The Real Good

"I will stand firm, however, in the belief that although God can give me more, His goodness doesn’t depend on it, because He gave me everything when He gave me Him." ~Joey Svendsen (from a great blog post you can view here)

God is good. He delights in blessing us with earthly comfort, and we are not always suffering (in the physical sense) while we await his return. At the same time though, sometimes we can get caught up in the earthly comforts and forget that God doesn't always choose to bless us with them. When things go badly we might blame it on several different things: God, a lack of His blessing, our own disobedience/sin, the world, etc. What we forget is that this lack of physical comfort is just a part of life. So again, God does not always choose to bless us with earthly comforts, but what we can know for sure is that God always chooses to bless us with Himself.

People die every day, especially people of faith being martyred in second and third world countries--the types of deaths that have a better chance of catching our attention. We might look at the situations of other people in those third world places and understand that God has not necessarily blessed them physically. But that's why one little fact about God and man can be made so much more clear: it is simply awesome that God's kingdom is completely other, or separate, from this worldly kingdom and it has nothing to do with fleshly comfort. We have been given eternal life, and more than that, we have God's love and His wonderful attributes to comfort us until we get to the other side. The problem of dissatisfaction in the life of a Christian only comes around when we forget our priorities. True life doesn't revolve around God providing our next meal or getting us a new job or the multitude of other things we pray for daily (even healing for a sick family member)! True life revolves around us being satisfied in knowing, growing in, and sharing Christ; nothing else. So let's remember this week where our priorities lie and consider praying for peace, wisdom, strength, and faith before (not necessarily instead of) fleshly deliverance both for us and those around us.

God's Lawnmower

You are not God's lawnmower. Many people want to be just that however; let me explain.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ~Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

If you ever went up to your father as a kid and asked him what he thought you should be when you grow up, what should he have told you? Maybe he told you to be whoever you wanted to be and to follow your heart. We hear it all the time today: choose a career that you will enjoy doing for the rest of your life and the rest will fall into place! I think that this is a similar situation to the way God "calls" us. We often times want to wait for Him to tell us what to do with our lives, but I think God simply wants us to be ourselves. We want to invert Matthew 6:33 and say "give me this work to do and I'll do it" or "give me these things first and then I'll seek Your kingdom" but God tells us to find the work we enjoy and do it for Him. He tells us to go out there with His kingdom in mind and He will give us the strength to bring it into reality.

We want to say "give me a push in the right direction and I'll do the mowing" but God wants to do the mowing through us; it doesn't matter as much where we mow.

Matthew 16:19

You might have heard it before, but God calls us to the Great Commission, not the Great Suggestion. He gives us the keys to his kingdom so that we can share the future glory with others. We, as Christians, should have the greatest stories to tell by the end of our lives because our testimonies should be that we found the most joy in living by faith and following God's calling while living even the normalest of lives. God's calling is simple: Seek the kingdom I have already given you access to. Now let's stop over-complicating that calling!

Pre-Die Yourself

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. ~Romans 6:5 (NIV)

What you are obedient to most is what you are a slave to. We should be slaves to neither sin nor grace, but rather to Jesus Christ, meaning we must obey him as he once did what we must do--He died to self and saved us from our own sins; now we must shed our sin, die to self, and live for Him! Thus we shall be united with him in a death like his.

Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation...indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." ~Luke 17:20-21 (NKJV)

What does it mean to be a people of the future? In 1 Thessalonians, Paul said of the church in Thessolanica that they had become a model to other believers. We too should model ourselves for others....but how? When we look at the Bible, the Gospel in particular, we see that it is a message about the past, but also a vision of the future. Because of this, we should be learning about God's Kingdom past and modeling our lives on the Kingdom future. The Kingdom of God is within us, and whenever we share the gospel with others, we are opening their eyes to an entirely new world--the Kingdom of God. So the question is: Where in your life are you living in line with the present and not with the future?

Just as we are to die (now) to self, we should live in a way that represents the lives we will have when our physical bodies fail. Thus we shall pre-die, because when someday we pass from this life to the next, sin will no longer be a problem, and it will be impossible to be slave to it.

