On a Boat

There I sat after a long night of fishing with my two sons beside me. We were just headed back to the house after a long night of fishing. I had always loved these late night fishing trips with my two teenage sons. I knew on day they would take over my legacy as a fisherman. It was a good job, I got to own my own business and spend time with my two sons at the same time. Just us and the nets and a nigh of fishing. It was a good job, with a steady income and lots of good hard work.

We were just heading back in the morning, just needed to mend the nets and then off to get a little bit of much needed sleep. That's when I saw him coming down the beach. This carpenter they have all been talking about, the one who has been causing all the fuss around town. He was walking with two of my sons good friends Peter and his brother Andrew. Those two knuckle heads always had a knack at getting my boys into trouble. They were nice boys but unfortunately none too bright.

I thought to my self what have those two boys gotten mixed up in now with a trouble maker like this Jesus fellow. they were all coming down the beach toward us. I looked down the beach and saw Pete and Drew's boat was thrown up on the shore and turned over.

As they came closer the rising sun was in my eyes and all I could see was the foot prints in the wet sand as he came closer to us. In a few minutes they would pass my boat and my boys and I could get back to work. As he passed our boat he looked at my boys and said come with me and we can catch men together.

I thought what is he rambling on about, my boys aren't going with him anywhere they have work to do here with me, and you can't just drop everything when there is so much work to be done. That is just not how the world works.

To my great surprise from behind me I heard the sound of my boy's sandals hitting the wet sand with a plop. where the heck do they think they are going. James looks over at his brother John and they both look at me and say "what do you think dad lets go".

"Absolutely not. we have work to get done. What does this lunatic mean fishing for men." To my great dismay I watched my boys walk away. Just then I thought about going after them and dragging them back from to the boat. Then i thought better of it to myself "No Zebedee let them go. It won't be long before they realize you can't make any money fishing for men or whatever they are about to do, they will be back in less than a week, with all of this silliness behind them."

I just sat there in my boat all alone, watching my boys walk away. Soon all that was left was their footprints in the sand. The tide was coming up and soon even those would be gone. Well for me all there is to do is get back to work fixing my nets.



When I think about this bible story found in Matthew 4: 18-22 I think there is a man who life was changed forever by Jesus. Not the two boys who left everything they had to follow their destiny in one of the worlds greatest adventures, but the man who was left behind. The man who could have gone too but was to preoccupied with his own life to start something bigger.

Through out the rest of scripture, he never comes up again. His boys are referred to as the sons of Zebedee but his legacy is forever as the man who was called to follow Jesus but ended up staying where he was, safe ans secure in a place where he knew. His sons went on in history as an elite group of Christ followers, while he was left sitting alone on his boat.

We have all gotten this same invitation, to follow Him and leave the safety of the boat and be part of something bigger or stay where we are. I choose to leave my foot prints and the sand and walk with Jesus. What are you going to do?

God doesn't drive a rascal

Michelangelo (the painter, not the turtle) I would say is partly to blame for this problem we have. This view of God as a sweet old man. The man painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a sweet old man reaching down to his creation, as Adam lounges around and does nothing in particular. God is reaching down to Adam with one hand, and for his glass of Metamucil with the other.

For so long we have viewed God this way as the old man, who is still around and who did some great things in his time, but not is better suited for playing shuffle board all day, and taking our occasional calls when we still need Him.

He putts around all day in his cosmic retirement home, thinking about the good old days and waiting for us to come and visit him maybe once a week maybe, or only on the holidays like Easter and Christmas.

The problem with this view of God, is we have reduced him to a commodity that we have at our disposal but is not part of our fast paced lives. As long as we view God as this old man we can convince our self he would have no relevance to the world as it is today. As Long as God is an old man He won't understand all of the things we go through in the world today. As long as God is an old man, His book is old and outdated, nothing more than stories of His glory days.

Here is the problem...God is NOT an old man. He may be referred to as the Ancient of Days but he always has been and he always will be not as a old man but as a very real Part of the world today.

New Label or New Life?

Hypocritical
Too focused on converts
Anti Homosexual
Sheltered
Too political
Judgmental

I have lately be re-reading a book I read while I was in school called Unchristian by David Kinnaman. In this book Barna, a research group, have taken studies of people's views of Christians from the perspective of people outside of the church. After all of this research the six themes above stand out above all of the rest of the six most promenet views of people inside the church as seen from people on the outside.

As an insider these labels hurt me with in, not because they are false because all too often they are true. Not because that is what we teach or really who we are but it is because, that is what some of us have become, unfortunately.

