Tag Archives: jesus

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Praying to a God who Knows You (Psalm 139)

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It’s hard to be known. It’s hard to let people in. If we’re honest, when it comes to life and relationships, it’s easier to hide. It’s safer to hide.

In many relationships, it is safer and easier to hide.

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Many of us in relationships hide. We are afraid. We keep things to ourselves. Some of this is out of fear. We are afraid of what people would think if they knew everything about us.

We don’t want to disappoint people. We want to be liked, to be known, to be seen as having certain abilities.

Some of us jump into relationships and become dependent on the other person. We need to be needed, we need them to validate us.

Sometimes as we hide, we manipulate people to get what we want, to get them to think certain things about us.

Sometimes to be known, we’ll isolate ourselves so that someone will chase us. This tells us we are worth it. We’ll become detached in relationships so someone will say, “I need you.”

Sometimes to protect ourselves from being known and to feel safe, we’ll jump from relationship to relationship. We’ll change gyms, small groups, where we get coffee, we’ll change social groups, all in an effort to hide. I have a friend who the moment they get too close to people, they pull back.

Where does this come from?

From our earliest moments as a baby, we have a desire to be loved, to be known.

We also have a deep desire to be safe.

These desires travel with us into being adults. To the point (and often rightfully so) that we will do whatever it takes to be safe in relationships.

Ironically, for many of us the destructive patterns of isolation, hiding, manipulation and living out of fear or co-dependency are how we’ve learned to be safe.

We then take this to God and think, “This is what worked with my mom, my dad, my teacher, my boss, my spouse, and this must be how I relate to God.”

What if bearing ourselves to God is the only way to be safe? What if sharing our deepest hurt is the only way to move forward in our relationship with God and ourselves?

What if bearing ourselves to God is the only way to be safe with God?

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As one of my mentors says, “Whatever we don’t own, owns us.”

Whatever we don’t own, owns us.” -@CrossPointMin

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So how do you own your past? How do you own what has been done to you? How do you own your anger? Bitterness? Loneliness? How do you move forward in a way that brings about freedom instead of keeping you stuck?

The answer is prayer.

Philip Yancey said, “An important purpose of prayer is to let our true selves be loved by God.”

“An important purpose of prayer is to let our true selves be loved by God.” -Philip Yancey

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Prayer is a window into God’s love and God’s heart for us. It is a chance to give our heart and hurt to Him. It is a place to remove our fears, doubts and hurt.

Psalm 139 tells us that not only does God know us, but God is everywhere and is not scared of what He knows about us. God will not leave us.

What a promise.

What a reminder that freedom comes from no longer hiding.

Freedom in life and relationships comes from not hiding.

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How does this work in prayer?

Bring to God your hurts. Say out loud or in your head, “God, this is my fear. This is my pain. These are my doubts.” Name them. Naming things often takes away their power.

Invite, like the psalmist in Psalm 139 does, for God to know you. In fact, using Psalm 139 and simply praying that to God might be a great next step for you as you name things and invite God into this place (even though He’s already there).

I often find that thanking God for knowing me and not leaving me is a powerful prayer moment. It is an amazing reminder.

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Family Devotions, Train Wrecks, Praying as a Couple & the Grace to Move Forward

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If you’re a man and attend church, you’ve heard a pastor say, “You need to be leading your family spiritually.” Yet many men struggle with this. I know I do.

On a regular basis I’ll sit with a man and he’ll ask me, “How do I lead my wife spiritually? When I’ve tried, I’ve been terrible at it. How do I start?”

Family devotions sound incredibly intimidating and scary for many men. Most men look at their spiritual lives and that of their wife and think, “She’s more spiritual than I am. She’s smarter than I am. She’s more mature spiritually than I am.” There’s a good chance that if you are like most couples, she is.

