Don't just dish it, eat it!

Whitewashed tombs have a hard time seeing the scum within. The religious leaders got raked over the coals by Jesus. Whitewashed tombs! Now that's Jesus dishing out some serious heat!

Jesus dished it out to the whitewashed tombs. The whitewashed tombs tried to dish it out to others, without ever understanding it themselves. Finger pointing. We just make it circular. Jesus tries to teach us. We say, "yup, great message," and try to teach others without first digesting the teaching ourselves. If we are to be partakers in God's transforming work in this world, we must eat it and be slow to dish it.

Eat and digest the teaching for yourself first. You don't have to constantly be dishing it out, Jesus is pretty darn good at serving up a mean dish himself!

Excerpt from my book

So I'm writing my book. Well, ok, I was writing a book before I got uber busy. I shall return to my project however. Today, I give you an excerpt from my chapter about the nasty emotional drug addiction of our churches. (I know, I know, I know what you're thinking, nice little book right? light bed-side reading ;-)

Well, I always figure if I'm going to write, I might as well cause a few heads to roll.

"The stranger said, “Careful how you walk. Walk straight; don’t become sidetracked by the frill. If you don’t walk straight, you will, without question pick up a needle along with the rest of the congregation. They come every Sunday. It's like clock world. They're zombies. They come to sit, to shoot up and get high. The masses have succumbed to the sweet fragant aromas of comfort. Their stretch is strong and reeks of death."

Should be a good read! Make you think n' stuff.

Dude, chill, it's not about you!

I start teaching today a woman's Bible Study on the book of Jonah.

Jonah and his "issues" actually comforts my heart reminding me that this life isn't about me. Rather, it's about the greatness of our God!

The reason we have hope in life, isn't because of the greatness or resolve of our repentance (nor was this the reason why the Ninevites were spared that day). Rather, it is because we have a God who is a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity (Jonah 4:2). May this God grant us the gift to be more sincere in our repentance today than we were yesterday. And when we fail to be faithful, may we praise the faithfulness of the One who came for us.

Cast a Vision

As a church leader it is imperative to instill vision into the church body. Vision enables your church to be a movement instead of a monument. It provides direction and calls for progress. If there isn't a point, then it is pointless. Energy spent turning wheels with no one at the steering wheel is a complete waste of the church's resources.

Sermon series however "good" and "biblical" fail if they lack purposefulness in terms of long term church direction. Sermons must be catered to fit the overarching vision which the pastor was given by God. Sermons that spin in too many different directions lose the church audience. There must be narrow focus and finely tuned direction in each word preached. Pastors aren't primarily called to be caregivers (bold I know), they are called to be leaders. They are God's mouthpieces entrusted with instilling and empowering people to accomplish God's vision.

Everything done in the church should be done with a goal and larger purpose in mind. Otherwise we simply tread water and remain stagnant, or worse yet. With weary legs, we'll stop treading water and drown.

Pray for your church leaders to get a vision from God, and then to speak that vision with boldness.

Rock your face off!!!

In grad school I had a friend named Lisa, and her saying was, "God rocks my face off." Now for some reason to hear an M.A. Biblical Exegesis student say that stood out. That certainly didn't belong at Wheaton and certainly not in our program. IT WAS THE PROGRAM THAT ROCKED MY FACE OFF. haha. This wasn't some High Schooler saying, "Jesus is my boyfriend." Gag, gag, barf. This was an intellectual saying, "Jesus rocks!" In fact, God must rock Lisa's world so hard that He rocks her face off from time to time.

Sit and reflect today, and may your Maker blow you away, and yes.....rock your face off.


love always.....serve rigorously.....wrestle with yourself until your exhausted....listen to God with fierce intensity.......bask in the mercy and profound patience of our Maker....let His peace heal you.

Jesus is.............???

You hear Jesus called a lot of things these days. But no time for chit chat on everything he could and should be called. Focus today is what Jesus is, but rarely called. So what is Jesus??

Jesus is a...
pioneer
visionary
challenger
encourager
relentless and passionate pursuer
revolutionary
dangerous dangerous man
hardcore

A few from this "off the top of my head list" will now get further consideration. Today I ask for you to reflect further on Jesus as: 1) pioneer, 2) visionary, and 3) challenger. Jesus has the ability to light the fire underneath people's butts. He can get people motivated and moving for kingdom purposes. Listen to Jesus the pioneer, visionary, and challenger today!

1) What task has Jesus asked you to pioneer where you live?
2) What vision has Jesus given you for your community?
3) What challenge has Jesus thrown down in your path for you to conquer by His strength?

Let Jesus challenge your pants off today!

Reflexive Prayer 2

We tend to pray, pitch, and ditch. We throw our concerns and requests onto God, tell Him to take care of it, and then leave the room. We want God to handle it, and we want our angst to leave our minds. Why should we be labored and burdened with prayer concerns of this world, when we can throw it on the broad shoulders of God and carry on about our merry business? We want God to solve the issues, while we sit back and relax. We say, "I prayed, I did my part, now let God handle it."

