Many Christians express concern year after year about the dangers of Halloween and its history to Christian values. Now, I am very much aware of the cultic implications of Halloween and have struggled with whether or not Halloween is something Christians should celebrate. More specifically, I've been conflicted as to whether Christian groups should plan activities around Halloween. I've prayed a lot about it and I have come to the conclusion that Halloween can be used as a tool to reach people for Christ. I know that many Christians disagree with me on this and I certainly don't want to offend anyone's convictions.
I feel that Halloween is such a strong part of our culture that we shouldn't ignore it. Disassociation can lead to the perception we are culturally irrelevant but even more it can lead to a missed opportunity. Most people in this country celebrate Halloween including most Christians. Therefore Oct. 31, provides an opportunity for us to bring people into the church. People are going to celebrate it anyway and Church related Halloween Activities provide an alternative to the world and Satan's version of Halloween.
In any Church sponsored Halloween activity, it is my opinion that God should be very much the focal point of the event. The event should include prayer, Christian music and involve the goal of building community with other Christians. As an outreach event, Halloween provides an opportunity for Christians to bring their friends in order to engage them in spiritual conversations. It's amazing how open people are to discussing spiritual things on Halloween. Let me be clear; we should never embrace the demonic side of Halloween. We should certainly use discretion when picking costumes. We should not have demonic decorations nor allow demonic activities or games. In this way, Halloween provides the opportunity to host a social gathering with a 2 sided goal: grow in community with other believers and engage the unsaved in spiritual conversations and expose them to the Gospel.
In Acts 17, Paul engaged the people of Athens by taking something from their own culture (the altar to an Unknown God) and using it to get them to consider the true God of the universe. I don't think Paul was truly saying that these people were worshiping Yahweh through this arbitrary temple (that would be blasphemous). It was simply an opening for Paul to present the true God. For me Halloween is an opening to present people with the truth about spiritual things. Halloween already makes people think more about the spiritual world so let's use Halloween as an opening to point them to Spiritual Truth.
Martin Luther stated that “the best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.” If Halloween be a demonic holiday in celebration of demonic values, what better way to mock Satan than to use Oct. 31 to further God's kingdom through Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
The Zone
As I walked toward the line, time felt as though it stood still. The grass was still wet from the morning dew. The November sun blazed despite the chill of winter approaching. The crowd was on the edge of their seats. But none of that mattered. We were caught in a moment; the most important moment of the game; maybe even of our young lives. It was the moment of waiting. In that single moment, you look your opponent in the eye knowing that he can't yet touch you, you scan the field in wonder; all the while looking past your line, past the defense, knowing that your goal is the end-zone. You take a deep breath and hold it. It's excitement mixed with fear. This is what we call the Zone. In a few short moments, memories would be made and dreams would we shattered; maybe for you; maybe for them. But right now you wait. You move forward with anticipation, but you don't mess with the Zone. Move too soon, and it's a penalty. Move too late, and it's a penalty. So we wait patiently. We move together as a team.
Now in reality, this moment lasts no more that 5 seconds, but in those 5 seconds you learn all you need to know about what's coming. You wait so that you can move forward. Not recklessly, but with guided steps. All the practice and all the preparation have prepared you for the play, but with this moment all the pieces fall into place and you're ready. Or...you can allow the fear to take control. We all know that once the play starts, anything can happen: a fumble, an interception or, even worse, an injury. In that moment, the fear of things going wrong might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But in the end, you still have to hike the ball.
Life is full of those moments. An orchestra member experiences it just before the conductor's first downbeat. A public speaker experiences it just before they utter their first word. It happens just before someone begins their first day at a new job. And it also happens when each of us is faced with a choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing: to obey God or to ignore Him.
In the Bible, Jesus tells the story of 3 guys who are entrusted with a certain amount of money by their boss. One guys is entrusted with 5 bags of money, another 2 bags, and another 1. Their boss goes away for a while expecting that his employees will invest this money in profitable ways. I expect that each of those guys experienced one of those moments as they anticipated what they would do with their money. It would have been natural to be afraid; to worry that they would mess up and lose their boss's money. They had a decision to make of whether to take a risk or allow the fear to take control.
