Not the other way around.

It is not, “I think, therefore I am.”

No, God is I AM. We exist and have life because of Him. He chose us, we did not choose Him.  We love Him because He first loved us. Without God, we are able to initiate NOTHING.

And Jesus?

Here’s who God said Jesus is:

He appointed this son to be heir of all things;
Through him, in addition, he created the worlds.
He is the shining reflection of God’s own glory,
The precise expression of his own very being;
He sustains all things through his powerful word.
He accomplished the cleansing needed for sins,
And sat down at the right of the Majesty Supreme.
See how much greater he is than angels:
The name he was granted is finer than theirs.
Hebrews 1:2-4

That’s all.

Worthy of worship.

May we know our proper place this day and always.

Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. As always before, so now and evermore. Amen.

In the Name of Jesus, 
Soli Deo Gloria

Yesterday we talked about the sadness and pain it would cause if a dear friend, who we loved to spend time with, started to avoid us due to guilt on their part for not feeling like they were good enough. And how perhaps this is how Jesus feels when we avoid Him for the same reason. This may very well “grieve the Holy Spirit.”

Today, let’s think about a friend who is too busy for you. They always have so much going on that you can’t even get on their schedule, even though you’ve been close and whenever you do get together it’s a really great, life-affirming time of rejuvenation.

Have you had a friend like this? Do you know someone like that now? Are you that someone? Too busy to even grab coffee and sit with a good friend for a half hour to do…nothing?

Wasting time with people is one of the very best ways to get closer to them (so obviously it’s not wasting time at all). Spending time together when you have nothing to do is a great way to absorb someone’s presence and appreciate them. Why? Because you don’t have a thousand other things to try to accomplish that are competing for your attention. Your focus is on each other.

So every New Year’s Day we have a tradition of getting together with close friends, the “Dinner Club”, to hang out all day with the only thing on our agenda being to eat soup at some point. It’s great, we do next to nothing, but in all that nothingness we bond. We encourage one another. My spiritual partner and I do the same about every week (without the soup). Same goes for my family–if we don’t have times of just sitting together, eating, cuddling, bonding, then we just go about our lives and agendas wondering who the heck are these people living in this same house.

The other way we bond closer is of course to go through suffering together. But why wait for suffering to come? Start wasting time with God now. Then do what you hear God tell you, for He will inevitably show you work you can do together to even further bond–instead of looking for something to do for God before bonding with Him.

By wasting time we really mean to narrow your focus on Him, and this through a spiritual practice guided by Scripture that helps you laser in on God and what He wants to say to you. It’s been proven that multi-tasking is a physiological impossibility. You cannot focus wholly on more than one thing at a time. So take a season and pick a practice to hone in on with the purpose of knowing God better and more deeply, to remain on the Vine, ingrafted into God. One of the best practices we can possibly partake in, in my opinion, is to meditate on the life of Jesus in the gospels. As the monks at St. Meinrad say, they are “seeking God with the Gospel as our guide.”

For me, in this current season, I’ve been focused on abiding in Christ and the practice I chose has been the examen prayer in the way of Ignatius. It’s beautiful the way he would always begin a practice with just 5-10 minutes of silence to first become aware of the loving presence of God. He would not start an exercise until he was focused first on how God sees him. This alone has been greatly moving for me. If that is a helpful example, great. If not, forget it. As we say, “If it doesn’t throw you into the arms of Jesus, then throw it out!”

Very early–in the middle of the night actually–Jesus got up and went out, off to a lonely place, and prayed.   Mark 1:35

In the Name of Jesus, 
Soli Deo Gloria

Think of someone you love dearly, who you absolutely love spending time with. Now imagine that you start to see them less and less. Then you stop hearing from them, and after a while, they don’t even return your calls or messages. You are so saddened by this and wonder why the rejection. And one day, you discover that it’s because of their guilt over not being a good enough friend to you (in their view). Perhaps they feel bad about wronging you years ago. But you tell them you just wanna hang out, you just wanna be together. You’ve forgiven them for wronging you. Your relationship and connection are way more important than wrongs of the past or even the present. Perhaps you bailed them out of trouble at some point and they never paid you back. But you don’t even care about that because being together now is so much bigger than that. You long for them to pay attention to you.

