Following Christ is NOT easy

You know being a Christ follower... a true, sold out, cross carrying,
born again follower of Jesus Christ is not easy. I mean come on...
isn't it much easier to only follow the parts of the Bible that we
actually like or not going to cost us anything? If we are going to
challenge the status quo... if we are going to be open to doing some
thing that is completely radical for the Kingdom of God... then guess
what... it is NOT going to be easy.

Lately, I have been studying my way through Ezekiel, because has
called me to do some things that is not very pleasant. He has called
me to address sin... ugly, arrogant, sin in some people's lives.
Frankly... I don't want to do it. Because like Ezekiel when God sent
him to that obstinate and stubborn house of Israel... he knew that the
Israelites where going to talk trash, talk smack about him. Matter of
fact, God gave Ezekiel a hard head, because He knew that Ezekiel was
going to have to deal with some stupid stuff. He knew that Ezekiel
was going to need endurance for the long haul.

To be a heretic is going to mean, that you are going to do things
that those that are pretending to be Christ followers... or those that
are just filling a pew seat on Sunday... might think is irrational,
might think you have lost your mind... they might think that you have
just plain gone insane. I told somebody the other day, that I would
just love for God to let me get comfortable for a little bit... I
would love to know at times what it means to be lazy when it comes to
being a Christian. But you know what... now that I have thought about
it... I wouldn't want it any other way. I have realized that God has
made me resilient for a reason. He has made me hard headed like
Ezekiel for a reason. Whether it is to plant a church... whether it
is to start a new missions ministry... whether it is go to a segment
of your city and to bring the Kingdom of God... Jesus came to give us
life... life abundantly. I don't think this life is one that is to be
boring.

Now get out there and make a difference for the Kingdom!

Ezekiel = God Strengthens

Since I started this blog, I have been going through a valley in my
own spiritual and personal life.

There are some things that God has called me to do... and I need to
get them done over the next few days. They are not pretty and matter-
of-fact, it is confronting some people on sin and calling them to
repentance and go over a path to reconciliation & restoration
spiritually, emotionally, physically and relationally.

Over the next few days, I will detaching a bit from the world while I
do this... this is something that is new to me... but some thing that
I must do. Sometimes, following God... and His calling on your life
is not fun, pretty... etc.

In preparation for this, God has had me hanging out and studying
through Ezekiel. In many ways, Ezekiel was a heretic to many. He went against the flow of things and challenged the status-quo.

Which is quite adequate since Ezekiel actually does mean "God's
strength".

I just ask you if God puts me and my family on your heart over the
next couple days to say a prayer for us.

I look forward to being back and even blogging about some of this
after the weekend is over with.

A Glimpse of the Future

I am reposting this from Lifechurch.tv's leadership and innovation blog...

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/01/30/a-glimpse-of-the-future/

Great video. This is not the first time I have seen this, but everytime... I ask myself how are we going to do ministry in the future?

Godsmac.com Podcast

In the last year or so, I became "friends" with Gabe Taviano from the website http://www.godsmac.com or follow him on Twitter [@godsmac] where he talks about faith and technology.  Although, we have never met in person, we communicate all the time through the different social medias... Twitter, Facebook, etc.  I have been a big fan of what Gabe has been doing through technology here in the Columbus, OH and online at his different blogs, social medias, etc.  

The other day, Gabe twittered me and asked if I would like to be on the 50th podcast to discuss some aspect about faith.  I gladly accepted and last night he released the 50th podcast where Sam Soffes [@samsoffes] from http://www.lifechurch.tv, one of the most innovative churches in America.  If you don't know about Lifechurch.tv then you need to check them out.  Personally, their Sr. Pastor, Craig Groeschel is a current day pastor that has made a HUGE impact on my spiritual and personal life.  Their Innovation Pastor Bobby Gruenwald has also impacted me to get me thinking and pushing the bar when it comes to innovations within the church.  