With anticipation, 2 of the guys invested their money and they both doubled it. The other guy, however, allowed the fear to take control of him. Rather than risking losing his boss's money and possibly his job, he simply did nothing. He was afraid to hike the ball. Now he didn't lose any money in doing nothing. What he lost was an opportunity. An opportunity to do something great; even an opportunity to fail and learn from his mistake. Anything would have been better than doing nothing.
When we're faced with the challenges of life, God expects that we will embrace the moments before we act. We certainly can't act out of impulse and recklessly rush into things. We have to allow our preparation to sink in and move forward with guided steps. We have to wait. God is with us in those moments. All of our prayer; all of our Bible study; every Sunday school class, youth group or worship service comes back and we are given an opportunity to succeed or to fail; both of which are acceptable to God. What's not acceptable is to be so afraid that we do nothing.
It would be the last play of my high school career. I was in the Zone. I embraced it. All of my practice and preparation had led me to this moment and I was ready. The ball was hiked and like a whirlwind we were off. I dropped straight back, scanning the field for an open receiver. Time was running out and then I saw him. He was wide open 5 yards from the endzone. Without hesitation I let the ball go. I could feel my heart beat with anticipation as I waited for him to catch the ball and scamper into the endzone for the winning score. As the ball was about to reach its target, the defensive player jumped in front of the ball...interception. We lost by 3 points. You see, the moments don't always produce success on the other side. In the end, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I learned something valuable that day; to embrace my failures as much as my successes. Romans 8:28 tells us that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." This includes our successes and failures. But we have to be willing to hike the ball.
Now in reality, this moment lasts no more that 5 seconds, but in those 5 seconds you learn all you need to know about what's coming. You wait so that you can move forward. Not recklessly, but with guided steps. All the practice and all the preparation have prepared you for the play, but with this moment all the pieces fall into place and you're ready. Or...you can allow the fear to take control. We all know that once the play starts, anything can happen: a fumble, an interception or, even worse, an injury. In that moment, the fear of things going wrong might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But in the end, you still have to hike the ball.
Life is full of those moments. An orchestra member experiences it just before the conductor's first downbeat. A public speaker experiences it just before they utter their first word. It happens just before someone begins their first day at a new job. And it also happens when each of us is faced with a choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing: to obey God or to ignore Him.
In the Bible, Jesus tells the story of 3 guys who are entrusted with a certain amount of money by their boss. One guys is entrusted with 5 bags of money, another 2 bags, and another 1. Their boss goes away for a while expecting that his employees will invest this money in profitable ways. I expect that each of those guys experienced one of those moments as they anticipated what they would do with their money. It would have been natural to be afraid; to worry that they would mess up and lose their boss's money. They had a decision to make of whether to take a risk or allow the fear to take control.
With anticipation, 2 of the guys invested their money and they both doubled it. The other guy, however, allowed the fear to take control of him. Rather than risking losing his boss's money and possibly his job, he simply did nothing. He was afraid to hike the ball. Now he didn't lose any money in doing nothing. What he lost was an opportunity. An opportunity to do something great; even an opportunity to fail and learn from his mistake. Anything would have been better than doing nothing.
When we're faced with the challenges of life, God expects that we will embrace the moments before we act. We certainly can't act out of impulse and recklessly rush into things. We have to allow our preparation to sink in and move forward with guided steps. We have to wait. God is with us in those moments. All of our prayer; all of our Bible study; every Sunday school class, youth group or worship service comes back and we are given an opportunity to succeed or to fail; both of which are acceptable to God. What's not acceptable is to be so afraid that we do nothing.
It would be the last play of my high school career. I was in the Zone. I embraced it. All of my practice and preparation had led me to this moment and I was ready. The ball was hiked and like a whirlwind we were off. I dropped straight back, scanning the field for an open receiver. Time was running out and then I saw him. He was wide open 5 yards from the endzone. Without hesitation I let the ball go. I could feel my heart beat with anticipation as I waited for him to catch the ball and scamper into the endzone for the winning score. As the ball was about to reach its target, the defensive player jumped in front of the ball...interception. We lost by 3 points. You see, the moments don't always produce success on the other side. In the end, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I learned something valuable that day; to embrace my failures as much as my successes. Romans 8:28 tells us that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." This includes our successes and failures. But we have to be willing to hike the ball.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Teach me to fear?
