Tag Archives: jesus

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Being Content with Where You Are in Life

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Do you love where you are in life? Do you love the job, house, family and life you have?

Would you change anything?

If we’re honest, most of us would change some things. But is that right? Should we be content with what we have, with where we are?

If we were sitting together at Starbucks, you would ask me if that is simply settling.

It can be, but my guess is it isn’t.

It is learning to be content.

If you are anything like me, you struggle with being content.

I always want more. Not in a prideful way, although that sometimes happens, but in a, “I know I could have more, I know I could be more” way.

In your 20’s this is simply growing and trying to move into adulthood. Once you start to move past 40 and into your 50’s, if you aren’t careful this can lead to burnout and disillusionment, because the goals you had never panned out. The dreams you were so sure you’d hit have fallen by the wayside.

Let me ask you something.

At first you will disagree with what I’m going to say, but hear me out.

What if the life you have right now (the house, the family, the career, the finances) is exactly the place God has you?

Depending on your perspective, that might be kind of depressing, but it isn’t meant to be.

You see, one of the reasons we aren’t able to move forward or move on to something is because we haven’t learned all that God has for us where we are. We become so consumed with what’s next, we don’t live in what we have. We don’t learn all we can where we are. We aren’t faithful with what we have, we always want the next thing.

But the reason we often get stuck is because we are so focused on what we don’t have that we miss what we do have.

The people who live life to the fullest are the ones who are filled with the most joy.

Do you know where that joy comes from?

Yes, the answer is Jesus.

But to give that more of a specific answer, it is contentment.

Paul says this in Philippians 4:

I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know both how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.

It is the key to joy.

What would being content with where you are mean for you? What would being content, enjoying the life stage you are in, mean? Not longing for the next thing or looking back at what you had, but being content. Here. Now.

 

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How to Share your Faith

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Inviting someone to church or sharing your faith about Jesus can be awkward. It is nerve wracking, scary and often times not what many followers of Jesus want to do.

Yet, the reality is if you are a follower of Jesus, you are to be a witness of Jesus. (Acts 1:8) That is a key and crucial piece of your new identity in Christ.

It is not optional.

Yes, some people are better at it than others, but all followers of Jesus are called to pray for people who don’t know Jesus and share their faith with them.

But how?

How do you know when you should share your faith or invite someone to your church?

There are clues to listen to when you talk to someone. Andy Stanley calls these “the not cues.” When you hear a person say something like, “Things are not going well.” Or, “I’m not prepared for…” Or, “I am not from here; we just moved to the area.”

When you hear any of these, you know it is worth the risk. Often the person who says these things is searching for something. They may not think it is Jesus, but it is.

Something crucial to not miss.

Recently, a friend told me this: If you meet someone who isn’t a Christian, you should assume that God wants to use you to help them become a follower of Jesus.

That stopped me in my tracks.

Let me say something to the Christians who are always asking for deeper preaching or a deeper Bible study or say, “I want to grow.” The best way for you to grow, to go deeper in your faith, is to share your faith. To be asked questions you don’t know the answer to and you’ll have to study. To have to stand there in a conversation and ask the Holy Spirit to tell you what to say. Those will grow you in ways that a class won’t.

So, how do you live more proactively on mission?

Here are some ideas:

  • Go to the same restaurants, coffee shops and the same classes at the gym. Frequency gives you the chance to build a relationship to share Jesus.
  • You can’t be a disciple without knowing people who don’t know Jesus.
  • Have people who don’t know Jesus into your house. People are longing for community and connection.
  • Keep your kids on the same team and in the same groups to make those connections. But what about changing teams and groups so they can get a scholarship? They won’t do that. Your job is to keep your family on mission.
  • Hand out the best candy on Halloween.
  • If you get invited to a party or BBQ by non-Christians, go. And take the best food and drink.
  • Talk to the person who cuts your hair, and if a Christian cuts your hair, switch and find a non-Christian.
  • Pray that God would move you into a neighborhood, get you a job or send you to a gym or to a school with people who need Jesus.
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Why we Run and Hide from God (Jonah 1)

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We run and hide for all sorts of reasons in our lives and relationships.

We are afraid of love or of loving someone else and opening ourselves up to hurt. We are afraid of being loved and opening ourselves up to be left.

