We Are Not Meant To Be Mannequins

At the conception of life we become a fetus and grow till we are old enough to enter the world outside of the confines of our mother. From that time on we grow up, each day learning and experiencing new things until we are able to start accepting responsibilities. Eventually we turn eighteen and are faced with the realization that we are to be a man. Our time of preparation is over and we must take full responsibility of ourselves.

God does not just call us to be a man, but He calls us to be a godly man. 1 Timothy 4:7-8 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. Being a godly man is much more than our earthly age. We can lay in that casket without ever being what God has called us to be. We shouldn't be mannequins who are just an image and figure of what the world says a man is. The world has a "perfect" image of what a man should be, but it's all based on how the outside looks. He should be muscular, well-dressed, have money, girls, and nice cars, but on the inside, he's hollow. We should be real men who love the Lord and deeply desire Him above all other things.

The big question is; What is a godly man?

I. A godly man loves the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Mark 12:30 (Speaking of the greatest commandment) Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

II. A godly man is constant in repentance with humility knowing it's not by His power He reaches godliness. Matthew 5:20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

III. A godly man strives to become just like Christ and live like Him. 1 John 2:6 Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

IV. A godly man seeks the Lord's wisdom in all things through reading the Bible, meditation, and
prayer. Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; Proverbs 2:6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.


V. A godly man humbly serves God wholeheartedly, going wherever He calls. A godly man is after God's own heart, he doesn't live out his own will, but the Father's will for his life. 1 John 2:16-17 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. 

From my research I found these five points to be a basic template for how a godly man lives out his life. However, I can't just tell you what a godly man is and leave you with that, but I will try to show you how these five different actions are applied in life.

I. Your heart is your emotions and deepest desires, its what creates the reasons for your action or inaction. If you love the Lord your God with all your heart that means that you are completely infatuated with Him, your utmost desire, what is there in your heart is to serve him.
The soul I'm still working on figuring out what it is, but I do know that your soul is everything your body is not. Your soul is merely connected to your body till you die and depart from your human frame. Your soul is alive when it is in Christ, it is dead when it is in the clutches of death because of sin. To love God with all of your soul you must give it to Him. He is to be the one in control of your soul.
Your mind is what is in charge of all things that you do, it contemplates, solves, and makes decisions. If your whole heart loves God, your brain is then what contemplates and decides to put that love and desire to serve Him into commands for your body to fulfill.
Your strength is your muscles and all your physical abilities. When you love God with all your strength you are using all your physical abilities to serve Him.

All of theses different parts are separate, but they all influence each other and are connected in some way. Your heart puts emotion behind who is in control of your soul and what your mind contemplates and decides. Lastly you mind is what controls your body movements. So ultimately what loving the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength is loving Him with all that you have, all-of-you.

II. Repentance of our own sin is very important because we must die to ourselves to live for Christ. We must die to sin for God to come in an give us His righteousness. Submitting ourselves to the authority of Christ in our lives is a big part of growing in godliness. Without repentance and humility before God, how can He come into our lives and start shaping us to be more like Him? We've got to humbly give ourselves up to Christ accepting Him as our redeemer, our salvation, our King, and we must die to our sin in repentance and live as the Holy Spirit leads, presenting our bodies and everything we have to God the Father in ultimate sacrifice living out our love for God. Then God can start to shape and refine us in His Godliness.

III. To become like Jesus we need to learn who He is and what He did. Jesus is our example of godliness. The more time you spend with someone the more you will find yourself becoming like the other. The more time you spend learning about Jesus through reading and hearing the Word, worshiping Him, and talking to Him through prayer the more you will find yourself becoming like Him.

IV. Since God is all knowing, one of the ways you live out your life to become a godly man is simply learning the wisdom and knowledge of God that He has given for us to learn and living it out. This is however, no less difficult to pursue and do than the other three points because often we want to figure things out for ourselves.

V. The fifth point is really about dying to ourselves and living for Christ. Romans 6:13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. Do you think its possible to be a godly man when we still live our life to achieve successes and pleasure? A godly man doesn't live for himself, but for God and to accomplish His will.

