Message:  In Matthew 19 the Pharisees came back to test Jesus with more of their “is it lawful if…” type of questions. They hoped to get Jesus to contradict Moses in order to prove that Jesus was a fraud. Their questions were always framed in a black & white rule sort of way, but Jesus always responded with a response that exposed the heart issue. The same thing happened when the rich young ruler came. His opening question exposed his motives in the first place when he said “what good must I do to enter?” He seemed to hope he would impress Jesus with his claim to following every command, but Jesus exposed something deeper in his heart when he told him to sell everything he owned, give it to the poor and follow him. It’s not that Jesus was saying that wealth was bad. He was just exposing what was most important to this man. This was too great a command and after his claim to all of his years of doing good and following rules, he walked away sad from one request that was just too much. As I thought about this, I realized how easily we all fall into that same trap. We don’t see it that way, but we live out our lives following rules and and doing good things, but there are certain things in our lives that we have set apart for ourselves and the idea of surrendering those things (no matter what they are) causes us to live in a bargain mentality. We hope that if we do enough good, then God will be happy with us and not touch the things we don’t want him to touch. But God is asking us what those things are that are non-negotiables in our lives. Sometimes these are sin issues we don’t want to let go of, but sometimes it’s much more subtle than that. Sometimes our love for the people or the blessings in our lives is in the way of our obedience to God. It sounds honorable to love our families this much but when situations arise that take, or threaten to take our families, jobs or possessions and we begin to blame or question God it exposes our attitude that as long as we do good things for him, we have an expectation for God to hold up “his end of the deal” by protecting us from having to lose anything of value.  The question is, will we still serve God when we face the threat of loss? Will we set aside our idolatrous image of what we believe our lives should look like, in order to serve God in the face of loss and brokenness? Is our commitment to God contingent on the grounds that he restore or supply the things we love or want? These are hard questions, and we may believe we are serving God without conditions until something happens and our immediate reaction exposes the truth.  Today I need to honestly ask myself if there is anything in my heart that would cause me to walk away sad or even mad if God took it or asked me to lay it down?

Message:  In Matthew 16 Jesus was teaching them about discernment and understanding. He used the sky for an example and how we can determine the weather approaching by the color and look of the sky. Then he used another example. He had previously told the disciples to bring along the leftover bread from feeding the crowds of people. They had forgotten the bread so when Jesus told them to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees, they were so hung up on the bread that they didn’t pick up on what Jesus was really telling them- which was to beware of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees! Next, he got a little deeper by asking them what people were speculating about him. “Whom do people say I am?” They answered a few names before Jesus asked them directly “who do you say that I am?” This is when Peter suddenly understood and revealed him as the Messiah. Jesus affirmed and told Peter he was blessed because flesh and blood had not revealed that to him, but this was shown to him by the Father in Heaven. The beautiful thing that happened here was that once Peter knew who Jesus was, Jesus was also able to tell Peter who he was. Thinking about the power in this I realized that we go our entire lives trying to understand, define and identify ourselves, but we will never understand our own identity until we know who Jesus is. Jesus was teaching them with each thing how to discern and understand these things because bigger things were coming. He was about to start telling them that he would die and rise again. This was the plan of God and they were not yet able to recognize or understand it. This was so evident that when Jesus said this, Peter, who had just identified him as the Messiah couldn’t grasp the idea of a death and resurrection. When Jesus said he would die at the hands of the religious, Peter responded out of his own fear and his own perception of the plans and he told Jesus “No! This will never happen to you!” Jesus immediately rebuked Satan for his influence and said “you are an offense to me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns, but man’s.” As I backed up the focus of all of this I realized how hyper-focused we become on our earthly perspective. We see and feel things from the view of being human and we determine what we believe is good or bad based upon human and emotional understanding. Jesus was trying to teach them to discern things from a spiritual perspective. Though it was true they had forgotten the bread, they had just seen Jesus create enough bread out of scraps to feed a multitude because he was literally the source, yet they were kicking themselves for forgetting to bring the scraps. He had just revealed himself as the Messiah, but they couldn’t fathom that a physical death would result in spiritual life. He was trying to teach them to see beyond what feels right on a human level. There is so much about this world that we don’t understand from a human perspective and we try to reconcile our puny human understanding of justice with God’s eternal plans for it and we just can’t wrap our minds around it. We want Jesus to set things in order here on the earth but he’s trying to accomplish something much, much bigger. He’s trying to tell us to stop getting hung up on the “bread” and fix our eyes on him because he is the bread of life and he wants to do something far more amazing and if we are willing to discern it, we just might catch the vision of what is happening right in front of us.

