In the very beginning of the church of Jesus Christ we see this played out.  In Acts 2, Pentecost has taken place, Peter has preached this amazing message and about three thousand souls were added to the kingdom that day.  The very next verse says, “They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the FELLOWSHIP, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous sings were done by the apostles.  All the believers were TOGETHER and had everything in common.” (Acts 2:42-44)  They devoted themselves to the teaching of the Word and to fellowship.  We all need that!  I need that and you need that.   

The writer of Hebrews penned the following words in Hebrews 10:24-25, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another…”  In these verses the writer is telling us that we need to pursue the community of believers.  There are two words in those verses that jump out at me.

• The first word is “spur.”  Everyone knows and understands the picture that comes to mind when you hear that word.  It is the idea of spurring a horse to move.  As believers we are to “spur” our fellow believers toward something, and that something is love and good deeds.  That can only happen as we are building relationships with each other, and as we are encouraging and supporting one another.  If we are not doing that for each other, pretty soon discouragement, doubt and loneliness can begin to creep in.
• The second word is “habit.”  It is so easy to get into the habit of not meeting and fellowshipping together.  You’ve heard it said, “It takes 21 days to develop a habit, but only 3 days to break one.”  The same is true when it comes to meeting together.  We miss Sunday service, or our small group, a couple of times and pretty soon we’ve fallen into a routine (habit) of missing all the time.  And believe me, the enemy will give you enough reasons to miss because he does not want you to be encouraged and supported.  We are much more vulnerable by ourselves.  The lion always attacks the one that gets separated from the herd.

We live in a world where being a Christ-follower is not the most popular thing.  Jesus told us that it would be that way.  With that being the case, it is all the more vital that we have the support and encouragement of one another.  That can only take place as we meet together.  The enemy is the lion wanting to devour, and if he can get us separated off by ourselves, he will pounce with discouragement, doubt and whatever it takes to bring us down.  We really do need each other, because remember, even the Lone Ranger had Tonto!

God Bless!

Seriously, we all experience storms in our lives, and I’m not talking about lightening storms, twisters and blizzards.  I’m talking about those painful storms of life that some of you may feel like you’re in the midst of right now.  You may feel like the disciples felt when they were in the boat on the Sea of Galilee and the Scriptures says the storm was so bad that their boat was swamped.  The funny thing about that situation was that Jesus was also in the boat, but He was sound asleep.  He was exhausted from a full day of teaching. These fisherman get so panicked that they wake Him up and yell, “Don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”  Jesus gets up and rebukes the wind and waves and the storm ceases.

Let me share three things I’ve learned about storms:

1. Storms come even when Jesus is there.  Jesus is in the boat with the disciples and the boat is still swamped.  Just because we are followers of Christ does not mean that our lives are going to be storm free.  I wish that was the case, but that’s just not reality.  The winds are going to blow and the waves are going to crash and, like the disciples, we think Jesus is sleeping.  We need to remember that He doesn’t protect us from the storms, He protects us in the storms.  The Psalmist said, “When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear for You are with me.”  Even when He’s in the boat, the storms can come.
2. If Jesus is there, then put your trust in Him.  Mark Batterson, in his book “The Circle Maker”, talks about the fact that there are times when all we can do is say, “I trust You. I trust You.”  There are times when the storms make everything look so hopeless, but those are the times when all we can do is trust in Him.  I have found that when we get to that point, that’s when God takes over and miracles happen.
3. Trust Him to calm your storm at just the right time and in the right way.  We need to remember that His timing is perfect.  He is never late and never early.  In His perfect time, and in His perfect way, He says, “Peace, be still” and the storms cease.  The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 56:3, “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in Thee.”  That is a verse that we need to memorize and remember when we’re in the midst of it.

There are a lot of reasons for why our chair has become broken.  The broken chair is memories in our lives.  It could be memories of rejection.  It could be memories of abuse. It could be memories of addiction, prejudice, abandonment, criticism and the list goes on. The reality is that you may not have been the one who broke it.  It could have happened in elementary school on the playground.  A parent might have damaged and broke your chair. Your ex might have been the one causing the damage.  Maybe is was a close friend and it may have simply been bad choices that we’ve made along the way.

