This post is going to be a bunch of my thoughts over the past couple of weeks and some thoughts that I have had recently. Things that I have seen in my life and in others and hopefully show you some of my heart (or the lack there of). There will be a lot from things that I have read and so if you are ready to dive into a post that could be as long as a book...then I hope you enjoy it.
Life has been a bit crazy for me as of late. I work part time in the dining center as CSU and I am working part time for the church. The dining center is a great job. I get to work for and with a bunch of people serving the students at CSU. As most of you know, I am one of those extreme extroverts that will walk up to complete strangers and just start talking to you. I just love people and they rejuvenate me. And so that is what I get to do at work. I get to talk to my co workers about almost everything. Anywhere from what they did over the weekend to what they think about Jesus. Which is what I get to do for my other job with the church.
Now I need to make a clarification on my job with the church. I don't really see it much as as "job" but more of a lifestyle. The church is just helping me free up time to go and talk with people. I will be honest, it has been really hard at times, but there are also so many other times that I just love doing it. I set up times to go and talk with people about faith and what it means to have a relationship with Jesus.
A few people/activities that I get to do on a weekly basis that you could pray for:
Obviously there is work at the dining center. There are tons of people that I get to talk to on a weekly basis. So that means each week I need to try and reconnect with each person and catch up with how their week was and in some way speak some truth into their life. I have seen that come in many different ways so far and I pray to see more. You could also pray that I would grab each opportunity I have to speak truth to anyone and to be bold in that place.
I'm not going to give names but hopefully you can give a name for them by the description I give. God will know whom you are talking about. There is a guy that I met at a seminar and he is honestly seeking truth. But the hard part for me is that the questions he is asking are way over my head. He has been asking about science type stuff which isn't anything that I have really studied. He has been trying to figure out what his world view is as he believes that has huge implications on anybody's life. What do you believe to be true? Thankfully I have a brother in Christ that is able to answer a lot of his questions. All three of us meet every Friday to talk and it has been amazing to just listen to their discusion. Most things I don't understand but I would have to say that it is really fun to learn about everything. I get to chirp in a few times about the Bible and sometimes they do talk about things I know and I get a better chance to give my two cents.
There is a small group of guys that I get to hang out with in the dorms. These guys have been a bit of a challenge. It is rare for them to stay on a serious subject. Even as the case may be, they are an awesome bunch of dudes that I would love to see changed for Christ. A brother and I did get to share with one of them recently and he already says he took the check (if you know the judge analogy, if you don't ask and I can explain it to you). This gives us some direction now as far as where to go from there.
Another opportunity I have had is to go back to Front Range Community College (where I got my associates degree from) and do some sharing there. There was one girl that I walked up to and asked if I could join her for lunch. Turns out that she is in a class with a brother that goes there. I haven't run into her again but I'm hoping to keep the small friendship going that started.
I think I will be my last one for now. I have had the amazing opportunity to go and talk with internationals that go to CSU. Ha, imagine that...I get to talk more. There is a program at CSU called the Intensive English Program (IEP). I get to be a conversation partner once a week. I go into the classroom and speak about whatever topic the teacher gives. There are about 5 other conversation partners although sometimes I wish I was the only one. Because then that would mean I would just get to talk that much more. Many of these international students want friendships and to talk about US culture and just learn about the a native to the US. This is great because it is a ready made friendship and I pray that I would get to share the gospel with each person that I am able to hang out with outside of class.
That is some of what I get to do each week. That does not include leading a team, doing the outreach class, leadership training class (ltc), prayer meetings, meeting with dudes on my team, other meetings, D-team on wednesdays, running sound for church about every third Sunday, the Rock, etc. Please do not see this as Zach's list to show how much he does in a week. I only mention this because if I were to read something along these lines, that is what I would think. Really, I need prayer in all of these places. That the way I act and the things that I do would be honoring to God. That my devotion in everything would be first and foremost Christ.
Alright, need a break from reading? I sure do...
That was long enough, now on for recent thoughts I have had recently. My current word that I have been dwelling on is abide. I have been reading in the gospel of John and I will speaking on 15:1-11.
1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.I am not an expert in any way on this passage, these are just the things that I see and if you have any other thoughts on them, I would love to hear them. I am going to start in verse 2.
For the little I know about trees, this stuck out to me. When a tree branch is dead, it is not going to produce or bear anything. That is why you would want to cut off a dead branch as it isn't doing anything good for the tree. Now when you have branches, you prune them in a way that they will grow even more. I feel like that is what God does with us a lot of the time. As much as it hurts and no matter how much we don't like the pruning, it is good for us because it says we will bear more fruit. God is cutting away the things in our lives that keep us from having a pure devotion to him.
