Desperation for Anything but God Leads to Bondage

I’m an Idea Guy.  The problem is that I often short-circuit myself by pursuing ideas that seem good at the time but, when evaluated in light of more information (and I think that’s what wisdom is- the application of true knowledge), I become painfully aware that the idea was not good for me to pursue at that time.  I recently took a job helping people at a company with an excellent reputation because I was running short of work in my renovation business.  A friend told me about an opening at the company, and I took a look at their job posting.  The job description seemed like something I had done in the past and had really enjoyed; however, the wording of the posting was fairly vague, and I immediately started filling in the blanks of my questions with assumption-oriented answers.  I had the job all worked out in my head to be just a slight variation on my past job’s description.  To make a long story short, three days into a six-week long training, it was becoming painfully clear to me that most of this job was not going to be enjoyable to me at all.  I spent several hours with others who were doing what I would be doing in just six short weeks.  Watching and listening to them, I heard my heart sort of gasp, as if this job (the real one- not the one in my head) was going to be sort of a prison for me.  It removed all of my flexibility, which is very much needed for someone who is helping to plant a new church.  It very much limited my ability to excel in the areas that I know that I am good at and would force me to spend nearly a full third of my time doing things which I knew I despise.  Well, maybe this is sort of a disciplining I am receiving form the Lord, I thought.  Like God enjoys forcing us to do things over and over again that we don’t find fulfilling.  Like He is just going to do whatever it takes for me to learn the lessons I seem to fail to comprehend.  I cried out “Why, God?” in my head from the shackled state which I had decided to occupy.  Then His words came to me: “Did you ask me about taking this job, or did you just assume that because it was helping people, at a company with an excellent reputation, and because you needed income, that it was a God-send?”  I poured over my memories for the one where I had spent time asking God to show me if this was a good job for me, and I realized that I had no such memory.  This happened to me because I had been operating from a place of desperation.  I need money, so I need this job.  I do remember praying, “God, don’t let them offer this job to me unless it’s part of your plan for my life,” but while that prayer was sincere, it sort of fell into the vein of the prayers I prayed as a teenager like, “God, please make the girl I like want to date me.”  The point is that God usually doesn’t violate the free will that He has chosen to give each of us, and God forcing the employer to hire me would be like Him being the ultimate puppet master, pulling all the strings behind the scenes to bring about the desired result.  While we like to think of Him that way when we want something for ourselves, we don’t like to think of Him that way with regard to being forced to do things by an omnipotent God. 

Now for some perspective:  I do believe in pursuing good ideas.  In fact, I can’t think of too many times we are more Christ-like than when we are being creative in our thought processes.  I just believe that our good ideas ought to be tested in light of as much truth as one can obtain ahead of time, and then acted upon in faith if they pass that test.  I do understand that God is omnipotent and could force things to happen, but I also know that He is omniscient and knows what decisions people will make and uses them to bring about His plan as well.  As for the job, I consulted my wife, prayed over it, slept on it, and resigned on my fourth day to an employer who was very gracious and thanked me for doing it now instead of six weeks from now after much money and effort had gone into training me for the job.  I walked away from that conversation with a ton of weight off of my shoulders and a better perspective on decision making. Any decision made in fear, or out of desperation for anything other than God, ends up leading me into bondage to the negative emotion that led me to make the decision in the first place.   As for my needs, the first few hours after resigning netted me several bid jobs that will take care of my budget for the month.        

“We pray for you all the time—pray that our God will make you fit for what he's called you to be, pray that he'll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something.” 2 Thessalonians 1:11

A Murky Mind and Clouded Heart

When we come to God through Christ He gives us a new heart, a heart for Him. This heart needs nourished by things which God has determined will help it stay healthy.  The problem is that these things rarely come naturally to us.   That’s where the distractions come in and divert us from doing the things which will nourish our hearts and propel us to a rich life with Christ.  In the bible God says “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”.  The mind is the very place where attention is paid and focus is maintained. A good friend of mine once encouraged me to pay attention to what I’m paying attention to, to think about what I’m thinking about. While that encouragement sometimes hurts my head just to ponder, he does have   a point.  Let me encourage you my friend.  Do not be mislead by what you feel, discouraged by doubtful thoughts, or diverted by negative circumstances.  Instead continually present yourself to God and asking him to continue the work of renewing your mind.  This, in my experience will really help to begin to change the way we think.  

