Tradition and Santa Claus

In our current series, Tradition, we have been looking at different traditions of the Christmas season and finding connections in scripture.

The first week we took on the tradition of Christmas lights and found that Jesus is the light of the world. It is a wonderful reminder each time we see our neighbors Christmas lights come on that into the darkness God shone forth light through His Son, Jesus.

This last week we looked at the tradition of putting up Christmas trees. We notice that most Christmas trees are evergreens, since all of our other trees have lost their leaves at this time of year. With green being a color that symbolizes life, we read of Jesus being the resurrection and the life. This life that He offers comes through faith in Him, and by believing though we die we shall yet live. This life that Jesus offers brings us hope in the midst of what often seems like difficult times.

This week we are going to look at the tradition of Santa Claus. Is he good or bad? Is there any connection between the man in the red suit and the Savior of the world? Should Santa be thrown out and avoided or is there a way to redeem the tradition of Santa Claus and use it as a lesson to teach us more about God?

See you Sunday.

Pointless Meetings

In general, I hate meetings. There I said it. Most of you would probably agree too. I love hanging out with people, but the “meeting” tends to interrupt either quality time with family or productive time with work.

This morning I had one of those meetings that in the end felt like a complete waste of time. We have a few trailers that are parked on our parking lot. They are out of the way. They are not in disrepair and most of them have been there for a while. A few weeks back we get a “code enforcement” visit due to a complaint. Now they say all the trailers must go. Forget that precedent has stated that the trailers are fine.

So we respond to the complaint, hence the meeting.

Code enforcement comes by and tells us “No” on all of our rebuttals. What could have been solved with a simple phone call turned into a meeting that made my week set off on a bad foot. That was an hour of my day that I would have liked to have back for something more productive than, “We are now going to selectively enforce the code.”

Thanks for letting me vent. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Hello Blog

How it seems that I have forgotten Thee? I have not. I have seen your inviting tab in my browser and have failed to click Thee. So as I lay restless in bed, I was beckoned to write.

Recently I watched a video of Seth Godin, I happen to think he is brilliant, talking about the need for leaders to write, even if it is bad. I think the reason I have failed to blog as much recently is that I have been scared to think concretely about the future. It is far easier to think in the abstract and possibility, but to turn the corner to the concrete and the actual begins a new layer of accountability.

I don’t think I am unlike most, I tend to avoid accountability. No one really loves having their feet held to the fire. No one really wants to be called on the carpet. But those who do face the brutal facts and run into the danger tend to be the ones who face the greatest victories.

So here it goes: Me running into the danger. Me facing the facts for all to see. Follow me down this rabbit hole and let us see where God leads as we take a true look at ourselves and let His will be done through us.

sdg

The God I Never Knew

I was excited to see a book on the Holy Spirit for review. As the title calls Him, The God I Never Knew and unfortunately that is what He is to most believers. We pay homage to Him in our services and “know” He is part of our lives as Christians, but we leave Him relatively on the sidelines for much of our life.

Robert Morris has done an excellent job of taking what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit and coupling that with personal experience to give us a well rounded book about the third person of the God-head.

Morris writes in a way that is easy to understand and uses a lot of Scripture references to support His points. His use of personal experience is not overdone and is presented in a tactful and engaging way. The fact that he goes back to Scripture time and again is helpful on such a difficult topic as our relationship with the Holy Spirit.

My issue with Morris would be that while most of his exegesis (interpretation) is correct, there are some areas where it is a bit sketchy. In his reference to multiple baptisms, he seems to completely ignore the verse in Ephesians 4:5, “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” I do not believe Morris is correct when referencing multiple baptisms. Does the Holy Spirit reveal Himself and act in and through us at different times and ways? Yes, but it is my belief and understanding of Scripture that there is not multiple baptisms in the life of the believer.

This one thing aside Morris did and excellent job of revealing and communicating the role of the Spirit in the lives of believers and how we should look to engage Him more as we grow in our faith.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

The Third Place

There is a market term called “third-place” that refers to social places that are outside of the two most common places of interaction, home and work. I frequent a certain “third-place” location on Monday afternoon. It has provided a great place for me to get work done away from the distractions of the office and has in the past afforded me the opportunity to engage in conversation with people in the community.

In my previous ministry in Gurnee, I would have frequent conversations with Harry or Mark. Since I started this same practice here there had been a lot of work getting done, but no contacts with people.

Yesterday that all changed when I met a man who works for a food distributor. We had both found it easier to get work done away from the office. After introducing ourselves and sharing what we do, he mentioned he does some work out of his house. I told him that since we have had Jadon that working at home was not nearly as easy as before. He told me that when his son got to Middle School he took a lower paying job with less demands so that he could be there when his son would need him the most. My first thought was, “Wow! Someone who has a proper perspective of family.” He asked what church I pastor, and I told him Summitview Christian Church and gave him the time of our service and directions.

A simple encounter. An opportunity to share and invite. It doesn’t take much, but when you ask God for boldness, you have to be ready to obey.

Acknowledged Dependence

We live in a rather self-sufficient society. We pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We work hard and fight for what is ours. If we want something and don’t have it, we will work until we can achieve it and it is ours. We don’t want to be dependent on anyone or anything. This is fine in some regards, the problem gets to be when we approach God with the same self-sufficiency.