There are many times that I often don't want to have God prune anything because I know that it is going to be hard to give up any idol that I may have. I have prayed and keep praying that God would always be pruning something in my life. I don't ever want to become comfortable with where I am at in my walk with Christ. Something that is hard to pray but I hope that you would.
Okay, now I want you to go back and read verses 4-6. Jesus is saying that he is the vine and we are the branches and that if we abide in him, then we will bear much fruit. I know, you probably want to know why I pretty much just repeated the verses after I made you read them. Well, I think it is crucial for verse 7. And if you need to go and refresh yourself on what it says, go read it again.
There are many times where I think I can focus on just the last half of that verse. I can ask God whatever I wish and it will be done for me. Wow, thanks for being a vending machine God. I need something now and so I ask and I receive. Hurray! :)
WRONG!
If that is what you think, you should think again. God is not your personal vending machine that you can call on when you need something. He gave us a condition before he said 'ask.' We should abide in him and his words should abide in us, then we can ask. I looked up the definition of abide and it is along the lines of, 'to remain; continue; stay.' I looked up the greek for abide, and it was the same thing as the definition. So we should remain in God.
Now if we remain in God and his word remains in us, I believe the only things that we are going to be asking God for are things that God wants us to ask. I don't believe there is anything God would not give us as long as it is for our good (Romans 8.28). And I truly think that if we stay in God, we will only ask for good things.
I don't think I explained that very well but there is amazing truth in those verses. And he says that he does all of this so that our joy may be full. Well, I conclude that if we abide in God our joy will be full. So if you want to be happy, abide in God and let him prune you up so that you can have complete devotion to God.
I have a friend that writes the word of the day on the inside of their wrist so that they can remember what they read that morning. Pretty useful tool to help you abide in God all day. Because you see if often enough that you remember what you read in the morning or you can keep the same word for multiple days if you are trying to work on one thing. I can tell you that I like the idea and mine is 'ask' right now. Because then I remember everything I just wrote about.
So I am going to abide in Christ so that the things I ask for will be the things that God wants me to ask so that he will do them so that my joy will be full.
Okay, let me give you a little analogy. I am driving in a car and I need to shift lanes. The car to my back left is just close enough to me that I can't just move over. So I down shift to pick up a little speed and I get over and then get back into cruising at my previous speed. Make sense? I hope it does because that is what I am doing here. Just changing lanes slightly because now I am going to talk about a book that I have been reading.
The book is "The Great Gain of Godliness" by Thomas Watson. He was an old Puritan and that should be all that I really need to say about it. I am reading the book because my church, Summitview Community Church is doing something called Spring Training. This year it is called Gain. Last year it was called Kill or be Killed. It is for the men in our church to get together once a week for 7 weeks to discuss this book and have a short message that relates to it. It is at the wonderful time of 6 am on Wednesdays if you caught any of my sarcasm in there. But it is the only time that most men in the church have free to all get together at the same time. And so really, it is awesome to have coffee, donuts, and discusion with a bunch of dudes early in the morning.
The first week we broke down into smaller groups and we keep the groups for the duration of Spring Training. There are approximately 5-7 guys in a group. Most groups are pretty diverse as far as age goes. It can go from high school all the way to the old guys. There are three married dudes (with and without kids), a single guy in Symbio, and me. I love being around and hearing from the married guys because it gives me an insite to what it will be like someday.
There was one chapter the really struck a chord with me. It wasn't even the whole chapter, just a section on it. I am going to give you a few things that I underlined and hopefully I will be able to express myself in some way that makes sense on why it stood out to me. The book is walking us through what it means to fear God. I think we can often have a distorted view on what it means to fear God. If you are looking for some insite on fearing God, we just went over it in church and you can find the message online.
This chapter is called Is the Fear of God in our Hearts? This part of the post may seem very random but I am pulling things from the book and my thoughts on them. Sorry if you get lost and I may not comment on everything but they stuck out to me and I hope they stick out to you.
If sin were on one side and hell on the other, I would rather leap into hell than willingly sin against God.Watson quotes a philosopher/theologian to show how we should fear our own sin. And this quote puts it into perspective for me. I really think we should fear sin to this point and have this view on it. I don't think I have that at all. I often let the pumpkin float by me and if you don't know what I am talking about, please listen to this message. Fear sin or things that you ran away from when you were a young christian will become okay with you. You will become comfortable in your life with sin.
