The Choice is Yours

At the end of Joshua's life he asks the people of Israel to make an important choice.  He says choose this day whom you will serve - whether it is the true God, or some other god, but make a decision and then he adds - as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  That same choice is given to us every single day.  We get to choose who or what we are going to worship.  This is an especially important choice with everything going on around us right now.  It would be very easy right now to "worship" our fear, our uncertainty.  It is easy to get lost in all of that and miss out on worshiping the only one who truly deserves our worship, the only one who can truly tell us who we are.  I don't think it is any coincidence that in the midst of all this God brought these words to the group Rend Collective - this is from their new album that just came out last week - the song is called "I Choose to Worship"

I choose to worship, I choose to bow
Though there's pain in the offering, I lay it down
Here in the conflict, when doubt surrounds
Though my soul is unravelling, I choose You now

I will praise You through the fire
Through the storm and through the flood
There is nothing that could ever steal my song
In the valley, You are worthy
You are good when life is not
You will always and forever be my song

Those words about being in the conflict, about doubt surrounding us - that sometimes life is not good.  Those are ringing true for so many people today.  This is definitely a "valley" time in most of our lives.  And yet the truth that cries out from this song is that God is still worthy.  That He is still good even when life is not.  We can still choose to worship him - that's the beautiful choice that God has given us.  In some ways it is a lot harder to make that choice right now - there is so much to distract us from it, to draw our attention away.  But on the other hand it is so great to make that choice, to put our hope, our joy, our trust, our faith into the only sure thing we have in the midst of all this uncertainty. 

The bridge of the song says this:

When the enemy says I'm done, I lift my praises
When my world comes crashing down, I lift my praises high
Till the darkness turns to dawn, I lift my praises
I choose to worship, I choose You now

All around us the enemy is whispering to people that we are done.  Instead of listening to him, we can lift out praises and drown him out.

All around us the world seems to be crashing down - but we can still lift high the name of Jesus.

Yes, there is darkness all around us, but there will be a dawn.  It might take longer than we want, but it will come, and until it does we can continue to praise our great God.

The choice to worship isn't about ignoring the things happening around us.

The choice to worship is about choosing God in the face of those things.

It is seeing all of that and still believing in the goodness and greatness of our God.

You can check out Rend Collective performing this song here.

And if you're on Facebook they have been doing some videos called "Socially Distant Worship Club" that have been really awesome - check them out.

Love you guys - see you soon.

Worshipping in Spirit, Truth and Your Bathrobe

In John 4, Jesus has what to the world would seem like an unlikely encounter.  In the first century men didn't typically engage women in conversation.  Jews and Samaritans also didn't just sit down and have casual chats.  And most women didn't show up to draw from the well in the heat of the middle of the day.  And yet we see all of those things happen here. 

Jesus hears that the Pharisees have started hearing about Him, and how they have basically started keeping score between Jesus and John when it came to baptisms.  So how does Jesus respond - He leaves the area - now that along could warrant it's own lengthy discussion but we will save that for another time.  Jesus leaves the area and it says in v.4 that he "had to go through Samaria."  Now at first glance we read that and think it was the only way to go, so he had to pass through there. Yes, it was the shortest way, the quickest route - but many a "good" Jew took the long way around just to avoid Samaria.  Jesus doesn't do that - in fact it says He "had" to go through it.  He has what many over the years have called a "divine appointment" that needed to be kept.  They come to a town called Sychar, it was the middle of the day and he takes a seat near the well and the disciples go to buy food.  While he is there this Samaritan woman comes to draw water.  This is not when anyone else comes to draw water - and based on her history that we learn a bit later, this is probably on purpose, so she can avoid all the other women.  But that doesn't deter Jesus - no he jumps across all these lines to talk to her - woman, Samaritan, bad reputation - Jesus doesn't care.  

He does something He does so often - He strikes up a conversation based on something completely normal and downright boring - a drink of water.  But quickly the conversation turns from Jesus taking a drink - to this woman experiencing living water and discussing the nature of worship with the Messiah himself.  Jesus reveals that He knows her story - 5 husbands, currently with a man who isn't.  But He doesn't say it accusingly, just matter of fact-ly.  She recognizes he must be from God and says that her ancestors worshiped on that very mountain, but the Jews say worship can only occur in Jerusalem.  And in v.21-24 we get this awesome response from Jesus - a response that we need today as well - he says "a time is coming when you will worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem....a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kinds of worshipers my Father seeks."  What Jesus is telling this woman is that your location is not what determines if you can worship.  It's not your past, your heritage, not your gender, your ethnicity - Jesus has already looked past all of those things.  What matters is our connection to Jesus - the living water.  What matters is our hearts connecting to the heart of the Father.  We like to put on our Sunday best - whether that is literal or figurative - we put on our churches faces, act like everything is find and gather together in a building and say that we have worshiped.  This woman experiences God, comes to understand worship not because of how "good" she is, not because of where she is - but because she is honest with Jesus, she tells the truth, even about her sordid past.  That allows her to worship God - and to do it exactly where she is.

