s calling only required him to inform the people- Jonah followed out his calling to the letter. He was required to tell the people of Nineveh their sin, and the consequences of their actions. He did just that. No more, No Less.
  7. Jonah found it difficult to have pity on the people of Nineveh- Jonah became bitter because God spared the people of the city, and began to grumble and complain about their salvation. God used a plant to show Jonah that if he could have pity on a plant, then God could have pity on Nineveh.

All these aspects sound similar to the calling of Christ. We have a specific calling that is inescapable to those we serve God, and we have the responsibility to bear witness to our calling in one way or another. For us, failure to answer the call of Christ results in death, but he finds a way to use our darkest times to bring us to that call. He only asks that we share the story of Christ, and understand that we do so out of pity on the lost souls of this world. Those who are a great city and are living against God need to hear that message of God, and maybe their story can turn out like Nineveh’s.

Impact…

Have you ever found yourself in a public place and met someone you knew from long ago? Did you remember their name? Did they remember yours? We all have a need within us to be remembered. We long to leave an impact that will affect generations to come. We long to be remembered. Sometimes in this life we enter into dark situations and we begin to question where God is?

Psalm 13

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I takecounsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O LORD my God;
light up my eyes, lestI sleep the sleep of death,
lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I amshaken.

But I havetrusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

There are moments in this life when we feel completely and utterly forgotten. The emptiness that comes with that feeling only isolates us more, and drives us further into our own despair. The fact is that even during these times we forget that God is still there for us. However, we are so lost in our own self pity and loathing that we assume that he has left us as well. David felt this way when he was on the run from Saul. God is the source of all joy, all wisdom, all strength, and life itself, but David felt separated from Him because of his current situation. David ends by returning to a trust in God that reaffirms his faith and drives his fears away.

            We need to take a page out of David’s book here. When life becomes dark and drear and we feel like God has turned his back on us, we must make the conscious effort to focus our minds back to His faithfulness. Overwhelming fear must be cast out by an overwhelming God. Just remember, the next time that you feel like God has turned his back on you that you don’t serve a God who is in the business of deserting people. 

Church Engineering

There was a time once in my younger years that I dreamed of being an architect or an engineer. I dreamed of designing various buildings and bridges that could enrich and enlighten the world with their function and beauty. I became interested in bridges for a while. The bridge that always held a bit of interest for me was the Brooklyn Bridge, because of its mixture of those two areas. It is an iconic symbol for New York, and one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. The whole suspension bridge part really fascinated me. It was the fact that with steel cable that this bridge could hold innumerable tons of weight as if it were no task at all.  

It was built on simple concepts of physics and human ingenuity, but the suspension bridge serves as a great example of how mankind has a need for each other in order to accomplish great things. We each are individual cables formed by the hands of God (Psalm 139.13), and we were each created unique and individualistic. We each bring forth a strength and ability that enables us to accomplish the will of our Father and in doing so we further the Kingdom of Heaven through His will. God has created us to be strong, because He is strong himself. We can be strong because the blood of Christ provides the ability for us to be strong in His presence (Rom. 16.25).

However, the body of Christ is much like a suspension bridge. We have a great weight that we must carry, and it seems too often we attempt to carry this burden alone. We become self reliant on our strength and begin to discount the strength of Christ in our life. We become a lone strand of cable trying to hold up an entire bridge full of weight alone. We hold the weight of sin, disappointment, prejudice, guilt, regret, hatred, spitefulness, and the responsibility to reach out to others all alone. It gets too heavy for us, and we eventually burn out in our own faith. However, the more we can become like a suspension bridge the stronger we can become. Each of us has to surround ourselves with other followers of Christ, and begin to support the weight together. Where I am weak, you may be extremely strong. Where you are week, I may excel in holding that weight. We begin to distribute this weight evenly, and light the burden of everyone involved. How does this happen? 1.) Become a part of each others lives. (Acts 2.42). 2.) Confess your sins to those that you trust within the body of Christ and pray about them together (James 5.16). 3.) Bear each other’s burdens (Gal. 6:2).  The fact of the matter is that we are stronger together as a Family of God than we are when we try to do it on our own. 

“This is only a test..”

One of the worst things in existence is the testing of the Emergency Broadcast System over the television channels that you watch. It always seems that the station selects a time when you are almost asleep on the couch on a Sunday afternoon to blare that confounded buzzer over the speakers of your television. Sometimes it is in the middle of your favorite television show, and it blocks off all the sound so all you hear is the buzzer followed by the all too familiar message. The resounding words… “This is only a test…” If we are exposed to that often enough we begin to ignore the message from the station, and we could eventually ignore any type of helpful message that comes across the television in this way. It all has to do with exposure to the message.