We do the same things with God.

We run one way when He tells us to run another way. We try to take his role as God in our lives because we have a better strategy, a plan this time that will make everything work.

We hide from God because we aren’t sure how to be known, how to be in a relationship. We aren’t sure if God is safe because the family we grew up in wasn’t safe.

All of this leaves us in a miserable spot. It leaves us alone and afraid many times.

There’s a book of the Bible that is so familiar, and the reason it is so familiar is because we so easily see ourselves in it.

Jonah.

In Jonah we see someone that is very much like us.

A man who is scared, who doesn’t want to do what God calls him to do (in fact, it’s the last thing he wants to do), and so he runs.

He doesn’t just run, he buys a boat and a crew and sails in the opposite direction.

I always thought that Jonah ran because he didn’t want to go to Nineveh, which is partly true, but not for the reason I always believed.

Jonah went to Tarshish, an exotic port city. A place with pools, beaches, hip restaurants, while relaxing with umbrellas in your drink kind of place. He went after the life he wanted. He went after the life he felt he deserved.

This to me is one of the main reasons we get angry at God, one of the main reasons we run from God: someone else got our life. That person got my marriage, my family, my career. My life was supposed to go that way, but it didn’t. My family picture was supposed to have three kids in it, but it has none. My bank account was supposed to have another zero or two, but it doesn’t.

So we run. We hide. We get mad.

The other reason we run from God is we aren’t sure God will chase us.

Many of us have feelings of unworthiness and abandonment. We wonder if anyone cares, if anyone loves us. So we run.

We hide our sin, our desire, our pain, because we don’t know if God will care. We despise what God tells us to do because we know better. We run from God because we don’t want to go to Nineveh, what seems dull, boring or difficult in our life. We want Tarshish. We want the beach and drinks with umbrellas in them while we prop up our feet. We want to run from our marriage instead of doing the hard work. We want to bail on integrity because sin is more fun. We want to spend more money than we make because we deserve it.

We want Tarshish because we deserve Tarshish. That is my life, and God, you won’t take it from me.

But here’s what we see in Jonah 1:

You can’t out run the face of God, the presence of God. This sounds like a threat, but it isn’t. It is God’s grace to us. We need his face, his presence. We long for it, but we also fear it because in God’s presence we are known. We also see that the further we run, as far as our sin goes, God’s grace and his presence always find us there. His grace always goes one step further than our sin.

In the storm, God spared no expense to show his mercy to Jonah. He didn’t leave Jonah or let Jonah go. He went after Jonah to show his grace.

Let me say this to you if you find yourself in a storm or you see one coming. I don’t know if God allowed your storm to come or sent your storm, but your storm is an invitation of God’s grace to stop running from him. To stop hiding from him. To rest in him. To fall into him.

God will use whatever means necessary to grab our hearts. God will use health issues, marital issues, relational wounds, financial troubles, troubled kids and teenagers, friends who leave us. He will use it all to get a hold of our hearts, to get our allegiance.

God uses all situations for his glory and redemption. Verse 16 is incredible. All the men feared the Lord and offered a sacrifice to the Lord. All the men began following God because of Jonah’s stupidity, selfishness and the power and grace of God.

Nothing and no one is out of the reach of God’s grace.

Os Guiness said, We cannot find God without God. We cannot reach God without God. We cannot satisfy God without God – which is another way of saying that all our seeking will fall short unless God starts and finishes the search. The decisive part of our seeking is not our human ascent to God, but his descent to us. Without God’s descent there is no human ascent. The secret of the quest lies not in our brilliance but in his grace.

So, why are you running from God? What is it that God has called you to? What things in your life are you doing that you know God has so much more for you?

Why are you hiding from God? What thing or person are you trying to keep from God?

Here’s a good way to test this. What is your prayer life like?

The reason I ask is, often when we are running and hiding we want nothing to do with praying. It is our way of trying to take hold, take control of the situation.

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How to Love Your Family

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Let’s be honest about families. They are incredible. They bring us love, joy and a ton of great memories.

They can also be difficult, painful, hurtful and wreck our lives (at least a portion of them).

We often underestimate the impact that our families have on our lives and the kind of people we become.

