The Three Little Christians

I apologize for how long it’s been since I’ve posted. Rather than make up an excuse, I’m gonna be honest. I just didn’t do it. But I was recently reminded that with great blogging comes great responsibility. So I’m gonna do my best to write every other week like I had promised.

I’ve recently thought about how Christianity is such a broad term in our culture. There are so many “Christians” out there that you begin to wonder how many people are actually followers of Christ. I’ve thought of the 3 most general practices we see as Christianity.

1) The Religious Guy: Here’s the guy that reads his Bible and prays every day, and then goes to his list of chores and checks devotions off of the list. This guy usually wears the Christian t-shirts as a drive-by tract. All talk, no action. I find myself acting as this guy a lot.

2) The Half-Christian: This may be the most common form of Christian we see in today’s society. This person goes to church on Christmas Eve and Easter. They typically cuss and gossip like everyone else, and if the subject of God comes up, they’re silent. If they do say they’re a Christian, it’s a big surprise to everyone. Usually prays very little. The Bible sits in a dusty drawer in their house. Lukewarm? You bet.

3) The Action Christian: This is who God calls us to be. They pray with a desire to speak with God. They read their Bible because they want to hear God’s voice in their lives. They’re often persecuted. They love people who hate them, and they’re merciful to those who doubt. They want to worship God because he is our creator and savior. Jesus was this guy.

So many times in our walk with God we tend to miss the bigger picture. Jesus never asked us to be him. Jesus asked us to follow him. “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:27

Life, Loss, and the Hope of Christ

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds” James 1:2

When you sit down and think about it, this verse sounds ridiculous. The words “joy” and “trials” never belong in the same sentence, yet it’s in the Bible. I recently had a friend who took his own life, and it’s during those times that I think to myself, “God, how could you possibly allow someone to suffer like that, and end up making us suffer for it, too? Why does this happen? If you love the people you created, why are they dying?” To us, these questions seem very legitamate. But are we God? Do we have any knowledge of the future? I think it’s also important to consider how God feels during these times:

“So he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him’…On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already beeen in the tomb for four days…When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’” John 11:14,17,32-36

This story of Jesus as he went to see his deceased friend Lazarus gives an example of how Jesus feels during times of mourning and loss. It hurts God to see his people hurting. Trials and testing are no more enjoyable for God than they are for us. But how does that scripture in James finish?

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces persererance.” James 1:2-3

We don’t face trials for no reason. God has a purpose behind it. When someone takes their own life, I don’t mean to say that it is part of God’s plan, but there is also hope in that: that God will take the tragedy that and the loss and use it for his glory. Because in the end, our lives serve one purpose. Glory to God.

Inside the Mind of an Easily Distracted Teenager

My dad once said something of stereotypes. He said that there’s a reason stereotypes are, in fact, stereotypes. They’re oftentimes true (to a certain degree).

A stereotype that often identifies with teens is that we are easily distracted. We have video games, cell phones, social network, etc. to distract us from life. But more importantly, they distract us from God. Romans 12:1 states, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-this is your true and proper worship.” God calls us to live lives that glorify him. We can’t do that when we’re distracted.

Training for swim season has begun, and at first I had mixed motives. I worked hard because I wanted to make my coach happy. I also did it to impress friends, family, etc. But those things distracted me from who I really should have been working hard for. Distractions are what cause people to stumble and fall off of the path. But as long as our eyes are on God, he’ll lead you away from things that don’t matter.

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31

Love Without Soul

Love is strange. It’s often defined as an emotion, something that elicits a positive response. People see love as a feeling that two people have for each other when dating or married. The dictionary has about twenty different definitions of the word love. This means that our world seems pretty confused on what love actually is. Love is such a complicated emotion, that we can barely describe it. But love is more than an emotion. Love is an action.

The World English Dictionary gives eighteen definitions of love, five of which are verbs. To tell the truth, there are some people that I really have a hard time loving. When I say loving, I mean love in an emotional way. When we have these kinds of people in our lives, we are called to turn love into a verb. Instead of trying to see love as an emotion, do things as Christ would, so people may see what love looks like as a verb.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” 1 John 3:16

Talking to God

I often find that people don’t really like to pray. Whether it’s praying in a group or in a private setting, there are certain situations where people don’t feel comfortable talking to God. That’s all praying is, talking to God. Yet people like myself often struggle with the simple act of talking to God every once in a while. For me, I struggle with praying in front of people. It’s not that I get nervous or uncofortable, but it doesn’t feel right. I feel like I have to put on a show, impress people with how I talk to God. So instead of thinking about talking to God, I”m thinking about how to choose my words, how to make it soud spiritual, all that stuff. How do you focus on talking to God without worrying about the people around you? Believe it or not, asking God to help you with your attitude when praying is the best way to do it. Praying isn’t an art, it’s talking to a friend you can’t see.

