Matthew 8: the first steps

How do we truly come to Christ? The televangelists and speakers make it sound so easy, but its harder then you think.

"And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” -  Matthew 8:2
The first thing that we must realise is we are not in control. God is not a genie or a magical fairy who we can command and He grants all our wishes. In Matthew 8:2 Jesus comes to a city where a He is approached by a leper. Note how the leaper says "If you will" not "Heal me!" or "Help me" but rather he asks Jesus if He wills it, meaning if Jesus wants to, not has to, heal him. This is how we should approach God with an attitude of obedience and sacrifice. When we come to God in this way we come bowing in the glory of the Lord, we come as one to be commanded, not one who makes commands.

"But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed." -Matthew 8:8
Sin is something with which all humans are plagued with, we will never be rid of it, on our own. The second step to coming to Christ is realising we are sinners and will never change with in human control. In chapter 8 of the gospel of Matthew we read of a centurion, or a Roman soldier, who comes to Christ so his servant can be healed. When Christ agrees the Roman then proceeds to tell him not to come to his house, but rather say the word and it would be done. Why? He says "I am not worthy for you to come under my roof." This is such an amazing part in scripture because this is a Roman soldier, a gentile, a non-Jew, in our eyes he would be an atheist, coming to Christ and fully believing in Him. By the Roman saying this we also see that he comes to realise his sinful ways. So many people in our world do not realise their sin, some don't even know what sin is. We have been taught by our society that being "a good person" is good enough, but it isn't! If your a good person but do not have Christ in your life then being good means nothing. And so like the Centurion we must come to Christ admitting our sin and telling Christ we are not worthy.

"Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” ²² And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” - Matthew 8:21-22
When excepting Christ and choosing a life of following Him we are called, as Jesus called the disciple in this verse, to "follow Him." Know this verse at first glance seems very strange and seems like Jesus has no respect for the dead, however this is how I see it, it may not be right and you can correct me if I am wrong. But Jesus says "Leave the dead to bury their own dead" now that is a strange thing to say, so looking at it in a spiritual way rather then a physical way it turns a new light. Those who do not follow or know Christ are spiritually dead, and so looking at it this way Jesus is saying "Leave your spiritually dead life behind and let it bury itself." He says "Follow me" not "Once you have everything set in place and in it's place come and follow me," but rather "Follow me and give over to me your imperfections, faults, worries." 

So how do we come to Christ? well we see in Matthew chapter 8 that in verse 1 we must come to Him willing to surrender to Him and let Him do what He wants, when He wants, and if He wants. We see that we need to admit we are sinners and are not worthy (vs.8), and vs. 21-22 shows us that we need to leave our sinful, selfish life behind. Where do we go next from there? Well that is between you and God! 

Little Rocks and Jungle Gyms

"and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 18:3

My friend was at the park the other day with her 6 year old cousin and her cousin's friend. They began to pick up rocks they thought were pretty, the 6 year old girl then took a handful of rocks and stuck them in her pocket. When asked "why did you pick up all the rocks?" She replied by saying, "there all so pretty."
This story is a very cute one, but can also be very applicable to our spiritual walk with God. Jesus loved children, and in retrospect we are all children to Him. In Matthew 18:3 He said that "unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of God." This is not a new thing, I have probably heard this verse millions of times since I was little. But have we actually stopped and thought about it, before moving on with our day?
You see a child is someone who can not fend for themselves, who is completely reliant on some kind of "parent" figure in their lives to provide, shelter, food, warmth, clothing, etc... And so much like our relationship with Christ, we can not live with out complete reliance on Him at all times.
As I look back on my childhood I ask myself one question, "what happened?" As we grow up and start to become more of a follower of the world then an individual I can not help but think we have over complicated everything. You see as a child everything was either really simple or a mystery and wonder to us, we could spend hours playing outside with one stick and be completely satisfied. I remember that even going down the stairs could be an adventure to me, the jungle gym transformed from being a spaceship on Monday to a fire breathing dragon on Tuesday. The stick in my hand could be a laser gun at one moment then turn into a great battle sword the next. But now the jungle gym is just some wood nailed together with plastic, that stick is a stick nothing more. We have flown away from neverland never to return, and so we grow up. Our heads are filled with philosophies and math formula's, no longer can we be anybody we wont to be because we must forget imagination and replace it with logic and science.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that life should be all fun and games, but I am also not saying we should completely leave our imagination behind and abandon it for logic. There needs to be an equilibrium, we still need to see the wonder in this world, and the wonder and mystery in God. Not everything can fit into a dictionary definition and a petree dish.
And so I leave you with this,
Lord I pray for all of us, I pray that you would bring the wonder back to our hearts, that the world would be a new mystery to discover each day. I pray that we would become that child, who takes hand fulls of rocks, seeing them all as "pretty" and stuffing them into our pockets.