Message:  In Matthew 15 the Pharisees came once again to question Jesus. They wanted to know why his disciples broke the traditions of the elders by not ceremonially washing their hands when they ate. As I thought about this question, I remembered that his disciples weren’t of the religious crowd at all. They were fisherman and former tax collectors and all kinds of unlearned and unclean people by the standards of the law. Jesus responded back to the Pharisees asking them “why do you break God’s command because of your tradition?” He went on to expose their hypocrisy by reminding them that God said to honor your mother and father. We all have heard of this command but what was the significance of bringing this up to the Pharisees? They had a manmade tradition for making promises of funds to the temple. This made them appear spiritual and generous and it also found themselves a loophole for not helping their parents financially by telling them that their money is already committed to the temple. Jesus went on to confirm and quote the prophetic words of the prophet Isaiah by saying “These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commands of men.” This is what stuck me in the heart today. As I read this I could think of plenty of examples of Christians who are out there calling out other people on “the rules” while missing the point and living hypocritically, but what about me? What areas of my life am I doing this very same thing? What areas am I completely blind to my own hypocrisy while turning my nose up at those who I believe are missing the point? The hard thing is that when we see someone else’s issues and we develop an attitude and an opinion we often get the idea that God approves of our critical assessment and agrees with us.  This makes us feel justified and blinds us from our own issues. We are living in a mess of this behavior right now and I marvel at the people who say they are struggling with their respect toward others because of their “ignorant and uneducated” beliefs and biases. We all have a category of people that we tell ourselves that we love ‘in spite of’ what we perceive to be wrong thinking on their part. We are SO convinced that we have it right and others just need to get it together and we have several angles of this pointing at one another for their “ignorance”. Today I’m going to pay attention to the critical spirit in my own heart because I have often found that the people I feel the most irritation toward often are a mirror reflection of a behavior in myself that I need to deal with. Lord Jesus, please shine a light on my blind spots!!

Message:  In Matthew 14 Jesus heard about the beheading of John the Baptist. As I read this I thought about the relationship between John and Jesus and how much their lives and purpose intertwined. They were cousins and both of their mothers had divine miracle conceptions of different types. As I pondered the history all the way back I realized how much their lives were tied together before they were even born.  When Mary told her cousin, Elizabeth about her miracle conception, John (who was conceived first) leapt in the womb of his mother. As John himself put it in John 1 “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” John had been conceived first but he knew Jesus existed long before he came in human form. John’s ministry began first and was drawing large crowds as he laid the ground work pointing ahead to Jesus. He preached and led disciples until Jesus came and he phased out. He knew his purpose was to come ahead of Jesus paving the way and their lives reflectively intertwined even to the point of suffering. John’s ministry ended and he was beheaded just as Jesus was beginning his ministry and was eventually crucified. When Jesus heard the news about John, he withdrew from the crowd by boat to a remote place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot through the towns. Reading this I was instantly irritated at the thought of the personal invasion. Maybe they didn’t know why Jesus was alone or maybe they didn’t care. We don’t hear how long he was able to be alone in the boat but in my own speculation I don’t imagine it could have been long because the passage tells us that when he stepped ashore he saw the huge crowd, felt compassion for them and healed their sick. As it got late the disciples tried to send the crowd away to feed themselves, but Jesus told them to feed the crowd. I won’t get into the miracle story of feeding the 5,000+ because that’s usually the focal point of this story. What I really want to talk about here is that life is full of interruptions. People and situations often crash our schedules, our peace and our plans, and they don’t often know or care what we are dealing with. Our time spent alone (even if and when it is interrupted) gives us the ability to handle those interruptions with care and compassion

Message:  In Matthew 13 a very large crowd had gathered and Jesus was speaking to them in parables. The disciples asked him why he was speaking to them in parables and he told them “The secrets of the kingdom of heaven were given for you to know, but it has not been given to them. For whoever has, more will be given to him and he will have more than enough. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. For this reason I speak to them in parables, because looking, they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand.”  The first time I read this passage it really tripped me up. It seemed harsh and unlike Jesus. I had always been taught that it’s important that we simplify the gospel for people to understand. Here Jesus was doing the complete opposite. He seemed to be cryptic about it all. What I noticed as I read this is that the crowd didn’t ask questions about what Jesus was saying. The disciples did. They asked Jesus what the parables meant and he explained them. I started to see through this that Jesus gave everyone the same opportunity but only those who were genuinely interested pursued him to ask questions. It made me think of times I have asked questions for things that I truly wanted to understand, versus times I was only casually interested and received an answer that was far more involved than I was interested in hearing. In the latter situation it was really a waste of someone’s time and energy to answer because my heart and mind were not invested. That information went in and right back out. Jesus was not keeping the gospel from people. He was planting seeds for later on. It’s no coincidence that the first parable he told them was about the soil of our hearts while he was literally planting seeds into their hearts at that very moment.  For their sake he didn’t try to force them to hear what they weren’t ready to hear. I also picked up in other places of scripture that he said certain things to the crowd and left them cryptic on purpose because he knew that later on when prophecy was fulfilled that they would remember his word and it would click. Isn’t that so true of all of us? I can’t count the number of times that something someone said clicked way later when I had more experience or more pieces to the puzzle. I wonder how many people from that crowd heard those parables and came to understand them later on after Jesus rose from the dead? If he had told them all the plan ahead of time they would have never believed it or understood it. Even the disciples didn’t understand that plan until it was over, and Jesus told them several times that he was going to die and come back. How many times have we been frustrated that God seemed so vague, but thought later on after all was said and done “I would have never guessed he would do it that way!” Today I’m asking God to bring light to the things in the gospel that I have heard but not yet received. Thank you Lord that you give us pieces of things to be revealed when the soil of our hearts are ready for them. Forgive us when we become frustrated because you seem so cryptic and vague. We don’t know what we don’t know but we ask you to prepare the soil of our hearts and make us ready to hear the truth of your word.

