Reflections on Church

What is Church?

I mean, if you had to write out a definition of "church" what would it be? I have had the priviledge to be involved in the church my whole life...but because of that I have seen the things that keep people out of it.

Fights. Judgemental attitudes. Sarcasm. Lack of love. Hypocrisy.

I have seen it, been hurt by it, done it, done it again, condemned it, done it again...

But what troubles me now, is that we as the Church have gotten so far away from the love of Christ, and have become so enbittered by the world, that we have lost our God-given call to be warriors for Christ. We have pimped ourselves to the world, only to find that our bodies have become stained and scared by what we thought would pay off.

I am a sinner, I although I try to be better daily, and I try to fall madly in love with Jesus...I fail. I want to bleed, Jesus. I want to be used by Him, I want to draw people to Him...I want big things. But what I have found over the past few years is that only when we allow ourselves to be drawn to Christ, Himself will we be able to draw men to Him.

We will not have a church that meets needs of people. We wont have a church that is missional. We wont have a church that allows Christ to change and transform lives. We will have just dusty buildings that people strive to stay away from. Not because they dont think that God is good, but because they see us as so bad.

God change our hearts...

Dreaming,
Adam

Dirty Dishes

"Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and evil. Fools! Didn't He who made the outside make the inside too? "

Luke 11:39,40

It seems as if there are a lot of dirty dishes within the church today. The church is infested with the Pharisee-like religion mongers, who claim to have geniuine faith, but are so corrupted that they make no difference within the world that they live in.

The Pharisees that Jesus talked about, where so fake, and callous and Jesus called them out on it. He pointed the finger in their face, and told them that they were in the wrong. What of the church of 2007? What about us? Where to do we fit in? Here in the Deep South, everyone goes to church, and everyone "believes" in Jesus.

We are just like the Pharisees. We have cleaned the outside of the cup, but the inside is filthy, rotten to the core. We are just a bunch of dirty dishes. But are we satisfied being this way? Do we even know what is on the inside? It seems to me, that we have neglected the hard commands of Jesus. "Love your neighbor as yourself." "Take up your cross, and follow me." "Love others, just as I have loved you."

We get so dressed up on Sunday. We put on our Sunday best, spray on some foo-foo juice to smell good, and a big smile. Then we get to sit in church and wallow around in our own self-righteousness. And for what? To have the outside of our cup look good.

But inside is a dirty dish. We must clean the inside of our life in order to be all that the Father wants us to be. We must be willing to let ourselves be naked, vulneravble, open to the Maker. And when we do, we will find ourselves clean, spotless, beautiful. We will find that we are no longer worthless, dirty dishes...instead we will be the fine china that is saved for the special occasion.

Lord, allow us to be who you have called us to be...allow us to be clean- on the outside...but more importantly...the inside.

dreaming...

adam

Do we trust Him?

Over th epast couple of months I have suffered from intense back pain. And upon going to the doctor, I have been diagnosed with a ruptured disk in my back, which is pressing upon some nerves which in turn is causing tremendous amounts of pain. As a result I will be having surgery tomorrow to remove the disk.

Now, it is not a serious surgery, but I cannot help but feel a little anxious because I really do not want to have surgery. But without it, I will have to deal with this pain. Now, the pain is incredible, so the question is: what do I do?

Is it not the same in all of our lives? We sit with something on our mind, or we wonder why our life stinks. We sit back and question God...cry out to God? We are often faced with uncertainties, and certain things that will cause us hurt, and pain, and grief.

While contemplating this surgery, God handed me a revelation about my life...

You see I am suffering with an intense pain and burden, but I am so scared about what the remedy is...I want to feel better, I just dont want to go through the surgery.

The same is true in our own lives...

We want to get better...we just dont want to: Give up the what-ever, stop the sin, let go of doubt, or let go of the past. Because we know that when we let go of whatever it is that is holding us back, we are weak. We are vulnerable. We are naked.

But only then, will we be able to heal, to get better, to get over our past. We must allow the Father to heal our hurts, bandage our wounds. We must allow ourselves to be naked before Him, in order for Him to truly give us what we need...

So tomorrow I will be having surgery. After I will have a few months of recovery, and rest...but most importantly I will be recieving healing.

