when asked what the most important commandment was, Jesus' reply was "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. the second is this: love your neighbor as yourself. there is no other commandment greater than these."
this can be seen as a definition of the well ordered life AND the well ordered ministry. sin, however, gets this proper order all jumbled. instead of loving God and loving others, too often, i love me and then me. i need constant reminding that it's not about me.
so what more explosive reminder can there be than to have the cake cutting at my birthday party (a celebration of me) interrupted by a phone call from a friend to tell me that he is dying? praise God! it's all about HIM! (and the lives that He allows me to touch springing from the reality of who He is.) i am reminded of a quote that struck me as we were studying ch. 9 of "don't waste your life" the other day:
"if your aim is to love people, you will lay down your life to make them eternally glad in God. and if your aim is to glorify Christ, you will also lay down your life to make people eternally happy in God... any good-hearted goal, without the desire to give people eternal joy in God, is condemnation with a kind face."
life is short - sometimes even shorter than we expect. thank You God for the privilege of serving You - for being the One Hope in my life - help me to love You more and to lay down my life pointing others to You!
on a national scale, december 7, is the day that lives in infamy, but on a more personal level that day'd be march 28. it is the day in 1986 when i lost my appendix, and more importantly, the day in 2002 when i lost my grandmother.
i was reminded again on sunday just how good God is and how well He works everything out. the Easter message was from 1 corinthians 15: the resurrection - Christ's and ours - our hope.
march 27, 2002 was maggie's birthday, and rachel and i finished off memorizing 1 corinthians 15 - leaving us one chapter to do before nationals. little did i realize the comfort that passage would bring to me over the course of the next several days - even becoming the passage that i would use to preach on at gram's funeral.
2 timothy 1:5 talks about timothy's faith being passed down from his mother and grandmother. i can sure identify with him. my grandmother was my best friend, and the one who would teach me the Scriptures - from the basic truths as a little boy to helping me memorize for quizzing all the way through my high school years. my mom is the one who had devotions with us as kids and who would walk the pastures listening to me quote.
today, my passion remains to help kids learn Scripture, and gram is more than just a little bit responsible for that. because she took the time with me, i was memorizing with rachel that day, and today justin and i finished ephesians 3. what a blessing to have interaction with God's life transforming Word and young people. (more on that subject in my latest newsletter).
oh, and to reinforce the idea of hope in resurrection... check out the song victory by some guys who i know that have a band called zimri... (i've been singing it ever since sunday - but this wasn't quite how the pastor sounded ;))
yeah, so the "haha, is it monday OR thursday?" joke gets old. but when mike and i were talking about it yesterday, we couldn't come up with a good answer... like we know what Maundy Thursday is, but not necessarily where the name comes from. soooooooo, i turned to my old friend(ok, so we've only really been friends for maybe two years), wikipedia for an answer.
well, it turns out that it comes from the first word of the latin phrase, "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos." if you are like me, that means nothing to you. BUT when you realize that that latin phrase is john 13:34, which Jesus spoke to His disciples at the last supper right after judas had gone out, it seems to be a little more important. AND when we see it in english (for those of us who read and understand that language), it makes a lot more sense:
"a new commandment i give to you, that you love one another: just as i have loved you, you also are to love one another. by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." john 13:34-35
so tonight, as we celebrate the Lord Jesus - His washing of His disciples' feet, His celebration of the Passover with His disciples, His body and His blood given for us - may we consider anew the fact that we have no life apart from Christ AND that by participation in His body (His life within us), we become a part of His body - the church - and may we also celebrate and love each other as a demonstration of Christ's life.
those are big thoughts - i'm blown away to consider them. i may and or may not be expressing them entirely, thoroughly, but i wanted to get them down while they are there... i'll probably come back and edit some after further meditation, but i hope that as they are they can be a blessing to you.