Who we become has a lot to do with where we came from, who we grew up with and what that house and family were like. The person we marry has an enormous impact on our lives and what they are like.

As we think about being a follower of Jesus, loving our family doesn’t often come into our thinking. We hear Jesus say we are to love our neighbor, so we look around us to figure out who to love. Yet, our family members are our neighbors, too. This is one of the biggest missed opportunities to show the love of God and impact lives.

In Colossians 3:18 – 21, the apostle Paul lays out what a family is supposed to be like, what a husband and wife do and what children are to be like. But before he gets there, he lays the foundation in verses 1 – 17 of what a family does and what is the environment of a family. While similar to the list in 1 Corinthians 13 (the famous love chapter), this is a little different.

If we are to love families (and we are), how do we do that?

Paul tells us by giving us a list (so buckle up for all you list people!):

Who are defined by compassion, kindness, humility, meekness or gentleness and patience.

These words should define every family, every marriage and every parent.

5 ways to love your family.

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Compassion: For the perfectionist who gets mad because family members mess up and don’t pull their weight. Don’t correct them; show compassion. Maybe there’s a good reason they dropped the ball.

This is looking out for the people around you. Do they have what they need?

As I shared in a recent sermon, being holy means that we are to imitate, to image God. What kind of grace and compassion does he show?

Kindness: There is no place for smugness, superiority, anger, malice or contempt in the heart of a Christian and their relationships. No place.

Kindness is caring about the feelings and desires of others.

Humility: Humility is putting the other person or other family members first. Not getting your way. Not always being right.

Humility allows us to serve others without worrying about getting noticed.

One of the biggest areas of fighting in families centers on: I think I do more than you, and you need to start pulling your weight. I think I should get thanked more than I do, noticed more than I do.

That’s not humility and has no place.

Yes, discuss who will do what in a family, but you should not be fighting over who does what chore and who does more in a family. That’s sin. That’s pride. That’s arrogance.

Gentleness: Meekness or gentleness makes allowances for others. This is grace giving in relationships. This is knowing you will be let down and sinned against and yet giving grace.

That doesn’t mean you don’t have consequences or confront something, but give grace.

In your speech, are you gentle? Do your spouse or kids fear when you open your mouth? Do they fear your presence?

These are words, silences, sighs, eye rolls, your presence.

Here’s a great question to ask on a regular basis: What is it like to be on the other side of me?

What is it like to be on the other side of me?

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Let me give you this challenge. Ask someone close to you today that question.

We underestimate the power of our presence in people’s lives.

Patience: Toe tapping, standing at the front door asking if they’re ready yet. Wanting people to hurry up and get their act together, pick a major, stick with a job, stop being so flighty.

That’s not patience.

Patience says, “I’ll wait. I have time to talk even though all I want you to do right now is go to sleep.”

When our relationships are defined by compassion, kindness, humility, meekness or gentleness and patience, things change. People change. Our hearts soften to those around us, and their hearts have the chance to soften towards ours.

Think about one relationship you have, a close one. Which of these could you apply today that would bring change to that relationship? Not drastic change, although that would be nice. But change. A small step towards each other.

5 ways to fix a broken relationship.

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How to Not be Productive on Vacation

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Recently I heard an older pastor say that the most important thing to do on vacation and sabbath is to not be productive. As a leader, this is not only hard, but also one of the most important things to keep in mind.

The most important thing to do on vacation and sabbath is to not be productive.

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It isn’t decisions, meetings, counseling or preaching that tires me out (although that can do it sometimes), but it is the production of things. The pressure (real or imagined) that I feel to produce something, to prepare something.

To be productive.

How do you stop producing and rest? How can you take a weekend off? How do you turn your mind off from it? From the pressure, the deadlines?

I’ll be honest. On a weekly basis (when I’m trying to take my sabbath day), this is my biggest struggle. I can survive without social media and email, but it is stopping myself from thinking about work. Being willing to not read a book for a sermon or for leadership and just stop producing.

I feel guilty about it.

But it is necessary and important to your health as a leader, to your family and to your church.

Here are 5 things I’ve learned that might be helpful for you this weekend and on your next vacation:

1. Decide ahead of time what unproductive will mean and entail. This might sound counterintuitive, but the first step to being unproductive is to be productive. Set yourself up to succeed.