Several months ago, Amanda and I decided to rescue a second dog as a way to socialize our neurotic first dog Chara. So we brought home this absolutely adorable Pit Bull who we named Tobias. Now, from the start Tobias was hard not to love. From what we were told, he hadn't exactly had the best life. They found him tied up on a concrete slab down in the inner city of Baltimore. He was deathly thin from lack of food and his ears had no fur from where the bugs had eaten it all off. We loved him from the start. The problem was he didn't respect us. At first we though he might have hearing problems, but we quickly realized that he just wasn't listening. We decided that obedience training might be the answer, so we enrolled him in a weekly class where Amanda could learn how to work with him.
At the first session, Amanda learned that the reason that Tobias would not listen was because he wasn't afraid of her. In fact, over the months that we had him, we had basically given him everything we thought he could want. We denied him nothing. As a result we had trained him to think of us as his servants. Now, if we wanted him to learn to listen, we first had to break his spirit. We had to teach him to fear. This was not an easy process, particularly since Amanda is so affectionate towards our dogs. The idea that we had to break his spirit was hard for us both. But Amanda was told that this was what was best for him. So she began the hard process of breaking his spirit and teaching him to fear her. I could tell that it was hard for Amanda to do some of the things needed to break him. In fact if someone were to watch her use the techniques she learned, they might think it were downright abusive. But slowly but surely, Tobias began to respond and he has begun to listen.
In many ways, this method of breaking our dog, reminds me of how God has disciplined His people throughout history. Many times, people would become spoiled by God's provision and become lax in their view of Him. They seemed to think that God would always protect them simply because they were His people. God had interesting methods of stirring fear in His peoples' hearts. When the people of Babel refused to spread out and populate the earth as He had commanded, God confused their languages so they couldn't communicate with each other anymore. Later on, after God had delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt, the people, forgetting how he had already provided for their every need, complained in the wilderness that they didn't have any food or water. So God sent poisonous snakes to kill many of the people. When the people were too afraid to go into the land of Canaan, God promised that because of their unbelief, every single one of that generation would die in the wilderness. When they finally did enter into the land, a man named Achan took some treasure from the city of Jericho (after God had expressly forbidden it). So God had Achan and his whole family killed. When Nadab and Abihu burned "strange fire" to the LORD in the tabernacle, fire came out from the alter and consumed them. Later, when David committed adultury with Bathsheba, David begged for his life and God granted it...but the child of the adulturous relationship died. Ecclesiastes 3:14 states that "God has so worked that men should fear Him." (NASB) Yet how many people truly do?
As I look at our culture today (especially in the church), I notice a lax attitude toward one's relationship with God. We as Christians, in this country, have not been truly aquainted with persecution or oppression for what we believe in. Many of us would probably equate this with God's provision. But what has that led to? How many people truly fear the consequenses of their sin? Church has become a religious practice that we seem to do with little reverence. I was teaching High School Sunday School and we were discussing what God thinks of sex. One of the students suggested that God doesn't care about premarital sex because it is simply a non-issue in today's culture. I must admit, I wasn't surprised by such a response since that's pretty much seems to be the opinion of the church at large. But, God has called us to holiness as a way of reflecting his holiness. Yet, many people have a distorted view of what holiness means. The phrase I hear over and over again these days is" God just wants us to love everyone." Wow. I'd agree with that if it didn't stop there. Love is not enough if our personal lives do not reflect the holiness of God. As one of my professor's is apt at saying, "emphasis not exclusion" (i.e. We should not "emphasize" God's love to the "exclusion" of God's wrath.)