Now, before giving some ideas, let me say up front that this is hard. Devotions for many couples and families are train wrecks. Kids don’t sit still, they go on tangents, it feels stale or simply feels like you aren’t moving forward at all. The picture of the couple who rises at 5am, drinks coffee and reads their Bibles together while holding hands is not reality for many people. Kids who sit still and listen is also not a reality. (I have four boys, and keeping them in their seats for anything can be monumental.)

How to do family devotions.

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Here are a few ideas:

1. Do something. Most couples and families suffer because they don’t do anything. Just do something. You’ll see in a minute that trying different ideas might be a good idea, but simply do something. Even if it is asking, “What is God teaching you right now? Where have you seen God at work recently?”

2. Find what works for you. What works for one family and couple may or may not work for you.

When Katie and I got married, we probably got at least 10 couple’s devotionals for our wedding. We read through many of them, laughed at many of the ridiculous questions they asked and then handed them off to another couple (sorry if you got one). They just didn’t work for us. Neither did rising at 5am to drink coffee and read together. These work for many couples, and that’s great.

Whatever you do, find what works for you as a couple.

For Katie and me, we don’t do couple’s devotions. We often don’t read the same parts of the Bible at the same time or even the same books. We sometimes do, but we often talk about what God is teaching us. We’ll listen to a podcast together, or I’ll find things she should listen to or books she should read.

For us, our spiritual journey together is often debriefing. This keeps us on the same page and keeps us growing together.

4 things to remember for family devotions.

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3. Decide doing something consistently (even if mediocre) is better than doing something inconsistently that is incredible. More than likely, especially when it comes to family devotions, it will feel mediocre at best and a train wreck at worst. Don’t quit.

Have the long view on this.

Also, and don’t miss this, kids catch more than you think. I am continually surprised at what my kids catch, pick up and remember. That conversation you think they slept through (and if you have teenagers they may have slept through it), they may have picked up 30% of it.

So, build on that.

4. Give some grace. Regardless, give yourself, your kids and your spouse some grace.

One of the things Katie will often encourage women when it comes to this topic is to be okay with your husband fumbling his way through this. Most husbands (even pastors) are not very good at leading their families spiritually. They have a picture in their mind of what it should look like (but it rarely gets there). They feel like they are failing their wife, boring their kids and failing God. They also feel guilt because they should be doing this and doing it better than they are.

How to encourage your husband to lead your family spiritually.

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So give grace. Celebrate doing something. When it was a train wreck, say it was a nice train wreck. We survived. Our kids heard the gospel and we tried. And we’ll try again tomorrow.

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How to Ask God for Help (Psalm 121)

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For most of us, prayer bounces between a plea for help, a running conversation or to-do list with God, a reassurance of God’s power and presence in our lives, a wishlist or a shouting match with God, down to wondering if God has forgotten us.

One of the most common ways we pray is a prayer for help.

Eugene Peterson said, “Trouble is what gets prayer started.”

And that’s true.

We pray out of desperation. We pray because we aren’t sure what else to do. We rend the heavens in hopes that God will hear, that God will move. We pray through tears, mumbling and bumbling from a place of helplessness.

We pray for health, for healing, for relationships to be mended, for kids and parents and spouses to be saved, to be changed. We pray for jobs, for finances. We pray for those close to us who are destroying their lives. We pray for wisdom in decisions.

And in all this, we are often very helpless to bring about an answer.

So, how do you ask God for help? How does He hear?

Psalm 121 gives us the answer:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is your keeper;
the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The LORD will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

Here are four things we learn from this Psalm about asking God for help:

1. Admit your need for help. This seems obvious, but to ask God for help means we are admitting our need for help. We don’t do this naturally. We are naturally self-sufficient, self-assured people. We are raised to handle it, to get it done, to be fine, to not depend on anyone.

The writer of this Psalm is helpless and they know it. They need help.

