It never ceases to amaze me how just a little trip outside for a walk, run or any other kind of excercise is good for the soul. Have you ever gone for a walk by yourself, no agenda, nothing to do, just walk? It can be such a spiritual experience. I think alot of this has to do with the fact that God originally designed us to be the overseers of his creation. Adam was given the job in Genesis by God to look after the plants and animals. I find that this experience is especially powerful when i am listening to my most recent download of Christian music on my iPod. It just seems an apropriate outlet for worship. Experiencing God’s creation. Maybe that is why i have such fond memories of camp growing up as a kid. The evening devotionals on creation ridge, watching the sun setting, experience that, and then try to tell me that there is no God.

So get out and go for a walk, and experience the creation that we were created to be a part of!

Tonight on my way home from Bible study, I was stopped at a red light, and i was dancing in my car to the music on the radio. No biggie right? Well then i look over and notice that not only is the girl to the left of my also dancing in her car, but the two guys on the right are bobbin to their music too! So here we are the first three cars in a row all dancing to our radios. What are the chances? We probably looked a little silly or maybe like we rehearsed this little show of choreography.

Have you ever thought of life as a song? There is something that connects each one of us to the rest of the world, kind of like a spiritual umbilical chord. Wow, that was kind of gross, sorry. But seriously in Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes that God has placed, “eternity in the hearts of men, yet man cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” There is something that makes all humans move to the beat when we hear music, some of us move to a different beat. Its like there is a spiritual music staff running through all of us. Some of us are one key, some are way off but we are at least aware of it. Others still are singing a completely different song and don’t care.

Psalms 65 says it this way, “Oh, visit the earth, ask her to join the dance! Deck her out in spring showers, fill the God-River with living water. Paint the wheat fields golden. Creation was made for this!

There is something inside us all that makes us want to dance. The question is whether or not you will join that dance that the earth is calling you to?

So today i went out to lunch at Jason’s Deli, which is a resturant here in town, with another minister from church. Usually we try to grab lunch on Friday’s and talk about life, and ministry and what not. Today, though, we had an interesting experience due to a mistake in my order. The way the place worked you order you food and pay and they give you little pole with a number on it so they can bring your order. Well when they brought my food, it had mixed fruit salad instead of potato chips like i had ordered. I decided not to say anything because i know from my days in retail that when people complain over stuff like that it can be really frustrating. So i am eating along, and i start thinking this isn’t even the sandwich i ordered. Which probably means that someone else got my sandwich with those delicious fat crusted potato chips. So finally i say to my lunch guest, “i don’t think that this is what i ordered.” I explained to him why i didn’t want to take it back, and concluded with, “besides, i probably should be eating fruit instead of chips anyways.”

Isn’t that how prayer works, more often than not. Instead of God giving us what we ordered, He gives us what we need. I find myself then complaining to God that, “so and so, is not what i asked for i would like you to reconcile this please?” Now this doesn’t work as well with God as with restruants and for good reason. God knows what we need, and he gives it to us exactly when we need it.

The Bible has this to say, in Matthew and Ecclesiasties respectively

“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. “

“Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think.
Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear.
God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better.”

So let your words be few, and learn to be content and rejoice with what God gives you!

So I have been preparing for a lock in that I am doing tomorrow night, and the theme for the weekend is the power of a changed life. And I am working from Romans 12:1-2. Mainly i have really been reflecting on what it means to sacrifice. I am coming to an understanding that it means that we need to stop what is comfortable and natural to us, turn our back on what the world thinks about us and start giving it over to God. I hear so many people say things like “I just don’t know what God wants from me?” I think alot of that has to do with the fact that they are not sacrificing it all for God.

I love the way that the message paraphrases these two verses:

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

Wow, i think this paraphrase is really moving. What is it that I have in the way of really sacrificing for God?

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “Jesus had it easier becuase He was God.” I know that I have thought this from time to time. It just seems that for some reason God never had to deal with the struggles and problems that we face today. I mean Jesus never sinned right? So how could he possible know what my life is like. These questions are reasonable but the Bible has a very clear answer to them. One of the most amazing concepts in scripture is God’s humaness, the fact that he was a human. God became a man! He didn’t have too but that is what His plan was.
Look at what Paul says in Phillipians 2:5-8 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himeself nothing, taking on the ver nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man…”

God was a human, he had to fully experience what it was like to be a man. It says He made Himself nothing. Nothing! Even though Jesus was God, he voluntarily put aside His godliness to become a man. That is simply amazing. Every choice that Jesus made to do things God’s way was not aided by some super-hero power that He had. All that Jesus was armed with was the exact same things that we are armed with. Look at the accounts of Jesus’ baptism and temptation in Matthew, He had the Holy Spirit, and scripture. We have those two same things!

Now look at Hebrew 2:16-18 “For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s decendents. (that is you and me) For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that hemight become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sine of the people. Because he himeself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who ar being tempted.”

Jesus is able to understand every single struggle and temptation no matter what it is. Are you struggling with your identity, with not being understood, with your family, with pride, with sinful desire? Jesus has been through all of these things, any thing that you can possible go through!

So the next time you are struggling remeber that Jesus was a human once too, and that he struggled with the same things you do. Take confidence in the fact that God knows our struggles and is there to help you and forgive you when you fail!

This week has been really good. From our amazing slip and slide mixer to playing softball, and from seeing my parents to capture the flag. I don’t really know why this has happened this way but i feel like my blog or whatever this is called has become come my “inspirational thoughts section.” Tonight is going to be no different. The other night my amazing room mate and I were talking about why its so difficult to be 100% christian all the time. There are alot of little things in my life, and yours too, that we have let ourselves become amune to. This summer one of the classes that I taught during my internship was on holistic purity. As Peter says…

13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

God is HOLY. Not just some times but all the time. Its so hard though will the pressures of life and wanting to fit in, have people like you and think you are funny to be Holy in everything we do. Just think about what that means. What is it that we need to give up so that God can move in. Today Be HOLY!

Recently at work, i saw a man with this printed on the back of his shirt “we need God in America again” This made me wonder, “where has God gone?” the more i thought about it i realized that God hasn’t gone anywhere. I feel like in today’s society we long for there to be an uprising of Christianity of Messianic proportions. In Jesus’ day there was a people that were waiting for a man to come and over through all off there oppressors and set up God’s kingdom. They were the Jews. The same people to whom a messiah was sent and lived among and crucified. Why is it that Jesus would often tell people to not speak of what they had seen and heard?

I sometimes wonder what would happen if Jesus came back to earth and lived among us awhile before God takes the judgement seat? Would people recognize him? Where would Jesus hang out? Would i be “sick” enough for Jesus to come and see me? (Hopefully i am not sick, i don’t think that i am, but i do want to make sure that i don’t get to confident of my health either.) God is omnipresent, everywhere at once. Why would he leave a nation? He wouldn’t I think the bigger issue is who, has decided not to let God in. He even says himself, in revelation, behold, i stand at the door and knock! I think that if we were living like God was among us, there would be no nation uprising, no billion people rally in Washington D.C. just town to town, community to community, people loving God and sharing the Good News of Jesus with everyone, everywhere at anytime. So my question is what is the message that you are sending? Are you letting people know that Jesus lives, and is alive and among us? Or that God has left, and isn’t coming back until we get our act together? Peace.