What happened to the Hope?

This week in my Greek class, we talked about hope! In Colossians 1, Paul being totally excited, attributes their “faith or belief in THE FAITH..there is a definite article in the greek” and their “love for all the saints” to “the hope“. They received this hope from the gospel, it was an important part of the message! (See 1:5)

Peter tells us to “be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you” (1Pet 3:15). Paul tells us in Romans 8:24 that “we were saved in this hope.” Hope is huge part of being a Christian! It defines who we are, while separating us from the norm of society. Hope is evangelistic because it offers people comfort; and it’s preserving because it causes us to think eternally, living holy in anticipation of Christ’s return.

But if these are true, why do we not share our faith, why do we not live holy? And as I’m writing this please know I’m saying to myself “why do I not share my faith and why do I not live holy?” I believe it is because we have forgotten the importance of HOPE! Sharing our faith becomes scary because we don’t remember the hope in the gospel.

People are ready for hope, they need it. Our current President’s campaign was based on two words: change and HOPE. And America voted him in because I believe people are looking for hope! Yet, we are timid about sharing Jesus Christ because we think people will reject it (which they may), but we have an concrete, everlasting, powerful message of HOPE. I believe we all need to be reminded of that, our message is the HOPE of Jesus Christ. We offer lopsided messages: some completely focused on the love of God, some completely on the wrath of God against sinners. Both are true, but the power is in the “full counsel of God” and HOPE comes when we see the whole picture. Hope is we have sinned against a wrathful holy God, but the same all-loving God, sent His beloved Son to die for us, so we can spend eternity in heaven with Him! And in Him, Ephesians 1:3 tells us we are blessed with EVERY spiritual blessing in the heavenly places! This is something that while America will claim to be 80% Christians, have no idea of. Because we have modified the message to fit our theology, but in the process have taken away the power of HOPE.

However, it’s not too late! Though we may live in a society that has no real knowledge of God or of real hope, Ephesians 2 becomes super applicable. Pauls says in verse 12 “that at the time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Very similar to our current time huh? Look at the next verse, “BUT NOW, in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Paul offered them HOPE in Christ Jesus! They had none, and now they do through Christ!

In Antioch, Paul preached in the synagogue, and the Gentiles who had no hope “begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.” (Acts 13:42) Then Paul, being upset at the rejection of the Jews, said he would now give the message to the Gentiles. What was their reaction? Verse 48: “Now when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” Paul preached hope, and those who had no hope said “Are you kidding me!!!!!! We can be apart of this!!!!!! I want in, YES YES YES!!!!!” The same thing happened in Thessalonica (Acts 17, 1Thess 1).

We have a great hope, a great, great, hope! Don’t leave it out and don’t forget it. Let it be in your message and let it direct your life like it did in Colosse. Let’s share our faith, we can offer people REAL HOPE! We see Angels Stadium fill up every year while Pastor Greg Laurie offers hope to people by the message of Jesus Christ. We can do the same! Remember and apply that hope everyday, it will cause us to love God and love each other.

In His Great Love and Awesome Hope!
Pastor G

The Ultimate Friendship

Isaiah 41:8 “…The descendants of Abraham My friend”

God really called Abraham HIS FRIEND! What was Abraham’s claim to fame? “He believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness.” (Gen 15:6) Is that not what we as Christians do? We believe God (that He sent His Son to die on a Cross for our sins) and it is accounted to us as righteousness (we are saved).

We are FRIENDS of God too! How awesome is that?

If we had a friend that was famous in the secular world, a Lebron James, Peyton Manning, Taylor Lautner (that’s for my youth group), would we not be stoked about it? But how often would they mention US as THEIR friend? Sure we would say “that’s MY friend”…but what about GOD? The Creator of the Universe says “that’s MY friend” when He thinks about you, and you’re always on His mind.

Christian, you have a friend in Jesus! Just let that sit in your head for a while..it will blow your mind!

Instant Forgiveness

IJohn 1:9 “ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

As I was reading my devotions this morning, I came across a commentary on the reading by Dr. Charles Stanley. The small excerpt was titled “Enjoying God’s Presence”. There were two specific parts that spoke to my heart:

1. “God is no legalist. He isn’t scrutinizing your actions or investigating your motives, in order to condemn you.”
2. “There is nothing you can do to become more acceptable to Him. His love for you is unconditional and never ending…Realize He enjoys being with you…”

My thoughts instantly went to how rarely I sit and purely “enjoy God’s presence”. So many times my mind wanders to “what should I be doing Lord”, “forgive me Lord”, “God I need more of you”, or “teach me Lord”. All things that I believe are necessary and biblical, but again, I don’t recall finding myself saying “God I’m so glad you’re here with me…PERIOD”.

