A 2-Week Challenge

Tonight our small group met. We've been talking (based on a teaching by Andy Stanley) about margins in our lives - the time, space, energy, emotion, etc. that we have left over - the resources we have available to dedicate to God, family, and all those things that SHOULD be our priority, but that seem to be squeezed out by daily life. The idea being that when we over-schedule, over-commit, over-do, we chip away at our margins - our reserve, our borders, our boundaries - until we're right at the edge of our max capacity. When we live without margins, we have no time; we have no energy; we have no patience; we have no mercy; our relationships with each other suffer; our relationship with God suffers.

The focus tonight was understanding inherent limitations on our time, and then taking the next step to surrender our time-management to God, and allow Him to lead and direct us with regards to how our time is spent. The key to prioritizing and utilizing our time to the fullest is to give God our time.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33, NAS)

When we seek Him first, we are promised that all the other things we spend our time seeking after will be given to us. When we seek Him, we begin to know Him and to know His heart. We begin to understand His priorities, and we want those to be our priorities as well. When our priorities are in line with His, we will spend our time on those things that matter most. By spending time with Him and seeking to know His heart, we will inherently shift the way we spend our time, and we will begin to spend it in the best possible way on the things that matter most.

In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:6, KJV) This was one of the first verses I ever committed to memory, because it hung on a plaque on the wall in our house when I was a child. The more hectic life becomes, and the more craziness that comes my way, the more clearly this verse rings true. When we acknowledge Him and spend time with Him, He gives us direction and leads us where we should go. He will direct us as to how our time would best be spent.

As a group, tonight we put out a challenge to each other: to give God the first 15 minutes of each day for the next 2 weeks until we meet again. By giving Him the first portion of our day, we have the opportunity to set the course of our day, to invite Him into every moment and every circumstance, to turn it over to Him completely, and to get our hearts and minds focused on Him before anything else creeps in to steal our time and attention. I know 15 minutes isn't much, but if it is done with a right heart, I believe it can make a big difference - not only for all of the reasons I just mentioned, but also because when we honor God with our time and attention, and with a heart that is truly open to Him, I believe He is faithful to His Word and all that He promises for those who will diligently seek Him. In my own life, I have seen that when I am faithful to give my time to God, somehow my time I have remaining runs more smoothly, and I operate more efficiently than I otherwise would. Somehow, even when I think I don't have time for Him because I have so much else to do, if I give Him my time anyway, it seems that everything else still manages to get done. Interesting how that works. (Sorry, I got off on a tangent.)

I'm excited to see how the next few weeks go. I'm hoping that I am up to the challenge. It's so easy to compromise and give up those first few minutes of the day to so many other things that seem so pressing...like sleep??? or rushing to get the kids ready on time??? A few of us have decided to do a sort of self-guided Bible study to keep some accountability and some focus for those of us who may tend to struggle for one reason or another. We've decided to simply take a book of the Bible (we've chosen Mark) and start at the beginning. We'll go through it bit by bit, and share our thoughts and our understanding etc. I think this is going to be an awesome opportunity for us to grow closer to God, and for us to grow closer together. I'm very excited!

Overcomplicated?

Today I had a conversation with someone I respect immensely. I always enjoy our conversations because he has interesting perspective and insight on just about everything it seems. Anyway, today he said something that has gotten me thinking. He said, our focus in living a life for the advancement of God's kingdom can really be narrowed down to 2 things: 1) reaching the lost, 2) helping those who are reached find their place in the body of Christ. He observed, and I would agree, that we seem to really overcomplicate things and make it so hard. It's really not. If we would run everything we do through this test, we could quickly weed out the complications: is what I'm doing working to reach and save the lost? or is it helping someone who has received Jesus find their way to that sweet spot where God has designed them to be?

The Bible tells us that we have been created with a specific purpose in mind, and that God, long ago, prepared good things for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10 (NLT) - For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago) So this has got me thinking a bit - examining and evaluating my own life and actions. How much of what I do is lending itself to these two basic elements of God's work - reaching the lost and helping each other live in the midst of what we have been created for? We can only carry out the fullest portion of God's plan for our lives when we are living in alignment with His plan and purpose for us. Furthermore, the Bible makes it clear that it is God's intention for us to function as a united body, not as individuals. So, we are most likely to succeed when we work together toward a common goal, helping each other along the way.

Look at this same passage of Scripture in another version of the Bible:

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
(Ephesians 2:7-10, The Message)

Again, I come back to the idea that we've been apathetic for far to long. I really believe that if we are not living in the midst of this place that God has designed for us, we cannot be happy. I think that probably has a lot to do with why there are so many unhappy, unfulfilled, lukewarm (and on and on) Christians. I think it's a lot of the reason why people fall away from the church. They feel like they've tried the church thing, and there was nothing there for them. But going to church is not the same as living for God, and letting Him lead and guide the steps of our lives. It's not the same as living in the midst of God's purpose. That's awesome!