That New Wine Is Good Stuff!

In the latest version of Star Trek released onto the big screen (a movie that I ended up regretting having watched), a young Captain Kirk is required to go through a simulation as a condition of his graduation from the academy.  (Hang in there you non-trekky people.) Upon finding out that the simulation had been designed to fail and that doing things the “Star Fleet Way” would inevitably lead to failure for him, he decides to reprogram the rules portion of the simulation in a manner that would allow his unconventional methods to bring about the first success in the simulation's history.  While he could have been kicked out for cheating the system, his unwillingness to accept the premise that this is the way that things have to be done and his unwillingness to accept the status quo end up earning him his own command. 

Now to my point.  In Matthew 9:17 Jesus is faced with multiple accusers all basically saying the same thing- that he is not doing things the “religious way" or the "right way”.  He responds by saying the following:  “¹⁷ And no one puts new wine into old wine skins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wine skins so that both are preserved.”  I used to skip over this passage as being culturally irrelevant because it talked about something that we no longer use- wine skins. But based upon my recent experience, it seems to make real sense to me.  Old wine skins had been stretched to the limit as wine fermented and expanded in them. Because old wine skins had already been stretched to the limit, if they were filled with new wine, it would ultimately burst them when it expanded. In the same way, it appears that Jesus was condemning the traditional rituals of the time by saying that they must never become a straitjacket that hinders us from embracing the message of God's new covenant kingdom life style.  Just as Kirk changed the rules of the Federation to make the goal of survival of the test a possibility, the rituals of the old covenant as well as the rituals of the John the Baptist preparatory era were not to be allowed to hamstring the message of the kingdom.  Wow, that was quite an analogy, not worthy of the Bible college professors from my past training, but probably as timely as I know how to give.   

You see, my passion is that the Christian church wake up and be the relevant expression of what God intended church to be when he created it.  I don’t believe it was God’s intent that we just morph the old covenant concepts of the temple, priests, and the law into the new covenant concepts of the church, the pastor, and the expectations of what it means to be a “Good Christian”.

The church in the New Testament is a community of believers all intricately involved with the welfare and progress of each others' lives. Not a building, an organization, a business-like corporation, or an ongoing series of events or programs.  Jesus came to make a way for man to relate to the father directly with no other go-between than Him, yet many of us view our pastor as the one who is to go to God on our behalf and get for us what we need.  When the apostle Paul says that he considers rubbish all the things that he once thought were so important, he is speaking about knowing and following the law and the traditions that man had about the best way to do so.  He goes on to say that these are rubbish compared to the surpassing greatness of just knowing Christ.  I believe that he chose to emphasize the relationship with Christ and not just the knowledge of Christ as a manner to emphasize the relational nature of the kingdom.  Behavior modification was not the goal of the kingdom, it was relational modification that God was after.  Don’t get me wrong, relationship with the one true living God will certainly modify your behavior, but simply modifying your behavior alone will not increase your relationship with God.  If it would, we would not have needed Christ’s sacrifice. 

If you have read my blog before, you will know that I believe that much of the practices of the modern church, while not bad in and of themselves, have become the focus of Christianity instead of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ himself.  Let me encourage you to be certain that the way your express your Christianity lines up with the message of Jesus found in the gospels, not just with what you have learned from others regarding what the verses in the Bible mean when they mention church and its various expressions.  When the Bible tells us not neglect meeting together with other believers, we naturally interpret that to mean we need to go to a church service multiple times each week or month, but what it actually says is meeting together with other believers. While that can happen at a church service, it doesn’t just happen naturally by being together with them at an event or programmed service.  Let’s let God define what church is by taking a closer look at the teachings of Christ, the history of the early church found in the book of Acts, and the principals of relational Christianity found in the epistles of the New Testament.  In doing so we will inevitably see where that sort of an expression of church takes us.  I personally believe it will take us to the next level.    If you would like to learn more about the church, start by reading more from this blog’s history, or by visiting our YouTube Channel at

