And How Much God Do You Want?

I've always had rather strange reading habits. It is not unusual for me to be reading as many as 7 or 8 books at a time. Sometimes I will set one of them down for a week or more before picking it up again and continuing to read. I'm the same way with magazines. I have a stack of magazines sitting in my office that I have not gotten around to reading yet, but from time to time I will catch up. I've been in kind of a reading funk for awhile now, where I just did not read near as much as usual. As a result, I just picked up one magazine this week that I received in August but had not begun to read. It was the August 09 issue of Voice of the Martyrs magazine. If you are not familiar with Voice of the Martyrs, it highlights stories from around the world of Christians who are facing persecution because of their faith in Jesus. Anyway, in this issue there was one particular quote in the first article that grabbed my attention and I've been thinking about it ever since and I decided to share it here because it is so relevant to all of us who follow Christ today in a time where it is so difficult to spin the people who sit in our churches out of their comfort zone.

Read it and tell me what you think:

"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant worker. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please." - Wilbur Rees

Taps, the full version

I received this in an email and wanted to share it. I've never heard Taps like this!

1948 Speaks to 2009

A friend shared this video with me on another site today and I knew I had to pass this on. This was a 1948 video... 61 years ago. Sure hits us today!

Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin?

I'm a Talent!

You're a risk-taker, and you follow your passions. You're determined to take on the world and succeed on your own terms. Whether in the arts, science, engineering, business, or politics, you fearlessly express your own vision of the world. You're not afraid of a fight, and you're not afraid to bet your future on your own abilities. If you find a job boring or stifling, you're already preparing your resume. You believe in doing what you love, and you're not willing to settle for an ordinary life.

Talent: 64%
Lifer: 41%
Mandarin: 38%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

To "Know" God

I hear people say all the time that they "know" Jesus. The problem is, their life does not bear the fruit of one who really knows Jesus. There is an old saying, "Action speaks louder than words." Sadly, many are so deceived into thinking that they are in a right standing with God simply because they say they know him. But there is a huge difference between knowing God with our mind and knowing him with our heart. Years ago I preached a message entitled, "There Is One Foot Between Heaven and Hell." It was about the difference between knowing about the Lord and knowing him with our heart. There is about a foot between your head and your heart. The truth is, knowing about Jesus and thinking you have all the knowledge you need leads to hell. Building a heart knowledge with Jesus involves real, intimate relationship and worship. Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words tells us that "to know" or to have this kind of "knowledge" is not obtained by mere intellectual activity, but by the operation of the Holy Spirit in our lives once we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior. Vines also adds that the verb translated "to know" often times is used to convey the thought of the union or connection that is between a man and a woman. The intimacy is unmistakable in this! There should be this kind of closeness and "knowledge" between us and the Lord.

I've been with my wife now for 24 years. I know her intimately. That is not just a physical thing, but I know her heart, her thoughts. I don't really have to ask her things many times, I already know her desires, her passions, her wants, because I know her in such a way that I am a part her and she is a part of me. I know by the sound of her voice on the phone when she is leaving work when she needs extra attention and to just be loved. By the same token, I can tell when she is ready to forget dinner at home and just get out and go do something. I literally know her footsteps. I have been in Walmart, and with all the commotion going on, I can hear her walking several aisles away and I know when she is coming near. I know her looks, both good and bad. A fleeting glance can speak volumes without ever saying a word. I know the sound of her breathing. I know when she is stressed by that sound. I can tell when she is worried, excited, sad... just by listening to her breathe .
I KNOW my wife.

In a similar way, this is what it means "to know" Jesus!

One cannot "know" Jesus by just attending church... nor by rattling off our "wish list" and demands to God and calling it prayer. I often tell my church, prayer is much more about listening to God than it is talking at him. In fact, the in the passage which we call "the Lord's prayer" when Jesus taught them to pray, the word that is translated "pray" means "to set a trap" or "to catch." Prayer is more about catching the thoughts and heart of God than it is us doing all the talking. To get to know the heart of God, we must spend time with him. We must hang with him. We must spend time in the Word, for this is the way God speaks to us most often. We have to come to understand how God operates. In the way I know my wife's footstep, I can know the sound and rhythm of God as he approaches.

I often wonder how people can even think they have begun to know God when they seldom attend church, and when they do, they don't enter into worship. The heart of that matter is obvious to me that they have not discovered the joy of worshiping the Lord in their daily lives. I have often said that you will never respond to God in corporate worship if you have not first learned to worship him in private. Many people simply do not read the Word. OK... call me judgmental... but it is painfully obvious that people do not read the Word when you make a statement on one of the "familiar" widely known verses of scripture and people stare at you blank faced and acknowledge that they did not know "that" was in the Bible. Or better yet, when they start telling you about something that "the Bible says" and it just is not in there, but rather is one of of those Bible myths. (Such as the Lord helps those who help themselves.)

