Isaiah 53 Nothing…for me…

He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
(He had nothing)

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
(He was thought of as nothing)

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
(He did nothing to retaliate)

He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
(even though He did no wrong)

Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
(All for me who can give nothing back…I really don’t understand…)

…1 Tim 1:15-16…
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.

Isa 53:10 The Lord’s will to prosper in YOUR hand.

Isa 53:10
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand.

Is that our goal? Wait, shouldn’t that be the goal of Christianity? For the Lord’s will to be done in our hands, to prosper, to succeed, in our hands? Is that what you want? I hope you say yes to that question…

But now you gotta look at the context of Isa 53. In order for Jesus to prosper the Lord’s will through His hands, He had to a) be despised by men, rejected, familiar with suffering (to be familiar with it, you have to go through it a lot), be thought of having no value, and obedient to what Isaiah says, “to crush Him.”

The question lies on us. Are we willing to be crushed, suffer, be despised, rejected, familiar with suffering, have no value….for the sake of prospering the Lord’s will through your hands?

“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but to suffer for Him.”
-Paul (Phil 1:29)

2 Corinthians 5:13 Insanity?

I was looking through my old notes in 2 Cor 5 when i noticed I wrote something in pencil. It was really hard to read, but it was long. I decided to rewrite it in pen and what I saw a gem of conviction. It’s crazy how I ended up writing this and never had too much thought about it. The notes are so good that I’ll just write it straight from it (with a little additions and clarifications).

2 Cor 5:13
If we are out of out mind (insane), it is for the sake of God; if we are in the right mind, it is for you.

People call Paul mad or insane. Acts 26:24, he was called insane for Christ, doing His will, even in the midst of crap (2 Cor 4:7-12) and always referencing his mind on Christ and God (Acts 26:22). In reality, if you live a life that’s not insane, are you really with Christ? Think about it, you’re in a relationship with a guy whose sole purpose was to serve, never thinking of Himself (Phil 2:6-8). If you had an inkling of Christ, wouldn’t your life seem “insane” to those outside of Him? Would a “sane” person give up all he has to follow Christ (Matt 16:24)? Would a “sane” person give up making his life work for the sake Christ and others (Matt 16:25)? That’s insane…but that’s who Christ is and that’s what He wants. This is why (1 Cor 1:18-21) it’s foolish to the world…  Are you, in the eyes of the “sane,” insane in what you do for the sake of Christ? If not…there might be something wrong with your faith…….

Ouch..

Job: Is heaven enough?

I’ve been really inspired by “You Hold Me Now” by Hillsong from their new cd Faith+Hope+Love album (free advertisement, maybe I can get something from them..haha…just joke)

In the song, it talks about heaven (rev 21) and I got to thinking, is heaven enough for me?

Look at the story of Job for a moment. This is a man blessed by God for his righteousness. He was wealthy and everything and Satan comes in and says, “Dude, the only reason why he loves you so much is because of the gifts you give him. Get rid of them and I’ll show you that he’ll curse you.” Job, in one day, loses his livestock, his servants, his wealth and his children. The next day, he loses his health and his wife tells him to “curse God and die!” However, Job perseveres without the gifts that were given to him.

Is this how we’re willing to live? I was thinking to myself, “everything given to me besides salvation is a gift that God doesn’t need to give me (well, this goes along side with the salvation, but you know what I mean, hopefully…). The family, the car, the friends, the church, the electronics I have, the life I have…..everything is a gift from God. With this in mind, what if God took it all away? Would I still be as responsive to who He is with my life?

How about this, is heaven enough for you? The salvation you gain here is for the life we will live with Christ after we depart. Is that enough for us? I was referenced to Matt 6:33 where God will give us what the pagans run after if we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. What do you hear non-christians saying when they talk about after death? “Oh, I’ll be in heaven.” “Oh I know he’s in heaven.” etc…. You see, even they think of heaven and want it. What if God tells you that everything you do will be rewarded to you in heaven, not on earth…would you still follow?

Look at the example of Christ. Phil 2:6-8. He humbled Himself, making Himself nothing, becoming a servant….for what? To be killed….on a cross…His reward? Heaven…

Overall, are you willing to work for the Lord with everything you had EVEN if God gives you nothing on Earth?

no internet…

i have updates but not an internet source (other than this, but not enough time for that)…will do when i get them.

Mark 9:24 Help my unbelief!

Mark 9:24 Immediately the boy’s father cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”

The story is about a father who has a really bad demon possessed boy. Like the kid is pretty messed up. When Jesus comes, the father says this (v22) “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But IF YOU CAN do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

Everything points to this guy not truly believing that Jesus can do anything, even with all the stories of other healings.

