FOOD FOR THOUGHT ... AND DEEPER DISCIPLESHIP

Balance is a myth. It is a debilitating myth. Life is made of rhythms. You must learn the rhythm of life in ministry, profession, and family. But don't use this an excuse to abuse any of these. - Reggie McNeal   

 From an unknown author:
Lord, I am willing
To receive what You give;
To lack what You withhold;
To relinquish what You take;
...To suffer what You inflict;
To be what You require.
And to do what You send me to do. - AUTHOR UNKNOWN

"The most consistent way to challenge the destructive forces in popular culture is to live contrary to them-to actually be the change we want to see." Right Here, Right Now, Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford

 Once a disciple is made, it's hands off. It's no longer our job, but the Holy Spirit's.

Any outward demonstration of our faith is a direct result from observing all that Jesus commanded. How much more important is it then, that when we make disciples, we stress teaching others to "observe" all that Jesus commanded?

BURNT TOAST

This post comes from a blog called THE CHAPEL, written by a good friend, Pastor Tim Clutter who serves the Neptune CHURCH OF GOD in Ohio.

I smelled the burning toast before I saw the smoke coming from the toaster. My wife had popped a couple pieces of bread into the toaster for her breakfast. She had failed to look at the slide switch which determines how dark the pieces of bread you drop in the toaster will be toasted. I happen to like my toast darker than the average person. So I move the switch over to the darkest setting then hover over the toaster like a hawk sitting on a fence post watching for a mouse to run out of a hole. When I see the bread getting just the right darkness, I pop it up with the emergency button located on the top of the toaster.

Many people are probably thinking “Why don’t you figure out the setting that will toast your slices of bread dark like you want it then you don’t have to watch it like a hawk after which you could move the switch back to your wife’s favorite setting?” Not a bad idea but then it would take the thrill out of toasting bread. I want the thrill of living on the edge of making toast. I like to feel the hot air on my face as it rises out of the slots of the toaster almost singeing my eyebrows and drying out my eyes. I like to watch the red hot coils glowing against the pale white bread turning it darker and darker until just the right time then BAM, I hit the emergency button and up pops the toast. If I have been a little hasty the bread pops up toasted to light. If I have been to late the bread is charred to a blackened crumbly mess. But if I have timed it just right the bread pops up and is dark and crisp on the outside yet light and fluffy on the inside.

Some people live life like I make toast. They live on the edge, taking risks, trying to watch very closely so they do not get burned to a crisp but they sure don’t want to pop out of life on the light side either. The fact is that we can live life on the edge but yet have an emergency button that makes sure we are just right when we pop out at the end.

God gave mankind an emergency button called Jesus Christ. He is God’s one and only son, who came not to condemn the world but to save the world. Jesus will save whoever accepts Him as their Lord and Savior and they will not die but will have eternal life. This is God’s promise to mankind but please note that he did not promise an easy life. He did not promise a life without risks or challenges. In fact by following Jesus, He will lead you into more risky challenges and you will experience more thrills than you can ever imagine or have experienced before. And you can be sure that when you pop out of life at your end, you will be dark and crispy on the outside but light and fluffy on the inside.

Play it safe for eternity yet enjoy the risks and challenges that God has prepared just for you. Believe that Jesus lived, died, was buried and rose from the grave just for you. Uh, oh! Got to go! My toast is burning!

Have a Happy New Year! Keep Praying!!! Pastor TIM

CS LEWIS - WORDS OF TRUTH

"Christ did not die for men because they were intrinsically worth dying for, but because He is intrinsically love, and therefore loves infinitely." -C. S. Lewis,Miracles

"Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist."


"Satan's masterpiece is not the prostitute or the skid-row bum. It's the self-sufficient person who has made life comfortable, who dreams of no better place to live, who longs only to be a little better than he already is."

FORGIVENESS IS A CHOICE

I Choose to Forgive

by Rich Thornton on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 10:24am

Though the walls of my heart are broken
and the centre of my self is black-bruised
by the lash of the lies that you've spoken
and the wounds of the words that you've
      used,
though I huddle, a tear-trembling tragedy
stripped of the power to trust,
blocked off from all who might help me
by the guilt that came wrapped with your
      lust,
I choose to forgive.