In reflexive prayer the human does not get off the hook. The human has responsibility that cannot be shucked. Prayer is about a lot of things. And one of those things must necessarily be about human agents getting their orders. It's not solely about crying out to your Jesus Santa Claus who waves magic wands and blows fairy dust to give you nice dreams and makes you sleep easily.

You have to do something about what you're praying. Reflexive prayer should give you nightmares.

Confessing but not Convicted

Do you struggling with confessing, but not really grasping conviction for life transformation?

I've noticed a trend. The longer I've been a Christian the more I must question the words I pray. It's easy to get the jargon down, but it's hard to wrestle the heart into submission. I often struggle against watery words in prayer with no substance. They just flow out like water, with no formative nature behind them.

Is my life dangerous to Satan with rich gut-wrenching prayers typified by sweat and perseverance, or am I distracted playing in the kiddy-pool? In order to be a dangerous Christian let us search our hearts so we both confess and are convicted. Let us bow soberly repentant to elicit a heart change.

Let us be convicted and determined about the creeds we profess and the sins we stand against as we confess.

Reflexive Prayer

Reflexive prayer is when you pray in front of the mirror. It's where what you pray bounces back with haunting questions. Reflexive prayer disallows the God dump. It's not just God in the prayer, but you're right there on center stage as well as accountable to work out the solution. It's a nasty little convicting prayer style. It's maddenning, but responsible Christians practice it, even if it leads to melancholy.

It's the famous, "God, what about poverty?" And God says, "Yes, Nick, what about poverty...don't you care, why don't you do something about it?" God has equipped me with resources to help, and therefore I must. Period. End of story, stop pray, become sober-minded and act upon the compassion God has stored up in your heart.

There is power in reflexive prayer, because the Father has put His powerful Holy Spirit inside every believer.

Surviving the hard road

The road to becoming a committed follower of Jesus is hard, rough, rocky, etc etc. There aren't enough "difficult" words to describe just how hard it is to follow Jesus. You will be endlessly disappointed, endlessly frustrated with yourself. It's failure after failure. Guilt-ridden and everything else.

So how can we survive the hard road? What's one thing we can practice today that will help us from destroying ourselves with our own minds full of lies and discouragement that get us down instead of renewing our minds to build ourselves up in Christ Jesus? One way today we can go about this is by encouraging our fellow comrades as they battles their own inner enemies. Be an encouragement to another Christian today, we all walk a tiring road.

Do not tire my brother, do not give up my sister. Press on to acheive the goal, Christ crucified, and resurrected. Call upon the prayer and strength of the saints who walk with you and have walked before you. Walk with encouraging words on your lips. Let your life and prayer encourage others as they struggle to find the living Jesus. Jesus sees you today in your time of need. Let Jesus give you his water.

Transforming Discipleship

Something seems inherently wrong with church educational philosophies.

Committee --> Program --> Disciples

Where's the discipleship factory?? Oh yes, it's that white bearded committee coming up with another ingenius one-shoe fits all Savior Program!! Look at it pop out the discipled by-product at the end of the line. Look how nice, neat, clean, and uniformly packaged everything is! Wow!

But there is a mindset deserving careful consideration if we are to find transformed lives in our churches. It bears some semblance to the method Jesus used in training his disciples after he called the babes into committed relationships of following his lead.

Covenantal Relationships --> Time --> Disciples

There is no key, no program, no magic wand. It's discipled people (listening to God's voice) rubbing shoulders with babes, investing their time and lives, and leaving it up to God to transform lives.

Let's not get immodest in how we think about creating disciples in churches. We ain't got a shot in hell to do it even with the most brilliant program. At most, we can invest our very lives in others, just as Jesus did, and then we leave the results to the Savior (Jesus) and the Transformer (Holy Spirit).

Rub your aroma off on others as you pray. That's the only way.

Look up, not to the side

One thing rings true throughout time when it comes to following Jesus. Greed, lust for power and prominence make it darn near impossible to find clues in our Christian sub-culture (I just threw up a little bit in my mouth) for what it means to sacrificially die for the sake of others. This is why it's of the utmost importance to look up to Jesus for our cues, and not to the side at our neighbors.

We will forever be hard pressed to find living Christians, but we can always look up to find the living Christ. Paul exhortation, to imitate him as he imitates the Messiah should forever haunt the sober-minded pastor. Throughout time the masses have been blinded to the sacrificial call of Jesus. Unfortunately the few have also drunk deeply of carnal cultural influences. The few take spiritual cat naps, and lounge around in a lazy stupor neglecting the persistent call to bear the burden of the sacrificial love cross.

This is why we cannot look to others. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The constant ongoing inner battle within every Christian makes looking to others difficult, because there are many defeats, even in the most love hungry obedient children. Therefore, look up to Jesus to see the one worth mimicking, and not to the side. IF the Lord should see it fit to bless us to put a human representative worth imitating (as Paul calls all Christians to be) then stick close, learn, and be tutored up close and personal in the ways of holiness.

