"A Highway in the Desert"

I just got done reading the last post that I wrote, and that was back in April. A lot has happened since then, and I feel a little bad for not writing about any of them, but here we are anyway. I will actually go back and revisit some of those things which I have not talked about yet, so I shouldn't be able to go this long without a post again. All this to say that the online version of The Higher Plane is now up to date and back on track.

The topic of today's post is from Isaiah 40. This chapter is probably my favorite chapter in the Old Testament, and I won't really be able to go through all that challenges me here, I want to hit on a couple of points in the first eight verses and see what you think.

My first thought comes from verse three, which as you may have noticed is where the title of this post has come from. The verse reads as follows: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God." This verse is striking to me in a couple of profound ways. One is that the highway for the Lord is being made in the desert. This is important because of the fact that the desert is generally a place that kind of implies a lack of God. Now, I don't mean that if you're in a physical desert that God is not there and is not helping you at all, that would be completely wrong and you could find a hundred different verses to prove it. But when I think of a desert, I am thinking of a dry land that is thirsty and desperate for the Living Water that is Christ. I really don't believe that Isaiah is referring to an actual desert when he says this, but that he is talking about that desolate land which so deprived from the Living Word that it has dried up into spiritual nothingness. And as I think about this verse I think about how this desert can be found all over, from the most remote villages which have never heard to Gospel to the local American church which has complete access to the fullness of His Word but has removed it's power in exchange for bigger buildings and a higher number of attendees. This desert is a lack and a desire, a place which is longing for the sweet refreshing rain of the presence of God but either cannot or will not access it.

This is the wilderness that the prophet is calling out to. And I fully believe this is an invitation for us to cry out in the desert as well. I feel that it is the job of every believer to cry out for God's presence and call the desert people to experience the raging river that our God promises to be (I'm thinking of Eze 47:1-12 for this, and that is a scripture to be tackled for another time). We have to cry out, and we have to create a highway for our God in the desert so that the people can find their way to Him. And I have a particular story that paints the image for me thinking about this highway.

This summer as our team was walking down a street in Central Asia, we came across a scene where men were laying bricks down to improve the tram that went through town. The bricks were basically replacing the sand/dirt that was there. We noticed an immediate improvement. The dirt was much harder to jump in and out of the tram from, while the brick provided a firm foundation for us to place our feet giving us stability as we got on and off the tram. While this wasn't as big of an improvement for us (being young and nimble) we could see a bigger difference for the old and the crippled as they were getting on. It made it so much better for them. It made the tram easier to use for all, and especially for those who were tired and weary and needing of the help. This is an important picture for the highway we are laying for Christ in the desert, because although He can be found without it, we are giving people a firm foundation for finding God in the midst of the overwhelming desert. We are advancing His kingdom by making it easier for those who truly seeking, but are having difficulty because of age, of crippled souls, or simply because the way is difficult.

Doing the task that God has given you

The other part of this story that is relevant to me is that these men were laying one brick at a time. This wasn't a machine driven process, there were men on the ground laying a brick and then another guy would lay the next brick, and so on and so on. This was the process they went through to improve the tram, and this is exactly the process we need to follow as well. God designed this highway to be built by His Church, by men and women getting on their hands and knees, flattening and leveling the ground, and by laying one brick at a time. And it is our job to lay that one brick down to the best of our capacities, because if that brick isn't level, then the next brick isn't going to be either. Or, if the next brick is level, then that leaves the previous brick in the position of a stumbling block. We lay our brick, and set the foundation for the next person to lay their brick. It isn't important to us who gets the last brick, or the brick that leads to the most people, or whatever our case may be, our concern needs to be laying the brick which God has given us as diligently and wisely as possible. If we are lucky, God may give us another brick to lay, but we are not to be concerned with that, we are simply given a brick and a place to lay it. And at the end, we get the satisfaction of knowing that our brick made the highway, our brick was important in leading many people to Christ, and although our individual brick may not seem important at the time we lay it, without it there would be a gap in the highway and a hole in which people will trip on their way to see our glorious Father.

I guess this is as far as I'm going to get in this chapter today, but that's alright. I want to simply encourage you to lay your brick and understand that it is important. We also need to cry out while we're laying that brick, whether it is a song of praise or it is an intercession for the lost, the cry needs to go out into the desert. How can they believe who have not heard? (Rom 10:14-15). So cry out in the wilderness, lay your brick on the highway in the desert, and do not cease to cry out for Rain in the desert places of this world!

Challenged and Confused

So I realize that it has been a while since my last post, and I apologize for that. I'll have you know that I haven't been slacking off, there are a lot of things going on here that require a lot of attention, and although that isn't a very good excuse, it is a reason. So anyway, on to the actual post.

As I sit here and I think about all that is happening with the ministry (we have a leadership team retreat starting tomorrow, I'm raising money to go to central Asia, one of my best friends is getting married in a little over a month, which is right before I actually leave the country, we have three weeks of school left including finals....) I am overwhelmed with something that God has been teaching me over the last week or so. In fact, it actually has consumed my thoughts much more than anything else has, which either means that I trust God to fulfill His promises (which I hope) or that I'm using this other thought as a distraction (which I actually doubt, I don't normally get distracted when I need to come up with $5k). The thought is about what Christianity actually is. You seen, the problem I'm having is that when I look at the way the Christian faith is described in the Bible and the way that I see it lived out in my life and the lives of many around me just don't seem to match up.

Really, this is just a thought. I read passages in the Gospels where Jesus tells people that they will not have a place to lay their head, that they cannot go back and bury their father, that they cannot not even say goodbye to their families, and I wonder how it is that any became Christians at all. I was reading the end of the book of Joshua (right around where the famous "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" verse is) and even there you get the feeling that people are trying to be talked out of following God. Not that they're actually being talked out of it, mind you, but I get that feeling because what Joshua and Jesus were doing was laying out what it means to be a follower of Christ. If we're going to be Christ followers, disciples of Jesus, then we have to follow under the same expectations that drove away so many throughout the gospels.

This is only my initial thought, which means that I don't even know what to do with this and I have no idea what it means. I just feel challenged to read the Gospels and the Bible to actually live out what it says. This was a very weak post, I know, but that's where I'm at: confused, unable to put together complete thoughts, and challenged to live out what the Bible says Christianity is.

 How about you?

Retreat

"So what did you do over Presidents' Day weekend?"
"Oh, I drove to Douglas, WY, played with puppets, sat underneath a giant jackalope, and grew more in what it means to be a part of God-honoring relationships."

