daily walk Posts

Fixer Upper

16 Aug , 2015 No Comments

What do you do when you’re in the right location but you’ve got the wrong design? You’ve got to fix it up! On their wildly popular show, Chip and Joanna Gaines walk us through the process of transforming dilapidated, but potential-rich houses into showcases. This is an apt analogy for those of us who know we’re in the right family (by God’s sovereign design) but stand in need of help. Every family needs to be fixed up.

In Ephesians 5:21-6:4, God’s Word gives us principles to help us see how this happens.

In the end, here’s the radical truth that will change your family:

 To fix your family up, you need power down.  

Throughout this passage we see the word “submit” and the little word “as”, referring to Christ and His submission to the Father and His love for us over and over. Submission to one another in the family is what makes it work. We are to be “as” Christ in our relationships. In order to stay the course, and not bail when a remodel or redesign is necessary, we need exactly what God teaches us in Ephesians 5. A family that has “staying power” is a family that follows these biblical principles. Our culture continues to debate, define, and re-define the family. We’ve been asking the wrong questions: How can my relationships make me happier? How can my spouse fulfill my needs? How can my children make me happy? How can marriage be more fulfilling for me? What’s in it for me? God shows us a very different perspective on the family because:

God’s purpose for the family is not to satisfy us, but to sanctify us.
“Sanctify” is a word that means, to make holy, to set apart, to be made righteous. God’s original blueprint for us is to be created in His image and display His glory in all we do. We busted that plan up early on. Through God’s rescuing grace, we are brought back to His original design, sanctified. The process of sanctification then, is not becoming something I’m not, but becoming who already am in Him. My identity is secured. I am His “beloved”. The family serves as God’s subcontractors to create the environment within which this process takes place. We need families who will stay the course.

Staying Power

1. Stay submissive to Jesus Christ. (5:1-2) All of Ephesians up to this point is about God’s rescuing grace. The Gospel indicatives always lead to the Gospel imperatives. Paul moves to how we respond to God’s one-way love for us in Christ. Paul says, because you’ve been rescued from your sin, now submit to Christ.

2. Stay submissive to one another. (5:21) What does submission to Christ look like in the family? At the beginning of this entire passage on the family, he says we submit to one another out of reference to Christ. What does it mean to submit to another person? It means I will leverage my assets, my strength, my power, and my time for your benefit. This is Gospel reenactment in the family. It’s all I am for all that you need. Do you want to fix up your family? Power down. Submit to others, serve, and help one another. The radical, guiding question in the home becomes: How can I help? How can I serve you?

3. Stay committed to your marriage first. (vv. 22-33) The key to raising happy, healthy children is to give more time and attention to your marriage than you do to your children. Don’t forget that later is longer. You will be married long after your kids are gone and the days you have with your adult children will be long through the years. Stay the course and keep your marriage first in the child-rearing days. Keep dating. Get away. Keep growing.

4. Stay clear about the family structure. (v. 22-25, 6:1-4) Understand the family structure and communicate it clearly to the entire family. If the key to a great family is mutual submission, then is anyone in charge? This is where it becomes counter-intuitive. Jesus is the Head of the Church and He gave His life for everyone in it. He came to serve, not to be served and He ultimately gave His life away. He was Servant Number One. Husbands are to serve their wives and children in the same way. We feel if we give up power we’ll lose everything but Jesus, who is the Head of Church, is precisely so because He gave His power. He gave His life away. To fix up, we need to power down. Here we see that God’s family flow chart shows us that the husband is the head of the wife (practicing mutual submission in their varied roles) and the parents are over their children. The simple role of the children is clear: obey. Instead, in many American families, children have taken over. We’ve put kids in the corner office. They’re driving the family bus and calling the shots.

Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, once observed this about American families: “The thing that impresses me about American families is the way the parents obey their kids.”

Put your kids first and you can be assured that they will become manipulative, demanding, and unappreciative of everything you do for them. You will guarantee that they’ll grow up believing it is unfair to expect them to do anything and it will further guarantee your child’s unhappiness because happiness is only achieved by accepting responsibility for one’s self, not by believing that someone else is responsible for you. See the health of the family as a unit and it all starts with the health of the marriage. The parents are benevolent dictators. We need are more parent-centered families and fewer child-centered families.