I responded to this student by stating that I was surprised that something that God didn't care about would have the potential for such horrible physical consequences. It's interesting that sexually transmitted diseases exist in the first place. When you think about a monogamous marital relationship...there is absolutely no physical consequenses, because you can only contract an STD from another person. Two people who have only ever been with eachother can't give one another an STD. So where did these STDs come from? Were they an accident? Or were they created? And if they were created, what was their initial purpose? I'm beginning to believe that they were created as a way to garner fear in the immoral.
People don't fear God anymore. Turn on the TV. Open the newspaper. It's not hard to see. So if no one fears God anymore, how will God teach us to fear Him? Looking at history, we can easily see that God's method of teaching his people to fear him was pain. I can see this in my own life and I can see it in the lives of those around me. God causes us pain as a way of getting us to look to him for help. God's blessings are useless if they only move us away from Him and cause us to see Him as only a provider and not a sovereign God with the power to destory us.
Phillipians 2:12 is a very controversial passage in the Bible that says, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." For many people they see this as pointing to a "works-based" salvation where you must continue to work at it and earn your way into heaven. I really don't see it as very difficult at all. If, as Ecclesiastes 3:14 says, God wants people to fear Him, what good is our salvation if we lose our fear of God. We all need a healthy dose of fear for God in our lives. As with Tobias (our dog) we still love him although we taught him to fear us. And he still knows that we will provide for him. He is still happy to see us when we come through the door (so I know he still loves us). But his obedience to us must be rooted in his fear of us. Likewise, I know that God loves me despite His discipline. I love God, therefore I want to obey Him, but because I still struggle with sin, it is very difficult for me to obey against my sinful nature. So how then will I obey God? My obedience must also be rooted in my fear of Him. How will I learn to fear God? He must teach me.
At the first session, Amanda learned that the reason that Tobias would not listen was because he wasn't afraid of her. In fact, over the months that we had him, we had basically given him everything we thought he could want. We denied him nothing. As a result we had trained him to think of us as his servants. Now, if we wanted him to learn to listen, we first had to break his spirit. We had to teach him to fear. This was not an easy process, particularly since Amanda is so affectionate towards our dogs. The idea that we had to break his spirit was hard for us both. But Amanda was told that this was what was best for him. So she began the hard process of breaking his spirit and teaching him to fear her. I could tell that it was hard for Amanda to do some of the things needed to break him. In fact if someone were to watch her use the techniques she learned, they might think it were downright abusive. But slowly but surely, Tobias began to respond and he has begun to listen.
In many ways, this method of breaking our dog, reminds me of how God has disciplined His people throughout history. Many times, people would become spoiled by God's provision and become lax in their view of Him. They seemed to think that God would always protect them simply because they were His people. God had interesting methods of stirring fear in His peoples' hearts. When the people of Babel refused to spread out and populate the earth as He had commanded, God confused their languages so they couldn't communicate with each other anymore. Later on, after God had delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt, the people, forgetting how he had already provided for their every need, complained in the wilderness that they didn't have any food or water. So God sent poisonous snakes to kill many of the people. When the people were too afraid to go into the land of Canaan, God promised that because of their unbelief, every single one of that generation would die in the wilderness. When they finally did enter into the land, a man named Achan took some treasure from the city of Jericho (after God had expressly forbidden it). So God had Achan and his whole family killed. When Nadab and Abihu burned "strange fire" to the LORD in the tabernacle, fire came out from the alter and consumed them. Later, when David committed adultury with Bathsheba, David begged for his life and God granted it...but the child of the adulturous relationship died. Ecclesiastes 3:14 states that "God has so worked that men should fear Him." (NASB) Yet how many people truly do?
As I look at our culture today (especially in the church), I notice a lax attitude toward one's relationship with God. We as Christians, in this country, have not been truly aquainted with persecution or oppression for what we believe in. Many of us would probably equate this with God's provision. But what has that led to? How many people truly fear the consequenses of their sin? Church has become a religious practice that we seem to do with little reverence. I was teaching High School Sunday School and we were discussing what God thinks of sex. One of the students suggested that God doesn't care about premarital sex because it is simply a non-issue in today's culture. I must admit, I wasn't surprised by such a response since that's pretty much seems to be the opinion of the church at large. But, God has called us to holiness as a way of reflecting his holiness. Yet, many people have a distorted view of what holiness means. The phrase I hear over and over again these days is" God just wants us to love everyone." Wow. I'd agree with that if it didn't stop there. Love is not enough if our personal lives do not reflect the holiness of God. As one of my professor's is apt at saying, "emphasis not exclusion" (i.e. We should not "emphasize" God's love to the "exclusion" of God's wrath.)
