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The Way Out- Part Five- The Listening God

“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

‭‭Exodus‬ ‭2:23-25‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5:21‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Just being honest

...

I will get to the second Corinthians passage in just a second, but to the passage in exodus I say, what!?! I have so many questions about this passage. The biggest one being the phrase, “And God remembered his covenant with Abraham,” what!? Did he forget it? Did it slip his mind? That phrase is weird to me. Also, why did it take God so long? The people of Israel were enslaved for four hundred years and he just now heard them. Surely this was not the first generation that had cried out from their enslavement. Why now? What was it about this generation that made God hear them? Why were they so special? I don’t have answers to these questions to be quite honest. All I know is I still love, believe, and trust in the God who divinely inspired this passage but how can I ever expect people to be honest about their questions if I’m not about my own.

Pain

We live in a world racked with tremendous amounts of pain. We live in a world that is hurting at every inch of it. Maybe we think that God isn’t listening, but maybe when you think God isn’t speaking, maybe that’s when he is listening the absolute hardest. Maybe that’s the moment is pulling things together to make things right.

People

For better or worse a lot of times God works his beautiful magnificent redemption plan through people. He doesn’t have to but a lot of times he chooses to. Why does he do this? I think because he is a God of freedom and he knows that using a person to free someone else can often times free them both. That’s why in this book we have Moses, Aaron and Miriam. This is what God wants to do in our lives as well. He wants to raise people up in our lives to help deliver and he wants to use us to do that in the lives of other people.

We can’t do it

..

As we have seen before we cannot save ourselves. When we try to save ourselves sometimes it just gets us deeper into slavery. We need God to hear us. God ultimately did that in Jesus that’s where this second Corinthians verse comes in. Jesus was the man who was also God that was raised up to deliver us.

Thankful

...

Let’s be thankful we have a God who is not cold, and uncaring. We have a God who listens, who comes to our rescue.

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The Way Out- Part 4- The Heroes Journey.

“Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.””

‭‭Exodus‬ ‭2:16-22‬ ‭NIV‬‬

God meets you when you have come to the end of yourself. God meets you when you completely realize how broken you are. That’s where God has met me and I️ know that’s where God has met everyone. He meets you when you’re so exhausted. He meets you when you can’t try anymore, and so all you have left is to throw yourself on the truth that God is a good God.

That’s what happened to me.

It was January of 2017. I️ had made numerous mistakes, I️ had made mistakes that hurt me and the people I️ care about very deeply. At the beginning of the year I️ made the declaration that my life was going to look very different at the end of this year, then it did at the beginning of it. Then God thrust someone very special in my life. My girlfriend Tatyana. We did theater together and we slowly became friends. Then one night we stayed outside of the theater just talking about life and our problems until the wee hours of the morning. I️ had come to the end of myself. I️ was too exhausted to try. I️ was too exhausted to put on airs.I️ had to throw myself on the fact that someone loved me and cared about me. And we kept talking until the wee hours of the morning. We did this night after night after night. Through throwing myself on the hope that someone else would love and care about me, I️ grew to see that God loved and cared about me.

We see this in the story of Moses. This was a man who was at his absolute worst. He had been found out. He was a murderer. So he ran. This is a very natural response when we are found out. Moses finds himself out in the middle of no where and these girls come to get some waters and shepherds chase them off. Moses stands up to these guys. These girls go back to their father and tell them what has happened. The father brings Moses in to thank him and Moses finds community in these people. So much so that he ends up marrying one of this mans daughters.

Moses takes what is essentially the hero’s journey. Let me explain.

Take the movie the lion king. What happens in that movie? Simba is a prince. Someone dies. He becomes disgraced. He goes into the wild and he finds community. Falls in love. Comes back stronger and ready to be who he was always supposed to be. Fights an ultimate battle and he reigns. Sound familiar? One could argue that lion king stole that from a million different stories. It could be also argued that those million different stories stole it from God. Stole it from the journey that we see right here in the Book of Exodus. This is the journey that we ultimately see in the journey of Jesus. It’s a little different in the journey of Jesus because he is God but we see some similarities. Jesus is baptized. The father is well pleased, and then Jesus goes out in the wilderness. Jesus has to struggle. He comes back stronger. He fights an ultimate battle and he reigns.

Maybe you have seen this in your own life. You started off young and naive. You failed hard. It drove you into the outskirts of life. On the outskirts is where you found your tribe. You come back better and can be who you are supposed to. You took the heroes journey.