Message:  In Matthew 12 there is SO much going on! Jesus was speaking to the crowds and being watched and challenged by the Pharisees at every move and every angle. At the beginning of chapter 12 the Pharisees called out the disciples for picking heads of wheat to eat them when they were hungry. It was considered “work” and that was unlawful on the sabbath. Jesus healed a man’s withered hand on the sabbath and that was also considered unlawful work. Clearly, they were missing the point of the law entirely and had turned it into something it was never intended to be. Jesus made it very clear, as the chapter went on that we are either a good tree that produces good fruit or an evil tree that produces evil fruit. It really doesn’t matter what things we say, what we believe or what rules we abide by if our hearts have missed the point and are full of evil. We can try to save the physical lives of all the babies in the nation by demanding abortion laws, but why do we think our hands are clean when our hearts are full of contempt and hatred toward lost people in the world who don’t respect their value? Do their spiritual souls not have a price just as precious as each of these babies? I have heard the phrase “Love the sinner, hate the sin” said so many times by people who want to convince everyone that they are not full of disgust and contempt toward lost people. Our job has never been to hold the lost world accountable for the godliness of this country. The bible tells us that judgment begins in the house of God, so our job is to hold the CHURCH accountable for godliness while sharing the GOOD news of the gospel to the lost world. We will never evangelize our nation by forcing biblical rules on those who have no conscience of sin or relationship with God. In fact, as Christians, we do a pretty bad job about submitting ourselves fully to God. We like to claim we are submitted to God while still trying to call the shots of our own lives and of our country because we are full of pride and arrogance and believe that our plans are God’s plans. When Jesus came to die for us, he discipled twelve men. They were following him intimately but when Jesus told them his plan was to die Peter objected! It didn’t seem right to him because although he was intimately in relationship with Jesus, he didn’t know or understand the plan of God. Prophesies had been spoken for generations about the Messiah coming to rule and reign so the idea of Jesus dying didn’t fit the plan they had in mind for their strong Messiah to come in and take over the crooked Roman government. The Pharisees thought they were fighting for godliness but they were on the wrong side of things because their hearts were full of contempt. They weren’t godly, they were religious. What seems right or more right to us is not always the case. We just might find ourselves fighting against the plans of God. As Americans we are obsessed with our rights and we think our rebellion to ungodly government is taking a stand for Christ. As Christians we are supposed to be following after Christ. Jesus gave up his godly rights when he walked this earth and sacrificed himself for our salvation. What if we actually gave up our rights and our victim mentality for the sake of the gospel so people could actually see Jesus and not our Pharisee contempt? If we want to win people to Christ we have to act like Christ and stop demanding our own way so we can lead people to freedom by our example. People change from the inside out when they have a real and true encounter with God. Why in the world do we think we will have a godly nation by forcing lost people to conform to our godly convictions before they have even met the one who loves them so deeply that their lives are transformed?

Message:  In Matthew 11 John the Baptist heard from prison what was going on so he sent disciples to Jesus to ask if he was the promised one or whether they should be expecting someone else. John was the one who boldly prepared the way for Jesus and he had even witnessed the dove descending upon him and the voice of God approving him so it seems odd that John would have this question. Then I realized that John was in a dark place. He had completed his mission but now he was unfairly sitting in prison waiting for his execution. A place like this causes room for all kinds of questions and doubt. What really stood out to me here is that Jesus didn’t just say, “yeah, I’m the one.” He pointed to the fulfilled prophecy and instructed the disciples to tell John what they see happening “The blind see, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor are told the good news.” But then he said one last thing. “If anyone is not offended because of Me, he is blessed.” It seems he understood the place John was in. The questions he had and the darkness and isolation he felt. Jesus had a vibrant ministry going on at the time but he was well on the way toward his own dark place as he anticipated the suffering he would have to endure on the cross. Jesus spoke highly of John after the disciples left. John wasn’t being punished. He was suffering the price of his calling. Sometimes we feel like we’re forgotten in a dark place of suffering. Like John, we have questions even though we have experienced a very real encounter with God. The first thing we are tempted to do is assume God is punishing us. While we often are suffering consequences for poor decisions, we were also called to suffer with Christ because we also have the privilege of being glorified with Christ. When we find ourselves in the dark places we need to remind ourselves of the things we have seen God doing all around us. If we choose not to become offended and bitter when we are in the dark places we will receive the blessing on the other side of it all. God isn’t punishing us. Pain is part of our journey and if we allow the pain to work a process in us God will never allow it to go to waste!

