"Love the Lord Your God with ALL your Soul" - ALLmost series of talks

  “Unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

What a profound statement. 

Just one 30,000 foot thought, in a sense, spiritual growth, the theological word is sanctification. Say "sanctification" out loud.  You feel more spiritual and smarter saying it. 

The idea of sanctification is that we are conformed to the image of Christ. But it is really interesting because there are two dimensions to it. We are conformed to the image of Christ. Don’t you want to love like Him and act like Him and talk like Him and pray like Him and dream like Him? You want everything about you to be like Him, and that’s what it means to follow Christ. But there is also this second dimension where you become like a little child. Jesus very intentionally put a child at the very center of everyone  and said, ‘Unless you become like a little child, you can’t even enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Well, what does that mean? 

It is an incredibly kaleidoscopic statement that means a lot of different things, but I think one dimension of it is this – I believe as you grow in a relationship with your Savior, with your Creator, what happens is this – you recapture this childlike sense of wonder. (we did a video piece about the recapturing the sense of our childlike wonder a few weeks ago at Focus Church) 

It is also like your soul, that if you aren’t careful, with the wrong circumstances and a lot of experience, before you know it, your soul can die. But when we come into a relationship with Christ, it comes back to life and then God begins to fill this soul with a childlike sense of wonder.

Who remembers the Life Savers candy commercial? (A young 5 or 6yr. old daughter sitting under a tree during the sunset and as the sun is setting Dad says, Going, Going, Gone.... then his daughter looks up at him and whispers, "Do it again Daddy")

Here’s my point. I think that it is so easy for us to loose the sense of wonder that we once had. It is so hard to put this into words, but I think for many of us, a relationship with God can almost be reduced in the wrong circumstances to this long list of do’s and don’ts and rules and rituals that become empty and meaningless. I mean, hey I grew up where, I kid you not, it was about what you didn’t drink, where you didn’t go, what you didn’t say, and how long your hair wasn’t. It was like your whole relationship with God was reduced to these external things, and I wonder how many of us are this spiritual looking shell on the outside but your soul is empty. Do you really love God with your soul, with ALL of your soul in a very deep place where God is the One who brings you to life and when his wonder begins to fill your soul, it’s like, I am in relationship with my Creator. And it creates this sense of wonder w/in us!

Look at this quote from Arthur Gordon, “This surely is the most valuable legacy we can pass on to the next generation, not money or houses or heirlooms, but a capacity for wonder.” 

I love this. I mean, hear me folks, He is the God of wonders, He is the One who created everything around us. Who do you think wants us to enjoy the setting sun more than anybody else? The One who made it. And He wants us to have a soul that has a capacity for wonder, and it makes me think if some of us have lost that and that’s what we need to get back.

Do you know what is the main source for us to capture this wonder?... God’s Word, the Bible

I can recall the wonder on my girls faces when they were young & we were doing our family fun nights aka devotions (quick sidebar: you want to do family devotions w/ your children you need to make them fun and exciting  - they can’t be like an adult devotional - one source we used was Heritage Builders: Family Night Tool Chest - we all had a blast)    Like, Wow, the Bible, awesome! Ya know?

I just think in every area of our life, do we not need to recapture this childlike approach to life, this childlike approach to God? 

Here is the heart of what I feel like the Lord really wants to say to us..... 

28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30

I’m reading that verse and I’m having a thought. I’m wondering how many people have never come to Christ because they don’t know that this is what He says. When they envision God, they envision someone very, very different. They don’t think that God is the One who is saying, ‘Come to Me, you who are weary and carry burdens and I will give you rest.’ That’s not their image of who God is and their souls suffer because of it. But this is a great promise! 

Maybe some of you today are so weary, you are relationally worn out, you’ve given a relationship everything that you think you’ve got and it’s not what you want it to be and you don’t know where to go. Some of you are so burdened relationally that someone has done something that you can’t control but you are experiencing some of the consequences of it. Some of you are emotionally weary. You have no grace left for other people, there is no joy left in your relationship with God, there is no peace in your heart and you are just about out of patience. Listen, all of us have been in that place where emotionally we are weary and burdened. And I think spiritually, some of us are so weighed down by our guilt and the reason why we are still weary and burdened is because we try to do the exact opposite of what this passage teaches us. We try to get our act together, we try to even do more, we try harder and harder, then we get more weary and more burdened and we never really truly accept this simple invitation, come to Me, come to Me, weary, burdened, and I will give you rest.

I want to get practical for a couple minutes. I want to talk about two sides to the equations. Some of you have a very empty soul and I think it’s important to realize that some of that is not a mystery, some of that is under our control. There are some things that we can do to guard our soul, to protect our soul, to make sure that our soul is being replenished and refilled. 