We are assaulted daily by various messages both verbal and subliminal, and through the messages we develop and reshape our view of the world. However, a message does not need to be true to become a change element in our outlook. Repetition becomes a theme that plants a seed of change into a person’s heart and mind. Marketing companies know this and is why they will structure add campaigns around certain ideas with a catchphrase to reaffirm their product. The message becomes repeated so many times that the individual eventually believes that they need that product, and the ads continue to have a subliminal effect on the consumer. Products are not the only things that use the ideas of repetition to seed thought into people’s minds, but values and ideas can use the same process to sway the moral and spiritual compass of some people.

Christians are constantly assaulted with ideas that are contradictory to the calling of God, and because of the repetition and frequency of these messages modern Christianity is accepting them as acceptable in the sight of God. A primary example of this is the acceptance of homosexual couples and even clergy among many Protestant and Evangelical churches. We live in a media culture that assaults us with an idea that it is cool to be a practicing homosexual, counselors who tell teens that it is who they are when those questions arise, and that tolerance of this practice stating that everyone must accept and accommodate this practice. However, God stands in opposition to this practice and the people who support such things (Rom. 1:22-32). We struggle with these things because we have become desensitized to them, and after a while we stop paying attention to serious problems (Heb. 3:12-13). We must be cautious not to fall victim to the assault of ideas that we face each day, and it requires that we are selective in our choice of media, music, and company.

FINISH!

Staring at a heap of unfinished projects, I had to decide what to get rid of and what to keep. It had seemed like there were so many things that I had begun in excitement that fizzled out with time and difficulty. I was staring at a huge pile of quit, and it was just a reminder of how many times I had failed. I saw it as a reminder of all the times that I had not carried through with the things that were at some point so important to me. Why could I not finish these things? What kept me from completing these things that I was so passionate about? It seems like so often we begin things with such gusto and passion that failure seems almost impossible. However, we find that we are apt to leave something incomplete when we lose passion and zeal over that undertaking. It would seem there is a direct link between how passionate we are in the beginning, what happens in the middle, and the end result that leads to success or failure of a particular undertaking. For most of us the thing in the middle is the breaking point, and it usually deals with a minor setback of some sort. A little thing becomes a big thing in the overall scope of completion. Because we are so passionate and emotionally invested, we make a mountain out of a mole hill. We allow our emotions and passion about our undertaking to turn against us, and become the very thing that works against us. Frustrations at primary signs of difficulty develop attitudes of disgust and disdain that lead to us quitting. This is significantly true in the Christian journey. We begin so excited about our new faith, and have big plans of how to work for our Father in heaven. This turns into excitement and zeal that puts to work in the Body. At some point we encounter something that we do not agree with, and the emotional investment that we have poured into our faith goes bi-polar. We have invested so much of ourselves into this only to feel like it is turning against us, and we handle it by becoming frustrated and quitting. The problem with quitting is that in every case it abandons the end goal for the present pleasure (or diminishing of pain), because the emotions override the dedication to the goal. Christianity is a marathon not a sprint (I Cor. 9:24). We must be willing and wise enough to realize that there will be difficulties and that despite those difficulties Heaven is our ultimate goal. When we focus on the end goal, the insignificant things that are between here and there are trivial. They become part of the journey. We begin to pace our excitement and emotion, and find that we are able to complete all tasks that are placed before us. Run so that you can finish the race.

Spiritual Wreck…

Rain was falling in sheets so thick that I could barely see the road in front of me and the deafening roar as it struck the roof of my car was drowning out any possibility of hearing any type of weather report on the radio. My headlights were of little to no use because the rain covered their beams like a blanket. The wind fought me for control of my car but I refused to forfeit possession and control. This continued for the next 2 hours. People went from driving 70 miles an hour to a meager 25 while trying to make it through all of this. A simple hour and a half trip to Nashville transformed into a two and a half hour journey. To add to the mix, I was traveling on little sleep and was quickly beginning to feel the effects. My internal battery was quickly draining and I knew that I couldn’t fall asleep on this road. I had to pull over, and for a while just give up the fight.