And this act alone
breaks the cycle.
This act alone
rights the wrong.
This act alone
ends the evil.
This act alone
makes me strong,

heals blind hatred with soft sight,
kicks the darkness into light.

(by Gerard Kelly)

5 REASONS YOU FEEL WIPED OUT

 Adam Donyes and Brian Wang publish and interesting blog called THE LID.  This post is from last week, with counsel I personally need to take better heed of-Steve.

About 3 years ago the authors of this blog were absolutely wiped out! Exhausted, both mentally and physically. Running on fumes, spent, drained, dragging, and any other verb you want to throw in there. Then we were introduced to RhythminTwenty. A journey to help men find rhythm and balance in their lives. It has been such a huge blessing for the both of us. It has taught us to be more aware of the 5 following traps that wipe us out:


#5.-You Never Take a Sabbath: Too often people take this as an Old Testament command and neglect it. If it was important enough for the Creator of the Universe it should be highly important to us a well. God didn’t need to rest on the 7th day, but He did so that He might leave us an example to follow. One of my good friends works as a Manager for Chic-Fil-A here in Kansas City, an organization that was considered stupid for shutting their doors on Sundays, but as one of the leading chains in America those critics have been silenced. A great example that rest can actually multiply productivity. It’s amazing what happens when we actually listen to God’s commands.

#4-Your Eating Habits: How and when you eat has a huge effect on how you feel. Food is the bodies fuel. If we constantly fill ourselves with junk food and pop (or soda if you’re from the Midwest) we won’t feel that great. And the energy we feel from the sugar we put in our body will only last a short time, and eventually we will feel even more wiped out once the crash kicks in. If you are interested in sustained nutrition and energy you might want to check out this link: SPARK.


#3-Lack of Sleep-I often tell my Basketball team that a lack of sleep is really from lack of discipline. Now I fully understand that some people struggle with sleeping disorders, so I’m not referring to those cases. I am referring to people who dilly dally on the computer, phone, and video games into all hours of the night. Some of you stay up late and get up early trying to be more productive, and perhaps this will work for a short season in your life, but according to research this will eventually catch up to you and your health. Sleep is a gift from God, one that He encourages us to appreciate and enjoy. However, like any gift, don’t abuse it and become lazy. Here is a chart that suggests how many hours of sleep you should be getting to prevent being wiped-out.

#2-Worry/Stress-A friend of mine once said that worrying is temporary atheism. Not only is stress a sign that we’re relying on ourselves and not God, but it is proven to emotional and physically wipe us out. Stress prevents your body from ever being able to relax or rest. If we are not careful worrying can consume our lives. Some of us can’t even enjoy movies because of how much we stress, sure we watch them, but the whole time we’re only thinking of everything we need to get done so we really never enjoy it. Jesus was very clear on being anxious, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
(Matthew 6:25-27 ESV)

#1-You’re Self Reliant-You’re a control freak. You hate delegating because you want things done your way. You depend on yourself to get things done, and even worse you never take time to escape and sit at His feet to rely on Him, and not yourself. Ships were meant to sail, but if they never come into the harbor they will eventually be shipwrecked or wiped-out. I personally believe this is the number one reason people are wiped out. They try to do everything themselves. They take no solitude, they fail to seek Him and His strength, and they never escape to the Harbor. Remember that the Titanic was unsinkable and built by professionals. The ark was built by an amateur who sat at God’s feet. Stop relying on your own efforts. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
(Matthew 11:28-30 ESV)

BIG BUT

This video was released yesterday by The Veracity Project.

ADDICTED TO ANONYMITY

I wonder if we in the American culture have become addicted to anonymity?

Dictionary.com defines addiction like this:

the state of being enslaved to a practice or habit or something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

When I think about the community described and prescribed in God’s Word, particularly in the New Testament church, I see plenty of problems for our contemporary culture. We have become a people insistent upon our anonymity. We value self-sufficiency and independence almost above all things. We write books about “self-improvement” and “self-made men”. We idolize individual achievement and we dream about financial independence, and we describe all of this as “the American dream”. We live in gated communities to keep out the undesirable community. And we see anyone asking for help as weak and sad. We have created an entire body of law around the “right to privacy” and we guard our privacy as if it is our most prized possession. There is no question but that we have, in many ways, worked exactly contrary to the type of interdependence described in the Bible.