I would invite everyone to go to http://www.godsmac.com and download & listen to the 50th episode of their podcast.  Also, on Tuesday, February 3 @ 9pm we are having an online meeting of people that follow godsmac.com... we would enjoy you coming online there and praying with us, discussing with us faith issues and even what it means to follow Jesus in our day to day lives.  

Blog moving URL to maljr.com

Hey everybody, 

I am switching my blog over to it's own domain AND url...

so over the next few days the blog will be spotty but soon the new address will be

maljr.com

I am moving most of my entire digital world over to Google... most of it... calendar, contacts, email, web has been on Apple's MobileMe platform.  Soon I will be moved completely over to Google on my MacBook, iPod Touch, etc.  

Thanks!

Test blog post

This is a test to my blog from new email address

MLK and the Missional Church

This is some what of a follow up to my last post on change within the
American church. I just saw this article about Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. and the missional church.

Good article, especially the part on social justice within the church.

http://www.nationalministries.org/front_center_mlk.cfm

Can Churches & Christians Change? Yes We Can!

In the last couple of days, I like millions of Americans have watched the changing of the presidency and the historical inaugural of Barack Obama as our first African American President. I love history, I love justice, I love when people realize that they too can have hope for the future. That is what I saw in the eyes of "Black America" on election night and again yesterday, as I flipped through the coverage and saw CNN, Fox and others talk with the people on the ground. The one that was the most touching is the one on Larry King Live, when they interviewed a little girl [from Chicago] and her grandfather [a judge, from Detroit]. The little girl was excited about the future, the hope that was out there, but in contrast her grandfather was part of the civil rights movement and was at the "I Have A Dream" speech that was delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. two miles away from where Obama, became our 44th President. To see this grandfather weep... made me think about the suffering that his people went through to get to this point. Yesterday, this man saw change... it took sacrifice, hard work from thousands, even millions of people,... it cost some people everything they had... but they saw change.

Sometimes, i think of churches in the same manner, and even the Christian walk. Some thing has to change. Look, if Obama's presidential campaign can motivate millions of people to get out to vote and to make an impact in this world, in this culture, in their society... then why can't the church and the people in the churches do the same thing? As President Obama said yesterday, it was time to use new tools & methods with the same values of old to change this country & this world. Through out the campaign, we all the heard the chants, "Yes We Can!" Churches, it is now time to ask ourselves, can we, will we, do we want to make a difference in this world? Do we want to impact this country, this world with the influence of Jesus Christ? It is going to take change. It is going to take change of our methods & tools to communicate the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. Do we have churches that are willing to change everything if they have to reach their communities, their neighborhoods, their cities, this country and this world with the Kingdom of God? For churches to change, it is going to take church leaders and people in the pews to change as well.

It is time for Christians, Christ followers, to "take up their cross" and follow Jesus. It is going to mean, that we must make a commitment to change our attitudes that church and Christianity is for Sunday morning only... and for us to start living out this Christian walk. It is time for us to make time in our schedules for more of Jesus, more room for the Holy Spirit to move in our lives. For some this is scary. For some of us, we are going to be called names like heretic, apostate, and even have our loyalties questioned. I believe that the church is being called to sacrifice like the leaders of the civil rights movement, to sacrifice it all... to take up their crosses and to follow the one and only Jesus. For us to make impact our culture with the Kingdom of God... it is going to take us, taking up our crosses and following Jesus. It is going to take us losing our lives, for the sake of Jesus and for the Gospel. This type of change is going to demand things from us, that we have never thought of... it is going to take a willingness to drop our will... our agendas for the sake of Jesus.

Can the churches of America change? Can the Christians in those churches change? YES WE CAN!

