Hard Work

1 Corinthians 15:58 - "With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don't hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort."

  Work is hard. Everyone can agree that sometimes it isn't all that fun having to work, unless you're a skydiving instructor, then I envy you. But, we all have those days where we just don't enjoy working because we see it as a waste of time and energy.



  When we do things for God it's no different. Sometimes its tiresome, annoying, hard work, and just a big pain on backside. We see working for God the same as working for a nagging boss that just can't understand that you need your five o'clock break. At the same time there is a difference in all this, working for God has a purpose that doesn't come in a paycheck.

 1 Corinthians 15:57 - "But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our lord Jesus Christ."
  
  With God we have the victory. Everything we do in Christ is not in vain, it has a purpose and plan. Therefore, we can stand firm, and hold our ground in all the work we do in Christ. Knowing that everything we do in Christ is not a waste a time or effort. So we can throw ourselves into what God wants us to do because it has a plan and a purpose. Whether it's walking in purity until marriage, doing construction in your church, and preparing a message for people who never pay attention, everything has an ultimate purpose.

If you're tired and can't take it, remember that you have the victory in Christ. Nothing you do will be without reward. Sometimes it takes compromising what we want, but in the end it's always worth it.

Dead To Sin

Whenever you bring up the topic of sin there is so much to be said: religious clichés, punishment, and some even say that sin isn’t even existent. Another area that is spoken continuously across churches is the fact that we are dead to sin. What does this even mean? Well, in simple terms, when we are saved- accept Jesus in our hearts- we are no longer to acknowledge a life of sin, much less participate in sin. 

Romans 6:6-7- knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him (Jesus), that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.  For he who has died has been freed from sin.

But the true question remains. Why do we still sin if we are dead to sin? Although we are not under the rule of sin, sin still reigns on earth and the influence is constantly on display. To fight this influence does not mean to hide in your house or cover yourself with bubble wrap when you do decide to leave, that’s just weird. But the true way to fight sin is relying on Jesus who took sin and publicly crucified sin along with His flesh. This is to say, that Jesus is more then capable of helping you fight the good fight, He did it once and is able to overcome it a thousand times over. Whatever addiction or sin you just can’t seem to escape, the guilt or shame that you may think is inevitable is all in all void of power when we choose to rely on Jesus.

You may be thinking: Why should I stop the amazing fun I’m having with the life of sin? Two reasons. One, sin leads to death (See Romans 6:16); this kind of death is not an honorable death. It’s a kind of death full of excruciating pain and hurt, which Jesus did not die on a cross for. Two, as we reject sin we begin the life leading to holiness. Now holiness does not mean you have to dress like a nun or memorize the Bible. You can still have swag and be holy, I promise. Holiness is a matter of the heart; many religions see holiness as a social hierarchy. I’m here to tell you that you’re neighborhood garbage man can be holy. Holiness is as simple as just being set aside for a greater purpose. That’s all.

I know this has been a lot to chew. My prayer is that who ever is reading this will understand that no longer do they have to be tormented by sin, but instead embraced by the love of God.

Abounding Grace

                                                    

                  Romans 5:20 - But where sin abounds, grace abounds much more

Have you ever made a mistake over and over again? Then, giving your speech saying, “God I will never do it again! I promise!” If you’re anything like me you have been in this position dozens of times - Offering a pitiful apology to God, that realistically brings no evidence of pure change.

We have this image of God that every time we sin, God is utterly surprised and holds this disapproving look that your mom has after you break her favorite dish. Satan has done everything in his power to taint Gods image, but the real truth is that every time you sin God smiles as big as He possibly can. Not because He approves sin, but the opposite, He looks at you as if you have never sinned and have taken the very image of Jesus in all His glory. Many people have a problem releasing the true message of grace because they think all the Christian people will sin even more, the thing is if you are truly saved that wouldn’t even be a problem because we still are to live as if sin never existed.

So the next time you sin, don’t focus on how bad you are, instead receive the love that God has for you that abounds much more then the sin you have committed. Take the time to figure out what God really thinks about you, guaranteed you won’t be disappointed. Finally, just as God has shown you abounding grace, think about all the people that you know that you could show grace to. If God has forgiven us and shown grace despite how bad we sinned, we also should also show that same forgiveness and grace to the people who have wronged us. Remember forgiveness and grace frees you, not the recipient. 

