Celebreate to Guard Your Heart

Lately, I've been praying for my heart to be guarded and some females that I'm around as well as my wife. It's getting that time and I'm excitingly nervous. There are so many awesome beautiful girls here who just love Jesus, but at the same time I know I need to guard my heart and theirs.

My understanding of this was to withdraw. To hide and protect my heart like a treasure where no one can get to or see. Until I read was flipping through my Bible this morning and "guard your heart" stuck out to me...

He is saying to celebrate everything, not hide from it. Enjoy and celebrate everything how God has made it, then your heart will be better guarded.

It doesn't seem to make sense at first, but follow the thought. If you're rejoicing in everything that God has made how He has made it. Your heart is consumed by Him and His pleasure in us, in them, and in His own creation. He gets a kick out of us. He delights in us. How do I know? He created us! Why would He create something He didn't enjoy? Rather creating something He enjoyed, He invites us to celebrate all of it.

When we celebrate all of it, our hearts are flooded by His goodness and this peace that no one can explain comes over us. We realize what grace is to not have to be 100% detail oriented perfect, but instead are empowered by grace to walk in perfection. So we go enjoy Him and His creation (no not worshiping His creation, but worshiping Him through His creation). We enjoy everyone and everything He has created as it shines this hint of glory that captivates all of our senses.

So how are our hearts guarded? Because we've raised the standard of what is enjoyable. If we hide from everything, eventually one thing is going to carry a lot of God's awesomeness in it and it will attract us. If we celebrate everything, we enjoy it all, and our standards are raised even higher, expecting more of God, and celebrating and building up everyone we're around.  C.S. Lewis explained this idea in his book, "Weight of Glory."

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and to earnestly hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I suggest that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

So may you today be captivated and enjoy to celebrate everything, rather than trying to hide from the creation He made for you to enjoy. Celebrate everything. Give heartfelt thanks. Keep praying for what you deeply desire and you'll have unexplainable peace and your heart will be guarded. Go enjoy.

You're now Righteous.

Blows my mind.

When you accept Jesus - not when you do something right, become a "good Christian," do enough good things, walk with God and be faithful, pray for others, witness or any of that stuff that is good in place - God hears you. Step one, realize you're not perfect and that you can't be perfect as long as you try. Step two, realize that Jesus is a real dude and really is God's Son. He is perfect and died so you could be perfect. Then He came back to life, so that you can live beyond death. Step three, decide you want that plan rather than your own plan of sucking at life and struggling. Um...  Yes? It's not a trick question, it really is that good of a deal.

Ok. Yes.

BAM!
Instantly now you are on the same level as Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Francis Chan, Bill Johnson, Mark Driscoll, St. Francis of Assisi, Paul the Apostle who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, Mary - Jesus' Mama, Moses, Abraham, Adam (first and original), John (dude who got to go into heaven to see end of the world), Elijah, and a man who radically revolutionized the world... Jesus. Yes, you now have the righteousness of Christ. Instantly, God hears and answers you. How does that happen? It's impossible to earn grace, so it's grace given to YOU! No one earned it, so everyone's on the same playing field. We've all been given the same invitation. There's front row or nose bleed section - it's all equal playing field of the Righteousness of Christ put on us. Instantly we're transformed.

Let me share a story to illustrate my point. It's from Chris Overstreet's book called "A Practical Guide to Evanglism - Supernaturally."

Years ago in South Africa, we prayed for a family who all received Jesus into their hearts. One of the younger brothers had a problem in his stomach and needed prayer for healing. I asked his older brother, "Would you like to pray for your brother? You just received Jesus into your heart. And the Lord Jesus hears you just as much as He hears me. It's normal for believers to move in power. So go ahead and lay your hand on his stomach and command all the pain to leave." 

As He did that, all the pain left his brother's body. This story illustrates to us that as soon as a person becomes a believer, they can operate in the Kingdom and demonstrate God's power in miracles, signs, and wonders. 

How awesome is that? How normal should that be? Ok, now you've got Jesus inside, go be moved by His love and show more people His love in all of it's variety. We don't have to learn more or be equipped or "walk with God" for so long. No it's because it's not about you or what you've done to prove God's faithfulness. It's about Christ's faithfulness and Him now being in you. So don't worry about what you have or haven't done or how "equipped" or "knowledgeable" or "faithful" you've been. Just let Jesus be Jesus in you and go.