I would have never gotten to know my wife if I did not spend time with her. Even after 24 years since we began dating and almost 24 years of marriage, I still need and want to spend time with her... just us. I love to go for a walk in the park and hold her and and listen to her heart as she shares about the tales of her students and her life at work which is apart from me. In that way, I can become a part of that part of her life. One of the problems with so many church goers and folks who call themselves Christian, is they only want to know the scriptures that make them feel good, those that directly affect the part of their lives in a way they want to be affected. (such as the blessings and promises of God.) But there is much more to knowing God. God has expectations of me. I am accountable to Him. He has demands he has placed on those who know him. The problem is, many do not "know Him intimately.

I'm on my way to writing a book here, so I'll quit... but it is my prayer today that each one who reads this today, if they don't already, will get to "know" the Lord. Fall in love with Him, passionately.

Who Say's You Can't Be Happy?

I received a message on Facebook today that told me that I find too much to laugh at and that we cannot be happy all the time. Maybe not... but I'm still gonna try!

Die Happy lyrics

Lighthouse Family - Happy Video - Die Happy Music Videos

Music Videos by VideoCure

Any Dream Interpreters Out There?

I know this is going to sound really weird, but I'm looking for some input. As far as I can recall, I have never shared a dream from my blog before. I've started to share this and ask this for a week and finally decided this morning to throw it out there. The thing is that for three weeks now I keep having dreams of being shot. I've dreamed this maybe 7 or 8 times now. The dreams are not always exactly the same, but they are very similar. The one thing that remains the same in every dream is that I walk around a corner in my church and as I step around that corner I get shot point blank in the chest. The first couple of times it was with a pistol but the last several times it has been with a shot gun. I usually wake up just as I get shot, but last night in the dream I saw the shot hit me and blow me through a wall of the church before I woke up. In the dream it is kind of dark and foggy in the church, and eery feeling. In the dream I have been in various places in the building doing something, but they alway end with me coming around the corner from where the stairwell is and as I turn toward the office doors I get shot. Like I said, I saw further into it last night, as I had always awakened at the point I was shot, but last night I saw the shot hit me and the force of it threw me backward and through the wall and window by the front door and laying at the entrance of the church.

The repetitions of these dreams are starting to cause me to wonder if there is something God is trying to tell me and I'm not getting it.

Anyone?

Beware the Creeper!

Modern technology can be so much fun. Last night my wife, daughter and I ran to McDonald's for a quick bite to eat and decided to just eat there rather than take it home. Ashley happened to notice two of her good friends walk into the Steak and Shake next door and told me that they were there. She was going to text them, but Libby was talking to our son on Ashley's phone.
This idea popped into my mind that was just too good to pass up.

I told Ashley to text the Kelsey from my phone and say, "I see you." Kelsey would not know my number... and the message came back, "Who is this?" Ash sent the message back, "That's for me to know and you to find out." There was no reply for awhile, so we sent another message, "Tell Brandon I said hi." We could see them from where we were sitting and they both raised up in their seats and looked all over Steak and Shake trying to find who was sending the messages. Still no reply, so we sent, "Steak and Shake is pretty good, isn't it?" A reply came back immediately, "PLZ! Tell me who this is!" I took the phone from Ashley and sent the message, "Beware the Creeper!" A reply came back, "U R Funny." I knew that they were thinking that it was one of their friends who knew where they were, so I decided to make sure they knew we could see them. In just a couple of minutes the store manager happened to go to their table. I jumped on the opportunity and said, "Isn't the bald guy with the blue shirt and red tie cute?" The reply came back, "HEY!!!!"
Bullseye!
They knew it was someone who could see them, and they began looking all around Steak and Shake again, then sent the message, "We don't know anyone in S and S, Who is this!?!"
I sent a message and asked "How is your shake? Looks good."
About that time I got a message from another number, which we knew to be Brandon's phone that said, "Who's number is this? I just got a new phone and I don't have your name." We sent the message back, "Nice try Brandon. :) " He sent one back that said, "Who's Brandon, this is Ted Stevens and I'm trying to figure out whose numbers are in my phone."

Realizing they were starting to get creeped out, I suggested that we let them off the hook, but Ashley wanted to make them wait until Monday at school. I told her that we could not do that because they'd really think there was some creeper out there after them. After a few minutes I overrode Ashley's determination to let the sweat it out and sent a message that said, "Stand up and look over at McDonalds." No response. So I sent one again, "Come on, look over at McDonalds." They tried, but could not see from the lights reflecting on the windows. Finally Kelsey left Steak and Shake and came running over to see who it was! Nice Brandon... be the man! lol

We had a good laugh, and Kelsey said she was really starting to get creeped out.
I just love being devious.