Maybe you are on the outskirts right now. Embrace this sweet time. You are right where God wants you to be. He is setting you up for the heroes journey.

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The Way Out- We can’t do it

“One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”

14 The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”

15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.” Exodus 2:11-15. 

Have you ever wanted something? Of course you have, you’re human. Humans have ingrained in them the need to want something. Desire is intrinsic to the human experience. Desire can feel like it is over whelming or it is taking over. Sometimes we can want something so bad that we take a good desire and try to get it in the wrong way. That’s what we see in this passage. 

1.) Moses had a good desire. 

Moses had a desire to see his people not mistreated. He had a desire to see his people live in freedom. There is nothing wrong with that.  He wanted to stop an egyptian from beating a fellow hebrew of his. 

2.) He went about it in the wrong way. 

He wanted this so bad, that he killed the Egyptian. This led him absolutely no where. He came back another day and then he saw the Hebrews fighting amongst themselves, and then he got afraid that people had found out what he had done. Sin always causes us to run. Sin always causes us to hide. And sin always leads to discord among people, that’s why this man who was a son of pharaoh’s house had to run and hide. 

3.) We can’t do it.

This passage illustrates brilliantly that self reliance doesn’t work. That we can try to fix the brokenness of this world but when we do we only make it worse. We need help. We need a savior.  Thank God we have one. 

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The Way Out Part Two-Adoption

“Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman.2 The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes[a] and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. 4 And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. 5 Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews' children.”7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child's mother. 9 And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”[b]” Exodus 2:1-10.  

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. “ 

Galatians 4:4-7. 

The whole Bible is about Jesus. The whole Bible. All the Bible points to him in one way or another. Including the story of Moses. So let’s examine the story of Moses through the lens of Jesus.  

Now those verses are in Exodus chapter two. We must remember where we are coming from. In chapter one we are coming from oppression of the Israelites. We see that the Pharaoh wants to kill all of the Hebrew boys because there are so many Israelites. We see a parallel of this in the life of Jesus, when Herod was trying to do this very thing. So when this levite woman conceived a son she knew all of this was happen. She knew that the pharaoh was killing these babies. So she had tremendous faith. She sent her son down a river hoping, and praying that God would provide a better life for her son. So she sent him away and by the providence of God he landed in the home of Pharaoh and Moses became the man we know about and speak about today. 

This parallels Jesus in a huge way. God the father who knows everything, but he also had to trust broken humanity with his son. We don’t often consider how deeply hard and troubling this must’ve been. But also like Moses, Jesus grew to lead people to freedom but in a much more amazing way. 

How does any of this apply to us? Let’s look at the verse in Galatians. God sent his son to redeem us so that we might become adopted. If we can internalize this truth, if we can get this it will cause wonders in our lives. God has adopted us into his family. He doesn’t just tolerate us, we are family. So this means a couple of things practically in our lives. 

1. We can live in confidence and not in fear. 

This truth of our adoption in Christ destroys fear and insecurity. Because if we are in the family of Jesus, what do we have to be insecure or afraid of? Our father runs the whole entire universe. How cool is that? Our father is completely in control of everything. 

2. Don’t be afraid of your other family members 

If we are adopted in the family of God that means we have brothers and sisters who are also in the family. Something that i am learning deeply right now is that you have to fight for your spiritual community. We will never be truly, deeply free until we embrace the family God has put around us. 

So may we embrace our identity and also embrace our brothers and sisters.  

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The way out (Part One.)

I'm going to do a series on the book of Exodus. I'm going to do this because I believe it is an extremely relevant book and also I want to know the book better. I may not do all of it, and I may skip around. That being said, let's go.

"6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own."

22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”"

Exodus 1:6-22.

We begin the book of Exodus on a very downer fact. The fact that evil exists and the world is corrupt. Sometimes it will seem like life is nothing but a storm of terrible things.