Message:  Today Matthew 10 stood out to me as bright as a neon sign. Jesus was instructing the 12 apostles to go and reach the lost children of Israel before reaching the Gentile nations. He gave them firm instructions and warned them that they will not be well received by many but to shake off the dust from their feet and move on. The verse that really stood out was verse 34. “Don’t assume that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” He continues to say that he came to turn man against his father, a daughter against her mother etc. This sounds so unlike Jesus because we all think of Jesus as the nice one who wants everyone to get along. Jesus is not an enabler. He came with a purpose to reach the lost and he came to do it his way. The gospel itself will divide because it can’t be handled casually. It is a life changing decision that can’t be compromised. Jesus literally called us to share the gospel and stay focused in our purpose. As I read this I thought about the current state of our country. There are Christians currently fighting for a political candidate. They are so convinced that this candidate is God’s choice that they are using the name of Jesus to endorse him. They see this as a fight against good and evil, right and wrong, the kingdom of God against the kingdom of darkness. The problem is that they are fighting for the wrong kingdom. Jesus clearly said “my kingdom is not of this world” and we’ve seen this scenario before. When Jesus came as the promised Messiah the Jews had plans in mind that Jesus should overthrow the Roman government and rule and reign with them just like God had promised. This was not the plan. The plan was his death on the cross and because the Jews fought so hard for the plan they thought was God’s, they literally found themselves fighting against God himself. Instead, Jesus reminded them that this world was not his kingdom. They were to fight for another kingdom. He taught them to spread the gospel in spite of the state of the world and their government. He was not interested in reforming Israel and they were his chosen people. He had a global plan to change the world one person at a time. When we put our hope in a political candidate, we are putting our government in the place of a king and priest. We are not going to win the world by using our government to moralize our nation. We have to stay focused and on target with his instructions. We were commanded to preach the good news of the gospel to those who will hear it. When we stay focused on that task, the world will change with or without governments. We have to grasp the fact that God is bigger than our political system and his plan is so much higher than everything an elected official could ever do. We weren’t called to force Christian morals on the world. We were called to spread the gospel and let the truth of the gospel work its perfect work in the hearts of man one soul at a time. Let’s not get side-tracked on another mission. There is only one mission we were called to.

Message:  In Proverbs 8 Solomon wrote about wisdom as a personified being crying out to the people to listen to her. The value of wisdom is compared to other things we seek for ourselves, like silver and gold, except that the value of wisdom is higher than all those things. I thought about all of the things we pursue in life because we desire the value, but how often do we underrate the value and importance of wisdom. It’s not a coincidence that Solomon wrote so much about wisdom. When he was anointed as king over Israel God gave him the choice for anything he wanted. Solomon chose wisdom and because of that God gave him greater wisdom than anyone who had ever lived, but he also gave him the wealth and status that he didn’t ask for. This is what he is talking about as he uses wisdom as a personified being calling out to us. What stuck out to me was the comparison of gold and other precious jewels. I thought about the gold rush that sent men from all over to dig through the dirt seeking this precious metal. All these years later and gold mining still captures people with gold fever. It’s not an easy process and it’s often dangerous. What if we sought out wisdom the way miners search for gold? Digging through the dirt and carefully sifting it and washing it clean until the valuable metal rises to the surface. Anyone can search for gold in the dirt, but few do. You have to know where and how to look for it and the effort it takes often deters people… Just like wisdom.

Message:  Today my reading was in Genesis and Matthew, but because I am currently on day one of a fast with our church I also read Isaiah 58 a few times to really soak in the purpose. In this chapter God was saying that the people were complaining that they fasted and afflicted themselves, but God didn’t notice. He called them out for the hypocrisy that they would suffer and afflict themselves while also indulging in abusive and selfish behavior. The point of the fast is not to make ourselves look spiritual or puff ourselves up with arrogance for our pathetic sacrifice. The point is to see chains broken and people set free. To hear from God and allow him to break us so that he can heal and restore us to be healthy and whole. Tonight as I drove home I prayed for God to reveal to me the things in myself that I am blinded to. A concerning thought hit me as I realized that these kinds of things aren’t really just shown to us apart from an experience. These lessons come when we hurt someone and God shows us where we were wrong. Tonight I prayed for those around me that I am hurting and am blind to it. I prayed that God would open my eyes to the issues so he can work change in my heart. I felt reluctant to pray this until I realized that I’m not praying disaster on myself and those around me. I’m already living out the disaster and damaging people around me. I am praying that God would open my eyes to see it so that healing and wholeness can come.