UW students between sessions

This weekend we had our CV Spring Retreat in Douglas, WY. It was a weekend full of God and fellowship as we listened to our guest speaker Bobby Pruett (from Christian Challenge at the University of Colorado) give us input on the topic of God-honoring relationships. What I'm hoping to do here is give you a taste for what the retreat was like, a summery of what Bobby taught over, and how I would like to see God use this weekend for the betterment of UW and CV as a whole.

So I guess I might as well just take these in order. The feel of the retreat was that of a relaxing and challenging weekend to get teaching from God, have fellowship with other believers, and to just take time away from our busy lives and devote it to those two things in a fun and interesting way. And we went with a pretty interesting way. This year the emcees for the event were puppets, specifically George Washington and Abe Lincoln who acted as if they were surgeons in a medical drama. This allowed for some interesting interactions, with "surgeries" and "ailments" and also allowed us to put to practice some of the things Bobby was teaching throughout the weekend. Now, the idea for the puppets was the brainchild of Zack Eckerdt and I, and just so everyone knows, we weren't aware that it was presidents' day weekend until the Saturday of the retreat, so it just was a happy accident that we happened to have Presidents who were medical doctors. This added a fun feel to the retreat, giving people something to wake up with and get involved. We also had a pool party, board games, a skit competition where students and staff set bible stories to different TV genres, and lots of worship and fun. It's always fun to get together and meet people from the different campuses and to form bonds that can travel across Wyoming and South Dakota and that will continue to be connections throughout the rest of our lives.

A Group of students during the skit

Now, the bulk of the retreat was focused around Bobby's sessions, of which I will give the quick and dirty version (if you'd like more information about them, or just want to share thoughts, feel free to contact me). In the first session, Bobby set up what he was going to be talking about over the weekend: God-honoring relationships. He talked about how God, through the Trinity, has always been about relationships, and how that aspect transferred over when He created us. Bobby listed three reasons why people are important to God: 1)we are made in His image, 2)Christ gave His life for every person's redemption, and 3)the Holy Spirit can transform every person who commits themselves to Christ. He then ended the first session with the concept that "love" is an action word, not an emotion.

The second session was about God-honoring family relationships. He talked about how just about all families are screwed up in some fashion, including many of the biblical ones, but that families were meant to be the ultimate set up for discipleship. Throughout the talk he challenged us to clear up (as best we can) relationships within our families, and that we need to have our lives set on having Godly relationships with our family before we can really start to consider marriage and having children. He also gave us some things to chew over about the "one flesh" concept of marriage.

The third session was about having God honoring relationships with purpose, or within the context of the Great Commission. Basically I split this talks into two points. The first point is that our spiritual families are more important than our physical families. Many times they are the same, but he used the example of Jesus in Luke 2 where He stays behind in Jerusalem talking to the priests and scribes and causes His parents (Mary and Joseph) to worry. Jesus is about His Father's business first. The second point throughout this talk that I got was that there is a price to be paid for the advancement of the Gospel. Jesus had to sacrifice His divinity for our salvation, for the Good News, and we will have to give all of ourselves for this cause as well. We must devote ourselves fully to God's purposes and we must put nothing ahead of that devotion to Christ.

The last session was about how to have our relationship with God to be a God-honoring relationship. He asked a couple of questions to go off of. Do you know God? Do you love God/are you in love with God? Do you have God's heart for people? These were the questions that he really wanted us to ponder, to allow them to impact our lives and to allow them to shape us into who God wants us to be.

Now, the last part of this is about what I hope to see come from this retreat. I hope to see people emboldened to take the relationships that they have seriously and full of prayer. I pray that God will use this weekend to really get people thinking about the families that they want to have in the future, as well as the families that they have now. I also hope that people will take the idea of disciplemaking more seriously as an important aspect of developing relationships within their spiritual families.

This is just a quick rundown, there was a lot of video and stuff taken, so I will hopefully share those with you as they become available to me. Thanks for all of you who prayed over the event and have been praying for this ministry, God has truly been answering your prayers. I'll leave you with the promo video that Zack created. If it doesn't make sense to you now, know that none of the students knew that we were going to have Abe and George emceeing, so you've got one up on them. Thanks and God bless, Dustin.

Crazy "Coincidence"

So, I just want to share with you an experience I had of an awesome "coincidence" that occurred in my life, just to give you a testimony of how God is at work in my life and how He is providing for me.

So for the last couple of months I have felt a very strong conviction that I need to be giving some of my funds to missionaries that I know, to help support them financially. I have been pretty hesitant to do so because I have been pretty low on money myself since I moved here and I didn't want to put myself into further financial hardship. The conviction, however, has been growing and growing, and so I finally just gave into the prompting and contacted a couple I know who has just started doing campus ministry in Colorado and told them that I wanted to start giving them a monthly donation. They were kind of shocked, but after I explained that I was feeling this conviction and that if they would not accept my donation that I would be giving it to someone else, they gave me the information I needed and I told them that I would be sending them the money. When I went home that day, I had received in the mail an envelope that was sent but it didn't have a return address on it. Inside was $325 with a note that said "RENT $". That was all that was in the envelope, and I couldn't believe it. I have speculated who sent the money, but I know for a fact that it was from God because the fact that I received it the day that I committed to giving monthly was just to perfect. It was God reminding me that I am under His watch and His protection, and that when I follow after Him with everything I have, including the little money that He gives me, He will be faithful and will provide for my every need.

This was a very encouraging moment for me, but it would not have been had I not taken the initiative and done what God was asking. I believe that He is trying to bring me to a place where I will not wait months to start doing what He asks, but by having it be the same day He is bringing me to a place where I can fully trust Him the moment He asks of me. Lord, I pray that You would help me more and more to have the faith, the courage, and the trust to act on what You give me and to use the gifts You give me to bring You the glory and to make Your fame known throughout the earth. Lord, You are an amazing God, a wonderful Provider, and the only One that makes this life worth living. I love You, Father, and praise You for Your blessing and for Your name. And in that name I pray, amen.

Time (pt 3)

So now we head into part three on this series on time. For the sake of brevity, I will simply state here that if you haven't read the first two posts (parts 1 and 2) than it would make much more sense for you to go back and read those than it would to start here. If, however, you feel like you must start with part 3, then that of course is your prerogative. The series has been based on a passage written by Paul to the church in Ephesus. I will post the verses down below, but the reference is Eph 5:14-17. Part one was looking deeply at verse 14, and how we need to wake up from our spiritual slumber of sin and death and set our gaze on the eternal purpose of God and His glory. Part two was based on verses 15 and 16, and talked about how we need to make sure that we understand that we will give an account for our time and that Christ did not redeem it for us to continue in sin but so that we would fulfill our eternal purpose of glorifying the God of creation. Now in part three I want to go into how one does this. Let's start by looking at the passage we've been going through.

