Life In 3D

We need to separate in our minds the prospect of being miserable and going through suffering, because they are two very different things. Suffering for Christ always has a purpose, while every other kind of temporary pain and sorrow you will come across in this life will only follow you to the grave.

"God is a good God. He created life, and He wants us to live that life to the fullest. There's nothing in the Bible that suggests God doesn't want you to enjoy anything....The way people talk about Christianity, you'd think there was a verse where Jesus says,'If you follow Me, you must be miserable forever, hate everything, and drag others down with you.' While He does call us to some difficult things, a miserable eternity is not one of them." ~Trip Lee

You can be completely joyful, happy and satisfied in knowing and following Christ, unlike popular opinion. I think that most people see Christianity as a commitment to the boring, do-good, "Mommy's Kid" lifestyle, but only because they have never experienced the kind of joy that you can find in being in a relationship with Jesus.

"[God is] not trying to block our joy and leave us in the dark. He intends to enhance our joy, to give us fullness of joy. He wants us to enjoy life as it was meant to be enjoyed." ~Trip Lee

To the unbelievers: if there is even the possibility of finding joy in knowing Jesus and being confident in your final destination, wouldn't it be worth it? Trust me when I say that the joy the world offers is not even comparable to the joy of Christ, regardless of whether or not you believe in Him. Life without God can seem good sometimes, like watching a movie on Netflix, but the life God offers is much better. God offers 3D, High Definition, Big Screen Motion Pictures!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. ~Romans 15:13 (ESV)

To the believer: following worldly passions always leads to nowhere. Look for the joy that God offers in all areas of your life, and ask Him to enhance it in every way possible, conveying it to others along the way.

"God's revelatory manifestation of Himself in creation, in providence, in Scripture, and pre-eminently in the face of His Son, Jesus Christ, is designed to evoke within the breathtaking delight and incomparable joy of which God alone is worthy. Beauty is that in God which makes Him eminently desirable and attractive and quickens in the soul a realization that it was made for a different world." ~Sam Storms

Fueling the Right Fire

"What kind of passion does our worship fuel?" ~Trip Lee

Dictionary.com defines passion as "any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling." There are two ways this can be taken. The first is to ask yourself what is it that I worship in my life? What would it truly look like to worship only God? Some of the things I personally tend to give too much credit to is my ability to do well at something and my desire to show that off to others. I worship what others think of me, so I am basically worshiping myself. Sometimes we worship feeling good, even in church. It feels good to be moved by a message or the music, but if we aren't also impacted by it, then it's not God we are actually worshiping. The second translation goes like this: where is the passion that my God-honoring worship should be producing? Why don't I always feel like doing God's work, and when I do what he says, why doesn't it always feel super powerful and emotional? Well, I don't think that our feelings are the end goal, so whether or not we immediately enjoy trials or self denial for God's sake, it is what He wants.

"All of us have goals and desires, but God isn't always in them....I'd be lying if I said following Jesus always seems appealing. Right doesn't always feel right." ~Trip Lee

Paraplegia Killed the Christian

"Many of us have been too content with a paraplegic faith instead of a strong, capable, active faith. Faith saves, but it also longs and progresses." ~Trip Lee

God calls to us each day, offering a hand as we step out in faith. But what does it mean to have faith? Faith is something we believe in and put our trust in, but it is not what allows us to answer God's calling. If we have only faith, then we are missing part of the picture, because God calls us to obey first and foremost. Then, if we act in obedience to Him, the faith part is already taken care of!

Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ~James 2:18 (NKJV)

Do you ever long to hear God's voice? Why does it take so much faith just to discern what God calls us to in life? I think that half of the answer, most of the time, is found by doing what we know we should do, not usually what we want to do inherently. And often times, God speaks louder the closer we get to what He's talking about.

The Antediluvian Heart

The below text is from a "Days of Praise" post by Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research organization.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. ~Genesis 6:5-6 (KJV)

These two verses, describing the incurable wickedness of the antediluvian world which finally brought on the global Flood, contain the first two of over a thousand occurrences of the word “heart” in the Bible. Note the contrast: man’s heart was evil; God’s heart was grieved.