So how do we fix and stabilize the chairs of our lives?  Let me give you three things that I think are critical to chair repairing:

1. I have to admit that my chair is broken.  This is so important, because until I can come clean and admit I am living in a broken chair, there can be no healing and stabilization.  If admitting and coming clean begins the process, who do I come clean with?  First, I have to come clean with God.  He knows I’m broken and He is just waiting for me to admit it.  He saw exactly what it was that broke it and He wept with me when it happened.  Secondly, I must come clean with myself.  This is empowering and there is huge freedom in it.  Once I admit it to myself, I can focus on allowing God to heal and repair my chair.  Finally, I come clean with one other person.  This is a person that I trust to keep those things I share in confidence.  Plus it is someone who can pray and support me in the process.
2. I release the person who broke it.  Romans 12:17-19 says, “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.  Respect what is right in the sight of all men.  If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.  Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.”  I have to let it go.  I have to admit it’s broken and I have to release the person who broke it, no matter who it is.  By doing this, I am placing in His hands, and He can take care it from a perfect position.
3. I stabilize it with truth.  Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  The you will learn to know God’s will for you which is good and pleasing and perfect.”  There are a lot of self-help books on the bookshelves of the book stores. But the one book I need to focus on is God’s Word.  As I allow His book to become alive in my life and begin to transform me, I can learn what Jesus says about me and begin to replace the lies with His truth.

In Proverbs 19:18 (NLT) we read, “Discipline your children while there is hope.  Otherwise you will ruin their lives.”  God, from the very beginning, has been telling us as parents that we have a responsibility to discipline our children.  He says that if we don’t do that, we will be ruining their lives.  Those are pretty strong words!

I wrote last week about the elephants that we have in our lives, and how we so many times simply ignore them, hoping that they we leave the house.  We came to the conclusion that that doesn’t work.  We have to be bold and choose to deal with them.

Another thing about elephants is that they have a tendency to get quite dirty.  Roaming around, rolling in the dirt, etc, causes them to get filthy.  Then they come into the house and that dirt gets all over everything.  The problem is that we choose to just hose them off instead of removing them completely from the house.  Plus, they love getting hosed off because it cools them down and feels great.

So what do we do with the elephant called “Discipline”?  The goal of discipline is correction driven by love.  The key word there is “love”.  When we have to discipline our children, it must be driven by love!  How do we do that?  Let me quickly share three things that are important if we’re going to discipline with love.

1. There must be clarity in our discipline.  Our kids need to know clearly what we expect from them.  What are the lines?  What are the expectations.  We can only discipline with integrity that which we have made clear.
2. There must be consequences in our discipline.  Hopefully most of us understand that there are consequences that go along with poor choices.  It seems to me that we are trying to protect our children from all of the consequences of life, and in trying to protect, we are keeping them from learning great life lessons.  They will eventually learn it, but we may not be there to help them through it.  Also, the consequence must be prompt and painful.  When I say that word painful, that could be anything from losing the keys to the car – to being grounded.  I’m not just talking about spanking, although I’m not opposed to that.  Just make sure you don’t put off the consequences, and they should feel a loss in some way.
3. There must be consistency in our discipline.  If we are inconsistent, we will do more damage than good.  We must be consistent in rewarding and in consequences.  We must be consistent when it comes to keeping our word, and we must be consistent in reconciliation.  All discipline must be followed with forgiveness and reconciliation. Isn’t that what Jesus did for us?

Let me define elephants for you.  Elephants are the obvious, damaging truth that we choose to ignore.  Whether it be in the family and parenting, or in any area of our lives, the elephants are these huge, obvious, damaging truths that we choose to ignore.  And as I said before, we believe and hope that if we’ll simply ignore them, they’ll leave.  It just doesn’t work that way!

Why is it that we choose to ignore them instead of dealing with them?  Why is it that we allow them to take up residence in the rooms of our lives?  Let me give you five reasons why I believe we do this.

1. We just don’t know what to do.  We were not raised around the circus and we’re not trained elephant trainers, so we just don’t know how to deal with them.
2. Some of us were raised with elephants.  We grew up living around them.  Elephants were residents of the homes we grew up in and so we are very comfortable having them around.  In fact, not having elephants in the room is more abnormal than life with elephants for some of us.
3. It is simply overwhelming.  Elephants are huge creatures.  When you decide that you want to move it out of the room, you are trying to take a massive piece of tonnage out.  Plus, they don’t want to leave.  They like where they are living.
4. We’re scared of the elephant.  Elephants can get mad and they could do some major damage, including stomping on us.  So we choose to just let it be and try not to get it too upset.
5. It is just too painful.  This is a tough one because if we choose to deal with the elephant, then were going to have to face some of the pain and the issues that we have ignored for so long.  So because we don’t want to do that, we decide that it is easier to live with the huge elephant than it is to face the pain that we’ve chosen to ignore.

