God Says "Seek My Face"!

“Will you marry me?” The young man on his knee looked up into her bright eyes.

She beamed and squealed, “Yes!”

“Sweetheart, I am so excited to be your husband! But I need you to understand that I enjoy long distance relationships. I would really prefer not to live with you. While I do want to marry you, I don’t really want to have to talk with you all that much. And I am not much interested in sharing my stuff, my space, or my time with you.”

I do not know of a woman who desires this kind of marriage. We can learn how to love God by observing our hopes and expectations for marriage. An obvious part of any significant relationship is spending time together. This is also true of our relationship with God.

God asks us to seek him. This means that we spend the time and energy necessary to know him. When the Lord says, seek my face, he is talking about intimate fellowship. Our faces are one of the most intimate parts of our bodies. There we find the eyes, which are the window to the soul. It is amazing to think that God desires this kind of closeness with us!

We know that an intimate relationship requires time together. We can see this in Jesus’ close relationship with the Father. The Bible says that Jesus “would withdraw to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:16).

“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark,
he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”
Mark 1:35

Jesus taught his disciples to do the same.

“But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door
and pray to your Father who is in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Matthew 6:6

As we see in these passages, when we spend time alone with God we are communicating with him. Communication is one of the most important parts of developing an intimate relationship with someone. We speak to God through prayer and we listen to God through the Scripture and the Holy Spirit.

“Your prayer time should be ‘an absolute commitment.’ . . . This emphasizes that your prayer time is a major priority that you carefully schedule and guard. . . . Whatever it takes to insure and guard your time with God, you must do it.”

— Dr. Gregory Frizzell

Do you believe that your relationship with God is the most important thing in your life? Are you convinced that spending time with him in intimate fellowship is critical for that relationship? If so, let’s resolve to spend time with him every day!

Pre-Marriage Counseling is Like Cramming for an Exam

Last week I sat down with a young couple for some pre-marriage counseling. They both were homeschooled and grew up in solid homes. I told them that in some ways pre-marriage counseling is like cramming for an exam. It is possible to get some new information that way, but not the best way to really learn something. I explained that all that they know about marriage, whether good or bad, they have already learned from their parents. They have been receiving pre-marriage counseling for most of their lives!

During our meeting the young man told me about a homeschoooled friend of his whose marriage only lasted a couple of years! Growing up in a “Christian homeschool” home is no guarantee for a lasting marriage.

Dads and Moms, please don’t forget that you are not only teaching your children about work, math, character, writing, and money managment. Whether you realize it or not, every day you are teaching your children about marriage! Step back and ask yourself what you are teaching them. Do you want your children to have a marriage like yours?

Regular investment and growth in your marriage is a wonderful way to minister to your children. That is why we are putting on a Marriage Conference called Finding Peace and Purpose in your Marriage [Boone, NC on March 16-18, 2017]. Check out this link for more information.

Fruitless Joys I Fear to Lose

“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure.””

— St. Augustine

What joys do you fear to lose?

Have you traded in all other joys for the joy of Christ?

Materialism is Stupid

“Temporal sacrifices will pay off in eternity and temporal indulgences will cost us in eternity. . . . Materialism is not only wrong but stupid. Conversely, trusting God, giving and caring and sharing are not only right but smart. Someday this upside-down world will be turned right side up. Nothing in all eternity will turn it back again. If we are wise, we will spend our brief lives on earth position ourselves for the turn.”

— Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity

Have You Misunderstood the Conditions of Following Jesus?

After Abraham had passed the test with his son Isaac, God said an amazing thing to him.

"Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,
I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring . . ."
Genesis 22:16-17

Did you catch that? God said he would fulfill his covenant promises to Abraham because he had obeyed. So, if Abraham had not obeyed, God would not have fulfilled his promises? Is that how our relationship with God works? What did Jesus say about it?

"Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:33

As we continue to study the life of Abraham and observe his obedience without limits, we will understand more deeply what it means to follow Jesus in the New Covenant. Listen to Part 2 of a teaching series on Obedience Without Limits from Genesis 22.

Obedience Without Limits

God tested Abraham. He asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, whom he loved! God knew what was most important to Abraham, what he would be tempted to withhold from the Lord.

