Embrace the Unexplainable

Yesterday, I opened a link to an article written by Francis Chan. I will tell you even though it was hard to read, without feeling spiritually kicked, it really opened my eyes to things I have ignored in my life. I believe he is right on the money with his comments. I would try to paraphrase what he said but I would never be able to express it as he has. So, I will just give you a link and let you chew on it a while.

"The Supernatural Life by Francis Chan"

Powerful stuff, huh? I will be honest. I question myself all the time about why we as christians have so quickly abandoned praying for supernatural experiences. When it comes to salvations, sinfulness, struggles, physical healing, etc. We tend to use phrases like, "It might not be God's will to heal this person", or "Who am I to ask God for something so outrageous?" I am ashamed to say that in my own life it is more a sign of my lack of faith than whether or not God would act.

When it boils down to it, the bottom line is that we are more interested in our own lives and our own comforts than in our relationship with the Almighty God. I am not at all excluding myself. If anything, I am placing myself on the "Sinner's Top Ten" list (no that doesn't exsist). I have said many times that if I lived out my relationship with my wife the same way as my relationship with God, I would be divorced by the end of the month. I know that I can never be perfect but I CAN start living like I have a personal relationship with the most loving, most forgiving, most POWERFUL person who will ever exist. . . my Lord Jesus Christ, who was and is and is to come. I know He desires to use His creation (us) for revealing His glory in unexplainable ways. If you don't believe me, pick up a bible at your nearest bookstore, church, or hotel room and read it. It will reveal an unfathomable God desiring to have a love relationship with His creation and revealing His glory to a world who can't see past their own ambitions. He desires to accomplish that through ways that can not be explain in human terms.

I serve a magnificent God who can do all things Naturally and Supernaturally. Who do you serve? Won't you join me in prayer this week for God to begin using us in supernatural ways once again?

Want to know how awesome our Creator is? Want to know an amazing God that created all things known and unknown, yet wants a personal relationship with us? Watch this video "Stop and Think".

Effective or Not? THAT is the Question

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by hiss own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith - goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perserverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2Peter 1:3-10

I don't know about you, but from time to time I begin to question the effectiveness of my faith in this cold dark world. A world that we have not just appeared in by "happenstance", but ever so carefully and strategically been placed where God can use us to the fullest capacity of His glory. Have you ever stopped long enough to think about that concept. God reveals to us that we are that important to Him and His purposes, but He also lets us know that nothing/no one, including us, will ever stand in the way of His masterful plan, which is His name being magnified among the nations. It is an amazing truth to meditate on . . . God has surgically implanted us into our life situations and environments to bring health and healing to a diseased world. The "Master Physician" chooses to use us in His plan of redemption and we don't always know to what extent He will use us. We may never know the people we have touched, by just merely living for Him in our everyday lives.

What is scary to me about this truth is: What if one of the lives I was intended to touch crossed my path when I was having a "weak moment"? What if they observed me when my life was not centered around Him? Then I become consumed with the thought of whether or not my faith is being effective to its maximum potential.

Peter is teaching believers here not to carry their doubts about themselves any longer. He is reminding us all that God does not "short change" anyone He calls "His own". He shows us that through our knowledge of Him, He has given us ALL that we need (2Peter 1:3). In verse 5, Peter goes on to say that we need to make an effort to increase our faith by practicing goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance; godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. You will notice that each of these leads to the next and in many ways the success of any of these depends on all the rest. For instance, try to justify how you would carry out some of these after omitting one from the list. How can you practice moral goodness without a knowledge of the commands of God? How can you persevere without praciticing self-control? How can you practice love to all mankind without possessing godliness in your life? You get the picture?

Peter goes on to say that if you possess these qualities and they are getting more and more abundant in your life (can't be a one time practice) that you will ALWAYS be effective in your faith. Wow. . . what a powerful statement. He also concludes by saying if we do these things, we will never fall. I don't know about you but that is a HUGE statement. That was not a "well maybe" or a "I think you might", that was a bold, confident statement. The more I meditate on this, I can always find a flaw in my life with one or more of these when I am feeling ineffective. I pray that I can commit to carrying these out in my life on a consistent basis and watch what God can do through a "sold out" life.

Loving God? Or Just His Things?

First of all I must appologize for my absence. I have, like all others, let life take control of my time and energy. There are no cute stories or whimsical anecdotes that I will share to make light of my lack of posting.

I have been reading the book, Crazy Love by Francis Chan and have been thoroughly kicked in the teeth by his bold biblical teaching. As Francis described what lukewarm living looks like in today's culture, I began to feel very uncomfortable. The reason was because there were a few of his descriptions that fit my lifestyle. Wow!!! Just when you think you've crested the mountaintop you find that your not even close.

What Francis quoted next though was a painful realization of where my priorities have been. In his book God Is the Gospel, John Piper essentially asks whether we are in love with God:

The Critical question for our generation-and for every generation-is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?

You know how it feels when you have been in a dark room for an extended amount of time and then suddenly the darkness is pierced when someone turns on the light? Painful, isn't it! So painful that your eyes slam shut involuntarily. It is just as painful when you think you are loving Christ with all your heart and then come to the understanding that really your love has been invested more in His promises rather than in the Person of Jesus Christ. Promises that one day all the mess of this life will pass and we will live in sinless peace. If we are not careful we will invest our love more in God's promises than in Him and His glory. When we find ourselves in this place and feel as though loving God is an obligation or duty instead of a romantic experience there is no wonder we don't see people standing in line, waiting on the church doors to be opened. Anxiously waiting to see the reason of why our lives are so different than anything they have ever seen. If we merely pretend to enjoy God or love Him. . . HE KNOWS! You can't fool Him; don't even try.
My life was created for His purposes and not my own, for His glory and praise and not my own personal fame. My prayer is that my life would be an outpouring of love to my Heavenly Father not because of what He has promised me but because of who He is and that He loved me first when I deserved death.

I will leave you with this amazing prayer that Francis wrote at the end of this life shaking thought:

Jesus, I need to give myself up. I am not strong enough to love You and walk with You on my own. I can't do it, and I need You. I need You deeply and desperately. I believe You are worth it, that You are better than anything else I could have in this life or the next. I want You. And when I don't, I want to want You. Be all in me. Take all of me.
Have Your way with me.