2. Believe God can and will help. Know where your help comes from.

For many of us, once we exhaust our ability to fix something, we still don’t go to prayer. Maybe there is a book, a sermon, a financial move, a google search I can do, a person I can get advice from. Prayer for too many of us is a last resort.

When we get there, we say, “God, I don’t know if you can help. I don’t know if you care to help. So I’ll look around.”

3. Be patient. The writer of Psalm 121 reminds us to go to sleep. This communicates that sometimes our prayers will take longer than we think but that God will fight for us and work on things, while we sleep.

Sleep is one of the greatest pictures of faith in our lives.

Why?

The time that we worry, are anxious and replay conversations over and over in our minds is at night. We lie there, staring at the clock, thinking about our bank account, our job, our marriage, our kids, our parents. The problems we experience in relationships, worrying about college, bills, health, the list goes on and on. Yet, in that moment there is almost nothing we can do.

The people we are worried about are asleep, the people we would call for help and advice are asleep. The writer of Psalm 121 says, “Go to sleep.”

4. God is over all things. Why can we be patient and go to sleep? Not only because God is our help and never sleeps, but because verses 7 and 8 tell us that God is over all things.

He watches all things. He is not surprised by anything. Nothing catches him off guard.

It ends with a crucial word, forevermore.

Forever is a long time, and yet that is the scope of our God.

Psalm 121 is a prayer to give us confidence to ask God for help and confidence as we wait for that help to come.

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Church Growth and the Work of God

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We know that God is the one who makes a church grow, that it isn’t on us. This is both a comfort and a problem.

It is a comfort because we can rest. We don’t have to force things, we don’t have to make something happen. It is a problem because it can make us lazy. It can make us throw up our hands and say, “Well, I just need to preach the gospel and that’s it.” This is much like the Calvinist who doesn’t share his faith because “God will get who he’s going to get”, as one pastor told me.

Those are extremes, but they are important to point out.

Yes, Jesus grows his church. God grows the seeds that are planted. The Holy Spirit draws people, and often times a church grows and God moves with no explanation.

Other times a church grows, and while the Holy Spirit did the work, there were specific things that church did and did not do.

How much are you praying? How much is your elder and staff team praying? Not only for people in your church but for people not in your church? Are you asking God for specific people you are in relationships with? Are you praying that God will send 300, 500 people to your church this Easter? How burdened is the pastor for people who don’t know Jesus? Are there any sins in your church, leadership team or your life that you need to confess that are hindering the work of God?

How much are you, as a pastor, praying for your church?

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In your church and in your preaching and worship, are you exalting Jesus and making it simple for people to understand?

Many times I’ll have pastors ask me to listen to their sermons, and all I can think the whole time is that I have to have a seminary degree to understand what he is talking about. Being simple is not being shallow. Being simple is being helpful. The gospel is complex, deep and robust, but it is also so simple that my four year old can explain it to you. Our kids can draw a picture of the gospel, so our preaching should reflect that to a certain degree.

One of the ways we evaluate this in our church has to do with communion. When we move from the sermon to communion, is it an easy transition or does it feel like a hard right turn?

We’ll talk about systems in a minute, but do you have a clear vision, a clear strategy and a clear picture of what you are shooting for? For example, can you articulate in simple terms what a healthy, mature disciple looks like? Many times in our churches, we can’t. I’m sad to say, in our church we waited too long to articulate this, and it did a disservice to our people.

I think the work of God is deeply connected to our ability to clearly help our people grow. They are connected. If Jesus builds his church and the gates of hell will not prevail, what kind of people will withstand those gates?

Many times churches do not know what they are trying to build in people. They don’t know what a healthy, mature disciple looks like, so they aren’t sure what they are aiming at. For our church, we took too long to define this clearly, and I think that hurt us as a church.

Why?

Not only did it not serve our leaders and people well, we weren’t able to ask God for specific things to build into our people. It hinders the ability to focus a sermon calendar on those important discipleship aspects.

