STOP

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot.  Would that you were either cold or hot!  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Revelation 3:15-16

Jesus’ own words to the church at Laodecia.  Jesus’ words to us.  

What I hear, when I read this text is one word.  STOP!  Stop the flip-flopping.  Stop the wishy-washy.  Stop the fence riding.  We want one foot in the world and one foot on Jesus.  That’s not it.  That’s far from being what His desire for our life is.  God doesn’t want the half of you.  He wants all of you.  It has to be all or nothing.  God doesn’t desire for us to want to serve Him in Monday, then on Tuesday seek to serve our self.  He doesn’t just want our Sundays, when we give our Saturdays to the party.

He wants all!  All of you, all of me!  Everything we’ve got.  

We spend so much time trying to please our friends, co-workers, and our family.  We need to take that energy and spend it blessing God.  His opinion is all that matters.  Take Solomon for example, the wisest man in history.  He chased after every single human pleasure.  Parties, possessions, sex, and even intelligence.  In the book of Ecclesiastes, we get to read about his “research” and “experiment” of experiencing every pleasure he could pursue.  In the end, he likens it to chasing after the wind.  Specific words he uses are “futile” and “meaningless.”  Why was it like this?  The pursuit was apart from God.  Which in turn, makes the pleasure temporary.  The feelings don’t last.  

So we run back to Jesus.  Then, He asks us to do something we don’t want to do, or we learn that we need to make some changes in our hearts and lives.  Where do we run? Away.  We run to the next party or the next bottle or the next person.  We are looking for fulfillment to a hole that only has one shape.  It’s like kids playing with the shapes and the box where the shapes go.  My son has this toy.  No matter how much he tries, or how physical he gets, the square is not going to fit in the circle.  These things we try to fill our hole with, don’t belong there.  

Oh, we like to force it sometimes.  We also like to leave “just enough room for Jesus.”  However, if you go back up and read the verse, Jesus tells us that if we are trying to play that game He's not interested.  He wants fully sold out followers.  

I think further evidence can come from looking at the calling of Jesus' disciples.  

We can see two instances recorded in Matthew 4 and 9.  The callings of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, then the calling of Matthew.  In both scenes, Jesus rolls up, calls out to them, "Follow me," and they drop what they're doing and they go.  They don't wait.  They stop what they were previously doing and go.  We don't see them trying to figure out how to fit God into their schedule.  They let God dictate their schedule.  

We have got to sell out for the right side.  Sell out for following Jesus.  Spend out lives sharing the Gospel.  Wherever we are.  Whenever the opportunity arises.  Follow Jesus or don't.  It is not a two sided coin.

Mr. Fix-it

One of my most natural inclinations is to be a fixer.  When someone shares their problems with me, I automatically default to “fix-it mode.”  This can be a problem relationally, because a lot of times I ignore the person, while trying to figure out a way to fix their problem in my head.  It’s so hard not to try and fix everything.  Specifically for my loved ones.  Early on in our marriage, Jenn would share things with me, and I wouldn’t listen.  I’d interject ways to fix whatever she was going through.  That did not always make for good conversation or moods!  This problem amplified itself when I became a dad.  It even makes appearances in my teaching and coaching.  

With my kids, I want so bad to keep them out of trouble.  When I watch Mary-Faith doing something the wrong way, I want to swoop in and show her the right way to do it, to keep any disappointment from entering her life.  It’s so much worse with a baby.  I’m that Dad that follows his kid around and tries to make sure they don’t slip or fall or touch anything hot.  Of course, I’m not always successful, the only thing I am successful at is annoying either my kids or my wife, sometimes both.  

The thing is, a lot of times, my intervening in my child’s life can make them miss a lesson.  If I am constantly chasing Bubba to keep him from falling, he will never learn anything about walking or exploring.  He won’t even know what it’s like to fall.  If I constantly fix everything for Mary-Faith, she will never grow.  The kids will miss out on opportunities to learn and grow!  

