Where is your Trust?

This morning as I was reading through scripture I was stopped by Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Do to my “reading plan” (that I made up) I have read this Psalm a number of times over the past few years and didn’t even have it marked. So, why was I stopped this time? I believe there are a handful of reasons the verse struck me today. One being this demonstrates that scripture is alive in contrary to what many people may think. The fact being that you can read a passage numerous times and you will be challenged by different aspects of it depending on what God may be trying to teach you. Secondly, I believe God is working on my heart in this area. What do I put my trust in? Where do I put my trust? As much as I would like to say that my trust is solely in the “name of our Lord our God,” it’s not a majority of the time. This morning as I prayed through this I began to think of a few areas that I typically place my trust and found it very convicting, so here you go:

1. Money, if I only had this much, then I could do this or that. How many of us are guilty of this thought?

2. People, maybe someone will help bail me out of this situation or they will come along with money to help (yes, back to money).

3. Food, yes food. I’m not sure how this plays out, but I do know a lot of the time I find comfort in food, which would mean in some way my trust is in it because I turn to food for comfort.

4. Performance, this one is a kicker for me, if I perform in a way that makes everyone happy then I will be a success and if I am a success then I am secure. I am also providing for my family and the list can go on.

So, these are a few of the chariots and horses that I tend to put my trust in. The reality is that it is only in Jesus that I find peace from each one of these. It is in the fact knowing that no matter how much money we have or don’t have Jesus loves me and provides for our family, no matter how people either come through or let me down Jesus is constant and it is His love that never stops. No matter how much food I consume, comfort is only found in the fact that Jesus died and rose again for man and there is no greater comfort than knowing that God loves us so much he would let His son die for us. No matter how well I perform or don’t perform, Jesus’ love is not based on my performance. So, it is in the name of our Lord God that we need to place our trust.

My question to you is where do you place your trust? Or where do you struggle with placing your trust?

Will People Remember??

Over the past few weeks I have been reading a great book titled, “Total Church.” Last week while I was reading I came across this, “Studies by IBM and the UK Post Office (Author is from the UK) show that people who learn by hearing alone retain just 10 percent of what they have learned after three months. People who learn by hearing, being shown, and experience retain 65 percent. This means the only person experiencing good learning in a sermon is the preacher!” So, after reading this it obviously got me thinking that being a “preacher” or teacher what do I need to do to make what is being said about scripture on Sunday morning stick? I would love to say I have come up with some brilliant ideas, but that is just not the truth. Many of you, friends of mine, are teachers so tell me what have you done or what you are doing to make your teaching stick. Or how about this, is there a message you’ve heard that has stuck with you? If there is, what made it stick, did it really challenge you beyond the first twenty minutes you went home?

Whitewashed

Over the past month I have been reading through the book of Luke. Throughout Jesus’ teaching I constantly find myself thinking there is no way that my life reflects Jesus the way it should on a daily basis. It is then I find myself so thankful, that no longer do I need to be perfect because I can find my identity in Jesus himself. Now the reality is that this does not excuse me from allowing his love and grace from transforming my life and the way it is lived. As I look at my life and the lives of many “christians” today I wonder how many of us look good on the outside, but are rotten and corrupt on the inside? You see this was not a new issue for Jesus in fact he called it out in a very direct and insulting way when he told the Pharisee’s (people who were religious leaders of the time) they they were nothing but whitewashed tombs in Luke 11. Jesus wasn’t always nice!! The question this raises is, would Jesus say the same thing to us? I guess this is a question only you can answer for yourself. When I look at my life unfortunately there would be many times Jesus could accuse me of the same thing. Looking at my life, it is my goal, not to get caught up in making many of you think I am living for Jesus by what you see on the outside, but to bring glory to God by the way my heart looks before Him. It is so easy for us to get so caught up in “looking the part” and forget that we can easily become whitewashed tombs. What good is our life if it is nothing but a show?

So, my question for you is what are you doing to make sure that your love and passion for Jesus doesn’t become nothing more than a show for the “religious” to see?

It’s Been a long Time

This page has basically been inactive for a long time, but lately I have felt like it is time to give this another shot.  I don’t know who is going to read it, but I am going to do my best to actually use it.  So, bare with me as I try to reignite the fire for blogoshpere!!

Getting Dirty

Over the past three months one of the most challenging, but rewarding things I have done is volunteering at a food pantry.  Too be honest every Monday that I know I am going I dread it.  It takes so much time, it takes away from what I want to do or should I say need to do.  Yet, every time I leave, I find myself feeling closer to God than just about any other time of my week.  It’s a lot like golf I spend most of the round thinking I will never golf again, but then I will hit one shot that makes me fall in love with the sport all over again.  When I think about serving at the food pantry, it reminds me of how Jesus got on his knees and served mankind.  When we take the time out of our schedules to serve people in reality we are getting dirty just like Jesus did.  As you think about your week, is there someone or somewhere you can get dirty for???