May you too, give up some of yourself to recieve that special touch that comes directly from the Maker of Heaven and Earth. May you accept the glorious gift of God Himself, and may that specialness spread out to all that are around you.

Dreaming...
adam

Making Our Light Shine in the Darkness

"If you offer yourself to the hungry, and to satisfy the afflicted one, then your

light will shine in the darkness, and your night will be like a noonday."

Isaiah 58:10 (HCSB)

Over the last couple of weeks I have been gearing up for a Discipleship weekend with my youth group at the church where I serve. And I have been studying Matthew 5:13-16 (The passage about Salt and Light). As I have been looking at these passages I realize that in order for us to let our light shine, or to let the Father shine through us, we must be willing to do...

We must be willing to serve.

We must be willing to love.

We must be willing to show compassion.

We must meet people's needs.

The reason that the churcch has missed so many opportunities to make a difference is that instead of helping others, we have condemned them in the name of Jesus Christ! We fail to help othes. We dont love others the way that we were commanded to...the way that He loved us. We dont go the extra mile for people around us, and that makes our message weak.

I feel that in order for us to truly be a people that wants to worship God the Father, we must be willing to put aside our pride, and reach out to the people around us in order to minister to them. Why? Because as the prophet Isaiah said "Offer yourself to the hungry...satisfy the afflicted...then your light will shine."

Do we truly want to reach the world for Christ? If we do, we must start by letting others know that we care for them. If we allow ourselves to be humbled for the sake and cause of Christ, we will begin to shine a light in a very dark, cold world; a world that so desperatly needs to see something positive, and meaningful!

Dare to be different, dare to be humble, dare to shine a light...

Dreaming...

adam

Bearing Fruit...

"Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He reomves, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit...I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me."

John 15:2, 5

A very frequented passage of scripture, to be sure. But what does it mean to bear fruit? We talked about this tonight at church, and I feel that for some of us the answer is not one that we would like to hear.

For the Christian, we are commanded to bear fruit! Because if we do not bear fruit, we will taken from the vine and thrown away. So we must bear fruit. But how do we bear healthy fruit?

The answer lines in our relationship with Jesus. He commands us to be connected to Him; to be connected with the Vine. Only abiding in Jesus will we ever be fruitful! Too often we try to do our own things: ministry, thoughts, passions, service, stuff. We try so hard to get our own agenda done, that we fail to rest in the very Vine that nourishes us.

But notice this...something that hit me very hard today. That in order to produce much fruit...we must be pruned! What? What does that mean? How are we to be pruned?

I am convinced more and more, that we as the Church must let go of ourself...we must let go of our own personal agenda, and strive together to be more than we are right now. We must allow the Father to take us, mold us, shape us into what we need to be. Jesus says that the Gardener will take us and prune us so that we will produce more fruit.

It is not something that God might do, or think about doing; it is something that He will do. I think that for most of us, that when we are in times of unfruitfulness, we are in times of selfishness. We are in times where we are living to please ourselves, by not allowing God control and cleanse our lives. This is the reason that it is so hard for us to be fruitful.

It is hard to allow God to take prune us. Pruning means that God might break us down a bit! He might take something away; or make us give up something that is dear to us. He might make us sacrifice...

But is it not much better to give up what we cannot keep in order get what we cannot earn?

Is it not better to stay in the essence of Christ than to dwell in the lunacy of the world?

How much better is it to stay in the glorious plans of the Father than to struggle with today?

All that has to happen, is to allow the merciful Gardener take us, prune us, and make us into something that is beautiful, and amazing; to make us into something so far beyond what we could ever dream of or expect.

That is how we produce fruit...but more importantly, that is how we produce much fruit. In a land that so desperately needs what we can give, how important is it to allow the Father to make us who we need to be, so that we can stay in connection with Christ Himself...so that we can make a difference in this world?

Dreaming...

adam

The Glory of Creation

"You made him (man) lord over the works of Your hands;

you put everything under his feet"

Psalm 8:6

I was blown away in my quiet time today by this verse. I guess that I rarely look back on the story of creation, and why it is even important. But looking at this verse I realized something: God is way too generous...

We have all heard the story..."In the beginning God created..."