But to begin the book of Exodus you have to start before the book of Exodus. You have to start with Joseph. We all know the story of Joseph. The story of Joseph is the story of a man who never waivered. He was sold into slavery by his brothers. He was put in charge of a rich mans house. He was falsely accused of rape by this rich mans wife, and then he was thrown into prison. Yet through all this he stayed faithful and eventually he rose to be second in command in Egypt. He saved Egypt. Then as we get into Exodus we see that a pharaoh came along who forgot all of that. He was threatened by the Israelites'. He was threated by how many of them there were. He was scared they were go to try to overtake Israel. He was scared they would join up with an army. So he oppressed them. He enslaved them. He destroyed them physically and he destroyed their spirit which is the worst of all. Something we very much learn from this passage is our world is broken. Something within us is broken. Why? Why are we so terribly broken? Why are we all hurting so awfully? Why are things not as they should be? The apostle Paul summed it up quite well.

25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Romans 1:25.

We exchange the truth about God for a lie. We worship something else than the only one who is worthy of our worship. The pharaoh here worshiped power. You become like what you worship so the pharaoh powered up so much that he enslaved a race of people.

What we see though is we see that through all of this brokenness, God doesn't forget. God remembers. The Hebrew midwives they let the Hebrew boys lived and God was kind to them. So through out all of the pain and suffering, take heart. The Lord is with you.

23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”). Matthew 1:23.

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Echoes in Eternity (Remain Part 8.)

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed youso that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.17 This is my command: Love each other.” John 15:16-17.

This is the finale of the great symphony that is John 15:9-17. Jesus wants to be our friend. With that friendship he wants to equip us to bear fruit. He wants to equip us to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth. When ever in the gospel it says that the kingdom of heaven is near, that’s what it is talking about. It’s not talking about heaven coming soon. It’s talking about bring heaven to earth. it’s talking about making earth look a little bit better. How do we do this? We love each other. We care, we get involved, we help out, we build relationships. I know how often it seems like loving people and being a person of integrity is just not enough, but it is. It may seem like its small. But if you follow God step by step he will take those small things and do something great through them. Let’s do things that will echo in eternity.

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You’ve got a friend. (Remain Part Seven.)

“You are my friends if you do what I command.15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:14-15. 

What does falling in love with Jesus actually look like? What does being a friend of Jesus or being close to Jesus actually look like? It looks like obeying him. The natural outpouring of falling in love with Jesus is doing what he commands. People get this wrong. They think you are good if you do the commands of Jesus and that’s it. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

Matthew 7:21-23. 

We see very clearly here that Jesus is about way more than just following the rules. Jesus wants to know us and be our friend obeying him flows out of that. Think of it as a marriage. First you fall in love with the person and then you obey them. There are rules in a marriage. Obviously you can’t cheat on your spouse. You can’t lie to your spouse. You need to talk to them and include them. It’s the same with Jesus. First you fall in love with him. Then you obey him. Then you are faithful to him. Then you obey him. But it’s better than even that. Jesus has let us know him as well. He hasn’t just made it a one sided relationship. Everything that he has learned from his father he has made known to us. 

He’s our friend.    

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Sacrifice-(Remain Part Six.)

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. “ John 15:13.

Sacrifice. We are called to be the example of Jesus. Jesus is our great example. We get baptized because Jesus was baptized. We love because Jesus loved. We serve because Jesus served. So Jesus sacrificed. What do we do with that? Because honestly a lot of Christians don’t want to sacrifice. A lot of Christians want to follow Jesus without actually having to give anything. A lot of Christians want to follow Jesus and be comfortable. 

This is not what Jesus calls us to. 

Jesus gave. Jesus gave it all.  Jesus was on the cross. Naked. Dripping in blood. Sacrificing for us. He gave for us what he didn’t have to do but he did. He gave it all. He gave it all for us. 

So we were meant to follow that. We were meant to emulate that. 

So how do we do that? 

We move people from point A to point B. We serve people even when it hurts. We love people even when it hurts. We love people even when it’s annoying. We love people even when they make us angry.

This verse can go even further. This verse can even affect our relationship with God. After we are Christians we are called, friends of God. And as Christians we are called to lose our lives so that we may find it for the sake of Jesus. If we take it in that context, it has crazy implications for our lives. 

Sacrifice. 

Sacrifice implies that there is something you don’t want to be. So this leads to....... urges. 

Urges. 

There are things we have the urge to do that we don’t have to do. We have the urge to win approval. We have the urge to drink. We have the urge to get high. We have the urge to do evil to that person that we don’t like. 

But we don’t. We don’t have to do it. We don’t have to give in. We don’t have to give in to our urges. We sacrifice. 

What we do in our relationship with God and what we do in our relationship with people is what Jesus talks about in the gospel of Mark. 

   “ Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34.