Let me leave you with an important question for churches, boards and staffs: What kind of disciples are you building? Is that what the New Testament calls us to? Do you have a clear path to accomplish that?

What kind of disciples is your church building?

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Links for Leaders 3/31/17

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It’s the weekend. The perfect time to grab a cup of coffee and catch up on some reading. Here are 4 articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Speaking is hard work, whether you do it every week in a church, for students in a classroom or once a month if your office. If you do speak, here are 3 ways to cope with the stress of speaking from Dr. Nick Morgan.

Easter is coming and for every pastor and church, that means higher attendance and more guests. Many pastors start planning for Easter too late in the year. If that’s you (or even if you’ve planned ahead), Steve Fogg has 3 communication mistakes to avoid as a church this Easter.

We are about to enter the teen years of parenting and like most parents entering this stage, we are doing so with a healthy dose of excitement and fear. One of the things Katie and I have talked a lot about is what to do when our kids are somewhere else, how to stay in touch, how to help them navigate peer pressure and situations that make them uncomfortable. In short, how to create an escape plan for your teen.

Every leader wants to be productive, to accomplish things, cross things off of their to-do list, but as a leader, there seems to be a never ending stream of things that need your attention, fires that need to be put out and always one more thing to do. For many, we end up wasting a lot of time. Doing what? Chuck Lawless gives us 10 times wasters for most leaders.

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Wednesday Mind Dump…

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  • While I haven’t been preaching over the last 3 weeks, I’ve been in the throws of our hiring process at Revolution Church.
  • While I have loved talking to candidates, I know that hiring is something I do not want to spend the majority of my time doing.
  • Way too detailed.
  • If you’re looking for help in hiring or team building, check out these books: The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues by Patrick Lencioni, It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best and Great People Decisions: Why They Matter So Much, Why They are So Hard, and How You Can Master Them, both by Claudio Fernandez Araoz.
  • I am blown away by the caliber of candidates, both inside and outside of our church.
  • The potential for this role is huge for our church and city.
  • Cory taught a new song on Sunday at Revolution, What a Beautiful Name.
  • It was such a powerful moment.
  • Found afterwards that some reformed pastors don’t like the song because the line “Jesus didn’t want heaven without us so he brought heaven down.”
  • I get the self-centered fear that pastors might have, but being mad about that line makes it sound like Jesus could do without us in heaven or is indifferent to us.
  • Makes God too cold in my opinion.
  • Needless to say, we’ll be keeping that song.
  • I had chills as our church belted out the bridge: You have no rival, You have no equal.
  • Wow.
  • Monday night we pulled together many of our leaders at Revolution and shared with them a clearer discipleship grid for our church.
  • I was convicted last year that we have not clearly defined what a healthy, mature disciple is and how to get there.
  • We are still building it out, but the foundation is there and I am excited about it and the potential growth our people will experience.
  • Our hiring right now is a part of this journey.
  • One of the things I’m most excited at Revolution right now is how healthy our leadership team is.
  • We are stronger, working together better, hanging out, laughing.
  • It is fantastic.
  • This hasn’t always been a priority for me and it has shown in our church and that makes me sad looking back on it.
  • I took Ava to see Beauty and the Beast over the weekend.
  • Super fun.
  • Not everyone will appreciate this, but if you are a theological nerd you will.
  • I’m super geeked out about the sermon calendar for the next year at Revolution.
  • Well, I gotta preach on Sunday, so back at it…
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How Leadership Capacity Affects the Growth & Health of a Church

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Recently I had a conversation with my leadership coach, and he made the comment, “Josh, Revolution has the ability to grow past 600 in the next five years, but the question is, do you have the capacity for that? Are you willing to do what it takes to make that happen?”

Now, we all know that God is the one who grows a church, but often that church is healthy and growing because of the character, quality and capacity of the lead pastor and leaders.

The capacity of the leaders often determines the growth of a church.

