Problems following you into the new year?

It’s easy to feel handicapped, hindered and even at a disadvantage because of the circumstances and situations of your life. You want a new year, a fresh start but, those tired, old troubles have followed you across the invisible timeline of one year to the next.

Helen Keller, handicapped and blind in an era where there were virtually no resources or accessibility for her situation said this,

“I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work, and my God.”

It’s a matter of pursuit and perspective. If your end goal is to find what you are missing out on, then you will always strive as one beating the air. But, if you approach the hinderance/handicap as an opportunity for self-discovery, then you may discover far more about yourself than you expected.

But, moreover, the adversity could lead you to a deeper understanding and relationship with Your Creator, God.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Nick Vujicic, born without arms and legs says,

“Life isn’t about having, it’s about being. You could surround yourself with all that money can buy, and you’d still be as miserable as a human can be. I know people with perfect bodies who don’t have half the happiness I’ve found.”

Too many people miss this: Be the best you, you can be. Stop trying to dream up some perfect you. Stop comparing yourself to other humans.

You don’t measure yourself against people, they are flawed and full of imperfections just like you. Rather, compare against perfection, Jesus Christ and you’ll see that all fall short.

Your problems don’t define you. You, as a living, breathing human, get to define your problems. With God’s help these “obstacles” can become opportunities for God to do some amazing work both in you and through you. Moreover, often in-spite of you.

Life, because we live outside the Garden and we are all subjected to the futility of sin, will always be filled with adversity.

Have you considered thanking God for your adversity?

That sounds strange, but it could be the first step in your road to victory.

Handicaps will produce inconvenience and obstacle, but our attitude and actions don’t have to end in frustration, futility or failure.

If God is for us, then who (or what) can be against us?
Romans 8:31

New Year, Old problems

Old problems, New Perspective!

The average human has misjudged their capacity for God.

Charles Spurgeon

Our finite minds have to be supernaturally stretched in order to begin, just begin to grasp the infinite nature and capacity of God. Our minds, would literally be blown. Sit for a minute and meditate on eternity. If you succeed in this meditation, you have achieved at ingesting the most minuscule crumb of how infinite God is. Now meditate on all you could achieve in this life, all you could accomplish, all you could do. Do you see how limited you are? You are exhaustable. God is inexhaustable. You are fathomable. God is unfathomable. You have a beginning and an end. God has no beginning and no end.

This explains two things: why God does not choose the intelligent & wise of this world
and why the God-man Jesus, Immanuel, revealed himself to us. The intelligent of this world will always try and grasp or calculate or rationalize the impossibility of One who is all possibilities and infinite. Paul in writing to the Corinthians made this point, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20). He goes on to say that it is not from the wisdom of this world that we will ever come to know God (v. 21).  This world and its most intelligent people will try to create their own understanding of eternity, instead of confessing their inability and subsequent need of help/rescue/salvation. Then, upon their creation will revell in their perceived understanding–they will glory and elevate themselves instead of giving God the Maker of Heaven and Earth glory. Isn’t that the way of man, we create and achieve with some semblence of humility, but upon the recognition of others, the cursed pride that lurks within exposes itself and we become puffed up in our knowledge and recognition of others. Rare is the individual who can receive the praise of man and be completely unaffected by it.

Jesus of Nazareth is Immanuel, God with us. Jesus is the revelation of God. All of the unfathomableness of God was wrapped up into the life of Jesus. He chose to withhold his glory while on earth, yet for one time upon the Mt. of Transfirguration (Matthew 17:1-12). He who is unlimited and infinite limited himself to finite strictures to be like his creation in every way, except one–sin. The fullness of God dwells in him (Col. 1:19). Therefore, he is able to reconcile “all things” (both finite and infinite) to himself through the peace he made on the cross (Col. 1:20).