So what does that mean?  According to Webster, “Stewardship is the care and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.”  We think that stewardship simply has to do with finances, but that is just a small part of it.  Stewardship involves everything!

There are two principles that we need to wrap our minds around if we’re truly going to understand what stewardship is all about.

1. God owns everything.  Psalm 24:1 reads, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it.”   Why does He own it all?  Because He created and He sustains it.  He made it, He holds it together, so therefore He has the right to claim ownership.  That means that since He created us, we also belong to Him, which takes us to the second principle.
2. God created man to be mangers of His creation.  The word “stewardship” simply means “manager.”  We are commanded to be good managers of all God’s creation. Go back to Genesis 2:15 and look at the five things we are to do.  We are to take care of, manage, everything!  The problem is that we get it all messed up and reverse these two principles.  We start being managers, but after a period of time we begin to think that we own it.  When we do that, we move outside of what God purpose and plan is for us.  We forget that everything we have is simply on loan to us and that we can’t take it with us.  When we pass from this life, everything we have been managing will simply be given to someone else to manage.  That’s just the way it is, and once we understand these principles, it will revolutionize your life.

If we know that we’re going to break them, why make them?  I mean, I’ve made and broken my share of resolutions.  So why do we do it?  Maybe it makes us feel better thinking that we’re going to do something that will better us in the new year.  Maybe it helps to make us not feel so guilty about how we lived in the previous year.  But inevitably, every January 1st we make our list.

I have a suggestion for 2012.  Instead of making a list of resolutions that we will probably break, why not make a list of “commitments” that we are committed to keep. Commitments like spending more time in God’s word and in prayer this year.  Or being committed to make time to worship each weekend with God’s family.  How about being committed to sharing your faith with someone who doesn’t know Him.  Maybe it’s a commitment to get involved in a ministry at your local church.  Here’s a great one, how about being committed to do something for the less fortunate around you.  We just finished the “not a fan” study at our church, so why not make a commitment to be a committed follower of Jesus instead of just a fan in 2012.

Those are just a few suggestions and feel free to add to it.  You see the difference I see between resolutions and commitments is that resolutions are things that I am going to try to accomplish on my own, where commitments I can only do with God’s help.  I have learned over the years that the things I try to accomplish in my own strength fall vastly short of what is accomplished in His strength.

There are two verses in Psalm 37 that I love.  Verse 4 reads, “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  Now that doesn’t mean He’s going to give me my every want, but it does mean that if I am delighting myself in Him, then my desires will be in line with His.  Then v. 5 reads, “Commit you way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it.”   The secret of Him giving me the desires of my heart is not tied to my resolutions, however great the list might be.  The secret is my delighting in Him, and my willingness to commit my way to Him.  That makes a lot more sense to me than a list of resolutions I’ll probably break by the end of the month.

I guess this is what I’m saying.  Let’s tear up the lists and make a deeper commitment to be all that God wants us to be in 2012.  Let’s commit our ways to Him and let Him accomplish the things that need to be accomplished in our lives.  Let’s let Him show us what we need to do, and then, in His strength, see them come to pass.  Resolutions?  NOT THIS YEAR!  I choosing a deeper commitment and a deeper trust in the One who can accomplish all things!  Will you join me in that, and together we will see God do some amazing things in 2012.

God Bless!

That was very strange for the the society that Jesus lived in because He was a rabbi.  A rabbi was a teacher of the word and they would have students or disciples called “talmid” who would follow them and learn from them.  This was always a very exclusive group of students and the qualifications to become a talmid were very strict.  It literally would be like trying to get into an Ivy League college today.  So when Jesus said that anyone was welcome to follow Him, it was like upsetting the apple cart.  By the way, when the crowds looked at His disciples, they knew that “anyone” meant “everyone”.

When Jesus invites anyone to follow Him, He does away with all of the qualifications that would keep us from following Him, but in so doing, He also gets rid of all of the excuses that we might use.  Whether you say you’re too busy at the office, or that the family is putting a lot of demand on you, or that your past is so bad that Jesus would never accept you, none of those excuses hold water with Him.  It doesn’t matter what your past or your present is like, EVERYONE IS WELCOME!  When Jesus invites anyone, He means anyone!