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First, do you have the desire for your church to grow and be healthy? Do you have the desire to see your people become more like Jesus? Many pastors have a desire for a crowd, but that is different. Having a desire to see your people grow in holiness, passion for God and for their neighbor will shape your leadership and preaching.

While desire matters, or I should say rightly placed desires, that alone won’t grow a church.

It will take effort, work, time, and sacrifice.

This will be seen in the time you put into prayer, sermon prep, personal growth as a leader, what you are willing to sacrifice in terms of comfort or even what you’d like your job to be. Some of that sacrifice comes in the day to day of meeting with people, of shepherding and walking with them. Being willing to be a pastor and not a rock star preacher.

Hustle is a popular word in entrepreneur circles and one that needs to get some airtime in pastoring circles. Not in an effort to burn out, but in an effort to work hard for something that matters.

Mike Myatt, in his book Hacking Leadership: The 11 Gaps Every Business Needs to Close and the Secrets to Closing Them Quickly, says, “The difference between good and great often comes down to discipline.”

Are you disciplined in how you spend your time, how you spend your money, what you eat, how much sleep you get? Do you determine who you will spend your time with and who you won’t? All of those things determine your leadership capacity. They determine the energy levels you have, the spiritual reserves you have to pull from when leading and pastoring and the kind of leader you are at home and at work.

When every minute is accounted for and given a name, things get done and less time is wasted.

When every minute is accounted for and given a name, things get done and less time is wasted.

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This doesn’t mean you need to be fanatical, but you have 24 hours in a day, a short life ahead of you and a shorter ministry time, so use it wisely. Honor God with it.

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How to Pray to a God who is Close (Psalm 23)

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When it comes to what we think of God and how close or far He is, I think we too often think of Him as “out there” somewhere. We aren’t sure where, but He often feels further away than close by. This has an enormous effect on our prayer life.

Over and over throughout Scripture, we are told that God is close. That God never leaves us. That God watches over us. That God cares for us.

That God is close.

Psalm 23 is a great example of this.

Psalm 23 shows us what God is like.

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Often seen as a psalm for funerals or dying, it is a psalm about living. Life is hard. Life hurts. Life is often more down than up, and David tells us from his experience how to experience God in the depths of darkness as well as the heights of celebration.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

David describes an incredibly close God.

God is closer than you think.

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A shepherd is with his sheep. He is not off somewhere else but is with them. He knows them. He knows if they are sick, eating well, eating too little, if they are young or old.

A shepherd knows what the sheep need so that they do not live in want.

A shepherd leads and the sheep follow. The sheep do not arrive anywhere the shepherd does not want them to.

When the shepherd leads, the sheep find food, water and rest. In the shepherd is found life and rest. Many of us find ourselves tired, rundown, barely hanging on instead of living, and yet God invites us to follow Him to rest and life.

How?

David tells us in verse 3 that God restores us. God picks us up. God cleans us off. For the person who feels unloved, who feels dirty, abandoned, not worth anything, this verse is a beautiful picture of God’s grace towards us.

Why does God do this?

To get our lives on the right paths, His paths.

As if that weren’t enough, God does not leave us. God walks with us.

We walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

We don’t stay there. We don’t walk into it, we walk through it. With God. Through the power of God.

There is an ebb and flow to prayer and the Christian life. David starts with comfort and God’s provision, things that help us see the character of God as we walk in new ways of His grace. That grace is just as real, and that grace is the same when we walk through the dark valleys. For many of us, we need the grace of the first few verses to believe the grace that God has for us when the storms roll in.

The rod and staff of a shepherd were used for protection of the sheep, warding off predators, but they were also used to keep the sheep together, in line and to discipline the sheep if necessary. In all this, God’s protection and discipline are a comfort.

How can David say this?

Because they keep me on the path that God has for me. They get me to where God wants me.