Thus, upon rebirth through Jesus Christ, God has poured both his love and his Spirit (Romans 5:5) into our hearts satisfying the immutable cry of eternity that resides permanently there (Ecc. 3:11). Then, ability and capacity should become lost to us. The single question is whether we will obey or not. We judge the capacity of others and ourselves wrongly entirely too often in light of the “immeasurable greatness of his power for those who believe” (Eph. 1:19).

How can my capacity for God be rightly judged? It cannot be weighed by any device of human invention, machination or exploration. For your capacity for God is invisible and can only be weighed by that which is invisible. You cannot weigh invisble things with visible things. God’s Word is then our lens through which we begin to understand invisible things–God’s Word pronounces right judgment. Studying the life and teachings of Jesus is then where we see God’s invisible become visible. Then, it is God’s Spirit at work in us and through us that brings invisibility to visibility. He is the marriage for the Pentecost Christian of the mortal and the immortal, the mutable and the immutable, the incapcitated and the God-capcitated.

Faith is thus the pronouncement of God’s ability in all circumstances, in all situations, and at all times. Faith is not your acceptance of God’s ability, nature and will. Faith is the transcendent belief that has activated all the courses of your inner-being into total agreement and transformation that God is real and he is able. We misjudge our capacity for God, because we misjudge God. We misjudge our capacity for God, because we don’t know Jesus. We misjudge our capacity for God, because His Spirit is not our comforter, teacher and guide. We misjudge our capacity for God, because we have allowed others to confine and unconfinable God.

The Church Needs to Throw Away the Airbrush 

We are a culture obsessed with perfection. We are an airbrushed society filled with artists that practice fabrication and deception on a scale and level never known in the history of the world. Reality is blurring into fantasy, at least in the realm of media. And it dominates our world: globally, locally, interpersonally & spiritually.

Get rid of the airbrush. Stop sanitizing saints who don’t want sanctification. Stop the new lineage of for-profit pastors. Christians in America want our preachers to be famous, the Church to be his platform, and the members his biggest fans. Enter the airbrush: messy Scripture is ignored, convicting truths reformed, and image becomes more important than substance.

Sadly, the airbrush has infected many of our churches. Members think they have to look perfect and act perfect. All this acting has put on a show for far too long. Stop acting and start living! You have real struggles and real problems, but we are so scared that others will perceive us to be “lesser” christians. Acting never got anyone to heaven–remember Judas?! He was the best actor of all and look where he ended up–utterly ruined. Pastors have become peddlers of personal perfection and pundits of pretensions, instead of red-hot prognosticators of purity and the Prince of Peace! Row-after-row of parishioners are left believing the pastor is perfect and his wife is perfect and his kids…well, we know better than that! (For the record: I am a preacher’s kid)

Spoiler alert: Most of the models on the covers of magazines have been more than a little “touched up” by expert editors a.k.a. airbrush artists. We are guilty of “touching up” our websites, our sanctuaries, our pulpits, our tv screens, our people, our kids areas, our logos, our “extras”, our worship-leaders and sadly, our pastors.  Churches have started cashing in on their “cover-boy” pastors. Church members have started believing that they need the latest, greatest, coolest, shirt-untucked, Abercrombie-looking, model pastor. It is ridiculous to see men in their 50’s and 60’s trying to look like they are 25, just so they can reach the younger generation. Do you really think having a “cool” pastor impresses Jesus? Do you think your “cool” pastor will make the Scripture more palatable? Do you think a cool building is what you need? A cool worship leader? A cool sanctuary? A cool website? A cool kid’s area? 

Stop being cool. Jesus had a word for cool. It was neither hot nor cold, it was lukewarm. The gospel has never been cool. It will never be cool, if your gospel is cool, then you have an apostate version. The gospel of Jesus Christ is red hot. It is a consuming fire. There is no cool in it. And, by the way, Jesus said “cool” makes him want to vomit (Revelation 3:16).