If you are married, sit down with your spouse and ask them, “If I was unproductive for a weekend, a week, two weeks, a month, what would that mean? What would we do?” One reason leaders struggle to rest is the constant movement of ministry and leadership. It is addicting. As much as my heart, mind and body need a break from preaching, when I do take a break I get antsy and have a hard time functioning. That is not only a sign that I need it, but it’s also a sign that I have some heart work to do around that.

To be truly unproductive, you must decide what that will mean.

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For me, here are some things that being unproductive means: no blogging or writing, no leadership or theology books (I read spy novels or historical books on vacation), sleeping in (or letting Katie sleep in), taking naps, extended game time with my kids, extended time with friends.

Answer this simple question: What would refresh me and recharge me? Are there certain people who will do that? Spend time with them.

Too many pastors work on vacation and prepare for upcoming things (you need to plan that for a different time). Your weekend or vacation is for refreshment, recharging and reconnecting with your family in a different way.

2. Set yourself up for success. If you don’t decide ahead of time, you’ll end up coming back for the fall exhausted.

One of the things we’ve done in years past is for me to take a one or two night retreat at a monastery before we go away. Leaders have a way of crashing at the start of vacation. I’d rather do this alone than crash on my family. It starts your time off on the right foot.

If you are tired of church or have a hard time going to church without thinking about your church (which happens more than you think), take a Sunday off and sleep in. Watch a podcast (but not for ministry purposes).

The bottom line is, if you know and have decided how to be unproductive, it makes it easier to reach it. It increases the likelihood of resting and recharging.

One of the best ways to set yourself up for success is to take social media and email off your phone. In fact, on vacation Katie changes my passwords so I can’t even get on them in a moment of weakness (which never happens).

At the end of your week, finish things up. Set up some kind of ritual at the end of the day or week that says, “I’m done. I’ve done all that I can, the rest is in God’s hands”, so that you can be done mentally and emotionally.

3. Give yourself grace. Because you are a leader and are trained to be productive and critical, you will struggle to not be productive and critical. When you think about work, a person, a situation, give yourself grace and then move on.

On your weekend, when you start to think about work, write it down and let it go. Give yourself a moment to reconnect to being off and be okay with that. Your weekend or vacation isn’t ruined in that moment. It can be if you let it, but it isn’t yet.

4. Get out of town. This isn’t always possible, but get out of town. There are so many retreat centers and housing for pastors and their families that you can do this inexpensively. In fact, we have stayed at the same place in San Diego four different years, and each time it was free. Just plan ahead (and Google pastor’s retreat) and start making calls. Our kids look forward every year to vacation because we’ve planned it. This also means we don’t do things during the year for this time to happen, but we got out of town when I was making less than $500 a week (and working four jobs) planting our church. So you can do it!

On your weekend, find fun things to do if that will recharge you. Go swimming, take a hike, go to a fair or a market. Get moving. You may stay in your town, but get out of your house. Changing the scenery is crucial to resting and recharging.

5. Your church will be fine. Many pastors fear leaving their church as if they are the glue that holds their church together. Now if you are a church planter, you are the glue for much of your church but not all of it. You can get away for a long weekend or a week and everything will be fine.

Too many pastors live with the pressure that if they take a week off, someone will be mad. They might, but you’ll live. They get vacation time, too.

Often pastors will ask me, “What do I do if I don’t have someone to preach?” Simple, show a video sermon of someone. Go download a Tim Keller, Matt Chandler or Craig Groeschel sermon and show that. Better yet, download four and take four Sundays off from preaching.

This Matters (A Lot)

Let me tell you why this matters. I’ve led my church since 2008, and being unproductive for a little bit of time is not only good for me and my family, but also for my church. A refreshed pastor leads a refreshed church.

A refreshed pastor leads a refreshed church.

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A tired pastor leads a tired church.

A tired pastor leads a tired church.

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Why Loving Your Family is So Hard

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Let’s be honest about families. They are incredible. They bring us love, joy and a ton of great memories.

They can also be difficult, painful, hurtful and wreck our lives (at least a portion of them).

We often underestimate the impact that our families have on our lives and the kind of people we become.