I responded to this student by stating that I was surprised that something that God didn't care about would have the potential for such horrible physical consequences. It's interesting that sexually transmitted diseases exist in the first place. When you think about a monogamous marital relationship...there is absolutely no physical consequenses, because you can only contract an STD from another person. Two people who have only ever been with eachother can't give one another an STD. So where did these STDs come from? Were they an accident? Or were they created? And if they were created, what was their initial purpose? I'm beginning to believe that they were created as a way to garner fear in the immoral.
People don't fear God anymore. Turn on the TV. Open the newspaper. It's not hard to see. So if no one fears God anymore, how will God teach us to fear Him? Looking at history, we can easily see that God's method of teaching his people to fear him was pain. I can see this in my own life and I can see it in the lives of those around me. God causes us pain as a way of getting us to look to him for help. God's blessings are useless if they only move us away from Him and cause us to see Him as only a provider and not a sovereign God with the power to destory us.
Phillipians 2:12 is a very controversial passage in the Bible that says, "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." For many people they see this as pointing to a "works-based" salvation where you must continue to work at it and earn your way into heaven. I really don't see it as very difficult at all. If, as Ecclesiastes 3:14 says, God wants people to fear Him, what good is our salvation if we lose our fear of God. We all need a healthy dose of fear for God in our lives. As with Tobias (our dog) we still love him although we taught him to fear us. And he still knows that we will provide for him. He is still happy to see us when we come through the door (so I know he still loves us). But his obedience to us must be rooted in his fear of us. Likewise, I know that God loves me despite His discipline. I love God, therefore I want to obey Him, but because I still struggle with sin, it is very difficult for me to obey against my sinful nature. So how then will I obey God? My obedience must also be rooted in my fear of Him. How will I learn to fear God? He must teach me.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Do you trust me?
I feel like everyday there is someone making me a promise they don't intend to keep. There's the diner down the street that promises me the best fried chicken on the planet. There's a coffee shop that promises me the "world's best cup of joe." There's the little green lizard on TV promising me that he can save me money on my car insurance. In reality, I think they might just be trying to sell me something. We live in a culture that has encouraged us to be skeptics by the very nature of these false promises. We've been burned so many times by other people that the simple act of trust is considered naive or downright stupid. Two lovers stand at an altar promising "till death do us part" only to get divorced 5 years later when things aren't going so well. A little boy stairs out the window waiting for his mother to pick him up for their weekend visit...but she never shows up. There are so many promises being thrown around that it is difficult to know what to believe anymore. If I make promises to a person, what reasonable assurance can I give them to believe me? It must be even harder for God. What could God possibly say or do that would get us to trust Him?
Now, let's not think for a second that our present skepticism is anything new. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes..."there's nothing new under the sun." The Bible speaks of God's relationship with his chosen people Israel. Throughout their history, they were constantly skeptical of God's promises. Even after God rescued them from their Egyptian captivity, parted the red sea, and provided food for them from the sky, they quickly turned their back on God to worship a golden calf. When God provided the manna from the sky, they complained that they had no meat. When God promised to give them the land of Canaan, they were too scared to accept it (at first) because the people who lived their were "giants." God gave them every reasonable excuse to believe Him. Yet they continued to doubt.
As God continued to demonstrate His trustworthiness to His people, His people continued to doubt Him. As we read the Bible and these stories, it's easy for us to say, "what a bunch of idiots. If I were there, I would have never doubted God!" But in reality, we probably would have been right their with the Israelites, bowing to a golden calf. Eventually, God got so angry with His people that He had them deported into the land of the Babylonians. Most of them would never see their homeland again. But God never forgot His promies. People called prophets came and they told the people of God's judgment of them for their unbelief. But these prophets also promised that God would one day restore His people. The prophets promised that God would fulfill all of His promises. And every single one of those prophets assured the people that God was trustworthy by pointing to what God had already done. They pointed to the deliverance of God's people from the land of Egypt. They pointed to His parting of the red sea. They pointed to His giving the land of Canaan to His people. Their assurance that God would be faithful was based on the fact that God had always been faithful. They just weren't watching.