Message:  In Galatians 1 Paul was talking to the churches about the importance of keeping the gospel pure and not listening to any other. He clarified by saying that there wasn’t another gospel, but many would try to alter it and add to it. Paul also clarified that the gospel he preached was not based on human thought and that he didn’t receive it from a human source nor was he taught the gospel by any human. It came to him by revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul went as far to say “cursed is the one” who would preach anything other than what was given by God. Something that stood out to me this time was that he went into great detail telling them that he didn’t immediately consult with anyone or even go to meet the other apostles until about three years later. This establishes that what he heard from Jesus himself was the same gospel that the other original apostles were teaching. He had been well known as a terror of opposition and persecution to the church so after his encounter with Jesus he didn’t try to go to them all and convince them of his change. Instead, he started preaching the gospel and word got back to them that the man that was once fighting against the gospel was now preaching it. What a testimony! What I really pulled from this today is that we don’t need to waste our energy trying to convince people of who we are. Our actions will do that for us. Obviously, this can go in a positive or negative direction, but Paul chose to let his testimony speak for itself and eventually the church began to trust him. I think this is true of relationships as well. Sometimes we want to fast forward the process by telling people who we are when what we really need to do is let them get to know us by what our character and consistency shows. It’s a long process but these are the things that make lifelong friendships and trust. I used to really struggle with trying to explain myself. Truth be told I still feel the struggle when I feel I have been misunderstood. I want people to know my heart and my intent but if I’m really honest, sometimes I’m blind to that too and I need God to reveal that to me so I can change. I have had to learn to allow those misunderstandings to sit while I focus on building a pattern of consistently faithful behavior. When people begin to see that pattern, they drop the misunderstandings because the testimony of consistent behavior speaks louder. I had to acknowledge that my desire to set the record straight was out of a desire to please people. This is dangerous because when we focus on pleasing people we will inevitably choose pleasing people over pleasing God. This was Paul’s point in verse 10. Am I trying to please people or am I trying to please God? If we try to please people we are in danger of bending our thoughts and ideas to please them. This is what pollutes the gospel with manmade ideas. The mind of man is contrary to the mind of God and our human minds reject what doesn’t feel good to our flesh. If we want to maintain the purity of the gospel we have to reject the thoughts and ideas of man that challenge the gospel and allow God to change us.

Message:  At the beginning of 1 Corinthians 6 Paul was talking to the church about why they were having legal disputes with each other. He considered it moral failure to do this, but he considered it even worse that they were not only doing this in front of unbelievers, but some of them were also guilty of cheating unbelievers too. If this wasn’t bad enough Paul was concerned for the kind of ugly testimony this was for unbelievers to experience from people who were supposed to be an example and a witness to the name of Jesus.  Paul highly encouraged them to suffer the loss of being cheated and endure the hardship rather than expose this kind of disunity in front of unbelievers, but he gave them an out. If they really needed to get outside intervention for their dispute, they should have this done within the church. In this passage Paul revealed a little bit of our heavenly future to us by telling them that we would be judging angels and other ordinary matters in Heaven. Scriptures like this get me caught up in wondering all kinds of things. There is so much we don’t know about heaven but this passage gives us just a tiny glimpse of realization that we won’t just be floating on clouds playing on harps. We will be part of a society in heaven where there will be order and position. What we do and how we live here on the earth will affect what we are entrusted with in Heaven. It’s easy to get caught up with injustice here on the earth, but I often think about how people who suffered injustice or hardship now will have a greater reward in Heaven. None of us get to choose what we are born with or born into, and we can’t control the decisions of others who hurt us and cheat us. If we seek justice here on the earth we might miss out on a greater reward in Heaven. It causes me to compare the short lived and imperfect justice we all strive for here on earth in comparison to the perfect and greater reward we have waiting for us in Heaven. We struggle to relate to something so far away but Heaven is eternity and pales in comparison to our short lives here. We need to be mindful that not only will we be repaid for what we suffer, but we will also pay for the injustices we cause. After all, God is just and fair.