So, you are reading this your soul feels empty, what can you do? There are some things that you can do. 

Our part: Worship, worship begins to flood your heart with the presence of God. Confession begins to empty some of those things that clutter your spirit, emptying the trash, if you will. 

You can Serve others and it will begin to replenish your soul. 

Find ways to serve others. You can do it within the church, you can do it out at non profit organization, at the Pregnancy Help center, and so forth… find ways to serve.

What can you do to begin to fill that soul? Here’s the second half of the equation. There are some things that only God can do for you. This is where it gets so good, I love this, in Hebrews 3 and 4  it talks about entering the rest of the Lord, this passage says you will find rest for your soul, (thats your homework this week, read those chapters Heb. 3&4) 

some of us are so weary and so burdened because we are trying to do it ourselves. What I want you to know is that religion is about what you can do for God, but Christianity is about what God has done for you, in the person of Jesus Christ who paid a price you could not pay, He paid a debt you could not pay, paid a debt He did not owe.

So God’s part: is about you allowing Him to do for you want you can’t do for yourself. 

Have you ever done that little thing where someone is standing behind you, it’s almost like a faith exercise where someone is standing behind you and you have to freefall backwards? 

A Trust Fall.

 It’s so hard to do isn’t it? It’s so hard to just totally fall into another persons arms and let go, but I think that’s part of what it means to rest in the Lord. It means I’m not going to try to do it, I can’t do it, but I’m going to rest in the atoning sacrifice that Jesus Christ made at Calvary. 

Take a deep breath and let it back out.

I’ve told you before that that’s my definition of the sovereignty of God. In his heart, a man plans his course but God orders his footsteps. It’s the sovereignty of God, take a deep breath and relax. God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go. Amen. Take another deep breath, let it back out. It’s also a pretty good definition for the grace of God, isn’t it? I can’t do it, I don’t deserve it, but He has done it for me.

Come to Me, all who are weary & burdened and I will give you rest for your souls. 

We do our part & you better believe God will do His part.

And when we get there… we can Love God with ALL our soul.

'Trust Fall' video:

Watch or Listen to "ALLmost" part 2:

God has created a path......

God is always working behind the scenes. He is working on our behalf even when we cant see anything happening; even when we cant feel anything; and even when it looks the darkest.

God had a path when the Israelites thought there was no way....

God has a path for you, even if it appears there is no way.....

read Psalm 77

pursuitALL

What if every believer pursued Gods mission for their lives with ALL they have.... wonder what that would look like.....

#‎impact

"Loving God with ALL your Heart" - ALLmost series of talks

   Bill Frist, a thoracic surgeon. had performed about 150 heart transplants. In an address at the National Prayer Breakfast he talked about the miracle of heart transplant. He spoke about this moment when a new heart had been grafted into a new body, and all the surgical team could do once the grafts had taken place, all they could do was wait in hope that it would begin to beat. Then he stopped talking in medical terms and started talking more in spiritual terms about this moment when a new heart would beat in a new body. He called it a mystery.

Folks, So it is with you and I. When we give our heart to Christ, Christ gives his heart to us. In a sense, there is a transplant that happens.

In the book “A Man After His Own Heart” by Charles Siebert he referred to these medical heart transplant donors as, I love this, as the tribe of the transplanted. Isn’t that cool? The tribe of the transplanted. I would suggest that if we are following Christ, we are a part of the tribe of the transplanted, and that’s exactly what Ezekiel Chapter 36 talks about, verses 25-27 to be exact.

What an amazing promise! I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you and I’ll take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. Isn’t that what you and I need? What we need is for God, not just to give us a face lift, not just to put a band-aid on something, but my hunch is that what most of us need is for God to do a deep work within our hearts. 

Let’s look at these verses.... 

25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols.

We are half way through this year, and I think it is an opportunity to look back & evaluate these past 6 mos. Maybe some habits you shouldn't have, or with some things that have crept into your life, maybe routines or just wasteful things, things that are permissible but not beneficial, or maybe things that have pulled you away from a relationship with God. Is there something in your life that needs to be purified? 

 Now, you have to do the hard work of purifying yourself and you can’t, only Christ can do it for you, but it is by His sacrifice on the cross that you can be clean and set free. If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, and the moment you do that, I’ll tell you exactly what will happen, the father of lies, the one who seeks to bring condemnation into your life, will try to remind you of everything you’ve done wrong this past year, but that is not the heart of your heavenly Father, who is all about giving us a new start over and over, his mercies are new every morning. I believe that if you will purify yourself before the Lord, He can do some amazing things in your life. But let me put it this way, I’m not just talking about ‘Lord forgive me for everything I’ve ever done wrong,’ that’s weak. I don’t let my kids get by with that. 

