Unity in our Day

UNITY IN OUR DAY

BLOG HOST, 12-1-2010

HOST:  JAY MARTIN

JOHN 17

            I recently heard a political commentator talking about the fact that divisiveness and debate is part of our heritage as Americans—it is in our national DNA.  He pointed out that throughout American history, there have been two and sometimes three sides to many very important national debates.  To the suggestion that Americans want political leaders who compromise and work together, the commentator’s answer was simple—we want to be right, not get along!

            If we are not careful, this divisiveness can creep in to the church, also. Actually it already has.  As a matter of fact, like American history, the history of the church has been one of division and debate.  We can see it in the multiple denominations in our nation and world today. 

            While things weren’t that different in Jesus’ day, Jesus had a simple idea—complete unity!  As He approached the weekend of torture and crucifixion, Jesus took time to pray for unity!  Verse 23: “I in them and you in me.  May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

                This teaching goes beyond the mandates to forgive, even leave the altar to make it right with others—this is calling for the same kind of unity that God the Father and God the Son have with the Holy Spirit, as they make up the Trinity.  This is pretty heavy stuff.  As a matter of fact, I believe it is one of the core concepts Jesus taught—unity! 

            It involves conflict resolution—focusing on the essentials instead of traditions and opinions—but it goes much deeper than that.  What does complete unity look like?  For Jesus, it looked like the Cross of Calvary—for God it looked like sending His precious Son, and for the Holy Spirit, it looked like coming to earth when Jesus ascended in to heaven.  This was a difficult assignment, and yet the Trinity, because of their love for us, performed salvation’s plan.

            Are we willing to sacrifice to achieve unity of purpose?  Are we willing to forego our individual desires and identity for the cause of Christ?  Are we willing to give ourselves to each other so that the world will have an accurate picture of Jesus?  Or will we live self-centered, selfish lives, wrapped up in ourselves, and die someday having aided Jesus’ prayer not being answered?  This is hard for me, and yet I dare to believe that right here today, in a world that values debate and being right even over relationship, that we can have unity in our day.  I know that is Jesus’ will for you and me!

love to be hated?

I have spent the majority of my life striving to be loved.  Don’t get the wrong idea…..my life has always been filled with people who love me, but I couldn’t stand the thought of someone disliking me.  It drove me crazy!  At school, I went out of my way and did things I wouldn’t normally do so that people would like me.  At church, I would put on a face so people would like me.  I would spend my days paranoid at the thought of someone disliking me. 

As I read this:  ¹⁸ “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you”……..I don’t think this is saying that we should desire for everyone to hate us, but I do believe it is saying that we do not belong to this world.  It’s obvious that our world doesn’t love Christ.  So, if I am living like Christ, should everyone love me?  If the world does love me, I may need to reevaluate my life.   Shouldn’t I be focused on being more like Christ and showing His love to the world, instead of focusing on whether or not people love me?  Shouldn’t my desire be impressing Christ rather than impressing the world?  If I am being like Christ, there are people who aren’t going to like me, and I’m OK with that.

Follow Jesus---all the way Home!

"And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

I gotta say, I think I would have been just as confused as the disciples. How could they follow if they didn't know where he was going?  Looking back on it now, it's easy for us to know what Jesus was talking about.  There's a song I remember from church when I was very young. It went "Heaven is a wonderful plaaaaace. Filled with glory and graaaaaaace. I'm gonna see my Savior's face cuz heaven is a wonderful place." I'm excited that I get to follow Jesus while I'm here on Earth. But I get even more excited, giddy even, when I think about Jesus calling us all home. We talked about it tonight. No more pain and suffering. No more tears. We get to see Him face to face. Heaven is going to be a wonderful place! And I want to follow Him now, so that I can follow Him all the way home!

Ray Bob

I Know Who I Am

I KNOW WHO I AM

BLOG HOST, 11-24-2010

HOST:  JAY MARTIN

JOHN 8

            The religious leaders wanted to know—“Jesus, who are you?”  They saw the miracles, they heard Him call God, Father.  They wanted to know.  In verse 58, Jesus makes it clear—Jesus identified Himself as the Great “I Am.”  He identifies Himself with the God who told Moses to identify Him as “I Am.”  Jesus is God the Son.  He is the Messiah.  He knew His identity, and He made it clear to the religious leaders.

We can become sons of God also.  We have a choice:  Verses 31-36 make it clear:  “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,”  Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.’”

We have the choice of being slave or sons and daughters.  Sin makes us slaves, but through repentance, and discipleship, we become sons and daughters—free to pursue all of the benefits and responsibilities of being in God’s family!