Who we become has a lot to do with where we came from, who we grew up with and what that house and family were like. The person we marry has an enormous impact on our lives and what they are like.

As we think about being a follower of Jesus, loving our family doesn’t often come into our thinking. We hear Jesus say we are to love our neighbor, so we look around us to figure out who to love. Yet, our family members are our neighbors, too. This is one of the biggest missed opportunities to show the love of God and impact lives.

In Colossians 3:18 – 21, the apostle Paul lays out what a family is supposed to be like, what a husband and wife do and what children are to be like. But before he gets there, he lays the foundation in verses 1 – 17 of what a family does and what is the environment of a family. While similar to the list in 1 Corinthians 13 (the famous love chapter), this is a little different.

Before getting there, let me ask you a question: Who is the hardest person in your family to love?

As Paul tells us how to love and live, he does so by comparing two kinds of people: those who are dead in their sin (not followers of Jesus) and those who have been brought into new life in Christ.

This takes away our excuse about loving difficult people, because Paul shows us that through Jesus we have been loved. And we are difficult to love. Apart from God’s grace, we are broken and sinful.

In light of that, Paul tells us what should be true of our relationships and what should not be true of our relationships.

4 things that can destroy any family.

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First, the negative side (what shouldn’t be true):

Sexual Immorality: He starts with sexual immorality, impurity, lust and evil desires. Sexual desire is hardwired into us as humans, but because we are sinful we distort our sexual desire.

Whenever the phrase sexual immorality is used in the NT, it is a junk drawer word. It means anything outside of God’s design for sex within the confines of marriage.

Why? Is God trying to ruin our fun?

He knows that when we distort sex and sexual desire we end up hurt and broken. In dating relationships that become sexual, the couple simply feels closer than they actually are, and that covers up issues that should be dealt with.

Greed: Greed refers to the belief that everything, including people, exists for your own personal purposes. Do you see how that would be destructive in a family?

We so easily fall into thinking that our family, spouse and kids are there for our benefit, our pleasure, to build us up and to make us feel good.

We look to them to complete us, to fix us. We look to them to complete them, to fix them.

Think about it like this: Most people love that they aren’t alone instead of loving the other person in the relationship. This is a crucial question to ask: Do you love your spouse, kids, parents? Or do you love not being alone?

Most people love that they aren’t alone instead of loving the other person in the relationship.

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The answer to that will determine how you treat them.

Don’t believe me? The next one he lists is in so many relationships.

Anger: We reserve so much anger for those who are closest to us. We will say things to them that we wouldn’t even say in the comfort of Facebook. We are brutal to our family sometimes.

Anger refers to a chronic feeling, not simply outbursts of rage.

It is an attitude, a contempt you feel towards someone.

This happens when we feel and act superior to someone close to us. We put them down. We tell them they are too emotional, too stupid, too needy.

This is when we pull away to get our way, to get what we want.

You might say, “But I’m not emotional. I’m a non-feeler.”

Do you know one of the reasons non-feelers get angry? To avoid being vulnerable. This is why we get up from a conversation, slam a door, storm out, fold our arms and shake our heads. We do this so we don’t have to engage a feeling, and it is dangerous.

Here’s a way it shows up in a family: When one person feels like they do all the work and the other person (spouse or child) doesn’t pull their weight. You work so much and they don’t do as much as you think they should.

Being judgmental and critical. We do this with family members more than anyone else. Why? Because they are stuck with us.

How does wrath, malice and anger show up in families? Through resentment and bitterness.

Words: The last thing Paul talks about is our speech, our words.

It is interesting how much the New Testament talks about our words.

We say the worst things to the people closest to us.

Words carry enormous power in our lives.

Words carry enormous power in our lives.

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We don’t normally tell another person we hate them or never want to see them again. We rarely tell our friends, “I’m afraid I’m going to be stuck with you. You’re too emotional. You’re too controlling.”

Yet, we say those things all the time to our kids and our spouse.

He ends with, don’t lie to each other. Be truthful.

Do you see any of these things in your heart? In any relationships you have?

So, what do you do? My next post will unpack how to love your family and those closest to you.

4 reasons it is hard to love your family.