A God-fearer directs the rudder of his life according to the compass of the Word.This has been something that I have been learning for a long time. As a kid and even into my youth, I hardly ever read the Bible. Since coming to college the word has become more of a part of my daily life. There was a paper that I did on genetically modified crops and a quote I found there was interesting. It said something along the lines of, 'If you change the direction of a cruise liner by two degree at the beginning of it's voyage, it will end up in a very different port or even on rocky shores.' I feel like this applies. The rudder directs where a ship goes and we should direct our life by the Word.
Luther said he had rather obey God than work miracles. A gracious soul crosses his own will to fulfill God's.
A holy heart knows there is nothing lost by obedience.
A steady pulse shows health: a steady walk shows grace.
He who fears God would rather displease man than God
The fear of God will make a man afraid of Satan's snares. He has the eye of faith to see these snares, and the wing of fear to fly from them.
his snares are so cunningly laid, that without the guidance of God's fear we cannot escape them.
The devil tempts men to evil, 'that good may come' of it (Romans 3:8).The link will actually give you Romans 3:5-8 because I think we need to look at the context of the verse to really understand what he is talking about here.
The white devil is worst. Who would suspect Satan when he comes as a divine and, if need be, can quote Scripture?
Another snare of Satan is to tempt to sin under a plea of necessity.As if to say for one example that I can see in my life, "you need your rest because you deserve it and you should find it here (insert something that is sin when you find your rest in it)."
This next part is not a part I understand a whole lot about. It is about the heart and it is just very mysterious to me.
The fear of God will make a man afraid of his own heart.Confused yet? Because I sure am.
'The heart is deceitful above all things' (Jer. 17:9). It is 'deceitful'. The word signifies, it is a 'Jacob' or 'supplanter'. As Jacob supplanted his brother, and took away the blessing, so our hearts would supplant and beguile us. 'Above all things': there is deceit in weights, deceit in friends; but the heart has an art of deceiving beyond all. In the best of hearts there is some fallaciousness. David was upright in all things, 'save only in the matter of Uriah' (1 Kings 8:13). A godly man, knowing there is a spice of this deceit in his heart, fears himself.Go to the Jer. 17:9 link, there is more to it than Watson puts in.
No man can believe what evil is in his heart.This next section is a lot strait out of the book. And I don't think I am going to comment on it, I'll just let the text speak for itself.
No man knows what is in his breast, or what scandal he may fall into if God should leave him. Christ warns his own apostles to 'take heed of surfeiting and drunkenness' (Luke 21:34). A godly man therefore fears his heart with a fear of caution and jealousy. The heart is not only stubborn, but subtle. Le us a little trace this imposter, and see if there is not a cause to hear it. The heart shows its deceitfulness regarding things sinful and things sacred.
Regarding things sinful, this deceit is in the hiding of sin, as Rahab his the spies in the flax (Josh. 2:6). So the heart hides sin. And how does it hide sin? Just as Adam hid himself under fig leaves, so the heart hides sin under the fig leaves of excuses. It was done against the will, or in a passion; or it was done along with others. Aaron laid his sin in the making of the golden calf upon the people: 'The people are set on mischief' (Exod. 32:22). And Adam tacitly laid his sin upon God himself: 'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree' (Gen. 3:12), as if to say, 'If you had not given me this tempting woman, I would not have eaten.'
The heart's deceit is seen in flattering us. It will make us believe we are not so bad as we are. The Physician deceives the patient when he tells him his desease is not so dangerous, when he is falling into the hands of death. The heart will tell a man he is free from theft, when yet he robs others of their good name; he is free from drunkenness when, though he will not be drunk with wine, he will be drunk with passion. Thus the heart is a flattering mirror to make one look fairer than he is; and is there not cause to suspect this impostor?
Secondly, the heart shows its deceitfulness regarding things sacred; it will be ready to put us off with counterfeit grace. Many have been deceived in taking false money, and many, it is to be feared, in taking false grace.
The heart is ready to deceive with a false repentance. A sinner is troubled a little for sin, or rather the consequences of it, and perhaps sheds a few tears, and now his heart soothes him up that he is a true penitent. But every legal terror is not repentance: 'They were pricked in their hearts' (Acts 2:37); yet after this, 'Peter said unto them repent' (verse 38). If every slight trouble for sin were true repentance, then Judas and Cain may be lifted into the number of penitents. Evangelical repentance works a change of heart (1 Cor. 6:11). It produces sanctity. But the false penitent, though he has trouble of spirit, yet has no transformation or change. He has a weeping eye, but an adulterous heart. Ahab fasts and puts on sackcloth, but after this, he puts the prophet Micah in prison (1 Kings 22:27).