Let us pre-die ourselves with the blood of Christ.

Jesus Made My Life

"Only God can fully satisfy the hungry heart of man." ~ Hugh Black

Have you ever heard the term "That just made my day" being thrown around? If so, that's perfectly fine! I'm sure there are many things that could happen to us that would be worthy of the "made my day" title. Not much can beat the experience of something changing your perspective on life for the better, even if it only lasts about a day. Now, as you have probably noticed, the title of this blog is "Jesus Made My Life." I hope that this is true of all of us. Jesus "made my life" the day I truly came to realize how awesome He was and is. Simple. You don't need much more than a cool Bible story or a psalm to see how magnificent and awe-inspiring God can be. And the coolest part about Him is that His awesomeness doesn't just last for a day--it lasts for life! His glory doesn't slowly fade like the color of your baseball cap that was left in the sun too long--it can be found in every aspect of creation with just as much color as when God first spoke life into the world! His love for us doesn't just last until we sin again, it lasts until we are dead, and even then it just don't stop! God is amazing--it really shouldn't take much to realize that.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. ~Psalm 37:4

So if Jesus made my life, and, say, getting a free milkshake from the local ice cream shop made my day, then what does sin make? As hard as it is to admit, sin does feel good, but only in the moment. If we are honest with ourselves, then every time we sin we would say "that just made my minute." The point is that sin doesn't last. That's one of the ways you can tell whether or not something is worthwhile--ask yourself if it's pleasures last longer than a couple minutes, a day, or even the year. Is it possible to find lasting joy in a habit of lying to your boss at work about why you were late again?  No. Is it possible to find lasting joy in simply being in God's presence and glory? Yes. Next time you are faced with sin, just remember to consider how long its pleasures will last and how lasting an impact it will leave on your life. Jesus is able to make your life, and if He already has, then stop taking Him off the throne for something of lesser value and potential for satisfaction. Jesus is the only one in life who can change your desires and have a lasting impact on your life for the better. All you have to do is let Him.

God Is A Penitentiary

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. ~1 Peter 3:18 (ESV)

Stop asking God to forgive your sins. What I mean by this is that often times when we sin (usually something reoccurring), we feel like we must be in a place of complete sorrow and lowliness before any spiritual restoration can occur. It's not a bad thing to do, but it is also good to remember that God promises forgiveness to those who are committed to follow Him and turn from sinful ways. Many people would call this act of remorseful returning to God repentance, but I'd like to give you an example of how repentance and forgiveness can swap places.

The day you became a Christ-follower was the day you were forgiven--past and future--for your sinful nature/deeds that would otherwise keep you from God. Jesus died once for sins, so we don't have to kill Him again and again every time we fail to follow God's law. One of several Dictionary.com definitions for the verb forgive is "to cease to feel resentment against." As long as our sin lives within us, God shows justifiable resentment, but because we have been born again, his resentment no longer admits an eternal consequence, just the painful smile of a hurt father. We don't need to kill Jesus again, we just need to accept his offer of forgiveness again.                Still, that's not all...

One of the Dictionary.com definitions for the verb repent is "to feel such sorrow for sin or fault as to be disposed to change one's life for the better; be penitent." Repentance should be a lifestyle. Although this kind of repentance is different from the day we offered up the sinner's prayer, it is still essential. Without striving to get rid of the sin that you committed, asking forgiveness can become more ritualistic than healing. Penance is the "voluntary self-punishment inflicted as an outward expression of repentance for having done wrong." Punishment is meant to be edifying, and God is the perfect person to help you edify yourself for the better. Simply being in God's presence should have a purifying effect on us that lingers throughout the day and helps us fight our daily battles against sin and temptation. So repentance is a lifestyle more than it is a request/answer/acceptance. Just like we are called to be living in a pool of grace, we are called to come to God having a repentant spirit before making any requests. God can't live in the same room with sin, so he calls us each day to repent and offer him a place in our hearts. God is a penitentiary in that he calls us to repentance and to a lifetime of service in his kingdom, so next time you are faced with sin, try remembering all that God is and wants to be in your life and try to hear his voice calling out to you for forgiveness, repentance, and change.