What will changed churches look like? We will stop and reverse the epidemic numbers of people leaving our churches... we will start to go places that we have never been before. We will take an honest look at our selves, our church's ministries, at how we are impacting the culture around us. We will never be satisfied when injustices continue in our country... our churches will broaden their social agenda, past the two biggies and make a stand against the injustice of poverty in the inner cities and the hills and hollers of Appalachia. We will start to be salt to our neighbors and communities around us. We will change the flavor of our workplaces because we look to shed light, where there is darkness. We will change our churches because of prayer. We will sacrifice to move the Kingdom of God forward in our communities... we will leave our church programs behind and move toward going and making disciples... we will go everywhere and become the messengers of Jesus. Our churches, our kids... will see hope in us. They too will be excited about the future of the church... they will be excited about what it is that God is doing in front of them.

Can the church of America change? Can the Christians in those churches change? YES WE CAN?

I will leave you with a quote from VineyardUSA's Church planting magazine, Cutting Edge in the Autumn, 2007 edition... "Many Christians continue to think that America really is the last best hope of earth. I very clearly want to contradict that and say, "No. It's not America. The church is the last and greatest hope on the face of the earth."

What are you doing for the homeless during these cold temps?

Here in Central Ohio tonight the temperatures are heading down to -20 degrees or colder. On any given night in Columbus, there about 500 homeless people. Most of these people live in homeless camps, that are fairly easy to find. Here in Lancaster, the homeless are night as easy to find, but you can find them. Plus one of the shelters requires everyone to be out by 8am.

So why am I telling you this?

Yes, there are a number of concerns that you have to work through when you do ministry with the homeless... I have been there and done it and know. Now think about how many churches are sitting empty these last few nights... with the heat on... just sitting there heated and
empty. Many of these churches have enough room where you could put some sort of mattresses in a room... and get many of these homeless people out of the dangerously cold temperatures.

Most of the churches talk about being good stewards with what it is that God has give to us... but do you think that God may ask us... what did you do with the church building when the temperatures where below zero? Did you open my house to house my children that were
cold? Did you feed my children that needed fed? What kind of difference could you have made for my Kingdom, if you would have opened the church to the homeless? I gave you this building and what did you do with it?

So I am asking churches and church leaders... what are you doing with your church buildings during these times when the temperatures are this dangerously cold? Is there something else that you could do for the poor? Ask ourselves honestly... is what you are doing for those
in need enough? In this scenario, it would literally cost you not much more if anymore... just by giving some body a warm place to sleep.

If your church is doing something... please let me know.

What is in your heart?

Right now I am studying my way through the Gospel of Mark.  I would say that the Gospel of Mark is my favorite of the four Gospels.  

It is much like me, straightforward, direct, to the point and does not pull much punches.  It was written to the Romans, who was interested in power.  So he goes through the miracles, the power encounters of Jesus.  

One of the topics that I have studied on a good bit, and may work on blogging through it over the next week or so is that what comes out of us... comes from our hearts.  No matter how good, how bad... much of it is a matter of the heart and that was even a theme that Jesus talked about.  The Pharisees were hard hearted to the working of the Spirit and even the scripture that they memorized.  Many times, we are like that too... our hearts become hard to certain things, our hearts become hardened to what it is that the Spirit wants to do in us because of situations in our lives, in our current circumstances, because of pride, etc.  

In the Gospel of Mark, he talks many times about hard soil... hearts... and what even comes out of our hearts... for instance in Mark 7, Jesus talks about inner purity.  The Pharisees were legalistic about the traditions that they added to following God and they thought that their traditions is what was a sign of their holiness, but once again Jesus turned their thinking upside down.  He told them, what comes out of us is what makes us unclean or sinful.  In Mark 7:20- 23, Jesus said, "... What comes out of a man makes him 'unclean'.  For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.  All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'."  

Now don't say, well I don't do any of these things.  That is a whole other blog post... but study through this list and look to see what Jesus says about adultery, murder, etc.  It is the root of these things start in our heart.  As followers of Christ, as Christians... reality is that our hearts wants what is contrary to what the Holy Spirit wants.  We need to look at our hearts, and see if our hearts are in line with what it is that God wants.  We have to check ourselves and see what are our motivations in life are.  