The Wizard of Oz and Cancer

Make War

"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." -1 Corinthians 10:13 

We never forget, it continues to pester our every waking moment, every thought always seems to land upon that one thing... we keep telling ourselves "I'll never be free of it, so what's the point?" It begins to brand us, inked all over us like tattoos on our body, one after another, until our whole body is marked and scared by our sin. 

But can we actually escape the scaring? The painful memories of failure and mistake in our life? I have asked myself this question so many times, and how do He answer? with 1 Corinthians 10:13, He responds by saying, "I always give a way out." The first statement in this verse is that no temptation is to strong for us, but is it really, for us individually it will always come out as the victor, but look at the second par. "God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability." What is this statement saying exactly? That we can not handle our sin and temptation with out Gods strength, now don't get me wrong here, God is not a magical genie you can rub out of a lamp when its hard. Relying on God's strength is far more then that, it's being able to admit you can't do it on your own, it's leaving all you know behind and giving him the x-box 360 controller of your life. And I'm not saying it will be easy and happy fluffy clouds and flowers all the time, faith in God is not a feeling, if you believe in God because it will make you feel good I'm sorry but you are looking in the wrong place. This place is one of constant war with our world and ourselves. 

Now I'm not saying lets start shooting up places because we are Christians, far from it, I am talking about spiritual war. This kind of war has been one that had gone on since Eve took the apple, since the first sin was committed into existence, this war is one where our weapons are folded hands, a book and other believers. Those three things are our strongest weapons against probably the worst ever enemy we have ever known, an enemy that knows us to the core, an enemy that will fight against you the rest of your earthly life. That enemy well it's you... you, your sin, your temptations, your worldly, physical, mental desires. 

So you are probably asking yourself, "how can I escape, well me?" That's the easy part, the hard part is what comes next.

When Mary discovered that the tomb of Christ was empty and told the other disciples, and Peter and John ran to the tomb, it was easy to run there, but the hardest part was to go in, see the left behind rapping and believe that Jesus was risen.  

In conclusion we can never win these battles, we will never be able to overcome temptation, but there is one who has, there is one who will, and there is one who can lift you up and support you. His name is Jesus, letting Him in is easy, it is what lies ahead that will be hard. But I will leave you with this; 

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." - James 1:2-4 

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." - Romans 8:18 

The World of the Free, maybe...

"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." - Matthew 6:24
This morning I was praying, dwelling on the thought that the world feeds us the lie that as Christians we are only slaves to a cruel God and master, then it hit me, isn't it the other way around? Your probably think "That's nothing new..." But look at it this way;
A slave is commanded by a master who tells them what to do and when to do it. Many believe this reflects upon Christianity and God, however it is the opposite. Think about ever non-Christian you know (if you are not a Christian then think about yourself) how have you spoken all these years? I bet in your day to day chats with people you swear, well in reality you have just joined the rest of the world in becoming a slave to it.
Our world almost pushes us to do certain things like swearing, drinking, casual sex, and the such. Why? Because it wants to have control over you! If you stop doing these things and follow a life set out for Christ, then no wonder we look down upon Christianity, because by doing so you have taken your "freedom" in the world and given it to one who truly sets you free.
By knowing this everything then starts to make a lot more sense! We start to realise why as Christians we get such a bad rap, but every other faith never gets as bad of a rap as we do. Why? Because the world knows that through Christ we are released from the bonds of this slavery.
So thus Christianity is not a burden of constant rules, but rather it is freedom. Freedom from the ever growing whole of emptiness

 we all have in our hearts, freedom from the feeling of being alone, forgotten, and lost, freedom to choose who we want to be and who we are called to be. And so I will conclude with this, what does it mean to be a slave to sin and a slave to righteousness?

Missions update

Hey,
So missions update :) the Missions Committee at my church just gave me $1500.00 for my trip! Which is awesome!!! We also got a new member from Nova Scotia :) 
That's about all that is new, thank-you for your prayers

Knowing

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb." -Psalm 139:13
This verse has been stuck in my head for about a month now, along with other verses on the topic of God knowing us. If you actually take time to read and think about this verse its mind blowing!
Luke 12:7 says that God knows each indavidual hair on your head, not that He knows the number roughly, but that He knows exactly how many. Both Matthew 6:26 and Matthew 6:30 say that God cares for the birds and the flowers, so how much more do you think He cares for you?
Yesterday I posted my thoughts on not fearing, this topic kind of co-insides with that thought. If you have no idea what I am talking about please put this on hold and look at yesterdays post. You see God says , "Do not fear" because He knows us, He, as it says in Psalms 139:13, "knit us in our mothers womb" Romans 8:31 says " What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?"
So putting that altogether we can see that; God created us, so He knows us better then we know ourselves, He knows our personalities, eye colour, hair colour, voice, how we think, etc. Because of this He cares for us deeply, He cares for all of His creation, the birds in the sky, to the smallest blade of grass on the ground, so how much more do you think He cares for you? So if God created us, and cares for us, then that means if He is with us then we have nothing to fear, for He is the creator and Father of all things!
Now we must ask ourselves "How am I going to respect and be thankful for it?"