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What to do When Someone Close to You is Hurting

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Let’s face it, when someone hurts us, we can brush it off and often move on. We can be tough, ignore it, deal with it or get even (although that rarely helps), but something changes when it is our spouse, kids, a close friend or a family member who is hurt.

We feel powerless in that moment.

Especially if our spouse is hurt because of someone else’s sin or mistreatment. When our spouse is wrongly accused or betrayed by someone, those wounds cut deep. They often cut deep into our heart because of our inability to protect our spouse and to help them.

We can’t jump into a conversation, we can’t go to our spouse’s work place and defend their honor, it is difficult for us to jump into a relationship we aren’t a part of and defend them or shout about how they’ve been mistreated.

This is especially true in ministry.

I took one counseling class in seminary. I don’t remember anything from it but one thing. The professor said, “When people are hurt in their life or have been hurt by an authority figure (a boss, spouse, parent, coach, teacher) and they can’t do anything about it, they will take it out on the closest authority figure to them. Often that person will be a pastor, a boss or a coach. If they can’t find an authority figure, they will simply take it out on the person closest to them that they are jealous of.”

At first I brushed it off. I was 24 and hadn’t really experienced much of leadership or counseling at that point.

Now that is one of the truest and most applicable statements I have heard in my entire life. I have watched that play out so many times in our church and in relationships.

For example, when I meet with someone who is leaving our church, almost 50% of the conversation has to do with their spouse, a past hurt our church had nothing to do with (usually a father wound) or something else in their life out of their control that has nothing to do with me or our church. But they are mad and it gets directed at me and our church.

Back to your spouse or kids that are hurting and you feel powerless. What do you do?

  • Pray for them.
  • Listen to them.
  • Give godly advice, not advice that makes you feel justified for them. That is a crucial piece.
  • Ask good questions when it is appropriate. This comes after listening to them.
  • Help them see through the fog of their hurt to what God is doing and how He is trying to use this. I’m often amazed at how God brings about new possibilities through what seems like an impossible situation.
5 ways to help your spouse when they are hurting.

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How to Grow in Holiness

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Holiness.

If you attend church, you have heard this word. You have heard that you are supposed to be holy as God is holy. (1 Peter 1:16)

But why? Does anyone want that?

Two reasons. One, we are called to it as followers of Jesus. All over the Bible we are told to be like God.

The second reason is because it is the path to life and freedom.

Holiness is the path to freedom and life.

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Everyone is attracted to Jesus, and in Jesus we see the person who lived the freest and fullest life and did so without sin.

How do we grow in holiness, though?

How to grow in holiness.

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Once we determine we want holiness and see that as the path to freedom and life, Peter gives some crucial steps in 1 Peter 1.

4 ways to grow in holiness.

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1. Live out of your identity as a child of God. The New Testament letters contain a lot of commands about how a follower of Jesus is supposed to live. All of those come after the promises and assurances of God’s grace towards us. It happens in the Old Testament, too. Take the 10 commandments. Before giving them, God reminds them that He rescued the nation of Israel and set them free. Then He tells them how to live in that freedom.

Peter does this in chapter 1. He spends the first 12 verses laying out the truth of God’s grace towards us and our redemption found only in Jesus. Then in verse 13 he says, “Therefore.” Because of this, in light of this, be holy.

Live out the truth of your new identity.

Sinclair Ferguson said, “Holiness is a way of describing love. To say ‘God is love’ and that ‘God is holy’ ultimately is to point to the same reality. Holiness is the intensity of the love that flows within the very being of God.”

Holiness is a way of describing love. -Sinclair Ferguson

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2. Prepare for it. Holiness does not just happen. In fact, very little “just happens” in our lives. Holiness takes intentionality. So does sinning. You plan for sinning simply by not choosing not to sin. You put yourself in situations that make sinning a possibility or easier to fall into.

To be holy you must prepare for it, choose it and pursue it. This term is a military, athletic term. Training for a sport, a marathon or a long hike does not just happen. You have to plan your training, when it will happen and how it will happen. You schedule your nutrition and your sleep. All those preparations go into it. The same is true for holiness.

And this is where most of us fall off track. It is easier to prepare for sin than holiness. Sin is easier to fall into than holiness.

