We Care Because We're Adopted

Tyce has been doing something really cute over the past few weeks.  When he feels like he needs security he comes up to me, reaches up, and says "hold you" in the sweetest voice possible.  I then pick him up and he feels secure and safe.  He had his needs met with security or affection...or maybe even some mischief.  He does this because he knows I'm his dad and when he has a need I'll do whatever I can to meet it.  It's the same with God.

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

What do you think of when you hear the word Father?  For some of you it may mean warm memories, laughter, wisdom, and support.  For some of you the word father may bring up feelings of hurt, abandonment, or abuse.  Some of you may be resistant to connection with God as father.  Even the best example of a father here on Earth can't compare to our Heavenly father.  God is perfect in every way and He is the perfect Father.


In Galations 4 we read that we're adopted.  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ you are a child of God.  Once you were an orphan.  Once you were separated from your Heavenly Father but now you are one of His children!  You now have an eternal family. Because of this, because you have been adopted and redeemed, you pass along your care for the orphan and make sure that Earthly orphans experience the love of God through you.

We were adopted because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.  When he died on the cross He reconciled us with God and by His grace gave us the ability to because adopted into the family of God.  Let's never forget that.  We care for orphans, we care for the fatherless, because were were once Fatherless and orphaned.  Praise God for that this week and be intentional of finding ways to live out James 1:27 which says religion that is pure is to care for the widow and the orphan.  How can you have pure religion this week?

Babies and Alarm Clocks

When our son, Tyce, was an infant my wife and I would take shifts being up with him.  One thing I didn't realize was how often an infant eats.  In my ignorance of a first time parent I knew that a newborn needed to eat about every 2 hours and I thought "Great! I'll sleep two hours at a time, wake up, and feed him again".  That's not how it worked out.  It took about 30 minutes to feed him, then came the burping, then the diaper change, and then finally we got to lay him back down.  20 minutes later he was crying again.

I'm telling you, this kid could wail when he needed something!  When Tyce got older we moved him into his own crib in his own room.  One morning I had to get up early for something but totally missed waking up in time because I slept through my alarm.  I was so used to how loud my son's cry was the noise of my alarm didn't have an effect on me!  

Hebrews 3:7-11:

7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

8     do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion,

    during the time of testing in the wilderness,

9 where your ancestors tested and tried me,

    though for forty years they saw what I did.

10 That is why I was angry with that generation;

    I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,

    and they have not known my ways.’

11 So I declared on oath in my anger,

    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”[b]

There is a lot of noise in our world.  There is a lot of noise trying to compete with God’s voice.  Many of us may be struggling with waking up and doing what God needs us to do because we have let all the noise drown Him out.  Maybe right now in this moment of reflection you’re having a hard time connected with the sacredness of this moment because all of the issues in your life are trying to get your attention

Take time and quiet your mind, heart, and soul.  Make this moment for what it is, connection with the creator of the universe

Radio Football Expectations

This past week we were down in Alabama and had to drive back on Saturday during the Alabama
football game.  Reflecting back I've never had to listen to a game on the radio because I've always watched it on television.  Listening to the game is a totally different experience.  Here's what I heard: "Henry gets the handoff, spins away from a tackle, jukes left past a defender, runs through another tackle, LUNGES FORWARD!"  At that point I was getting excited.  My expectation from all that running was a gain of at least 10.  Then the announcer said, "gain of about a yard".  What!  After all that talking and excitement the running back only went forward for about 3 feet.  That wasn't anywhere close to my expectation.

We can have wrong expectations about God and who He is too.  We can get caught in the trap to think we can buy God off by our goodness.  Maybe we think God is a slot-machine where when we do some good works we get to put a "good token" in the slot machine and pull the lever hoping something good will come out or we think of God as our cosmic mac-daddy who if we behave good enough will fulfill all of our greatest desires.  Maybe some of us even think we're not good enough for God to love us.