It’s evident by many of the messages heard today that many preacher-boys spend more time preening and primping than they do in true preparation for their sermon. They are not prepared to be an “oracle” of God, because they have not heard from God. Seminary taught them how to cut up, divide and Greek-i-fy a passage of Scripture. But, seminary can never teach you the power of God. Oh many professors, presidents, and administers have the power, but they learned it on their knees, through their tears, and in their sufferings. The power of God was never learned in a practicum, in a popularity contest or in a Porsche. It is better learned in a prison, kneeling in a pew or a Ford Pinto!

There are fewer and fewer Spirit-filled and Spirit-led members in our churches. They don’t know the Spirit, so they are not listening for his voice. They learned that the pastor is the authority. Hogwash! Only Jesus is the authority in the Church–his church. The Spirit testifies, searches and calls from the depths, from “deep unto to deep” (Psalm 42:7, 1 Corinthians 2:10). But, we aren’t a spiritually deep people. We are mostly shallow, muddied waters.

How deep is your church? Probably not that deep, because if it is your church it will be as shallow as the newest member. If it is your church, then your shovel will hit bottom very quickly. Oh, but if it is Jesus’ Church, His Bride, then, no rock could ever be dropped to hit the bottom. His depth is unfathomable.

Where has the depth gone in the Church? We don’t want deep sermons, we want entertainment. We don’t want deep hymns, we want anthems. We don’t want to memorize Scripture, we want a new app. We don’t want prayer meetings, we want bounce-houses and coffee shops. We don’t want the poor, we want the wealthy. We don’t want missionaries, we want rock-stars. We don’t want prophets, we want puppets. We don’t the Spirit, we want cheerleaders. We don’t want heaven, we want the world. We don’t want Jesus, we want me. Terrell Owens summed it up very well, “I love me some, me.”

The Church must wake up. Maybe, it’s the Church that needs an ice-water challenge?! We are so busy being so full of our-selves, we’ve left no room for Christ. We’ve pushed him to the fringes of our comfortable, narcoleptic lives. Wake up! Hear the preparations of the King. He will ride upon the Four Winds. The Trumpet will sound.  He will return. He is coming. But, will he find his servants asleep? Will he find his Bride faithful?

“…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:8

When Food Wins; You Lose!

Food is fuel. Pure and simple.

Anything beyond that leads us into the realm of temptation. The temptation is to either partake (a) too much or (b) too little.

Food can and will become your master if you are not disciplined and honest.

Food is a hard master. It will either push you away saying you ‘can’t have’ to keep you held to a false image or pull you in saying ‘indulge’ by constructing you into false image of a different sort. One image can never be “thin” enough, the other can always handle one more helping.

Eve, I believe, saw in the forbidden fruit, her image. An image she was tempted to view wrongly. She was made in God’s image, not the image of the world and the food of the world. For she saw, “…that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise…” (Genesis 3:6).

She saw the power, the allure of making her own image. The vehicle of temptation was food.

I own a restaurant. I can eat whatever I want when I want. I could put gravy on everything and icedream on everything and…too my shame, I have. In fact, my father told me that when I grew up I could do this very thing. And I did, to the tune of becoming a glutton (+/- 250 lbs).

Interestingly enough, when Daniel and his friends were taken to Babylon, one of the first temptations they faced was to partake of delicacies from the king’s own table. Daniel 1:8 says,

“But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank.”

Food in the wrong allotment of kind and portion will defile you. Just as, food without proper allotment will destroy you. If you do not give your appetite to God, then you are a prime candidate for allowing Satan and the images of the world to both defile and destroy you.

But, these four courageous, disciplined men were willing to take an early stand against this temptation to be made into the image of an earthly king receiving the applause and attention of the world. But rather, they saw their image not in the world, but in the audience of a Heavenly King.

We have the story of Eve, lacking no indulgence but yielding the one thing she shouldn’t have. And we have Daniel and friends, lacking no indulgence, yet, resisting until they receive the one thing that set them apart. Eve failed. Daniel and friends succeeded.

You’ve forgotten you have a choice. Every day you have a choice.

Let’s say you are loosing this battle of choice, I mean you’ve been beaten for a long time. Where do you start?