3. Focus on Jesus and His return. Throughout the New Testament, when endurance or obedience is commanded, we are told to fix our eyes on Jesus, to look toward eternity and the promises of God we have in Jesus. Jesus is our only hope in life and death, and we must through the power of the Holy Spirit and the promises found in Scripture, keep our eyes focused on Him. Peter uses the word “fully” or “completely.”

To say ‘God is love’ and that ‘God is holy’ ultimately is to point to the same reality. -Sinclair Ferguson

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This means identifying the things that will take our focus away from Jesus. What idols, desires or loves will put our eyes and heart from Jesus? We must know what those things are and continually battle those to keep our eyes on Jesus.

4. Be conformed by obedience, not by your past life. Following Jesus is a constant battle of moving forward. It is easy to fall backwards, to look back. Our past is what we know. It is comfortable, like an old shirt. We know those places and those people and can easily slip back.

Don’t.

Holiness says freedom and life aren’t found there.

Conformed in 1 Peter 1:14 is a shaping word. We are shaped by our passions, by our loves. They determine who we are, who we become and ultimately where our lives end up. Sinclair Ferguson said, “Knowing whose you are, who you are, and what you are for, settles basic issues about how you live.” That is what Peter is talking about here.

If our former passions shape us, they determine where our lives end up. If the holiness of God, the way we are called to live, shapes us, that determines what we love and where we end up.

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What if God Really Loved You? (Luke 15)

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Do you believe that God loves you? Do you know and live like God loves you?

The words rang out through the room as I was sitting there.

In all honesty, I believed it. I knew it. I didn’t live like it, though.

Do you believe that God loves you?

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Who does?

In talking with people and reading books, very few people live as if they believe and know God loves them. We read it in the Bible but do not live like those words are true.

In his book Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?, Philip Yancey shares this story: David Ford, a professor at Cambridge, asked a Catholic priest the most common problem he encountered in twenty years of hearing confession. With no hesitation the priest replied, “God.” Very few parishioners he meets in confession behave as if God is a God of love, forgiveness, gentleness, and compassion. They see God as someone to cower before, not as someone like Jesus, worthy of our trust. Ford comments, “This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp. Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God?…Do we allow our day to be shaped by God’s desire to relate to us?”

The problem for many of us is that we read verses about God’s love for the world and us (John 3:16), that Jesus loves us (John 15:9), that God predestined us in love (Ephesians 1:4 – 5), that God sings over us (Zephaniah 3:17), that God loved us first (1 John 4:19), that God draws us to himself (John 6:44). We read Paul saying over 160 times that as a follower of Jesus, we are “in Christ”, and yet we live each and every day as if God is disappointed in us, indifferent towards us, mildly happy with us or just “likes” us.

We’ll say things like, “I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself.” Or, “Yes, God loves me, but I can’t love myself.”

When we say those things, we have made love and forgiveness something it is not. We have based that on our own definitions and life.

Read those verses that are listed above. Put them on your phone, your computer wall paper, tape them to your mirror. When you pray, you are praying to a God that knows everything about you and still listens and still loves you.

This is a daily battle we fight to remind ourselves that God loves us.

What is amazing to me in those verses is that God’s love towards us all happened and was promised before we were born, before we were on the radar of our parents’ minds.

Still struggling to believe it?

Jesus tells an amazing story in Luke 15. We meet a family, a father and his two sons.

The younger son comes and asks his father for his inheritance. In this culture, the younger sons were often seen as the rebellious, carefree ones. The older sons were the responsible ones. The oldest son received 2/3 of what the father had when the father died. Notice, the father isn’t dead. The remaining children received what was left after that. This son says, “I want mine now, before you are dead.” He is telling his father, “I wish you were dead.”

The father at this point would’ve had every right to beat and disown the son in this culture. Instead, the father gives it to him, which means he would’ve had to sell land. In this culture that is focused on the father, the people hearing this story would’ve been blown away by the audacity of the son.

The younger son leaves, takes his money, lives it up and spends it all. Then a famine comes to the land he is in. He is at the bottom, so hungry that he is wanting to eat the food pigs are eating.

