Enough

Remember this: The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. Each person should do as he has decided in his heart — not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:6‭-‬8 HCSB http://bible.com/72/2co.9.6-8.HCSB

In this world of consumerism and seeking of security in life, we often forget about the parts of life where we decide that we have enough and/or we are enough. One of the greatest stressor for most people and family is the idea of whether they have enough, enough to live day to day. This stress often times becomes a hindrance in what we feel we are able to do. This hindrance in a sense creates the parameters in which we live. And to go further out, it restricts our ability to be generous, to serve others, to bless others and to grow.

In my personal life, I have often bought into this lie. I feel like the ability to do and the ability to build comes from the resources and abilities that I have within. And when I look at life with that mentality, I am limited. Limited in my ability, limited in the resources I am able to muster together and limited in my reach. But I have comes to realize that life is not a sole project, it is a communal and relational effort. When we are all separate we function in part but when combined we are greater as a whole. But most importantly it is the fact that it is upon God that we look to and ask for the abilities and resources necessary. He may bless us directly with it or He may bring alongside others with it.

I guess the take away is this. If we look to ourselves then we are limited to ourselves. But if we look to God then we are limited by the limitlessness of God. If we do and work and build as God intend and be dependent on God, God's grace and blessing will overflow in to all aspect of our lives. We are enough and we have enough, not because of us but because of God.

Other Voices: April 29, 2016

Articles that I have been reading this past week and found it to be profoundly helpful, thoughtful or challenging.

Jesus' Creed and a Missional Understanding of Discipleship - Karen Wilk
http://www.missioalliance.org/jesus-creed-missional-understanding-discipleship/

Why Ministry is Harder Than It Was a Decade Ago - Carey Nieuwhof
http://careynieuwhof.com/2016/03/ministry-actually-difficult-decade-ago/

First Person: Reaching the Dechurched - Ed Stetzer
http://www.bpnews.net/46765/firstperson--reaching-the-dechurched

Evangelism or "Elevator Pitch"? - Jackson Wu
http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2016/april/evangelism-or-elevator-pitch.html?paging=off

Other Voices: April 22, 2016

Articles that I have been reading this past week and found it to be profoundly helpful, thoughtful or challenging.

What Discipleship is - Jeff Christopherson
http://sendnetwork.com/2016/04/18/what-discipleship-is/

7 Ways Missional Spirituality is Different than Christian Spirituality - Karina Kreminski
http://www.missioalliance.org/missional-spirituality/

Church Planting is Not Only for "Big" Churches - Shane Pruitt
http://texanonline.net/archives/5228/

We're Called to Make Disciples, Not Converts - Tyler Edwards
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/were-called-make-disciples-not-converts

Partners

I do not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. John 15:15 HCSB http://bible.com/72/jhn.15.15.HCSB

Just dwelling on this passage, letting it sink in, it is quite amazing. Just think of it, God is God and we are created. The creator and the created are on two completely different plane of thoughts and purpose. Yet, God is willing not to tell and command us to do as He say but rather He has brought us into a relationship with Him in which He explains and invite us as a partner in His work. This blows my mind. It is not because we are worthy to be a partner in His work nor because He needs us, rather it is a choice of displaying love that He does so. In a sense, He is willing to allow for our brokenness and our slowness to become a part of His work and plan. He is allowing for us to be a partner and to take ownership in His work.

Stepping back, what does this mean for us in life? A couple weeks back, my son and his grandfather was working in the yard. They were building a retaining wall out of stone blocks for the flower and grass. It was interesting to see my dad allow my son to work with him and allow for my son to set the pace. It would have been faster and more perfect in construction if my dad was to do it himself but instead he invited and allow a 4 year old to work alongside and to in a sense set the pace of things and to allow for mistakes and imperfections to creep in. Thinking back, this is how life is with God and us and in a way this is how we are to be as a church and as individuals. It isn't about efficiency but rather about the relationships and ownership through partnership in life and purpose.

God, search me.