(lil johnny tell your sister you’re sorry, [moan] johnny… [moan sorry] sorry for what? [idk] johnny… what are you sorry about?) 

I don’t let my kids get by with that. Parents, do you let your kids get by with that? No, tell me what you are sorry about, because unless you understand it, then you are going to go back and do the exact same thing over again.  It is so easy for us to go through the routines and get in our habits and do our things, I’m just saying, if we don’t redeem the opportunity of evaluating our lives to do some deep cleaning in our hearts, then we are missing an opportunity for God to enlarge our potential for his kingdom’s sake.

Is there something in your life that God needs to purify? 

Then we continue, the end of verse 25

and you will no longer worship idols.

There again, it’s like, we want to skip to the next verse. I don’t have any idols! Are you kidding me? We immediately think of ancient people bowing down to little statues. Those silly, foolish ancient people, pagans, bowed down to wood carvings. Are you serious? As we go to the mall this summer and buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t even like. We are just sophisticated idolaters. That’s what we are. We wouldn’t bow down to a statue of Aphrodite, but when we are at the gym, checking ourselves out in the mirror, you know what I’m saying. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Take care of your temple but how many of you know that that thing can become an idol in your life? Or… you may be more like me, who’s allowed food and atrophy to become an idol. I’ve had to many trips to Whataburger & allowed the lack of physical maintenance & desire for food to rule my life.

See, here’s what’s so tricky, you think of idol and you think of something bad, but it’s not always, it can be something good. Nine times out of ten, an idol in your life is something good but that something good has become something bad because instead of seeing it as a means to an end, it has become an end in itself. So everything from money to sex to family to your job, any of those things can become idols in our lives if they displace God as being primary in our lives.

Matthew 6:33: Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added upon you.

It doesn’t say to seek God second or third or fourth or tenth, seek God first. The reason why many of us struggle spiritually, I am so convinced, I don’t know if I have the words to frame it but it is very interesting that the first of the 10 commandment is have no other Gods before me. It’s a commandment against idolatry. The first commandment is where it’s at, because if you break that one, you break all of them, but if you can keep that one, then you can keep the other ones. It really comes back to, is there an idol in your life? That’s what I’m trying to say. Is there an idol in your life and are you courageous enough to look in the mirror and ask God that question.

How do I know if it is an idol? Maybe it is a good thing that is a little out of control. Listen, it takes tremendous discernment. I’m not saying it is easy, but let me help you a little bit. Here are a few idol questions:

Number one, are you willing to give it up? If you’re not willing to give it up, maybe it is something that has a hold on your life.

Number two, what do you think about when you don’t have anything to think about? If you are like, I don’t know what my idol is, what do you daydream about? What do you fixate on? Is it possible that that thing can be taken to an extent where it begins to consume you more than your relationship with God?

Number three, what do you put your money into? Or too much money? Your spending habits are idolatry clues, because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I’m not trying to find the idol in every closet. All of us struggle with things that could be idolatrous, so I don’t want all of us walking out totally discouraged. But listen, I need to ask a hard question, is there an idol in our life?

Number four, does the thing draw you closer to God or push you further away? Be honest. Is it something that helps your relationship with God or something that hurts your relationship?

Number five, is it something you control or something that controls you? An idol is often an addiction. It is something that displaces God and you don’t control it, it controls you. It has become a master in your life.

Those are tough questions that we don’t ask all the time but this is a time where we need to ask those questions. Have you given something else the title to your heart? Then you need to give it back to God. 

Last piece of scripture:

26 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

Let’s close with this. I pray this for my kids all the time. I pray that God would give them a soft heart. It is so easy for the heart to become hardened to the sin in our life; it is so easy for our hearts to become hardened to the things of God. Does your heart break for the things that break the heart of God? It is so easy for us to have a callused heart because it is so hard to have a vulnerable heart that you put out there. But my prayer for us is that we would have a soft heart towards God. It says, God says, “I will put my Spirit in you.” I want to end with this promise. Can I tell you what you need the 2^nd half of this year? Here it is, you don’t need more money, you don’t need more opportunity, you don’t need a relationship; what you really need is more of the Spirit of God filling you, that’s what you really need. If you are going to produce the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, then you need the Spirit of God in you. It is the Spirit of God that gives us a new heart.