5. Stay close to your children. (6:1-4) Being parent-centered doesn’t mean you don’t spend time with your children. You must stay in close to your kids. Know their friends names, the music they like, their favorite shows, clothes, and sports. Stay near to their hearts. Let dinnertime become a time to catch up and find out where their hearts are. Sit down with your child, do homework together, play together, and pray together at bedtime. You must stay in relationship with them. The old adage is so true: Rules without relationship breed rebellion. Remember to keep the end in sight: emancipation. You’re raising them to leave. And in parenting the days are long but the years are short. Keep in the end in sight.

6. Stay centered in God’s family. Make the church your family’s epicenter. Let the church help you raise your kids. Single parents, and parents who may feel you are, you’re not alone. Just as God has been very clear about our families, He’s also been very clear about His own big family, the Church.

“How great is the love of the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1

God invites you into His family. There’s no perfect family, but there is a perfect Father. Psalm 68:6 says, “God sets the lonely in a family.” What does this submission to Christ, submission to one another look like in the home? I think it was Andy Stanley who brought this whole idea of submission down to a single question. I’ve discovered it can change everything:

How can I help?

And as you seek to serve others well, don’t forget this: no horizontal relationship in your life will ever satisfy. And as you seek to be sanctified, remember in Christ you have been made righteous already. You’ve been holied.

“And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” 1 Corinthians 1:30

Sanctification is not becoming something you’re not, but something you already are. It’s living out the new identity you now have in Christ. Rest in Him. You’re already loved perfectly and have nothing to prove. And because you now have all the love you’ll ever need in Him, you can love others without any need for love in return. I can power down and love like Jesus.

“For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Hebrews 10:14

 To fix your family up, you need power down.  

 

What is Prayer?

09 May , 2015 No Comments

One day (in Luke 11) Jesus’ disciples came to Him and asked Him a question. These were, essentially, Jewish boys who had grown up learning the Torah, reciting the Shema, and all their lives they had been taught to pray certain prayers, specifically three times a day. On this day, they heard Jesus pray and simply hearing Him pray prompted them to then ask the question: “Can you teach us how to do that!?” Clearly He was praying in a way that they were not. What they heard from Him was something new, something different. This is significant- as they followed Jesus every day, they saw something in His life- and they knew it was driven by prayer. They heard Him pray to a God that He called “Father”- with such intimacy, such humility, such confidence and power- that they asked Him to teach them how to pray just like that.

Maybe you’ve never asked Jesus to teach you how to pray. Maybe you have never asked anyone to teach you how to pray. How do we learn how to pray? We learn from others around us and, primarily, we have learned to pray (or not pray) from our parents.

Read Matthew 6:5-13 What is it that keeps us from praying as we should? We don’t feel that we need to pray, we feel that we should pray. Is it a lack of knowledge or we don’t know how to pray? Is it a lack of faith- or belief – that God actually answers prayer- that prayer really does change things? I think that’s the problem for many of us. Have we become so distracted by technology- focused on our televisions, our smart phones, tablets, and computers that we can’t even focus enough to get quiet before the Lord? I think for some that is the case. Years ago I was challenged as a young minister, from a pastor who said, “the one thing you must do is this: You must ruthlessly eliminate noise/hurry from your life- spend time daily, with God in prayer.”

What is prayer?

Jesus said that God knows what we need before we ask (Matthew 6:8). So this begs a huge question, doesn’t it? Why pray at all? If you have come to the point where you’re asking that question, then you are on the verge of a great breakthrough in your life regarding prayer! Perhaps after all, prayer is not first and foremost about asking God for things. For many of us, prayer has been one big adventure in missing the point. What if prayer has little to do with me and is actually all about God? This is what Jesus taught us.

Prayer is communion with God, adoring Him for who He is and imploring Him for what He gives.

Prayer is paying attention to God- to Who He is, what He’s done, and what He wants to do through me. Now, we’ve intentionally chosen words here that we don’t use- powerful words that get to the heart of prayer:

  • Adore – to love, honor, and respect (someone) deeply; to worship, venerate; to take great pleasure in (something or someone).
  • Implore – to ask or beg for (something) in a very serious or emotional way; to beg someone earnestly or desperately to do something. 

Jesus says, when you come before God, don’t forget you come before a loving Father. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” 1 John 3:1

Prayer is communion with God, adoring Him for who He is. The first part of The Lord’s prayer is all about adoring Him for who He is. Like everything else in life, it’s all about God’s glory.

Three petitions

  • His name – the name (in Hebrew) encompasses the complete person. “Hallowed”- HOLY, treated with the highest honor. He’s set apart. Do you struggle to adore God? Then meditate on Jesus- who HE is and all that He has done for you.