Living the Dream

Maybe it’s because I am thinking through what I am going to talk at church about this morning or the fact I saw a few sad things about people on facebook, but I am so thankful for where I am at in life.  In reality, we have been in better spots financially, relationally and professionally if you look at it in an analytical way, but that is not the way to experience life.  Right now we are exactly in the right spot at the right time and I would not choose to have it any other way.  As I look at my life, I really don’t deserve any of it.  God has been so good to me!!  It is amazing what happens in life when you allow God to lead you.  I never in a million years would have thought I would be planting a church, but here we are, in Austin, TX planting a church!  How crazy is that?  It’s so sad that so many people don’t pursue their passion in order to have a check, I am lucky enough to get both!! How many people can say that????

–Just thankful today!

No Crying in Baseball

Some of you may recognize this title from a little movie titled A League of Their Own, where Tom Hanks is managing a team of women baseball players.  In the midst of the movie one of the characters begins to cry and as Tom Hanks gets more and more frustrated with his situation he yells out, “there’s no crying in baseball.”  What a great line, it is a line that even resurfaced on Sportscenter just the other day by one of the commentators.  As I have been journeying through the book of Philippians there is one verse that keeps jumping out to me and it is found in the second chapter.  It says, “Do all things without grumbling and complaining.”  What the heck???  Are you kidding me?? Complaining is one of my hobbies!!  I love to do this, I will complain in the winter that it’s too cold and in the summer that it’s too hot, it is one of the things that I am good at!

In all seriousness, I wonder what our lives would look like if we didn’t grumble and complain?  Don’t you?  I would bet the amount of words we use in a day would drop significantly.  As I have thought about this, one thing that keeps coming back to me is the amount of complaining and grumbling Christians do.  If Jesus gives hope, peace and joy, what do we have to complain about.  It is very ironic to me that I meet more and more people out of the church that have a more positive attitude than a lot of people I have met throughout my career working in a church.  What if as a believer we resolved to quit grumbling and complaining and lived with joy?? What would that look like?  Instead of wondering what others can do for me, we looked out and really asked what we can do for them??  Just a few questions running through my mind.

Who Do You Want to Be?

This morning as I was running on the treadmill holding on for dear life, I listened to a great message on New Year’s Resolutions.  I know for many of you that may read this, your resolutions have all ready fallen by the wayside.  Now you are looking to what they may be and how you will do better in ’11.  So, I have a different question for you, not what do you want to be better at throughout the course of a year, but who do you want to be when it’s all said and done?  Morbid, I know, but really what do you want the people who love you the most to say about you?  As I thought through this, I didn’t think I wanted my kids saying “He was in great shape,” which I don’t have to really worry about, but you get the point.  I think if we approach our life in this manner we will find that it won’t be so easy to quit.  Because if we decide who we want to be, that will drive what we do!

“The Flu”

Over the past week our house has been struck with the flu, is it “the swine?” I don’t know, but probably, who cares the reality is it sucks just like any other flu that hits kids.  I don’t know who this has stressed out more Amber, the kids or me.  You see Amber has been stuck inside the house with a sick kid for eight days now and they have been stuck inside.  This is a bad combination!!  To add to all ready bad combination is the fact that I spend most of my time working out of an office at the house.  Why is this bad?? Imagine flu germs swarming, nerves, anxiety, frustration, anti-bacterial gel, vitamin C, Zinc all colliding in one house.  Maybe you understand, is this you??

One thing that amazes me about this flu is how it continues to hold on, it seems to have a grip that just doesn’t let go.  Once it infects you, you have to wage war against it, use everything you have to try to take it out, you must react quickly!  See, the problem is that it sneaks up on you, you don’t know its coming and all you can do is react with everything you can.  To tell you the truth I have washed my hands and taken more Vitamin C in the last week than the last six months combined!!  I am doing everything I can to take it on before it hits me, don’t know if I stand a chance, but I am fighting with everything I can!  I am not going down easy if I go down!!

When you think about it, this flu is very similar to the way sin messes us up.  Most of the time we are just going through life without giving much thought to what is going on around us and next thing we know we have strayed so far from where God wants us to be.  Very rarely do we see it coming.  Scripture says Satan is like a prowling lion, sneaking up on us, ready to leap at any time.  You see if we see the lion coming we run or hide or shoot!!  It’s when we aren’t ready that we fall and typically fall hard.  What if we lived our life in a proactive manner, we did everything we could to live a life that looked like Jesus everyday?  What if we thought about our decisions before we had to make them?  You wonder how different each day would live if instead of reacting to life we lived life and lived it to the fullest???

Shaved Ice

I will tell you, being our first full summer in Texas, it has been crazy hot!!  Now, it’s not like things are much cooler where we lived in California, it just seems like it has been a very hot summer!  So, with that in mind one of our new favorites is a shaved ice place here in Round Rock called Kawaii’s.  It is amazing, I now many of you are thinking, “how can it be different? it’s just shaved ice!”  Let me tell you it is different, it is one of the most amazing summer snacks!!  You would not believe how many different flavors of shaved ice they offer, it is unreal.  It is the same basic thing, but comes in so many different varieties.  In a lot of ways that is very similar to the world Amber and I are walking in right now.

Today, I was sitting with two other guys that are starting churches in the Austin area and you would not believe how different our churches are!  It is so amazing to know that we love and serve the same God, but because each one of us have been created uniquely and been given a unique calling God is going to use us to reach different areas!  It is so awesome to know that God has given all of us unique talents to use on this earth.  I think it is tragic that we spend so much time trying to be someone else.