Right now we can't gather together, we can't even attempt to put on that Sunday best and file into the sanctuary of our church.  But that doesn't mean we can't worship.  That doesn't mean we can't open our hearts up to God, be honest with Him and praise His name.  That can happen in a church building, that can happen in a living room, as you drive in your car, as you take a walk around the neighborhood.  True worship has nothing to do with a building.  It has everything to do with drinking of that living water and being refreshed by the love of Jesus.  It has everything to do with connecting our heart to the Father.  As we all deal with the chaos of the world around us this week - my prayer is that we would continue to worship in spirit and in truth, that we would take the time to connect our hearts to the Father.  Not only will we get more of Him, we will discover that He draws us closer together as well.  You see the Samaritan woman didn't just worship God alone.  She ran back into town and told everyone she could about this amazing man who told her everything she ever did.  She brought them to the well to meet Jesus.  What probably seemed like a shortcut to the disciples traveling with Jesus, turned into a 2 day visit and lead to others in the town saying "we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."  My prayer this week is that even in the midst of distancing ourselves, we would draw closer to that Savior, that we would worship Him in spirit and truth, right where we are.  And then when we do get to be back together, we will have such stories to tell of what God has been teaching us, what God has been showing us.  Love you guys - see you soon.

Do You Really Believe That?

You know those annoying people in school who loved taking tests? The ones who didn't seem to have any anxiety over it, they were just happy not to have to listen to a lecture. They would quickly fill out their test, hand it in and then just kick back in their chair, all nice and relaxed, while so many around them wanted to pull their hair out?  Yeah, that was me most of the time.  By the time I got to college I enjoyed tests even a little more because I no longer had to wait around, I was free to leave once that test was done.  I also grew up in a different time - a time when tests were much more about seeing what I knew, not grading my teacher, my principal and my entire school system.  I'll leave the modern day testing rant for another day, the point is that tests can show us what we really know - or in the case of spiritual tests, what we really believe.

Abraham has one of the most infamous tests of faith - he has already been through plenty of testing just having his son, Isaac, and then God comes to him and gives him some difficult instructions.  He says take your son and sacrifice him.  As many of us know Abraham gets up the next day and follows God's instructions, heads out to where God told him to go do this, and he has his son on the altar ready to follow God's instructions and God stops him, provides a ram for them to sacrifice, and father and son return home together.  Abraham's faith has been tested, and he shows that he really believes God, really trusts God.  In his book "Don't Give Up", Kyle Idleman talks about this same idea of testing and encourages us as believers to keep believing.  He shares the story of a couple from his church going through a tragic moment and the husband makes this profound statement - "I guess this is when I find out if I really believe what I say I believe."

Those words were eye opening for me this week as our church, along with so many others, adjusts to not meeting together in the same building.  Most Christians would be quick to tell you that church is not a building, that it is the people, that it is a family.  And most of the time they really mean it, and yet so much of our actions don't always back up those words.  We do the vast majority of our "church" stuff at the building.  We gather to worship, to pray, to study, to eat (we are Baptist).  Our spiritual activity becomes so centralized to this one place, and yet if you asked us if the church is the building or if it is the family, we would quickly answer - oh it's the family, it's the people.  Well this is where we get to "find out if I really believe what I say I believe."  Is our church bonded together in Christ, or in sitting across the room from each other?  Has the Holy Spirit really started forming us into a family, or do we just share the same address on Sunday mornings?  There will be plenty of ways that our faith, that our trust in God will be tested before all of this is over, but don't overlook this one.  Embrace it, look forward to the test, look forward to seeing God prove that His family is about much more than a building.  Be glad for the chance to be drawn closer to God and to each other, even when we have to worship from our own living rooms as opposed to an auditorium.  If we do, it will be that much sweeter when we do get to be together again. 

Love you guys - see you soon.

Strong Courageous Meditation

I am going to admit my personal bias now - I love the book of Joshua - it's my middle name, this book, this story of God leading his people into the promised land is literally where my name comes from - that is the reason my parents gave it to me.  So I have always had an affinity for it, but it also seems very timely for us right now.

The book begins right as Moses has died.  The entire nation of Israel is in a moment of great upheaval. Their leader, the person who had literally been the go between with God for them had died and it was time for not only a new leader, but it was finally time to go into the land that God had promised to them.  That task fell to Joshua - he had been right there with Moses for so many amazing things already, he had been trained as best someone could be for the task given to him, and yet when God comes to him in the first few verses of this book - it isn't to talk about strategy or logistics, it isn't to talk about how qualified (or not) Joshua might be for what is ahead.  But God gives him essentially two things to remember as he steps into to fill Moses shoes.

