Something I Don't Deserve.

This is something i wrote around Easter before i started this blog. I thought I'd share it here =)



Do you ever feel like you're not getting what you deserve?
Or how about, do you ever feel like you're getting something you don't deserve?

I feel like that a lot.
Most of the time it's that second feeling and I really don't want what I’m getting.
It's pretty annoying to take the blame for something you don't deserve. It's very frustrating and it usually makes me pretty mad. Then I waste a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, getting angry, and complaining.

But sometimes when you get something you don't deserve, it's a fun thing. Sometimes you deserve something horrible, something you really don't want. Then suddenly, that horrible thing you were dreading is gone. Without warning, you're given something you don't deserve, something good. Something you actually want.
That is pretty awesome when it happens. But even then, I usually spend much more time and thought thinking about the bad things that happen rather then the good things.

The other day was one of those times. I had just gotten something bad that I didn't think I deserved. I was angry and upset and I was letting it severely affect my attitude and my ability to show love.

Then something happened.

A thought suddenly came into my head.

"Jesus didn't get what He deserved"

I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Jesus didn't get what He deserved"

Jesus was whipped, He didn't deserve it. Jesus hung on a cross, He didn't deserve it.
Jesus was spit on, hated, bruised, beaten, mocked.
Jesus died for MY SINS. MINE. He didn't deserve that, I did.
Jesus took what I deserved.
Jesus paid my debt and then GAVE me something I didn't deserve.
Instead of getting what I deserved, I was given a gift of a new life, forgiveness, eternal life in heaven and a relationship with GOD.

Here I was, being a total brat because I felt that I was being treated unjustly, while forgetting that Jesus truly HAD been treated unjustly, for me. What right did I have to complain and cry and hate?

Jesus had suffered and died, but he still loved the criminals hanging beside Him. He still loved the men who had whipped him and nailed spikes through His hands. He still loved the people who spit and jeered at Him. He still loved me. Me, a wretch. Me, who was being a complete brat. Me, who thought I had a right to be angry because life was being fair to me. Me. He still loved me.

Jesus had been treated with the greatest injustice of all so I could have grace, and I wasn't willing to show grace to those around me. Jesus loves those who despised Him and I couldn't love those who love me.

When Jesus was hanging on that cross, taking my punishment, he said "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"
Jesus had forgiven me. He forgave me for being a brat. He forgave me and he loved me, even when I was unlovable. Furthermore, He was willing to help me do the same with those around me. What a gift!

Easter is in three days. In three days we will celebrate the fact Jesus took something He didn’t deserve so he could give us something we don’t deserve.
This Easter this fact is especially evident to me and I hope that this Easter I will be truly grateful for that, and that I will be able to take the love and grace God has shown me and give it to those around me.

Jesus did many things here on earth so that we would have someone to look to, so that we would have someone to imitate. Taking things we don't deserve and giving love and grace to those who don't deserve it is one thing Jesus did and it’s one way we can imitate Christ.
How will you imitate Him this Easter?

Ephesians 5:1
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2and
live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a
fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

What's Your Focus?

Hold your finger about 12 inches away from your face. 1) Focus on it. 2) Now, focus on whatever is behind it. (I’m guessing it’s your computer screen ;)
How’d does God look to you right now? View 1 or View 2? What are you focused on?

What exactly does it mean to be focused on God?

Does it mean to read your Bible everyday?
or
To pray for hours or …even all the time?
or
To walk around giving out tracts?
or
To tell all your friends, “God bless you!”?
or
To never watch any TV or to never get on FB or to never read any secular books or to never listen to any secular music or to never go anywhere besides church and the grocery store (and only then when absolutely necessary)?

Well, maybe… but I kinda doubt it.
I mean, most of those things are great and all (and a bit exaggerated ;), but…

To be focused on God is different than that I think.
Many people might think that in order to focus on God they have to withdraw from everything else… and I’m not saying that’s not good to do every once in awhile, but I think that we are called to live lives that are focused on God, IN THE WORLD, (I know, scary, right?)

It’s hard to focus on God when there are things all around that can distract us. I should know, I’m very, very, VERY easily distracted. I mean, you put a mirror in the same room as me and I’m a goner!
Jkjk!
But seriously, it’s hard to stay focused on God and not let the focus shift to ourselves and what we want.

Try looking at your finger again. Focus on it.

Notice anything about the things around your finger when you’re focused on it?

They become blurry.

That’s how our lives are supposed to work. We’re supposed to become so focused on God that everything else in life, ourselves included, become a blur to us. They don’t matter, nothing else matters besides following God and bringing glory to Him. I repeat, bringing glory to Him. That, right there, is our purpose, our focus in life.

Do you remember what happened at the beginning, when I had you do number 2?
Try it again. Hold up you finger, but focus on whatever’s behind it.
What happened?

