Tonight my wife made an amazing salmon dinner. Seriously, it was really good. However, the greatness of this meal was over shadowed by our son and his craziness (that we love). Long story short, at first he thought he didn’t like the salmon so he decided to spit it out in his mommy’s water glass.
Me being the quick thinking guy I shouted out that I’d give $50 to spend where ever she wanted if my wife drank the regurgitated salmon water.
I’m now short $50. And an appetite.
One of the things I enjoy most about being a pastor is seeing how God wants to use the relationships we form for His Kingdom and His Glory.
Last night I hosted some men at my house for a “Beer Summit” for the purpose of reconciliation and working together for the Kingdom. Over the course of the 18 months the Lord has had me here I became friends with each of these men separately and was able to pull them together under a common cause. It was a great example of leveraging relationships for the Kingdom…I love my job.
Pastor’s have a unique opportunity to leverage relationships for the Kingdom in our communities and I can’t wait to see what God may do with it. No matter what, it’ll be good.
What a wonderful day! Also…a long one but, worth every second. Today we celebrated Ike’s 3rd birthday at the Granger Dino Park surrounded by friends and family. The sun was shining and it felt like the beautiful spring day it was.
I can’t believe my little man is three. He has been such a blessing to all those who know him, Mary and I included. I’m so thankful for the blessings God has put in my life!
This little man turns 3 in 2 days! Crazy! He’s been such a blessing and such a joy…being a daddy is the best thing I’ve ever done.
I think it’s fair to make the claim that what Jesus is saying here is not just limited to money. While I don’t want to take away from the idea of money as a master, especially in our society these days, this applies to many things. As Christians, we need to constantly be aware of the things that can take the place of Jesus as King.
I’ve had many moments in my life where I realized that there was something I had elevated too high, higher than Jesus. That’s idol worship folks, plain and simple. So what are some things that you find sneaking there way into your worship?
Some I’ve experienced or seen: Money: Probably the most common idol these days…
Politics: Probably the second most common. You know you’re putting your politics above your savior when you think your savior would align himself with your politics. If you really think Jesus would be a card carrying Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian you are mistaken. Let’s do ourselves a favor and not put Jesus in a box.
America and the constitution: I live in a small and fairly conservative town and this one won’t be popular on this list…good thing nobody reads this thing anyway. America is not a chosen nation. Jesus does not love America more than Canada. And I suspect your rights are really not that important to Jesus if you are using them for anything other than loving God, loving your neighbor or making disciples.
The things that can become idols are endless but we must always strive to make sure Jesus is number one.
Thoughts?
Well today marks day one of our new get healthy routine. No, I’m not posting numbers and such. Let’s just say when this is all over I’m probably not going to consume anything with the word “cleanse”in in it again…
That said…Mary and I are feeling pretty good and thinking we can do this. We shall see..
I really want to respect John Piper. He’s an accomplished pastor, theologian, and writer. I have many friends that hang on every word he says, often accepting what he says as “gospel truth” at face value.
Yet Piper, like he has done many times before with natural disasters, has made the claim that the tornadoes that killed 38 people in the midwest were the “fingers of God”. While Piper does not state that the sin in the 12 states affected were why God supposedly sent the tornadoes, he wants to make sure that everyone knows that it was God and goes on to say “Every deadly wind in any town is a divine warning to every town.” In other words God intentionally uses natural disasters to coerce people to believing in His son Jesus Christ. Don’t worry though, God won’t spare those who believe either as Piper says God people “are not excluded” from the “fingers of God”. So I guess the idea here is that whether you follow Christ or not God may send a tornado to your town so that others may believe and…then have tornadoes sent on their towns?
This kind of thinking is what Scot McKnight wrote about in King Jesus Gospel, a good read by the way. Under the Soterian gospel train of thought God doesn’t care much about what goes on here on earth, other than folks following Him because the entire point of life here is to get life some where else. Throw out the whole your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven thing that Jesus said and just follow the rules after you pray the magic prayer and then wait to die because that’s the whole enchilada folks.
Argh! I know Jesus cares about HIS creation and how HIS people live this life. It’s important and it’s necessary.
“9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister[c] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside…” -1 Corinthians 5:9-13a