When we give our lives over to Christ, that means that we need to give each and every part of our lives, our hearts over to the one that gave us the ability to overcome the evil of this world.  It is only when we let the Holy Spirit to come into our lives, to every part of our lives, into the deepest, darkest part of our lives and let the Spirit change us... transform us... then our hearts become changed.  When our hearts are changed and we seek to do the will of God in our lives and we surrender every thing in our lives... then what will come out of us will look more like the one we are to be disciples of... Jesus.  Not the world... not dark, but light.  Evil thoughts will no longer come out of us... but we will start to live out the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22- 26.  Also, take a look and compare the lists above [Mark 7:20- 23] and the list in Galatians 5:19- 21.  We will talk about that in a day or so.

Ask God today... to transform our hearts to reflect the nature of Jesus.  Invite God into your heart all over again and allow the Holy Spirit to come in and change you in the deepest parts of your life... the parts that we don't want anybody else to know about.  God already knows about them... let Him and transform you.  

If you want to get in contact with me, do so with one of the ways below or look me up on Facebook.

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mobilemalcolm

Video conference & mail- http://www.tokbox.com/MalcolmLanham

Skype Me: malcolmlanham

Email- malcolmlanham@mac.com

We need broken leaders

Boy has it been a week.

Have you ever gotten to point emotionally and spiritually where you
can't take anymore?

That was me this last weekend and Monday. For those of you that know
me, knows I have been in a spiritual battle for a time in my life.
That is why in part my family moved back to Ohio.

This last weekend and Monday many things came to a head... Spiritually
I was at the end of my rope and emotionally I was fried... It was even
starting to effect me physically. I was struggling... I needed a
release, something to break . So I did.

It started at church Sunday... Then as things continued Sunday and
Monday morning... I just sat and weeped. I hurt.

I think that as Christ followers that are trying to make a difference
we are going to have times like this. When you put everything you
have into following and serving Christ... And love God with everything
that we are... Then we are left vulnerable in this sinful world.

I'm today's world of church and church leadership... Some may think
that this blog post is something that should not be shared. But I
think that leaders in churches today need to be transparent and
authentic... When we struggle... Be honest about it.

I watch a ton of church leaders and the ones that I respect the most
are the ones that are honest and transparent about their issues.

To connect... Minister with people today... It is going to require
church leaders to go to a whole new level of honest... Transparent...
Open relationships with the churches that we lead. The people in our
churches need to know that we don't have it all together and that we
are not "super Christians" with a cape and a cross on our chest.

I realize more and more that churches need more pastors that can admit
they are on a journey and don't have it all together instead of more
degrees and more titles.

What about you?

Our churches are full of broken people that need Jesus... I like the
saying... How can we lead somebody on this journey of following Christ
if we have not? How can we encourage the broken of our church if we
have not been broken ourselves? Will we lead the broken on this
journey... Can we lead them if we have not let God break us lately?

This is a call to drop our pride and dependence on ourselves and to
let God have it... This is a call to myself as much as it is to
anybody else!

Spiritual disciplines/ formation Pt. 2

May be you are a lot like me, in that I struggle at giving Jesus the time I need to become more like him? I mean real, devoted, honest, unobstructed time for me to pray, listen, read and meditate/ think on scripture? How do I make the most of this time? When I only give him part of my attention, or part of my focus, then I rarely get that much out of it. Do you struggle with getting everything you can out of scripture when you read it? Do you struggle with prayer time? May be you are asking yourself if this is really helping?

Yesterday was a really good day for me. I spent a ton of time in the morning praying through and meditating on Galatians 5:16- 26.

I want to take you through the different portions of this scripture... to show you how I used this passage of scripture as part of my spiritual disciplines to help mold me and make me more like Jesus. Here is the first part of the scripture: Galatians 5:16- 18.