So today, as we ponder whether or not God is trustworthy, we look to those same stories. Because they weren't just meant to assure those people...they were meant to assure us as well. The Bible is made up of books written by men over the span of about 1,500 years. It all says the same thing...God is faithful. From Genesis to Revelation God has promised that He would redeem His people. From Genesis through Malachi, God promised that He would send a savior...The Messiah. The New Testament tells us that this Messiah was Jesus Christ, who was crucified on a cross and as a result of His sacrifice, the penalty for our sins has been paid for. The redemption of His people was a redemption from sin. Various books of the New Testament tell us that Jesus is coming back again to finally destroy evil and usher in an eternity with Him. But we are over 2,000 years in waiting. What reasonable assurance can we have that He will come back. Well, we need only look at what He's already done. You see, I've been to that diner...their fried chicken really isn't that good. That coffee shop's coffee taste's like burnt motor oil. And I got a better deal on my car insurance from another agency. But God has never let His people down. He promised that He would redeem us. And He did...at the cross. So why do I trust that God will keep His promises? Because He always has.
Now, let's not think for a second that our present skepticism is anything new. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes..."there's nothing new under the sun." The Bible speaks of God's relationship with his chosen people Israel. Throughout their history, they were constantly skeptical of God's promises. Even after God rescued them from their Egyptian captivity, parted the red sea, and provided food for them from the sky, they quickly turned their back on God to worship a golden calf. When God provided the manna from the sky, they complained that they had no meat. When God promised to give them the land of Canaan, they were too scared to accept it (at first) because the people who lived their were "giants." God gave them every reasonable excuse to believe Him. Yet they continued to doubt.
As God continued to demonstrate His trustworthiness to His people, His people continued to doubt Him. As we read the Bible and these stories, it's easy for us to say, "what a bunch of idiots. If I were there, I would have never doubted God!" But in reality, we probably would have been right their with the Israelites, bowing to a golden calf. Eventually, God got so angry with His people that He had them deported into the land of the Babylonians. Most of them would never see their homeland again. But God never forgot His promies. People called prophets came and they told the people of God's judgment of them for their unbelief. But these prophets also promised that God would one day restore His people. The prophets promised that God would fulfill all of His promises. And every single one of those prophets assured the people that God was trustworthy by pointing to what God had already done. They pointed to the deliverance of God's people from the land of Egypt. They pointed to His parting of the red sea. They pointed to His giving the land of Canaan to His people. Their assurance that God would be faithful was based on the fact that God had always been faithful. They just weren't watching.
So today, as we ponder whether or not God is trustworthy, we look to those same stories. Because they weren't just meant to assure those people...they were meant to assure us as well. The Bible is made up of books written by men over the span of about 1,500 years. It all says the same thing...God is faithful. From Genesis to Revelation God has promised that He would redeem His people. From Genesis through Malachi, God promised that He would send a savior...The Messiah. The New Testament tells us that this Messiah was Jesus Christ, who was crucified on a cross and as a result of His sacrifice, the penalty for our sins has been paid for. The redemption of His people was a redemption from sin. Various books of the New Testament tell us that Jesus is coming back again to finally destroy evil and usher in an eternity with Him. But we are over 2,000 years in waiting. What reasonable assurance can we have that He will come back. Well, we need only look at what He's already done. You see, I've been to that diner...their fried chicken really isn't that good. That coffee shop's coffee taste's like burnt motor oil. And I got a better deal on my car insurance from another agency. But God has never let His people down. He promised that He would redeem us. And He did...at the cross. So why do I trust that God will keep His promises? Because He always has.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
It's Just a Dollar!