I want to promise you this and I want to invite you to this. If you give your heart to Christ, Christ will give his heart to you. The tribe of the transplanted. I have no idea where many of you are at in your spiritual journey, but I want to talk to two specific kinds of people...  Number one, I think there are many people who have been seeking and searching and thinking and praying and wondering and asking and dialoguing for a long time about what it means to follow Christ and what is this thing called Christianity all about. It is all about loving God heart, soul, mind and strength. It is not all these religious trappings, it is about a love relationship with the Creator who sent his Son to die on the cross for you. If you give your heart to Him, He will make you into a different person. He will begin to change you from the inside out. He will begin to shape a new heart within you. That’s what we need! We need for God to give us His heart.

Then, I wonder for some of us, in you’re in this place where, oh man, if you had any idea how hard my heart has become, like, I hear your words but they don’t even touch my heart because my heart is so callused that the word of God hasn’t penetrated my heart in years. And for some, it is just fear of opening themselves up. For some, it is a level of brokenness and it’s so hard for you to think about becoming vulnerable again. I don’t know what it is for you, but I wonder if for some of us, we need to give our heart to Christ again.

When you give your heart to Christ, He give His heart to you and your heart begins to break for the things that break the heart of God. 

Welcome to the Tribe of the Transplanted.

Watch or listen to "ALLmost" part 1, Loving God with ALL your Heart:

http://focuschurch.com/social.php?item=item:201306231106518C00ED

Are you giving God your ALL or your most? - ALLmost series of talks

Its so easy for us, especially in our western culture to not "give it our all" or "go all out" from time to time, wouldn't you agree? I mean sometimes it makes sense right?
There are certainly times in life when you do not need to "go all out" or "give it everything you've got", I mean sometimes that mentality can be downright ludicrous.
You know what I'm talking about... like the 38yr old guy who dresses up in his Jedi outfit for the premiere of the latest Star Wars movie (be on guard summer 2015) maybe a little overkill huh?
Or the guy in the gym who is scream/grunting (loudly) through every...single... rep.
So sure there are times when we can pull back.
There are also times when we do pull back & not give it all that is required and it hurts us.
You probably have plenty of personal examples of that.... not paying a bill on time, forgetting that its past due and hello disconnection.
Waiting til the last minute to attend the "Defensive Driving" class that will allow your ticket to be dismissed and end up paying full ticket price and insurance increase.
Not studying for a test and barely getting by with a "passable" grade instead of a good grade.
It seems that we do both. We can Over Do It and we can certainly Under Do It.
A big problem for us is when we get comfortable with "just getting by".

The big question here is.... how do you approach your relationship with Jesus Christ?
Do you give it "everything you've got" or do you have the "just getting by" attitude?
It's really a hard question to ask ourselves isn't it? It's tough to look in the mirror and ask the hard questions....

So here it is... Are you giving God your ALL or your most?
Are you giving God ALL of you, I mean everything you've got?
"There's no doubt about it my life is centered in Jesus Christ and my priorities, time, energy & resources reflect that."
Or......
Are you giving God most? And hey, most is pretty good right?
"I'm doing pretty good when you compare me to the guy next door, he never goes to church and cusses all the time. Heck I'm doing great compared to that guy. And I love the Lord, I really do. I want to read my bible more and live by God's standards but I'm not perfect you know."

ALL or most?

2,000 years ago, Jesus was asked an interesting question. A scribe said, “Which of all the commandments is most important?” It was kind of a trick question. Honestly, I don’t think he thought he was going to get an answer, but Jesus, as only Jesus can do, answered in a way that is so profound. How many of you know that we have a tendency to complicate this thing called Christianity? We complicate it, but Jesus had a way of simplifying it. He could say so much in so few words. What Jesus said was this, “The greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.” (Mark 12:30) That’s it. What He did was take hundreds of laws that had been accumulated and thousands of years of tradition and history and He said here it is, in one sentence, love God, heart, soul, mind and strength.
Here’s another question for you – if Jesus said that’s most important, doesn’t it naturally, logically follow that we ought to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand exactly what that means and obeying it. What does it mean to love God heart, soul, mind and strength? By the way, it is not enough to love God in just one of those ways, you’ve got to love Him in all those ways, like love to the fourth power. These are the four dimensions, this is the great commandment, Love God heart, soul, mind and strength.

I believe if we honestly pursue the Great Commandment, study it, understand it, apply it to life it will become much easier... or maybe the right phrase would be "it would become natural" to give God ALL of us.

So for the next few posts I'm going to pursue just that. An ALLmost series of talks.
I'd love to hear your feedback, your struggles, your triumphs, questions or whatever suits you through this series of talks so please join in the discussion.

Til next time, go ask the hard question...................