So many of us are takers when it comes to our church experience. We go to get something- to get a blessing, to get a lesson, to get a good feeling. When that's our mindset, we're only living out half of the equation, and, by the nature of things, we are out of balance and incomplete. We have been designed in God's likeness, and God is a giver. We are designed to be givers. We are to give of ourselves, our hearts, our energy, our love, our resources, our time, and all that God has given to us. We aren't meant to receive from God so that we can hoard it all up. What we receive from Him is intended to pass through us and onto someone else, and on to someone else from them, and so on, like a river flows. A body of water that's not flowing becomes stale and stagnate. So does a Christian whose not giving, whose not reaching, whose not helping and loving.

I believe with all that is in me that it all comes down to what motivates us. What is our driving force? It is my sincere prayer that every person who calls themselves a Christian, and who has made themselves open and available to God will be moved to a place in their hearts where they are motivated by eternal things much more than they are by earthly things. To be driven by the same things that drive God - to know His heart and be moved by it. When His priorities are ours, we will inherently find ourselves focused on reaching the lost and helping those who are saved live out the purpose for which they have been created.

God does not complicate matters. Why do we?

A prayer for the Finish

Lord, that You have trusted your will, Your plan, into the hands of humanity, I do not understand. For we are untrustworthy, and so unlikely to handle it properly. How long must You wait until we get it right? How long will our selfishness, our self-serving hearts, delay the completion of all You have desired? How long must You wait before we finally go unto all the world - until every man has heard and has been given the opportunity to choose You - until Your will is made complete?

Can twelve men change the course of the world, spread Your word so truly in so little time, and yet one billion cannot finish what twelve men started? How can that be? Do we not love You enough to do Your will? Do we not long to see Your triumphant return? Do we not hope to finally look upon You with our eyes as well as with our hearts - do we not hold the hope of eternity spent with You? What is it that roots us to the ground, that holds us where we are, keeping us from moving forward, going and doing?

Lord, You alone can get inside a man and get to the heart of a matter. In Jesus' mighty name, with all that is in me, I pray that You would get deep into the heart of every believer and break away and destroy the ties that hold us where we are. God, move in - invade - every heart that has been made available to You. Change the heart, transform it and bring healing, that the heart would drive the man. Lord, let Your people be truly Yours, and let us be driven by what drives You, and motivated by the eternal.

Father, find those who even now are ready and willing to do Your will, to sacrifice in the flesh for the sake of spiritual gain. Raise them up, God, according to Your will, and place them in positions of influence - not only over non-believers, but over believers as well. God, that a life lived out as an act of worship to You from a position of influence would impact others to also live their lives unto You.

Lord, raise us up, and bring us together, in unity, undivided, bound together in humility by bonds of genuine love for You and for each other. Let us move in one direction - Your direction. Let us act in one accord for the sole purpose of completing Your perfect plan. Let us come the end of our lives and be able to declare, as You did Jesus, 'It is Finished. I have completed all that the Father has laid before me.' Let Your kingdom come and Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Let us finish that which twelve men started two thousand years ago. Let it begin now. Let us not delay for any reason, but let us begin, so that through us, You may finish it. Amen.

I know that You can do all things, and that no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted. (Job 42:2)

Essentially One

I came across something in my study time that is so cool to me, and I want to share. Hopefully someone who reads this will get a little excited about this like I did.

Philippians 2:6-7 - (About Jesus) Who, although being essentially one with God, and in the form of God, possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God, did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained, but stripped Himself of all privileges and rightful dignity so as to...become like men, and He was born a human being.

Essentially one with God. Out of curiosity, I looked up the dictionary definition of 'essentially.' Websters has this to say about the word:

• having the intrinsic fundamental nature of something
• inherent
• absolute, complete and perfect
• containing or having the properties of; a concentrated extract of (ex. - a food or plant oil extract)
• " essential, in strict usage, is that which constitutes the absolute essence or the fundamental nature of a thing, and therefore must be present for the thing to exist, function, etc."

Wow. Wow. Wow. I mean, I would try to highlight the best parts, but each bullet point is awesome!

I've shared before that someone once asked me a simple question - 'are God and Jesus the same person?' That one question threw me for such a loop, because I realized that I didn't have a solid understanding of its answer. I was tossed into one of the deepest and darkest periods of doubt and struggle in all of my Christian walk. I've also shared before that slowly God has revealed the truth of the matter to me in a way that I can understand. I've put His answers through extreme scrutiny in my own heart and mind, and have very much settled on the validity and truth of what was revealed to me through His Word. But now, even after having come to terms with the struggle and doubt that I once had, still I love to find verses in Scripture that fill in the blanks, expand on the foundations, and confirm what I've come to understand. This verse in Philippians is definitely one of those verses, and even the dictionary definition of one of the key words in this verse serves to confirm and deepen my dependence on the truth of God's Word.

All wrapped up in this one verse we learn that Jesus and God were together in heaven. They have the same fundamental nature and character. One is inherently present with the other. Together they are absolutely and completely perfect. Jesus can be described as a concentrated extract of the Father - having the same properties. One must be present for the other to exist, function, etc. Jesus possesses the FULLNESS of the attributes which make God God - so there is no hierarchy in strength of power, authority, purity, goodness, love, or whatever else you can come up with. Yet, even in all of this, we can see in this verse that there is a distinction between God the Father and God the Son, because it tells us that Jesus separated Himself from the Father and became like men.

Separate but inseparable. Separate parts of a single unit.

John 1:1 - In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.