Lenten Reflections

"Never have human beings done anything so dark as to condemn,torture, and then crucify the Son of God, and yet Jesus prayed for them A they were in the midst of their sin,asking that they may receive mercy"

Lenten Thoughts: Ash Wednesday

"The Gospels focus is not on sin; sin is simply the diagnosis. The Gospels focus in on the cure, which is God's grace and gift of salvation. It is heart surgery conducted by a divine physician who laid download his life for us." Adam Hamilton "Final Words from the cross

Valentine's Day Update

It's Valentines Day which for me means laundry. Now when I say laundry I don't mean I sit there and watch my clothes wash. I mean I play music and dance around the house while listening to said music regardless of how good or bad I dance. Here's what I'm listening to right now. It's a great song to dance along to from my boys Tedashii and Lecrae. It's off Tedashii's album "Blacklight" if you haven't bought it pick it up here or here.

Why I chose the United Methodist Church or why It chose me

Well I've taken a break but now I'm back. My friend Brittny asked me if I could offer her any information about the Methodist Church. Being the Methodist Nerd that I am, I gladly mailed her about 5 books. This brought me to revisit a question I've often been asked. Why the United Methodist Church? Now this question probably wouldn't occur nearly as often, had I not had the distinction of coming to the UMC from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or The Mormons. Before I get to the UMC let me discuss why my mother and I left the Mormon Chuch. My family has never been overly religious. We may have went to church on Sunday we may have missed it. It wasn't a big deal to my family. When we got more diligent about going, my mother quickly realized the Mormon Church was no longer for us. The final straw for us was spending a worship service sitting at the back of the Church with no actual worship going on. The "worship" for the day was an entire family Father, Mother, and three children got up and in front of the church confessed every little thing they had done wrong that week all the way down to the youngest child. I remember the little one confessing things as simple as not sharing with someone at school. While I believe that admission of sin is an important part of reconciliation with God, something moved inside of us. We left the church never to return. After spending about two months visiting various denominations, we arrived at Gateway United Methodist Church. We were given a loaf of fresh baked banana nut bread by the United Methodist Women's group to welcome us as a visitor to the church. Then after the service came the defining moment of what would become my faith journey so far. Unlike the other denominations ministers, pastors,etc the pastor of this church answered our questions that day. You see the other churches we had visited the pastors all wanted us to make time to come in and talk to them. The pastor of Gateway UMC after greeting everyone changed out of his robes and sat for an hour and a half answering our questions. About 6 months later I was baptized and mine and my mothers request as member of Gateway United Methodist Church and the larger United Methodist Church body. When I ask people why I chose the United Methodist Church, I often assert that God chose it for me and brought us there, but the main difference is the welcoming to visitors regardless of circumstances or past. This continues to be a bright point for me as I serve in various capacities within the church. I see a church that fully embraces the belief that Christ loves you enough to meet you exactly where you are, but loves you too much to just leave you there. The people of the United Methodist Church are actively working and serving in this capacity to meet people wherever they are on their journey of faith and work to create Disciples for the transformation of the world. That is why I am United Methodist.

Confessions

So Ally Spotts has a wonderful blog series going on over at her blog. It's about confession. In it her and several of her friends offer up their 20 something confessions and encourage others to do the same. It's really uplifting to see people confess their deepest darkest stains in such a public way. So I decided to jump in the fun. Hopefully it's as freeing for me as it has been for others. This is gonna be a long post so if you don't like reading you might want to stop clicking now.


I hate having to seem like I have it all together
I often feel like so many people depend on me I can't show the slightest sign of a chink in the armor otherwise it will all come crashing down around me. I like that people depend on me and can't stand the idea of not living up to expectations.

Like most men of my generation I've struggled with pornography
It's not pretty and not something to tell the world, but it's past time of being ashamed about it. If I've learned anything on my faith journey it's that God's grace is big enough to overcome anything. It's still a daily struggle with so much sex throw at guys every single day on tv, in music, and in print.

I often catch myself rooting for people to fail
It's painful to type, but I often get so angry with my perceived weakness or ways I feel God has slighted me. I catch myself rooting against people who I think have it all to fall and stumble so I can feel like I'm not such a failure.  Sometimes someone's life I perceive to be affecting my happiness so I fight the part of me that refuses to be happy for them.

I absolutely suck at relationships.
Simple true and honest fact. I suck at them. I didn't have a father to teach me about relationships. My grandfather taught me everything about the opposite sex I know but cancer claimed him before I got to the point that I really needed his advice. I've sabotaged every relationship I've ever been in because my lack of paternal influence kept me from knowing how to make a relationship work. I mean my father was a drug addict and alcoholic so it's not like he would have been much help but still.

