The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

Eph 3:8 - "To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ".  What a statement!  

The context of this verse is a discussion Paul is having with the church at Ephesus about what he has been called to do, and why they should not lose heart at his sufferings.  There is a whole list here in Eph 3.  He is to reveal the secret of God that the Gentiles are to take part in the promise given to the Jewish people through Christ (vs 6 - this is the preaching of the Gospel fyi).  He is to bring to light the eternal cosmic role of the church, to make known the manifest wisdom of God in the Heavenly realms (vs 9), but in the middle there is this incredible statement.  He is to preach to the gentiles the "unfathomable riches of Christ".  I read this and I am stirred my friends.  I want to have this calling.  I want to walk in this grace;  to preach to everyone the beauty, the glory, the unimaginable worth of Jesus of Nazareth.  

As a pastor I fear I have neglected this calling.  I must return to the preaching of His Riches.  To uncover to all who will listen, the glory of Jesus.

I heard someone say the other day, "I am not just a follower of Jesus, I am a WORSHIPPER of Jesus!"  My heart said "YES!" when I heard this.  We are more than the followers of a set of teachings.  We are more than adherents to the words of a wise guru.  We are worshippers of the uncreated Son of the Living God!  We bow before the majesty and sovereignty of the one through whom all things were made.  We can never forget this!

Lift Jesus High in your thoughts today friends!  Exalt Him in your hearts!  Set Jesus as the center of your joy and sin will fall from you!

Amen

What the Heaven????

I have been thinking about purpose. I have been thinking about the end for which we have been saved. The church doesn't talk about this much and I've been wondering why. I can think of 2 reasons:

#1 we don't fully believe it - It is true! The church as a whole (Josh Hawkins definitely included) walks at such a shallow level of emotional reality when it comes to the hope of our calling! If we had the tiniest taste of the joys we have been included in, the eternal ever expanding experience of love, beauty, and satisfaction that is NOW and will forever be our inheritance in Christ Jesus we would walk around emotionally overwhelmed every minute of every day, and the WHOLE EARTH would know!

#2 we don't understand it - If you asked the run of the mill Christian what Christianity is all about they would say something like this: "Jesus died for my sins so I don't have to go to Hell but I can go to Heaven." This answer is correct, and glorious, but it is only a tiny piece of the answer to the question asked. Most Christians are more excited about missing Hell than they are about gaining Heaven, and even WORSE, more excited about gaining Heaven than they are about gaining JESUS!! This isn't about missing hell-fire my friends and the tragedy of Hell is not the fire. The sorest pain of Hell is separation from God and the HIGHEST GLORY of Heaven is His unveiled presence and our ever expanding capacity to see, hear, feel, smell, taste and rejoice in His beauty forever and ever and ever and ever, and our calling as His Holy Bride to cooperate with Him in His purposes as He makes His glory manifest in and through us forever and ever!

We are not just saved sinners! We are more than conquerers! We are those who, by His grace, manifest His glory, His divine nature and power in the universe. We are called to be the first fruits of the resurrection and recreation of all of the universe. (All of this can be found in the book of Ephesians chapters 1, 2, and 3, Romans chapter 8 and elsewhere but it IS BIBLE)

We must get a grip on these eternal realities and let them change our hearts from boredom to fascination. We must learn to live our lives out of joy and glory because we understand the unbelievable truths of what Jesus did on the cross and in His resurrection!

Yes the Christian life can be hard sometimes, bad things happen, the devil is a powerful enemy, people get sick, get hurt, and die, but when we understand the TRUTH of what we have been given in this covenant of glory written in the very blood of the Son of God we must stand with the Apostle and declare, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Rom 8:18 Amen

A people of the gospel

A People of the Gospel

I have been thinking a lot lately about the church. We are The body of Christ, His representatives on the planet and the ones that are supposed to be shining His glory to world every day. I want to know what that looks like. I want a taste of it.

As with everything that is real, being THE CHURCH has many layers, levels, and dimensions, but there are places to begin and some foundations are better than others. The one I am the most interested in at the moment is the Gospel. The good news is more than just our entry point into Christianity it IS Christianity. We should be a people profoundly shaped and molded by the realities of the Good News.

Jesus is the one who makes this clear. Remember the parable of the man who owed the king a massive sum of money, and was then forgiven? He walked right out of the presence of the forgiver and persecuted his neighbor for a debt of a very small sum. This is a classic case of NOT being profoundly shaped by the Gospel! The news that without him having to do ANYTHING himself he was now set free from his impossible debt, did nothing to the way he treated another man with in the same situation.

How often do we as Christians do the exact same thing! Let us make no mistake my friends we have been forgiven a debt that we never could have paid ourselves. How do we treat others around us who have accrued a similar load on their backs? Maybe even a debt that they personally owe to us? Do we free them? Do we let them go?

This illustration is only one small dimension of what it looks like to be deeply shaped and changed by the Gospel. There are so many more! He came looking for us, are we looking for them? He chased us down when we ran away, are we doing the same? He bore the price of our failures when we could not, when is the last time you did that for someone? There is still more....

I am not saying that I am doing better than anyone else in this category only that I desperately desire to do better than I have.

Lord help me to see what it means to be a man of the Gospel and our church to be a people of the Gospel. Shape me. Mold me. I am yours amen.

First and Foremost

I want to get a grip on what is really important. I have heard so many arguments I have HAD so many arguments, about this or that, about some obscure point of theology, about some sin or non-sin.

Lately I’ve been shaken. Out of my stupor. I feel like been asleep. I feel like I just woke up. I just don’t want to do this anymore! I want to give my life to what is TRULY IMPORTANT! I just want to yell at all of the arguers and say “GROW UP! WAKE UP!” We waste so much time on what is not important.