Lord , You have searched me and known me. You have encircled me; You have placed Your hand on me. Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way. Psalms 139:1, 5-5, 7, 23-24 HCSB http://bible.com/72/psa.139.1-24.HCSB

Reading through Psalm 139, the grandeur of God's knowledge of us and His willingness to take an interest in us has always amazed me. However, the thing that stood out as I read this today was the fact that God is the one that initiates in knowing me and it was never the other way around. It was God that took an interest in my life. It was God that knows where I am, what I am doing, what I am thinking. God just knows me. And the amazing thing is that He took the initiative to do so.

But not only does God knows us, He is there with us. He is the one that is encircling us. He is the one that has placed His hand of blessings and guidance on us. He is the one that goes before us and after us. He is there for us. His Spirit is with us. And as Christians, we have been gifted the Spirit to indwell within us as an advocate, as the One empowering and enabling us and as a sign of our relationship with Him. It is amazing.

There is no place I can be, no valleys of life, no hardship, no cave within my soul that God is not there with me. God is there. And the prayer for us is this, for God to search our heart, test whether we are aligned with His, so that He can change and lead us in His way. That is the prayer that we should have, a submissive attitude and being. God is here always waiting for us. God is here always wanting the best for us. God is there with a future for us. Now the question is whether we are willing to allow Him in to do so. He is here for us. And He will continue to be there for us. No matter our concerns, God has a path for us. And even if it is dark and hard, He will carry us through.

Underdog

David said to Saul, “Don’t let anyone be discouraged by him; your servant will go and fight this Philistine! ” But Saul replied, “You can’t go fight this Philistine. You’re just a youth, and he’s been a warrior since he was young.” 1 Samuel 17:32-33 HCSB http://bible.com/72/1sa.17.32-33.HCSB

Being an underdog has always been a battle within my head. This has been something that I have been trying hard to work out of my system. There have been times when I have walked into a room full of pastors and I felt like I am highly unqualified to be standing in the same room as these. These are men and women of God that have done great things, lead great things and have served in ways I don't even dream of. It doesn't matter if I had more theological training than them. It doesn't matter if I had more years of practical experience. It doesn't matter who my mentors were and how qualified they were in building me up. In fact, it doesn't matter whether in a metric sense I had done more. In a sense, it doesn't matter who they are and where they come from, I still felt like the small pea in the room. And when I visit their churches, I feel like, if only I am as capable as them then I may be able to make an impact as they seemed to have made. Or when they speak, I wished I had the eloquence that they have. I have to confess, often times I look at my peers and see giants, not in the negative sense but rather it is just that they are so much better than I am. I feel out of place and insignificant. I feel like I have no contribution to offer. This is a constant battle. It is a comparison I make within my head regardless of what people around me say. And this is toxic.

My wife has noticed this with me. She has noticed my constant drive to learn and improve. Not that these are necessarily bad things but rather she see it ending up as a never ending pursuit. She see it as  becoming my drive for the sake to prove to myself. And this is wrong. Looking at the account of David and Goliath, you see a boy that is essentially an under dog coming to fight against a warrior trained at birth. It is a fight between a seemingly unqualified kid verses that of a battle-harden warrior. But David was not afraid. David volunteer to meet this foe and challenge. It wasn't because David is secretly more qualified but rather David was called and empowered by God. It was this sense of God calling him to act that David knows he will be empowered to accomplish this task. And this is the mindset I find myself needing to work on. I am not more qualified in life based on what I know and can do but rather my qualification comes from my calling. And as God has called, God will enable and empower to do the task. This is what I need to focus on. The Spirit within will

Grace overflowed

And the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” — and I am the worst of them. But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate His extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life. 1 Timothy 1:14-16 HCSB http://bible.com/72/1ti.1.14-16.HCSB

Grace is often something we take for granted. We know we are sinners and have done wrong but often times we continue to live as such without actually changing our life. And yet despite these relapse into sin or even our active decision to sin, Christ still forgives us. His patience with us is almost unfathomable at times. Looking back at all the times when I have went astray, He has always waited for me to return to His embrace. And it was there that I experienced love, grace and forgiveness.

