Easter Is Coming! Get Pumped

Elevation Church Easter Opener from Elevation Church on Vimeo.

5 + 2 + 1 = 5,000

We've got a botched math system.
I think I'm beginning to understand God's better math system.
Here is my theory:  with God, addition turns to multiplication.

As I was reading through the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 men with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (Luke 9), I felt as if God was saying, "As long as I'm in the equation you have to stop using your math and start remembering my math."

We all get so used to using our math system all the time when we go shopping or out to dinner or get paid, but our math gets turned upside down every time Jesus enters the equation.


5 loaves + 2 fish + 1 Jesus = 5,000 men eating to their hearts delight!


We can't ever forget that adding Jesus to the equation multiplies everything everytime.
 
Luke 8:17
"They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers!"

Another Year of New Life

I'm just so thankful for the new life that God gave me.
It really is the most outlandish agreement in the world:
I give God my rags, He gives me His riches!
Even when I don't believe in me, God believes in me (By the way, He believes in you too.)

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,"

Ephesians 1:7-9 (NIV)

He has given me another year of new life.
 I love what He has done for me, but I love Him more.

Sometimes The Prince of Peace Stirs Up Trouble On Our Behalf

Just read this intro & ending to a horrific Old Testament story found in Judges 9:


"22 After Abimelech had ruled over Israel for three years,23 God sent a spirit that stirred up trouble between Abimelech and the leading citizens of Shechem, and they revolted.24 God was punishing Abimelech for murdering Gideon's seventy sons, and the citizens of Shechem for supporting him in this treachery of murdering his brothers...56 In this way, God punished Abimelech for the evil he had done against his father by murdering his seventy brothers.57 God also punished the men of Shechem for all their evil. So the curse of Jotham son of Gideon was fulfilled." [Judges 9:22-24,56-57 (NLT)]


Ouch and Dang!
This just reminded me of a powerful New Testament passage. In it, Paul reminds the Christ-followers in Rome of a passage that comes from Deuteronomy. The Christians in Rome were being highly persecuted and often had to make the life-or-death choice between following the emperor & Jesus. These next few words take on a completely new level when you are on the brunt end of such evil:


"Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, 'I will take revenge; I will pay them back,' says the LORD." [Romans 12:19 (NLT)]


So I can see why they had to be reminded to trust that God can & will take vengeance.
Because sometimes The Prince of Peace has got to stir up some trouble on our behalf.
And I would much rather have God fighting for me than me fighting for me.

The Absurdity of Christmas

Merry Christmas.
I hope you get to take some time to read the following and reflect on the wildly absurd action of Jesus actually leaving His place of glory and humbly coming to earth for our sake.

I love my family. I love my parents. I love my grandparents. I love my friends.
But most of all I love my Savior.

This passage will forever remind me of the true meaning of Christmas:

"You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Though he was God,he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross.Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names,that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
(Philippians 2:5-11, NLT)

Let's be the Christ and act with the same absurd service to one another.

A Jewish Priest Touches An Outcast...That's Not Normal!

Jesus was Jewish. Not only Jewish, but a Jewish priest. And the norm for a Jewish priest was NOT to touch people with leprosy. Heck, they weren't even AROUND people with leprosy! Lepers were quarantined to live in their own sick towns as to not infect anybody else with their mutilating disease. So when a guy with leprosy comes running up to Jesus (a Jewish priest) you can bet people's heads turned & they were most likely expecting Jesus's head to turn too.
All eyes on Jesus.
What does he do?
How would He choose to handle & react to such an outcast, such an unclean person?


"Jesus reached out and touched him. "I am willing," he said."Be healed!" And instantly the leprosy disappeared." Luke 5:12 (NLT)

Jesus does the unthinkable. He touches the man THEN heals him with his words. Catch that. Jesus didn't heal the leper with His touch, yet He chose to touch the man while the leprosy was still there and THEN heal using His word.


I'm so glad Jesus chose to touch me, while I was still riddled with the infected sin throughout my body, and then heal me. He didn't expect me to come to Him already clean because He is the One who does the cleaning.

Pure Luck Or Divine Intervention? You Tell Me

Here's a couple passages from the introduction of a book by C.S. Lewis titled Reflections On The Psalms that I thought is worth sharing. Read it then tell me your answer:

"The Psalms are poems, and poems intended to be sung:  not doctrinal treatises, nor even sermons...Their chief formal characteristic, the most obvious element of pattern, is fortunately one that survives in translation. Most readers will know that I mean what the scholars call "parallelism"; that is, the practice of saying the same thing twice in different words...

It is (according to one's point of view) either a wonderful piece of luck or a wise provision of God's, that poetry which was to be turned into all languages should have as its chief formal characteristic one that does not disappear (as mere metre does) in translation...

By giving to truths which are infinitely worth remembering this rhythmic and incantatory expression, He made them almost impossible to forget."

 
Pure luck or divine intervention?
My verdict:  God knew what He was doing!

Activating The Getting

I was just reminded of a difficult truth while I was reading more of Joshua.
It's a principle I actually don't like because it's not easy for me to accept.
And I'm guessing that you, just like me, need a reminder of this particular truth because somehow we tend to easily forget (very conveniently) the difficult truths.
Here's what I read:

"So the LORD gave to Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they conquered it and settled there." (Joshua 21:43, NLT)

Gave. That little word packs so much punch. It (the word gave) seems almost like an inappropriate word here because it's not like the Israelites just sat around and God just rained down a wrapped gift. Israel had to work their butts off in order to receive this gift. Just because God wants to offer something as a gift does not mean we don't have to do anything in order to receive that gift. We will often have to take the step of obedience in seemingly ridiculously overwhelming situations, much like the Israelites did (i.e. conquering Jericho was no normal situation) in order to activate God's gift. Afterall, God loves to stack up the odds against us so that He can receive more credit for the gift in the first place.