We cannot stand self-sufficient before God. Our righteousness is not good enough, we fall well short of the requirement for salvation. We must rely on the work of Jesus for our righteousness. (BTW- He has enough to go around.)

One way we show our dependence is to pray to God. Unfortunately, most of our prayers come out sounding like, “Hey Dad, Can I have the keys to the car?” Just a list of requests and demands. When we look closer at the way Jesus taught us to pray (Matthew 6:9-13) and the way the Early Church prayed (Acts 4:23-31) we see that their prayers involved far more than just requests.

Acknowledge God- In both prayers, they acknowledge who God is as Father and Sovereign. They also recognize His holiness and His position as Creator. Other prayers throughout the Bible also follow this same pattern. When we begin our prayers acknowledging who God is it gives us a proper perspective on where we stand in position to Him.

Seek God’s will- In Acts we find the practice of praying Scripture. In many of our prayers we ask God to bless our predetermined plans instead of seeking God’s will and asking Him to bless that or make His will come to be in our lives. Father may your will be done on earth just as it is in heaven (which is perfectly).

Present Requests- Only after acknowledging God and seek His will, do they ask anything of God. James says we have not because we ask not and when we ask we do so with the wrong motives. When we acknowledge God and seek His will, it makes many of our requests seem moot.

Divine Deliverance- There are some things only God can do. How often do we pray for God to act in such a way on our behalf? How often do we pray for God to do the supernatural in and through us, ultimately for His glory? Father, lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil. Stretch out your hand to heal the lives of others through us. We want to be your messengers of mercy.

None of this can be done on our own. It can only begin when we acknowledge our dependence on a Holy God, doing what only He can do, and making His will reality through willing disciples desiring to please Him. May God come alive in our prayers as we seek His will.

Share

I think too often we think that once we believe that is enough to make God happy. We have chosen to follow Him. What else could He ask? There seems to be this requirement in Scripture that those who call themselves disciples of Jesus are supposed to share their faith with those around them. Jesus told us to “make disciples”. So if we are to be His disciples we must do what He says and make disciples.

It seems as you look through the book of Acts this is how the church has always grown. Disciples make disciples who make disciples. How does this happen? They share what they have with someone who doesn’t have it yet. Then they get it and two are sharing what they have with others and so on. Just like your kids share their cold with you in the winter time, we should be sharing our faith with family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and teammates all the time.

We don’t just go to work to make widgets and collect a paycheck. We go because we are God’s ambassador to that place and we look for opportunities to share our faith with others. We don’t play sports to win more games, score more points or collect more trophies; we play sports because it puts us around others who need to hear about Jesus.

Are you sharing? With whom? How’s it going? I’d like to know.

Praying for boldness for me, for you, so we can bring God’s missing children home.

The Power of Average Joe

Troy Meeder’s book Average Joe is a great compilation of encounters with ordinary people in his life. From a family fishing trip to a college job, Troy takes the ordinary occurrences of life and draws spiritual lessons for everyday application.

While not a particularly deep or difficult read, Meeder tells good stories to encourage us to follow Christ more fully. While stories of spiritual heroes dominate our hearing, it is often the “average joes” around us who have the most impact on our faith and those around us.

Average Joe is a great read for a man or Men’s group looking for a book to spark conversation about how to impact the lives of colleagues and the next generation.

If you are looking for an easy summer read, this would be a great book to pick up.

This book was provided free for review by Waterbrook Multnomah press.

Getting Drunk

I know the first thing my Mom will say when she’s sees this title, “That doesn’t sound like you, Michael.” She’s right. Good thing I am not talking about getting plastered, hammered or wasted.

The Holy Spirit comes down on the Apostles and other believers on Pentecost and it gives them the ability to speak in other languages so those who are in town for the Feast can understand their message.

What is the local response to this? These people are drunk. I love Peter’s response. Essentially he says, “We are not drunk. We are fulfilling Scripture.” He quotes the prophet Joel and goes on to preach such a powerful sermon that 3000 people believe the message that day.

All of this from a group of people who others thought were drunk just moments before.

I want to be part of a church that outsiders think are drunk because we are so outrageous in our obedience to God and His call on us. Our call, make disciples.

God’s call is for everyone, everywhere. Whose responsibility is it to make sure that the message goes out? Yours. Mine.

What’s stopping us from “getting drunk” for God and leading us to do what He has called us to do in the first place, make disciples.

You have my permission, now go do it.

Life and Tornadoes

On Sunday night a massive tornado destroyed much of the town where Eskai and I went to college. We were glued to weather.com, Facebook and even listened to the Law Enforcement Scanner to hear information. We were numb at the thought that many of those whom we know and love may have lost their homes and could have lost their lives. Thankfully, as I write this all of our friends and loved ones are safe and accounted for, though some face property damage.

Streets that I drove on back in February on a visit are now littered with debris. A Walgreens that we bought meds for our son is now flattened. A High School I once watched a basketball game at is destroyed.

I feel bad that I didn’t have this same feeling concerning the Alabama tornado. The tornado that went through St. Louis brought some of this feeling, except there were almost no fatalities and all my family was safe. Why is it that the hurts of others can pass right by while our hurts can leave us numb?

Today we mourn with those who mourn. One day we will rejoice with those who rejoice as their lives are returned to normalcy and their lives restored.

Our lives can end in an instant. Let us use the time we have to make disciples of the one who will change us to be like Him.