All of us are on the same boat.  Isaiah 64:6 basically says that the best we can offer God is with our good works is "filthy rags".  Now I don't want to down play exactly what that means.  In the original language written in the Bible the directly translation is a feminine/menstrual cloth.  Many may read that passage and may think the rags are a little dirty or dusty, maybe they're good for dusting.  But no, these rags are good for nothing, they're unclean, they are tainted, even disgusting.  These rags are good for nothing except to be thrown in the trash...they are worthless.

Now you may be offended by what I've written, however, I want you to really think about why you're offended maybe even let that feeling of being offended sink in.  Now I want you to really think about this.  How offended is God, who laid His life down and paid the price with His death, when we offer our good works, our filthy rags, as payment instead of accepting what has already been offered.

We follow God's commands and do good things because we love Him.  Because when Jesus paid the price for us we gave up our rights to ourselves.  We become slaves to Jesus Christ who is the best master anyone could ever serve!  Christ did that through his death.  He took all of our filthiness and made us clean to reconcile us to God with no strings attached.  Let's reflect and celebrate this this month.

Southern Phrases That Don't Make Sense

Growing up in Alabama we have a lot of interesting phrases.  One of those phrases is one people use
when they've been looking for something for a while and then finally find it.  When they find it they usually happily declare "It was in the last place I looked!"  Of course it was!  Why would you keep looking for it after you've already found it!?!  It's always in the last place you looked.

Matthew 7:7-8 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knows it will be opened.

Many times we seek answers to issues in our lives.  We need guidance for our sins, our struggles, and all the things we need to overcome.  Many times we know that God's way for the situation will bring the best result, just like the rest of the passage reads, but in our pride we keep trying to find our own way out of a situation.  God's will has good things for us if we'll only acknowledge it and stop there instead of continuing to look for another way.

We also know that many people are trying to find the meaning of life.  People are looking who have never been to church or maybe only tried Jesus but have never truly experienced Him.  The meaning of life is Jesus.  Once you've found Him you can stop looking.  Jesus himself said "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me" John 14:6.

Jesus made a way because of what He did on the cross when He willingly laid down His life and took the sin of the entire world on His shoulders.   During this week remember what Jesus did for my sin and your sin.  He paid the price and penalty we were due.  When we find Jesus we know we can can stop looking and there's no other place we need to look.

Jesus, Pop-Tarts, and foolishness

During the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college I interned at a church down in Louisiana.  I stayed there with the music minister and his family.  They had 5 kids total.  As you can imagine a family that size was always running out the door in the mornings.  Many mornings the kids would be grabbing their breakfast while running out the door.

Here's a little tidbit of info about me, my favorite pop tarts are the strawberry with no frosting.   Onemorning I had bought some and I popped them into the toaster.  Their oldest looked at me with a look of disgust and bewilderment while exclaiming, "What are you doing?!?"  "Getting my pop tart out of the toaster", I said.  To which he replied "That's the dumbest thing I've ever see in my entire life!"

When I really started to think about it he had never had a pop-tart from the toaster.  He was always getting his while running out the door.   Why would he take time to heat it up when pop-tarts when their purpose is to be eaten while running out the door.

1st Corinthians 1:18 The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction!  But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.

To those who don't follow Jesus Christ our faith seems foolish.  We're to forgive others when we have every right to get revenge or hold a drudge.  When people are in need we rally to help them even if it's at the expense of our own comfort.  We count others as more significant than ourselves while we're in a culture where the messaged is it's all about me.

After I explained to him why I loved my pop-tarts from the toaster he decided to give it a try the next morning.  Interestingly enough my dumbest idea ever won him over and he put his pop-tarts in the toaster from then on.  Just like how that pop-tart wasn't complete without a toaster the world needs to discover that their lives are not complete without Jesus.  As believers we know that for a fact because we have experienced it.

Now, Jesus is eternally more significant than pop-tarts.  His message far more life changing than putting a pastry in a toaster.  Let's remember that today.  Let's remember the death that makes life complete.  Let's remember the One who willingly laid his life down on the cross for our sins to reconcile us to God.  Take some time to pause and reflect on the life changing gospel of Jesus Christ

About Football Rivalry and Jesus

Football season is officially underway.  I see a lot of you celebrating the fact that football season is
here all over your social media walls.