Message:  In 1 Corinthians 5 Paul was writing to the church of Corinth about something he had heard about while he was away. The church at Corinth had a man living in living in sexual immorality so bad that Paul said that even by the standards of the unsaved Gentiles it was not tolerated. Not only were they tolerating it, but they were proud of themselves for not judging him. As I read this I thought about the current state of the body of Christ but the difference here is even more important. Paul distinguished the difference between judging believers within the body versus outsiders. He said “what business is it of mine to judge outsiders?” Paul was very clear that because this man was a part of the church and claimed to be a believer, they needed to throw him out for his own good. Not to shame him, but because his duplicitous life was hardening his heart and keeping him from repentance. He was living in sin and their toleration gave him no motivation to deal with his sin. He felt justified in it. The most important takeaway I get from this is that judgment belongs in the house of God. Those of us who are believers are held to the standard of the word of God. This judgment is not for the world. It is for those of us who are followers of Christ. For some reason the church has a habit of doing the complete opposite. We shame and judge the world but demand grace for ourselves. This has to be flipped the other way because we were called to a higher standard and we were called to reach a lost world. We can’t reach a lost world when we shame the world from their brokenness while excusing our own. It’s not enough to stop judging the world. We have to draw close to God and allow his mark on our lives to pull us to that higher standard. When we draw close to God we lose that harsh judgment and we change under the power of his love.

Message:  In Corinthians 4 Paul was talking about the expectations that managers be found faithful. He acknowledged that he himself could not be justified by the evaluation of man because he (and we) are all judged by the Lord. What is hidden in secret will be revealed by God both good and bad. We may think we know someone in a positive or a negative way but only God knows the real truth. Paul reminded them (and us) the importance that we not rely on our own impressions of people because we will be wrong. I do believe we should believe the best in people until they show us otherwise but even then, God knows the motives of the heart and the surrounding circumstances. Only God can judge the motive. This was a big reminder to me because I struggle with the impressions I make when I meet people sometimes. Some people are just not relatable to me, but this does not make them any less trust worthy. People that I sometimes find a bit superficial are being used by God and are relating to others in ways that I can’t. I have to be careful that my desire to relate does not give me an arrogance to judge who someone else is.

Message:  In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul called them out for their immaturity. He told them that he had been unable to speak to them with the substance he wanted because they weren’t ready for it and still weren’t. He told them they were still “fleshly”. How did he know this? In verse 3 he told them that because there was envy and strive among them weren’t they living like unbelievers? Ouch! Anyone envious or carried a grudge against anyone lately? Paul says this is fleshly and immature. He even went as far as to compare this to being an unbeliever. We are all in a growth and learning process but as Christians we are supposed to be mature and known for our unity. This kind of immaturity holds us back from our purpose and is the reason that unbelievers are not seeing something different in us. In this context Paul was still talking about the fact that the people were dividing themselves according to the leader they were following because they didn’t understand that they were all of the same purpose. Some said Paul, some said Apollos, some said Peter. Paul explained to them that some were called to plant and some to water but they are one in purpose and God is the one that gives the growth. One is not above the other. He continued on to explain that he laid a foundation like a master builder when he planted the seeds and shared the gospel with them. Then others like Apollos came and built on that foundation. Paul cautioned that what we build on top of that foundation is important and will be tested by fire for quality and purity. What is of God will stand and anything else will burn up in the fire. We are all called to lay foundations and also build on them so we have to be extremely careful and intentional about what we lay. The foundation is Jesus Christ and nothing else so when we share the gospel we have to keep our opinions out of it and stick to the truth of the gospel. When we lead people we also have to keep our opinions out of it and build a solid structure of truth. As I thought about this a few things came to mind. We all have thoughts and opinions about politics, social justice and biblical topics like the end times and sticky topics like predestination. These are not fundamental to the gospel and though we are free to pray through our own understanding of these things, we are not supposed to confuse the truth of the gospel by intertwining these things in the foundation or the solid structure of doctrine. This passage warns us that everything will be tested. If we invest our time building a structure based on some of these unclear topics our structure will be like hay and stubble that burn up. If we invest our time building a structure of clear doctrine, our work will stand the test of fire and we will find a strong structure. Why is a solid structure so important? It’s critically important to have the foundation of salvation. Without that foundation it’s impossible to build anything that will last. Having a solid structure of doctrine built upon that foundation will give us a safe place to weather the storms of life. When we know who God is and have built a solid structure of truth, we will not be stirred up. This is not just about us though. It’s about what we are building in others. If we are consumed with our opinions instead of solid truth we will not help those around us who need a safe shelter of truth. We are responsible for what we build and it will be tested. It’s good to care about politics and social justice but this is a temporary kingdom and we need to be more concerned with building a strong structure for the kingdom of eternity.

