Something about Jesus: Matthew 7-9

My original intent was to blog every other day through the Gospels, but today was so rich I had to write. CHAPTER 7 7:5 - First take the log out SO YOU CAN SEE CLEARLY to remove the speck

7:15-20 - So a false teacher could NOT produce fruit...yet we like to attack people who are doing great ministry leading people to Jesus and discipleship, and we call them false prophets

7:24-27 - Storms come to ALL of us, but the question is, "What is your foundation?" And its good to answer that question before the storm comes.

CHAPTER 8 8:4 - Only a priest could determine a person's reintegration into the religious community. Jesus knew that and wanted this man to be reintegrated

8:20 - Homeless Jesus! Where is THAT Christmas card? Where is THAT Christian imagery?

8:23 - The disciples followed him. What kept any members of the crowd from following him? What kept a mass of people from trying to be one of those on the boat with Jesus whom they were all following and listening intently to?

8:29 - I'm always stricken by the fact demons know Jesus so well! I think, possibly, demons KNOW Jesus better than a lot of Christians.

CHAPTER 9 9:2 - Amazing that FAITH is trusting hope in what we cannot SEE and yet Jesus can SEE our FAITH and perceive our thoughts (9:4)

9:4 - Why do you THINK evil in your HEARTS? - I wonder why we've so easily disconnected our brains from our hearts

9:11 - "Why does your teacher eat with...sinners?" I wish people would ask that about me, but alas, I'm often too afraid to eat there. I'm a pastor, for cryin' out loud! Think of the implications!

9:14-15 - Jesus' ministry provides what fasting seeks: communion with God's presence, forgiveness, salvation, guidance

9:18-26 - FAITH says, "If God...then it WILL happen." I am not so sure I have much faith in light of todays reading.

9:35-38 - It seems if it's not one thing its the next for Jesus in these few verses and these three chapters. Jesus is just going, going, going. Sometimes even while he's talking, someone comes to him in need. He is teaching, proclaiming, curing, and healing. He is curing EVERY disease and EVERY sickness.

When it would seem burnout is impending, you read verse 36.

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them BECAUSE they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."

Basically he realizes the outrageous amount of hurt, disease and NEED in the human condition.

Then verse 37-38

"The harvest is plentiful" = there are A LOT of hurting people everywhere...always

"But the laborers are few" = but nobody else is meeting them in that hurt and need

"Therefore ask the Lord to send laborers" = ASK the Lord in faith and prayer that he would send people to serve the harassed, helpless, and hurting

BEWARE: Don't think you can pray for laborers in order to skirt your responsibility to BE a laborer

Something about Jesus: Matt. 1-6

Reading through the Gospels in 30 days. If you still want in on it, we are only 2 days in. Thats only 6 chapters to read today to catch up. 3 chapters a day, 4 Gospels, 30 days

* I got this idea from a friend of mine, Justin Wallace, who has done this challenge before and is currently doing it again with us.

I am including my quick reflections here on my blog. Please feel free to include your reflections here as comments for others to read.

CHAPTER 1 1:1-17 - It is always striking how many women are included in Jesus' lineage, but whats more, it is interesting to note that there are whores and other "questionable" characters  in that line

1:23 - This is why the Christmas story is so vital and crazy and wonderful. "...and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means God with us." Just take a second and reflect on how HUGE that is! GOD....WITH US!!  Here...in flesh...WITH US.

2:3 - The NRSV says that "Herod was frightened and all Jerusalem with him". I knew that Herod gets uber-pissed later, but I never caught that, at first, he was frightened...and so was all Jerusalem

3:2; 4:17 - The Kingdom HAS COME near. We misunderstand this verse gravely when we state that the Kingdom is near or that it is coming near...this is very clearly a past tense statement of a present reality...the Kingdom HAS COME...it is here...going on right now

3:8 - "bear fruit worthy of repentance" (NRSV) - what does that mean do you think?

5:6 - "If you HUNGER and THIRST for righteousness...you will be FILLED" - Could I really define my heart with a HUNGER and a THIRST?

5:11 - "Blessed are you who are persecuted...ON MY ACCOUNT" - NOT because you're an ass

- How would 5:19 compare and come alongside "the least of these"?

5:42 - "Give to EVERYONE...do not refuse ANYONE." - Another instance when Jesus is clearly stark where we like to be muddy and faint...I'm sorry; I mean where...I...like to be muddy and faint.

5:47 - "What more are you doing than others?" - A haunting question I am slow to answer today.

6:2-6, 16,18 - "They will receive their reward...you will receive your reward." They will receive the reward they wanted which was attention, but if we do as Jesus has called us, we will receive our reward as well. The question here is, "What reward do you seek?"