I think our problem is deeply embedded in the very core of what most people believe it means to be a Christian. Outsiders look at our efforts to convert people the Christianity as just that a conversion process. Think about it in these terms, when a person from the united states drives into Canada they no longer judge their speed in miles per hours, instead they have to measure in Kilometers per hour. The only way to adjust to this in many American cars to do convert Km per hour into miles per hour. 1 km/h = 0.62137 mph

It is a rather simple conversion the only problem is a conversion is only changing the label not the speed. you are going the same speed whether you say you are going 20 miles and hour or 32.18 kilometers an hour you have changed nothing but the label.

The same is true if you convert a non-Christian to a Christian all you have done is changed the label without changing anything important. That is why people need to quit trying to convert people to Christian and start transforming people into Christians.


The first step is getting people to realize they need Jesus, that is where it has always started. Even the thief dying at the cross, it was all he needed to be saved, which is why Jesus said "today you will be with me in paradise." And that's all it takes to enter the Christian faith, with no questions asked no services rendered, shoot he never even went to church. But when did this starting point of the Christian faith become the substitute for Christian discipleship. We need to get away from the choose to convert label and approach and realize it is an all in or all out mentality that will radically and dramatically influence your life in all it facets. To change you from with in and make you the best and most glorious person God has always seen and expected. This is not a ticket to perfection but it has to be a lot more than just changing the label.

Pursuit of happiness

What is the meaning of our lives? Why are we here? What makes us happy? What is the point of our life while we are here?

All of these questions can be answered very different, I don't care how you would answer them. What I want to address is how I see other people addressing it. I see a whole world trying to address this need for a point in their lives with living for a life of pleasure.

They replace the need for meaning with the need to fill the voids in their lives with things that will make them temporarily feel better. This is a very common at at time effective tactic of avoiding addressing the meaninglessness of life here on this earth.

Solomon often in his writing says to the reader there is no point to this life we live on earth and urging the reader to look beyond this existence to what is to come. Because the only life worth living is a life lived for God.

Living life for pleasure instead of living life for God has its high costs. Let me stop here and preface this. Pleasure is not evil by itself. It is one of the great gifts God has given us to enjoy our life as we live it for him. The harm comes when you live your life for pleasure, when you seek it over God. This is why people who seek pleasure don't understand when we refrain from pleasure, why we don't go to certain parties, or avoid the harmful side of pleasures. "they think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you" (1 Peter 4:4)

Living for a life of pleasure distracts us from what really matters. Because that's what it means to live for a life of pleasure to distract your self from seeking a life with God. In the end seeking a life of pleasure leaves you as empty as any other thing in life apart from God.

Living for pleasure also makes you a slave to that pleasure. Your happiness and sense of being fulfilled is bound by the next opportunity of pleasure, you will always want more. More Alcohol, more drugs, more TV, more sex, more video games, more sleep, or whatever it is your are squeezing as relief. You will become a slave to it bound by it and tied to it. "at one time we too were foolish ...enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures." (Titus 3:3) Eventually you will sacrifice everything "He who loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich." (Proverbs 21:17)

Living for a life of pleasure hurts out relationship with God. Eventually if we keep living our life for pleasure. It is going to start to impact our relationship with God more and more, and eventually it can destroy it all together because we start putting things between us and God, distancing our selves from him.

Live your life for God and enjoy the pleasure of life that comes your way. The evening of laughter with friends, the good days in the sun. The wonderfulness that is life. Don't ruin the ride by being caught up in these moments enjoy them and let then pass a good memories. Don't let the lure of pleasure distract you from a life that truly matters.

Live life until you die, then that is when things really matter

Consistency

Consistency: Reliability or uniformity of successive results or events.

What does it means to be consistent. It means to be the same all of the time. It means when you trow a ball once or fifty times it hits the same spot.

There are a thousand books on spiritual growth. You can go on amazon right now and find over a thousand hits on books and tapes about spiritual growth. My system I think is better than all of the rest. they all include a strict regime of prayer, bible study, service, and community(duh). I don't think I would call that spiritual growth I think I would call that be a consistent Christian.

All of these spiritual growth curriculum deal with spiritual growth as if it happens in this perfect atmosphere. But it doesn't spiritual growth happens in the world. In a imperfect world. So spiritual growth has to be consistency in an inconsistent world.