So why doesn’t God just fix all our problems?  Why would God create a perfect world only to let it be screwed up by imperfect people?  

Those are perplexing questions.  They truly work and strain the brain and the strands of theology and faith!  The short answer is, he is going to fix all our problems, one day.  Just like in  Casablanca, “maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon...” God is going to crack open the sky and bring about the conclusion of history.  Why not fix it today though?  

We could all agree that all God would have to do to fix everything in the world, is say the words.  With a quick sentence or two, the terribleness of the world would come to a screeching halt.  However, God seeks the completion of his mission.  He sent his son to the earth to die, so that he could be the atonement for our sin debt.  The Bible tells us in Romans 6 that, “The wages of sin is death...” There has to be a payment for the sin of the world.  In the Old Testament the atonement was the blood sacrifice.  When Jesus came, he replaced that.  He became the payment on the cross for the sin debt that we owe.  Once and for all.  

In the book of Matthew,  Jesus tells us that “all authority and on earth has been given to him.”  He goes on and includes his followers in this plan.  The plan is to spread the word of his Kingdom to the rest of the world.  What has happened is, over time, the people on Earth have walked further and further away from God.  It is then the mission of God’s followers to bring the rest of the human race to God.  God’s people travel the world with this Gospel, or good news.  Some spread it like wild fire, others keep it to themselves.  

Yeah, that’s perplexing in itself.  

We have a solution to the problems of the world, and we sometimes sit on it.  We hide it.  We disguise it, with our continuous bombardment of those who are not followers of Jesus.  We hit them with disgusting comments and even tear down our fellow brothers and sisters in the process of “protecting our truth.”  

So why doesn’t God fix it?  If he fixed it, we’d miss it.  We would have been forced into a relationship.  We’d be miserable in a sort of captivity.  The beauty of the life of a Christ-follower is that the desire to follow after Jesus is all that matters.  We are not forced into our service to the kingdom.  

It’s just like with my kids.  If I forcibly intervene in their life, they will never recognize the sweetness of life.  If all our mistakes were fixed in auto-pilot mode, then no one would want that.  God offers us a completely free gift of salvation.  We definitely did absolutely nothing to deserve the chance at saving.  So God’s not interested in intervening in lives he’s not invited to.  I think the beauty of this is,  free will.  God creates us knowing that one day we are going to choose to step away from him, yet he still creates us.  

So we are not Mr. Fix-it.  We serve the Fix-all.   One day, he will return and he will complete the perfect world.  Until then, it’s our job to encourage and call on those outside of His plan to join up!

Broken

What good is something that is broken?  Today, that question would probably be followed up with a response near this: "the only good a broken thing can do is fill the trash can."   To some people though, they can make beautiful masterpieces out of broken things.  Turn on HGTV and you'll see a great conglomeration of people who make beautiful out of broken.  Open magazines and see all the makeovers of houses, streets, and people.  All around us, people take broken things and make them beautiful.

I guess you could say, we are just imitating our Creator.  God is working to take this broken world and make it beautiful, that is the theme of the Bible.   Like these people remodel these houses and make something new, He does the exact same thing.

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."  Isaiah 43:19

The things that God does with the lives of His people are simply amazing.

I think we see the trend that we are seeing in the world today, because that is our purpose.  We are already a broken people, we should seek to be restored.  Now, we seek it out in all the wrong.  We go searching for restoration at the bottom of a bottle.  We talk bad about others, so we can feel better about ourselves. We seek it out in the love or lust of another person.  We light up a cigarette or a joint to just feel complete.  We eat and we eat and we eat, because that makes us feel whole.  We cheat in class or on our taxes. We cut and scratch ourselves.  We do all this and yet we have to do it again and again.  Why?  It is not real fulfillment.  It is nowhere near the actual fulfillment of our lives.  The fulfillment of Jesus Christ.