http://www.youtube.com/user/CityLightTopeka

Let Compassion Be Your Guide

I received this testimony from a friend who recently visited the church my wife and I are planting here in Topeka.  Hope it encourages you. I thought it was an excellent example of being the church.  "Received a call from Sandy Slater, at the Topeka SRS building today about a man who was living in his pickup truck suffering from severe anxiety. Being nearby, I was able to locate this vehicular homeless gentleman along with my volunteer, and talk with him, offering services. Listened to this man for about 30min. During the conversation he went to his truck and pulled out a Jehovah's Witness Watch Tower publication and he advised that he grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and that he was in a laundry matt in Topeka and picked up that publication and it made him feel good. I could see that the man was searching again in his life. I told the man that we had something in common with each other and it was God and asked him if he could see that, and he said yes. I mentioned that he must believe in prayer and he said yes, and I offered to pray. In prayer, we asked Jesus to bring healing to his anxiety, his nerves, his shaking and to the heaviness in his chest that kept him from breathing, thanking Jesus, and ending the prayer in Jesus' name. My volunteer Kenneth Oldridge, noticed the man's speech slowed down. I also offered to take him to a facility in Topeka that could assist him with any medical or medications he may need, since I am a collaboration promoter for multiple agencies in Topeka. He followed us to the facility I recommended. In the counselor’s office, the man relayed his story of coming to Topeka, his anxiety, his struggles. Then the man mentioned to the counselor that he ran into nice people today that wanted to help him and then he held up his hands and noticed that they were no longer shaking. He was calm. The counselor asked why he had stopped shaking and he told her that it was the prayer and it was Jesus that had calmed him. He is not sleeping in his truck tonight in a big Wal-Mart parking lot. He is sleeping in a home, with a bed and meals. This is what it is like to minister in love to anyone, to include a vehicular homeless Jehovah’s Witness. God does not discriminate. Minister in love, by loving God, and loving your neighbor (the one in front of you) as you love yourself, or as you would want to be treated. Seal it in the name of Jesus; sign His name at the end of your day. We have an encounter with God, to bring a tangible encounter of God to the one in front of us. This is how God is bringing his Glory to Earth, through us anywhere in the city at any time; Heaven invading Earth. Yay God!"  Have a blessed day my friends.

What Do Lazy Cats and Trusting God Have in Common?

Was just looking at the alley cat that lives in my back yard and sleeps on my porch.  It occurred to me that he is always happy, always fat, and always sleeping while everyone else is working hard.  Part of that is that he is nocturnal, being that he hunts at night and sleeps in the day.  But I think he pretty much hunts cat food from the various neighbors porches who put it out to  feed their cats.   So he's sort of an entrepreneurial/thief sort of fat, happy, and lazy cat.  Well anyway to my point.  He doesn't worry, because he's pretty much taken care of by the neighbors willingness to leave food out and the generosity of my kids who give him their scraps.  While I'm not interested in the scraps or the cat food, the not worrying  part really intrigues me.  You see the cat can be fat and happy and rest because his experience suggests that his providers will take care of him, and they do.  He doesn't worry about what he will eat or where he will sleep or what to do when it gets cold or wet, because other more "intelligent" creatures take care of those details, insignificant to him.  I on the other hand often find myself wondering how it will all work out where the next check will come from or how to juggle the income and expenses in order to make the ends meet.  I wonder if the cat has found some truth that I could learn from.  God whose ways are far higher than mine, takes care of all creation and provides for the needs of all who seek Him.   We can rest in Him (if we choose to) because he promises to keep at peace those whose minds are stayed on Him.  As far as the fat part goes I pretty much have that covered without God's help.  Well I hope that you can lay down your fears and worries as God is teaching me to and honestly trust Him to take care of your needs and to make straight your paths. I guess if God could use a donkey to get a person's attention in the bible that He can use a cat to get mine today!
Stinking Cat!