Wading through life

Lord, you are holy. You are perfect. You are good and complete in every way. And I desire to see you, your name and your Word revered as such.

Lord, I ask that you send your Kingdom. We are lost without you and are in desperate need of more of you. So I ask that you come with your presence and your glory and inhabit us in a new and fresh way. I ask for more of your Spirit. I ask that you help us humbly decrease so that you could powerfully increase. Your original plan was that heaven would be established on earth, so I declare in the name of Jesus that You Who began a good work will be faithful and bring it to completion. May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Lord, give us eyes to see to the daily bread you provide. We confess, Heavenly Father, that we often crave the provision of this world more than our heavenly portion. But we ask, Father, that you help us crave the pure spiritual milk of the word, that we may grow. Yet, we thank you and praise you that as we seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, you are faithful to add to our lives the material things we need. We confess, Lord, that we are in need your provision and we trust you to provide it.

Father, many of us have been unwise in how we’ve handled what you’ve given us. We’ve accumulated debt when your Word has shown us a better way. Forgive us these sins and our debts, Father. As we honor your will and your ways for our money, I ask that you bring quick resolution to our financial burdens. Teach us to properly steward the resources given us. Empower us by your grace to bear the fruit of self-control. Give us generous hearts just as you are generous. You’ve told us that it is better to give than to receive and we declare that you are right.

And help us also be quick to forgive, just as you are. We have sinned much and have been forgiven much, Lord. Thank you so much for modeling perfect and unconditional love and forgiveness. We want to be reflections of that to the world. Much has been given to us and we acknowledge that much is now expected of us.

Lord, we know that you never tempt us. You have shown us that “each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” Our human nature is fallen and we as a people are in need of a savior to be made right in Your eyes. Thank you, Jesus, pure spotless lamb, for being the necessary sacrifice for our sins. Thank you for delivering us from the snare of our own fallenness. Thank you for delivering us from the evil one. You have called us out of darkness and into your marvelous light. And I thank you, Father, that when I am tempted, you always provide a way out so that I can stand up under it. I thank you that you truly have set the captives free.

You are God and there is no one like you. You are holy, completely unique and set apart from all of the created order. The heavens declare your glory, God, and the skies proclaim the work of your hands. Yet, we know that today we still only see dimly. One day we will see your glory fully. Father, we long for that day. We long to be united with you and to have the eyes of our understanding completely enlightened, that we may know you entirely.

You are worthy of all worship, honor and praise, Heavenly Father. Of the increase of your government, there will be no end. And we confess that we need your government to increase. We need your rule and influence in our lives to grow. Because we need your goodness, Father. We need your life. Apart from you, we have nothing.

Thank you for choosing and electing us to be your sons and daughters. Thank you that it is your nature to love us and your good pleasure to give us the kingdom. I love you. I ask and pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Tonight I plan to watch The Godfather II and eat grilled cheese and tomato soup. That’s probably not the update you’ve all been waiting for… but that will have to do for now. Look for exciting news early next week!

Oh… and I guess I could let you know I preached at church last night, along with Clark and Sherry. We each did 1/2 hour sermonettes and I felt everyone, including myself , did a great job. Thanks for the positive feedback, peeps.

Though, in listening to the recording of my message and self-critiquing, I realized I twice misspoke toward then end by calling Revelation’s church in Philadelphia the church in Ephesus. If anyone noticed that blunder, I give you permission to next time pipe-up mid-sermon and point it out to me.

I’ll post the notes and audio as soon as I get around to it

Thank you, thank you, Pete Grieg. You are quickly becoming one of my heroes.

Pete and his wife helped spearhead the planting of a church in a UK nightclub. When it came time to name the congregation, they felt some pressure. It “needed to sound cool and non-religious enough to attract non-churchgoers, but, after devoting way too much time to discussing the branding of the event, someone spoke up in exasperation: Who cares what the stupid name is? Let’s just call it what it is.”

And so they did. They called it “Church.” And lo and behold, non-churchgoers loved it.

Reflecting in The Vision and The Vow, he had this to say:

Sometimes it is when we stop trying to be relevant that we actually become relevant to a watching world. Our “irrelevance” may well be the very message the world is looking for at this time. Sometimes we will be called to defy the culture—never to deify it—by living biblically and modeling a different way of being a student, a musician, a teacher, or whatever world we have been sent to inhabit.

In his book Prophetic Untimeliness, Os Guinness rues the fact that, “never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously” than we currently do, and yet “never have Christians been more irrelevant.” He attributes this sad state of affairs to ta number of factors, not least that “a great part of the evangelical community has transferred authority from Sola Scriptura to Sola Cultura.” In other words, we are being shaped more by the culture around us than we are by the Bible.

We must beware all the talk among trendy Christians of cultural relevance. During its first three hundred years, the Church grew exponentially, and yet it was radically committed to a biblical lifestyle that often clashed with the prevailing culture: “every Christian by definition was a candidate for death. To understate: if one wanted a soft life, or to get ahead in respectable circles, one did not become a Christian” [Alan Kreider, Worship and Evangelism in Pre-Christendom].

… Learning more about the heart of God.

Just finished (midnight-ish) freeing four cars from the avalanche that is my apartment complex parking lot. While our gang of 12 disciples enjoyed the most intense 4-day spiritual quickening I could imagine, the cars were covered with a foot of fluffy snow. We went to IHOP’s Onething conference and came back a different tribe. It was absolutely incredible in more ways than I could ever communicate.

We drove through quite the mess the last 5.5 hours, which should have taken 3.5. Lots of cars in the ditches and a few accidents. But, the Lord and his hosts guided us safely home with no incidents whatsoever. And now we’re all charged with putting what we learn to work for the Kingdom.

I need to talk to the Lord about what my big take-aways are and which ones I need to focus on. Not sure what of it I’ll be sharing, but I’m sure the lessons will be floating to the surface over the next weeks, months and years.

Happy 2008! It’s going to be crazy good.

My man AW Tozer delivered another stellar devotional today:

The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to restore the lost soul to intimate fellowship with God through the washing of regeneration. To accomplish this He first reveals Christ to the penitent heart (1 Cor. 12:3). He then goes on to illumine the newborn soul with brighter rays from the face of Christ (John 14:26; 16:13-15) and leads the willing heart into depths and heights of divine knowledge and communion. Remember, we know Christ only as the Spirit enables us and we have only as much of Him as the Holy Spirit imparts. God wants worshipers before workers; indeed the only acceptable workers are those who have learned the lost art of worship. It is inconceivable that a sovereign and holy God should be so hard up for workers that He would press into service anyone who had been empowered regardless of his moral qualifications. The very stones would praise Him if the need arose and a thousand legions of angels would leap to do His will. Gifts and power for service the Spirit surely desires to impart; but holiness and spiritual worship come first.

This is kind of the lesson our church body has been learning this past  year. We’ve longed to be His workers and there certainly are things we’re doing. But the Holy Spirit had some work to do within us to draw us deeper into Christ first. We’re learning the lost art of worship and we’re coming into intimate fellowship with our Creator and Lover.

There’s such a peace that comes when in communion with God in all His manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Right now, I could just tip back in my chair, breathe in deeply and fall asleep in His arms. All is well because the most magnificent being in the universe has His eyes set upon me.