Fear Not!

God tells us to 'Fear Not" an awful lot. Why? Is it because Christians are a bunch of scariedy cats? Well, no. Then why? It's because we are supposed to be taking steps of faith and risks for God, and not be afraid of doing it. When we sacrifce by faith and look back to see how far on the water we have walked, we are not to fear. 'Fear not' means nothing if we're still sitting in the boat. But 'fear not' means the world if you standing out water and you got nothing around you! When Christians hear Jesus calling them to join him walking on the water, let them also hear 'fear not.' May we walk courageously onto unknown waters.

I'm not a cookie, so don't use a cookie cutter

Passion, fire, and zeal are all wonderful things when we have a sense of calling and direction from the Lord. However, my fire is my fire. My cross isn't your cross. I don't impose it on others. I only try to dump the lighter fluid on the unified fire we are to find in Jesus under our collective butts.

We are all one body, but intentionally not all the same body part. Our zeal is great to display for others, but don't try to force others to be zealous about your calling. Encourage others to find their fire in their belly for God, not your fire in your belly. Your belly is yours, not theirs, unless you’re pregnant.....I digress...

The point is clear (that I have food on my mind). I'm not a cookie, and you're not a cookie. If you think you might be, call me up and I'll come over and eat you. :-) Since none of us are cookies we don't need cookie cutters. But why then in our churches are we acting like we need programmatic cookie cutters? Is our goal to pump out product like a business? It seems that way sometimes. I want to see transformed people, not some oozed out burnt out product. I swear I've sat in too many planning meetings where people are spoken of in terms of product, output, dollars and cents, or the Big 3, budget, bucks and building. What end are we trying to achieve with such a mindset! Give Jesus at least a little room to breath and operate!

Let us rather encourage HUMANITY. Let us call originality our sister and hold to unity. We can seek creativity and call her our mother and stand united. We are one body, many parts. We are people, not components, and not machine parts to make an American picture of church 'work.'

We aren't cookies, and Jesus is bored by cookie cutter Christians. Everybody is to bring their zeal, their passion, and their fire together. And together we can create a one huge bonfire for the Lord. Let us press on together as one, and write our pastors and leaders to throw away their cookie cutters. And dare I say our idolized cookie cutter programmatic way we think about and do church, education, our beloved programs. May they R.I.P.

Let us resurrect a new people. Yes, I said people. We are people, not machines to be installed into the 12 week study. And no, Jesus couldn't tell you how to find purpose in 40 days. He simply said, "Follow me."

Can you dig what I'm saying? Responses please...

Cat Refusal

Our cat Monty was sick, and was refusing to take his medicine. Even though it was good for him, Monty didn't care. He just knew it tasted yucky. Therefore he kicks and rebels against me, his caregiver, because he's stupid and doesn't know what's good for him.

In the same way, humans kick and rebel against their Heavenly Master (caregiver). We are short-sighted and are too blinded to see that the discipline and medicine of the Lord is ultimately good for us. We just think discipline hurts and it's yucky and nasty and fight it 24/7. If we were in tune however, we would see that the Lord is only trying to help us. But we are stubborn and desire our sins to persist, both against God and against fellow humanity.

Don't be stupid like Monty. Take the medicine your owner is providing. I saw my own sin, stubborness, stupidity, and short-sightedness in the cat today.

Safety Blanket

We wish Jesus would understand our NEED to carry a safety blanket. However, he doesn't give us that option. Maybe we try to jam it in our travel bag as we depart to follow Jesus on the path. Jesus will demand us to ditch it as the road narrows. We can't travel the narrow path with the security blanket weighing us down. Traveling the narrow road you'll have to place your faith and security in Jesus alone. Maybe Jesus will grant you security in the way you hope, maybe he won't. But at least you'll escape this world with your soul.

Following Jesus comes at great cost. You will escape with your soul, maybe not much else. Is that ok with you?

Jesus my dog

Do we risk what is dear? Or do we only give up what we can do without?

To follow Jesus let us give up what is dear. Let us give up what is precious, so that Jesus will be more precious. Let us take risks which are indeed risky. Let it not be said that we risk in shallow waters. Shallow waters, cheap offerings, weak sacrifices and safe risks. All these things assault the soul and demand a response. Risk by faith for Jesus. Don't treat Jesus, the King of Kings, like a dog by merely giving Him the scraps.

Those who have ears, let him hear.

Did Jesus really mean it?

Sometimes I read the stories of Jesus, and I'm a total space cadet. My mind is wandering all over the place. Then I reread, with a severe effort to focus (because my mind these days seems to be complete mush) and then I get scared at the sacrifical call staring me straight in the face. You probably can relate. Maybe you're mind is mush too! haha. Or maybe more importantly, you've been petrified at what Jesus is calling you to do as well.

So today, when we hear God's voice, let us immediately pray that we would follow boldly and courageously. I think Jesus meant what he said, and that the call is hard for sinful people to bear to hear. The call is extreme. The call is deeply risky and self-sacrifical.

Lord give us ears to hear.