Answering before.

Israel Houghton was visiting a friend, Bishop Garlington, and began telling him about his morning apologies to his wife. Israel said every morning, he'd roll over and look at his wife and say, "I'm sorry." She asked what for? He would explain, "Well, I know throughout the day, I'm going to do something that upsets or offends you on purpose or on accident, so I thought I'd just go ahead and say 'I'm sorry' now before I do it."

Bishop Garlington laughed as he told us this story last week. Then, he gave that kind of chuckle that says "Boy, I didn't know what I was getting into." A few days after this original conversation, Bishop woke up and God said, "Say 'Yes.'"

Confused, Bishop asked, "Say 'Yes' to what?"

God replied, "Sometime throughout the day, I'm going to ask you to do something, so just say 'Yes' now and we'll go ahead and get it out of the way." So Bishop did, and so God did.

The idea is that our lives our His. He invites us to join Him in the fun, but most of the time we are frustrated with life because of 1 of 2 reasons. 1) Satan is trying to pretend he has authority in our life and we believe and empower him to mess with us, or 2) our lives our divided. We've got one foot in one wagon and one foot in the other and the wagons are trying to split. Saying "Yes" at the beginning of the day moves you over into one wagon where you can enjoy the ride. Many times we'll say we want to hear God or do what He says, but when that time comes we really have our own plans and dreams that we'd rather pursue.  So lets make our live easier and just say 'Yes.'  I'm around awesome people who are doing incredible stuff for Jesus. What makes them special or unique? They just keep saying 'Yes.' That's it. So my challenge to you for today or tomorrow. Just tell God 'Yes.' Before we start, "Yes."

Different Creation - That Red Bear.

A man named Ron Dubren walks up to a yard sale and starts looking around for what "treasures" he can find. He goes through the toys first, then the electronics, looks at the movies, considers the lawn equipment and meets his wife over at the clothes section to see what she's picked out for him. As his wife continues to barter, he wonders over to see what there little boy is looking at. Of course, the toys. He picks up one toy at a time, tries to figure out what it is, then determines if he should put it in the box next to it or his little pile he wishes to take home. He stops and gets confused by one red bear. It's a red stuffed animal looking bear. It had a child-friendly face with big eyes and a button nose, although one eye is now missing. The fur is a little dirty but that's not what catches his eye. The child has noticed that the bear has a hard place in it's right paw. From his other toy playing experience, he knows it's a clicker, something that will make the bear do something, but what will it do? He clicks and clicks. Squeezes. Presses the buttoned hand. He shakes it a bit. Even tries to open up the back panel to see if there are batteries in it for this toy to come to life. Nothing. So he tosses it to the next box and begins to reach for the next one. He catches his father's guiding view beside him and grabs the red bear back. "Dad, what is this? It won't work. What's this supposed to do? Help it wake up."

It's interesting how when I was a kid (now I feel old saying that), a bear was just a bear and it was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. Be a bear and it was up to you to make it come alive. But the point of the story is that the boy knew that there was something else to it. If the hands and belly would have been plush, he would have known it was just a bear and that would have been enough. But he noticed something about the bear that wasn't normal and knew it had to do something else.

You can know what something is based upon what it originally did. This little boy knows that something is different about this red bear because there are pieces in it that don't make sense - just being there. So he begins to try to figure it out. Why does it have these pieces? What do they do? What does it do?

What I love about the little boy is that he's curious and he doesn't just pass things over as broken. He thinks and thinks and tries things out that he knows. Then he takes it to his dad and asks Him, "what's this supposed to do?" He knows it's something good. He knows it's something fun. He wants to enjoy it and he knows his dad will know.

The boy's daddy, Ron Dubren, is a toy inventor. He's created or been a part of creating numerous board games for the last 20 years, and other inventions like the Looney Tunes PEZ dispensers, and of course, everyone's favorite red bear that laughs when you squeeze his hand - Tickle Me Elmo.

Perhaps you can already see where I'm going with this. "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, everyone one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you." - Ps 139:14-18.