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Hebrews 1:3

  • His kingdom The presence of God’s kingdom refers to the reign of Christ in our hearts and lives as believers, and to the reigning presence of Christ in His Body, the Church. Disciples who follow Jesus every day, will increasingly reflect Christ’s love, obey His commands, honor Him and proclaim the Gospel- the Good News of the kingdom. Part of adoring Him for who He is leads us to cry out for Him to come reign on earth as He does in heaven. This is in line with the promise in John 15 to give us whatever we ask in the context of spiritual fruit.

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” John 15:7-8 As you Adore God for His glory, ask, plead, implore Him to bring His kingdom to His church, in His city and in His world. Ask in the name of Jesus for Him to bear fruit through you- advancing His kingdom on earth.

  • His will You know how to get what you’re praying for? You determine what

God’s will is and then you ask for it! This is why the WORD of God is so important. This is why the community of faith is so important. If you pray “in His name”, according to His name, His character, His person- your prayers will be answered 100% of the time. This is why Oswald Chambers, wrote: “To say that, ‘prayer changes things’ is not as close to the truth as saying, ‘Prayer changes me…” and then, by His power He changes things thought me. Prayer changes the way you look at things, approach things, desire things. David Platt said, “It is true that the purposes of God are unchanging. It is also true that the plan of God is unfolding.” And He’s chosen us to accomplish His plans.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you.” John 15:16

Think about how revolutionary Jesus’ teaching is here: If you first approach prayer with your mind and heart set on WHO God is, spend some time adoring Him, praising Him for the fact that He is hallowed, holy, He is God. Adore Him – now implore Him. You see how that changes everything? You’re now going to pray in accordance with His character and His will, “in His name”. This unlocks the power of extraordinary prayer – prayer as it is meant to be. Prayer as Jesus, our Savior, has taught us.

 

 

 

The Silence of God – Andrew Peterson

04 Apr , 2015 No Comments

It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith

It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane

When he’s bleating for comfort from thy staff and thy rod

And the heaven’s only answer is the silence of God.

 

It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart

When he has to remember what broke him apart

This yoke may be easy, but the burden is not

When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God.

 

And if a man’s got to listen to the voices of the mob

Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they’ve got

When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross

Then what about the times when even followers get lost?

‘Cause we all get lost sometimes…

 

There’s a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll

In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold

And He’s kneeling in the garden, as silent as a stone

All His friends are sleeping and He’s weeping all alone

 

And the man of all sorrows, He never forgot

What sorrow is carried by the hearts that He bought

So when the questions dissolve in to the silence of God

The aching may remain, but the breaking does not

The aching may remain, but the breaking does not

In the Holy, Lonesome echo of the silence of God.  

 

The Destructive Power of Disordered Love

The Destructive Power of Disordered Love

21 May , 2014 No Comments

In his classic work, “Confessions”, Augustine explains that sin is “disordered love”. It is love out of order. We most often think of sin in terms of behavior, bad deeds, actions- but Augustine helps us from another angle. There is an order to love. He said we should love God, love others, and then love ourselves. The problem comes when you love something you should love but that you should not love supremely. That’s when a good thing becomes a God thing. It’s about finding your superior satisfaction in God alone, and nothing else.

The Problem: We make good things god things.

Love out of order is what the Bible calls idolatry. Friedrich Nietzsche said there are “more idols than there are realities”. John Calvin said, “The human heart is an idol factory.” How do you discern what you’re idols are? Tim Keller asks, “What thing, if you lost it, would almost mean that you would lose the will to live? What thing, lost, gone from your life, would mean that almost all value and significance- identity and worth- would be drained out of your life?” Whatever that thing is, the Bible calls it an idol. It’s an alternate god, a counterfeit god – anything that is more fundamental to your happiness, sense of value, or identity- other than God. Anything you love more than God or rest your heart in other than God. These are not necessarily bad things but they are created things that you’re looking to for worth and value- family, spouse, comfort, health, friends, your body, your intelligence, your position, your reputation as a certain person/character that you’ve created over time. Consider the many idols in our lives today.

