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

12/16/13:

TFTD: “And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” -2 Peter 1:19-21

Yesterday marks 6^th months of having been on internship so this morning I am taking a moment to reflect on my experiences. I promise there will be a real thought that accompanies this reflection as well. Over the last 6^th months I have learned a lot about myself. I reaffirmed that my biggest passion in life is people. I learned that I really enjoy leading bible study for a group of older ladies in my congregation. I learned that I enjoy teaching and I am thankful that it is not in a formalized setting. I have learned a lot over the last 6 months, but there is one thing that really stands out to me and that is the importance of scripture in our lives.

We are a people in need of direction. We get lost and caught up in the worldly ideas of health, wealth, and success that we forget our purpose. It is just so easy to do. We see people who are climbing the ladder of success and envy them for their money or job. We see people who have the beach body and then get jealous of them. We see people who don’t go to church who don’t seem to have any problems in their lives and wonder why we even bother. We think we get scrooged by our world (See what I did there. Scrooged haha). When in reality all we need to do is remember that scripture is the inspired works of God and when we are in it and reading regularly we will know that we are a part of a greater purpose and plan. All the answers we need are found in the bible. We have a loving God who is going to take care of us no matter what the cost and has already done that with His life. As Charles Haddon Spurgeon said: We will never outgrow our need for Scripture.

“Nobody ever outgrows Scriptures; the Book widens and deepens with our years.”

–Charles Haddon Spurgeon

12/12/13:

TFTD: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” –Isaiah 26:3-4

What is your biggest struggle right now? Is it something you can control? Is it something that is out of your control? I know that my biggest struggle right now is that I am busy busy busy (and I burnt my tongue on my coffee yesterday). The Christmas season is a wonderful time of year. There are lights and decorations. We are making plans to see family and friends, to drink beverages that warm your tummy and sing songs that warm the soul. After it is all said and done and all of our parties and get-togethers are done with we usually find ourselves worn out and exhausted. So wiped out from all of the traveling and planning and eating that we just want to have a moment of peace. We just want to take a few more days off of work to have a break from our holiday before the regular hustle and bustle of life begins again. Is it possible to come through it all with a peaceful smile on your face that isn’t fake? I think so.

            Isaiah implies in chapter 26 that the people of that time were facing much worse problems than a busy holiday season and yet they could find their perfect peace if they were willing to quit their griping. And so can we. If we take a minute or 30 to sit down and realize how much we have to be thankful for, we can realize that the Maker of the universe knows how it runs, and has our lives under control. No matter how crazy busy and out of control we may seem, God knows and understands what it is like here on earth. He came once and experienced it, remember? He was here, experienced the craziness of life for Himself. Do you know how He found His peace? By spending a little time with His heavenly Father. We can do the same.

“Surely it makes sense that the Lord who knew how to create the world knows how to run it-including even your life.” –Zig Ziglar

12/10/13:

TFTD: “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.” –Mark 1:35

For those of you who have known me for a long time this will come as no shock to you, and for those of you who I am just getting to know, here is a neat factoid about myself. I have wanted to be a D.C.E. for a long time. If you don’t believe me, let me share this story with you. My father has been a D.C.E. for 26 years and when I was young someone has asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Can you guess what I told them? Wrong! I did not tell them that I wanted to be like my dad or that I wanted to be a D.C.E. I told them I wanted to be a high school kid because they got to do all of the fun and exciting activities and service projects. To this day I still have a desire to interact with High School youth because they are wonderful young people who have a need to know God.

One thing that I did not realize when I got into this ministry, that I really should have known already is how much ministry drives you to prayer. In Mark chapter 1 there is a story of Jesus that really captures this need for prayer. The evening before people from the area brought all people who were sick or oppressed by demons so that He could heal and cleanse them. The next morning Jesus got up early and went to be alone to pray. He needed time alone with His Father and so do we. The pressures of ministry or any other job give us wonderful opportunities to be in relationship with our Heavenly Father. There are so many things that we need guidance for and so many things that we can rejoice about that we should be in prayer as often as we can. If you don’t know how to pray or don’t know what to pray about here is a little helpful acronym: P.R.A.Y. – People, Responsibilities, Ailments, Yeah Gods! Have a conversation with God and start by praying for those people who are in your life, then move on to the responsibilities that you have and that others have, then move on to Ailments or things that you need healing or help doing, and finally finish off your prayer thanking God for all of the wonderful things you have been blessed with in your life. You will be amazed at the comfort and peace that you feel when you remember to pray.

“Prayer is the highest intelligence, the profoundest wisdom, the most vital, the most joyous, the most efficacious, the most powerful of all vocations.” –E.M. Bounds