oh, and on the theme theme... what did my Bible reading plan have for me today? (remembering that it skips around throughout the week and that i am nowhere near on track with the exact day of reading) - 2 chronicles 30! (lol - "big deal" you say) - well, yeah, cause it's about hezekiah reinstituting the observance of the passover!
unless you have woken at 4 AM to discover a squirrel sitting on your knee as you lie in your bed, you will probably not completely understand the connection that i have recently discovered with davidcrowder and the swedish chef. i have always (ok, not always, but for the length of my association with the knowledge of them) considered them geniuses and incredibly funny, but i now realize that it goes FAR DEEPER...
disclaimers:
crowder and i do differ on the dr. pepper... (it makes me puke just to swallow it - i guess you could call that an aversion)
at pirate games, when they do the intro... we like to yell, "there be squirrels ahead!"
i do get along with one squirrel:
"have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they produce" sq... er, "quarrels." 2 timothy 2:23
as mike and i were walking out of the pittsburgh youth network meeting last week, i said to him, "i think i'm in a slick shoes mood." so i popped the biggest and the best into the player and it's been steady there for the last week. who would have known that last saturday was their first show in their reunited state? and that you can find vids from it on youtube? (i had heard a while back that the original members were getting back together - i guess now's the time) :) (oh, and you'll have to trust me, but i can sing along better on "for better or for worse" than the crowd at that show)
the songs? fall & for better or for worse:
"fall"
Lord I'm distracted by so many things of the world. My eyes always stray from you, but you are always watching over me. I don't know how you could stand having me as your son. I'm always so selfish and you are always so kind. Lord, you're always there for me. Without you I don't know what I would do. You're always there for me, without you I don't know what I would do. When everything is going well I rarely stop and thank you. But, when nothing is going right I stop and complain to you. Don't let me fall.
"for better or for worse"
Sitting alone, in the rain, one day you came and sat by me. When I looked up, you just smiled and said hello and I saw your pretty face. I never knew what it would be. I never knew you'd care for me. When I think of how it's changed, for better or worse, we'll have to see. All those times you looked at me that way. And I know everything will be o.k. Thinking of your smile, it hurts to see you cry. All those times that you were sad, you never told me why. I know that we are still growing, not knowing what's to come. But only God knows what He has in store for us.
...oh yeah, and remember that they got their name from this kid's line in the goonies?
i don't know if you're like me, but it sure seems that things or ideas pop up in my life in various places in groupings. hmmmm - that may be the most confusing sentence ever written, so allow me to explain: when i learn about subject 'a' in place 1, the chances are that i will also hear about subject 'a' in place 2 and sometimes even place 3 or place 4. now, it could be that i notice these things because that is how my brain works - analytically in groupings and comparisons OR because the Lord knows that i need repetition to really get His point - like, yesterday's theme was saul/paul's conversion, which came up in three totally separate instances...
well, today's theme is what i've chosen to write about: grace. one of the websites i usually check out semi regularly is decapolis (as well as espn, bbc africa, desiring God, the pirates, only bucs forum and manchild insider) (oh, and i guess jjhuddle during high school football season and cbd when i'm looking for a book). ANYWAY, today on decapolis, they had a link to the new video by the almost. when i saw it, i remembered that the lead singer was in underOath as well, but i couldn't remember his name... so i headed to wikipedia (or the W as david crowder refers to it - i guess i go there quite a bit, too).
well, after reading the article (and remembering that his name is aaron gilespie), i went to their myspace page to listen to the song "say this sooner" which i was trying to remember if i'd heard. i wound up also listening to the song "amazing, because it is" which was seeming really catchy. then it bursts into the words from "amazing grace," and the title just totally made sense. haha - we sing AMAZING grace, because God's grace IS amazing! He saved a WRETCH like me...
so then i went to my Bible reading for the day - james 4 - and it was talking about our sinfulness and worldliness and how "friendship with the world is enmity with God." the turning point? verse 6 "but he gives us more grace."!!!!! to the humble... to those who recognize their hopeless, desperate, needy situation.
then today's prayer for the quiz team - from ephesians 3 - that "out of his GLORIOUS RICHES he would strengthen you" - and i was reminded of studying chapter 1 yesterday and remembered that those "glorious riches" are the "riches of God's grace." (eph. 1:6-8)
praise God - His grace IS amazing and i am desperately in need of it!