American Idols

  • People -sports heroes, rock stars, “American Idols”, even your kids, your spouse
  • Prosperity – money, all that money can bring- nice house, car, retirement
  • Posterity – youthfulness, being young/vibrant, even health
  • Pleasure – substance abuse, sex, next great diversion, even family
  • Power – image, success, popularity, fame, this includes ministry

The Gospel challenges our idols. The Gospel challenges the gods that we have already established. And before you think this doesn’t apply to you, I would argue that the process of sanctification in a disciple’s life is our willingness to allow the Spirit of God to dismantle of our idols. The Gospel attacks our idols, destroys them. Jesus put it this way: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33

There’s only one first. This disordered love, this idolatry, is not easily discerned. Psychologist, Alfred Adler, noted that it’s very hard to figure out what you’re really living for by simply asking yourself. He says you’re not that self-aware. You may think, “I’m living for God.” But the way to find out is not to ask that question. Instead, Adler said: Look at your nightmare. What thing, if absent, would almost (or would) take away your reasons to live. He says your deepest emotions- anxiety, fear, despair will point you to your god. It can lead to uncontrollable anger- toward any obstacle or person that stands in the way of you possessing it, despair if you cannot have it, bitterness. You must discern the idols in your life, expose it, and then destroy it or it will destroy you. Paul said, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Colossians 3:5

The Solution: The Gospel makes God our One Good Thing.

  • The Gospel demands repentance from idol worship. You may think, “I don’t have any idols.” Therein lies your problem- you don’t even know that you are an idol-worshipper. “I don’t feel spiritually dead.” A fish doesn’t feel wet. You’ve become so accustom to your environment, your idol worship, you don’t even know you’re doing it. Until it starts to be taken away from you. Again, look at your deepest emotions of fear, anger and anxiety. They reveal your idols. Jesus said: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21
  • The Gospel delivers real satisfaction. Studies have been done of professional athletes who have career-ending injuries show that they don’t always need physical care for their injury only- they also need therapy. The injury sends them into an existential crisis. Usually depression sets in. Often the loss of their athleticism suddenly tosses them into a downward spiral. “Who am I anyway?” The loss of their athleticism causes them to question their existence. What’s the difference between making a great thing the best thing- the number one thing? All the difference in the world. Only God’s grace satisfies the human heart.
  • The Gospel divides God worshippers from idol worshippers. An obsession with the Gospel – with Jesus – is the only cure for idol-worship. French Christian philosopher, Simone Weil, noted that we either worship the one true God or we worship idols. There is no other option. And idols will crush us. Only when we worship God through Christ do we find life through worship, not death. Psalm 115:8 says that those who worship idols will “become like them”. We are shaped by whatever it is that we worship. Worship Christ and you will be shaped by Him, glorifying Him through your life- all to the praise of His glorious grace.

The Gospel makes God our One Good Thing.

 

 

“Under New Management”- the Stewardship of Time

10 Nov , 2013 No Comments

If you live in the Dallas area you may know that a two-word message has gone forth from our church out into the city for decades. Two words: “Night Cometh”. It is not unintentional that these words are found on the steeple clock that rises high above the hustle and bustle of NW highway. Though foreboding and ominous, this message expresses an urgency and unavoidable reality: our lives are finite and limited. Jesus said, “I must work the works of Him who sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” John 9:4-5

Life is a stewardship, it’s temporary, and you’re accountable.  A steward is a manager, someone who has been given a trust, a responsibility to manage or supervise someone else’s property or belongings. We are stewards of the precious gift of this one & only life, given to us by God. Paul said it like this: “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.” 1 Corinthians 4:1-2  Stewarding this gift means that we recognize that we are under new management- there’s now a complete shift in mindset, attention, and focus. We now set our “minds on things above” (Col. 3:2). We have a completely new trajectory, a deed transfer (from the domain of darkness into His glorious light)- everything we do is now to be done for His glory- as a response, an act of worship- for all He has done for us! As Christ followers we have a choice to make. Jesus said we now have choice. But we cannot serve two masters. No can serve both God and “Mammon” – the pursuit of wealth and financial acumen. He followed that challenge with this: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Matthew 6:25 Every time Jesus talks about time He talks about anxiety. Consider the connection of time and anxiety. We become anxious over those things we cannot control. You cannot control time. You can’t stop it and you’re running out of it.

You may not know that the watch you have on your wrist and the clocks you have in your home were in large part the invention of Benedictine monks- a group of ascetic, monastics committed to a life of prayer and solitude. The clock was invented to keep them on regular patterns of prayer- waking them up in the middle of the night & in the mornings to pray. Interestingly, the clock (and subsequent alarm clock that woke you up today) was invented to steward our lives toward worship- and to do so in community- corporately, not individually. With their invention of the mechanical clock, the Benedictines became the first humans to devise a system of telling time not directly related to the cycle of nature. The relationship between time-keeping and celestial motion- or the change of seasons- quickly became too abstract to be noticed anymore. Subtly clock time came to have an existence of its own. And the clock moved from a tool to a task-master.