The first is to be strong and courageous.  Three times just between v.6-9 of the first chapter God says this, and that comes after God tells Joshua why he can be strong and courageous in verses 3-5 - but especially the last part of verse 5 where he says "as I was with Moses so I will be with you."  The reason Joshua can be strong and courageous has nothing to do with Joshua.  It has everything to do with God.  Joshua 1:9 hangs on the wall of my bedroom - in fact Joni and I both have a cross stitch of that verse which were made by the same woman and sent to us as graduation presents when we finished high school.  And in that verse God sums up why he begins by repeatedly telling Joshua to be strong and courageous.  It says "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL BE WITH YOU WHEREVER YOU GO".  Obviously I added the all caps, but I want you to see why we don't have to be afraid, why we don't live in fear.  It is not because there aren't things to be afraid of.  It isn't because we can handle anything that might come our way.  We don't have to be afraid because God goes with us.

Now there might have been a very logical question that just popped into your head - how do I know God goes with me - how do I know that I am going somewhere He wants me to go?  Well that brings up the second thing God mentions - in v.7-8 - that we need to be careful to obey all the law that Moses gave them.  That they should keep it always on their lips, that they should meditate on it day and night.  Do you want to know that God is with you during this chaotic time in our world?  Do you want to be strong and courageous and not live in fear because you know God is with you?  Do you want to have the peace that Paul talks about in Philippians 2 - a peace that surpasses understanding?  You find it in God, you find it by getting into His Word, by having it in your heart and mind - by meditating on it, reading it, studying it.  One of the most graphic, most disgusting, but also most useful illustrations I have ever heard for "meditating" was to compare it to a cow chewing the cud.  Cows have multiple stomachs, and they chew on that food, they swallow it down, digest some of it - then spit it back up and chew on it some more, then swallow it down to digest more of it.  That's what we should do with the Word of God - chew on it, digest some, then chew some more and get to digest more - over and over.

Are you feeling uneasy today?  Are you feeling anxious?  Do you need to be reminded - like Joshua did - to be strong and courageous?  The answer isn't found in summoning your own courage or resolve.  The answer is found in digging into God's Word - letting Him be your courage and your strength.  Love you guys - see you soon.

Raise a Hallelujah As You Learn to Lack Nothing

James 1:2-3
Consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

The implications of this verse seem pretty obvious in the midst of our current global crisis.  We are certainly facing many kinds of trials right now, and it seems like there is a new element added to it every day.  I wanted to share with you this morning some words of encouragement that I have been singing out over the past couple of weeks especially - it's from the song Raise a Hallelujah by Bethel Music, and the chorus says:

I'm gonna sing in the middle of the storm
Louder and louder you're gonna hear my praises roar
Up from the ashes hope will arise
Death is defeated the King is alive

Throughout the song it talks about raising a hallelujah in unlikely places, in scary places - in front of enemies, in the middle of the darkness, in the midst of the unknown.  That is where we find ourselves right now.  We don't know what is going to happen in the coming days, weeks, even months.  James would tell us not to be fearful, not to go cowering into the corner during these times.  James would tell us to look to Jesus and to be joyful that our faith has an opportunity to be strengthened.  That we should see the opportunity for perseverance to work in our lives and make us more mature, more complete.

So let me encourage you to raise a hallelujah this week.
Raise a hallelujah in the middle of the living room.
Raise a hallelujah with no one else around you - because we have to keep our distance.
Raise a hallelujah because the God that we praise, the God that we serve, the God that we love - is still the same God.  He is still deserving of every hallelujah we could ever give Him - and though we may have to keep our distance from one another - we should embrace the opportunity to draw closer to Him. 

Love you guys - see you soon.

Click here to check out the whole song

Nicodemus's Life Changing Conversation

In John 3 Nicodemus - a pharisee - comes to see Jesus.  He is curious.  He has seen Jesus at work and believes that Jesus must be from God.  He comes at night, and there is some debate as to whether that was to not be seen meeting with Jesus, or simply if this was the only time he thought he could get close enough to have this conversation and not be surrounded by the crowds.  Either way this conversation gives us the most often quoted verse in the entire Bible - John 3:16.  A verse so simple and widely known that people who never darken the doors of a church building can quote it, and yet at the same time a verse so vastly deep that it contains the entire Gospel in this one sentence.  Yet, as I read this conversation that verse, that sentence is not the main point that Jesus is talking to Nicodemus about.