I have low self worth
One of the reasons for bad relationships and the struggles with pornography is low self worth. I always judge myself on the 10 scale and have never learned to be completely happy with my image. Often when I find a girl that I really like I don't have enough confidence to ask her out because I don't think I'm worthy and secretly fear she will reject me. I often find out girls I really like were really crushing on me but I didn't pull the trigger and ask them out so I'm left struggling with missed opportunity.

My single greatest fear is not failure but that I'll end up like my father
I have lots of fears. Failure, Death, missed opportunity just to name a few, but my greatest fear is ending up like my father. I fear that I will fall flat on my face and end up being the very man I've worked all my life not to be. I still continue to pay for his absence in my life and what exactly that means for my life and my relationships with those around me. 

I've learned that God is big enough to deal with all my doubts, fears, hopes, and dreams
Regardless of all the good and bad I've typed here I've learned God is bigger than any and all of it. It's only through his grace and mercy I'm able to deal with all of these issues. It's only through him that I rise to see the morning waking up with hope instead of fear and timidity.

Sermon: John 13,15 and Mark 10

A few people have missed the two times I've preached before so as I prepare to preach for the third time, I've decided to give my friends a sneak peek at my sermon. It's not final yet but it's below.

No greater love is this than a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13). What is love? What if we redefined love from an emotion to an action? Actually we don't have to. Jesus already did that for us. I really love the Greek language. One of the reasons I love it, is because understanding greek better really brings the New Testament to life. The sermon tonight started with John 15:13. In this very verse Jesus takes love from simply an emotion to an action. Obviously Jesus is foreshadowing his sacrificing his life for ours on the cross but there's more to in than that. John is a poet so everything he writes is always deeper than it seems at surface level. The word John uses here tithahmi means to lay down but also means to put aside or place behind. Jesus is not only talking about his own physical sacrifice but offering a message to his disciples. He's telling them that laying down your life is not only physical but also means putting others before yourself or putting yourself behind. For us Jesus was a living breathing example of both. He would give His life for those who didn't deserve it, but also would lower himself to the lowest of low to serve others. In the 10^th chapter of Mark James and John are asking Jesus to make them His top guys. Jesus tells them before they can lead they must serve. Jesus follows that message by delivering a bomb to James and John telling them “even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Jesus is tying sacrifice, love, and service and making them one with each other. I talked about Greek earlier to say this. Greek has several words for love. We think we know what love is but the Greeks can't simply define it at love. The word Jesus uses in John 15:13 is agape. Agape is the Greek word for sacrificial unconditional love. John and Jesus then begin to weave this beautiful tapestry of how laying down our life physically might now be our call but we are called to lay down our lives and desires to help and serve those of others. Jesus was the ultimate example of this. In Biblical times the feet washer was the lowest of low. He was what we would call the low man on the totem pole, but Jesus lowered himself to this level and washed the feet of his disciples. The greatest man to ever grace the face of the earth has lowered himself to do the job least desirable in serving his disciples. As Christians we commit ourselves to following Christ by being baptized. We remember the ultimate sacrifice Christ gave for us by partaking in communion. No greater way can we remind ourselves that we are called to be sacrificial and serve others. Christ was and is our example to follow and we must remind ourselves to remain humble and not be to proud to serve those we feel below us because Jesus was greater than we can ever be and felt no shame but pride in lowering himself to serve those who were below him.

What Steve Jobs teaches us about God

Unless you've been living under a rock you're probably no doubt aware that Apple visionary Steve Jobs has passed away. Jobs wasn't even 60 yet at the time of his death. What can Jobs teach people of faith though? Steve Jobs teaches us to always strive for our dreams and live into the gifts God has given us regardless of how people view those gifts. For every Steve Jobs there's twenty more who were discouraged from using their God given talents for the world. Steve Jobs taught us about compassion. Jobs was often ranked as one of the best CEO's to work for by various different polls. This was due to Jobs remaining one of the lowest paid Fortune 500 CEO's while offering his employees better benefits. Finally, Steve Jobs taught us that at the end of the day our life is in God's hands. For all the gifts God blessed Steve Jobs with, none of them determined when Jobs would die. Only one knew that. Jobs' work here on earth is done and one can only hope he is experiencing the glory of heaven at this moment, so thank you Steve Jobs for living a life worthy of being remembered. Thank you for being a dreamer and using your God given talents to better the world when all the naysayers said you couldn't. Thank you for showing everyone that with a dream, a little faith, care for the people that work for your company, and determination you can change the world and not let it destroy you.