Re-ignite the Passion!

It is a beautiful day in Galesburg and my bride and I took some time to go for a walk at Lake Storey. While we were walking, I got to thinking about how terrible church attendance has been the last 6 or 7 weeks, and wondering just what goes on in people's minds. I'm really at a loss. Some have not been to church in a month or more. (Some have hardly been at all in the first 10 months of this year!) I don't want to come across as legalistic, judgmental and harsh, but the reality is, people have mistaken God's grace for weakness and they have no commitment to the Lord at all. They look at God as their having a limitless credit card in their back pocket that they can pull out whenever life gets crazy. I'd really love to ask everyone this question: "What does 'serving God' mean to you?" I wonder, do they see it as us serving God, or God serving us. I think for the vast majority, it is the later. I wonder if people really comprehend that Jesus meant it when he said many would stand before him on that day and he would say, "I never knew you." I wonder if they really get it and understand that if they really loved God, NOTHING would keep them away from the time for corporate worship. How many would stay married to a person that came to see them a few times a year or at best, once a month? Not many, that's for sure. Do they understand that writing on Myspace and Facebook that they love God means absolutely nothing if their life does not say that they love Him? Our actions tell the truth of where our passion lies. When we are willing to put weeks planning family activities and work activities but we cannot give the Lord 3-4 hours a week... our actions have told the world clearly of what things are of value in our lives. I've found myself making this statement a lot lately, "Ministry is Inconvenient." So is serving God. You know, because I love my wife, I am willing to inconvenience myself and my schedule for her. I've missed things I really wanted to do for her sake. When you love someone, you prefer them and put them first. It is the same with God. On a beautiful, sunny day, my body longs to be at the park but my love for Jesus compells me to go to the house of worship. Why? Because I want to be with the one I love. The pattern that is evident in the lives of so many speaks loud and clear that their passion is not directed toward God, but toward other things and God gets what is left over after we have given our passion and time toward those other things.

Church attendance says a lot to me. I've watchd our attendance over the past few months and I see that many have fallen into the habit of not attending church unless there is absolutely nothing else to do. Everything else comes first, and then if there is time, and they decide not to sleep in, then they might come. Even leadership has been hit and miss. There are a miriad of excuses offered (some don't even try to make excuses any more) but the reality is that people are not passiante about God. News Flash... "If you are not passionate about Jesus, then you really are not in love with Jesus!"

Am I trying to be harsh? No... I am not. But I am trying to wake people up. You've lost your edge. You've lost the spark. The passion has died. Do something about it now before it is too late!

If you've lost your passion, it is only a matter of time the divoce takes place. Some are so close to divorcing themselves from the Bride of Christ, and they seemingly are blind to their condition. The time for action is NOW! Reignite your passion and love with Jesus Christ NOW, before it is too late!

Holiness

I started preaching a message last Sunday on Holiness, and will continue that message tomorrow morning. We live in a day where the church by and large has thrown holiness out the window. I feel that this is largely because of false conceptions of what holiness is. In last weeks message, I primarily dealt with what holiness is not. In short; holiness is not a list of do's and don'ts. In the past, holiness was basically things that man could measure to make himself feel that he was measuring up to God's standard. The huge problem here is that it was not "God Standard" but rather "man's standard." So we came up with things like, "don't wear shorts, women don't wear pants, makeup, jewelry, nylons... men could not wear a short sleeve shirt (could someone please tell me what woman was turned on by a mans arms so much that he could wear short sleeves?) could not grow facial hair, we did not chew gum, drink Coke from a bottle, did not dance, did not go to movies... yada, yada, yada.

This is NOT about holiness. This was a list of rules or laws set up by people with a pharisitical mindset, so that they could look down their collective noses at anyone else who was not living as "holy" as they were. It's hogwash... and that is being gentle!

Living a holy life, a life set apart from God... according to scripture will draw others to God, not chase them away. In all the years of "keeping the lists", how many times have you ever seen someone look at a woman with her hair piled high, not wearing make up or jewelry, and someone else look at them and say, "yeah, I that looks like a great way to live, I want to become just like them? But real holiness living should stir something in people to the point that when they view our lives, they inwardly desire what we have. THAT, my friends, only comes from a heart issue. Holiness is an inward discipline that reflects itself on the outside. When people view us, living in the world, but not of the world, in such a way that we don't bend to temptations, we don't explode with anger, ... when our life mirrors the nature of Jesus... THAT is holiess. This is what God not only asks of us, He DEMANDS it.

Just Do It!

I received the following devotion from a friend of mine today in an email. I'm not sure who wrote it, so I cannot give them the credit they deserve; but I wanted to share this with my readers today.