Could this be how Jesus feels about us?

In reflecting upon Eucharist, the Lord’s Table, could this be one of the things we are to be reminded of? Do this in remembrance of Me. That Jesus wants to be with you? That what He wants most of all from you is your heart? Which can translate to paying attention to Him.  Paying attention to someone who loves you crazy, unconditionally, naturally lets you forget all the other perceived negatives in your life. Our happiness is largely related to what or who we pay the most attention to. Jesus knows this. We are wired for connection at birth, it’s just science.

To be fully known, fully accepted, unconditionally loved. Wouldn’t that be nice? If only someone was all that toward you…you’d throw all your focus on him or her, any price being small to pay for such a healing, soothing presence. To just bask in their subsistence.

Is this all God wants from us? For us? First and foremost?

Remember that there is nothing in the way of your connection with God. Sin is not in the way. That has been dealt with long ago. If it’s guilt, that’s totally your choice. There’s nothing at all keeping you from peace–except your refusal of it, except your rejection of connection to God through Christ. Hey, “Rejection of Connection”, that kinda rhymes.

Isn’t this what God wants? Connection. To pay attention to Him. For us not to focus so much on the sin we are saved from, but rather the life we are saved to. The early church seemed to be more focused on the victorious life than they were the mere saving from death.

Throughout all of history, God has gone to any length to be with His people. He has removed all obstacles and provided a clear path for us to be with Him. How are you holding yourself back from Life with God?

And through Christ, God has brought all things back to Himself again–things on earth and things in heaven. God made peace through the blood of Christ’s death on the cross. At one time you were separated from God. You were His enemies in your minds, and the evil things you did were against God. But now God has made you His friends again. He did this through Christ’s death in the body so that He might bring you into God’s presence as people who are holy, with no wrong, and with nothing of which God can judge you guilty.
Colossians 1:20-22

In the Name of Jesus, 
Soli Deo Gloria

As we always say, Nothing great comes without great effort. This is not the effort of senseless striving that the Bible condemns-striving for God’s favor & love. Rather this is the effort of pursuing a life of right living that brings great reward as God set up in His laws of the universe.

Pursuing rhythms of life & good habits bring about a good life.

None of this comes of course without God prompting us to do so, whether we know & acknowledge it or not. What are your rhythms of life? When do you set aside time to just listen to God? To read about Him? To think about Him? To rest in Him?

My workout partner & I agreed last week that the greatest & most challenging effort of all may very well be quieting the mind to actually listen to what God has to say to you. This is nearing the realm of impossibility for many, if not most people in our 2013 American culture of noise & distraction.

But the reward far outweighs the little pain of the effort.

Einstein encouraged students to set aside times for “incubation”. Time to sit with what they heard & were learning to let it sink in & trigger new thought. Without doing this, you will rarely gain new insights, much less assimilate them into your everyday life.

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If Jesus tells us to not let our hearts be troubled or afraid, that means it must be possible to do so. Why would He instruct us to do something that cannot be done? That would just be cruel.

Because we have the Holy Spirit, who is our advocate, helper,  and comforter, we have the power to not allow our hearts to be troubled or afraid. So when I’m troubled or afraid, it is only because I have allowed the trouble & fear myself. This is deep & worthy of meditation to me [incubation].

The ability to overcome fear and a troubled heart is always available to me. Do I employ it? Do I really go to my Helper in confidence to obtain the comfort I need and that is readily available to me? This obviously includes going to a trusted, godly friend who always points us to the Holy Spirit.

He is the God of all comfort.

 

This hearkens back to the power of “why” for me. Why do you correct your children? Is it to get them to shut-up? Behave right now? Stop annoying me? Or is it to train them to be good people? To be godly? To love them & care for them? Always thinking long-term in the moment? Having the right heart in correcting your children makes a world of difference.

 

Here’s where I throw some of my rational thinking aside.