Man, I know I'm different. I know that I have things in me that need to come alive. I have boxes in my hands, feelings in my heart, natural desires for certain areas of life. I know there's something there. I know it's good. I know it's fun. I know it's for a purpose...but I have no idea what to do with it yet. I'm learning, but I'm also finding out more and more that a toy maker delights in the toy. He enjoys the toy. Yes, it's for a purpose, but he just straight up enjoys it. No inventor makes a creation for himself he doesn't enjoy. He created us awesome. We may be or have been that messed up red bear at the yard sale, but he can take us home, give us new fur, a new set of eyes, and put new energy in us to make us come alive. God was in a good mood during creation and delighted in us. Through Song of Solomon we have this repetitive idea of "delighting." Through out the NT we see Jesus restoring things back to their original intent: blind eyes restored to work like they should, lame legs restored to work as they should, people restored into relationship as they should be, Paul's zeal restored to be used as it should be, the disciples fisherman based heart restored as to what it should be, marriages restored to what they were supposed to be, men returned to their real masculine role, women returned to their real feminine role,(don't take that bad, it's a good thing), soldiers learning restored and learning to re-aim their warfare, philosophers restored and learning how to use their brilliant minds accordingly, it's stories of hundreds and thousands of people being restored and using the way they were naturally wired, now re-calibrated back to the original settings to glorify God. "God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." - John Piper. We were made to be enjoy God, be enjoyed by God, and do what He created us to do naturally.

Now we get to be that little boy and go, "Dad. What is this? What's it supposed to do? Help it wake up." Then, be enjoyed by God for simply just being. Where we don't have to try to do something, we just do what we were created to do - be with Him, respond how we're wired, and laugh when he tickles us.

Jesus is into Resurrections and Life

"Jesus is into resurrections more than seeing things die." This is the idea I woke up with.

This is a little long, but it's a lot of course correcting and explaining arguments before their made. 

This is the idea that in the church, we are passionately following Jesus to the cross, but we don't really celebrate the new life of the resurrection. I've heard many people comment on how the Catholic crosses keep Jesus on the cross, but protestant crosses have Jesus off of it because He's resurrected. I'm afraid we have Him off the cross but forget to live life out that way. Since the Spirit makes us look like Jesus (Romans 8:29) and we received the Him after the cross, when Jesus was resurrected and glorified, then we too are conformed into THAT image of Jesus (post cross, not heading towards it). We don't have to drudge towards the cross in a daily dying life cycle, we have already died with Christ and now are resurrected and alive with Him.

Old Way of Thinking:
I won't lie. This process hasn't been an easy one for me and I've argued with lots of people against this because of what I had been taught, raised, and how I understood God. The big idea was that I thought was "You were a sinner, Jesus died and saved you. Now you're a sinner saved by grace and Jesus will continually free you more and more from your sin, and ultimately you'll be free from sin when you die then get to see Jesus face to face." Perhaps this is what many of us understand. I'm staring to see some scripture that disagrees with this and some fallacies in this process. I think we would all agree that the Bible has to explain our experiences, not our experiences explain the Bible.

Fallacies:
The first fallacy is that physical death is the solution to your sin problem, not Jesus payment on the cross. Waiting to die to be free from sin, means that sin is what sets you free. "Thanks be to God...[for we] having being set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness." (Romans 6:17-18).

The second fallacy is that eternal life is thought to happen when you physically die. "I'm excited to die so I can see Jesus face to face." is a common expression I hear people say as if they can't see/know Jesus now. Jesus said, "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." (John 17:3) Jesus said eternal life is knowing God and Jesus - which starts the day you become a Christian. (Examples of knowing Him and His will Eph 1:9, 3:3, 3:5). Also we see multiple people getting to encounter Jesus when He wasn't physically on earth such as Isaiah, Saul/Paul, John (revelation). Jesus died so we could know God, not so we could go to heaven when we die. "Know" is not a head knowledge but a "know" like a husband "knows" his wife. They experience and intimately interact each other. Same way we are made to experience and intimately interact with each other - that's eternal life.

The third fallacy is identity. You are not a sinner saved by grace. Either you're a sinner, or you're a Christian. If you're a Christian, then are no longer a slave, but you are a friend of God (John 15:15), and now made a son or daughter of God and a co-heir to the throne with Jesus (Romans 8:14-17). You are now royalty. You're a Prince or Princess to Father God/Abba Father/Daddy God/Papa God/King Dad/Daddy.We are made into Christ's image to be Servant Kings and Servant Queens. This means we act like Kings and Queens who serve, not as slaves who are playing dress up for a time but have to take it off at the end of the day and return to reality. The earth is your inheritance. If you really know Jesus, you don't care a lot about getting the earth though, you just realize it's at your disposal as a resource to love and serve Him and others well.