6:11 - "give us this day our DAILY BREAD" - this is to say, give us what we need and not beyond that. We do not seek to hoard and consume more than we actually need.

6:21 - "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be" - At Christmas time, I wonder how much we have connected LOVE to what sort of gift I get/give.

6:33 - If you choose NOT to worry, Jesus gives you an action plan.

WHAT ARE YOUR REFLECTIONS ON Matthew 1-6

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LISTENING TO: "Light" by Matisyahu

Something About Jesus: I heard this was good

Studies show that more and more people know less and less about the Bible. Less and less people read Scripture regularly enough to form even an elementary sense of what the Bible contains. Each generation knows less than the one before it, and that is unnecessary. What is more, there are less and less people who have a true and accurate understanding of who Jesus Christ is.

I do not want to be a part of that group.

So I am embarking on a challenge to read through the gospels in 1 month. Would you take the challenge with me and defy the growing statistics of people with little understanding of Scripture and our Jesus?

BEGIN TODAY, DECEMBER 1

3 Chapters, 4 Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), 30 days

Check in here for my reflections and please leave your reflections as comments.

Challenge others to engage with us!

Who's in?

Love Thru Accusation: facing my Dr Phil fear

"I'm gonna sacrifice everything to raise this child who will one day hate me," said one of my pregnant friends in a joking manner. But what was only a small joke I happened to overhear last weekend has, at one time and every once in a while again, been a legit fear of mine.

There have been a series of fears I have had to expose, face, and overcome to even imagine the possibility of being a father some day; one of them being the image of my offspring several years from now pulling me on to an episode of Dr. Phil to reveal all the flaws in my parenting when I thought I was on a "Father's Day Father of the Year" episode.

In the age of Celebrity Rehab and Intervention we know how to blame our parents for all of our issues. Granted, I am fully aware of the valid disorders and addictive personalities which take root in our upbringing. I am not discounting those realities.

I mean to shed light on how easy it has become to blame our parents for things which are our own shortcomings, but what's worse, we can blame our parents for our own disobedience and poor choices.

This is what drives my Dr. Phil fear.

I am afraid I will try my best to love the hell out of my son or daughter; to raise them with love, grace, discipline, and love only to be blamed, hated, and despised by this person I sacrificed so much for.

Today, I am reminded of a Father who sacrificed so much to love me and show me grace and discipline. I am reminded of the relentless love He has shown me when I have disobeyed, blamed, and hated him.

I am reminded of how frequently I have assumed he does not love me if he disciplines the way he does or withholds things I think I want or deserve. I am reminded of how frequently I have been angry with him and still found that he has loved me through my accusations.

So when my child grows up to hate me, I hope to be reminded of this sort of love that has been given to me.

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LISTENING TO: "The Old Prince" by Shad

How to Pray ALL the Time

Endless, unbroken lives of prayer are very possible.  Through some searching and with the help of some further reading, this is beginning to be clearer and clearer. We have such a Western Christianity that we have removed a lot of understanding from original Christianity, which happens to have its roots in the East.  One large difference is in our understanding of heaven and God's presence.

Western Christianity has this understanding which prays things like, "God, please show up tonight. " "God, be with us tonight." "We prayed, and God just showed up that night."  We have this understanding of God being in heaven somewhere above the clouds awaiting our demand to show up. Eastern Christianity; historical, Biblical Christianity has a different understanding of heaven and God's presence.  In Biblical accounts of God's presence, OT and NT, God calls out of heaven, but heaven is near.  Heaven is "at hand"...this means heaven is present around them somehow.  It was the very presence of God at hand, surrounding them.  God inhabits the space surrounding us.

This means we are constantly in the presence of God.  We do not actually need to ask for (or demand) that God "show up".  This means we have only to grope out after God, or as Luis of Granada (an old century Christian) once said, "any raising of the heart to God."

It is possible at all moments of the day to focus our hearts on God and trust that he is always present.  This means we no longer have to be preoccupied with making the sacred time, space, and words in order to really experience the presence of God.  This means that we only need to be aware of God's presence with our hearts in order to experience God's presence.  This means it is actually possible to experience god all times of the day, continually.  This means we can experience God even in the mundane tasks of a day.  This means we can join with Brother Lawrence in "Practicing the Presence of God".  This means prayer for another person can be merely feeling what they feel (as best you are able) while "raising your heart to God".  This means we may have been praying all along as long as we were placing ourselves before God. We cannot put God into this pious little space and time and assume these are the only moments we experience the presence of God.  We cannot dissolve God out of our every day experience.  He is always present.  We only hope to grope out for him and raise our heart out to him more continually.