I think I plan stuff and I do what I plan. It sure looks that way.

But I cannot comprehend the mind of God, His plans, the universe, Heiseneberg’s uncertainty principle…

Just trust that God’s plans ultimately go, no matter how it looks, and you are on your way to much more peace.

 

Work hard and give up at the same time. Confusing yet liberating.

Hey that could be a tagline for something!

 

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You wanna know what God is like?  He’s just like Jesus. Study Jesus, you’re studying God Himself, our Creator.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

How many times do we answer a matter before really listening & thinking it thru?

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The words we use are very, very important. Do not take lightly the words we give to people. They can hurt, heal, destroy or encourage.

How kingdom healing it is to encourage someone everyday.

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Our time is short, and just as with the hours of daylight for the traveler, each hour must be used to maximum benefit.

How would our days change if this was our attitude?

Forgiveness is a requirement in the Kingdom of God. If you are harboring unforgiveness, bitterness, animosity, you are not living in the Kingdom.

Plain & simple. The kingdom is big, yet has no room for this toxic occupier.

Jesus emphasized the importance of forgiving. There is great & true power in forgiveness. Talking about someone’s wrongs only spreads poison [not the band, thank God]. He said the way we forgive is how we will be forgiven.

Since we are to love others as much as ourselves, I wonder if this may include forgiving of self. This is the hardest person to forgive for many.

We have a magnet on our fridge with this quote by Emerson that inspires & reminds me of this everyday >>>

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

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With Jesus, we are ultimately safe. In Him we have the life of the coming age. This is our comfort, knowing we are eternally in His hands & no irredeemable harm can possibly come to us.

With our new kingdom vision, our sight transcends this temporary world into eternity with God. Immanuel. We see this here & now for what it is within the meta-narrative of our life with God.

It is said that all masters see problems merely as opportunities for growth. Inconveniences are seen from the context that God is with us and we are OK.

Perhaps we are annoyed, but that even more & more quickly dissipates as we recognize that our annoyance only arises out of non-kingdom selfish thinking. Then, with this awareness, we can look clearly into the “inconvenient” situation to see & hear

YHWH & what He has for us to grow us. And we realize “He is loving me even now in this”, and if I let go & surrender to Him, I can have peace and experience the growth He desires to happen right now in any situation.

Why do you do what you do? Anything that you do?

This is what God looks at more than what you do.

In any decision or action, ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing. This gives a greater clarity to your motivations and decision making.

Why do you discipline your children?

Why are you buying a new house?

Why do you workout?

Why do you go to work?

Why do you eat what you eat?

Why do you give that organization money?

Why am I annoyed with people?

Why do you send that email of Scripture every morning?

Why do you celebrate Christmas?

Why do I help people?

Why do you go to small group?

Why do you watch Netflix?

Why do you have such a huge Star Wars collection?

As far as anything we are unhappy with, I venture to say that if we asked why enough times to get to the root of it, we would find, every time, that it is due to selfish desires & self-centered false expectations of life. That’s when “metanoia”, or a change of vision for the kingdom, comes in.

What if the why of all we did was for the love of God & love of others? What if His love was the end of all we did and thought?

If everything we did was born out of a motivation of the love of Jesus?

Here’s a TedTalk on the power of Why > http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

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Spiritual enlightenment comes from total dependence on God for it.

If you think you have any spiritual insight into God without it coming directly from Him, then you are most blind.

It is only those who have truly opened themselves to God, the Holy Spirit’s teaching, who are able to see. The ones who have admitted blindness and that their only hope of seeing is God’s healing & awakening, it is they who have the sharpest of vision.

Thinking you know, without God-given insight, thinking you know through keeping God’s law, through reading the Bible without listening to the Spirit during, makes you the most blind of all,

because your “knowing” comes via your own pride. We are Spirit-led, not Bible-led. We can hear the Spirit via the Bible, which is why we read the Bible. We don’t read the Bible to amass knowledge, or to build a case against what or who we don’t like. We read it to listen, learn, & obey.

It is only in humility and openness of heart in which we will be able to truly see.