1. Admit you are a slave and you have a master and its name is food and or image. You are not your body’s master.

2. Surrender. Give up. Ask Jesus Christ to help you see that you are a new creation: 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

3. Find a group to mark and measure. I needed the pain of accountability and truth spoken into my life by others. Two specific, painful statements were spoken to me:

Our good college-distance runner friend, “Alex, we know what you eat…you will never have a runner’s body!” Truth-zinger it hurt, but it was said in love and timely.

Then, our truth-telling daughter who has Asperger’s Syndrome, “Dad, I recognized you across the parking lot,” she said. “How?” I asked. “By your shape,” she replied and she drew my pumpkin shape in the air with her hands…ouch! Truth!

I was living in the illusion of a lie. The man I had let myself become, was not the man God intended me to be.

So, I began a slow journey. Back and forth. No real ground gained. I loved food. Thought about food, snacks, desserts and more food. Back and forth. I would starve myself. I called it fasting, but, in reality I would drop 12 lbs one week; only by the next weekend to have gained 14 back! The cycle depressed me.

I needed a life-style change and discipline.

Then, I discovered a measurement tool: a calorie tracker app cal MyfitnessPal. For the first time in my life I began to measure my intake on everything–discovery! I was eating 2-3 days of calories in 1 day! The beauty of the app is that if you are not eating enough it will show you that you need to eat more and obviously, if you are consuming too much.

Here’s the truth: you will never have a perfect body. To believe such goes against the entire course of human history. Only Adam and Eve had perfect bodies. Once they sinned they brought imperfection to the genetic code of all humanity. Stop trying to have a “perfect” body, it’s impossible. Work on a healthy and fit body to the best of your ability.

God can and will fill up what you are lacking for only “in Christ are we made complete” (Colossians 2:10).

The choice is yours. Start choosing well today. You can do it. You can keep doing it.

I love hearing from you. Send me questions I can answer in future posts.

5’11” 3/4″ is my height. 185.4 lbs is my weight.

I am measurable.

God is not measurable.

The measure of your perspective often dictates the depth of your faith.

A dirt mound looks like a mountain to an ant, but to a human of any size it can easily be kicked over with minimal effort. A rock to an ant might be impossible to move, but the smallest child can toss it across the yard.

Man, trapped in a measurable form; man, made of muscle, sinew, blood & bone; man, formed from dust and clay is confined and limited by the very body he inhabits. Thus, there will be continual impossibilities in the life of every human.

You will face great adversity, great trial and impossible situations. These will come because you are powerless to affect many of them. But, these will also come so that God can show you His power over them.

Because, “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

God, who the Bible tells us unfathomable, immeasurable, and limitless (Job 11:7, Psalm 145:3, Ecc. 3:11, Isaiah 40:13) revealed Himself to mankind through Jesus Christ “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:13).

Humans measure against primary two things: standards and others. We teach immovable standards of measurement for scale, scope and size. Those are obvious and elementary. However, as humans with a tainted, sinful bent we are constantly measuring ourselves against others and others against our view of ourself. This is wrong.

It only leads to the sin of comparison. Comparison is really covetous measurement of yourself against another. In comparison we tend become our own judges. James writes, “…But who are you to judge your neighbor?” (4:12).

Remember, Jesus lived a perfect life. How do you measure against perfection? If we are honest with ourselves, we realize how far short we  compare to Christ. Sadly, many of us are not honest with ourselves by excusing our own actions by measuring and magnifying the actions of anyone other than ourself.

Honest measurement is found in examining one’s life against Jesus. For in this measurement we will always fall short of perfection. This is good. It reminds us who life is really about. This is humbling. When we measure it must be against Jesus: the perfect other and the perfect standard.

Don’t fall into the trap of measuring against other flawed humans. It will kill your faith and limit your understanding of the unlimitless nature of God. Don’t erode your faith by stepping up to and sitting down upon the dais of judgment. Rather, view the mountains in your life of guilt, doubt, fear, and hopelessness with the understanding that,

“if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

For to which ant did he ever call son or daughter?