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LISTENING TO: Download binge: Mayer Hawthorne, Shad, One Republic, Switchfoot, Matisyahu, Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson

Simple Coffee

Simplicity is not poverty, and it is not simple. In fact simplicity requires considerable thought as you sort through various things to determine which resources can be limited in order to actually rely on God. But another significant aspect of simplicity is the intentional celebration of life; enjoying the good (and often overlooked) things of life.

I have been reading through a reader called "Praying with Francis of Assisi" by Joseph Stoutzenberger, and there is a chapter about simplicity. Stoutzenberger writes an exercise I chose to take hold of while I sat in a Charlotte coffee shop with my buddy Justin Wallace as he prepared to speak for his group of college students that evening.

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He writes:

Pour a glass of your favorite beverage, or slice up a piece of your favorite fruit, cheese, cake, pie, or bread. Set the glass or plate in front of you. Reflect on the wonder of drink and food, their color, texture, and composition from earth to their present state.

Next, savor the smell of the beverage or food. Finally, take one sip or bite, roll the drink around your tongue or chew the food slowly. Closing your eyes may help to get the full effect.

Finish drinking the beverage or eating the food very slowly, pausing between each sip or bite.

End this action by praising God for His simple wonder.

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Done!

help-portrait

CALLING ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS, MAKE-UP ARTISTS, AND THE LIKE!!! I am incredibly interesting in doing something like this, but I am none of these. If you are interested in doing something like this in the Sacramento area, please contact me and let me know.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9tu1XrBn3A&feature=player_embedded]

The Story of Christmas - review

The Story of Christmas is retold by Gwen Ellis as a book for children. Beginning with the story of John’s birth to Zechariah and Elizabeth and leading seamlessly into the foretelling Jesus’ birth, there is a quick interaction perfect for children to engage. It is not made very clear why John is so important to the greater story of Jesus. So that clarification may be left to the reader.

The layout of the words, while short and quick, is a bit awkward. The sentence flow can be a bit confusing for the audible reader due simply to the line breaks on the page. I read it out loud as though reading to son or daughter and stumbled over the line breaks a few times. It is important to stress it is solely due to the line breaks of the layout and nothing to do with the grammar of the writer.

At the bottom each second page, there is a question to prompt discussion with whomever you are reading. They engage the reader and listener with the heart of what the story really addresses. There would be a pretty strong disservice to overlooking the questions to skirt you way to the end.

The game in the back is a good idea to challenge the reader and listener to determine whether or not they could put the entire story in the right order using only pictures illustrated by Steve Smallman. Overall, the illustrations are lively and appealing to children. It is bright and attractive. All the characters look incredibly similar, and that is not a comment on the reality they are all Caucasian save one lone wise man. The reality is the characters all have the same nose and face with different hair color.

The accompanying DVD begins with an obvious menu created in iMovie, which automatically brings to mind something I could do on my macbook in my home office. It is a little off-putting.

The story chapters on the DVD are quite short. One may say they are shorter than the average child’s attention span. A little more effort could have been made to make each story open up more.

The DVD goes beyond the story portrayed in the book, extending into the story of Jesus as a boy teaching in the temple. There is a quick retelling of the temptation of Jesus as well as a very brief unfolding of the entirety of Jesus life of healing and teaching.

I cannot recall the last time I heard the term CD-ROM, but the DVD does have a CDR option available on it complete with printable coloring pages and a couple computer wallpapers if you are interested. The pictures are primarily of animals, and the wallpapers are open to taste.

God first loved us...again

We are told God first loved us, and that is why we love Him. There is a disservice we enact on our heart when we think of this as a one time event. We speak about this as if it was only a single time that God loved us first. But the realization that God IS love means there is an endless love coming from Him. There is a sense that God's love never ceases. This means His love cannot be a moment. This means God's love is always.photo

God did not love us first one time. God still loves me first. It means even while I sleep, He loves me. When I wake up, before any thought I have of Him, He already loves me. When I take the time out of my schedule to be with God, He is there first. He loves me before I love Him.

Not that he already DID.. But every time I try to love God, he already DOES!

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LISTENING TO: "Church Music" by David Crowder Band READING: "The Prayers of Kierkegaard" by Perry LeFevre

Possessions and Peace

"If we had possessions we should need arms for their defense. They are the source of quarrels and lawsuits, and are usually a great obstacle to the love of God." - Francis of Assisi There is a strong connection between property and peacemaking. Most every action of violence or aggression is prompted by some form of property for which there is either a debate for who deserves possession OR someone has attempted to steal possession from the rightful owner.

For this reason, we have to always protect the things that belong to us. The more possessions we have or the more a particular possession costs, the more aggressive our defense of that item has to be. Instead of a focused attention on defending the poor and widowed that God calls us to defend, we have wasted our soul's energy defending the property and possessions we have acquired.

The more things we have, the less peaceful our hearts can be. With more possessions comes more defense, more protection. With more things comes more quarrels.