Therefore He says, "Awake you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light." See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  Eph 5:14-17

The bold section is verse 17, and it is what we will be looking at today. The thing is, when we look at the rest of the verse, when we understand that our "life is at best a vapor (Psalm 39:5)," when we fully comprehend that "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2nd Cor 5:10)," then when we finally get to verse 17 we must be so desperate to avoid wasting our life and of not having the fullness of God's glory in our lives that we are crying out for the answer. And when we read "do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is" there has to be an urgency that rises up within us to UNDERSTAND WHAT THE WILL OF THE LORD IS. This is the key to everything, this is the cornerstone of a life that isn't wasted and this is the crux of living a life that is complete in the fullness of God. It is at this place that we must give our entire being to discerning the will of the Lord. But this is also where many people give up. "I can't possibly know what the will of the Lord is, His ways are so much higher than my ways and His thoughts are so far above my thoughts and there is no way that I can know what the will of the Lord is." How many times has this crossed my mind and how many times have I heard this from other people? I'm here to tell you right here and now that this is a lie from the pit of hell and I am not about to tolerate it anymore.

Before you can understand what the will of the Lord is, you have to have some understanding of who you are and what you have. If you have salvation, if you have committed your life to Christ, receiving eternal life through His death on the cross, than you also have something that is way more incredible than eternal life or forgiveness of sins: He has given you the Holy Spirit, the third part of the Trinitarian God, to become one with your spirit and to live inside you and with you forever. 1st Timothy 1:7 states "For God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a strong mind." Romans 8:15-17 states "For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together." It is very clear that God did not set aside His elect just to have them around, He established within them a Spirit of "power and of love and of a strong mind," not so that we can continue in our own way and go unnoticed but to proclaim to the world the glory of the One who has made His dwelling within us. And by Paul's words to the Romans, we not only have God living within us, but we have been adopted by God and are joint heirs with Christ. This is who we are, so if Paul, divinely inspired, pens that we are joint heirs with Christ, how can we possibly believe even for a second that He would not reveal His will to us?

Now that it has been established that God can and does reveal His will to us, we must put seeking His will in it's proper place. I am about to describe the one time management technique that I will use during this entire series, but it provides a helpful picture for us to use. What we have here to the left is what I call (because I'm not sure what it's really called) the important/urgent grid. The idea is that everything that we do fits into one of these boxes, with some things being urgent, somethings being important, some being both and some being neither. The obvious conclusion is that we need to focus our attention on the things in box 1 first, and set up our priorities from there, making sure that we do the things in box 2, quickly finish or delegate box 3, and spend the least amount in box 4 (box 4 includes video games and movies and things like that which are not necessarily to be avoided all together, but need to stay in their proper place). The reason I bring this up is that when generally when I hear this analogy, we see that reading our bibles, prayer and things of this nature are considered important, but are not necessarily urgent and are placed in box 2, the "secondary tier" of the importance hierarchy. In light of what we have discussed up to this point, the only obvious conclusion is that this is as much of a lie as us not being able to hear God's will. Our vapor of a life lacks any eternal (and therefore any real) significance outside of us living out the will of God, and that not only makes it important but extremely urgent. Our time must be centered around the will of God: seeking it, understanding it, and living it out by the Spirit of "power and of love and of a sound mind" that God has given us.

The only real way that I know of for understanding the will of the Lord is through prayer: through the written word (the bible), through our supplications and spoken prayers, and through sitting in silence before the Lord in complete surrender. I refer to all three of these things as prayer because to me all three are important aspects of the process, with us actually speaking being probably the lowest point of them all. In fact, if I were to order their importance, I would say that sitting in silence is the most important, reading the word as slightly less important, and actually presenting our requests as the least important. When we place ourselves in a position of silence before the Lord, what we are doing is humbling ourselves, giving up our oh-so-precious time and setting ourselves up to be able to hear from the Lord. And don't let anyone fool you, developing this habit is hard work. It isn't good enough simply to sit down and not do any physical activity for 15 minutes, we must set our full gaze and attention on the one true Creator of the universe, not presenting our requests but simply sitting in awe of His wonder and His majesty. To do this without letting thoughts of what we need to do that day or of who we need to talk to or the last movie we watched. or anything else other than God in is very difficult and is a skill that takes practice and attention to actually accomplish. Honestly, I think I don't really sit in this state longer than a minute straight before my mind wanders, so it is a skill that I don't really have yet, but it is one that I am striving for.However, when we practice this habit, when we develop this spiritual discipline, we are then able to get the most out of the other two aspects of prayer I mentioned. Our bible reading becomes more fruitful and we understand more of it because we are seeing the things that God is showing us more clearly. Our spoken prayers become more and more productive because we are no longer praying from our own selves but we are praying the prayers that the Father has placed on our heart because they are on His heart. Because I don't want to be accused of anything, I want to state right now that we should not stop reading our bibles and giving our requests to God to solely sit in silence before God, there has to be balance. I want to place the importance on it because I feel that it is one of the more neglected of the spiritual disciplines and is probably the most counter-cultural of them all. One quick example of sitting before the Lord is in the verse that appears at the top of my blog. Habakkuk 2:1 states "I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected." The prophet is not only setting himself on the rampart and standing his watch to see what the Lord will say to him, he is also waiting for God to give him the proper response when He does respond and corrects him. That is a profound thought, and I look forward to the day when that is how I respond to Him and His will.

Of course, now that we are fairly well versed in the fact that we can hear His will, and how we can do so, there is another part to obedience that we must consider: doing His will. I can tell you of several incidents in my own life where I clearly heard from the Lord and then because I did not like what He said I convinced myself and others that I hadn't actually heard from Him and that I was still waiting for an answer. When we think we have heard the will of the Lord, we must act in confidence within that will. Pretending like I didn't hear it never made it go away, it just made it harder when I actually responded to it. At the end of Matthew chapter 4, shortly after Jesus' experience in the desert being tempted by Satan, is a very enlightening passage of how He called four of His disciples. He called out to them while they were fishing (that was their profession) and they immediately stopped what they were doing and followed Him. The underlined word is the one that caught my attention when I read through this passage the last time. Two sets of brothers immediately left their vocation, their friends, their jobs, and even their fathers, and followed the Lord at the drop of a single word: come. No one asked where they were going, they didn't go tell their bosses that they were leaving, they didn't waste time explaining to their father why they had to go, they immediately left what they were doing and followed Him. This is what we need to do, we need to have this mentality in our own walk with God. We must seek out His will with the intention of following Him, whatever the cost and personal "sacrifice" that we have to make, because we have to know and understand that His will is what is best for our lives and will bring us more gain than we could ever hope to achieve any other way. If we will immediately and decisively place ourselves in His will, than we will be used for great kingdom exploits because we have submitted ourselves to the Holy Spirit and are seeking to give God glory in everything that we do.