I've had this dollar on my desk for over 6 months. I haven't been sure what I should do with it. You see, this past summer, the senior pastor at a church I was interning at gave over a thousand dollars of his own money in single dollar bills to those in attendance at church that Sunday. His charge was that we should use that dollar to make an impact on someone's life. So six months later, here my dollar sits. A hundred thoughts go through my head like wildfire all returning to a single conclusion: "It's just a dollar!" What can a dollar do in our fast paced, consumer driven society. I could buy a homeless person a double cheeseburger off the dollar menu at McDonalds, but would that really make an impact on his or her life? Most of my ideas would involve actually multiplying the money by adding more. But that really wouldn't be the point of the pastor's charge would it?
As I look at the dollar, I'm reminded of Jesus' miracle where He fed 5,000 people. In this miracle (recorded in Matthew 6; Mark 14; Luke 9; and John 6) Jesus was speaking to this large multitude of people for an extended period of time. When it came time for them to eat, the Disciples encouraged Jesus to send the people away so they could get food in the neighboring villages. Jesus astounded them when He said for them to feed the people. Where on earth were the disciples to get that much food. They'd seen Jesus do miraculous things, but now He expected them to do the impossible. Their faith was dwindling. But, in the midst of this debacle, a little boy offers a meager lunch of 5 loaves of bread and 2 small fish. I can only imagine the disciples as they (most likely) laughed at the little boy. "What good will that little lunch do for 5,000 people?" But Jesus accepted the boy's meager offering, and from it, did something ridiculous. He gave thanks to God and began to divide the food. He instructed the disciples to distribute the food to the people. I can only imagine their surprise when after distributing what Jesus had already given them, He gave them more to distribute. When all was said and done, not a single person left hungry. As if that wasn't enough, there was an abundance left over. They were probably wondering, what are we going to do with all this extra food? I'm sure that Jesus had a plan.
So what impact can a dollar make? Certainly none on it's own. However, in the hands of Jesus, the possibilities are endless. The real question becomes, "What can't a dollar do if we humbly bring it before Jesus?"
I finally decided to put that dollar in the hands of Jesus. As I thought about how I might impact a person's life, I was led to think of the people who have impacted mine. The funny thing about it is this: the things people did for me that made the biggest impact, never cost a thing. They were done with love with no expectation of anything in return. Whether it was sitting and listening to me pour out my heart about my problems or being there at a high school football game in which we were getting pounded 35-0. The things you remember most, seldom cost a thing, but the experiences can last a lifetime.
So here's what I did with my dollar; I bought a stamp and wrote a letter to a person who's made a significant impact on my life (my middle school youth pastor) and I said, "Thank you." I'm not sure if that's what the pastor had in mind, but hopefully my meager card will make an impact. But wait, there's 58 cents left over! What will I do with this extra money? I'm sure that Jesus has a plan.
As I look at the dollar, I'm reminded of Jesus' miracle where He fed 5,000 people. In this miracle (recorded in Matthew 6; Mark 14; Luke 9; and John 6) Jesus was speaking to this large multitude of people for an extended period of time. When it came time for them to eat, the Disciples encouraged Jesus to send the people away so they could get food in the neighboring villages. Jesus astounded them when He said for them to feed the people. Where on earth were the disciples to get that much food. They'd seen Jesus do miraculous things, but now He expected them to do the impossible. Their faith was dwindling. But, in the midst of this debacle, a little boy offers a meager lunch of 5 loaves of bread and 2 small fish. I can only imagine the disciples as they (most likely) laughed at the little boy. "What good will that little lunch do for 5,000 people?" But Jesus accepted the boy's meager offering, and from it, did something ridiculous. He gave thanks to God and began to divide the food. He instructed the disciples to distribute the food to the people. I can only imagine their surprise when after distributing what Jesus had already given them, He gave them more to distribute. When all was said and done, not a single person left hungry. As if that wasn't enough, there was an abundance left over. They were probably wondering, what are we going to do with all this extra food? I'm sure that Jesus had a plan.
So what impact can a dollar make? Certainly none on it's own. However, in the hands of Jesus, the possibilities are endless. The real question becomes, "What can't a dollar do if we humbly bring it before Jesus?"