You're dead. Now Alive.

Onto the fact that you, as a Christian, if you have accepted Jesus, are no longer who you used to be. (2 Cor 5:17)  That person is DEAD and you have been resurrected, made alive in Christ. (Romans 6). You can't be that old person anymore. Those tendencies have died, stop going back and bringing them back to life. Lets look at Romans 6 notice the death and alive parts to sin and the verb tenses (past, present, future).

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus whoever baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we too might walk in the newness of life.

 For if we have been united with Him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the dead he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Note: not a future "once you die" idea, but a current lifestyle change.)

 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey it's passions. (It's been killed, don't let it pretend to come back.) Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness  but present yourselves to God as though who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but grace. - (Romans 6:1-14 ESV)

Can you see his point? You and it's power in you has DIED. Die - to cease to exist.  So Paul is saying, now that that part of you is dead, don't allow outward forces to make you do what you don't want to do anymore. You don't have to you're dead. He goes on to explain now your natural tendency, your slave behavior is to do righteousness - it's to do right.  "Thanks be to God, that you whoever were once slaves to sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of the teaching church you were committed." (6:17) 

I'd really like you to go through Romans 5-8 and note how many times it says death or dead - I think it's like 44 times. He's really driving home this point that you're dead. I challenge you to read it, but not in the way you've been taught it. Imagine, just humor me, reading it in a way saying that when Christ died on the cross, He broke sins ability to control you anymore. As soon as you accept Him and He comes in you, you have the ability to refuse sin and not do it. That Christ on the cross broke every chain and stronghold. Don't listen to your experience that tells you "but I keep sinning even after I'm a Christian and I can't stop it." Try to separate yourself from that thought, and read the Bible. (You'll notice when he write to Rome, he's been around the block a few times and knows all the usual arguments. He writes and sets up an argument then destroys it. 5 Explains how it's through faith and through Jesus we're saved. 6 explains we're dead to sin. 7 explains the law wasn't good enough. 8 tells us now where we are.) 

Question: What about Romans 7 - the "internal struggle"?
Isn't Paul talking about our who natures dueling it out? No. He said you're old nature is dead, finished, kaput, ceased, no more. That's not you anymore. 

So in the beginning of 7 He switches from "dead to sin" to "dead to the law" and explains that "while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our  members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive..." (7:5-6) So he clarifies. "Wait, the law is good. The law told me what is good and Holy, sin then jumped on that and made me want to do the opposite of it." Then he elaborates "I know the law is good and I want to do good, but my flesh always wants to do bad and the sin. So what can I do?! Who can help me?!  Jesus! Jesus can save me. My mind wants to do the law but my body wants to do sin. (Don't stop at the end of chapter 7). SO there's no guilt or condemnation or shame in Jesus. The law was supposed to set me free but it couldn't because it was weakened by the flesh, but Jesus did what it couldn't. (The chapter break throws things off but he's discussing how the law is inadequate to change his desires and tendencies, but Jesus is and did.) If someone is in the flesh and it'll lead to death, but if they're in the Spirit and they'll have life and peace. (Notice: 8:5-9 he is objectively stating what happens. Then verse 9, he switches back to talking to the Romans directly.) "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you." (Aka: You're in the Spirit and free if you're a Christian. You don't have to sin anymore. It's not normal for you to do anymore.)

But I still sin... 
Yes, you can. But it's your choice, you're not forced to. "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (6:16) He's saying, yeah, you're free. "So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." (7:17) Sin is separate from you. It's not you. You are not sin. You can do with your body whatever you want. This means, you can actually go a time period 5 minutes, an hour, multiple hours, days, weeks without sinning. Jesus is that strong. But, if you keep listening to the lie that you're sinful and you can't help but sin, then you stay in that relationship doing that thing. It's like a woman who's in an abusive relationship. You can get her out of the house and away from the man so she can go free, but if she continues to believe the lie that "he loves her" or "no one else wants her" then she'll freely go back into that house and be abused. Don't listen to the lie that you're not free, that you have to do it, or that death will set you free. No. Jesus set you free and is calling you to greatness, not to just be sinless. Don't confuse "Holy" for "sinless" it's so much more. It's actually not a pull you out of the negative, but a "set apart" launch you into greatness. 