As many of you know I'm from Alabama and in Alabama there's football season and then the boring stuff in-between football season.

In Alabama is, what I think to be, the greatest rivalry in college football.  The rivalry is between Alabama and Auburn.  Being in Alabama you get to pick one or the other, I think they put it on your voter registration card.  The teams and fan base love to hate each other.

I grew up and still am an Alabama fan.  I inherited that from my Dad.  When I was little my dad was the kind of guy who prepared to watch football.  He was dressed in Alabama gear, had his snacks ready, and passionately coached the team from the comfort of his living room.  If the Alabama and Auburn game were on he would be especially passionate about it.  I come by it honestly

There is also a great rivalry between life and death in our world.  Sin offers condemnation and death while Jesus Christ offers forgiveness and life.   Just like we inherit the love of certain teams from our parents we also inherit our sin-nature from our parents.  The people who come before us are fallen and therefore we are fallen.  We are sinful.

The world is passionate about sin, surrounding us with it and calling it good.  Sin leads to death.  But God is passionate too, He longs to be the One who surrounds us and He alone leads to life.

John 3:16-17  16 “For God so loved the world,[i] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God is so passionate about you He made a way through Jesus because God wants you by His side.  He did that through the payment of death for sin when Jesus Christ willingly gave his life for payment of our sins.  Jesus defeated death, sin, and the grave!  The rivalry is over for those who follow Christ.

Remember His body that was broken for you, His blood that was spilled for you, and His death that paid the cost for our sin

About That New Music

I want to start out with two letters written to the church regarding music.

"I am no music scholar, but I feel I know appropriate church music when I hear it.  Last Sunday's new music - if you can call it that - sounded like a sentimental love ballad one would expect to hear crooned in a public house.  If you insist on exposing us to rubbish like this - in God's house! - don't be surprised if many of the faithful look for a new place to worship.  The music we grew up with is all we need"

Here's another one:

"What is wrong with the inspiring music with which we grew up?  When I go to church, it is to worship God, not to be distracted with learning one of these new hymns.  Last Sunday's was particularly unnerving.  The tune was un-singable and the new harmonies were quite distorting.  Myself and the faithful few who remain will look for a different congregation if this debauchery of music continues in God's house"

Thee letters sound like something people could write today but they are in fact not from people in our current culture.  The first letter was written because they disagreed with the introduction of hymns in their church in 1764.  The second letter was written in 1890 as a response to the introduction of What a Friend We Have In Jesus.

While in college I took a course on the History of Christian Worship.  As I worked my way through the class I was floored at the division caused in churches every few generations over preferences in how to worship God.  This isn't just a modern phenomenon with our modern "worship wars".  In fact, if you were to take a journey all the way back to the first and second century you would witness major disagreement and division between Jewish and Greek Christians regarding worship.

Phillipians 2:1-11 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[b] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Every few generations a major shift happens in the church culture.  There is major change.  Churches who do not understand or refuse to understand the shift and change to be relevant to culture ultimately decline and die.  No one understood this more than the apostle Paul who wrote the passage we just read from.  In all his travels we see the method he approached different cultures with changed dramatically as he travelled around the roman empire.  Our church needs to learn from his example.  Our church needs to consider others before ourselves and do what it takes!

But there is one thing he never changed.  The message and truth of the gospel.  We can never change that either.  We need to understand and value the past while also moving forward and investing in the future.

We do need to realize there are thousands of people at home on Sunday mornings who don't have the saving knowledge of Jesus christ.  Thousands of people within just a few miles of our church who's eternal destination isn't with God.  We need to be relevant to them.  We need to not sit back and focus on the glory days or what we used to be.  What we used to be no long works within our culture.  We need new ways to reach the lost without compromising the message of hope offered by Jesus Christ.

We need to remember that Jesus Christ brought radical change to our world.  Change that many didn't agree with, change that brought out hostility, hate, and the worst in people.  God reconciled the world to Himself by the sacrifice of Jesus.  Jesus willingly laid down his life to change our connection with God forever.  Only through Jesus' death are we able to boldly and humbly come personally before the Father and offer up our worship, no matter the style.  Let's remember that this week.