So some practical applications to end with. 1) We must form our time around God and not the other way around. Our time belongs to God, and we must acknowledge that fact. We shouldn't make time for Him, He must be the source from which all of our time is based. 2) Don't wait to respond to His word. We must act on His will when He reveals it to us. There should be no hesitation, we must allow Him to lead us, especially when we know that we don't have the strength for it. It is only then that He can show us the true strength and power that only He can portray. 3) We must build our time around God. I know this is the same as the first one, but it is the most important, and needs to be stated over and over and repeated to us everyday so that we don't forget it. One suggestion I made to the college students I spoke to (and one that I picked up from Corey Russell in one of his talks) was that they should try going to bed at 10pm and getting up at 5:30 or 6am. This would take our sleep schedules and place them in full submission to God, since this is completely against the culture of the collegiate world. The grand majority of the sins that I have struggled with only manifest themselves after 10pm, so to go to sleep before that not only removes the temptation from my life it also establishes that I am setting my sleep schedule for God, not for my own selfish purposes. The same goes for getting up at 6am. I don't just do this on a natural basis, I have to get up that early for a specific purpose, and I am not going to get up and just not fulfill that purpose. I don't get up at 6 and then decide that I don't feel like doing whatever it is I got up for and decide to waste time with tv or video games, I set out to fulfill that purpose because I got out of bed precisely to do so. And if we set that purpose as spending time with the Lord, that makes it that much more of a desirable habit. For anyone attempting to try this (mostly talking to college students at the moment, I imagine) I have one tip for you: the trick is going to bed at 10pm. If you can do that, the 6am part becomes so much easier. It's a thought that deserves a lot of consideration. The last application I have is 4) to remove any excuses or idols that you have set up to stop yourself from living the life of eternal significance that God has planned for you. One excuse that I hear over and over that I want to address is the statement that "I'm not sure that what I heard was from the Lord, so I'm going to wait for confirmation." Although this isn't a bad thing, we can use it to paralyze our efforts and our effectiveness in the kingdom. When we say "I'm waiting for confirmation," I've noticed that most of the time we really mean that we want to see writing in the sky while Gabriel proclaims it to us and Moses, raised from the dead, carves the same message into stone tablets, and even then this isn't enough to prove to us "beyond all doubt" that we have heard what He has spoken. I want to present to you the example of Saul, who becomes Paul. Saul went zealously after what he felt was the will of God, but in his instance it just happened to be persecuting Christians. He believed it was from the Lord, so he pursued it with passion and violence. I believe the reason God was able to use Paul in such an effective and powerful way is that he was already pursuing God with all of himself, and when God encountered him on the road to Damascus the only thing that changed was the path he was following. You may very likely be wrong when you begin to pursue God, you may hear incorrectly and you may be doing some very destructive things, but God will correct you; it is the passion that He is seeking for, not perfect knowledge. If what you feel like the Lord has told you directly contradicts scripture, then it obviously isn't His will and you need to ignore it, but you can't hold yourself back simply because you are "unsure" what His will is. Call fear what it is, repent from it, and boldly act out of what you know to be the will of the Father.

This concludes this little series on time. Much of what I've written here is similar to what I said at CV on Jan 18th, and some of it is different. I also wanted to give you access to the powerpoint and the outline of my talk, so simply click on those links and it should take you to them. I am always excited for comments or questions or anything, so please feel free either to contact me or to leave comments on this post. Also I want to thank you for reading this, hopefully it has been helpful and insightful for you as you continue your walk with God. I pray that we would all gain greater understanding in how to discern the will of God, greater passion and urgency to do so, and greater boldness to act out in faith because of what Jesus has done for us. Amen. God Bless.

Time (pt 2)

Awake, you who sleep

Since my last post basically explains the basic premise of everything, I'll just give a very quick recap here and then jump into part two of this series on using time for the advancement of the purposes of God. I'm exploring a passage in Ephesians that describes our use of time and the goal is of this is to put in perspective the importance of our time, namely that the way we spend our time has eternal ramifications and that we need to live with purpose in mind. And that purpose needs to be aligned with God's: to have His glory proclaimed throughout the earth. I'm am going through Ephesians 5:15-17: "Therefore He says, 'Awake, you who are asleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.' See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise but understand what the will of the Lord is." This passage is full of wisdom on the use of time. The last post was mostly based around verse 14, and the main concepts were to avoid laziness and busyness and instead focus on what God has called us to do. To set ourselves on His purposes, His light, and to keep ourselves in line with His purpose is what will give our lives meaning in light of eternity. By focusing on the light that Christ gives us, we are able to align ourselves with Him and keep ourselves on the narrow path that leads to the fullness of the life that God has planned for us. For a more in depth look at verse 14, you can check out the last post. Now on to today's thoughts on verses 15 and 16.

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

Not As Fools But As Wise

For my personal studies and my bible reading in general, I prefer the New King James Version, which is where all the scripture in my blog is quoted from, but for the sake of comparison and clarity, I think that it would help to quote Ephesians 5:15-16 from the New Living Translation: "So be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days." This is very similar to many other translations that I've looked at (biblegateway.com is a fantastic resource), including NIV and the ESV, and they essentially say the same thing as the NLT. The first half of the verse I like in this regard, simply because I had to look up the word "circumspectly" in the dictionary before I could understand this passage fully. Apparently circumspectly means carefully, and so we could reword the statement as "see then that you walk carefully" and would basically be the same thing. We want to focus on what is good, what is wise, taking our eyes off of what is evil, or unwise. We must take diligence in the way in which we live. Seeing as how this point was hammered hard in the last post, I will stop here on that point and move to the part of the verse that stuck out to me.