Youth Of The Nation

It’s funny how out of nowhere you’re at a place that feels like a dead end, but actually you are maturing so a beautiful message can be formed out of that dead end. My message has been evolving and developing for a while now, and I feel it’s time to share what God has recently been speaking to my heart. This word that was put in my heart is strictly for the youth.

1 Timothy 4: 11-14 – “Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Stay at your post reading Scripture, giving counsel, teaching. And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use.”

In the verse above, Paul writes to Timothy instructing him to not “let anyone put you down because you’re young.” Many times, we as youth are put down and ignored because of our age. I have experienced in my own life, many times where I felt discouraged, unwanted, and useless. Now-a-days, it seems like we’re expected to be irresponsible and insignificant—to party all night and drink until we can’t stand. I want to put and end to this misconception and un-biblical theory. According to Paul, there are a handful of things that young people can and should do. The first is to teach each others and fellow believers with your life as we live in speech, in demeanor, in love, in faith, and in purity. Second, we need to keep reading scripture, giving counsel, and teaching others. Last but not least, we should keep our special ministry gifts dusted off and in use.

This seems like a long to-do list, especially for us youth who just want to enjoy our time being young! I can imagine Timothy probably read this and thought, “This man must be crazy. I want to live my life!” But, Paul knew what he was doing; he knew that Timothy’s generation would only experience all God had for them if they took hold of their gifts and lived the life God has intended for them.

When I look into the world, I see plenty of people—especially in my school—who are in need of a savior; they are hurting and think there is no answer to their problems. As believers, we have the ability to change lives by sharing our testimonies and the word of God. Imagine, we could be sharing the Gospel with the next pastor, producer, politician, or even president. Of course, it takes more than just wanting to change people to actually accomplish it. Even though it is ultimately the Holy Spirit that changes a person’s heart, we still need to put effort into helping that person. This is a big responsibility, and frankly, if it was up to us, the world could shatter as long as we were still going to heaven. But (and thank God for that “but”), we have a Spirit inside of us that wants to see change; we have a passion to see God move in this generation like never before. If you have Jesus inside of you, this should be your heart. More often than not, life gets in the way of what God wants to do in us according to our call in the ministry by distracting us from the call. Paul understood this when He wrote, “And that special gift of ministry you were given when the leaders of the church laid hands on you and prayed—keep that dusted off and in use.” So even when we don’t feel like it, we have to put our selfish desires aside sometimes and look at the lives of others before ours, because there are still people hurting and crying for more then this life.

However, there is one little thing that Paul did not mention when writing this to Timothy: the reward system. Paul was probably thinking “No, I can’t write this to Tim; we all know how cocky he can get. I’ll just let him experience this part on his own.” Although we don’t need a reward in the first place because Jesus is enough, God still shows us how much He loves us by establishing rewards for our efforts. A basic bible principle is you reap what you sow; if you sow blessing, you reap blessing. Sometimes, our blessing will be something we can see; other times it could simply be a spiritual blessing - seeing supernatural growth in your church or seeing the person you minister to experience supernatural growth in the ministry. These rewards bring a satisfaction like no other, and as you see one person grow you will be compelled and filled with the desire to share even more. Then, as it says in Malachi 3:11, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”

My prayer and my desire for all the youth that read this is that the Gospel becomes so real to you that you can’t help but share it, and that God gives you revelation after revelation as you continue to seek him. Audacious faith leads to audacious outcomes.

Checking Hearts and Taking Names

Going to the dentist sends shivers down my spine: cold, sterilized chairs; tall, lifeless walls; maniacal drilling noises; little kids crying so loud that I can’t hear myself think; year-old teen magazines featuring Twilight interviews; dentists who lie and say that “it will only hurt for a second” when it actually hurts for the next day or two. Needless to say going in for a check-up can become quite an ordeal.

But although I hate to admit it, going to the dentist is actually good for me. Even though it might mean a small amount of pain for a day or two every six months, check-ups help keep my teeth in line and cavity-free, and if a cavity pops up, it’s dealt with quickly and efficiently so that it won’t do any more damage.

Our hearts are a lot like that.

When we first come to Christ, we desperately need a heart check-up. Receiving salvation means receiving an entirely new lifestyle that comes as a result of God’s grace working in our lives—a lifestyle that is completely opposite from how we acted, thought, and lived before we ever knew Jesus and experienced His love. Colossians 3:9-10 says “You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge and the image of the Creator.” The more we learn about Jesus and about His amazing grace, the more we are going to live like He lived, but before we can move forward we need a heart check-up to remove the “cavities” in our hearts.