But none of that necessarily gets us to “addiction”. The question is, are we “enslaved” to this need for independence? Is it psychologically habit-forming? If we lost it, would we be traumatized? These are troublesome questions for me. These are the questions I ask myself as I travel around the country from one church to the next talking about Biblical relationships and New Testament community. I have to say it…it’s not easy to find, even in the church…maybe especially in the church.

I believe our culture’s obsession with privacy and independence and anonymity have approached the “addiction” level. I believe this because we kick and scream anytime we lose those things. Like an addiction, we actually know that we should be living in community and that we need other people in our lives, but through our actions we choose otherwise. We choose anonymity, even when we know we should not. It feels like an addiction to me. So what about the church?

In the church, we have become so consumer-oriented that we are afraid to create an environment which might actually offend someone’s desire to remain anonymous. We have done all our marketing homework and we know well what people want and what they do not want. We aim to give them what they want, because we want to be a “user-friendly” church. We create huge crowds so that a visitor can come in and, essentially, remain anonymous without be “bothered” by anyone. What’s worse, we give our own members plenty of leeway to exercise their own desire for independence and privacy and anonymity. We actually make it possible for people to be “members” without any investment in community or personal accountability at all. In a sense, we have become “enablers” of our society’s addiction.
There is much to explore on this issue. But for today, I just want to ask the questions…have we become addicted to anonymity? And can the church offer recovery from this addiction?
© Blake Coffee

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ME BE GONE

From the drama team of Two Rivers church via Ed Stezter's blog comes this video that isn't only for Christmas.

ME BE GONE from Two Rivers on Vimeo.

TAKING TIME ALONE WITH GOD

Jesus Central is a web site that provides scriptural encouragement and reflective thoughts on the teachings of Jesus. John Ortberg is one of its most frequent contributors.  Here is a post from John on "Jesus as Praying: Taking Time Alone with God."

In Mark Chapter 1 verses 12 and 13, before his ministry started, it says that He goes off to the desert and spends forty days alone with God " prays. Then his ministry launches. In the same Chapter, in verse 35 it says:

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus withdrew to a solitary place to be alone with God and pray. ''Mark 1: 35'' Before He chose the twelve disciples:

He went to a mountain and spent the night in prayer. ''Luke 6: 12'' After He fed the 5000, He withdraws to be alone with God. When He hears the bad news about His friend, John the Baptist, He goes away to be alone with God. It`s true throughout His life right up to the time He`s going to go to the Cross. He goes to the Garden of Gethsemane and brings some friends with Him, but He withdraws from them to be alone with the Father. All the time, He`s teaching His followers to do the same also. One time in Mark, Chapter 6, they`ve been in the middle of a really busy season, and Jesus pulls His followers aside, and He says to them:

Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. ''Mark 6: 31'' I know that He says this to me. I don`t know how this translates for you, but for me it means that I need to spend some time alone with Him to get my mind in tune and my will surrendered each day. For me, the morning is the best time. Then sometimes, I need to spend some extended time with Him . . . a half-day or a day at least once a month. When I first thought about doing that, it was kind of a daunting thing. I thought:

The next time I have a free day, I`ll spend it alone with God. Do you know how long I waited for that day to come? And then I had to write it down on a calendar. I was reading this week that if you live to be seventy years old or so, you will get twenty-five thousand days. You will have twenty-five thousand of these jars. It would be ironic to get to the end of them and say:

God, I was never able to devote just a day to being with You, because there was always something else to do.

LONGCUTS

One of the blogs I follow is called Back Seat Driver.   by Katie Driver, its description on Networked Blogs
says: "Thoughts, perspectives and stories from one person on the journey in living the simple, organic and missional life in Christ." In October she wrote this post that has a lot to do with being an authentic disciple of Jesus Christ.  Katie writes:

Longcuts

I like shortcuts.