The younger brother says, “I don’t believe in God and will define right and wrong for myself.” In the younger brother, Jesus gives us a depiction of sin that anyone would recognize. The young man humiliates his family and lives a self-indulgent, self-centered life. He is totally out of control. He is alienated from the father, who represents God in the story. Anyone who lives like that would be cut off from God, as all the listeners to the parable would have agreed.

There is another kind of mess that Jesus doesn’t want us to miss, and that is the mess the older son is in. The Pharisees, the ones who are religious in this culture, are like the older brother. The older son said to the father, “I have never disobeyed you.” But he doesn’t want the father either. The older son thinks what will save him is his obedience, his morality, and his good deeds. The older son believed his father should bless him because of all that he did. For the older son, Jesus is a helper but he doesn’t need a Savior; he can save himself. The older son obeys God to get things. God owes you answered prayers because of how you live. Older sons may do good to others, but not out of delight in the deeds themselves or for the love of people or the pleasure of God. They are not really feeding the hungry and clothing the poor; they are feeding and clothing themselves. They serve on a serving team because that’s what you do, not because God has gifted them to do it.

Why is the older son angry at the father? The father has reinstated the younger brother. When the father says to the older son, “Everything I have is yours”, he isn’t lying. The oldest son gets 2/3 of the inheritance, and the other part was already given to the younger son. So, the father is spending the oldest son’s inheritance now on a son who is wasteful.

Both sons missed the father, and we often do the same.

This is often called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The word prodigal means “reckless, extravagant, having spent everything.”

Jesus is trying to tell us this is what God our Father is like.

When the son returns and starts his speech, before he gets it out of his mouth, his father runs to him and throws his arms around him. In this culture, a father did not run. Certainly not to a son who rejected him like his did.

Not only does he welcome his son, but he throws a party. He gets a robe, the father’s robe. He reinstates the son.

Do you believe God loves you like that? That he would run to you and throw his arms around you?

Tim Keller said, “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

That is the love God has for us.

The question we wrestle with is, will I wake up tomorrow and live like my Father in heaven has extravagant and reckless love and affection for me?

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Monday Morning Mind Dump…

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  • What a day yesterday.
  • I know every pastor says that the day after Easter.
  • For me, one of the things I loved about yesterday were the people I prayed with who are struggling to come to Christ. They are wrestling and pressing in, getting questions answered.
  • I love when people cross the line of faith and get baptized, but I was reminded yesterday of how God is at work in every part of that journey.
  • I know that intellectually, but it was a sweet reminder yesterday that our church is a place for that and we are a part of that.
  • Because our church exists to help people take their next step with God, I love that people were taking steps yesterday.
  • Those people wrestling, coming to faith, to me, those are enormous celebrations of the day.
  • The people who pulled me aside and said, “Something happened today and I don’t know what it is.”
  • Rest in that pastor.
  • It was awesome to hear from some of the church planters we are supporting to hear how their days went.
  • We kicked off a series yesterday that I couldn’t be more excited about.
  • For 5 weeks, we are laying the foundation of what our church believes a healthy, mature follower of Jesus is.
  • What we mean when we say discipleship.
  • We started yesterday with a disciple is loved by God.
  • What excites me about this is not only the clarity for our church and RC leaders, but also for people in our church who are searching and skeptical.
  • Too many churches define discipleship as everything that comes after the gospel or say, “the gospel encompasses everything.”
  • It does, but when we start discipleship with what we do, it does a disservice to our people and gives them a burden they can’t carry.
  • If you’re curious about some of the books that have influenced our thinking, check these out.
  • Katie was away for the weekend, leaving me with the Reich 5.
  • She went to Galveston to do a photo shoot.
  • I love that she is getting to use her gifts and talents in that way.
  • It was a long weekend with the kids though.
  • We were all wiped and then to throw Easter activities onto it.
  • We’re all moving slowly today.
  • I’m speaking at a MOPS group tomorrow on the topics of my book Breathing Room. 
  • Should be a fun time.
  • For me, I love the questions after the fact and the conversations I get to have with people as they wrestle through their schedules and how to say no to things.
  • Katie and I got a big green egg for our 15th anniversary.
  • Yes, super romantic.
  • Yes, my wife is awesome.
  • Yes, it makes everything more delicious than my old grill.
  • Made this yesterday.
  • Incredible.
  • Well, back at it…