Sacrifice.   

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What Matters More (Remain- Part Five.)

“My command is this: Love each other as i have loved you.” John 15:12.

You can’t love God without also loving the people that God loves. That is a ridiculously hard reality to accept. its hard for me to accept. The reason this is so hard to accept is just because we don’t want to. There are people who are hard to love. There are people who are extremely annoying. There are people who God created who quite frankly i don’t want to love. 

But that is not an excuse. It does not matter if i want to love the people God loves. If God created them, i have to love them. 

So pray. Pray as hard as you can to see people how God sees them. So you can love them the way God loves them. Because you can’t love God without loving the people that God loves.

Love is what matters most. 

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The Why(Remain-Part Four)

“ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:11.

Why people are telling you something matters. Have you ever been talking to someone and then you found out what their agenda was and it made you not want to listen to them? We all have. Well Jesus was very upfront with his agenda right here. This is what Jesus wanted. Jesus wanted  to give us his joy. Jesus is very joyful and he wants give us his joy. When he gives us his joy, it will start to make us whole. 

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The if of blessing. (Remain- Part three.)

“If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as i have kept my fathers commands and remain in his love.” John 15:10. 

The love of God is unconditional. The blessing of God is not. God is a very good parent. It says so right in scripture. 

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:9-11. 

God is a good father who delights in giving good gifts to his children. He not only wants to do it, but he loves to do it. Yet God is not an enabler. He is like good earthly parents, he loves no matter what, but his blessing is conditional. A good earthly parent will always love, but a good parent won’t go out and buy his child a new car if the child is living in blatant disobedience. 

So God is a super incredible and an holy God. And our sin separates us from him, yet he also strives and invites us to come back to him. He longs for us to come close to him so he can bless us. Again, he is just doing what any earthly parent would do. He loves us when we are far away, but he blesses us when we come close. 

There are so many promises in the Bible that have a little if in them. By that i mean they say, “if you do this, than i the lord will do this.” 

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14. 

If we will do this and humble ourselves before God, then God will forgive our sin and heal our land. That is the promise of 2 chronicles 7:14. There are so many promises in the scripture like that. May we seek after the promises. May we do our part, so God will do his. 

God is a good father, and he longs to bless us.   

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Beloved-(Remain Part Two)

“As the father hath loved me, so i have loved you; continue ye in my love.” John 15:9. 

“At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Mark 1:9-11. 

God is self sufficient. In the trinity, they love each other. They are in the most fulfilling relationship imaginable. So all three members of the trinity love each other with all they have. With the love that Jesus receives from the other members of the trinity, he gives this love to us and we can give this love to others. But we cannot give this love to others if we don’t receive it.  Dwell in this love. it’s our identity. 

IDENTITY.

In the text listed above in Mark, we see the core of Jesus identity. God calls Jesus beloved before Jesus did anything. God called Jesus beloved before he did one miracle. God called Jesus beloved before he went to the cross. God does the same thing with us. He calls us beloved before we do anything. He calls us beloved before we do one thing at all. God calls us beloved no matter what we do. Now God doesn’t want us to sin, but we can’t outsin the love of God. We are loved by God because of who he is. Because we are loved by God because of who he is, beloved is who we are. 

CONTINUE 

The second part of this verse says to continue in Christ’s love. So we have to make being Christ’s beloved the center of our whole lives. So how do we do this? We do the things that stir up our love for Christ. This can be different for everyone. I can only share what works for me in hope that it will help you figure out what works for you.

PEOPLE- I cannot live without Godly community. Nothing stirs my passion up and my love for God or makes me feel more loved by God than Godly community. So find a church. Find a church that loves God and loves people. 

PRAYER- Prayer stirs up my feeling of belovedness. Prayer stirs that up for me like nothing else. Prayer is something that i struggle to do but when i do it, i love it and am so thankful for it. I am so thankful for it. I think the enemy tries to get us to not pray because he knows the great benefit we get from it. 

SCRIPTURE- Every one does scripture very differently. I can only tell you what works for me. I get my physical copy of the scripture and i just read in a book until one of the verses stop me, then i write the reference, and then i pray through that scripture. 

These are the practices that help me continue in the love of Christ. Hopefully they help you as well. 