These days I spend a lot of time walking through the University of Minnesota looking for short cuts to buildings in order to lessen the time and effort I need to spend in getting from one class to another. Since efficiency is high on my value list, I'm always looking for ways to streamline my day and my walking routes to spend less time in transit. I have found some routes that may save me a couple of minutes, or shave a few hundred feet off my path, but not enough to make that much of a difference in the end.

Frankly, the time and the energy I have spent trying out those shortcuts has actually had the opposite affect, and caused me to waste valuable time! No efficiency in that!

Although I'd like to think its all about efficiency, all this shortcut finding probably has more to do with laziness. I simply want an easier way. One that requires less effort from me.

Especially for those of us who are Americans, we highly value the "quick and easy" routes in everything from cooking to disseminating information.

Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but God doesn't seem to put the same value on shortcuts as we do. Ask the poor Israelites! They didn't get any shortcuts, but instead wandered for 40 years in a dry, hot, rocky desert! They are a great example of God leading their journey of discovery in KNOWING God into a longcut - (if there were such a word, but of course their isn't, because no one values taking a longer route to get somewhere and therefore create a word for it!)

In simple, organic, and missional life in Christ, you don't get shortcuts.

In fact, compared with the traditional structured Christian experience you may of had previously, this journey in Christ and fellowship requires A LOT MORE from you. It's a longcut!

Whereas before, spending a few moments of morning "devotional" reading was seen as sufficient time in the Bible. Or memorizing a verse or two from time to time was sufficient to allow you feel that you really knew the Word!

In O/S/M life, if you don't spend a large amount of time in your Bible on a regular basis, you dry up like a fig on a rock on a hot day! There simply is no short cut to the time you need to spend with the words of Jesus in His Word.

I recently had a discussion posted on my Facebook page where it was inferred that I was "duped" by a certain author and Christian leader. Before I could respond, a reader of that posting wrote what I wanted to say (probably better!). She wrote that if a person is in the Word regularly and diligently, it is not so easy to be "duped" by what anyone says. If your NOT in the Word constantly, but rather rely upon a meager portion of it, or what others TELL you it says, you will find yourself unable to know the truth from error. Hebrews 5:14 is pretty clear about this; "But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil."

No shortcuts.

Maybe you used to depend on the shortcut of listening to a 40 minute, hit or miss message, once a week to get instruction. A sermon to get a "new insight" to ruminate upon about that someone else determined you needed to know. You walked out surprised, saying something like; "I really got something out of that sermon this morning!" Or, just as often; "I should of stayed home today!"

 

In O/S/M life, you have to figure out your own lesson for the week, month, or season of your life. You figure it out by listening to the Author Himself, and hearing what is important to Him in your life at this time. After all, He is invested in you. He is the One with the Plan. He is the one who directs your paths. He is worth listening to and obeying. 

 

This means you are in constant dialog and with an "ear to hear" - all the time! Prayer is not for intercessors or widows with a lot of time on their hands, but it is the vehicle of communication of a loving and involved Father into the lives of His children. Why would we want any shortcuts to that interaction!

There are certainly no short cuts to fellowship. No way! If you want fellowship, YOU have to take the mature initiative to get involved. Either by starting your own simple church, or connecting regularly with folks in a manner that can be all the way from structured to fluid. The form matters less than that you actually get together with folks for the "one anothers". That takes a lot of work. Relationships that live out life together 24/7 takes time, effort, energy and commitment.

Worship? No short cuts there. Where you used to simply show up for a 30 minute set, and participate in it if you were interested in the current worship team leading, or the songs that were chosen, now you have to design your own worship LIFE! Sing, play, write, paint, dance, pray, meditate - worship is up to you!

For a lot of us, we come from backgrounds that teach us short cuts in our expressions of Christianity. I get asked many times for the short cut "formulas" to organic, simple, missional church life. Of course, people don't use those words, but the meaning is clear..."I want and expect this to be easy, quick, full of fast returns, etc., how do I do this?"

There are no streamlined pathways of efficiency in your relationship with God. He calls us into a relationship of depth, quality and intimacy. That is a lot of investment. A lot of commitment, and a lot of time.

Nope, no shortcuts.

Longcuts! But longcuts to an incredible journey of depth!

Are you in ?