"A doubtful mind will be as unsettled as a wave." Jas 1:6 TLB

The Bible says, "A doubtful mind will be as unsettled as a wave...driven and tossed by the wind. People like that should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. They can't make up their minds" (See Jas 1:6-8 TLB).
This Scripture applies specifically to asking God for wisdom, then rationalizing and vacillating when He gives you an answer. But the same principle applies to all of life.
Have you ever seen anything more fickle than a wave?
The wind that takes it one direction today, takes it in an entirely different one tomorrow.
"How does this apply to me?" you ask:
(1) If you've grown up in a family where every decision was made for you.
(2) If you spent your life around people who made reckless decisions that left you feeling "it's too easy to get it wrong and too hard to get it right."
(3) If the bad decisions you've made in the past have sabotaged your confidence - then today's devotion is just for you!

James makes the point that none of us learn to hear from God without making mistakes. So don't be hard on yourself. Learn from your mistakes, correct the ones you can, and continue being decisive.
Don't fall back into a pattern of indecision because you got it wrong a few times. Often you'll only know that you've done the right thing - when you do it!
Devote a reasonable amount of time to waiting on God, and when necessary seek the counsel of others.
But don't be afraid to act; make a decision and follow through with it.
In other words, "just do it!"

The Quest to Reach a Generation

Today I was drawn back to this post I wrote last January and decided to repost it. These kids and young folks mean so much to me... and even more to God; we cannot give up on them!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Quest to Reach a Generation

In recent weeks I have had the opportunity to speak to several folks who were high school to college age, who profess themselves to be atheists or agnostic. Last week I was talking with another pastor about these young folks, and he commented that they were just being rebellious. The more I have thought about this, the more it has upset me. I believe that when we who are followers of Christ simply dismiss and cast off these young people as "rebellious" then their blood is on our hands. I think many of my contemporaries would do well to go hang out with some of these kids for awhile, and not talk, but just listen. They need to discover what this generation has been taught in school. They need to try to come to terms with the world view that has shaped these kids. Try to comprehend this: 50% of them come from a broken home. A large percentage of them have either experienced or witnessed physical and/or sexual abuse. The vast majority have been raised in the first generation where both parents worked outside the home, thereby decreasing the influence of the parent on their lives, which means the education system has had a much greater impact on the framing of their mind. Add to this the fact that this generation has been raised by the first generation to have the Bible and anything to do with God removed from their education; so this second generation has by and large been taught nothing of God or his word, and had a humanistic philosophy poured into them for 12-16 years in our education system.

Are they being rebellious? Not at all. They are living what they have been taught.
Those of us who are in Christ have our work cut out for us. We've long been told that over 90% of all those who ever receive Christ do so before the age of 20. Now, our system has removed God from their education during these formative years, so when they reach young adulthood and we present them with the Gospel and the Word of God, they are not likely to receive it because it is foreign to them. For all practical purposes, they have been framed to believe only what fits into the framework of what they have been taught, and they have not been taught anything of a spiritual realm, other than what they see in the movies, and Hollywood has slanted that education in such a way that biblical teaching is laughable and foolish and those that believe in God are mentally imbalanced. Folks, we have an uphill climb to reach this generation.

This generation has been taught evolution as a fact and told that creation or intelligent design is foolishness. The biblical view has been painted to be so out of touch, that this generation has never been given permission to think it through for themselves, and told that they were being more intellectual by renouncing the creationist theory. I listened to a college professor in an interview who was asked why creation was an impossibility and his only argument was "It's silly. It makes no logical sense." Let's think on this a minute. The idea that nothing became something and somehow fell into the right alignment to form a living being... that makes sense to them. When questioned as to where those first particles came from, one PhD argued, "those first particle just always were there." But the same man thought it just ridiculous to believe that God could have always been. Kind of hypocritical there, don't you think? Stop and consider how illogical it is to think that just the right particles happened to fall together to make everything we know. The odds are beyond comprehension. Everything that is cries out to us and demands that there was a designer. This same PhD actually argued that maybe aliens seeded the earth to set evolution into motion. OK... you can believe in aliens who "set it in motion" (helllo? a creator?) but you cannot believe in the possibility of a God? How whack is that? This man just indicated he could believe in an alien (no explanation of where he came from) but no way he could believe in God.

The question then must be, "Why can you not believe in God?"
To me, it is obvious. To admit that there is God, an intelligent designer, admits that there is someone or something that is higher than we are, and therefore makes us accountable to that being.... and that, to these intellectuals is unacceptable to those who are so wise.
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."

Folks, let's not write off this generation as rebellious. They have been indoctrinated to think the way they do. They are worth saving. We must take time to hear, really listen to what they are saying, because they are empty inside and looking for something that is void in their lives. There is a God shaped hole inside of them, because they have never been told that they were created to walk in fellowship with a loving God.