It isn't easy to become a godly man. Its not easy to kill the flesh and set your mind and heart on the things of God. Repentance may be the hardest and first step. However, the truth is that there is great value in becoming a godly man. Do, we waste our time trying to become men by the world's standards who are just hollow mannequins? The world will eventually fade away, but the man who lives for God will live forever with Him. I hope that we all as men would start to live in profound love and desire for our Father in heaven, searching for godliness with humility. For it is not by any work we do on our own that makes us Godly, but it is only through the help of God and His work refining us that we can come anywhere close to godliness.

We all try to be manly men including myself, we all wish to be grown up, but are we turning into godly men who grow up to be who God wants us to be? Godliness is beneficial and of value to a Man on earth and off of the earth.

This is the question I will leave you with; Who-do-you-seek? Because this question gets to the root of godliness. If you seek the world you will become like the world, but if you seek Jesus you will become more like Him by His work of making you His holy bride. Which isn't something you normally tell guys.
                                                                                                                    -Grace and Peace-

The Art of Sacrifice - II

The Art of Sacrifice was posted a few months ago explaining how sacrifice is really the ultimate way to express love. Once again I'm explaining the art of sacrifice, but in a different way. I want to explain why and how we sacrifice ourselves to Christ.

Not too long ago during City Challenge I wrote down this phrase in my notebook. I must be willing to give up what I love to put God first in my life. The whole beginning of the week I had been struggling with not wanting to let go, I still loved God, but my unwillingness to let go of what I loved was keeping me from really connecting with Him. See if I'm to follow Christ and have a true relationship with Him I must be willing to sacrifice all that I love for Him. We must give up what we love to live for Christ. Now this does't mean that He will take all those things or people away from us, but we must let Him do so if its His will. We can't follow Christ without first sacrificing everything for Him.

Luke 14:25-27 
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Before I try to explain the first part of the verses let's first look at the second part about bearing our own Cross. I've often wondered what exactly that means, so what did it mean for Jesus? For Jesus what he did on the cross was sacrifice all of Himself to be able to fully love those He created. Through that sacrifice the vail separating a righteous God from us who are unrighteous was torn. In the same way we must sacrifice all of ourselves to Christ so that we can fully devote ourselves in love to Him.

Understanding the second part of these verses makes understanding the first part much easier. We don't need to actually have an intense dislike or hatred for our father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and our own life, but we need to sacrifice such people and things to be able to fully devote ourselves to Christ in love. A blog post I was reading recently explained it this way; Your love for God should be so great that in comparison your love for your father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and own life will look like hatred.

Ephesians 5:1-2

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 

The profound reality is; Christ gave up His life to gain those who He loved. We give up what we love to gain His life. Ultimately it is the art of sacrifice that allows us to be in communion with Christ. First we sacrificed lambs as atonement for sin for a little while, but then the lamb of God was sacrificed to atone for all sins. In the same way that Christ sacrificed Himself to sanctify us, we must sacrifice ourselves to Him for Him to fulfill His work of sanctification in us.

Failed Efforts To Love

I presume that I'm not much different that many others, but I must say that I find it hard to love some people. There are people in my life that I just don't know how or don't want to love.  However, what I have been recently taught and learning about is that loving others is extremely important. In the new testament Jesus talks about the two greatest commandments. The second one after loving God is to love the people around you and the people you meet as much as you love yourself.

Mark 12:30-31 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

I would focus my attention on the first and greatest commandment, but that is in another blog post that is to come. Instead I want to look at the second commandment Jesus stated. When Jesus talked about loving your neighbor He didn't mean just the guy next door, but Jesus was talking about everyone around you and those you meet. Even what is said in 1 John 4:21 brings to light how loving others is very important, actually fundamental to our relationship with God. 1 John 4:21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

How do you go about loving your neighbor? In 1 John 4:19 it states that we love because we have been loved first by God. Therefore, we love others because God loves us. See, we only know what love is because God loved us at the very beginning. When Eve was placed beside Adam in the garden I'm sure they knew nothing of love between each other, but they knew of the love that the Father had for them.