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Remain- Part One

I’m starting a series on this blog. I’m going through some verses in John 15. I’m going to go through the verses John 15:9-17. I’m going to go through these verses because these verses talk about how to grow as a Christian. I’m starting to realize that i desperately need to grow as a Christian. I’m realizing that i’m very bad at the great commandment. I want to be good at the great commandment but i’m not.  So before we get to the verses in John 15, let’s look at the great commandment and Christian Maturity. 

THE COMMANDMENT 

“Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40. 

I once had a conversation with a friend of mine. We talked about how Jesus left us two things. He left us a meal, we call that communion. He left us a commandment, it’s listed above. So if this is what Jesus left us, it stands to reason that this is very important. So I must ask, how are you doing? How are you doing? Do you love God more than anything else? How are you doing at loving people? How are you doing at loving your enemies? I’ll be honest. I’m not doing well. There are things that i love more than God. There are things i put above God. Let’s not even talk about the great commandment.  I’m very bad at it, but God loves me anyway. His love is unconditional. But he loves me enough to help me grow in his commandment. He loves you enough to help you grow in that as well.

CHRISTIAN MATURITY

So that’s what Christian maturity looks like. Getting better at loving God and loving people. So may we get better at that. May we get better at loving God and loving people. May John 15:9-17 help us with that. 

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Mature

“2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faithproduces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4.

This scripture has wrecked me today. I’m going through some hard times right now but what i realized is this means i’m still cooking. This means i’m not done. i have room to grow. I have room to grow into who the lord wants me to be. He is trying to make me mature right now. So i’m not going to try to subvert the process. I’m going to give into the process. I pray you do as well. 

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FOCUS

“15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. “ Ephesians 5:15-17.

We have very limited time on this earth, we all know that. A lot of us and i would count myself amongst this group, want to get the most done. We want to do all that we can. But we can’t do everything. If we do everything that will lead to chaos. So we have to focus on what’s important. Focusing on what’s important and leaving behind what’s not is a very biblical thing. The apostle Paul talks about this in his letter to the Philippians.

  “ 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. “ Philippians 3:13-14.

Did you see it in there? Paul said this one thing he does. He didn’t say many things he did. He said one thing he does. He did one thing. Then he also forgot some things. He didn’t focus on what was happening in his past, he let that go, so he could do what he was called to do. So he could do what he needed to do. So this begs the question, if we need to focus, what do we need to focus on? 

GOD 

“33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. “ Matthew 6:33. 

Seek God. Desire God above all things. I want to acknowledge something. We may not want God. We may not actually desire God. Ask. I want to say ask. If you don’t desire God, that’s fine. Admit it, be honest about it. God already knows about it. Ask him to change your desires to want him above anything. I believe this is a prayer he will honor. 

PEOPLE 

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18. 

We need people. I wish we didn’t need people, but we do. We need the church, i wish we didn’t but we do. You cannot be a Christian without the church. Faith is personal but it is not private. So just invest in a community. Invest in a church. it’s going to be hard and it’s going to be messy, but it’s worth it. Trust God enough to be with his people. Dive in.

DREAMS

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do,    and he will establish your plans.” Proverbs 16:3. 

God has blessed us with dreams and desires. God has given us plans. God has given us things we want to do. God has given us plans that he wants us to take him up on. He wants us to create a better world with the dreams he has given us. So go get after it. 

WORK

   “ Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,” Colossians 3:23. 

Finally, we spend most of our lives working. We spend most of our lives doing the assignments that he has for us. So let us do them well, and let us do it for a grander purpose. So we can honor him. 

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The Lord is near

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18. 

Has your heart ever hurt? Mine has. Mine is aching because of relational distress. I have hurt some people very near to me. People i did not mean to hurt. People i did not want to hurt. People i love and people i care about. So I’m hurting because of stupid sin and stupid mistakes that i have made, but the lord is with me. The Lord will get me through this. the Lord loves me. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. 

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LISTEN

“A man who does not listen after many strong words are spoken to him will be destroyed all at once and without help” Proverbs 29:1. 

How many times? How long does it take? How long does it take to fix things? How many friends are going to have to beg you to change before you actually do?  

I have had many wonderful friends try to tell me that i need to change. I have had many friends try to tell me the correct thing to do. I’ve written them off. I haven’t listened.

I have had God lovingly try to tell me what to do. I’ve written him off. I haven’t listened. Maybe you are the same way. The only thing i have to say to you is, how’s that working out for you? It hasn’t worked out for me very well. 

So may we listen to God. May we listen to wise friends. May we listen.