End of Summer thoughts

Wow, for the three or so of you reading...it seems just like yesterday I was posting about (April actually) how excited I was for the summer.  Well, like it always does, summer has come and gone.  Come tomorrow I will be trekking back out to Valparaiso, Indiana to begin to finish what I started there three years ago.  I don't mean for this post to be something of a nuisance or much of a promulgator of the Law.  However, where does it all go from here?  Too many times people will sit on their past and wonder "Did I do enough here/there?"  What good is that?  Even if the moment literally just passed us, what done is done.  Maybe you're feeling something inside that's telling you that you should have been more bold in your faith.  Maybe you're feeling something inside that's telling you that you need to let your light shine forth for others to see.  Maybe you're not thinking on theological terms like I do all the time and you're simply thinking along the lines of how much is gone.  

How much does lie ahead (does that even make a lick of sense?)!  Seriously though, look ahead.  The only thing that we should be looking back at is the cross.  We look back to remember, we look ahead at our own resurrection (oops sorry there I go again).  We can also look ahead to the things that are coming that will shape us into the people we are.  Be it a change in schools (HS or college or whatever), a new job, a new family, a new whatever!  Rejoice for the things that lie ahead and always remember it's never good to go back.  There is no need to dwell on your failures or missed opportunities.  The sun will rise again, and if it doesn't....(ok I'll hold myself back), and with the sun new opportunities.  Just like with the Son the opportunity to join in communion with Him and His people.  This is no joke.  At Baptism we were given the Son, and the opportunities that arise each day with it.  Just as the sun rises in the morning, remember your baptism daily.  What a way to start the day.  I ought to take myself up on my own advice.  

As I did in that April post, here's Luther:

"Let us rejoice in this coming day, and let us say: Winter has lasted long enough, beautiful summer once more will come, aye, a summer which will never end, a summer in which not only all the saints rejoice, but all the angels as well, a summer for which all creatures wait and sigh, an eternal summer in which all things are made new."

For Real

And I’m trying to make you sing
From inside where you believe
Like it’s something that you need
Like it means everything

And I’m trying to make you feel that
This is for real, that life is happening
That it means everything
I’m just trying to make you sing 

-David Crowder* Band

This faith, this life, it is for real.  As the verse says, life is happening.  Wow, life happening can downright suck (can I say that?  It's my blog I guess I can).  It can take you in a million different directions.  And the funny (ok not so funny) thing about it is even if we have fun and exciting things that lie ahead, we always miss what we're leaving behind.  It hurts to say goodbye.  And call me crazy/biased/whatever, but I would argue that having a Christian relationship with people makes it very hard to say goodbye to them.  These are the people that you share your faith walk with.  You learn and grow from each other.  It's hard to walk away from that.  But at the very same time, no one goes anywhere!  Especially in this age of IM'ing and texting, people you care about are a simple button push away.  It's amazing really when you think about it.  Also, you learn quickly, nobody goes anywhere.  Really, if these people are that important (which they are), you will see them again and again.  That doesn't make the current "goodbye situation" suck any less.  But it's a light at the end of the tunnel.  And we each share the light of Christ at the end of our dark tunnels.  I can't think of anything else more comforting, more sustaining than that.  

Life can suck (oops again) big time.  Never let go of those people who make your faith walk what it is.  More importantly recognize that you were all chosen by God to participate in this walk together.  God is our legs and feet.  He sustains us in the good times and the bad.  It's like that "Footprints" saying goes.  The persons looking back on life and is talking to God.  Notices how at times there were two sets of footprints (that's four total for those of you playing the home game) because God is walking right there with them.  But then notices in the real bad times there was only one set of footprints (two for the non lame), and asks God why this was so, where was He?  God replies that it was in those times He carried that person.  When you get sad because you're saying goodbye.  Know that in our faith it is NEVER goodbye.  God will carry you through.  

That's one of the great things about this whole thing.  Goodbye is nothing.  Unless it is goodbye in the sense of what the word originally meant, "God Be With You."  Otherwise, if it's in the context of farewell, that's a lie.  The worst we have to deal with is "See you later."

PEACE in Jesus

Luke Warm?

What does it mean to have a "luke warm" faith?  I have seen this concept described in various ways.  But one way that has particularly troubled me and stuck with me is this idea that there are three chairs.  I won't name names as to where I saw this concept, but the three chairs go like this:  In the chair to the right, the person in that chair has absolutely no faith.  Then there is a chair in the middle, this is the luke warm chair.  In that chair there is a person who has faith but isn't necessarily "gung-ho" or crusading for Christ.  Then there is the chair on the left where the people are who have a true faith and assurance in their salvation.  