King David prayed, “Search me, God, and know my heart” (Psalms 139:23 NIV). The Message translation of this verse goes even further reading, “Investigate my life, O God, and find out everything about me.” David had such a deep understanding for what it was like to live a God-filled life that he personally asked God to investigate his heart, to search out the bad, and to replace that bad with God’s goodness and love so that he could live a pleasing and free life. In short, David gave himself a heart check-up.

What makes us a Christian is a change in the heart. We need to be changed like Jesus – from the inside out. And the first step in being changed from the inside out is giving ourselves a heart check-up, not just once when we first accept Christ, but periodically. We need to pray the same prayer David prayed and ask God to reveal the sins in our hearts, because many times its hard for us to see our own faults until they blow up in our faces.

And, along with the heart check-up we do when we first come to Christ, we need to continuously ask God to check our hearts. Just like we go to the dentist periodically to maintain our dental health, we need to continuously humble ourselves and go to God asking him to search our hearts.

Recently, I experienced an unexpected heart check-up first hand. About two weeks ago I was feeling good; I felt confident that I had everything under control in my life and in my heart. In my eyes, I was golden and I thought that nothing could touch me because there was nothing wrong with me. Covering my basics as a Christian, I prayed that God would search me and show me anything hidden in my heart, even though I didn’t expect Him to find anything.

The next day I presented three posters I had made the night before to my classmates. The teacher that assigned the project walked by as I was revealing the posters, and before I even showed the third poster, she cut in saying, “Are those the posters? Looks like you took two seconds to make those.” I quickly responded “No, ma’am. This took me two hours to make.” I immediately felt embarrassed and overwhelmingly angry with my teacher. I told myself that I couldn’t have a face-to-face conversation with her or else I would explode. I walked around for four days resenting my teacher and her rude remarks about the project that worked hard on.

Then, God reminded me of the prayer I had made only a few days before. God had used the entire situation with my teacher to reveal the underlying heart issues I had with my pride and maintaining my good reputation. I prayed that God deal with this heart issue and thanked Him for His faithfulness. I wasn’t as golden as I thought I was.

If you think that you don’t need to go to God and that you can live right all by yourself, you should take a look at Colossians 3 and look at your own life. Colossians 3 has an entire list detailing how we should live in the Spirit and how we shouldn’t live by the flesh. However, it’s important that we approach these verses knowing that we can never achieve holiness or live right on our own power. Nothing we can do could ever make us right, which is why God’s grace is so amazing. He gave us His holiness through grace so that we could live right through Jesus, and all we need to do is receive this gracious gift by faith. Once we do that, then the things listed in Colossians 3 will become fruits in our lives.

So whether you’re a new believer or you’ve grown in Christ throughout the years, whether you feel close to God or further from God than ever, you need to ask God for a heart check-up. The longer you take to go to God and surrender your heart to Him, the more damage you might cause to yourself. Thankfully, we have God who loves us so much that He invites us in to get checked out because God doesn’t care about what we’ve done, He cares about who we are and for how much better we will be once we embrace His grace.

Where Has All The Excitement Gone?

I love roller coasters. The jubilant feelings of waiting in line and the excitement that builds up while I wait. And after riding the roller coaster, I want to tell all my friends about how great it was and how badly I want to ride again. If you’ve ever ridden a roller coaster, you know what I’m talking about. Thousands upon thousands of people flock to amusement parks every year to experience these same feelings and embrace this same excitement.

But, where has this excitement for Jesus and His church gone?

The Bible says in Mark 7:36-37, “Jesus urged them [the people of the town] to keep it quiet, but they talked it up all the more, beside themselves with excitement. ‘He's done it all and done it well. He gives hearing to the deaf, speech to the speechless.’”

In the passage above, Jesus has just performed miracles, healing the deaf and the mute in front of the multitudes. Then something interesting happens, He urges them to shut up! However, the multitudes keep talking about it even more, professing their excitement to anyone and every one around them. They just couldn’t hold back their urge to talk about Jesus and all His goodness because they saw it first hand!

What has stopped us from being as excited for Jesus and His church? The answer lies in where we place our excitement – in what we are excited about and why.