In many other versions, verse 16 reads "make the most of every opportunity in these evil days" or some variation on it. As stated above, the NKJV reads: redeeming the time, because the days are evil." I agree wholeheartedly that we must make the best use of our time, there is nothing wrong with this statement at all. There is, however, another tone that is portrayed with the phrase "redeeming the time." For me this bring up a different image than simply making the most of our opportunities. It reminds me of the fact that my life has been redeemed by Christ's death on the cross. He bought my time back for me, it has been redeemed in these evil days and I owe Him everything for that fact. The other main image I have in my mind while reading "redeeming the time" is the fact that we will be held responsible for our actions and how we use our time. Romans 14:12 states "So then each of us will give an account of himself to God." This is not referring specifically to non-believers, although they certainly fall into the category of "each of us." This is referring to every person who has ever lived or ever will live. We will all be required to give an account before the throne of the Lord at the time of judgment, and although as believers our salvation may not be in question, we will still have to give an account of how we used the time He gave us. 2nd Cor 5:10 says "For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." We will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and we will have to give an account and receive according to what we have done. We will by no means loose our salvation, for it is by faith that we are saved, not works, but that does not mean that God no longer cares about what we do, He has bought us for such a steep price not so we could just coast along in our sin but so that we could actually live out the live He has provided for us.

What I say to you I say to all: Watch!

Now, the last part of the verse states that "the days are evil." I want to address this by quoting from Solomon in Ecclesiastes. "(9:11-12) I returned and saw under the sun that - The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, Like birds caught in a snare, So the sons of men are snared in an evil time, When it falls suddenly upon them." This is a direct statement that declares the importance being aware of what is going on, with the understanding and perspective that things will happen, evil will come to you, and if you are not prepared it will fall suddenly upon you and you will be snared. It matches up with Matt 10:24 "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master." We have been given the Holy Spirit not to be spared from any calamity, but to be prepared to fulfill the Lord's purposes through them. I mentioned a verse from Mark 13 in the last post, and it is relevant again. Verse 37 states "and what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!" We must watch the time we're in, we can't simply allow these things to happen and expect that it will all work out for the best. We must be diligent and constantly set ourselves on the watch so that we will not be ensnared by these times and instead will be moved into the higher purposes of His calling for us.

We must watch, we must be diligent, and we must focus on the fact that our time is not our own and we will be held accountable for how we use it. The next post will about seeking the will of the Lord. This is the key for us as we seek out how to live this life on purpose, and with the rest of this passage now explained, the act of seeking after the will of the Lord becomes something that is attainable and important. We will get more into this next time. God Bless

Time (pt 1)

This last week at the Campus Ventures large group meeting I had the opportunity to give the students a message about time. In the preparation leading up to giving this talk, I ran into several things that became worrisome to me. Now, what caused me to worry was not that I felt unqualified to speak (I am unqualified, and have already accepted that fact) or that I didn't think my speaking would be affective (again, I've long since come to terms with the fact that God will be the one to change hearts, I have no ability to do so), but it came from the fact that I didn't even know what I was to speak about. In the planning stages, I was told that my topic was "time." I hope most of you by now have realized that this is a pretty vague topic of discussion. I probably stressed over this point for about three or four days before God reminded me that this was part of a bigger series and that what I needed to be focusing in on was, well first off Him, but secondly that I'm not talking about time in general, I'm talking about time in how it relates to His eternal purposes. He then led me back to Eph 5:14-17, which is what my talk became based on. This passage will also be the basis of a three or four part series of blogs in which I will discuss the talk I gave at CV. Hopefully this is helpful for you.

Before I begin, I want to start with what I will actually be discussing. I'm not giving a time management talk here, although some aspects of it will lend themselves toward that direction. Time management is a tool to use your time more effectively, but one's time can just as easily become more effective at fighting against the kingdom of God as it can promoting it. So what I want to talk about is the importance of orienting our time with God's eternal purpose in mind. During the first week of school this semester, Cody Johnson (director of CV at UW) related that "God's eternal purpose is to display His wisdom to the universe by conforming us to the image of His Son." I would say it another way, that God's eternal purpose is to display His glory throughout the world, and that the primary way He chooses to do this is through His adopted children being conformed to the image of His Son. So when we look at the topic of time, what we are really looking at is how and why our time should be thought of in the perspective of this eternal kingdom mindset. So we should start with getting ourselves oriented in understanding what our time (essentially our lives) really are when looking through the lens of eternity. I want to specifically look at Psalms 39:4-5 and 90:10-12. In Psalm 39, we are forced to deal with the idea that "every man at his best state is but vapor," and in Psalm 90 we have to come to terms with the fact that the only "boast" of this vapor "is only labor and sorrow." Our seventy or eighty years on this earth are only a vapor in light of eternity, and the cry of both the psalmists here is that the Lord would teach us to number our days to gain a heart of wisdom. With that in mind, let's jump right into the main content.

So, like I said earlier, this entire series is based on Ephesians 5:14-17. For the sake of getting the big picture, I will reproduce the entire passage here:

Therefore He says, "Awake you who sleep, Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light." See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 

There is a lot to unpack, and so for part one of this series I want to discuss just the first verse.

Therefore He says, "Awake you who sleep, Arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

As the Lord pressed me to ponder this verse, three words stood out to me: sleep, dead, and light. It has seemed to me that through reading scripture that sleep and laziness are equated. Here are a list of verses that exemplify this point: Prov 6:6-11, Prov 10:26, Prov 12:11, Prov 13:4, Prov 19:15, Prov 20:13, Prov 21:25-26, Mark 13:33-37, Romans 13:11-12, and 1st Thess 5:5-6. When you read through these verses, a pattern starts to emerge. We are commanded by scripture not to slumber, but to be awake and to be diligent in our work. Now we are not necessarily talking about physical sleep, although for some this may be a part of the problem, but what we are actually talking about is a mental or spiritual slumber. This kind of sleep is equivalent to death, which is why Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, could pen the phrase "Awake you who sleep, Arise from the dead." This type of sleep is what happens when one shuts themself down from diligently and faithfully following after the Lord and His commandments and instead are coasting because they have already received their salvation and are saved from hell (this type of sleep is also descriptive of those who have not received Christ's redeeming grace, but the main focus of this talk is with Christians). Spiritual sleep will always lead to death, whether it be a spiritual death (in terms of those who are not saved) or the death of God's glorious plan for one's life. We must actively engage in fighting off the drowsiness of Spiritual slumber.

And God has given us the Way to fight it: namely Jesus. Jesus gives us the light, and that Light is Jesus Himself. He, as He normally is, is the key to resiting the temptation of falling asleep from the wine of this world. To get into the right understanding of this, we must see that Jesus being the Light is not some analogy that is supposed to show us that He reveals to us the way or that He explains things so that it makes sense, but He, in a very physical and real way, is truly light. In Rev 21:23, John sees that "the city [the new Jerusalem] had no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is it's light." In the coming kingdom, Jesus Himself will be the light so much so that there will not even be a sun. If that image doesn't get you in the right mindset, I don't know what will. And because His light is so penetrating, it is even able to open the minds of our understanding. Psalm 13:3 says "Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death." David knows that without Jesus "enlightening [his] eyes" he will fall into a spiritual slumber that will lead to death. And when Paul prays for the Ephesian church, he prays that "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. (Eph 1:17-18)" The point is that without the Light enlightening our eyes, we will fall into slumber, which leads to death.