I remember I heard this and was immediately bothered by it.  Is there a way to measure a "true" faith?  Is there a way to measure saving faith?  Scripture says, "3Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says "Jesus is accursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3).  In light of this, how can there be different "chairs" of faith?  If someone believes and is baptized, they are saved (Mark 16).  Although it is good to be excited about your faith, to make your joy in God through Christ into a commandment that we have to follow like the Law, makes it something we will fail at.  Too many evangelical preachers go after you with the Law, and the Law only.  The Law is essential, but the Law served up without the Gospel or with a tiny sliver of the Gospel leads people down the wrong road.  

If we make our joy a command to follow as though it were Law, we fail.  There is no possible way we can go through the next five minutes, let alone the rest of our lives, without displeasing God.  THANK GOD, we don't have to worry about it!  We are dead to sin and alive in Christ by our faith.  "The righteous shall live by faith."  This is our battle cry.  There are no chairs, there are no degrees of saving faith: "4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:4-6).  There is ONE faith.  My post earlier today being "Blessed Assurance" is no coincidence.  We live by our faith and by the Gospel we are spurned to love God and to have joy in Him.  If it were up to us, like everything else, we would fail.  And indeed we do fail.  No one is ever always gung-ho God.  Sanctification takes a life time.  But justification happened immediately when we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and sustained in the one faith.  

The next time someone asks you, "I feel like I can't please God and I'm not always real 'happy' about my faith like some are, is something wrong with me?" Answer with an absolute "Yes, there is something wrong with you.  You, like the rest of us, are a sinner.  Repent and believe.  Jesus saves, not you."  It's good to be mindful of the Law and to be excited about faith.  But if the Gospel is not at an equal balance with the presentation of the Law, it leads down a road without assurance and people wondering why they can't earn their way into the left chair.  Jesus earned it for you.  In faith you are in.

Blessed Assurance

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!   O what a foretaste of glory divine!   Heir of salvation, purchase of God,   born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.  Refrain:  This is my story, this is my song,   praising my Savior all the day long;   this is my story, this is my song,   praising my Savior all the day long.   2. Perfect submission, perfect delight,   visions of rapture now burst on my sight;   angels descending bring from above   echoes of mercy, whispers of love.   (Refrain)   3. Perfect submission, all is at rest;   I in my Savior am happy and blest,   watching and waiting, looking above,   filled with his goodness, lost in his love.   (Refrain) 

Rock Star Ministry

In ministry, like anything else, the inevitable popularity thing begins to take shape.  If in youth ministry, kids will look up to you, in public and in private.  There are many instances in which one does not even realize that a certain kid looked up to them and saw them as such a great example.  This happens with adults too.  People flock from message to message or from church to church to follow the person delivering it.  St. Paul tells us we are not to follow himself, Apollos, Peter, or any mere mortal.  The only man we are to follow is the Man-God, Jesus Christ.  

Oh but how hard it can be to not fall into such things.  But it ain't easy being a star.  Because those in ministry are human, no doubt ego's can develop about how well they are performing.  For youth minister's, one of the things they may tend to obsess over is how cool they come off to the kids.  A way to keep oneself in check is to realize that there is nothing cool at all about a young man or woman spending their time in a church with kids younger than them.  Kids may think you're cool, for a time anyway (Doug Fields has an actual age he pinpoints as when one is no longer cool).  Another way to keep oneself in check is to realize although you or others may think yourself to be a rock star (however foolish this may be) you are without debate and question not the Rock.  We are mere dirt and soil, not a rock, let alone the Rock.  

Who is this Rock?  "On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand!"  Go ahead, for a while and chase the dreams of the world, even in ministry by conforming yourself to the image of the world.  But any minister, teacher, or theologian worth their penny knows for sure that at the end of the day "dust you are, and to dust you shall return."  Read Job, read about John the Baptist, read Paul's letters.  These are not rock stars, these are servants.  Even King David, arguably the biggest rock star in the Bible, was humbled repeatedly by the Lord and shown that he was nothing more than mere dirt.  

How can your ministry be measured as a success?  Line it up next to Jesus:  If you preach Christ crucified and risen.  If you care for those you serve with this message.  If you encourage a discipleship that rises above the mess that the world is.  That is what one needs to do.  If the people fall away it is not because you aren't cool enough or aren't a rock star.  It is because they reject to use the Rock as their foundation, and choose to live a life of desolation.  In this post modern world, combat the worldly influences and games with a heavenly battle cry.