This past summer our youth group Generation Next went to a youth conference in Georgia; it was an amazing, Spirit-filled experience that left our entire youth group and leaders with an excitement for Jesus. Unfortunately, after a month or so that excitement dwindled and the passion for Jesus that was so consuming burned out. As I recall on my own excitement, I noticed that I relied more on a conference to change me than Jesus. My passion was more about going back each summer to rekindle that fire than fanning the flames and increasing it through the year. My point here is that when Jesus becomes the source of your excitement, it well never be exasperated because your faith and hope comes from an everlasting God who continually shows His power and goodness like he did to the multitudes in Mark.

If we implement this knowledge into our everyday lives – if we base our excitement in Jesus and what He has done for us on the cross, our circumstances won’t dictate how much excitement we have for Jesus. No amount of time will diminish our passion because we are connected to an unquenchable source. The enemy will try to do everything he can to steal your joy, believe me! He knows that if we get excited about Jesus circumstances won’t affect our steadfast faith, but he also knows that if we are not rooted in Jesus circumstances lead us to exhaustion and tirelessness.

This leads me too my next point, for most Christians, myself included, church becomes an exhausting ritual and quickly fades. I have seen many Christians come to church like Jesus never died on the cross, never broke the chains of death, and never rose again on the third day. Cheer up! Jesus lives and when we come to church it is a sincere testament that what He did is true. In essence, church should be the happiest place on earth where lives are healed, the lost are found, and the captive are liberated.

Even if you don’t see God’s miracles at this stage in your life or if you are looking at a one-way road down the avenue of disappointment, you can still rejoice knowing that God has everything in position to bless you tremendously, that Jesus already paid every price for us to be alive in Him, and that our sins and inadequacies are wiped away. This should get you excited!

The best feeling in life is not riding a roller coaster, despite how much we love it; the best feeling is when we don’t allow situations in life, big or small, to determine the precious value of our excitement. Walk around knowing that God’s divine, supernatural, and all knowing favor is on you – you have a reason to jump, dance, and shout! We are chosen; let’s act like it!

Why You Slumpin'

Slump - To fall or sink heavily; collapse

What does a slump look like? In baseball, a slump means that you go a certain amount of at bats without hitting the ball, thus keeping you from moving forward to the next base.

Slumps can happen in our walks with Christ too, and they function in a similar fashion. A slump occurs when we Christians go through seasons in life where it seems like we can’t do anything right or like we’re stuck in one place spiritually fighting off the same struggles that we always have been. Well then, how do we maneuver our way out of a slump?

When a coach notices “A player in a slump”, he keeps the player out for a couple of games to better his technique and climb out of the slump.

The Bible says something similar in Matthew 11:28, when Jesus says, “Come to me all who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest”. This feeling of being burdened and heavy laden is an even better way of defining the slump. The first three words of this verse are “Come to me.” When we are graveled under burdens and a heavy heart, Jesus instructs us to simply but effectively go to him. If you are experiencing a “slump” you easily slip in to a routine, slump on Saturday, go to Jesus on Sunday, and back to slumpin' on Monday. For the ones who enjoy this routine you can stop here, but for those who don’t – keep reading.

The last step you must take in order to live a slump-free life is preventing the slump. Preventing the slump in my opinion is the toughest part of the process. Preventing “The Slump” means discovering the root of the problem and uprooting it so that its negative influence over you ceases. Unfortunately, people quiver at thought of changing themselves even when it is for the better because, believe it or not, it requires effort. Yes, I said it! Don’t hate me for it, but it’s true! An effective Christian life requires effort! Effort to remove yourself from compromising situations, effort to grow in our knowledge of God, and effort to reject the slump immediately when it comes at our doorstep.

I will be honest; this seems like something tiresome and unchanging. Many of us sometimes, myself included, try to follow similar steps in beating our own slump, but we come up empty handed and frustrated. The problem is many of us go into it thinking that we can change ourselves alone. We don’t acknowledge the power and the necessity of grace in our situation. The definition of grace in essence is getting what we don’t deserve. We didn’t deserve to be saved through Jesus’ death on the cross, but by grace, although we had sinned, God “has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22). In the same way, we can only change ourselves after acknowledging and believing that we need grace. We are only changed when we trust and believe that God is the only one who can change us, and there is freedom in that!

Ultimately, the more we seek a relationship with God, the easier it will be to reject the slump. In the words of worship leader Jeremy Riddle, “sinful choices and attitudes stem from a lack of intimacy with God.” As a result, the more we seek God and develop a relationship with the Father, the more we will want to reject the slump and the more we will walk in His purity and purpose.