One last thing that I want to mention is that although we are to be diligent in seeking after God and His light with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, we are not to simply replace laziness with being busy. Being busy and being diligent are not the same things. As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, we can easily fill our lives up with worthless things that do not honor God, and actually work against His kingdom on this earth. In fact, I would say that if you are not busy with God's purposes and plans, then those things that you are busy with are, in no uncertain terms, idols. If you read through Deut 11:13-16, you can see that if you are not concerned with the commandments of the Lord, then your heart can be deceived, and will cause you to "turn aside and serve other gods and worship them." You will worship other gods (or idols) if your heart is not set on the commandments of the Lord. You can fill your time with good things that in other contexts may even be what the Lord has ordained, but if you place those things above the Lord, then they are idols and need to be cast down in your life. So we cannot remain idle, we cannot be busy with worthless things, but we need to be watchful and focus our lives on the Light that is Jesus Christ.

I will continue this topic over the next couple of days, continuing to meditate on Eph 5:14-17 and other passages that relate. The next one will be specifically focused on vs 15 and 16. Take care and God bless.

New Years Resolution

January 1st is one of my favorite times of year. It is a time of so much promise, a time to look back on all that was wrong with the previous year and a time to start over. Logically, I think how arbitrary it is that this particular day is the one that allows you to change yourself, how we should constantly be making these types of decisions and not putting them off till January, and how delaying making that decision is really procrastination and generally these changes won't actually happen. But that doesn't take away from this time. New Years is the perfect opportunity because it symbolizes going from the old year, the past, and stepping into the future. If you're like me at all, you did not live up to the promises of last year, that the hopes and dreams that excited you at the beginning of 2010 were drowned out by the day-to-day problems and circumstances that seem to plague our existence. But none of those problems or circumstances are relevant on the first day of January. They seem to not even exist as we decide to loose weight, read the bible more, get to the gym regularly, or whatever other goal you have made for yourself. This is they way it should be, we should not be constrained by the day-to-day grind when forming our dreams and goals.

1st Corinthians 10:31 states "Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." We are called to live lives that are completely and utterly devoted to the glory of God, and the fame of His name. The thing that I consider most worthless over the last year and in reality over the course of my life is that I have always been living for the glory of my own name. I am constantly concerned with myself, my needs, recognition for what I have done, and wanting people to appreciate and depend upon me, and this is such a waste of time, money, energy, and ultimately such a waste of my life. The longing of my heart is eternal glory, but that longing is misplaced on the wrong object. It is God that I should be concerned with, God that should consume my thoughts, and God's glory that should be the entire focus of my life. And there is nothing that the daily grind should be able to do to drive that from my focus.

I want my life to have the same singular focus that David expresses in Psalm 27: "(vs 4) One thing have I desired, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple." I want to live by this "one thing" mentality, that my life would not be distracted by many things but that it would be defined by one all-consuming passion. Not in some legalistic, confining, law-centered way, but through the love, relationship-centered, freeing grace that is given to us through the Holy Spirit by the hand of God Himself. I want people to be able to look at my life and say, whether they see it as good or not, that I am a disciple of Christ Jesus  and that my life truly reflects His life purpose.  I want my life to be so marked by the fact that Jesus is my Lord and Savior that there would be no doubt in the minds of anyone I come in contact with about whom I serve and who I am devoted to. I don't want to be distracted with the accolades of men, I don't want to be sucked into the pride that comes with leadership or great deeds, I don't want to even have the greatness of my own name to be considered, I want everything I say and do and not do to point to the everlasting, all-powerful Creator and Savior that has so ingrained Himself in my being that "it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20)." This is the cry of my heart, this is what I long for. I'm nowhere near this point yet, but that is what the bible and God Himself calls me to be, and this is what I strive for. I'm tired of a complacent, man-centered "Christianity," I want something more!

I also want to describe to you here the theme for Campus Ventures at UW for this next semester. The theme is "Living Life on Purpose." We don't want students to live their lives based on a purpose that they are given by their parents, society, school, or any other worldly source, we want students to find the true purpose which God has called them to and to radically devote their lives to it. The world, and the west in general, has more than enough "Christians" by name alone; what the world desperately needs and is seeking for are people who will allow the Gospel of Christ to interrupt their plans and place them on a path that will extend the kingdom of God in their own lives and the lives of every person on the planet. We are seeking during this semester to bring people to a place where they are actually seeking the purpose that their lives have been devoted to and to change that purpose, through prayer and study of the word by the Holy Spirit, to a God-centered understanding of how they are to live their lives. We are not asking people to give up becoming teachers and doctors to become foreign missionaries; our prayer and desire is to bring students to a place where they will give up their ambitions and plans and fully embrace the journey and calling that the Lord has placed on their lives. We don't want them to settle for their best, but we want them to go after God's abundance. We will be doing this by describing how to seek God in many aspects of life, including how we spend our time, what we do with our money, how we handle relationships, and how to go after God's glory in the workplace. And again, the ultimate goal for us is to have students come away with an understanding of what their life purpose is, to be convicted if it isn't in the right place, and to be encouraged to follow God through whatever trial, tribulation, difficulty, or obstacle that may impede them, to rely on His grace to get them through, and to encourage others along their journey to proclaim the glory of God in whatever way God has lead them to proclaim it.

This is going to be an exciting year for me and for CV. I'm honored and privileged to be a part of what God is doing here at the University of Wyoming and in my own personal life. I pray that throughout this year these goals will never diminish, that my devotion will never waver, and that through this next semester the body of believers at UW will become recklessly abandoned to Jesus, the cross, and His unmatched, unequaled glory on this campus, in this city, and throughout this world. Amen.

Christmas Day

"For unto us a Child is born.
Unto us a Son is Given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His Government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this."
Isaiah 9:6-7

Today is Christmas, the day we celebrate as the day in which the Child of promise was born unto us in glorious fashion. I have no words to describe this event's significance or its meaning. We are completely indebted to this one night for the salvation of our souls, the restored relationship with the Creator. These verses came up during the Christmas Eve service I went to last night, and all I can do is meditate on them. And as I stated before, as I meditate, no words come, only the awe of the majesty and the glory and the beauty of my Savior. Let these words and the life of our Lord Jesus Christ bring to you a sense of awe today and through the rest of this time that we get to spend with friends and family. Don't let this season pass out of memory without you being struck by just the true magnificence of Jesus, about His life, and even about His sacrifice and death.