...sistrina - i think this is a sufficient number of links.... jenn franks - this covers the whole question of a song that sums me up right now ;)
i finished reading habakkuk this morning, and no, i am not merely typing this blog because the name "habakkuk" is fun to say. (besides, it's much cooler in swahili, where the spelling is "habakuki" - which totally eliminates the way we oftentimes try to pronounce it and forces us to sound like we are offering someone a snack... 'ha ba cookie'?)
anyway, habakkuk starts out the book complaining. no, not about his name, but about wickedness and how the wicked prosper... but by the end of the book he's talking like this:
"though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet i will rejoice in the LORD; i will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places." hab 3:17-19
what changed the complaining to patient trust and joy? habakkuk got his eyes on God instead of the problems... he saw "His splendor... His brightness... His hand... His power." sometimes, an attitude change is as simple as a change of gaze.
i also used some of yesterday's "stuck inside because of ice and snow" to read part of "the God who is there" by francis schaefer. i think that in a way, the following quote ties in nicely with the point this blog is trying to make:
"the new theology... knows nothing of man being created in the image of God, nor of God revealing Himself truly in the Scriptures... probably the best way to describe this concept of modern theology is to say that it is faith in faith, rather than faith directed to an object which is actually there... modern man's faith turns inward. in christianity the value of faith depends upon the object towards which the faith is directed. so it looks outward to the God who is there, and the Christ who in history died upon the cross once for all, finished the work of atonement and on the third day rose again in space and in time. this makes christian faith open to verification and discussion."
so yeah... look at situations, look to me... depression/complaining. look to God... rejoicing/patient endurance.
"O LORD, i have heard the report of you, and your work, O LORD, do i fear. in the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy." hab 3:2
I've been starting to think through camp messages. (Seeing as it's been 12 years since I've been the speaker - which means anyone who was in 5th grade when I last spoke is now at least 3 years out of high school - it seems to be a good time for me to speak again.) Our theme is 'Lost and Found,' so I have been meditating along those lines.
Well, as I think about myself and my biggest life frustrations, they generally have to do with lostness. Frustration #1 is when I can't find something. I am a man on a mission until it is found. It drives me nuts.
The specific situations that I was thinking of more, however, have to do with driving - and not nuts, but lost. I take pride (warning warning) in knowing where I am going. Ever since I was young on family trips, I was the one who got to read the maps for my dad and be his navigator, because I was good at it.
I'm still pretty good with the whole geography thing. God has brought some situations into my life to teach me lessons, though. Things to say, "Hey boy, cut the pride out, 'cause you don't know where you are. You don't know as much think you do." I can think specifically of a time when our team in Malawi got an SB, because I got us lost in the bush trying to get back from the lake, or when we got lost in Pittsburgh driving back from ATF, or when we followed mapquest perfectly and wound up at the end of a runway for a small county airport in Columbia, SC. Probably the thing that drove me most nuts was that I had others FOLLOWING ME, but I WAS LOST.
Well, I'd been meditating on that thought and just confessing pride (cause it's something easy for me to fall into) and asking God's direction, when I picked up my notebook that I'd been jotting in during my 52-week Bible reading plan (which I've nearly completed some 100 weeks later!), and I found some verses I'd jotted down nearly two years ago:
"Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it,' when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left." Isaiah 30:18-21
Isn't it SO COOL??? Even when I'm lost, God knows the way. And even when I foolishly think that I'm the one in the lead, I need reminded, I'm just to follow Jesus. As long as I do that, I won't be leading ANYONE astray. He must become greater, I must become less.
