In the midst of a teaching on being a shepherd, Jesus makes this statement in John 10: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (v.10)

I had a thought about this passage - when Jesus said that he came to give us life, what was there before he came? If his death gave us life, what was there before his death? By the statements of Jesus, we know that it wasn't life - it was something else.

Let's make this a bit more personal. What did I have before Christ? What did I have before I accepted his death, his substitution, his resurrection and his Lordship in my life? Simply stated: death. Kind of a simple answer and yet the difference between what I had and what I have is profound.

For the first time I can experience life as God designed it!

I had to write that as its own paragraph, because I want you to think about that for a moment. Dwell on it. Understand where you came from (death; or as Paul put it "meaningless existence") and where you are now meaningful existence).

My prayer is that this impacts me and you today as you understand who you are and whose you are.

(BTW, from a macro, worldwide view, if you spend some time in Romans and Galatians, you will have a better clue as to what existed before Christ's death - the law of sin and death. That is a good study to further your understanding of who you are now as a believer in Christ.)

Was listening to a song on the way into work this morning - not even sure who sings it, but the theme of the song was "you are all I need" (the "you" in the song was God). Great thought in principle - very hard to do practically.

I know that it is true that He is all I need; but it sure seems that I run to other things when I am needy. When my emotions are low, I run to my wife, a couple of hours with an old movie, a nap, etc. When I need love, I run to those around me. When I need affirmation, I look to my job, my bank account, my kids, my wife, my fellow employees, my friends (OK, I can keep going here for a while, but you get the point).

Is He all I need? Yes. Is he all I want? Yes. Do I practice this with any degree of success? Well.....

My problem is that in some areas of my life, God is not my default setting. When I face a tough challenge, sure, but in the day to day, grind it out, what is life going to bring to me today world, He is not always my first choice. When life kind of sneaks up on me, when I am not diligent in paying attention to my soul and my relationship with God, I drift to other default positions.

He IS all I need. He IS sufficient to meet my every need. He IS all that I really, really want deep down in my soul. Now if only my hands would follow that all the time............

Today is mother's day. I believe that this day will forever by etched in my mind because of what my mom went through in 2009. There are some statements and scenes that I cannot get out of my mind.

Perhaps the most poignant is when my sister and I were driving from the airport to the hospital I asked my sister if she was ready for mom to die. She immediately broke down sobbing "no, I'm not; I am not" in a broken canter; trying to breathe in between sobs.

I wasn't ready either.....

The hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life, I had to do that day: walk into the hospital room and see my mom near death. I remember pleading with God not to take my mom. I have never prayed so hard in my life. God did not take my mom that day. She lost something physical that day, but we didn't lose her: her personality, her memories, her mind, her wisdom, her humor.

Life is a struggle for her physically now and it probably will be for the rest of her life, but I still have my mom.

These things have forever shaped me and my prayer life. I find myself more angry at the affects of sin, more aware that life is short and fragile

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

There are times when I hear verses of scripture that need no commentary - this is one of those. Yes, there is context of a disobedient nation that surrounds these verses, but the principles are still the same.

All that I ask is that you pause and worship the Lord for what He has done for us and what He does for us every day. Thank Him today that through the blood of Jesus, we experience His on-going compassions and mercies.

Foundation #9 - Replace the bad with the good

My family and I were reading in Luke last night and we came across this passage in Luke 11. In verses 24-26 Jesus talks about an evil spirit leaving a man, the man getting cleaned up and in order and the spirit coming back to reside there again - only this time with 7 of his evil friends. Jesus makes the closing comment: the final condition of that man is worse than the first.

This is a foundational truism: you can't just take away the bad and "clean" yourself up. You have to replace the "bad" with the "good". If the house is left unoccupied, the "bad" will come back with a few of his bad friends and really make a mess (sounds like a bad high school party flick doesn't it).

What does this look like in practice? We see this all the time. After school programs that engage kids in sports or learning activities are started to "keep kids off the street". The program is attempting to fill idle time (which, as the proverb says idle hands are the devil's workshop) with positive activities for the mind and body. The hymn I sang when I was younger - Count Your Blessings - was a statement of looking at the good things that God has given you instead of focusing on the seemingly negative circumstances.

As you work on growing yourself, remember this principle. You cannot tell yourself that you are going to stop a certain negative behavior (watching too much TV, eating too much, etc.) without filling it with something good (serving somewhere, reading the scriptures, taking a class, etc.).