Jesus, I thank you so much for your birth, for the inconceivable idea that the Creator God of the universe would enter into the womb for nine months and would be born in a stable, with lowly parents, as an infant Child, completely dependent on Mary and Joseph to provide for you. Lord, please strike me with a profound sense of awe at your sacrifice, at your life, and of who you are. I don't care to be able to write rapturous descriptions of you, I don't need more verses and more descriptions of you, I want to be struck by the deep revelation of who you are, because you are beyond words, you are beyond any descriptions possible, and you are simply beyond what I can comprehend. This Christmas, let me simply be stunned to silence and reverence by a glimpse into who you truly are. Thank you Jesus, and in your precious and glorious name I pray, amen.

Brokenness

This topic of brokenness has been the theme of my walk with the Lord probably over the last semester, but especially over the last few days since classes ended here at the University of Wyoming. Specifically I've been reading through Jeremiah and a book by Bob Sorge entitled The Fire of Delayed Answers. In fact, there is a quote from that book which I would like to share as I start this topic: "Jesus isn't looking for people who have such a deposit of strength in their hears that they can follow Him; He's looking for people who are so weak that they recognize they cannot take the next step without the immediate help of the Holy Spirit."

For those of you who don't know, this has been a great semester, but it has also been a very rough semester for me. I have been so struck so much by the sheer volume of what God is doing on this campus, and the areas in which He wants to restore to His glory. It is simply amazing to see where God is at work and what He is doing. In this, however, I have also been hit with the mass of sin and bondage that has enveloped this campus and my complete inadequacy of being able to do anything about it. Over this last semester I have felt trapped by my own situation, my finances, my own struggles with sin, and I want to cry out for those around me but I feel restrained from doing so because of my own shortcomings. I have felt weak, powerless, and as though I am failing this community and failing the calling to which God has placed on my life. I feel like I'm barely floating along financially, which has placed doubts in my mind of whether I really heard God when He told me to come here and do this internship. And with student loan payments starting up now, those doubts and fears have only increased. Was I really supposed to go to PLU, a private school in Washington, to finish my education or should I have finished at MSU in Bozeman, where I practically had a full-ride? Should I really be working in campus ministry in Laramie, Wyoming, or should I really be looking for full-time job so I can pay off my loans quicker and easier, with less stress? Have I just completely misread everything that I thought God was leading me to do? Should I be closer to Laurel so that I can be more of a helping hand in the healing process of my father? Have I, by following this unknown path that I think was laid out by the Lord, sent myself into a place where I will not be able to find a wife and will suffer loneliness for the rest of my life? These are the doubts and questions that cloud my judgment and darken my thoughts just about everyday, and many times through the night. And of course, with all this confusion and doubt running through my mind, the question becomes: if all this is causing so much anxiety and stress, can it really be God's plan for my life? There must be something wrong with what I am doing because in God there is supposed to be joy and peace, not strife and worry.

Now, I'm not saying that my life is terrible, that everything is bad, that every thought I have is doom and gloom. There are days when I hardly think of these things at all. God has blessed me with provision every step of the way, I have yet to go a month where I couldn't eat or where I couldn't pay rent. God has blessed me with relationships with friends and family that have sustained me through this time and I am so thankful for every single one of them. It isn't that I am unable to see any blessings from the Lord, but these blessings don't answer the questions that darken my thoughts. God does not promise a mere "getting by" type of existence, He promises life ABUNDANT (John 10:10). I have come here with nothing but a faith that He will make it work, that He will move, and that I will be able to have all that He has promised, and this isn't the life He has provided. I thought the financial support would come in and that I would be able to confidently walk knowing that His hand is upon my life. I thought I would walk onto campus, and doors of opportunity would fly open, that students would be passionate about giving their lives to God, that there would be amazing, big, unmistakable demonstrations of God's power to Christians and non-Christians alike, and that I would get to be a part of it all because I was obedient to come to Laramie.

As you can probably see from those last few statements, there is pride that needs to be addressed. I say "is" because although much of it has been addressed already, I feel like there is probably more on the way. The problem I continue to run into time after time after time is that I'm worried about me. "God, bless ME, use Me, glorify Me. What about ME?" I keep wanting God to tell me what He wants me to do, give me the strength to do it, and then let me alone so I can go do it and glory in what I've done. I'm excited, I'm on fire, and I'm ready to do whatever God wants to be done, and now God is preparing me to actually be used for His purposes. I have natural leadership capacities and a natural ability to read and understand His word. I have "gifts" that I feel qualify me for some sort of position or task. I have a sense of entitlement and pride because I have natural abilities, because I have some strength. But natural strength isn't good enough for the supernatural purposes of God. For the last several years I have felt restrained and held back from fully doing what God wants me to do, and that has lead to a cry in my heart and in my prayers for a release and an annointing for the purposes of God, and He is now answering that prayer.

"Jesus isn't looking for people who have such a deposit of strength in their hears that they can follow Him; He's looking for people who are so weak that they recognize they cannot take the next step without the immediate help of the Holy Spirit." As I read that this morning my heart could immediately connect with what the Lord is doing in my life. I have been focused so much on getting the Lord to do something through me that I wasn't looking for what He was doing in me. God is breaking me, breaking my strength, and bringing me to a place where I will fully rely and trust Him. As I read through Jeremiah, as I look back to Job, and as I see in the life of Joseph and Moses and Paul and Peter, I see how Jesus took them, emptied them of themselves and shined His life through them to bring the glory back to Himself. These were not the "spiritual giants" that we generally make them out to be, they were normal men whose lives were broken and then utilized through the providence of the Father. Jesus is breaking me, He's showing me how weak I really am and He's destroying any reason I have for pride and entitlement. No amount of knowledge, of bible memorization, or talk will accomplish this in my life. The only way for me to fully trust and rely on Him is for Him to take me through the "valley of the shadow of death" and to teach me to hear and listen to His voice. It'll teach me to cling to His words as the only source of life, and to come out the other side in love with Him and able to accomplish His purposes.

I'm just going to end this with a passage. I feel as though I could go on longer but this is probably a good place to stop. This passage, written by Jeremiah in Lamentations, has been important in my life before, but it is taking on new relevance now. "The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and keep silent, because God has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust-there may yet be hope" (Lamentations 3:25-29). I don't know how long this season of brokenness will last, I don't know how long the process will take, all I know is that I'm committed now. I've made my choice, I'm not turning back, I will continue to walk in obedience to what the Lord has called me, through the doubts, through the questions, through the pain and strife, and I will set myself on Him as my only redeemer, my only Savior, and I will refuse to go after a "plan B." In light of everything that I have been taught and that I have read for myself in the bible, this is the only course that makes sense. Only through sitting alone, keeping silent, bearing the yoke and putting my mouth in the dust will the hope of the Lord shine through and keep me on His glorious path. Jesus, open my eyes to Your majesty, empty me of myself that you may be glorified and made known in this world. Amen.