“We have become tools of our tools.” Henry David Thoreau

Many of us here today are mastered by our possessions. If you don’t think so just look at a family w/ middle school & high school students- if someone doesn’t demand that we put our phones away we may not even look at each other. (What if we were as obsessed w/ our Bible as we are w/ our cell phones). The clock was designed to be our tool but it has become our master. To live in a way not mastered by the clock is to live a life that is counter-cultural.

Luke 10:38-42 In this passage we see the progression, the steps that lead to a misdirected life. The stewardship of time demands a Christ-centered identity, Spirit-directed priorities, Spirit-led activities, resulting in a God-honoring life. The same thing that happened to Martha can happen to us.

The Stewardship of Time

1. Mistaken identity Martha believed that her identity was found in her activities and her ability to accomplish things. Understandably, all the ladies in the house respond with “Someone has to work!” But Jesus said that Mary chose “the better thing (the one thing, the best thing) that will not be taken away”. Instead our identity is found in Christ and what He has done for us. In His performance for us not our performance. In His approval of us not our ability to gain the approval of others. In Christ we fully forgiven, totally loved, and completely accepted by Him. A mistaken identity leads to…

2. Misplaced priorities For those of us who are busy with many competing time demands- family, work, exercise, solitude, service, etc.- we seek to “balance our time”. I’ve come to realize that the concept of “balance” is a myth. Jesus didn’t talk about balance. He talked an all-out pursuit of one thing. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33 Then He follows in vs. 34 with, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Jesus talked about a singular focus and pursuit: the “kingdom of God”. What is “the kingdom of God”? This is critical to understand because it’s the ONE thing Jesus said we should seek first. The kingdom of God is the reign, and subsequent renewal of God in all things, starting with me. It is His reign and rule in all things.

3. Misguided activities Your priorities will guide your activities. We all want to be productive. We have sense of wanting to use our time wisely or maximize our time. Here’s the problem: “productivity” is defined as “a quantifiable amount of work achieved in a specifiable amount of time”. Many of us seek to define ourselves by our activities and the more we accomplish the more we feel good about ourselves. But because time can’t increase, the more activities we add to our lives, the more out of control we become. This is why Karl Jung said, “Busy-ness is not from the devil. Busy-ness is the devil”. Counter to popular opinion, busyness is not the sign of a significant life. Busyness is the sign of a misguided life. What do you need to stop doing?

4. Misdirected life Every minute we make decisions that reflect our priorities, directing our activities. Days become weeks, weeks become months, then years- and years become lifetimes- either squandered or lived to the glory of God.

“Time is not to be understood as a scarce commodity, the shortage of which hangs over our heads like a cloud and threatens our feverish attempts to make something of ourselves and our lives. Instead, by the grace of God and with a view to what God has done in the past and desires to do in the future, Christians are freed to view time as a gift and to dwell graciously in the present, knowing that God has liberated us from the necessity of justifying ourselves. God has created a “timeful” people whose existence offers the world a foretaste of the kingdom. These people have been freed from the tyranny of believing that their ultimate destiny or joy is tied to how they “spend” their time. This freedom makes possible the appearance of a “new” time: a time for caring for those – like the elderly, children and the mentally handicapped – whose productivity is suspect; a time for being with those – like the poor, the downtrodden and the discouraged – who do not promise to contribute to our status or to guarantee that we will leave feeling upbeat; and a time for entering into the gratuitous and joyful worship of a God who promises not that things will always work out the way we believe they should, but of a God who promises NEVER to leave us or forsake us.” Phil Kenneson, Life on the Vine

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:21 God, His glory, His kingdom lasts from generation to generation, and forever. Our time is running out. “Night is coming” when no one will be able to do anymore work. But as we steward this one and only life we’ve been given, all to the praise of His glorious grace, He will help us redeem the time and maximize the days we have remaining. Don’t waste your life. Live for Christ while it is still called today. There’s a marked “contrast between Martha as she tells Jesus what He must say and Mary who listens to what Jesus desires to say to her.”

A mistaken identity leads to misplaced priorities that lead to misguided activities that result in a misdirected life.