“Have You Met My Ego?”

Humility is hard to do. I used to think I was very humble, but that’s not what humility is at all. If you are holding the door open for someone and you think to yourself, “Man, I’m so humble,” I think you’re missing the bigger picture. I’ve caught myself doing that many times. I think humility really comes from the heart. You could open the door for someone out of your pride. You could do lots of “humble” things out of pride. I tend to do that often. Why do I do that?

Philippians 2:3 tells us, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”

True humility comes out of love. Not self-love but love for other people. It tends to be easier for me to do something for others because I want them to think that I’m humble. Is that true humility? It’s like saying that you feed your pet because you want to make it respect you, not because it needs food to survive. True humility is seeking the needs of others before seeking your own needs.

Louder than Words

“What I believe is not what I say I believe, what I believe is what I do.” -Donald Miller

If you asked me what I think about roller coasters, I might tell you that I love roller coasters. I’d tell you that no roller coaster is too extreme for me to handle. What if you and I went on a roller coaster, and I started feeling sick and had to use the bathroom afterwards? What does that say about me? Do you believe what I said, or do my actions convince you I don’t like roller coasters? If you asked me what I believe about God, I might tell you that I think that he loves us. I might also tell you that he wants us to share that love with others, that he calls us to follow him. But if you see me sitting at lunch cussing with my friends, making fun of other people, cheating on a test, do I really believe what I said?

When it comes to God, I like to talk about him a lot. I love it when I get the chance to talk about stuff related to God. Talking is so easy. Talking is easy because we can say whatever we want. We can say certain things to certain people, we can gossip, we can compliment, we can hurt, we can heal, we can do what we like with our words. The saying that “actions speak louder than words” is true. But I think that actions are more than that. Actions reveal our heart. They reveal who we truly are as a person. Saying we believe something is easy, but acting on what we believe is what we’re called to do.

Uh-oh. School’s Here.

Alright, so school isn’t actually that bad. But that does mean that were done taking a break and it’s time to get to work. This being my junior year of high school, I’ve realized it’s going to be really tough. This really could be a stressful year if I don’t know who I’m doing the work for. The school year usually comes to the point where you want to run away from everything until it’s all over. It happens to me at least once a year (usually during sports). Earlier I felt like I’d explode by the time winter rolls around. But then I was reminded of Proverbs 16:3

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”

So, that pretty much sums it up. Commit whatever you do to God. Commit schoolwork to God. Don’t do schoolwork because your teachers ask you to. Don’t do it because parents ask you to. Don’t do it because you want a good grade. Do it because God loves it when we trust him with this stuff, and he honors that.  Same goes with sports, music, and life.

The best part about this promise, is that God promises us success in the things we commit to him. I feel like when I commit schoolwork to God, it takes a lot of stress off of my shoulders. I know God will pull me through. Now who’s ready for school?

Rethinking Worship

I recently helped lead a summer camp for some middle school students at our church. We went to a ranch in Missouri where we played games, made friends, and connected with God. At this camp I got to see what it looked like to see these kids worshipping. It was awesome. Kids were feeling God speaking to them and reaching out to them in so many different ways. Kids were praying over each other, and crying out to God at the top of their lungs. Seeing all of this, I thought to myself about how I wanted that same feeling, how I desired to feel God during worship, and I felt a little jealous. Then I realized, “Do I actually think about what I’m singing to God, or do I just sing and raise my hands to look spiritual?” One of the songs we sang had a chorus that mentioned following God and asking God to let his will be done.

During that song I felt like God was prompting me to pray over one of the kids, but I was hesitant about doing so. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t want to. I made up excuses:

I’m tired. I don’t know what to say. Do they really need prayer?

 Then I heard God tell me this:

“How could you sing songs about wanting to follow Me when you ignore my voice?”

That night, God showed me what it means to truly worship and follow him. I walked over to the student and prayed over them, and then I really started to feel like I was truly worshipping God.

This whole experience reminds me of a story Jesus told in Luke 18:10-14

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Worship is more than a presentation of how “religious” you are. It’s about connecting to God and giving Him praise and thanks because of what He’s done for us. God isn’t about religion. He’s about love.