I finally decided to put that dollar in the hands of Jesus. As I thought about how I might impact a person's life, I was led to think of the people who have impacted mine. The funny thing about it is this: the things people did for me that made the biggest impact, never cost a thing. They were done with love with no expectation of anything in return. Whether it was sitting and listening to me pour out my heart about my problems or being there at a high school football game in which we were getting pounded 35-0. The things you remember most, seldom cost a thing, but the experiences can last a lifetime.
So here's what I did with my dollar; I bought a stamp and wrote a letter to a person who's made a significant impact on my life (my middle school youth pastor) and I said, "Thank you." I'm not sure if that's what the pastor had in mind, but hopefully my meager card will make an impact. But wait, there's 58 cents left over! What will I do with this extra money? I'm sure that Jesus has a plan.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
God is my Helmet
This past weekend I had the pleasure of speaking at a Middle School Ski retreat at Whitetail in Mercersburg, PA. It's funny, how at times you can speak to a group of students hoping to impart some wisdom to them that might help them come into a deeper (or even start a) relationship with God. However, in the end it's you who ends up learning something profound.
I've been snowboarding before, but I'd never worn a helmet (all the cool riders don't). Now, I am aware of my ability (or lack thereof) and I usually stick to the easy slopes; mostly greens and an ambitious blue from time to time. Well on this particular weekend, I decided that I was going to wear a helmet, because who knows what might happen (Like my friend Jason said, "I've spent a lot of money on the information in this head and I'd like to keep it"). Once getting over the fact that only one in ten people were wearing a helmet, wearing this helmet actually gave me confidence that I've never had before. I was always so cautious because I was afraid of hitting my head. With that fear out of the way, it actually made me a better snowboarder. On a snowboard, operating out of fear can actually make you fall. Snowboards are made to go fast and be maneuvered at faster speeds. If you aren't riding the edge, it's likely you are headed for a faceplant. I spent the better part of the first day on the blue slopes and then made my way over to the blacks where I spent all of the second day. I've never had so much fun. I joked with the students that my helmet made me invincible. Now let's face it, my helmet wasn't going to lead me to the winter X-Games and I wasn't going to attempt the long jump in the terrain park. In fact, I had some pretty bad wipeouts on just what I was doing. I can assure you that I got my money's worth out of that helmet. This one time, I was getting down the mountain pretty good when all of a sudden I caught a patch of ice. I lost control and my head slammed back against the ground. It still hurt and left my head ringing, but without that helmet, it would have probably been lights out. Not long after that, I made it to the bottom in one piece. As I was about to get on the lift to go back up and try it again, my board got stuck on a piece of wood. As I reached down to move my board, I got hit in the head with the chair lift. You get the idea. These are just a couple of reasons why I'm glad I wore a helmet. In the end, my helmet was never a restriction. In fact, it made my experience so much more fun than I could have ever had without it.
So what does this story have to do with God? This weekend, I gave 3 talks to the students about how God helps us through the mountains in our lives. From Psalm 121, I showed them that God has promised to be their strength and to watch over them; that if we trust in him, we need not fear any mountain that we might face. God is like that helmet that gave me so much confidence on the ski slopes. Romans 8:31 says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Having God as our helmet can give us the strength to face life without fear of wipeouts. We will still wipe out and it will still hurt, but knowing that God is watching over us can liberate us from the bondage of fear. We were never made to live in fear. In fact, fear in life (just like in snowboarding) can actually make us fail. We were made to take risks and to enjoy life. But most of all we were made to enjoy a relationship with our Creator. Without God, we are like snowboarders who fly down the black slopes with reckless abandon with no helmet to protect them if they fall. Or even worse we are like the poor fearful snowboarders who, no matter their experience, spend their entire lives on the green slopes too afraid to step up and tackle the exhilarating rush of the more difficult slopes. In the end both of these people eventually fall.
Like my helmet, God is not restrictive. The Bible is not a set of rules and “Thou shalt nots.” In fact the Bible is a guidebook that will show you how to enjoy life to the fullest with God as our helmet. God is not the enemy of fun; fear is the enemy of fun. So put on your Helmet and enjoy life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)