When the rich young man asked what else he needed to do to receive eternal life, Jesus asked him to sell all he had give it to the poor (Matthew 19:16-22). God knew what was most important to this young man, what he would be tempted to withhold from the Lord.

God wants to know what the limits of our obedience are. You can be sure he knows what to ask for, what we would be tempted to withhold from him. We can also be sure that he plans to give us 100x back whatever we give him, plus eternal life!

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”

— Matthew 19:29

Listen to this sermon from Genesis 22 about Obedience Without Limits!

Do You Need A Break?

Of course you do. We all need a break. Our lives are moving at super high speeds and we often feel helpless to stop it.

I've got great news for you! God has a solution to your problem. He has offered this solution to us since the creation of the world. It is called the Sabbath; a day of rest.

The problem for me is that for most of my life I have not really understood or incorporated a day of rest into my weekly routine. Another problem for me (especially as a pastor) is that Sunday's usually are not very restful.

So, I am on a journey to rediscover the biblical understanding and practice of the Sabbath. I am taking my family on this journey with me. We are reading this book together as a platform for learning and discussion:  Celebrating the Sabbath: Finding Rest in a Restless World by Bruce A. Ray.

Celebrating the Sabbath: Finding Rest in a Restless World

Here are a few things we are already trying to incorporate into our day of rest.

Quiet
We have a lot of people living in our house (11) and it really gets loud sometimes! Aside from trying to turn down the volume every day, our day of rest is a great opportunity to practice silence and quiet.

Time with God
Without a regular schedule, we have the opportunity to spend extra time with God. At the end of a Sabbath day, we ought to feel spiritually refreshed, refocused, and connected with the Lord.

A Break from Media and Entertainment
It is restful to play games and enjoy our time together. But we find it helpful to refrain from our normal consumption of media and entertainment. No movies, loud music (just worship and classical), gaming, or browsing the internet.

Physical Rest
This is a great day for sleeping in, long naps and leisurely walks.

I am looking forward to all that we will learn from this adventure. I can already see it bearing fruit in my family. I can already see how it will change much more than one day; it will change our mentality all week long. We need a break and God has given us one!

What Does God Want from Us?

“Will you marry me?” The young man on his knee looked up into her beautiful eyes.

She beamed and squealed, “Yes!”

“Great! Now let’s get one thing straight. I will be a faithful husband to you and love you all year long, as long as I can go out on just one date a year with another woman. Will that be alright?”

How would you guess the young lady responds? Most young ladies I know would never agree to such an arrangement! The meaning and security of marriage is that we get that person all to ourselves! This is what we call the exclusivity of marriage. Everyone else is excluded from that special relationship.

The exclusivity of marriage helps us understand what God wants in our relationship with him. God has created us to love him. That is our purpose. Now let's ask the question, “How do we love God?” The first way I want to answer this question is to explain the scope of loving God. In other words, how much of me and my life does loving God include? We can return to Jesus’ words to discover the answer:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And you shall love the Lord our God
with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Mark 12:30

What is the scope? How much of me and my life does loving God include?

All. “All” is repeated in this verse four times. He wants us all to himself! All leaves nothing out.

When people tried to follow Jesus while he was here on earth, he wanted to make sure they understood what he expected from them. Jesus shoots straight with us. He doesn’t lure us into a deal and then reveal later in the fine print what is really required of us.

“And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
Luke 9:23

“Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,
‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife
and children and brothers and sisters,
yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, desiring to build a tower,
does not first sit down and count the cost,
whether he has enough to complete it? . . .
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has
cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14:25-33

Pretty extreme, isn’t it? As soon as we consider following him, he tells us to count the cost. Again, the deal is total. Is that what you signed up for? Were you under a different impression of what it means to follow Jesus?

Instead of this passionate, radical, fulfilling life in relationship with God, many of us got a stingy, religious version of Christianity. No wonder the world rejects religion! Christianity is a religion, of course, according to the dictionary definition. But religion in its broadest and usually negative sense is hollow. Religion allows you to focus on institutions, doctrines, dues, human leaders, ritual, and self-righteousness. Many religious people think they can give a portion of their lives to God. Many use religion to serve themselves. They use religion to make themselves feel better, trying to ease their consciences. American Christianity is often presented as a self-service program in order to appeal to the people.

What is your understanding of what it means to be a Christian? Maybe it is time for a reassessment.