I think about the passages that jumped out at me, how sometimes I feel like I put myself under the burden of over-critical examinations in regards to my ministry. Other times, simply not allowing myself to realize my position in Christ, when it comes to the Father’s love for me. But as I think about this, my thoughts go one more place…How is it possible for me to rationalize this love God has for me?

First off, I know God’s love is, apart from divine revelation, incomprehensible. So it isn’t really necessary for me to fully understand it in order to take part in it. But my mind doesn’t work that way, probably another reason why I don’t take the time to “enjoy God’s presence” enough. But I believe the Lord took my over-critical, rationalizing mind to the verse posted above, 1John 1:9 (you can reread the verse now).

While it is hard for me to consider our sin, God’s holiness, and yet Him loving us where we are, it all makes sense when Christ is put in the middle of it. I’ve thought about this concept of “instant forgiveness” recently and marveled at it. I’ve thought on how amazing it is that when I fail, when I mess up, when I fall short, my forgiveness in Christ is instant. Not because I deserve it, but because He paid for it. The sufficiency of Christ completely blows my mind and I feel myself holding back rambling on about it in order to keep this post short and readable. But a sinner like me is able to be free in Christ, free in my ministry, and free to enjoy His presence, because Christ set me free on the Cross. Not to be redundant, but I have instant forgiveness (and able to enter into His presence) because Christ paid for EVERYTHING already. I know there is so much more to this, but this is the process I went through this morning.

So if you are in Christ Jesus, sit and enjoy the presence of God. You are free because of Christ to do so! He loves YOU, yes YOU, just as you are.

Movie Night

Come join us for our 1st Youth Superbowl party!

It’s Simply Hard!

“For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” – 1 Corinthians 2:2

I think of how many times you hear people say “why can’t life be easy” or “why can’t it just be simple”. But do we really want life to be easy, because we sure don’t act like it.

How is that you might be asking?

Well look at the verse above, Paul gives us one of the most important statements in the whole Bible. You would think it would be really complex and surrounded by tons of difficulties, and have secret meanings in the Greek. But it’s not hard to understand at all, Paul is just saying “I don’t want anything to be understood except one thing, Jesus is God and He died on the Cross for you!”

Don’t get me wrong, we can learn a million things and spend hundreds of years of bible study learning from this passage, but what it comes down to is it’s really EASY!  Do you want to understand God better? Do you want to understand doctrine better? Do you want to defeat satan, sin, and sorrow? Do you want to understand the purpose of life? I’ve got a really simple and easy answer for you:

Know that Jesus is God and He died for your sins!

If you knock on that door, all the answers will be opened up to you! Jesus is the key, nothing more is needed, seriously…NOTHING! Jesus said “I am the WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE.”

I think of my youth group and the things they face everyday, from the junk on TV, the things their friends tell them, the things their teachers tell them, all the way to being confused about life at this stage of growing up. Guys (and gals), put Jesus in the center, and when you have a question, Jesus is the answer. Can Jesus really be the answer to everything? Yes! Well what about if my question was “how do I make my warm soda colder, is the answer Jesus?” Yes! How is that? Jesus designed ice cubes, designed your body to be able to walk to the fridge, etc. Well you might be saying that’s a little stretch, it sounds kind of stupid! Well if you don’t want a stupid answer, why did you ask a stupid question! JUST KIDDING!!!

Still do want life to be simple and easy? We love to add things to Jesus: works, holiness, prayers, etc.  All good things, but Jesus is enough, He doesn’t need anything else added to Him and doesn’t need anything subtracted from Him. Nor will God the Father accept any other form of payment, nothing less than Jesus, nothing more than Jesus.

Make life simple, know nothing but Jesus Christ and His cross! Now the hard part…realizing we are the problem and we are the ones making things hard on ourselves. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…it’s that easy.

Life as a ransom

“The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” – Matthew 20:28

As I was reading “What the Bible is all about” by Dr. Mears (just trying to grasp the whole overview of Matthew, the book the youth is going through on Sundays), this verse struck me.  This summarizes exactly the point I feel God was trying to express to the youth yesterday.  We talked about “moving on to Jesus”, just being consumed by Him, putting Him in the center of our life.  And as I read this, it struck me how Christ gave us an example of just how to do this;  Let me explain:

Jesus was the King, promised Messiah, and most of all, GOD.  But He was a servant, not only to His Father, but to people.  Like the Scripture says “but to minister.”   And if the King, the Savior of the world, and God of all the universe, came to serve His Father and others here on Earth, why shouldn’t we?  We should be constantly serving God and serving those around us, all in the name of Jesus.