Your finger should have become blurry and hard to distinguish.

This is what happens to our view of God in our lives and our understanding of His will when we focus on things besides bringing glory to Him with our lives. It especially happens when we focus on bringing glory to ourselves with our lives.

In John 9 it says this,

“1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me.”

God does his work to bring glory to Himself through the bad things in life.
We are also to do His work to bring glory to Him, through our lives and through our weaknesses as long as there are days.

So, what does it mean to have your life focused on God?
Well, in my humble opinion, it is this:
To live our lives in a way that we concentrate on doing everything to bring glory to God.


So, let me ask you a question.

Where’s your focus?


Which view do you have?
1 or 2?


1) Can you clearly see God in your life? Or is He made blurry by other things?

2) How can you bring your life’s focus to God?

3) How can you glorify God with your life?

4) How are you not glorifying God and instead bringing glory to yourself with your life?



These are questions you need to answer for yourself, but I’m gonna share my answers with you.



1) No, not really. He’s slowly becoming clearer and clearer, but I often let other things, my own selfish desires, guys, media, friends, sinful thoughts, etc… become my focus and cloud my mind and view of God’s working.

2) Read my Bible consistently. Take time separated from things that distract me from Him to talk to Him and to just think… to just be still. To daily surrender my life to Him and His will.

3) Respect and love my family. Be a good steward. Do everything without complaining. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Put others ahead of myself. Share Christ’s light with others. Revel in God’s joy and hope.

4) By being selfish. By drawing undue attention to myself. By allowing my sinful desires to control my actions. By using my mouth in negative ways.



They’re not easy questions to answer are they?
And the answers aren’t usually easy things to deal with and change. But I strongly encourage you to answer the questions for yourself and then, go to God with them. He’ll help you. He’ll take your heart in what ever condition it’s in and mold it, if you are truly willing to surrender it to Him and His glory.

So. Here’s the big Q. Are you ready to Focus?

The River of Life

This past week I went white-water rafting.
I found the movements of the water to be very fascinating and spent a good part of the time on the river watching the different currents.
It was very interesting to see how the water moved in many different directions, the main current always moving downstream, but often there were other currents that reversed direction and fought against the movement of the river.

Often we would come upon a place in the river where the water was still and mirror –like. I’ve always loved watching ripples and I found it amusing to use my paddle to create ripples on the water’s smooth surface.
But the quiet times would only last so long and soon a raging rapid would be in front of us and the fun time of making ripples would be gone and I’d have to use my paddle to actually paddle!

As my raft went along the river and I watched the waters move around us it struck me that life often resembles the currents of the river.
As we travel down the river of life there are many currents. The main current pulls us safely through life. But there are many other currents that pull at us, drawing us away from the main current and pushing us around in different directions. Without a Guide in your raft it’s easy to be caught in a contradictory current and pulled away from the path of the river, which almost always leads to danger. Without a Guide it’s easy to be pulled towards rocks and other hazards of the river.

I noticed that the contradictory movements of the river are like sin in our lives. It’s a battle where we’re caught between the pull of sin and the pull of righteousness. God wants to lead us in righteousness - safely down the river, but sin wants to pull us into destruction. Often in life we are torn between these two pulls, because sin is pleasurable, if only for a season, it still is very attractive and desirable for that reason.

You generally can’t see the hazards of the river before you reach them. Often the waters look smooth and safe and it’s not until the danger is upon you that you can clearly see it, and by then, it’s too late. You’re sucked it and you’re struggling to break free. It's the same with sin.

But if you have a Guide in your boat, who knows the river and is aware of the dangers before they arrive, He can lead you away from them and keep you in the safe current.

But here in lies another problem, while I was rafting I sat in the front/left seat. This seat is important, because all the other people in the raft take their cues from this person. Everyone in the raft is supposed to watch and copy this person’s strokes so that everyone stays together and that the raft will travel strong and smoothly. If this person isn’t paying attention it could throw the whole raft off.
The problem comes in because this person is in the front and the Guide, who is yelling directions, is in the back.

Now, while the raft is in smooth water it often simply floats. It’s quiet and it’s easy to hear the Guide from the front of the boat.
It’s also easy to stop paying attention and just let your mind drift, like when I use my paddle to make ripples, stirring up the water just for the sake of having fun, until suddenly you’re caught unaware and unprepared and the raft is heading towards a rapids. Unexpectedly, the quietness is replaced with the roaring sounds of water splashing and smashing against itself and the raft and you can't hear the Guide.
You’re surrounded by movement and noise. You have no idea what to do. You can’t hear the Guide shouting directions from the back of the raft, there are too many distractions and without proper directions from the Guide you could easily lead the entire raft into destruction.

