Caterpillar Conundrum

In my early childhood I had the privilege of collecting Monarch caterpillars, housing and caring for them, and then watching the transform into beautiful butterflies, and then releasing them. This was always so fascinating to me and the miracle of transformation blew and still blows my mind. But I learned something recently that added even more awe-inspiring reflection upon this divine feat. A caterpillar, in its DNA, is NO DIFFERENT than a butterfly. In fact if you were to compare the strands of a butterfly and a caterpillar they would be identical. I know your mind is blown as well. :)

The thing that is so fascinating is that a caterpillar is already a butterfly in every way except for how it functions in and engages its world. The only thing left to do for a caterpillar is to be transformed so the physical evidence is seen.

Jacob in Genesis 32 gets a new name, Israel. From birth, he was already Israel but he did not function as such in the world. He was deceitful, arrogant, and self-full. God saw Jacob as Israel from the beginning, being the one who would carry out the promise to Abraham.

This means that God sees us for the butterfly we can be, that he created us to be even though we are a chubby little insignificant worm. Unlike the Monarch, however, who goes through this process somewhat mindlessly and automatically, we must choose Jesus...everyday. Our transformation happens because we allow God freedom to change us. We get out of the way, dying to ourselves, and trust Him with our lives.

Do you know you are worth more than what people say about you or what your current state of existing is?
Have you begun the transformation process or are you still living a spiritually slow and low life?
Have you started the process but things are holding you up and you are stunted from growing?

Why crawl through life when you could be flying?

Soul Survivors - pt 2

Romans 8:28-39
So we're Soul Survivors if we are living for Christ. Good. And we learned last week what all that entails: in the face of problems, times of need, harassment, desperation, shame, fear, and death. So what about the good?

Romans 8:28 says "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Let me break it down taking key words in this verse and expounding.

KNOW - we are confident, sure, fully aware

ALL THINGS - every detail and event, tragedy, victory, difficulty, and celebration, and not just in our life but throughout history

GOD WORKS - not us; It's not up to us and our strength or capabilities. God is in control. Another version says 'work together.' This is from the Greek word 'sunergeo' from which we get synergy. Simply put: God works two or more elements together to make something brand new that couldn't be produced in the individuals alone, something better.

GOOD - this is an eternal kingdom type of good, not ice cream and cake kind of good. A bigger picture of good is needed. Jesus says in response to the compliment of "good teacher" that only His dad is good. Good, in this sense is heavenly and eternal. In essence, the good that comes about is our own deeper relationship with God.

THOSE WHO LOVE HIM - this is the qualifier. This promise isn't for everyone - only those who reciprocate God's love and even further more who respond to the call.

WHO ARE CALLED - God initiates, reaches out, desires. Not everyone who is called responds accordingly.

So what do we do with this? Ask 5 questions from this verse and allow the Spirit to lead you in truth. When you feel called or prompted by God's Spirit:
   Do you love God? Start with the basic. Enter a relationship.
   Are you eternal kingdom minded? 'I' am NOT the most important thing in this world. I must be others' minded.
   Are you trying to do it on your own? Recognize God is the one who creates, sustains, and transforms, not us on our own strength.
   What certain things or experiences do you need to give to God? Let go of specific events in order to see bigger picture of what God is doing.
   Are you confident/Do you trust in the 'good' God is doing? The good is making you like Jesus.

Let's be soul survivors TODAY!

Soul Survivor - pt 1

Romans 8:25-39
What comes to mind with the word, CONQUEROR? Victory, knights, maybe kings and wars? I'm sure that word conjures up some interesting mental pictures.

A conqueror is naturally someone who conquers. And to conquer is to successfully overcome or take control. This seems like a great thing to be within the spiritual context. But I hold a different thought from Romans 8:37. Paul says that we're MORE THAN conquerors through him who loved us.

More than conquerors? What is that to be more than just a successful overcomer? Soul Survivor.

Why soul survivor? Because of Christ's love according to Paul. Through his love the sting of life's struggles is taken away. We are able to endure.

Looking at verse 35 we see how we are soul survivors. We are soul survivors...
in trouble (daily or personal problems)
in hardship (times of need)
in persecution (not just religious but all forms of harassment)
in famine (not simply starvation but any type of desperation)
in nakedness (more than nudity - literally shame)
in danger (fear is the root issue here)
in sword (death)

But why all this? John 16:33 Jesus says that "in this world you (and I) will have trouble, but take heart. (He) has overcome the world." So right in the face of life's difficult circumstances we WILL more than just win, we will live eternally with joy because of the love of Christ in us.

Do you know if you're a soul survivor? Well, how do you respond to problems, need, harassment, desperation, shame, fear, or death? If you are defeated in these areas maybe you need to let the Holy Spirit check and reveal where you're at. If you find yourself experience the full force and pain of these areas then you may not be living in the loving embrace of Jesus Christ.

Today, you can be MORE than a conqueror. You can be a SOUL SURVIVOR!

We flung tongue!

What a night of chaos, competition, and flying bovine taste buds! You should have seen the event. It was wonderful. There were 17 teams and lots of spectators from 5 different churches, which probably meant there were around 250 people at this community wide affair. Right in the middle of we paused to hear from the word of God. This year, Michael Curl, from First Baptist in Mustang brought the message. He delivered a powerful challenge to the mediocre holiness our society attempts to portray. This is it in from my point of view and with a few things added.

We have all gone to a restaurant and after reading the menu the perfect item captured your eye, mind, and stomach. But have you ever received your food to wonder what it was? Have you been curious about the peculiar side, topping, garnish, sauce, ‘meat’, etc? Sometimes this is a problem due to negligence on the server or kitchen staff. But many times this is due to our ignorance and failure to read through the description thoroughly. Had we known what the whole dish included we might no probably would not have ordered it.