Better yet, lets look at the second part of the verse “and to give his life a ransom for many.”  Obviously, this is speaking to Christ dying on the cross for us, by which he became the “ransom” for our sin, so we could be set free in God’s courtroom.  But let’s apply that to our own life.  We know better (or should know better), that we can in no way pay for our own sins, let alone the sins for many, but I believe we can still become a “ransom.”

The definition of ransom is: The price or payment demanded or paid for such release.

Christ paid for our release, but there is still a price that we are required to pay.  God requires our heart, our devotion, our life.  1 Cor 6:19 tells us that “we are not our own”, we belong to God now.  It wasn’t like “oh Jesus, thanks for getting me out of jail dude!  Appreciate it, see ya around!”  Now we are God’s!  And believe me, through our own small minds, it seems like another form of bondage.  “Awe man, now I have to serve God, what a drag!”…LOL, seriously how silly we can be!  Being a servant or let’s even say “to be in bondage to God” is FREEDOM!  Do we get that?  Let me say it again…IT’S FREEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!! (Can you hear Mel Gibson yelling it out in Braveheart?)  Can you see we were created to glorify God, that it is only because of sin and the lies of the enemy that we think giving ourselves FULLY over to God is a drag!  It is only when we are in God, in God’s service, in God’s will that we are actually alive!  Check this out:

If you were raised by wolves, sure you could be content in your life, if that’s all you knew.  And one of your favorite activities was to chew on bark and chase squirrels.  Then someone came and got you and let you know how you were meant to live, but inside you might be thinking, but I don’t want to leave the forest, I can’t chase squirrels anymore!  Do I need to go on?  I mean seriously…

That is life with God, it’s not always easy, actually it rarely is easy and God never promised it to be easy anyway.  But what we are promised is freedom from our sin, freedom from the Judgment, and freedom to live as we were meant to live, in relationship with our Creator-God.

So all that to say, we can and should be a ransom.  Our heart and our lives should be ransomed to God in loving thanks for what Jesus Christ did for us.  And through that, we can fulfill the “many” part of that verse.  When we are ready to give our lives to God, to be used by Him, He will use us to save “many”.

So as Christ “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life as ransom for many”, lets stop focusing on ourselves and serve God and serve others!  Lets give our lives as a ransom to God so that our family, friends, and neighbors might be saved from eternal sufferings in Hell.  In this we are able to “move on” to Jesus, growing more in His likeness everday!

Bonfire!!!!!

We had a great time at Lake Elsinore for our first bonfire!  Umm…Good thing they removed the fire pits last week!  Thanks to Pam for hooking us up with her portable fire pit!

We tossed the football around (in the volleyball courts?), chilled, played with Fudge, ate tons of s’mores and hot dogs (thanks to Crystal!), and sang worship songs (some on the ukelele)!  We had a lot of fun.

Thanks to Wendy for taking this by the horns, we definitely have to do this again!  Sorry about the sideways photos, I can’t figure out how to rotate them!

Just in case you didnt know

Scary

Follow the rules!

Is that the burning bush?

fire…

Kermit, slained in the Spirit

Food Coma

Blurry much?

Duke, you okay?

No laughing!!!!

Bubba, seriously…no more S’mores

This is how we do it

Hi Dr. Rob

This is your brain on S’mores

Word!

Sweet!

Top 5 reasons Farmville is the like the Kingdom of God!

1) You reap what you sow! (You plant something and bam!… the harvest automatically comes!)
2) The harvest is plenty the laborers are few! (Even when you expand your farm, it is just you doing all the work on the farm)
3) Love your neighbors as yourself! (The more you help out on your neighbors farms, the more XPs, money, and ribbons you get!)
4) Have dominion over all the beasts of the field! (The animals on your farm are completely submitted to your will, they don’t move unless you move them)
5) Lastly, Jesus said “No one who puts their hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” (Once you start playing farmville, you can’t stop, everything in life becomes subject to the crops you have planted and when they are due to harvest!)

God Bless!!! Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve blogged!

I Heart movie from Hillsong United – Coming soon!

Hi guys,

Keep your schedules clear for this upcoming event!  The Mira Mesa IMAX is going to be playing this and I am going to try to get tickets for all our youth!

http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/ConcertsAndMusic/Hillsong.aspx

Blessings!