Is it just me, or is this us? I mean, we don’t have any possessed children (well, I hope not…), but aren’t we like the father? Always second guessing what God can do? I mean, we know that He can do everything and we know that He’s done many things for others, but what about us? They great thing about this story is this and it spoke to me a lot. The father didn’t hold back his son. In fact, he asked Jesus to help him with his unbelief by giving Him what was seemingly unbelievable. Did that make sense? Here let me try that again. He gave Jesus the one thing that the father thought was impossible. He took that leap of faith in giving God what was “unbelievable” and let God use that to work on his unbelief.

What is your “child” in this case? For me, it’s the thought of money. I’ve been placed in a situation where money seems to be my “child.” My parents don’t have much and I’ve been pretty much living off of them, but now it’s to the point where a) I don’t want to depend on them and b) I don’t think I can depend on them anymore with all this “new stuff.”

I heard this once and it really stuck to me. How can we see God’s faithfulness if we don’t allow Him to show it? How can our faith be proven right if we don’t put our faith out there? How can I allow God to help me with my money situation if I don’t put myself out there in faith? How can God show you He’s faithful if you don’t allow Him to?

What’s great is this… Faith, even if you don’t a lot of it, God will still respond if you step out. The father, who was still weak in his faith, gave his son to Jesus and He proved Himself faithful by healing His son.

Remember this (and I’m speaking to myself mostly) Matt 6:33 Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and He will give you what you need (or what the pagans run after).

Mark 9:23b “Everything is possible for him who believes.”

James 4:8 Draw near

James 4:8 Come near (draw near) to God and He will come near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

James tells the tribes to come near to God and to cleanse their hands and to purify their hearts. If you read this chapter, you see how messed up these guys were. They were spiritual adulterers, “loving” God and the world, super selfish, and not submitting themselves to God.

As I was reading this, I realized how similar I was to these people. Selfish, thinking of the world rather than just God, and not submitting to everything He wanted. In this verse, it seems like James is telling us how to draw near to God.

Cleanse your hands: Hands is a symbol of service, the communicator or performer of deeds. Has your “service” been tainted? Do you start doing things more for yourself rather than God? Why do you do the things you do? It’s all about motives. The twelve tribes seem to have been doing their services partly for themselves for they were always quarreling over their own pleasures. Cleanse your services by knowing exactly why you’re doing the things you do.

Purify your hearts: Their hearts were on more than just God. In v4, James talks about the friendship they have with the world. Who are you loving? God? The world? Both? I hope you don’t say both… God would rather have you love Him or the world, rather than both (Rev 3:16).

Double-minded: In context to the chapter, double minded seems to be thinking about both the world and God rather than just God. In a different point, we can go back to James 1:8 where the double-minded talks about the lack of faith. How are you in your faith with God. Do you believe? I’m not gonna go into specifics because I know everyone has their struggles with something when it comes to faith. Will He provide? Will He make sure my life is secure? Will He help me with yada-yada?

Draw near to Him, and He WILL draw near to you….but seek Him with all your heart (Jer 29:13)

Philippians 2:5-8 WWJD

Phil 2:5-8

⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
⁶Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

These verses had been stuck on me for quite some time and now are one of those verses I constantly say in my head.

I also thought randomly, one day, about those WWJD bracelets everyone, at one time, seemed to have. At time, I even thought that people wore them as a fad rather than a reminder of what Jesus would do in certain situations (and I’m starting to think that with the whole He>i thing too).  So….what would Jesus do?

I think these 4 verses state them beautifully. They are simple and to the point. Jesus came, obviously, not to be served, but to serve (Matt 20:28), and here’s how.

He never took a hold of who He was when things got nuts. Think about it, He is God. He could’ve done whatever He wanted, but did He? No, He did what everyone else wanted Him to do in terms of service. For example. when people wanted to be healed, He healed them. One thing that always gets me, and I know I’ve said this many times before, is the Luke 9:10-17. He withdrew, meaning He wanted to be alone with His disciples, but the crowds came. Did He run faster? Did He summon walls of dust to shoo them away? No, He welcomed them, healed them, fed them, etc. Is that what we do? When we want to be by ourselves, yet people come to us, do we welcome them or not? Lastly, think about the crucifixion. Dude, if I was God (and thank Him that I’m not), I would’ve turned everyone to frogs when they hit me or something. Watching Passion of the Christ wrecked me. How can He have sooooo much self control not to knock any of these guys down?

Verse 7 wrecked me. He made Himself NOTHING. I don’t know how else to explain this except that He never thought of Himself as too good to serve. He was nothing in His mind and everyone else was everything. He took the very nature of a servant. HE TOOK. Not, “It was forced on Him.” No, He took the identity. He served. That’s who He was and that’s how He lived.

(Here’s a secret to serving. Make yourself nothing and it’ll be much easier.)

