January 22, 2014:

“Come, everyone who thirsts, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.” –Isaiah 55:1-3

Today I want you to do something. Especially if you are reading this on Facebook because that means you have the time. Pull out your phone. No, seriously pull it out. Now go to your timer setting, and set it to 1 minute. Now before you start here is what I want you to do. Without falling asleep, start the timer, close your eyes, and just listen to what is going on around you for the entire minute. Then tell me what you heard. I’ll do it too. Ready go…. Okay so what did you hear? I heard a phone conversation between a mom and her child, computers running, an 8 o’clock alarm go off, and babies crying from down the hallway. Did you start thinking about other things you had to do today? Maybe later this week, or even next week? I did. I was thinking about all of these things that I need to get done before I leave the office for a few days.
            This exercise is tough for people. A lot of times there are too many things going on and our lives are so busy that we don’t have any time to rest, relax, and recoup. We often find ourselves getting loud and distracting with the activities of everyday life. Kind of like my office right now. Holy Cow! It’s Wednesday morning and people coming in and out talking and needing things, kids coming in for chapel time, and pastors getting ready for a memorial service. Talk about distracting! These things are all in service to God, but we still get caught up in doing them and forget that God has a plan in mind if we just listen for it. Larry King said it well when he said “Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening.” The same thing can be said for our spiritual lives. We will learn a lot less if we are doing all of the talking and none of the listening. When was the last time that you sat down and spent 5 un-interrupted minutes just reading your bible, praying, and listening? Our lives get so overrun with stuff to do and people to see that we forget to take time to nurture the best relationship we could ever have! Our relationship with Christ! It is important to take time, and listen so that we can do our best to hear what He has to say!

“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.”

-Bryant H. McGill

January 13, 2014:

“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”” –Numbers 6:24-27

It has recently been drawn to my attention that I am beginning to take the place of my father at family gatherings. Don’t get me wrong, my father is alive and well. He is still  busy with the changes and exciting new adventures that take place at Hosanna Lutheran Church. I say this because when I was younger, dad was always the one asked to pray for meals, well anything really at all family gatherings. I had always viewed it as a kind of burden for him because no one else would even brave the thought. It always seemed like they were pawning off the responsibilities and I have always wondered why that is. Is it because he is the church worker? Probably. Is it because people are scared or nervous to pray in front of others? Maybe. Is it because people haven’t been taught how to pray out loud? Maybe.

            In verse 27 of Numbers chapter 6 it says this: “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” We have been approaching prayer and blessing in a wrong mindset. What is the old saying? We are blessed to be a blessing. We have been given the greatest opportunity of all when it comes to prayer and blessing. We get to share our Heavenly Father’s affection for His people. We get to share His blessing with all people and that blessing is the greatest gift we can ever receive. A blessing that marks us with undeserved grace and forgiveness and sets us apart as children of the Most High. A gift that we should all be fighting to remind people of!

“The Gospel is about grace and we all know that grace is about us receiving from God blessings that we don't deserve.” -Tony Campolo

January 9^th 2014:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave s the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” -2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Patterns are interesting and we find them all over the place. Math has patterns of numbers and for how to solve equations. Weather has patterns for how long will it be hot and how much snow will we get this winter. We have patterns and routines that we fall into during our week. One of my favorite patterns is my day off! I wake up and take my wife to work. Then I stop by Caribou Coffee on my way home for a $1 medium coffee. I then proceed to turn on the TV and watch 1 hour of SportsCenter, and then 1.5 hours of First Take. Then I clean the house, do some dishes, and take my wife some lunch (Best part!). Finally I come home and play video games for another hour generally online with my brother until I have to go pick my wife up after work. Patterns are wonderful!

            Well most patterns that is. You see, I don’t know what your patterns are and how you go about your daily lives but I bet I can tell you a pattern that we all fall under. It starts with sin. We sin and sin and sin. It’s a pretty easy pattern to fall into, in fact we are very prone to this pattern because it is instilled in us from the day we were conceived. Thankfully there is another pattern that we can participate in, and that is forgiveness and reconciliation. Our God, who made us to be like Him, knows and understands that we suck. To quote Paul we “do not do the good [we] want, but the evil [we] do not want is what [we] keep doing.” (Romans 7:19). Even if we try our best we just can’t be good and that is why God continually gives us forgiveness from the sins that we repent of and reconciles us back to Him so that we can ultimately spend eternity where our only pattern will be perfection! I can’t wait to be perfect!!

“The pattern of the prodigal is: rebellion, ruin, repentance, reconciliation, restoration.”

      –Edwin Louis Cole

January 8^th 2014:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” –Ephesians 1:3-4

As the hordes of school children come through our doors this morning for their weekly chapel time it makes me think about how weird I really am. I find myself on long car drives, passing cars with complete strangers in them, wondering what is going on in that person’s life. Where are they going? What is their agenda for the next week? Who are they? I noticed myself doing the same thing this morning with our school children. Who are they? What is happening in their life? Is this relevant to my thought this morning? Well sort of. If you think about each individual person that you come in contact with on a daily basis and wonder what is going on in their lives you are going to overwhelm yourself to the point of exhaustion. Think about it this way. Think about what you have going on in your life, and then multiply that by at least 100 people. That is a lot of stuff to try and keep track of right? And you wonder why people get the perspective of God that He is not a personal and intimate kind of God.

            Thankfully there is evidence for us to prove that God is investing and wondering (well wondering if you will tell Him) what is going on in your life. Paul tells us in Ephesians that He has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” and “chose us in him before the foundation of the world”. Our God was and is intentional about every little detail of your life. He knew what gifts and talents you were going to have before you were even a blip on the radar of your parents. He knows your past, your present, and your future, and most importantly He knows that you are forgiven and redeemed because of the life of Jesus Christ. I’m sure glad that God views me as a valuable enough to live and die for!

What can you do to invest a little more in other people?

How can you use your gifts and talents to show others that God values them?

“God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us.” 

       –Fulton J. Sheen

1/7/14:

TFTD: “They are your servants and your people, who you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of man.” –Nehemiah 1:10-11

First of all I would like to say happy New Year to everyone! 2013 came to a close in a whirlwind of things to do and I got a long ways behind in my posting, but I am back and hope to be more regular to start this year (even though I am getting a late start). I have to confess something to you. Last night, my wife and I watched a lot of T.V. We watched the BCS Championship game where Famous Jameis Winston led the Florida State Seminoles to a win in the last minute of the game, but we also flip flopped that with The Bachelor. I don’t know about you but in both of those shows I noticed 2 things. Anyone want to guess what they are? The first is that fame is fleeting. At this point next year who is going to remember the incredible run that Auburn had to get to the national title? Who is going to remember that Juan Pablo was the bachelor who dated 27 girls all at the same time on national television?

The second is this: Why do we invest our time and effort into fame and fortune when none of that will ultimately fill the happy void that we feel is empty. I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t want any fame and fortune. I’d love to be a well-known published author or a professional musician who gets to tour the world but that doesn’t do me any good for my eternity. The only thing that matters is that I know the truth of Christ. The truth that tells me it doesn’t matter who I am or how famous or insignificant I am or feel I am a redeemed and loved child of the One God who has created an expansive universe that is beyond our wildest imagination. Who could have been the most famous person to ever walk the earth, but instead chose to live a humble life and die on a cross in order to pay for all the crap I have done in my life. For all of the wrongs I have done, sins I have committed, and fame I have pursued that was not to His glory. Instead of being enthralled with a famous Jameis Winston how about we enthrall ourselves with a Famous Jesus Christ!

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth. But most of them pick it up and hurry off as if nothing happened.” –Winston Churchill