I have found that God's love and patience is always overflowing and this is characterized through His grace for us. It is not that we deserve it but rather it is because His grace points towards Himself and His character. In a way, this points towards His greatness and His worthiness of our worship. And as a natural response, it seems only right for us to thank Him through worship, love and obedience.

Our identity

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you. Romans 8:11 HCSB http://bible.com/72/rom.8.11.HCSB

And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it. Matthew 16:18 HCSB http://bible.com/72/mat.16.18.HCSB

Our identity, it is always interesting to ask someone who they are. Most of the time they would tell you what they do or who they are married to or who their kids are. But very rarely do we have a very clear image of who they are as a person. And I would argue that most of us don't actually know. We live our life but our life end up defining who we are. 

And I think this is the lie that a lot of us fall into. We think we know who we are and that we create and define our life but in reality it is the circumstances and life that defines who we are. And when life doesn't go the way we think it should, we often question who it is we are. When we loss that job or that someone that was close and precious to us, we loss who we are. We have spent so much of our life being define by what we do, who we know, what we have done that when anyone of those things are taken away we loss us.

As I think on these passages, I notice something interesting. We as Christians belong to God. We have been given the Spirit to dwell within us. In a sense, we are now defined by the Spirit because we are driven by the Spirit from within. When the Spirit is within us, the Spirit will be the driving force of our life and all of its decisions. The circumstances, surrounding and relationships of life doesn't drive our life and who we are anymore, rather the Spirit does now. The Spirit renew us. We are now a new creation. We have been renewed from the inside out. And this is who we are. We are redeemed. We are loved. We belong to Christ. That in a sense is our identity.

And when we find our identity in Christ, we are enabled and empowered to do the work of God. And this work will be able to withstand the assaults of Satan and his minions. Often times, like we have already said, we find our identity in ourselves and in what we do. We often end up doing what we know or what we want or reacting to what is happening but this often times have little to nothing of what God has in mind for us to do. And when trouble comes, our work crumbles. It crumbles because it was never founded upon Christ and the Spirit's power. It was founded upon our own strength, will, identity and desires. And it all crumbles. And with this crumbling, so does our identity.

When our identity is found in Christ, He will give us the Spirit to do the work of God and it will last. This is the test of our life and work and whether we are Spirit-filled.

Finding rest

“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. Matthew 11:28-29 HCSB http://bible.com/72/mat.11.28-29.HCSB

Have you ever thought about these couple verses? I have. I have even taught them and given them as advices to people. But at the same time, I have to admit that I have never been truly impacted by what these verses really convey and mean.

Life always seems to be unstopping. Life is always stacking up. There is always so much to do. When you think about it, the 24 hours in a day just isn't enough to get everything that needs to be done done. Especially when you are balancing kids, relationships, work, volunteering, eating and health, there just isn't enough room to make it all happen nor is it healthy to. I have tried it. And I failed miserably. I stretched myself so thin that I wasn't effectively doing any of the things I'm trying to accomplish. In the end, having done it but poorly was as good as having not done it. What made it worst was the deterioration it actually caused upon my relationships with my wife and kids, my ministry, my health and most importantly my spiritual health. I was trying to do it all but I was actually doing nothing. How many of us are like that? With good intentions, we pave the way for destruction. We end up working against ourselves.

As I was reading and pondering upon these verses, I realized something. When Jesus told us to come, He was telling us to take up his yoke and to learn from Him. With that He promises us rest. The yoke was essentially the harness that pulled the till for the farmer. Often times, a farmer will use a set of animals linked together to pull the till. This was the imagine of yoking together. Christ was telling us to take up His yoke, as in to be harness and linked to Him. Linked to Him because He is willing to share our load, burden and toll. He is also there to guide us along. When the farmer yoke two animals together, if they are uneven, the larger and strong animal will become the dominant one and the one that ends up leading the pair and carrying the bulk of the burden and task at hand.