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law."

As you I read through the scripture, it got me to thinking about the ways that I try to gratify my own sinful nature... my sinful desires. It forced me to think and reflect on any sin that may be in my life. It helped me to realize that my own personal desires wants what is contrary to the Spirit. When doing this time of scripture meditation, we have to realize, understand and deal with the fact that we do have a sinful nature. Anytime that we want what is different than scripture... this is our sinful nature. Our sinful nature wants what is different than the Holy Spirit desires for us and it is a conflict that is inside all Christ followers. The battle between us doing right and the conflict between us doing wrong. I don't know about you, but I know the battle that I have at times whether it be as a husband, as a dad, as a pastor, as a human being been caught in this war between my own desires and the desires of the Holy Spirit living in me.

This type of internalized thinking about our sinful nature and desires shows how we are to take scripture and apply it to our own lives. If we try to get ourselves to think and believe that we do not have a sinful nature, then we are fooling and lying to ourselves. This excercise, forces us to filter our own lives through scripture and it may be hard... but we need to look at our own lives through the lens of a microscope [aka scripture] for us to see where we need to grow.

You see, by taking a scripture and unpacking it like this, this forces us to pray to God for revelation, it forces us to listen to God for Him to speak to us [whether through scripture or that small still voice]... it forces us to meditate and think about the scripture in the light [or darkness] of our own lives. Through these spiritual disciplines, it forms us and pushes us closer to Christ. It pushes us closer to understand that we need grace. It pushes us to become more like Jesus.

In my next part of this blog post, I am going to breakdown Galatians 5:19- 21.

Spiritual disciplines/ formation

Ok... I know this is later than I wanted, sorry.

I wanted to think this whole thing more. The idea of how we as Christ followers become more like Jesus. Typically this is called some thing like discipleship, spiritual formation, mentoring, etc. There are tons of different ways to become more like Jesus. I have had to learn how to become a self feeder. I personally had to find ways to feed myself spiritually and not depend or rely on a Sunday school class, a small group, a cell group or some other group to provide for me pathways to spiritual growth. Now don't get me wrong, I love these things... but I personally love them more from the fellowship aspect than I do the spiritual formation aspect. I do like taking say a topic like the fruits of the spirit and discussing it in the group setting... but personally I have gotten more from my own personal quiet time from my own personal study of the scripture, from my own personal time of meditation on God's Word.

If you have not read Richard Foster's book... Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth then you need to. He takes the time and unpacks the whole idea of and why spiritual disciplines are so important to all of us. This book has quickly become for me a staple in my own personally relationship with Jesus Christ. As being in full time ministry, my schedule at times can become crazy, way too fast. This book, has helped to show me new and exciting ways to spiritually feed myself... especially during times when I need it the most.

I personally find the use of spiritual disciplines, much more effective in my personal discipleship/ spiritual formation than any other small group or Sunday school class. But here is the kicker that I struggle with and may be you do as well... it takes time! I am not talking about some 5 minute prayer time that we just unload all of our daily burdens on God. I am talking about taking some serious time and intentionally spending that time focusing on God. It is time, where focusing on prayer... silence, listening for that small, still voice from God... and scripture meditation.

This has been a key reason why, I have become what some would call a heretic. I have come to realize through these avenues... that Jesus was a heretic of his time. He was revolutionary. He was different than the rest of the world.

I would challenge all of us to spend more time with God during the first 30 days of the new year. I would challenge all of us to get out bed early or to take some thing out of our schedule [i.e. TV, video games or dare I say Internet!] and spend at least an hour with a combination of prayer, silence before God, reading & meditating on scripture. In my next blog post today, I am going to go through Galatians 5:16- 26 for an example of how to do this.