David ends with a powerful statement: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

If we don’t understand David’s life, we miss the power of this statement. For David, life was not good. Many times King Saul tried to kill him. The whole Philistine army (the most powerful army of the day) chased him to kill him. They killed his best friend, Jonathan. He lost a baby with Bathsheba. His favorite son Absalom stole his throne, and David was overthrown and had to flee for his life. Then Absalom was killed. For David, life was hard, painful, difficult and full of loss.

Yet because God was close, because God walked with him, he was able to face life and pray to his God.

Here’s my challenge for you this week. Use Psalm 23 as a prayer guide:

  • Simply read through the Psalm several times in one sitting.
  • Whatever word or phrase that jumps out to you, ask God why that stood out. Is there something happening in your life that God wants you to think about or draw your attention to? Is there something about yourself or God that the Holy Spirit wants to make you aware of?
  • Throughout your day (when you’re standing in line, waiting for a meeting, etc.), ask God to remind you of His closeness to you.
How to pray Psalm 23.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Leading People on Mission

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I love being a pastor. It is exhilarating, tiring, exhausting, joyful and painful, all rolled into one.

For me, it is the greatest job.

Is it hard? Yes. But one I love. If you’ve missed any of the weights or joys I’ve covered, you can see them here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change, People under you are counting on you, God using you, What God thinks of you, Communicating God’s word and Loneliness.

The last joy is…

Joy #5: People Getting the Mission.

Closely tied to seeing life change is seeing people get the mission and sacrifice for it.

Every week I am blown away by how hard working and dedicated our volunteers are at Revolution, many of them putting in hours every week to make Revolution happen. People who show up early Sunday mornings to set up for church, who prepare for worship, REVkids and REVstudents through the week, REVcommunity leaders who open up their lives and homes to people throughout the week. All in an effort to help people take their next step with God.

Everything that our team members do frees up everyone else to do what they do. I am able to do what I do because our team members put in the time that they do to free me up.

When people sacrifice financially for the mission, I am humbled. When people sell stuff to give the proceeds back to God, I am humbled. When people cash in savings to give back to God, I am humbled. When people give their time, money and efforts, that is buy in. That means people get the mission.

When people see themselves as missionaries in their neighborhoods, schools and offices, they are getting it. When people light up after a conversation with their friend about Jesus or the first time they bring a guest to church.

It never gets old.

When people show up at 7 am to set up road signs so people can find their way to church, when people stay late to clean up, to pray with people, when people take time out of their week to lead a group and to shepherd and care for people, that is buy in.

You can’t force it, you can’t guilt people into buy in (at least buy in that lasts). When people get it and the church does what the church is supposed to do, as a pastor, it is the greatest joy. To see it, to be a part of it, to lead it, makes it all worth it.

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Do You Believe in Your Spouse?

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Do you believe the best in your spouse? Or do you expect them to fail? Are you pushing them to become all that God created them to be?

Do you believe the best in your spouse?

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I have learned that people will often reach the bar we set for them. If the bar is low, don’t expect a lot. Expect to be disappointed.

Do you believe that your spouse can become all the things that God has called them to, or do you expect them to fail? If they are a follower of Jesus, they have the Holy Spirit living in them, which means they have the power to become all that God has called them to become in Scripture. What if you started believing that? Praying for that? For God to work in their lives and make them into the man or woman that God has called them to become?

How we see people is how we treat them. If we see them as a failure, we treat them as such. Katie is my biggest cheerleader, and I hope and pray I am hers. She believes I can do great things. She believes it, encourages me to become, and pushes me to become that.

There is also great power in this. Most people do not understand the power they have in a relationship in terms of their presence, their voice, their silence, eye contact, encouragement or insults.

Most people do not understand the power they have in a relationship in terms of their presence.

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You have the power to bring the best out of your spouse or discourage them. Yes, each person is responsible for themselves and determines what they do, but in a marriage, the closest human relationship, there is great power to bring out the best or the worst in your spouse.