The main point is what Jesus says back in verse 3 - "no one can see the Kingdom of God, unless he is born again."  John 3:16 explains why and how God makes it possible for us to be born again, but if we skip ahead to just verse 16 and miss verse 3 and all of the conversation in between then we have missed something incredibly important, and sadly many well intentioned folks in the church do just that.  We come to Jesus and we read about how he loves us, how that is why Jesus was sent into the world, that He was given for us, so that we can believe in Him and have eternal life.  But they just see all of that as an addition or an improvement to their current life.  They just see it as something to add to who they already are, but that isn't what Jesus has been talking to Nicodemus about.  He tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born again, that he needs to have an entirely new life.  Nicodemus apparently has a little bit of Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy in him because he takes this idea literally at first - asking how can this be, surely a man cannot enter his mother's womb a second time.  This has always been a very funny picture in our family.  I am 6'5", my mother is 5'4", being born again in that manner would require some serious clown car magic.  But of course that is not what Jesus is talking about - He is talking about a spiritual birth.  He is talking about making us into a new creation, the old passing away, the new beginning as we are filled with His Spirit and begin to live a new life.

Often this is an easier concept for those with a more "dramatic" testimony.  The people who have Saul on the Damascus road type changes in their life.  But sometimes for people who grew up in the church, or who were relatively "good" people this idea becomes harder to grasp, and I imagine that might have been the case for Nicodemus.  He is a well educated, religious man.  Everything we know about him points to him being an upstanding citizen and a good person in most people's eyes.  And I think there has to be some sense for him, and people like that, to ask themselves - is my life really so bad that I need a totally new one?  Can't Jesus just come in and add a little, help fix the areas that could use a little help, do some touch-ups here and there?  But do I really need a totally new life?  Jesus answer is absolutely YES.  Because no matter how good or bad you might be - it is still your life - and unless you have His life, unless you are born again with His Spirit - then it won't get you into the Kingdom of God, you won't get to see it unless you are born again.

Now, none of us remembers what it is like to be born the first time - thankfully.  And I personally have no idea what it is like to give birth - also rather thankful for that - all you mothers are amazing.  But I have seen both of my children be born and I can tell you this - it wasn't easy, and it wasn't comfortable.  If my first birth wasn't easy or comfortable - why do we so often act like our second birth is going to be easy and comfortable?  Yes God loves us - that's the reason He sent Jesus - and as verse 17 says Jesus came to save us - it is all good, awesome, amazing stuff.  But He didn't do that just to improve the life we already had.  He came to give us a totally new life, one that will require us to let go of the old one.  One that will require us to do some difficult and uncomfortable growing at times.  But it is a life that will last for eternity.  An eternity we get to spend with the God who loves us and gave himself for us.  We don't know how Nicodemus responded that night to his conversation with Jesus, but we do see him later on in the story of Jesus life.  He stands up for Jesus and tries to encourage his fellow religious leaders to actually talk with the man before condemning him, and when that condemnation eventually comes anyway, Nicodemus is one of the men who cares for Jesus body after the cross, who helps bury him in that tomb.  Of course we know that Jesus didn't stay there long - He came out with a new life, and He offers that new life to us, to all of those who would believe in Him.

Love you guys - see you soon.

A Letter From a Social Distance

It has been almost 2 years since I posted here - originally I started this blog to share about my first trip to South Africa, but at the time I had hopes of posting about more than just that.  That trip came and went - and I shared almost every day of the trip but then life went back to normal.  A week or two passed - I caught up on sleep, got back into the routine, but the blog didn't become part of that.  Now it has been two years - I even went back to South Africa - and yet I haven't posted anything to this blog. 

Enter the coronavirus and everyone's new favorite phrase "social distancing".  What do you do when you feel called to a be a "Family Together" and yet you can't be together?  The answer is you go old school and get technical at the same time.  The majority of the New Testament - the revelation of God's word to His people - the Church - are letters.  They are words of encouragement, instruction and insight written by someone who could not be with them in person, but who still desired to maintain connection and relationship - to be Family Together. 

I don't know what is going to happen over the next few weeks. As our church like many others makes changes to our regular schedule - we are all hoping for the best.  In fact, as I am writing this a notification popped up that the FDA has approved use of a malaria treatment that has shown good results against this virus.  But whether that or something else changes the course of this virus and the tension and anxiety around us - I want to use this space to encourage you, to remind you of what an amazing God we have, to share some Life Together with you, and continue to be a Family Together, even from a "social distance".  No matter what is happening in the world around us, no matter what happens to us - God is still God.  He hasn't changed.  As my favorite minor prophet Habakkuk says (3:17-18) "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior."

Be joyful - stick together (from a distance) - and remember that God is still our Savior.
Love you guys - see you soon.