Re-Connecting with God

This morning I was really needing some connection time with just me and God. It has been a crazy busy weekend... stressful... a ton of reconnecting with friends that we have not seen in some time. I am an introvert and I need to get my quiet, alone time with God. I need to have time where I can reconnect with my Heavenly Father... with our Creator... with Abba... with Jehovah. Today was a good first step of reconnecting, not just going through my prayer & study time... but a real, honest time of reconnecting with God.

This got me to thinking about all the time we spend celebrating Christmas, I think some times are so busy celebrating Jesus' birth that we forget or neglect to connect, intimately with God during this time.

Over the next few days, I am going to take some time unpacking connecting with God. I am going to unpack spiritual disciplines... discipleship... even some on prayer... talk about some resources [online and in print] that people can use to connect with God.

This morning, I started using the online prayer book called The Missio Dei Breviary. It was really good for me... I like these type of prayer books. It helps me to have different prayers, teaches me to pray through scripture and more. These prayer books, typically will have morning and evening prayers. Some, like Phyllis Tickle's Divine Hours series has morning, afternoon, evening, and bedtime prayers. The breivary has a month's worth of prayers and readings that you just repeat each month, whereas The Divine Hours is an entire series of books for the different seasons and holidays of the year. I have decided that I am going to purchase the The Missio Dei Breviary
for my entire family and that we as a family are going to start doing this each day. This will give my two middle school kids some focus in their personal quiet time and it will help them to incorporate prayers and scripture reading into their time with God.

In addition, the Vineyard Great Lakes website also has Phyllis Tickle's Divine Hours on their website and it updates itself with the time. Here is the link to where it is located on their website http://www.vineyardgreatlakes.com/tdh/tdh.cfm.

Both of these resources are very good resources to learn various spiritual disciplines, like prayer, listening for God, meditation, scripture meditation and more. I would challenge all of you that are looking for more in your walk with Christ to research spiritual disciplines and to find new and refreshing ways to connect with God and to let the Holy Spirit speak into, guide and refresh your lives.

At church yesterday, they talked about taking the next thirty days to create habits that will help us to grow in holiness and righteousness. Hopefully, in the next week, you can find some new ways to connect with God that will ignite your relationship with Jesus and it takes you places this year that you could never imagine.

My next blog post is going to be how I prayed through Galatians 5:16- 26 today... my hope is that through this time of blogging, you will find some new ways to reignite and reconnect with Jesus.

Sorry I haven't blogged lately

Sorry I haven't blogged lately. My family has moved back to central
Ohio from West Virginia, so needless to say I have been tired and busy.

I try to post tonight or certainly on Monday.

Thanks... Malcolm

Sent from my iPod Touch

The importance of BEING and DOING Jesus... with Penn Teller

The last few days, I have blogging about the fact that there has to be more to this Christian life... Christmas... the way that we celebrate Christmas.

I can tell you a story of about how our actions open and close doors for us to be able to tell about Jesus. But actually, I saw this video the other day... and I have thought about it off and on. But here is a video that magician/ comedian, Penn Teller made about somebody that gave him a Bible.

Look at his reactions... how deeply he was touched, just because a Christian was honest, open... and it even sounds like this guy was BEING and DOING what Jesus would have done. Even though he has deep disagreements with Penn, he was respectful, honest and you can tell by Penn's emotions and the way he talks about this guy... he was deeply impacted.

Watch...



Read through my blog from this week and think if we spend time BEING Jesus and DOING what Jesus did... then think about how it will open the doors for us to be able to share Jesus with those like Penn that are atheists and do believe in our wonderful Saviour, Jesus Christ.

I will write more later about this video. I believe that this is a very rich video that we in the church can learn from. You can tell from Penn that living out our values... our beliefs is more important than our actual words.

Merry Christmas!

New Christmas Traditions?

Here it is Christmas Eve... as I look through my Twitter and Facebook friends, I see many of them talking about traditions, doing stockings this evening, going to church, etc. Some times, I wish my family had more traditions like that. This year, has been kind of crazy for our family with the Christmas season. As we are moving to Central Ohio on 12/26 & 27. So we are living out of boxes right now.

