Have you noticed you have been in training all your life? Whether you realize it or not, you have been trained to understand your worth and value is based on a work=worth basis. Think about it.
When you are a baby you are rewarded based on how well you listen and behave.
When you are in school, if you do good work (study hard), then you will get good grades and your parents will be proud of you.
When you get a job, if you do good work (get the job done), then you will get a promotion and with a promotion...more money, then you will be worth more.
When you are older, if you do good work (own a nice home, have a good savings, have two kids and a expensive car), then you have made it and are successful.
Whether you realize it or not, this idea is ingrained deep in the fibers of your understanding of the world. Unfortunately this is such a deeply rooted belief that often times we translate it over to our spiritual journey. We look at God as a work=worth based system. But we replace the IFs with more spiritual things, nevertheless they are still IFs.
In our spiritual walk we think things like....
If I go to church this many times, if I read my Bible everyday, if I pray this many times a day, if I give this much, if I volunteer this much, if I dress this way, if I talk this way, if I (you fill in your blank), THEN God will love me!
This is so different from the kind of love and acceptance we see God showing in the scriptures. In the scriptures we see a God that is grace based. In fact over and over we read things like..."and this is not of your works but a gift from God" and "We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are."
In fact when we look at the most famous verse in the Bible...John 3:16 which says..."For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whomever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." Let's look at verse 17 also ..."For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." Now in those two verse, who is doing all the work? GOD. All we have to do is believe in Him.
The problem of work=worth religion is that our focus becomes us, specifically our works and not God. And my focus usually is on my bad works. So I tend to see all my failing as a Christian and my sense of worth drops lower and lower.
The Bible paints a completely different picture. The Bible says that when you accept Christ, you are hidden in Christ. Now if you are hidden in Christ and God looks at you, who does he see?
According to the scriptures, its not about who you have failed to be, its about who Jesus has succeeded in being. It's not about doing things to make God love you. God already loves you. God already loves you.
When God looks at you, He sees Christ! So you no longer have to compete with others so that you may feel more valuable or loved. You no longer have to be better than, faster than, smarter than, richer than, etc. than, others because God loves you.
There is nothing you can do to make God love you less!
There is nothing you can do to make God love you more!
God loves you just because!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
What's Your Story
This week, I preached on the subject of the adulterous woman at our Woodland Hills campus. John Ortberg, really opened my eyes which helped me see her in a different way.
Often times we see someone like an adulterer, murderer, gang member, alcoholic, drug addict, convict and the list goes on and on, but basically the outcasts of our society and we take them at face value. What I mean is that we think that is just who they are. That they are just wicked and disgusting people. We normally don't stop to think that they may have a story of how they became those kinds of people. I don't think any little kid sets out to be an adulterer or thief or alcoholic or etc. I think we all have similar dreams to be amazing people. But somewhere on this road we call life, we hit some potholes. And sometimes those but potholes are small and we get over them. But sometimes those potholes are big. And sometimes they are so big that we get stuck in them and we can't get out. I believe that all of our outcasts hit some big potholes in their lives. I have spoke to many people and one thing everybody has in common is that we all have a story of how we got to where we are.
Some people's stories are worst than others but we all have stories. I find another thing that all human beings have in common is that we all have wounds. We all have been hurt. We all have hit some potholes on our journey. Our job as those who have been helped out of the potholes, those of us who are not an outcast....our job is to listen to people's stories. This is not an easy thing to do. Listening means getting involved. Listening means taking time out of our lives. Its much easier to dismiss the homeless guy on the corner as an alcoholic than to sit down next to him and listen to his story. It's much easier to dismiss the single mother who is pregnant with another child than it is to listen to how she got to that point.
But for those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, we have to remember that Jesus always had time for people's stories. He never took people at face value, He never judged people by their condition but looked at their stories. And in their stories he found their wounds and He met them right there. Just like He did with us. We all have had broken dreams and shattered hopes. We have all made wrong choices and we all came to Jesus broken and shamed, just like the adulterous woman. But Jesus saw past all that. He saw past our current condition.
Our job as Christians is to do the same. To love people like Jesus loved people. To hear people and listen to their stories just like Jesus did.
To not take people at face value. We are called to be His hands and feet and His ears. If we don't listen to the outcasts...who will? If we don't have compassion on them...who will? If we don't love them...who will? If you spend any time in the Gospels, you will see that Jesus has a special place for the outcasts. For the hurting. For the love-less. Bono of the band U2 puts it this way "God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them."
Our job is to validate people as lovable human beings, to listen to their stories and when we listen to their stories we will find a wound.....every body's got one....and then to take God to their wounds.
Often times we see someone like an adulterer, murderer, gang member, alcoholic, drug addict, convict and the list goes on and on, but basically the outcasts of our society and we take them at face value. What I mean is that we think that is just who they are. That they are just wicked and disgusting people. We normally don't stop to think that they may have a story of how they became those kinds of people. I don't think any little kid sets out to be an adulterer or thief or alcoholic or etc. I think we all have similar dreams to be amazing people. But somewhere on this road we call life, we hit some potholes. And sometimes those but potholes are small and we get over them. But sometimes those potholes are big. And sometimes they are so big that we get stuck in them and we can't get out. I believe that all of our outcasts hit some big potholes in their lives. I have spoke to many people and one thing everybody has in common is that we all have a story of how we got to where we are.