He became obedient even to death. Is that us? Do we serve even when it hurts? Jesus did. He did it to the point where it killed Him. Do you?

If you have one of those WWJD stickers or bracelets, and you decide to put it back on, always remember this. What would Jesus do? Not refer to His rights, made Himself nothing and became a servant who was obedient even to His death. Now verse 5 gives us our application. Is this our attitude in life?

James 2:18 & 22 Faith

¹⁸But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
²²You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

This is going to be more of thought rather than a command or insight. I’ve been really hit with the thought of faith. The first thing I saw was the fact that faith always has actions. I’ve heard many people in my lifetime (which isn’t long) say they have faith, but their life and their decisions don’t show it. What I mean by that is their life decisions are purposely not on God’s word because a) they don’t know it or b) they’re too scared. Saying you have faith and not acting on it is not really faith, but knowledge. You have knowledge of God. Knowledge doesn’t get you into heaven (It doesn’t say “Well done my good and knowing son”) nor does it show you the blessedness of God (If you lose your life for His sake, you will gain life).

As v22 shows, action is the “completer” or the “perfector” of faith. So the question to us is….. do we have faith? Do we believe in the word of God and what God has promised us? All of these questions stem from 2 verses, Matt 6:33 (But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things (that the pagans run after) will be given to you as well.) and Matt 16:25 (For whoeverwants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.) These two verses are verses of faith not necessary for salvation but to show the true blessedness of God. Life in the latter verse symbolize satisfaction. You gotta have the biggest faith in the world to let your own life take a backseat while placing God in the front. Seek first, lose life for His sake, Be still (ps 46:10), etc, but all these promises have something crazy at the end. He will give you everything you want (Ps 37:4, Rom 8:32). The question is, do we have enough faith to actually go through with it because it says in 2 Cor 1:20 that all of His promises are a yes.

I know that some would think, “God doesn’t give me the things I want!”  Well, the question is, did you “seek first” or “lose your life for His sake?” Meaning, did you stop trying to make your life work for God? Seemingly, the way Jesus “didn’t make His life work” was by serving the people around Him. Is that what you do? Did you stop trying to make your life work for the sake of making other people’s life work? If you haven’t done that, then of course God didn’t give it to you yet.  If you owned a store and you hired a person, would you pay them before they did their hours? I bet not, so if we use this logic, why would God give you those things? You did not fulfill your duties so why does God have to fulfill His? But the crazy thing is God still gives you some of things you want…. It shows His true grace and true love for you.

I’m beginning to see the blessedness of God through my serving. Even though I suck at it and I fail consistently, God seems to hold true to His promise. I’m beginning to receive things that I want AND need. I’ll tell you now, those verses, they are true. God is faithful to His word. Follow it. Faith, it’s the only thing that pleases God and the only thing that can “astonish” Him.

So once again, the big question is:

Are you willing to stop your life for the sake of Christ whose ultimate ambition was to serve others?
Just remember His promises…

2 Corinthians 2:17 Where art thou motives?

2 Cor 2:17
Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity like men sent from God.

It seems that the “Christians” in Paul’s time was preaching for gain rather than to do God’s will. In my head, I hear a conversation like this. “Eh, what can you tell me about this verse?” The “Christian” would say, “What’s in it for me?” You look at that phrase and say, “dude, that’s so messed up. Are you serious? Why would you do that?” Now hold that thought and lets continue with the interpretation.

We have to look at ourselves and say, “Do we do that?” I bet you that you do. Maybe not in the way that I stated through that little impromptu conversation, but think about it. God tells us to preach the word, but seemingly, actions speak much louder words. 1 John 3:18 tells us to show love through actions (the goal of the word is to love Matt 22:37-38) and 1 Peter 2:12 tells us to live such beautiful lives amongst the nonchristians.  I heard this once and my pastor quotes it a lot. “Preach the word and speak it sometimes.”

So the way we act, the way we serve, is it all for the God? Have you ever served for “profit?” Not just monetary gain, but gain in anything? Did you ever serve in order to get praise (thank yous, that’s awesome!, you’re awesome!), material things (money, gifts, food, etc), and anything else other than God? Well, “Dude, that’s so messed up. Are you serious? Why would you do that?”

So when you serve or preach the word, where are your motives?  Are they upwards or elsewhere? Gal 1:10 tells us that if we do it for man (including yourself…..Phil 2:3) we’re not Christians (or servant of Christ, meaning He’s not our master). The question you gotta ask yourself now is, “Can I present my motives in front of God and not be embarrassed?” Paul did just that. (“..we speak before God with sincerity”). The word sincerity literally means tested by sunlight, which basically means pure. His motives were pure BEFORE GOD. Can you do that? Probably not, so how can we? The two words before that phrase, “In Christ.”

How have your motives been lately? Can you share them before God? Are they pure?