Don't feel guilty - that's also not from God. It's the idea of changing from being "sin conscious" to "righteous conscious." Feel loved and free and begin to dream of what possibilities God can do through you. Instead of saying "don't sin, don't sin, don't sin." You say, "what good can we do today?"  Run after those. If you stumble, then you tripped. You're above that. That's not who you are anymore. Move on. You didn't shackle yourself back into the house with the abusive man. Jesus broke those chains so it's impossible to be shackled again even if you wanted to. Go free. Enjoy freedom. Grace is not just a nice term, it's the empowerment of God in your life to change. You've been given grace to not have to listen to that lie or stay in there anymore. You're free now, go be free. It sounds too good to be true, it's because it's God. He is too good to fathom. Jesus really did set you free from sin. It's not just an idea and it's not for heaven. He's that good, that powerful, and that awesome.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." - John 10:10

The point is life. It's not death. It's not sin. It's life. It's for freedom. Go live life free and abundantly. It's been given to you. Walk in it. Walk in Him. Walk with Him. Go enjoy and live life. You've been resurrected. You don't exist anymore. It's now Christ in you. (Gal 2:20). Live life and live life fully. 

Bible - Stories Coming Alive

I love being in a place where I see things that I read about in the Bible happening on a daily basis. People are getting healed from rheumatoid arthritis to scoliosis, a shorted leg has grown out, hymens have grown back (testimony haven't actually seen it), and one girl got to enjoy pizza after being lactose intolerant  It's beautiful to see what Jesus is doing here. Now, I read the Bible with so much more reality. I see the things that they did and the disciples and crowds reaction and I'm like "I KNOW THAT! I'M THAT WAY TOO!" I'm enthralled with the Bible and the gospels now even more because I'm like "He actually did that? Lets do that!" or "If that's possible...that means THIS is possible." Then we see Jesus do it and I flip out again!

The point of the Bible is to reveal God. It's to invite us into a relationship with Him so that we could walk and talk with God, not know His book and His writings. (Nothing against the Bible, I love the Bible, but the Bible isn't God.) We have a relationship with God not the Bible. Jesus said "my sheep know my voice" (John 10:27) and "Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice" (John 18:37). I believe that everyone who is a Christian has the Holy Spirit and can hear God's voice. If you think you don't, I think you probably do, but you just don't recognize it as God's voice. I'm not trying to shame anyone, I'm just saying Jesus died so that we could have eternal life - which is knowing God and Jesus Christ not going to heaven (John 17:3). Heaven is an added bonus later on. We know God now and can talk to Him now. But back to the Bible point...

I know some people are die-hard KJV only. I'm not going to argue this point. I'm only going to propose an idea. It's really fun and interesting to read other translations of the Bible - especially the gospels. You can pick up the story really well as it's written in different wordings. You're not proving any theological point or dissecting it. Just reading the story. 

I know some people will say, "Well, God keeps teaching me from my translation of the Bible so why do I need another one?"  My thought is, "I want all God wants to teach and show me about Himself. He teaches me through my translation too, but I'll read and reread and read other translations so I get a fuller picture of what happened. I'll read all sorts of translations if the Holy Spirit wants to spark something through it. If people want to argue that it can't be changed, I would propose the idea that they already read other Christian books that paraphrase the story and learn from them, why not another translation of the Bible? The point is to know God and how He works, not to be the most skilled at Biblical knowledge- that was the Pharisees issue. They fought so hard to keep the "words of God" that they missed God. (God will never contradict the Bible, but He can contradict our understanding of the Bible - ask the Pharisee's or people who are just in ministry and trying to walk it out and still learning.) 

Here's what it comes down to and what I want to put forth. I think the NLT is pretty decent translation and reads very smoothly. Again, not tearing things apart, just getting a picture of how Jesus walked and interacted on earth. I just read John 5 and 6 today and love it! Jesus cracks me up and watching the interaction with people is so cool. John all together is cool, but that's where I'm at today. 

I hope your blessed and get to enjoy Jesus more today and walk with Him more throughout your day.