But after everything that God created He said that "It was good." Everything that God gave Adam and Eve was good. But after God created Man, God said "It was very good." Notice the difference...we are the peek of His creation. We are the best of His creation.

But David in this Psalm, realizes that God gave it all to Us! That is so amazing, a very difficult thing to even grasp. God gave perfection to Adam and Eve. Everything that they had was absolutely perfect; it couldn't get any better, than what they had.

What happened was: they screwed it up, they messed up perfection. And thousands of years later, we are still paying for it.

But I want us to realize that normally God gives us something that is perfect. Live. Love. Happiness. Laughter. Sex. Family. Energy. Breath. It is just that we tend to screw it all up, don't we?

We take something that is priceless, and distort it because in some weird way, we think that we can do it better. We think that our plan is so bigger, and better, and that we can make perfection better.

But the crazy thing is...is that is what God gave us the ability to do. He gave us the world...gave it to us, ans said "Take care of it." I am convinced that is how we shold live our life...live it out loud. Live it proud. But live it by dreaming big, big enough to keep it perfect.

God gave us so much in the past: Live, Love, Himself, Happiness, Eveything. And He gave us these things to enjoy, but He gave us a command to take care of it.

Do just that. Take care of your life. love. happiness. Embrace it, cherish it, take it. But always give the Maker of the Universe the glory. Let Him be Master and Lord of what ever it is that He has given you...only then will it remain the way He created it...perfect.

Dreaming...

adam

To Carry the Cross

What does it mean to "Carry my cross?"

Jesus commanded his disciples that if they truly wanted to be Jesus' disciples, that they had to take up their cross and follow after him. He didn't say that they ought to...or that they should...he said they must.

What does that mean for us? How do we go about doing that? What does my cross look like? Yours? I don't know. I get so wrapped up in my own personal existence that I miss out on what my cross is.

I guess the cross that Jesus spoke of is our life. It means that daily we must commit to dying to ourselves, to give up control of our life, to let the Master lead us, guide us where He may. That is taking up our cross.

It means that we continue to live this life that we have been given to live, despite the circumstances around us. Despite the garbage that seeps in around us, we continue to struggle with it, we continue to praise the Father for it, and we show others that it is worth it.

But the cross that Jesus spoke of meant...death! Exactly the point, when Jesus spoke of the cross, that is what he meant. He meant that his disciples had to die. They had to give up their own lives, for the sake of the gosple. And that is what Jesus commands us to do even now...

We must let loose, give in, and let Him take control of our miserable lives, in hopes of a better one. We must die to this world, and let the Maker of the Universe our own special possession. That is our call...that must be our choice.

Everyone wants to go to Heaven...but we must be willing to die, on earth, everyday.

I truly believe that the goal of Christianity is not to go to Heaven...the goal is have an intimate relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ. Heaven is just a reward! But to truly have that relationship, we must carry our cross...and follow...wherever that may be...after Jesus.

Dreaming...
adam

The Beauty of the Maker

I am blown away by the beauty of the Creator of the universe. God is powerful enough to set everything into motion, to put all things into the proper space. And yet, He is sensitive enough to love me for who I am. To me, this is the most most amazing thing about being a christian.

The church is a living, breathing, relational organism. But sometimes, we lose out on how we get to be cared for, by the Creator of the universe. How amazing is this? It is too much for me to comprehend. He loves me for who I am, in spite of who I am...and He continues to do that in spite of all the riduculous, stupid, and insanely selfish things that I do.

What is the reason for this...simple, really. It is called grace. Grace is the essence of why we exist as a church...as a people. But the question that has been running through my mind for a couple of days, is "Do we shower others with the free gift that we have been given?"

Do we? Do we show others around us, that they matter too? Are we sensitive enough to be able to show everyone that we meet, that the Love of Christ was given for all? Such an amazing love, such an amazing gift, should be shown to the world. And this is the challenge that we have been given as the Body of Christ. We are supposed to show the Light to people around us.

We are to be Salt and Light in this crazy, messed up, perverse, beautiful, exotic, passionate world around us...

We can no longer hide our light...we must light it, shine it, share it...but most importantly we must shower it on others.

Dreaming...
adam wyatt