As you train your children (for those of you that have them), when you tell them to "stop doing that", you must also pointing them toward a positive behavior pattern: "let's go do _______" or "what if you were to do _________ instead". Notice that this will take some thinking and creativity on your part, as well as some of your time!!!

Principles so far:
#1 You reap what you sow
#2 God is good all the time
#3 Fruit of the Spirit is the yardstick
#4 Forgiveness is a key to unlocking spiritual growth
#5 Love God, love people
#6 The heart is revealed by what someone says or does
#7 Worrying accomplishes nothing
#8 Trials are an essential part of life

Have been thinking about something over the past few mornings relative to the mission of the church. I have read a lot of mission statements for churches that basically say this: "our mission is to make disciples". Rooted in the Great Commission that Jesus articulated just before he left the earth (Matt. 28), this is a Biblical directive.

The question I have is "Who was this command given to; to the church as an organization or to individuals?"

Most churches have taken this as a directive to them as an organization. Because of this organizational focus of the Great Commission, I have found most people view their mission as "getting people to go to church". Once they have completed this mission or job, they assume that "the church" will make them a disciple. I have heard statements like "if I can just get them to come to church, then......." and "I have invited them to come to church hoping that the church can help them change". As someone who works at a church, that burden is too much to carry because there is no way the pastor is going to understand and participate in the context of each person's life in order to understand how to disciple them.

I believe that the Great Commission was a personal command - it was given to you and to me. It is our job, as individuals, to introduce our friends and the people in our life circle to Christ and, if they accept Him, to help them understand what living a life that is pleasing to Him looks like. We facilitate this by understanding where they are at, bringing God to light in their life situations and teaching them to obey everything Jesus has commanded.

This puts a whole new spin on the church as an organization doesn't it. If the mission of the church is not to make disciples, what is its mission? Why do we as Christians need to gather together? I believe the church's mission is twofold: equip (Eph. 4:11-12) and encourage (Heb 10:25) individual Christians to make disciples. The mission that Jesus gave believers is hard; we need to understand how to do it, we need to understand how certain commandments apply in certain situations, we need encouragement in staying true to our mission because it is hard and we loose focus, etc. That is why we need to gather and why we need pastors, evangelists and teachers.

Maybe a better mission statement for a church would be "to equip and encourage believers to make disciples". Needs some linguistic work, but the focus is that the church as an organization is to support individual believers as they complete their mission of making disciples.

Thoughts?

Foundation #8 - Trials are an essential part of life

There are few things in my life that I dread - most of them center around trials that I face; the hardships of life that are caused by my sinfulness, the sinfulness of others or just by the sin in the world. I hate them; they are uncomfortable, they are "hard" (hence the title; duh), they cause pain in my life and in the lives of those around me.

James tells us to count it all joy when you fall into the trials of life (James 1:2). I really don't like this verse; in fact I really don't like this verse at all. It violates something that I feel deep down in me. Everything within my being tells me to run away from trials; avoid them at all costs. James tells me to embrace trials when they come. This is TOTALLY counter intuitive to what I think and feel.

Why? Why should I embrace the pain, the hardship, the junk that comes along with trials? James addresses this too: the testing of our faith works patience; the working of patience forms us into a mature, complete person (James 1:4).

There are only two options for me when I face trials: run from them or embrace them.

Running, running away to escape the pain, can take on many forms. My favorites are buying something - usually something related to computers or electronics - which temporarily distracts me from the pain, or watching old movies about WWII. Other, more extreme escapes are drugs or alcohol that temporarily mask the pain in the soul. The problem with all these forms of escape is that they on temporarily remove the pain and, worse yet, they short circuit the process that trials are supposed to work in me. After a while, our escapes don't work anymore and we must practice our escape more and more to get the same affect or move to a new one. (There is a whole lot that can be written about this one.....we have all seen the affects of an escape mechanism gone awry.)

When trials come my way, I MUST embrace them; walk through them, ask God what I am supposed to learn (James 1:5), look for what God is trying to teach me through it. All trials come to teach me something about me that needs to be rooted out (e.g. a sin pattern) or strengthened (e.g. my faith in what God is doing in me).

I HAVE to walk THROUGH trials; not around them.

Principles so far:
#1 You reap what you sow
#2 God is good all the time
#3 Fruit of the Spirit is the yardstick
#4 Forgiveness is a key to unlocking spiritual growth
#5 Love God, love people
#6 The heart is revealed by what someone says or does
#7 Worrying accomplishes nothing