Stop sitting, wishing, waiting to receive God's blessings in your life. Go, get off your butt, trust God, and watch the miracle theater begin! He has specific blessings in store that He'd love to give to those of us who have enough trust, obedience, and character to receive it.

The Purpose of Punishment

I'm still reading in the book of Deuteronomy. Here is my latest "God-thought" as I was reading chapter 29 this morning:

Through this seemingly "mean" passage on what will happen to Israel if they break the covenant with God, I was reminded of God's good intentions behind the "curses" (or punishment). You see, there are some people that believe God will just punish people because he can when we mess up; almost as if there is no real good reason for the punishment other than because that's the way God plays. But this is so far from the truth!

If you look at the covenant God has set up (in short, "If you do this, I'll do this; but if you do that, I'll do that"), it is a covenant firmly founded on God's desire to bring blessings into his children's lives. God wants to bless those who listen to His way because His way is the good way; why would we not want to pick the path that ends in goodness?! But it doesn't stop here. God wants his children to experience His goodness so deeply that He will bring punishment to them to warn them that they are on the wrong path. The purpose of punishment is to stop bad behavior before it leads you into complete destruction.

I was simply reminded that, for those who choose to enter into God's family, God is a good Father who is not afraid to punish His children because of his great love. The purpose of His punishment is to save us from destroying ourselves. What a good Father!

More Questions Than Answers

That is my conclusion.
Five minutes ago I just read Deuteronomy 17 thru 25.
If you want to read about specific Jewish laws, then read what I just mentioned.
If that doesn't sound life-altering, then don't. (hint: it wasn't life-altering for me)
But here's my take away:

Although these passages raise about 10 times as many questions about the details of God's ways than giving me solid answers , I cannot deny, and nobody else who reads the Scriptures can deny, the answers that prevail:

The God of the Scriptures demands justice for everyone, mercy to everyone, holiness of His people, forgiveness for each other, and kindness towards everyone.

P.S. Just because I have more questions than answers doesn't mean that the answers I have been given are to be crowded out and counted as loss.

The Presence of God

You often hear people say "We just want your presence God". Have you heard that? I have. But after reading a bit of Old Testament you soon quickly learn that having the presence of God isn't always a good thing.

Numerous times it says "...and the presence of the LORD came down.." and then something happens. And so far, in my reading, the stuff that follows isn't usually butterflies & lemonade. Fires, plagues, earth opening up and swallowing people, leprosy, those are just some of the after-effects from the presence of God.

So, the next time you hear the person next to you in church pray, "I just want your presence God," you might want to back away...

I'm just telling it like I read it.

=)

PS. I realize this post is nonsense.

That's My King!

Easter Sunday was off the chain yesterday.
God literally did an amazing work within the walls of our worship center.
And it all got kicked off by a "That's My King" video of Dr. S.M. Lockridge.

SM Lockridge (by the way: "S" is for Shadrach & "M" is for Meschach...that's cool) is one of my preacher heroes. I don't know much about him but I do know that he pastored faithfully in Texas & down in San Diego, CA for a while at a Calvary Baptist.

If anybody could sum up Jesus (which nobody can) it would be SM Lockridge's "My King" sermon.

PS. go here to view it.

Jesus Is In Leviticus

I've got to be honest, most of Leviticus is not fun to read. But if you keep with it, you'll come to this passage near the last couple of pages:

"24 With every sale of land there must be a stipulation that the land can be redeemed at any time. 25 If any of your Israelite relatives go bankrupt and are forced to sell some inherited land, then a close relative, a kinsman redeemer, may buy it back for them. 26 If there is no one to redeem the land but the person who sold it manages to get enough money to buy it back, 27 then that person has the right to redeem it from the one who bought it." (Lev. 25:24-27, NLT)

That's a pretty cool law for dealing with property, but if you read it in light of the New Testament you get a glimpse of so much more than land.

With our sin, we sold ourselves over to Satan; we left God and turned everything over to The Deceiver. And there was no way we could ever buy back our way to God; the price was too high. But then a close relative, our "kinsman redeemer", showed up while we were bankrupt & without anywhere to go and he bought us back with his own body and blood!

Even in Leviticus you can experience the grace and mercy of God. I guess Leviticus isn't so bad.

I Worried, Therefore I Doubted

It's hard living off of one income. In Southern California. With a child. I complain all the time actually; way more than I should because I'm actually so blessed. But honestly, it's hard to keep perspective when everyone I surround myself with has more material blessings than me. So...I worry. And when I worry I'm revealing the seed of doubt that has taken root. Maybe the only way to get rid of it is a little at a time, but I wish it was quicker.

I've been worrying lately about money, but when I do God gives me His Word:

"No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?" (Matt. 6:24-26, NLT)
God will provide. Stop comparing yourself with others; you're looking in the wrong direction! Start living for the right Master and you don't actually need to worry about anything! And here's two blessings that God used within the past two days to actually show me I don't need to worry:

• My uncle gave me a random small "cash" gift
• Our tax return is more than enough to pay off a debt that I've been thinking about for months!

The Master is good...who else is like Him?! Nobody!