It is amazing--I know who I am!  I don't have to wonder about my identity.  I am Jesus' disciple, Jesus is my big brother!  God is my father!  Other believers are my brothers and sisters!  Glory!  Thanks Lord.  I am not perfect, and sometimes I sin.  Forgive me!  Break the tendency to move towards slavery and away from kinship with You.  I want to be free in You!  I want to be a Son of God!  I choose freedom in You.  Thanks for making that possible!  My heart is filled with thanksgiving during this season because although you were in heaven with God being celebrated as God the Son, you chose to come to earth!  You did it for me!  Thank you!  In Jesus' Name!  Amen.

are we excited?

scripture:  john 6.5-70

The disciples and those following Jesus got to be first-hand witnesses to Jesus performing a mind-blowing miracle when He fed 5,000 with a few loafs and a couple of fish.  But the more mind-blowing part of this for me is that the next day, when Jesus told them “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.", the crowd grumbles and responds with "How can you be the Son of God....This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"  It says "⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him."  REALLY!!  After such an amazing miraculous experience, your still not excited about this Jesus?  What is it going to take?  How can you not be excited about following Christ?

We're supposed to talk about what these scriptures mean to us personally, and I know I'm seriously digressing from what this passage is conveying, but I want to tell you the challenge I received from this personally.  So many church services I have left excited about being a life long follow of Jesus and telling others about Him.  So many camps I returned from "on fire" for for Christ.  Then a month, and week, or a day later....yeah I say I love Him, but I'm not as excited.  I think we've all been there. 

I started thinking, if I do not have a constant excitement about following Christ and that excitement is not expressed through my love and actions to others, do I truly know Christ and the hope that comes through a relationship with Him?  Do I have the joy that comes with knowing Him, if people can't see it?  If my faith isn't daily growing and obvious to those around me, have I really given my life over to the One who died to give me a hope of eternity with Him....and therefore, can I call myself a Christian.  Question:  Are we TRULY excited?

dustin

On the 7th day...

If Jesus did it, then it's good. Right? Absolutely. If I were to ask the question, "Where and when was the last place you tried to show Christ in your life?" I imagine I'd hear "at work" or "eating lunch last week", and these are both great. Let's not forget that we can have a HUGE impact on Sunday, too. Today's story shows Jesus healing an invalid on the Sabbath. Back then, you weren't supposed to do any "work" on the Sabbath. It was a day of rest. Some rules were made up to go as far as to say how many steps you could go in that one day. I mean come on! Sunday's I think more than any other we are on display when we go out into the world. We're dressed up, and most people in central Arkansas are going to assume you just came from or are headed to church. So immediately you have an oppertunity to SMILE, have a good attitude, and maybe strike up a conversation about how church was. We have oppertunties to change some people's stereotype that church-goers are rude, don't care about others, impatient, only look out for themselves...the list could go on and on. Let's be different EVERY day of the week, especially when all eyes are on us. And I'm in no way trying to preach or accuse anyone. I think we already do a great job of this. A few weeks ago Laura and I went out to eat with Pastor Gary and Chelsey after PM service. I remember that PG spent time talking to our waitress, asking how her night was going, smiling, laughing, and showing her that a few couples from church cared about her. I don't know how the rest of her day/night went, but I know for the hour we were there she had a table that showed an interest in her as a person, not just as our waitress. So remember to take EVERY oppertunity, EVERY day, to show people that we love them. In doing that, we show Christ's love to them as well.

Ray Bob

Chase Light

I’m ashamed to admit this, but growing up I was very acquainted with roaches. And, I’m not talking about the little small ones, but the big, fat, ones that fly! I think they are called, “water bugs.” Picture below:

Searching for pictures online, brought back horrible memories and made my skin crawl many times. Anyway, I was afraid of them, especially walking into a dark room. It seemed they lived in darkness. It was rare they would scurry into the room while I had the light on, but if I walked into a dark room, flicked on the light; they would scatter. If I was lucky, the roach would run in my opposite direction. Yet, I was rarely lucky (at least my memory of it). It would take off in an awkward, out of control flight, and I would scream, in fear, like a 5 year old girl! Truth: Roaches would rather hide in darkness and exposure to light sends them running!

Here’s the contrast. We didn’t live in a great neighborhood growing up, so we had 3 locks on the front door to our home, from the outside – a deadbolt, the door knob lock, and a latch-lock with a dangling padlock. After evening church, our whole family would exit the car, run to the porch of our home and wait while mom or dad commenced the routine of unlocking our home. Part of that routine was to battle the moths that would kamikaze our heads! You see, the porch light was on and moths are attracted to the light. I don’t really understand why, but they are. Inevitably, when we walked in the door, a moth would slip in with us. As soon as we turned on the light to the room, guess what happened? The moth would fly right to the bulb – pinging the bulb with relentless passion!  And do you know what else might happen if a roach were there? That’s right it would run. Interesting huh? Two insects. Two different responses to the light.

John 3:19-“And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”

The Light should draw us closer to Itself – passionately enough that we would give up our life to chase It.