Shining Brightly

Posted on April 13, 2013 by

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 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.”

Luke 11:33

     Why do we hide our light?  A light was meant to show the way, it was meant to illuminate the dark places, be a beacon to others.  When we don’t shine our light, put it in a places for everyone to see, we deny its use.  It wasn’t meant to be hid away.  It’s not a precious jewel to store in a safe somewhere, only to be brought out when we want to look at it, admire its beauty.  Its whole purpose is only made clear when we use our light to aid others.  Our light reaches its fulfillment only in service to others.

     The darkness around us has grown.  It seems like every year, every month, every day brings some new horror, some new depravity that humans have sunk to commit.  Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, the world becomes worse.  Just when we thought people couldn’t treat each other worse, couldn’t wallow in sin any more than they already did, they sink even lower.  It seems like a vision of a Christian nation anywhere is just a dream, something that can never be attained because the darkness is too great and the light is too small.

      But one thing no one ever counts on and the thing we seem to forget the quickest is that the darker it becomes, the brighter our light glows.  The darker the path becomes, the more the people gather around the light.  When the people look around and all they can see is darkness, they cast their eyes on the hills, waiting for the beacon to shine.  Oh, they’ll gather around false light because they assume it’s real.  They’ll chase after the lightning bug because they admire its brightness.  But like any false light, it soon fades into darkness.  The light of Christ never fades.  It only grows brighter.

The disciple lets his light shine before all men.

Application: Do you shine brightly for others with the light God has given to you?  Or do you hide away your light because of fear or something else?

1 Samuel 19-21; Luke 11:29-54

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Filling the Void

Posted on April 12, 2013 by

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“When an impure spirit comes out of a person,

it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it.

Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’

Luke 11:24

 

God can take away the guilt of your sin and set you right again before Him.  It’s the whole reason He sent Jesus here on earth: to die for your sin.  So, don’t think He can’t do it.  But it’s not all about taking away the sin.  It’s also about filling that void with some meatier substance, something that will last forever and make your life a thousand times richer.  God wants to take away the garbage that you tried to fill your life with and replace it with Himself.

Think about the parable that Jesus laid down for just a moment.  Jesus was basically saying that it doesn’t do any good to get rid of the garbage in your life.  You can clean house, throw out the trash and get all new furniture.  But if you don’t fill your house with something else, that garbage or something like it is going to come back and in full force.  That’s why salvation is a clean trade.  God takes away the sin, guilt, and purposeless of your life and gives you a clean soul, a fresh start and purpose in the form of Himself.

There are many out there who just want to not feel guilty anymore.  They want the release from guilt and they want it awfully bad.  But they don’t want God coming in to their nice clean house and being the Master.  God doing the work and cleaning the house is just fine, but after He’s done…I’ll call you when I need you, God.   Unfortunately, that’s just not gonna work.  What’s the old saying?  Nature abhors a vacuum.  If there’s an empty space, something’s gonna come along and fill that void.  And if what Jesus said was true, and there’s no reason to believe that it isn’t, then if God carries ten pounds of guilt and sin out the door, soon, if you don’t let Him in, twenty pounds of filth is gonna come marching back in to fill that empty space.

* A disciple fills the void in their life with God

Application: Has God forgiven and removed the sin in your life? If so, has the void been filled with deepening your relationship with Him or turning back to your old sin?

1 Samuel 17-18; Luke 11:1-28

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For the Love of People

Posted on April 11, 2013 by

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“A priest happened to be going down the same road,

and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.”

Luke 10:35

 

Think about the hypocrisy involved in the Good Samaritan story.  Here was a priest.  I mean, his job is to take care of the people, to watch over his followers.  And here was someone, broken and beaten, who desperately needed the priest’s help.  And the priest didn’t just walk on by, not glancing at the man or acknowledging his presence.  No, the priest took the extra effort to cross over to the other side of the street so he wouldn’t have to even get near the man.

We can all be like the priest at times, forgetting our primary duty to help our fellow man.  We can easily get wrapped up in political activities or church duties or the day-to-day life.  And in the meantime, someone we could easily help, someone who is dying from loneliness or sinking in an addiction or just floating around loose in the world is dying and we haven’t done a thing to step into their life and help.  In fact, our busyness has taken over our lives to such a point that we intentionally go out of our way to avoid the needy person because we just don’t want to sacrifice our precious time.

What we forget is that people are the reason we are still on our earth and why God didn’t just whisk us up to the Heaven the moment we became saved.  I read an excellent example of a modern day retelling of the Good Samaritan story.  On a Christian college campus, a seminary student was given the task of preaching a sermon on the Good Samaritan.  The problem was the preaching gig was clear across campus and the student had a very short amount of time to get there.  Directly in the student’s path lay someone who was badly hurt, or who was simply acting like they were badly hurt and who was actually planted by the observers.  In an overwhelming number of examples, the student preacher walked right on past the hurt person in his hurry to make it to the preaching appointment.

* A disciple makes people his primary interest and goal

Application: If you had to be honest, would you be more like the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan? Can others see your love for God in your love for His people?

1 Samuel 15-16; Luke 10:25-42

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Roots

Posted on February 23, 2013 by

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“But since they have no root,

 they last only a short time.

When trouble or persecution comes

because of the word, they quickly fall away.”

Mark 4:17

 

We know what an emphasis Jesus placed on foundations due to the parable of the house built on sand versus the one built on the rock.  Long story short, having a good foundation not only ensures safety but, like deep roots, a strong foundation ensures growth and stability during times of trouble.  If you want to build up a tree that will last for the long haul, you take the time to plant in an area where it can grow long, deep roots, so when strong winds come, it can remain standing.  When storms come, it can bend and not break.  When trouble or persecution comes, they will not fall away.