Message:  In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul continued speaking about wisdom and the difference between the wisdom coming from the Holy Spirit and what comes from man. He explained that those who are not saved and hearing the Holy Spirit are incapable of understanding the wisdom of God. At one point he commented that if man could understand the wisdom of God’s plan, they wouldn’t have crucified Jesus. This statement took me back to when Jesus was telling his disciples that he would have to die. Peter rejected this statement and Jesus instantly corrected him by saying “Get behind me Satan: For you are a stumbling block to me. For your thoughts are not the thoughts of God but the thoughts of men.” At this point in time they did not have the Holy Spirit in them yet. Salvation came after Jesus was crucified and rose, and shortly after they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. This is very important to understand because the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches us and gives us understanding to the mysteries Paul was talking about here. Apart from the Holy Spirit we are unable to understand the significance of what we read in the bible each day. He is our teacher and the revealer of truth. He gives us discernment to understand things on a deeper level. Without Him we are left with our fleshly thoughts that don’t align with God’s plan. Another thing that I thought about while reading this was the importance of laying aside our emotions and asking the Holy Spirit to show us what we need to see. Yesterday I was thinking about how easy it is as Christians to get entangled with our emotions and our own man derived ideas. If we don’t ask God to test and purify every thought, desire and emotion we can actually believe we are speaking the will of God. I have heard Christians prophesy election results and endorse candidates or situations in the name of Jesus, and I wonder to myself how this happens. This happens because we are flesh, and we think fleshly thoughts. If we don’t lay every one of our thoughts and ideas on the altar, we will run away with ideas that we believe God gave us simply because our own reasoning and logic came to that conclusion based on small bits of information or our own personal biases. This is SO dangerous! God’s thoughts are so much bigger than ours and God sees things that are not on our radar. Peter’s thought didn’t seem evil at the time (and honestly even now). He had NO idea that God planned the crucifixion of Jesus in order to save the world. He just didn’t want his friend to die. Doesn’t that sound reasonable? Doesn’t that make sense to the human mind? But he was so wrong that Jesus openly rebuked Satan for the influence of his thoughts. This should cause us all to search our own thoughts and ideas. We ALL have the potential to be like Peter and we need the Holy Spirit to search our thoughts, emotions, reasoning and our personal biases. God will share his wisdom with us if we ask him to, but we have to crucify our pride by laying down our thoughts and asking the Holy Spirit to filter them. This means we have to be open and prepared for Him to tell us where we are wrong. Today, my challenge is to ask God to look at my own ideas, thoughts, emotions and biases and show me what needs to go.

Message:  In 1 Corinthians Paul was writing to the church at Corinth. After greeting them and telling them he was thankful for them he gave them a stern correction about the rivalry and division among them. It sounds like they might have been elevating the status of the leader that baptized them. I’m just speculating here but I wonder if they felt that their leader was preaching a gospel different or more true than the rest. Does this sound familiar? Paul told them he was glad he hadn’t baptized any of them because of this reason. He reminded them that Christ was the baptizer and he and the others were evangelizers. Their function was not to baptize people under their own name but to evangelize them and baptize them in the name of Jesus. He continued on to tell them that the gospel message and the ways of God look like foolishness to those who believe they are wise, and a stumbling block to the Jews who rejected Jesus. The remainder of this chapter is about God’s wisdom vs the perceived wisdom of the world. Everything about the gospel is counter-intuitive to what our natural mind would tell us is true. The bible tells us that anyone who wants to keep his life must lose it for the sake of the gospel. Our natural instinct is to fight to save our flesh from pain. The bible tells us that if we are generous we will have plenty, but our natural instinct is to hang on to what we have because we are limited in supply. Our natural desire for self-preservation drives us to lie, cheat, steal or throw someone else under the bus, but the bible tells us to give up our desires for this world. There is another world with a higher value than this one. The wisdom of man can’t see this other world. We want to fulfill the broken one we are living in. Those it is true that God blesses our lives here on this earth when we surrender our lives and our fleshly desires, but there is another world far more important that the world is willing to acknowledge superficially, but they won’t accept the wisdom of God in order to attain it. Where this all really spoke to me is in that balancing act we all do to try to live in the wisdom of God, but still try to save face with the world who looks at us as fools. They don’t understand the wisdom of God and that’s ok. We aren’t trying to look foolish intentionally, but we should expect that the world will see us as fools as we pursue God and his wisdom.