Unity in the Body

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me" (John 17:20-21).

Have you ever considered that when Jesus was in His final moments on the earth, giving His disciples the last lesson that He had for them, that He ends this lesson with a prayer that we, as a body of believers, would be one just like He and the Father are one? He didn't pray for comfort, He didn't pray for protection, He didn't even pray that they would all be perfect and that they would be able to follow the law through grace, He prayed for unity. When Jesus was with His disciples for the last time before His death, when He looked out over them and prayed for them, His prayer was that they would be one, and that one-ness would prove to the world that the Father had sent Him.

Throughout the Gospels, as we read the words of Jesus, kind of a startling pattern begins to emerge. Most of what Jesus talks about is the kingdom of God, which is startling because of the fact that personally I've only heard maybe two total teachings on this topic and I have been involved with church and ministry my entire life. The kingdom of God is the major focus of His ministry, and it forms the majority of what He preached on while He was here (Matt 6:33, 12:28, 21:43; Mark 1:14, 4:11, 9:1; Luke 4:43, 8:1, 11:20; John 3:3; as a sample). So this begs the question, why is it that when He entered into that final moment of ministering and praying for His disciples before His death, why did He end with praying for all of His disciples and those who would come to believe in Him through their word to become unified? The only answer I can come to is that this is a part of what it means to be in the kingdom of God.

There are many questions that I want to ask in regards to this: why isn't the kingdom of God preached on, what else does the kingdom of God refer to, what does it mean when Jesus says the kingdom of God is at hand? These are all valid questions, but they are not what I am looking at here. I am at the moment concerned with this question of unity. What does unity look like in the kingdom of God? If we want to enter into the kingdom of God now as Jesus invites us to do (Mark 1:15), how does unity play a role? The answer is profound in it's simplicity, as Jesus states it in the quoted passage above: "that they may also be one in Us." This is the key to the whole question of unity, because without it we will never succeed. To be unified, we must be unified in purpose, and the only One could unify the purposes of that many people is God Himself. As with so many of the things of God, the only thing that will make unity work is unification with Him and His Spirit. We don't have the capacity for the one-ness that our Lord is describing here apart from surrender to the Holy Spirit in all areas of our lives. If there is not that complete surrender, then there remains within us our own purposes, purposes that are centered on our own lives and plans and glory instead of the all-encompassing, all-satisfying Creator of the universe.

Now, before confusion enters into the equation, as Satan always makes sure it does, I want to mention a few things that I'm NOT saying unity means. Unity does not mean that all Christians are supposed to be a part of the same church (i.e. unity does not mean there should only be one denomination or campus ministry group). This is not necessarily a bad idea, and I believe wholeheartedly that when Christ returns all Christians will fall under one banner headed by Jesus Himself. However, unification of doctrine is not tantamount to unification of the Bride of Christ. I think that along with this, mentioning that we as Christians don't all need to be going after the same causes and activities goes without saying. As Paul says in 1 Cor 12, "the body is not one member, but many (vs 14)." I'm sure this has been said before, but every member of the body has a different responsibility, and just because the responsibilities are different doesn't mean any are useless or lesser, and it certainly doesn't mean that for your own physical body parts to be unified that all parts must take on the function of one ("if the whole body were an eye..." vs 17). Paul finally comes to the crux of this point by asking the question (vs 19) "And if they were all one member, where would the body be?" Without the different parts, different tasks, and different responsibilities, there would be no body. This is why the prerequisite for unity is not doctrinal correctness, but obedience. When we all come to a point of complete obedience to the Spirit of God acting in our lives, unity becomes a moot point. Once we stop comparing what we're doing with what someone else is doing, and instead focus on what God is doing and how He has asked us to be a part of it, unity will simply be the normal state of Christian and human behavior. So when I refer to unity, I am not talking about being doctrinally correct, about being a member of the right church, or about doing things the same way as someone else, I am referring to all of God's people being in obedience to His will and living as a member of the community God has called us into: the kingdom of God.

So where do we start? Do we ignore everyone else and try to "get ourselves right with God" before even attempting this unity thing? I can't imagine this is what Jesus had in mind. Our personal relationship with God is crucial for us to be able to enter into the same unity with each other as it exists between the Father and His Son; this is an absolute fact. However, as we grow in our relationship with God we will be able to grow in our relationships with other people. One of the greatest things we can do together is worship. In Psalm 34:3, David invites us to "magnify the Lord" with him and "exalt His name together." In addition, Paul instructs us in Romans 12:10 to show our unity by being "kindly affectionate with one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another." Serving one another and worshiping together is how our attitudes will change from self-serving idolaters to the pure and spotless bride of Christ.

So how will you respond. Will you forsake your plans and purposes for the perfect will of the Father whose thoughts towards you are "thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope (Jer 29:11)"? Will you commit yourself to fulfilling the prayer of the One who has sanctified your soul? A doctrine that stands for artificial peace instead of true unity is not Christian and can no longer be tolerated by those who claim the name of Christ. Jesus tells us that when we come to Him to place our lives before Him on the alter of obedience, we cannot be obedient unless we first reconcile with our brethren (Matt 5:23-24). Jesus also says in the Sermon on the Mount that "if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt 6:15)." God is not looking for a church and a bride who has the appearance of peace, but He is looking for a body of believers who are willing to go through the nitty-gritty problems of life and conflict so that they may be able to come out on the other side the pure, spotless, and perfect bride of Christ. As with anything worth having, there is a cost: yourself. Are you willing to count the cost and enter into the fullness of God? Are you willing to set your heart on the throne of the Almighty and allow Him to shape you and to form you and your relationships into the unity that He so desperately desires? I challenge you to engage God on this issue and wrestle through it for yourself, that you may know ultimately what God has in store and that you would not run from the correction that may come but that you would embrace it and persevere through it as God uses it to prepare you for the great and mighty things that He has planned for your life. Don't let this moment slip away, but allow the transformation to bring you that "good, acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom 12:2)." And in all things remember that it is God who gives you the strength, God who gives you the desire, and God who deserves all the glory.

I'll end with this passage from Jeremiah, as it struck me this morning with a conviction to release all that I think I have to God: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Nor let the rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, says the Lord (9:23-24)." Let us glory in the Lord, and set our heart on what He has set His upon.