No one is to blame but ourselves. We read all we needed to see and stopped at the part we liked. We were sold on the good stuff which caused to miss the big picture.

You see where this is going. Do we do that with Christ? Do we read scripture like a menu? We find out or hear the good stuff and then when things happen that we did not know were a part of the deal we get frustrated, hurt, angry. We think we have been screwed or that God has failed us, but the truth is we just stopped reading and missed the big picture.

Do you take God’s grace and leave His discipline?

Do you accept His salvation but pass on His correcting?

Do you want His love but not be faithful in giving Him yours?

Do you welcome the blessings and complain about the difficulties?

Do you praise and worship Him on Sundays but leave Him on the pew during the week?

Life in Christ is meant to bring us wholeness. It is meant to consume us and transform every thought, every act, every attitude. God is not a buffet for us to pick and choose what we want as much as we want leaving that which we do not like. “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” – Jesus

Every day. All in.

Imma Be...Holy pt 3

Recap: In this world there are 2 options I have. One, Imma be a child of God. Two, Imma be a stranger to Him.

If I am a stranger to Him then I spend eternity without His love and with His full wrath and punishment because of my decision to reject him.

If I choose to be His child then I must follow His commands. He commands us to love him and love others. There is a command to Be Holy as He is Holy (Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 1 Peter 1:15). Holiness is a characteristic of God indicating that which is sacred. In the human context it means freedom from sin and dedication to God.

Part one from 1 Peter 1:13 we learned to “prepare our mind for action.” We did so by PREP-ing: PurgeReviseEngagePractice.

Part two from the same verse we discovered, rediscovered, or maybe grew in our self-control. We learned that we must stop TRYING and begin to change the way we think. It is necessary for us to accept God’s grace and live for him. This takes us back to week one and once again we find ourselves needing to “Prepare our minds for action.”

So Part 3 in the 13^th verse of 1 Peter chapter 1 is to “Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Three words/phrases that jump out are hope, grace, and when Jesus Christ is revealed. Let’s break it down.

Hope – a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen

People put hope in all sorts of things – money, material possessions, status, jobs, relationships, health, cure for cancer, healing from disease, food, etc. The list goes on. A funny thing happens when we put hope in something. It becomes our focus. Have you ever hoped for something for Christmas (maybe from childhood)? As the glorious day approached the anticipation was almost unbearable. This hope (expectation for something) was the sole or at least a consuming thought during that advent.

Grace – God’s undeserved favor, eternal life & blessings

Sometimes we think that means we just have to cross our fingers and wait to die to cash in this promise of grace. It seems like the revelation of Jesus is when he returns which is…a long ways off to us. Death and eternity really have a hard time taking root in our minds and lives. Sure people around us die. And yes we all know we will eventually die. But we do not think of it as something ever present usually or that it may be in the next week or month or 25 years even. So that is not really helpful for us in being holy TODAY.

When Jesus Christ is revealed – again this seems like the imminent eternal life idea of rapture and second coming, not really on our calendar of events for the week. What if that was not the whole picture. What if Jesus being revealed was simply when our eyes are open to see Jesus and we come to know him more? What if that was any day, every day? What if it was just in the mix of the mundane that we experience Jesus?

Take the two disciples on road to Emmaus in Luke 24. They had lived, breathed, eaten, and played with Jesus. Then he was killed. They were reflecting as they walked. Jesus approached but they did not recognize him. Then, during supper, as he prayed over them and the meal, their eyes were opened.

Consider this paraphrase of this week’s portion of scripture. “Put down your expectation on the table of God’s undeserved favor that is given you when you come to know Jesus more.”

The word set from this verse is an action verb. It requires activity from us. Hope is something we need to carry us through the struggle, the pain, the tragedy, the difficulty. So I ask you, where is your hope? Is it in something temporal, fading, changing, something of this world? Or is it in Jesus, in the Jesus of eternity but also of TODAY!

BE HOLY – Prepare your minds for actions, be self-controlled, set your hope fully in the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Imma Be...Holy pt 2

SELF CONTROL, the second part of 1 Peter 1:13.

I’m sure you cringe at that word or maybe at least think of areas in your life that may need a little more of that – eating, working out, time management, TV, scripture reading, disciplining your kids, etc. This is something that we continually wrestle with. Not only do we have difficulty in our physical and relational lives but this is something that weighs heavy in our spiritual lives as well.

Paul knew this very well and said in Romans 7 “I do what I don’t want to do and don’t do what I want to do.” He is talking about the very thing we all go through. But then he says, “But I’m thinking about this in a new way otherwise I’ll never win; after all, I live in a death trap of a body.” He reverts back to our lesson from last week, that it starts in our mind.

What’s the shift for us? Have you ever started a diet? A new year’s resolution? And only experienced failure before too long? Maybe it is not due to your lack of effort but brokenness in mentality. Any nutrition expert or trainer will tell you that diets do not work because they are short answers to deeper problems. What is necessary is a LIFESTYLE change or a mentality shift. No longer is just losing weight or inches the end of your thought, but wholeness of life.

The same is true in the spiritual sense. When we accept Christ as our savior most of the time eternity is on our mind. We think of the end result, which is great, but the problem is that it takes so long to get here. What if instead we began to think of our relationship with Christ effecting our daily life? What if it was no longer about dos and don’ts? Because God is Holy and has given us his law, we will always fail to measure up. God’s grace is what we need in order to be right with God.

And how does it come about? Through our relationship with Christ it takes roots. Galatians 5:22-23 says that self control, among other things, is a fruit produced by the Holy Spirit.

So as we prepare our minds for action we begin to be self controlled.

Stop trying so hard and simply change the way you think – accept God’s grace and live for Him.