The currents and waves are pulling at you and now, it’s not good enough to simply listen, now, you have to listen intently and actively in order to hear.
You have to push past all the distractions and seek out the voice coming from the back. You have to be still and listen. And then, when that voice is finally heard you have to follow. You have to make your hands take the paddle and do exactly what the guide says, even if it seems crazy.

Now, that right there seems like life to me.
When times are good, we become comfortable, distracted and sometimes even bored enough to stir up trouble and we stop listening to our Guide - God, but then suddenly, seemingly out-of-the-blue, life gets complicated. It gets noisy and hard and confusing. We don’t know what to do. We can’t hear, because the sin that we’ve been disregarding is now bombarding us, it’s blocking out God’s voice. In these moments we can’t hear God, because we are too caught up listening to the sin that is pulling us away from God. In these moments, often the only way to hear God is by doing what it says in Psalms 37 “Be still and know that I am God”.
When sin is overwhelming us and about to overcome us, we must stop listening to the waves of sin and distractions, be still and listen ONLY for God’s voice.

Just like the raft guide knows the next turn of the river before we get there and how to maneuver it, God knows the next turn of your life before you get there and He knows how to get you through it.
So, when we’re traveling through life, the hard times and the easy times:
We must always listen intently for God’s voice, because you can only hear it in Stillness,
And you must pick up your paddle and obey His directions and let Him guide you through the right current.

Two Verses, Two Men, One Choice

Pilate was not happy. He had been awakened from his sleep. He had heard about this Jesus fellow, and had known that the Jewish leaders didn’t like him, but he didn’t think he was a bad man. He hadn’t been doing anything wrong. The Jews were upset, but then, they seemed to get upset pretty easily. Why did they have to get him involved in their little problems? Why did they have to bring Jesus to him? Oh yes, because he was the only one with the power to put men to death. That’s what they wanted. He knew that. Power was an interesting thing. He loved it and hated it at the same time. He knew he didn’t want to give it up. He enjoyed his power. It made him feel strong. On the downside though, he was constantly under pressure from Caesar to keep the peace over here in the land of the Jews. Yeah, ‘cause that’s an easy job. The Jews put pressure on him too, always wanting something. He needed to keep everyone happy, but all they do is complain. Why didn’t people realize how hard his job is?
And now, he had a bunch of angry people standing in his courtyard that wanted him to put an innocent man to death.
It was crazy. The man had done nothing wrong. The Jewish leaders we’re just jealous of the influence Jesus had. He was smarter than they were and they knew it. He had more power then they did and they knew it. And they wanted him to fix their problem.
Psch. He had a decision to make. And it wasn’t gonna be easy.

Many people do not view Pontius Pilate in a very kind light.
He’s viewed as a man without a backbone. A wimp. Someone who gave into peer-pressure. Some say he wasn’t worthy of the position he held. Some may pity him for the guilt he had to carry around. He tried to shirk responsibility.
I was reading in Luke 23 the other day, where Jesus is brought before Pilate. I was trying to understand what was going through Pilate’s head. I was doing a pretty bad job until I reached verse 25.

“So Pilate decided to grant their demand…and surrendered Jesus to their will”

Suddenly it all fell into place, as a sobering reality came upon me.

I could relate to this man. In this man, a man who has been looked down upon for years, I saw myself.

How many times just in the last few days had I surrendered Jesus?
How many times had I given into sinful desires?
How many times had I pushed Jesus to the side, and ignored doing what was right to please others?
How many times had I been selfish enough to SURRENDER Jesus?

Every time I’m selfish, every time I put what I want before God, every time I do something to please others and not God I am surrendering Jesus. I am giving Him up for something that I view as better. You’d never hear me say that a friend’s approval is better than God’s, but actions speak louder than words, do they not?
That’s pretty chilling.
I continued to read and was once again, caught by surprise, just one verse down, in verse 26,

“As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from
the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus”

Here, in complete contrast to Pilate, is a man who sacrificed himself.
Who gave up selfish desires to carry the cross of Jesus: A man who was sentenced to death. I'll bet that did not do much good for his image. We know that people jeered and spit at Christ while he walked. I’ll bet that many did the same to Simon.
This man sacrificed himself, his image, his comfort, to follow Jesus and carry His cross.

I was struck by the immensity of these two verses.

In two small verses Luke had outlined who I am and who I want to be.
A selfish leader who put his own insecurities and desires before doing what was right and a humble countryman who stopped what he was doing, and put following Christ before himself, sacrificing his image, his health, and his time, everything for Jesus.

Pilate had a dish of water bought to him and tried to wash his hands of the deed he’d done, but just as water from the well could not stop the thirst of the Women at the Well (John 4), water could not wash the guilt from Pilate’s hands.