Anyways... traditions are a good thing. I was a Navy brat growing up and I remember, even if Dad was out to sea for Christmas, my mom had certain traditions that we did as well. Things like on Christmas morning, before we would open Christmas presents mom would make a HUGE platter of sausage biscuits for us to eat while opening our presents. Or my brother and I would get to open our stockings and the presents that we got each other [this was just a formality, we had already told each other what we got one another :-)]. Even to this day, my mom makes sausage biscuits if we are at their house! I really miss some of the traditions.

As I am sitting here this morning, I am wondering what are some new Christmas traditions that we need to start? What are some new Christmas traditions, that are completely radical that people would call you and your family heretics? What are some traditions that our churches do that need to be replaced with new traditions?

What about some things like adopting under-resourced families for Christmas... that attend our churches... BUT also never go to churches? How about including some of them in our own family traditions? How about starting a new Christmas tradition for our youth groups to go and do something extravagant for the homeless, for the elderly, for the poor, for those that are working on Christmas morning?

There has got to be more to this Christian life during the Christmas season. I mean family is important... celebrating the life of Jesus Christ is the most important... but are we celebrating the way Jesus would have? What new traditions do we need to start?

Say a prayer...

Most of the United States is gripped in severe cold and the wind chills are well below zero. Here in Bramwell this morning, the temperature was 5 degrees... with a wind chill of -18 degrees.

All over the U.S. temperatures are like that or pretty close to that.

Each night, there is about 125,000 people that are homeless. Many of them are children, families that cannot get into shelters because they are overcrowded and full. Please pray for any that may be outside in this bitterly cold weather.

I would challenge churches to open their doors and do what you can to help the homeless during this time.

Advent Conspiracy

There still has to be more to Christmas!

There has to be more to doing Christmas as usual... for us to be Jesus... that means we have to DO what Jesus would have done.  I am not talking about just wearing a little WWJD bracelet.  

I am talking about physically doing what it is that Jesus did.  If you look at Jesus' life... he was a living verb.  Jesus put actions to things he believed in.  For us... if we believe in Jesus... his radical Good News message, that God sent His only son to come to earth... to live out the Kingdom of God... to live out what Heaven is going to be like... they why does that not motivate us more?!  Why is it we measure how much we enjoy Christmas... by the number of Christmas trees we have in our house... or we measure how spiritual we are about Christmas... by the number of presents we give to family members that we have not seen all year and let's be honest, probably don't even like anyways.  

This whole message of Jesus... Him coming to earth... with the mission of bringing a piece of heaven to this God forsaken world... with the gift of dying for those that did not and does not deserve such a gift... and then he gives us the opportunity to bring heaven here by praying for the sick and to bring healing through us... for us to have the opportunity to do more than he did here on earth with the gift of the Holy Spirit... then I ask... why have we Americans reduced the message of Christmas down to what it is?  Is it time for us to repent?  Is it time for us to seek forgiveness for losing our first love?  I think we all know the answer... but will we?  

Jesus went to the hurting... went to sick... went to the poor.  In today's day and age... that means that we need to go to the elderly widow or widower that is lonely and not going to see their family... and be their family!  It means that we go and take Christmas presents to the single mom that can't afford them... and let her put her name on them to her kids... it is about us taking some of the hundreds [or thousands] of dollars that we spend... and use it to buy a poor family a cow someplace overseas... so they can make money by selling milk for their family to live on.  It means that instead of our big fancy meals... we go out and share those meals with some one who is alone... who is hurting.  

This is what Jesus would have done... these things are Good News... these things are pieces of heaven coming to earth.  What would the impact be... if we started to BE Jesus in our community... if we started to really DO what Jesus did... what is the impact that we can have on our communities?  On our families?  On our work?  On our schools?  Let's talk about that on Tuesday.  

Leave some comments, let's discuss this!