Take one look at the book of Corinthians Paul is writing to a church and is addressing :affairs, lawsuits, divorce and separation, idol worship, selfishness, egos, jealousy, sexual promiscuity, and getting drunk on the communion wine. and all of the while giving this little church a glimpse of what Christ looks like. He is trying to get the point to them, that Christianity is not about what they do when they get together but also what they do while they are apart.

We all talk about love and how important is it but consistency means learning about love by love the unlovely. It means being the same person around your church friends as you are at school.

I'm not saying this is an easy thing to do. sometimes in our search for being consistent it means occasionally we will miss that's OK, its going to happen. But it does mean trying our best to be consistent.

This is a lesson that has taken me a long time to really understand. For years I was the guy who was the perfect little church boy while he was in church, but at school I was the same as every one else. I would justify it by saying i was still a Christian but people just didn't understand. I always told my self i could make fun of that kids like every one else, it didn't make me any less of a Christian did it. I didn't understand what it was doing to me, and more importantly every one else. It told every one else Christians are no different than any one else so why would they become one. And to me every time I let go of who i wanted to be, to be the guy who fit in it was a set back in my spiritual life because I was always struggling to get to where I was instead of moving forward.

"I'm not saying that i have this all together, that i have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward--- to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back."
-Paul-
(Phil 3: 12-14)

How unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our heavenly Father know us completely. No tale bearer can inform on us; no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us.

-A.W. Tozer The Knowledge of the Holy

There is a story in the Bible called the Woman at the well. To give a little back history Jesus is walking through Samaria a place to the north of Judea. While the Samaritans there believe in the same God and worship just the same they are looked at as half-breeds and a disgrace to the Jewish people, not even fit to worship in their temple so they had to build their own. It would be unheard of for a Jewish man to go and openly talk and consort with a Samaritan woman.

This didn't stop Jesus. He went up and talk to this woman, he sought her out knowing who she was and all that she had done with her life. This woman was a disgrace even among her own people. She kept getting divorces time and time again, and is now living with a man who was not her husband. she had lived a torrid life of sin and shame, and was alone at the well because no one wanted to be around here. But Jesus didn't care. He still sought her out and showed her love because its is what she needed.

Jesus doesn't want our past to be what defines us. He wants us to confront what we have done and just leave it with him. He wants us to live for the future and to dwell in his presence in the present. Not live in shame for the past.

It is no wonder after talking to Jesus this woman dropped her bucket and went screaming into the city, about this man Jesus who told her all she had done. She was no longer ashamed of her past, she embraced it and left it with Jesus. She knew she was not a respectable woman but Jesus respected her. Jesus doesn't see what the rest of us sees in our selves and in other he see the best of what we can be. He sees the redeemable teachable people beneath the past and the sin, and he knows when that is all lifted away what we are underneath.

The mess we have made in our lives, can be the place where we meet Jesus. Our daily lives is where Jesus walks up to us and says "It's OK, go and sin no more"

Unfinished

UNFINISHED- incomplete, imperfect, in process, in progress, under construction

Unfinished is how spirituality should always remain. No person is ever done cooking, no spiritual giant is ever done growing, and no one can remain an infant forever.

I have once thought as a child it was only a matter of time before I grow up and become the person I have always wanted to become. I thought if only I reach 18, I will be an adult, or if only I make it to twenty on I can be done, because I will be an adult. I have found a person never stops growing up.

It is OK not to be finished, it is OK not to be the person you want to be as long as you are growing towards that goal. Its OK as long as you are unfinished. I feel if you are happy with where you are with Christ it is only because you can't see where He is anymore.

What better way to describe your walk with God than unfinished, it is to say you are a work in progress, you are always trying to get better and become more, trying to be closer to where God is.

When God enters your life He starts a change in your life, but it then takes the rest of our lives for US to finish it. He begins the construction site in our souls but it is our job to finish building, its OK if the work isn't going as well as we like as long as we are still working. Because finishing a job like this is a more-than- a-lifetime process. One that will never be complete, but one i'll be working on until God tells me I'm finished, and what a day that will be.

The author of Hebrews wrote"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." 12:2

He was trying to say it is God alone who is the perfecter of our faith, not ourselves, not our church family, not our friends but God, who can tell us when things are done. because he is the perfecter and the finisher of our faith.

And we know Jesus was OK with imperfection and a work in progress because look at the twelve he brought along side of him. Twelve kids who never seemed to get things right but tried so hard. They weren't finished when Jesus left them to continue his work, they were scared and a little stupid, but they wanted so bad to do all they could to get it right even if they never did. They faced a life time of trying to finish the work he started and you and I do too.