Some people's stories are worst than others but we all have stories. I find another thing that all human beings have in common is that we all have wounds. We all have been hurt. We all have hit some potholes on our journey. Our job as those who have been helped out of the potholes, those of us who are not an outcast....our job is to listen to people's stories. This is not an easy thing to do. Listening means getting involved. Listening means taking time out of our lives. Its much easier to dismiss the homeless guy on the corner as an alcoholic than to sit down next to him and listen to his story. It's much easier to dismiss the single mother who is pregnant with another child than it is to listen to how she got to that point.
But for those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ, we have to remember that Jesus always had time for people's stories. He never took people at face value, He never judged people by their condition but looked at their stories. And in their stories he found their wounds and He met them right there. Just like He did with us. We all have had broken dreams and shattered hopes. We have all made wrong choices and we all came to Jesus broken and shamed, just like the adulterous woman. But Jesus saw past all that. He saw past our current condition.
Our job as Christians is to do the same. To love people like Jesus loved people. To hear people and listen to their stories just like Jesus did.
To not take people at face value. We are called to be His hands and feet and His ears. If we don't listen to the outcasts...who will? If we don't have compassion on them...who will? If we don't love them...who will? If you spend any time in the Gospels, you will see that Jesus has a special place for the outcasts. For the hurting. For the love-less. Bono of the band U2 puts it this way "God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them."
Our job is to validate people as lovable human beings, to listen to their stories and when we listen to their stories we will find a wound.....every body's got one....and then to take God to their wounds.
Questioning Yourself?
God loves each of us more than we could possible imagine...really! His love is so great that our mere mortal hearts and minds cannot comprehend it. And therefore like any loving parent, He wants to give us the world but He is sooo in love with us that He wants to make sure that anything He ever gives us will never take His place in our hearts. Therefore He wants to make sure that He is enough for us, period. But the amazing thing is that when He is enough for us, when deep in the fibers of our souls, HE IS ENOUGH, then He gives us the things we desire.
So the question we must ask ourselves EVERYDAY is "Is He enough for me today?
If all that I have...my relationships, my job, my car, my house, my bank account, my freedom, etc. is taken away from me today is it enough that I have you in my life Lord?" I believe we need to wake up every morning and re-evaluate God's role in our lives. We need to reflect on our lives and our hearts and be honest with ourselves and God see if He is enough today.
And if He is not, then we need to be honest with Him and say "God today you are not enough for me, please help me realize that you are enough for me!" You see God knows the place He has in our hearts and He wants us to be honest with Him. There is a story in the Bible in Luke chapter 9 where a father brings his son to Jesus to be healed. When he asks for Jesus to heal the boy, Jesus responds by telling the man to believe because everything is possible if you believe. Then the father answers with what I think is a huge key for our lives, his response is "Lord I believe, help me with my unbelief." The father has some faith but he also has some doubt (sound familiar). But the amazing thing is that the man even goes to Jesus for help with his unbelief.
That is the same attitude we need to have. We often think we can keep our shortcomings and our doubts from God. But that is not what He wants, He wants us to go to Him with all our junk. In the story Jesus goes on to grant the father's request and heals the boy. The truth is we all have doubt, we all struggle with Him not being enough.
The goal is to grow in the days when we can say "Jesus you are enough for me today...If everything I have is taken from me today, you are enough Lord! So my question to you is "Is He enough for you today?"..:
So the question we must ask ourselves EVERYDAY is "Is He enough for me today?
If all that I have...my relationships, my job, my car, my house, my bank account, my freedom, etc. is taken away from me today is it enough that I have you in my life Lord?" I believe we need to wake up every morning and re-evaluate God's role in our lives. We need to reflect on our lives and our hearts and be honest with ourselves and God see if He is enough today.
And if He is not, then we need to be honest with Him and say "God today you are not enough for me, please help me realize that you are enough for me!" You see God knows the place He has in our hearts and He wants us to be honest with Him. There is a story in the Bible in Luke chapter 9 where a father brings his son to Jesus to be healed. When he asks for Jesus to heal the boy, Jesus responds by telling the man to believe because everything is possible if you believe. Then the father answers with what I think is a huge key for our lives, his response is "Lord I believe, help me with my unbelief." The father has some faith but he also has some doubt (sound familiar). But the amazing thing is that the man even goes to Jesus for help with his unbelief.
That is the same attitude we need to have. We often think we can keep our shortcomings and our doubts from God. But that is not what He wants, He wants us to go to Him with all our junk. In the story Jesus goes on to grant the father's request and heals the boy. The truth is we all have doubt, we all struggle with Him not being enough.
The goal is to grow in the days when we can say "Jesus you are enough for me today...If everything I have is taken from me today, you are enough Lord! So my question to you is "Is He enough for you today?"..:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)