This is the imagery that Christ is giving us. When we pull life along on our own, it will be heavy and often times we can't do it all. But He is offering us another way, He is telling us to submit and be linked to Him. He will carry the load. He will guide us on the path of life. He will teach us.

No, we may not get everything done in life like we have anticipated. Nor will we create a life as we imagined. And that is fine. It is fine because God loves us and He wants the best for us. When we are yoked to Him, He will guide us down the path that we need to go. He will carry us through the hard and tough times. He will in a sense, restructure our priority in life. We will start to see that some of those things that we viewed as important in life is actually not as important compared to something else. We learn that life is never too heavy because He is already there carrying the majority of the load for us.  What we need to understand and this is what will ultimately give us rest is that God is already handling it for us and we just need to tag along. This is not to say we don't have to work at it but rather what we are doing now is joining into what God is already doing in all aspect of our life.

It is the idea of letting go. Letting go of the need and want of controlling life. Let God take the wheel of your life. Let His love and grace bring you rest as you know He is here with you in the midst of it all.

Losing the saltiness and light

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled on by men. “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16 HCSB http://bible.com/72/mat.5.13-16.HCSB

Recently, I have been able to step back from my role as a pastor to a local church. This decision to leave what I have invested my time, life and family in for the last five years was not an easy one but it was the right one. In the year leading up to my leaving I have been having a sense of unease in my life. It is that sense that you get when you don't feel like you are in the right place or doing the right thing, you can call it a gut feeling but I know deep down I'm in the wrong place and doing what I'm not called for. It was hard to process, having no place else to go and having invested so much in what I was doing, I did not want to let go. Letting go was hard.

What was harder still is the fact that as I look back, I can now see where it all went wrong in my life and why I was not in the right place and doing the right thing anymore. It is not that I have not done my duty as a pastor - teaching, preaching and giving spiritual guidance - but rather in the giving I have gotten lost in it all. Gotten lost because I have lost the vision and purpose of what God has called me to do. Lost because in losing that vision and purpose, I had become disconnected on a personal level with God. There were aspirations and visions for the future of the church but there was a stubbornness in moving from those with in the pews and I retreated. Not retreating into God but rather retreating into my mind and what I held on to as my calling and purpose. I held so tightly to those things that I had forgotten whom it was that gave it to me and instead have replaced the Giver with the given. And this is where I became lost. I tried to make it work, I tried to rework it so that it would work. But ultimately, I gave up when it seems like there is no more option.

In the end, it was the grace of God that brought me back. He created a crisis in my family and my life. We have gone through crisis before and we have worked through my bout of depressions in the past but this time it was different. I questioned my calling as a pastor. I tried leaving. But the deadening silence from God was overwhelming and His continual closing of doors and opportunities was hard to ignore. In the midst of this He said, "I have called and set you aside, you are a pastor and you are mine. Be the light you have been given." And in here, this is when I knew, I have sinned. I have tried to give and tried to serve and tried to bring about a vision set within my heart but at the end of the day God ask us for our life and worship not anything else. It was never our effort or our dedication to a vision or calling, it was to Him alone.

I was a salt that have lost its saltiness. I was a light that was covered. Covered when I allowed others to define the parameters of the vision. Covered when I decided to work at it on my own wisdom and strength. Covered when I reworked the calling and vision to fit my own comfort, circumstances and life. The covering dimmed the light. The covering started to snuff out the effectiveness of the light shining. The covering ultimately started to snuff out and starve the flame. I was a salt that have lost it saltiness and a light that have been covered.

This is a reminder. A reminder of our dependence upon God. A reminder of what our purpose and calling is. We are the salt and light to the world. This saltiness and this light is a reflection of God, it is the carrying of the Gospel. But in order to do that, we need to be connected and in tune to God. We need to be willing to submit ourselves to his refining process. We need to be willing to be where He wants us, doing the task He has for us. This is when we do the will of God and people will notice and lives will be changed.