The heart is apt to deceive with a false faith; it would put the dead child in the place of the living. Those in the second chapter of John are said to believe; but Christ did not believe their faith (John 2:24). True faith, as it casts itself into Christ's arms to embrace him, so it casts itself at Christ's feet to serve him; but spurious faith, though it is forward to receive Christ's benefits, yet it plucks the government from his shoulders (Isa. 9:6). It would have him a priest, but not upon his throne (Zech. 6:13). This the heart is full of fallacies; he who fears God fears his heart lest it should rob him of the blessing. That saying of Epicharmus [Sicilian father of Greek comedy] is good, 'Remember not to trust.'
The fear of God will make a man fear death. Death may challenge a part in our fear, first, because it is such a serious thing, it is the inlet to eternity and puts us into an unalterable estate. Secondly, because of its proximity. It is nearer to us than we are aware; it may be within a few hours march of us. God may this night seal a lease of ejectment, and say, 'Give an account of your stewardship'; and what if death should come before we are ready? Thirdly, because after death there is nothing to be done for our souls, there is no repenting in the grave: 'There is no work, nor device . . . in the grave, whither thou goest' (Eccles. 9:10). So death is to be feared with a holy and religious fear.I am not sure what all you caught in that short section of the book but there was a lot that stood out to me. I would love for you to just pray for me about that chunk of the book.
One more quote from this chapter and a few more from the next.
Great men are mirrors by which the common people dress themselves.
Water, when it is hot, soon boils over; when the heart is heated with anger it soon boils over in furious speeches (James 3:6). Passion transports.
The heart is a cask full of wickedness, and the tongue is the tap that lets it flow out. When the face breaks out in sores and pimples, it shows the blood corrupt. When men break forth in unsavoury speeches its shows the heart is profane.
Were people's hearts more humble, their tongues would be more charitable.
The more spiritual we are in our speeches, the more we resemble Christ.
Verba sunt speculum mentis - Words are the looking glass of the mind (Bernard). As you may judge of a face by the mirror, whether it be fair or foul; so by the words we may judge of the heart. A lascivious tongue shows a lustful heart, an earthly tongue a covetous heart; a gracious tongue, an gracious heart.
The tongue is the index of the heart.
A word spoken in season may make such a powerful impression upon another's heart that it will do him good all his life.Need a break again? ...I agree.
I recently had a friend ask me for some guidance on future plans. And I posed the question back to them, well what do you want? And I can't quite say I entirely agree with what I said. I was basing this off of:
Psalm 20:4-5
May he grant you your heart’s desirePsalm 21:2
and fulfill all your plans!
May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the LORD fulfill all your petitions!
You have given him his heart’s desirePsalm 37:3-5
and have not withheld the request of his lips.
Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:And Luke 11:1-13 but I am not going to put that one on here. You can look it up if you would like. We can see that God wants us to bless us and give us the things that our heart desires. But then we just looked at how our heart is deceitful. So then how can we be sure that what our heart desires is not something that our heart is deceiving us in? Watson talked about it some and even how we can measure our heart to a degree by what comes out of our mouth. And earlier I talked about how when we abide in God, we will really only be asking things that God wants us to ask him for because our heart is going to be more aligned to his plan and his will.
But then Zach brings up the fact that God already know what we are going to choose in anything and that we really don't have a choice as far as what happens in our life. Well then I bring in the fact that we do have a choice in what goes on in our life and that is the cool part about the Christian life.
God wants us to put our whole trust in him. Not just that one tiny little fraction that we think we can hold onto that is God and we can do the rest on our own. Maybe this will help get it into perspective for you. I think I first heard this analogy from a message at The Rock. I don't remember which one but I love this analogy.
You are an octopus and you have 8 arms. With each arm you are allowed to hold onto one thing but the exception to that rule is God. You can hold onto him with all 8 arms. Many times we are only holding onto God with one of our arms and the other 7 are holding onto things that we are putting our trust in. We don't want to let go of the other 7 because they can be like a security blanket for us. When we can hold onto those 7, we feel safe and comfortable because we know that we can do those 7 and still hold onto God. Are you able to let go of those and cling to God like Blondin's manager clinged to Blondin as he traversed the Niagara Falls on a tight rope? Stop holding onto things and hold onto what is going to matter in the end. God.
Look at these verses.
Proverbs 19:20-21
Jeremiah 29:11
Psalm 33:11
Proverbs 12:20
Proverbs 15:22
Proverbs 16:1-9
And this is just a short list of what it looks like to follow God in the plans that you make and what your heart's desire is. Cling to God like there is nothing left and he will prosper you like you have never seen.
Did you actually make it all the way here? If so, I will be impressed. I always say that I will blog more but it never happens and so all I really do are massive posts.
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