How do we show the same love the Father has for us to others? I don't feel as though I have a clear picture of this and I'm sure most of us don't, but this is what I have found. 1 John 4:15-17 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 

If we first love God then a direct result of that love will be a love for our neighbors. It very well may take a long time to develop, but when we love God we start to love the same people He loves.

In conclusion making an effort of attempting to show love to others isn't the answer. That is what we are called to do, but if we first learn to know and accept the love the father has for us we are then able to express that same love back to Him. Once we love Him the more we grow closer to and love Him the more we will begin to love others around us that He loves outrageously. Its a profound reality of one act causing the other to follow, we don't completely focus on loving others, but first love God.

COMMunity

I suppose that I could say that I've been aware of the fact my whole life, but in reality I don't think I really understood how important it is to the walk of a Christian. What I'm talking about is the importance of being in community with other believers. Most of us would consider this to be church, but it doesn't even need to be a spiritually related meeting. If you are truly in love with Christ you will find yourself talking about Him even when your just hanging out with your friends.

Community is so important, we need other believers around us to encourage, strengthen, minister, be accountable for us, pray for each other, and worship with. Today I was just thinking about how hard it would be for me to go out into the world and make a difference alone. Yes I do have the Holy Spirit living inside of me, but having others there alongside you with the same mindset and goals is really profitable. When your around people who don't have a relationship with Christ for an extended period of time its easy to become very tired spiritually. We really need our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage and be there when we need someone to talk to.

They encourage us to keep on following, pressing hard to serve, love, and follow Christ.
They strengthen our walk with Christ by offering advise, sharing verses, and through encouragement.
They minister to us as pastors, by sharing sermons, verses, and allowing God to talk through them.
They can hold us accountable to our commitments to Christ.
They pray for us when we are in need of prayer.
They can be the ones who play and sing the songs that we worship God with.

Christian love is a reminder and display of the love that Christ has for us. The same love that we experience and develop around our brothers and sisters is the love that we are to show and give to others who don't know Christ's love yet.

Community with other believers is so important because if we aren't able to love our brothers and sisters like Christ loved us how do we expect to show it to our neighbors? Our brothers and sisters uphold and encourage us, pray for us, bless us through acts of service, and minister to us. This is our very act as missionaries; We encourage others through words, pray for them, bless them by doing things for them, and minister to nonbelievers through scripture and teachings. The importance of community with believers is that it profoundly helps us to be in community and witness to nonbelievers.

In the Middle of a Calm Storm

I was on a road unsure of where it led with three of my best friends walking and running through a constant wall of water. It was one of the craziest storms I have ever been in. Even now as I try and put the situation into words I'm unable to fully write a clear picture of it all. It was one of the best times of my life, but at the same exact moment one of the scariest times of my life.

In most situations I'm in control of the circumstances. Whenever I go to try a new trick on my snowboard I'm scared of the possible consequences, but throughout the whole time before I drop in to try the trick I have control over the situation. I can either go for it or decide that it may not be in my best interest. However, when I was on that road in the storm I realized how little control I had. Could I control the rain, could I control where the lightning would strike, could I be sure that we were going in the right direction?

Its in a moment like the storm I was in that you really realize how dependent we are on God's mercy. It is also in such a moment that you can be reminded of God's faithfulness and love. What God has been teaching me and reminding me of lately is His faithfulness to His children.

We were all aware that we did not have the wisdom and power to get us out of possible harm, but we knew that even in the middle of a storm, especially in the middle of a storm, God is still King. God is still the one controlling all things, he has wisdom and power over all things in the universe. The truth of the matter is that until we find ourselves unable be lord of our own life, Jesus can't become Lord of our life and show us His amazing love, grace, and faithfulness.

God is faithful to protect and help those that are His own. Yes, bad things to happen to us, but He is still faithful and true to love us even though we may not see it at the moment. We can be angry and curse God for the storm that He has placed us in the middle of or we can be thankful that God has chosen this storm for us, for this moment, to show us something about Him.