Message:  In Romans 16 Paul is ending his letter to the Romans even though it sounds more like the beginning of a letter because of the way he is greeting everyone. In between all the greeting he throws in a few important warnings. The one that really stuck with me was the warning to watch out for those who cause dissensions and obstacles contrary to the gospel you have heard. He even goes as far as to tell them to avoid them because they do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. I’ve heard the warnings about dissension many times but I have always associated that with people who gossip and spread rumors. This is going another direction because Paul is specifically talking about people who taint the gospel cause “obstacles”. If an obstacle is something that makes things difficult Paul must be talking about those who were adding things to make the gospel for their own traditions or ideas. We know that the Jews had tried to require the Gentiles to get circumcised, but I feel like if that’s what Paul was talking about he would have said so. Since context is important I thought back to last chapter where Paul was talking to them (and us) about convictions. He was warning us not to talk people out of their convictions and cause them to sin because of their guilt conscience. In the same way, we also can’t allow others to put those convictions on us either. There is the unchangeable gospel which should never be altered, and then there are things that God requires of us individually through our growth process. For someone who struggles with addiction God might require to hold a higher standard with things like alcohol for their own good, but this doesn’t mean this should be required of everyone. There may be a higher standard God talks to us about that is meant for us for just a season in order to help us accomplish something or deal with a heart issue. We can’t then take that standard and add guilt to someone else for what God is requiring of us. The gospel itself never changes, but the process of learning changes for us often as God sees fit to help us overcome our issues. If God lays it on my heart to fast for something I can’t go around telling everyone else this is what God requires of them. The gospel has not changed, but clearly God has something to show me individually. To everything there is always an extreme taken too far. We can’t go so far with our individuality that we create our own plan for ourselves. We are in a culture that slams those who hold fast to truth, and applauds those who create ideas that the truth is whatever we want it to be. Our culture demands that we not only “tolerate” other religions, but it slams anyone who says that there is only one way. We have been trained to treat religions as a “to each his own” thing and that exclusivity is wrong. This has caused many to water down the gospel in order to appease everyone. Paul says this is a big NO. The gospel cannot be changed and there is only one way. We just have to make sure when we hold to this truth that we are not adding our own extra convictions to it and holding others to that standard.

Message:  In Romans 15 Paul was talking to the church as mature believers and calling them (and us) to a higher standard. He said that those of us who are “strong” have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not to please ourselves. Verse 2 tells us that “each one of us must please his neighbor for his good to build him up” and he compares this to Jesus who did not please himself. At first glance this almost sounds like enabling. Right away it made me think of the parents who take a toy away from an older child to appease a screaming younger child. This is NOT what Paul is talking about because this is supposed to be done for the good of the weaker one, not necessarily for their pleasure. I believe what Paul is describing here is having patience with weaker ones who are learning. If we are impatient with them in their learning process, or if we ignore them and leave them in the dust because of their weakness, they will not grow. Truth be told, if we act like this, we are actually revealing our own immaturity and weakness, since the hallmark of immaturity is selfishness and demanding our own way. This is expected of infants but infant behavior is not supposed to be found in an older person (although we have definitely seen an older person throw a fit and marveled at the ridiculousness). I love that Paul spoke to them all as if they were all mature because naturally, everyone wants to be seen that way. I wonder how many of them in the room would want to own up to being the weaker one? Truthfully, we are all at different stages of maturity, but we were not intended to stay in a state of infancy with our faith. We should be growing and changing every day and we should be able to recognize those who are more mature than we are, as well as those who are less. The bottom line here is that we need to be aware of those around us who are immature in their faith. Our obligation is to encourage them to continue taking steps in their growth while being patient with them as they learn. If we model this in our own behavior, we will be teaching them how to also do this for others as they grow. Have you ever noticed that we increase our own learning when we teach someone else? We will never “arrive”, but we increase our own faith and understanding when we help others, and when we help others along, we continue to shed layers off of our own immaturity.

Message:  In Romans 14 Paul was talking about the importance of honoring each other at our different levels of maturity when it comes to our convictions. Most of Paul’s references were about food because of what food represented to them. For the Jews there had been strict laws to follow about which types of meat they were allowed to eat and which things were considered unclean, while for the Greeks there was a background and culture of idolatry where foods were offered to idols as a sacrifice. Paul personally had no issues eating meat that was previously offered to idols because he understood that idols were just an object that had no actual power. The meat offered to them meant nothing to him, but he understood that for other people, eating that meat would violate their conscience. For some people food might not have been the issue, but they had convictions about certain days that should be kept holy and used to honor God. He urged them all to understand that convictions are a matter of the heart. Paul explained that even though we have a freedom in our understanding for certain things like Paul did with the food offered to idols, if we have a guilt conscience in anything we do it becomes sin to us. This is the primary reason he was asking them (and us) to be honoring and respectful to those around us with “weaker faith” that believe certain things are sin. If we talk them into doing something that violates their conscience, then we are causing them to sin. There should be somewhat of a tension in this though because someone with a seared conscience could do all kinds of things without feeling an ounce of guilt. This doesn’t ever make outright sin right and this is not the kind of freedom Paul was talking about. Sin is sin whether we feel bad or not, but convictions have the potential to become sin if we do them with a violated conscience. Where a lot of Christians get tripped up is they identify so deeply with their convictions being sin that they make it black and white for everyone and they judge other people according to their own convictions. The bottom line here is that we have to be careful that we don’t cause anyone to violate their conscience by doing something they feel convicted about, even if we ourselves feel a freedom in it.