There’s one more thing I want to share about this “anyone” invitation.  When Jesus makes His invitation, He also makes it clear that when you choose to follow Him, you need to give up everything.  When a talmid was finally accepted into a rabbi’s school, they would leave their homes, their jobs, whatever was holding them back, and they would go and follow the rabbi.  Literally, they would follow that rabbi wherever he went.  So you see, the invitation is open to anyone, but it means everything.

So my question to you reading this blog, “Are you willing to follow the rabbi Jesus?”  The greatest teacher who ever lived offers you and me the chance to become one of His students.  There are no qualifications so we’ve got no excuse, but He also guarantees that it will cost you everything.  Are you ready to follow Jesus?

A “fan” is defined as “an enthusiastic admirer.” I am a huge sports fan!  If you’ve been around me for any time at all, you know that I enjoy about any sport and that I am a huge Huskies fan.  (Saturday against Stanford was very difficult for me to watch.)  But I love to watch sports, especially college sports.  I would definitely call myself a fan when it comes to sports.  But the more serious question I have to answer deals with my relationship with Jesus Christ, “Am I a fan or a follower?”  How would I define my walk with Him?

In John 2 Jesus is at the height of His ministry and we read that there are large crowds following Him.  He was very popular.  He was performing miracles, providing food with just five loaves and two fish, and a lot of people were in the crowd following Him.  But Jesus realizes why they were coming.  In v. 2 we read, “…and a great crowd of people followed Him because they saw the miraculous signs He had performed on the sick.”  They were just coming for the miracles!  They didn’t care about the teaching or the life changing lessons, they were just there for the show.

When Jesus realized this, He challenged these fans to a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him, and we read in v. 66, “From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him.”  You see, being a follower of Jesus requires complete commitment.  A follower of Jesus will do whatever it takes to follow Jesus!  They are absolutely loyal and completely committed. Our problem is that we don’t do very well with absolute commitment.  We instead want to customize our relationship.  We say things like, “I’m going to follow Jesus, but I’m going to pick and choose the areas in which I’ll follow Him.”  Or we say, “I’ll follow Jesus, but don’t ask me to forgive that other person who hurt me, and don’t talk to me about money.”  We want to be a Christian but we want it to be comfortable.  The truth is, we’re just fans!  We have to understand that there is not an option of selective commitment.  There is no bargaining, no bartering, no finagling.  When we decide to become a follower of Christ, we’ve got to go all in.

So the question again is, “Are you a fan or are you a follower?”

There is so much I would like to give you in this post, but it would probably be overload.  So what I’m going to talk about here is the “Grace Clothes” that we are to add to your lives as Christ-followers.  If you would like to get the full meal deal, you can listen to the message “Put on Your Grace Clothes” by clicking to the sermon link of the website.

In Colossians 3:12-17 Paul gives us a list of the things we need to add to our lives if we want to be complete in Him.  There are seven of them that he mentions:

1. A heart of compassion.  That word “compassion” literally means “to live in another person’s skin.”  It is to be able to look through their eyes.  Also, it’s interesting to me that the test of true mercy and compassion stems form the fact that we have received true mercy and compassion.
2. Kindness.  If compassion is an act of mercy, then kindness is a disposition.  Kindness has to do with the attitude.  We are to wear compassion in a continual daily lifestyle.
3. Humility.  This was very new for those people, because humility, for them, had a very negative connotation.  For them it meant “a graveling”, like “you’re graveling in the dust.”  But true humility is understanding that we were chosen by God, and that we are no better than anybody else.  It also is an understanding that I really cannot accomplish anything of significance without His power.
4. Gentleness.  Gentleness is power under control.  It is not passiveness, but it is power that has been tempered and controlled.
5. Patience.  This is a word that deals with our fellowmen.  It is a patience that does not cause us to go into despair, or cynicism, or bitterness, or wrath.  When we truly understand how patient God is with us, we should be motivated to be patient with others.
6. To bear and forgive.  To bear is not just putting up with someone.  Instead, it is the idea of affirming that person.  It means “building up somebody.”  And forgiving is self-explanatory, we forgive as Christ has forgiven us.
7. Love.  Love is the thread that brings all of the other virtues together.  In 1 Corinthians 13:13 we read, “But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  Love is the thing that keeps all the others together.