God was the one comforting us, strengthening us, and protecting us in the storm. He was the one who gave direction, lead us back to the car, and calmed the storm. After it all I realize that was the most beautiful storm I have ever been in. God showed Himself, His love, control, and faithfulness to us in that storm. The profound reality is that a storm becomes calm when you are aware of God's faithfulness, love, and care for His saints. God is the one who calms the storm. The worry and strife will turn to rejoicing when you put your trust in Him and reach the end.

Deuteronomy 7:9 
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

Temporary Satisfaction Vs. Unending Fulfillment

Since graduating I have been thinking more about what my future may look like. The more I look at what I see possibly happening in the future the more I realize that my life won't be easy. See, ever since I decided that I'm going to die to myself to live for Christ I have submitted myself to His will. If you look at Paul in the Bible his life wasn't some joyride. Yes, he was constantly renewed in spirit buy the power of the Holy Spirit and encouraged by the growth of the church. However, he went through some really difficult trails for the sake of Christ.

If you didn't know I'm going into missions for a year at the end of August. As I said earlier about my life, its not going to be easy. There will be lots of things I won't want to or won't feel comfortable doing when in missions. However, I know that through it all Christ will always be there to help me and give me strength. The whole point here isn't that I should be unhappy with the trials I have in this life, but be waiting in anticipation of the life and joy I will be given in heaven.

The big question is; Are you going to await the pleasures of the heaven, be willing to sacrifice your earthly pleasures, and follow the Lord's will?

In this day in age everything is so immediate and if its not immediate is it worth the trouble? The quicker we can get somewhere the better, the faster the internet the better - "Oh, what would we do without fast internet?" Its not quick enough to have something tomorrow, but we are of that mindset that we need things now. We need our pleasure now, the quicker we can get our emotional happiness the better. However, as those who have decided to put away the things of the world and follow Christ we should be willing to forgo the pleasures of this world to later receive real treasure that is not temporary.

Now, I'm not saying that as Christians we are not allowed to have fun or enjoy the things we have been blessed by God with. I'm saying that we should be willing to be content with leaving our earthly enjoyment to follow the leading and will of Christ in our lives. 

As I start to move on with the rest of my life I pray that I will develop the endurance to give up pleasure and the things I desire and instead live out the desires of Christ for my life. What is your decision, will you live temporarily or profoundly choose to endure with the help of Christ with eyes looking at eternity in heaven?

Fakin' Maturity

In recent times I have been thinking about my personal maturity. I have been asking myself questions about whether or not I'm mature enough for certain things in life. I've wondered if I'm a mature man that is ready to move out west and get my own living. I've wondered if I'm ready to start dating. I've wondered if I am ready to support a wife or family, can I really see myself being able to do that in the future?

I have started thinking that I should soon be ready for these things, but instead I have realized that being eighteen doesn't make you a mature adult, it doesn't make you ready for certain things in life. I have realized that I may be fakin' the maturity of an adult. Am I really ready for the things that I say  or think I am ready for?

I think our culture has developed a false idea of maturity. See its not that people who turn eighteen are then able to handle smoking, voting, tobacco, or porn. The truth is that your not mature because you can do these things, but that by the time your eighteen you should have learned to be mature. Mature enough in your thinking and decision making to make the right decisions about these things in life.

Society seams to have created this identity where your fakin' your maturity. When we have started to put the measure of maturity into thing such as guns, big muscles, women, and money we are fakin' maturity. It is the respect and correct use of such things to benefit people and fulfill God's will that is maturity, not the possession of such things.

So, what is real maturity? I would say that real maturity is when you live out of a love for God and a desire to glorify Him. Maturity is when you live in concordance with the Word of God and let your life be a fulfillment of His will.

The profound reality isn't that maturity is something you acquire. Maturity is a result of experiences changing and giving wisdom to your way of thinking and living. Maturity is best strengthened when your realize that; Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. - Matthew 10:39