Both the Hebrew and Greek languages treated the heart as the center of a person’s being, the seat of all feelings and thoughts, and we do the same in English. The writers knew that the heart was a physical organ, with its function of circulating the blood as basic to physical life. Leviticus 17:11, among other Scriptures, notes that “the life of the flesh is in the blood,” but only rarely was the word used thus in Scripture. Nearly always the word is used symbolically in reference to the deep essence of a person’s being. It is also used occasionally to refer to the innermost part of physical objects (e.g., “the heart of the earth,” as in Matthew 12:40).

In this first occurrence it refers to the “thoughts” of the heart. Somehow, before one thinks with his mind, he thinks with his heart, and these deep, unspoken thoughts will determine the way he reasons with his brain. Jesus confirmed this in Mark 7:21: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts.”

How important it is, then, to maintain a heart that is pure. In fact, in sharp contrast to the first occurrence of “heart” in the Old Testament referring to man’s evil thoughts, the first occurrence in the New Testament is in the gracious promise of Christ: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

Redefined Sinner

"You should be content with God’s plan for your life and rest in his forgiving grace, but as a sinner, you should never be satisfied with who you are." ~Paul Tripp

This quote speaks of a life outlook. Every time we go about life without being intentional pray-ers or when we pray only in thankfulness of what God has done (His past glory) without thought to how He can be further glorified both in our lives and through our lives, then we are acting as though we are satisfied with ourselves. The life outlook I believe we should have is asking God where in our lives we are still not good enough, where we are still sinning, and where we could be growing in Him. He longs to share that information with us, but only when we are ready to push ourselves in that direction. Our goal is singular, but we should never allow ourselves to fully achieve it until the day He finally returns for us.

"Let everything I do satisfy your love for me." ~Yours Truly (Inspired by Psalm 19)

Of course, this next quote, above, is a bit of a paradox in more than one way, but it is a good expression of our desire to be better people for God's sake. We should do all that we can to please Him, seeing as that's what He made us for; and in order to do that better, we should continually look to refine ourselves as Christians and redefine our sinful life patterns. It's not always easy to see where our faults are, or where we could be better acknowledging God, but the cool part is that God knows it all, so all we have to do is ask!

Use the Spirit, Luke!

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. ~2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)

Ever wondered why the Holy Spirit doesn't get much credit? One possibility actually has to do with Star Wars. Yeah, there are several correlations between the Force and the Spirit, such as their omnipotence, omnipresence, and ability to be summoned by a specific minority. There is, however, a huge difference. The Force is a thing. I don't recall Luke Skywalker ever asking the Force if it would come help him out, but rather, Luke seemed to harness and use the Force out of his own ability to do so. The Holy Spirit and His power are very different. First of all, the Spirit is God, and thus not a thing but a person. Second, an important thing for us to remember is that the power of the spirit never comes from us, for there is nothing good in us. The power we have in God comes when we invite His Spirit to be the one who works in, with, and through us.

Here is one example I heard about the power of the Spirit. If you had a large piece of furniture to move, but it was too much for you to move alone, and you had a close friend who could do it with the flick of a wrist, what would you do? Would you attempt to move the piece of furniture by wielding the power of your friend and doing it yourself that way? Not likely. You would give your friend a call, and they would come over and help you do it. The challenge for us here is to remember where our strength comes from. There aren't many things that we can do on our own, and everything we can do usually ends up being worthless. So examine where in your life you are trying to do things on your own, and instead, try asking God to send his empowering Spirit to aid you in ever aspect of your life.

The Future Now

"This moment is all that matters. The future is now." -Lecrae

Live for the future, in the now. By this I mean that we should, first of all, not be living for the moment. We live for Christ and the life He promises is to come, and in doing so we realize how every moment, thought and action is done for the future. We should also live in the now, meaning that we should not fight our battles in the future, nor should we fight past battles and dwell on our victories or losses. With each new day, we should have an outlook that fights the sin of that day, fights to make that day worth God's protection, and not be thinking of life in the bigger picture lest we give up on the battle at hand.

Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' ~James 4:13-15 (ESV)

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. ~Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)