I had to stop because I had allowed myself to embark on this trip without proper preparation. I was not physically ready for the journey that I was taking. We find ourselves in that intersection in life. We are constantly beaten and barraged by a world that would gladly take control of our lives if we just quit resisting and give up. In both situations, it would lead to a result that isn’t desirable or pleasurable. We must begin to see this life as a journey that is filled with storms of unsure futures, and brave our way against those storms to get home. However, we may not always be ready to take that long journey spiritually. Just like I had to stop in a Wal-Mart parking lot to sleep for a few hours, we find ourselves having to stop spiritually because we are so exhausted. It’s part of the journey. Spiritual rest and replenishment are needed just as sleep is needed on a long journey. If we don’t we could find ourselves falling asleep in the journey and ending up in a spiritual wreck.

Teens losing faith because it’s never theirs…

            I heard a staggering statistic on the road this morning. While listening to the radio, it was shared that now it is projected that 9-10 confessing Christians lose their faith during their college years. This means that out of every 10 young Christians only 1 is making it out of these years with their faith in contact. This means that we are either dropping the ball in preparing our young believers for their adulthood through lack of study, or we have not taught our young men and women to be dependent in their faith. I believe that a combination of both is where we are losing the battle for our young people.  I thought that the staggering 50 percent statistic from just 5 years ago was a loss, but now we must step into action as parents and spiritual leaders to stop this from happening.

            First, I believe that our quality of study has greatly decreased because we are convinced that students can not or do not understand the material that is being taught. We have in essence dumb’d it down for our kids and done them a major disservice in the process. We have taken a path of least resistance and as a result our children and graduates unknowingly pay the price. I understand that we all have busy schedules and it is hard to fit everything in, but we have to make teaching our youth a priority. Teachers understand that your teaching will be held accountable in judgement (James 3:1), and you have to answer for the things you spiritually fed these children. For those who haven’t become teachers yet, you should seriously consider it. When spiritually mature, you should be able to teach on various levels (Heb 5:12).  What we feed them is what they will become. We must ensure that we don’t sell them short and keep them from reaching their spiritual maturity.

            Second, we tend to enable our children to be spiritually dependent. The do not have a faith of their own, because we nurture them to the point of being unable to develop their own faith. They never get to make major faith decisions because Mom and Dad make all those major faith decisions for them. They don’t decide to come to church, or how involved to be. Mom and Dad make those decisions because the child is under their watch. This means we have to provide faith opportunities for these children to grow some independence in their faith. We have to let them grow their own legs. Cicadas have to push out of their own shells independently without intervention or they will never be able to fly. If their process is made easier by any outside source, then they will never be strong enough to survive. The same goes for our young people. If we make a path of least resistance, we do our young people a major disservice because they will never become as independent or strong as they could be. They need to be involved, active, and encouraged, but never given an easy way out.

            Parents MAKE YOUR CHILD’S SPIRITUAL LIFE YOUR PRIORITY! Where your priorities are your child’s will soon follow. How they see you live your life is how they will model theirs! We can’t lose 9-10 students. That is 9 too many… 

Travelling on…

I love to drive. A 14 hour drive is a sheer joy and delight for me to undertake, and I look forward to taking cross country trips. There is something soothing about driving on the open road, and mentally it is somewhat rewarding to know that there is a destination waiting at the end of the trip. For me though, the trip is half the fun. However, I despise daily commutes that last longer than 30 minutes. I once had a job as a dishwasher that required a 30 minutes drive to the next town over. It came close to driving me absolutely crazy. The mind numbing repetition of the drive made each journey worse than the last. Each day, I knew I had to take that drive back and forth, and I had to do it to keep my job. I hated it.

I couldn’t imagine how the children of Israel felt in their commute to and from the land God had promised to Abraham. Every time they messed up, it was like God tacked on another 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Could you imagine commuting for 40 years, and never getting anywhere? Most of the commuted so long that they died! I couldn’t do it. I would have been relentlessly frustrated if I was Moses, but he had some perspective on the whole situation.

The difference between Moses and the rest of the children of Israel was that Moses was sure of the final destination. For Moses, the wilderness wanderings were nothing more than a road trip to a great place. For the rest of Israel, it was torturous drudging on because they forgot where they were supposed to be heading. They became infatuated with false gods, were picky about their food sources, and were completely sure that they were all doomed to the desert forever. Both knew where they were headed, both became frustrated at times, and both were anxious for the journey to be over, but Moses was different in the fact that he kept daily contact with God that reminded him of that final destination. The rest of Israel had lost touch with that, and as a result continuously fell away from God.

We have to ask ourselves if we are on a commute here and there in life or if we are on a journey to be in the Promised Land. If we take time daily to be with God, we can be confident that we are headed toward the Promised Land and enjoy our journey.