In many churches, discipleship seems like an afterthought.  To get them through the doors of a new or semi-new church, we need evangelism coupled with a relevant message.  We need good worship music.  We need a pastor who can preach a humorous message, dashed with loads of I’ve not only been where you are but I’m still there in a lot of ways reality.  We need amusing videos, lots of entertainment but nothing too deep or we’ll risk losing those we’re trying to reach.  Roughly, there’s an immense emphasis on quantity and not on quality.

But the truth is that it makes more mathematical sense to emphasize Christian training and discipleship.  After all, the church can only reach those who enter through its doors.  It has to lure them in before they can hear the message of salvation.  But if each Christian is firmly planted, trained in the commands and precepts of Jesus, if each Christian knows not only that they are bound for heaven but knows how to convey that message to others, then they can reach those who would never enter the doors of the local church.  Exponentially, deep roots not only keeps the follower safe during times of trouble, but it multiplies the church as well.  It’s a win-win no matter how you look at it.

* A disciple invests in the spiritual growth of new believers

Application: Do you have shallow or deep roots when it comes to being a follower of Christ? Do you invest your time developing the roots of others?

Numbers 4-6; Mark 4:1-20

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In the Family

Posted on February 22, 2013 by

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When his family heard about this,

they went to take charge of him,

for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

Mark 3:21

 

There had to have been a wedge in Jesus’ family.  I mean, you grow up with a guy your entire life and suddenly He’s saying He’s God and a great teacher and there’s these crowds following Him around.  That’s why it’s all the more amazing that the future church is led mainly by one of Jesus’ brothers, James.  What did it take to make his brother become a believer?  Well, the power of the Holy Spirit, obviously.  But what else?  See, your family knows you, or they’d like to think they know you.  What does it take for them to understand that you’re no longer the same person?

That must be why Jesus said He came to drive a wedge or a sword between brother and sister, mother and son.  When the transformation comes from a life changed from living for yourself to living for God, the outward life is reflective of the change, but memories sometimes are more persistent than truth.  How we remember someone can override who they are now.  And like earning back someone’s trust after you’ve failed them, convincing someone that you are a new creation may take doubly long.

I think the hardest part of being a follower of Christ is not being able to change those you care about.  Oh, you can tell them about your experiences and you can give the truth found in the Bible, but that memory of who you were may cloud their capacity to understand who you are.  That’s why being a follower of Christ, a completely devoted follower of Christ divides families.  One, they still see you as who you were.  And two, we may have reservations about revealing a complete life devoted to Christ because we are afraid we may turn them off forever.  They may think we’re crazy, in other words.  And, in a way they’re right.  From then on, we are out of our minds.  But we’re into the mind of Christ.

* A disciple may risk family for the Cause of Christ

Application: Are you afraid to witness to your family? What does your family think about your love for Christ and how does that affect you?

Numbers 1-3; Mark 3

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I Am Clean

Posted on February 20, 2013 by

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A man with leprosy came to him and

begged him on his knees,

“If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Mark 1:40

 

When I was young, I possessed an innocence that I didn’t quite understand.  As I grew older, into my teenage years and on into my early twenties, I participated in many activities that seemed to draw that innocence from me.  I no longer felt innocent.  There was blood on my hands. I was unclean.  Anything I set my hand to became marred with dirt and grime.  I began to long for the time when I could erase my present, like it had never happened and regain a bit of the innocence from my youth.

Like the leper, I suffered from a disease that dug down deep, so deep under my skin, that no amount of scrubbing could remove it.  I had become so immersed in sin that it stained my flesh and became a part of who I was.  When my actions fundamentally changed who I was, my future changed as well.  I didn’t feel like my future was open to me as I did before.  Now I felt the limitations of my choices and the shackles of the consequences of my actions.

Finally, at a place in my life when I became tired of making mistakes, I found something that could dig down deep enough under my skin to rid me forever of the stains and give me back a shred of innocence lost.  The one catch was that I had to admit that it was because I had followed my own plans and relied on my own initiative that I had landed in this mess.  I had to admit that I was not the best captain of my soul.  So, I came to Christ on my knees, begging Him to make me clean if He was willing.  And He was willing.  And I am clean.

* A disciple is one who has been cleansed by God

Application: Do you suffer from a loss of innocence and an abundance of guilt? Do you desire a fresh start, washed clean and made new by God?

Leviticus 25; Mark 1:23-45

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Repentance

Posted on February 19, 2013 by

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“And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness,

preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”.

Mark 1:4

 

Repentance is a word mysteriously absent from public and sacred places alike.  No one wants to admit they’re guilty and need forgiveness.  We want to explain our imperfections away.  We want to crawl into the shelter of ‘everybody else is sinning as well’, so I’m just as bad as everyone else.  Repentance indicates that we’re wrong, that we messed up and need to choose a different path.

We pay psychiatrists big dollars so they can explain to us that the reason we do this or that, the reason we’re not happy, is because of what our parents did, what happened to me as a child, or it’s my spouse’s fault I’m so miserable.  We have made a very lucrative market for those who can make us feel like we’re not the ones to blame.  And they are very good at what they do.

But the truth is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  All have made mistakes.  But not all choose to admit their guilt.  Not all choose to admit their depravity and need for a Savior.  Not all choose to repent of their ways.  In John the Baptist’s time, the Pharisees made a show of repenting, but they really enjoyed their positions of power and understood what true humility and repentance would cost in worldly terms.  They were not ready for that sacrifice.  They were not ready for the transformation that only repentance could bring.

* A disciple repents of his sins before the Lord

Application: Do you make excuses for your sins or try to find ways to keep them? Have you repented of your ways and accepted His forgiveness?

Leviticus 23-24; Mark 1:1-22

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