I spent the week sitting with 35 or 40 pastors praying for each-other and for this city. I’ve been processing everything since then.

For me the second night was the most powerful. We put the communion elements in the middle of the room and everyone sat around them. We lit two candles on the table with the elements and turned the other lights off. One by one each of these men of God walked to the table and thanked the one who broke his body and shed his blood to save them. They shared their stories in brief. They were stories of grace, stories of salvation stories of love. As more and more of my brothers shared I became more and more aware of the presence of the Holy One in our midst. He was there in such a special way.

This is what’s important. This is what I want to be about. I want to be a man who in one way or another is a part of making stories like this happen. I want to be a door to grace. I want to be a window of mercy. I want to be a herald of love.

Jesus shine through me.

Amen

The answer to the cry for Holiness

The answer to the cry for Holiness

I have been inundated lately by a cry from the people of God for a means to holiness. “How do we teach people how to be holy?” they say. “yeah but what way can we make them be holy?” they ask. In my role as youth pastor I am confronted with this question on a daily basis. How do I, as a minister to young people, convince them to leave sin alone or leave sin behind and live out a life of purity and holiness?

The reality is that I know the answer to that question. There is only one, but any time I start talking to people about that one answer, people give me looks of bewilderment and ask me the same question again in another way as if I didn’t hear them the first time! “well, yeah, but how do we make them holy?”. I have to say that when this question has come up lately I have pretended to not know. I start rubbing my chin and shaking my head, because I know my answer is not going to satisfy their question. I know that it won’t satisfy them because it is deeply simple and uncomplicated and it looks NOTHING like religion!

I am tired of being ashamed of the only biblical answer to that question. The answer to the question of holiness is an SIMPLE answer but not an EASY answer! The answer to the cry for holiness is love.

This is the truth. What did Jesus say? Mat 22:37-40 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (38) This is the great and first commandment. (39) And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (40) On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

Why don’t we understand this? When we love God when the First Commandment is ALIVE IN OUR HEARTS for REAL the holiness question will be no more.

I want this to be a reality alive in me. A reality that marks me, brands me. I don’t want to live by a set of rules, I will never remember them all! I want to live out of my passion for Jesus. I want to allow my love for Him to guide and guard my way.

Church we must return to our First Love. We must burn with the First Commandment in the First Place of our hearts, only then will holiness be our way of life.

Jesus holder of all my dreams

Psa 37:4-5 (4) Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (5) Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

1Pe 5:6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

These are two verses that I have held onto for a long long time. They have been the secret whispers of my heart to my heart, my silent recitation; They are the truth.

If you have not yet heard I am now the youth pastor of First Assembly of God in Fort Wayne IN. This is a dream I have had for over ten years. A dream I believed had died. I was wrong. Jesus had it in His heart for me all along. Just not yet.

Some have said things to me like, "it's about time" or "something like this should have happened years ago". I understand what they are saying and I am grateful for the kindness but they are incorrect. I wasn't ready and Jesus knew I wasn't. A transformation had to take place in me before I could come to this place and walk it out with integrity. The idol of my dreams had to be torn down, the Lord made central in my affections, and my desires uprooted from empty ideas and planted deep in the glory of the fountain that never runs dry.

The point of this post is simple. I want to thank Jesus for leading me. He knows my heart and He loves me. He truly is the lover of my soul. The good shepherd. Jesus is the holder of all my dreams. He is my dreams. He is my great reward.

I want to write a note to all of my friends languishing in the place of waiting. Those currently "humbled under the mighty hand of the Lord". STAY THERE!!!! Do not leave that place of the wilderness until you hold every treasure of the desert in you hands. Give yourself to this time with passion and understanding. Do not push into "what's next" and miss the glory of where you are. I know it hurts. I know it is hard. I know you HATE it, but hang on. Wait. Be Still! When He is ready to raise you up there will be NO STOPPING HIM!

He is more jealous for your destiny than you are - believe it

Chew on the Word

Pro 4:20-21 - (20) My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. (21) Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. (22) For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. (23) Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

I ran across this scripture this morning and I have to say it convicted me! Verse 21 in particular tweaked my conscience. This is my regular pattern. Get up in the morning, maybe spend time in the Word maybe not, and get about the business of my day. I will usually at least glance into the Word at one point during the day even if I "don't have time" to do any real study, but then it is back to normal life and what I read is, more often than not, quickly forgotten.

In this Proverb Solomon is warning against precisely this practice. He commends His Son to make an effort to receive the Word and then watch over that Word to make sure it remains in his head. I love the picture: "let them not escape from your sight" . I picture myself; feet spread wide, hands outstretched, head up and eyes alert dancing back and forth in front of the door of my mind. The goalie of my soul. "OK Word of God you're not getting out of here". You know I've always read vs 24 as a warning to keep bad things OUT of my heart, but in light of the two previous verses I think it is also a command to keep the good things IN!

This is not the ONLY place in scripture where this admonition can me found - In the parable of the Sower (Luke 8) Jesus spoke of the soil that was shallow and could not hold the seed that was planted. I guess this verse is Jesus guard against shallow soil. HOLD ON TO THE WORD and make SURE it bears fruit.

Another echo of this is in the parable of the vine and the branches. Jesus says in John 15:7 that if we remain in Him and HIS WORDS remain in us we will bear much fruit AND anything we ask He will do for us. That's a pretty amazing promise, especially when combined with the promises from Proverbs vs 22 of life and healing!

So Lord I respond to your command. Help me to know the best ways to guard over your word in my heart to keep it in place. To not let it escape from my sight. To remain in you and let your word remain in me that I might bear much fruit. That I might have power in prayer, that I might be filled with life, and be healed of all my afflictions!

AMEN!