Every time I surrender Jesus, I am just as guilty as Pilate. Every time I put myself ahead of Christ, I am hammering nails through my Savior’s hands and the only thing that can cleanse me and that could cleanse Pilate and the Woman at the Well, is the precious blood of Jesus.

Because of that cleansing blood, because of the forgiveness and grace I have been given by the sacrifice his blood represents, I can now have the freedom to lay down my pride, pick up my cross and follow God. Because of God’s grace and His gift of salvation I am cleansed and able to be molded by God into a better person, a person that never surrenders Christ to the world, but sacrifices themselves to following Christ.

Romans 12:1 “ Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer
your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your
spiritual act of worship.”

So, in whom do you recognize yourself?
Do you see yourself as a Pilate? Or a Simon?
Will sacrifice yourself to carry the cross today?

The Value of a Child's Prayer

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord, my soul to take.
Amen”

There was this doll at the Christian bookstore when I was a child that would recite this prayer when you’d press her palms together. I wanted that doll so very badly. But my mother would never buy her for me.
As a child I was never encouraged by my parents to recite prayers or pray written prayers.
I was always taught to “pray my own prayers”, what was on my heart at that moment.
Because of this up-bringing this is what I’ve always done.

I’ve always believed that God wants to hear what we have to say. He wants us to tell Him what’s going on in our lives. He wants us to be honest and not simply recite words simply to say we’ve prayed. Not to say that written prayers are bad, just often misused.
God wants to be our friend. He wants to be in a relationship with us. And as most would agree, a good relationship requires good communication.
So, in order to have a good relationship with God, we need to speck our hearts to Him and of course listen to Him speak His to us, for good communication requires both.

I truly appreciate what my parents taught me about prayer. It has made a huge difference in my life to be able to tell God my heart, but every once in awhile I think about that doll and its simple prayer.

The prayer above is often described as a child’s simple prayer. It’s quickly recited and not given much thought as we quickly skim over the words.
But recently a line from this prayer entered my mind as I was saying goodbye to a friend the other night. “I pray the Lord your soul to keep”.

Suddenly I realized that this prayer has a beautiful meaning.

This prayer IS a child’s simply prayer and THAT’S what makes it beautiful.
A child possesses a very simple and straightforward view of the world. In the Bible Christ says that to enter the Kingdom of God you must become like a child (Matthew 18). Oftentimes we, as people who are no longer children, let so many things cloud our vision and complicate our lives and our prayers. Sometimes maybe, we just need to take a step back and simplify.

“Now, I lay me down to sleep”

Don’t you remember how much you hated to go to sleep as a child? Hated for the day to be over? But it was something we all had to accept eventually.
Now, sleep is often valued more than being awake to live life. What would happen if we all started valuing our days as much as we did as when we were children?

“I pray the Lord my soul to keep”

Wow.
Do you hear that?
In one simple phrase, a child gives God control.
Isn’t this the thing that we, as “adults” struggle with?
I know that, I personally fight with this. I have a really hard time letting God control my life and not trying to control it myself. (It kinda makes you wonder why we struggle with this so much, because from what I’ve seen none of us are very good at controlling our lives.)
We live in denial. We don’t wanna accept that our lives are out of our control.
But a child views things simply and as they are. A child realizes that they have no control over their own lives and decides to let God have control.
A simple faith. Beautiful, is it not?

“And if I die before I wake”

Again, that whole “I DON”T WANNA GO TO BED!!! mentality” enters the prayer. Children don’t give up easily.
What a wonderful trait, Persistency.
Most of us would view this particular child-hood trait as stubborn, but maybe we should take a lesson from this.
Have you ever heard the parable Jesus told of The Widow and The Judge? (Luke 18).
The judge wouldn’t listen to the widow’s plea, but the widow wouldn’t give up. She was persistent. She wouldn’t stop asking until the judge gave her an answer.
Isn’t this the way we are to follow God? Isn’t this the way we are to pray, without ceasing?
Add some patience to a child-like persistence and you’ll have passion.

“I pray the Lord my soul to take”

This final line of the prayer exhibits another trait that often seems to come easily to children.
Trust.
Everyone seems to fear death, children and adults alike. Neither of us has power over the time of our death, but a child puts their trust in God to take care of them, while we put our trust in health foods, exercise and diet.
Why do we lose our ability to trust as we get older?
Many would say it’s because we start to see the world for what it is, and maybe that’s true.
But I think that it’s because we start to lose our view for seeing God for who he truly is.
He loves us. He wants to take care of us. He knows what’s best for us.
As we get older we see evils all around us and we stop believing that there is any good in the world. We allow the evil to overpower us and block out the goodness that is God.
A child can easily believe and trust in God because they haven’t been hurt by the battle wounds of life. They haven’t experienced the evil of the world.
Can we become child-like once more? Believe that there is good? Allow God to heal our wounded hearts and trust Him to hold them once me?

“Amen”