Our restoration can only come from Jesus.  That's why you see so many people go to great lengths in those other realms because one just isn't enough.  Folks, I can tell you now that Jesus is enough.  When you allow Him to take hold of your life, He will be all you'll need.

Here's the thing though.  I don't mean some campy, emotionally-charged experience.  I am talking about true life change.  Letting Jesus take the reins in EVERY portion of your life.  There was a speaker when I was younger, who talked about how letting Jesus in our lives like letting someone in our homes.  Usually, when someone comes over, we clean the high traffic places.  The living room and the bathroom.  We make those rooms the places that are spotless and clean.  A lot of times, we may neglect the kitchen or the bedrooms, maybe.  Well, he always talked about how we needed to let Jesus into the kitchen of our lives.  The kitchen is sometimes the messiest place in the house.  We need to let Jesus in the kitchen, and let him help us do something about it.  The problem is, we like it that way.  We like our messy sometimes.  We are comfortable with our issues and with our shortcomings, our sin.  We like to just be able to pop in to church and ask God's forgiveness, then go back to what we were doing.

That's not what this life in Christ is about.  If you read the verses I previously shared, He makes us a new creation.  The old has passed away.  When things pass away they don't come back.  The prime examples could be Jesus' disciples.  When he called Matthew out of the tax booth, it's not like Matthew followed him for a couple of years, then went back to tax collecting.  Matthew experienced a life change.  When Chip and Joanna Gaines remodel a house and present it to someone, that person doesn't go in and tear everything down and go back to how it used to be.

For new things to come, change has to happen. Does that mean every change will be drastic?  No.  Some changes will be minuscule and some will be wholesale.  When we allow God to truly take hold of our lives, He will be in charge of what stays and what goes.  Sometimes that requires the whole to be broken.  Sometimes it calls our brokenness to be made whole.

I want to leave you with some poignant lyrics from Propaganda.  The song is called Lofty and in the final verse he says...

"But worth, value, and beauty is not determined by some innate quality
But by the length for which the owner would go to possess them
And broken and ugly things just like us are stamped "Excellent"
With ink tapped in wells of divine veins
A system of redemption that could only be described as perfect
A seal of approval, fatal debt removal..."

Allegiance

Where does our citizenship belong?  Where does our allegiance belong?  Can one man serve two masters?  What is my identity?  Those thoughts have been going through my mind for the last few years.  I don't know why, except to say that God is forming my identity far from what it used to be.

First of all, let me say, the Bible is extremely clear on exactly where our citizenship lies.

  "Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the                          example you have in us.  For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even                      with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.  Their end is destruction, their god is                        their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.  But our                              citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will                        transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him                            even to subject all things to himself."

                                                                     Philippians 3:17-21

This passage speaks volumes to where our allegiances should lie and where our citizenship lies as believers.  Jesus Christ is the be all, end all of everything we should do.

When we give our life to Christ, we lay aside everything for His sake.  Yes!  That means our family, our career, our country, and all our allegiance.  As a believer, we are citizens of a Kingdom, beyond anything in this world.  Our loyalty only belongs to God.  In the book of Matthew, Jesus says,"No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other..."  You're finishing that and about to ask me why I didn't.  Jesus closes with, "You can't serve God and money."  So, yeah, we can't serve two masters, but that is just in regards to money and God right?  I must say, I don't think so.  I think we can read this message for what it is.  We must only serve God.  If I swear allegiance to anything else, country, party, money, job, or anything, that puts me on another side away from God.  No country, political party, nationality, or president deserves my loyalty.

Let me stop you before you bring me Matthew 22:21.  Yes, Jesus tells us to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's."  What we tend to overlook is the end of that statement, "and to God the things that are God's."  You're probably thinking again that this is a statement about money.  You would be right.  Jesus is speaking of taxes, but again I think if we look at His teaching, He is attempting to show us much more.  What has God called us to?  To give Him our lives.  Can I give my life both to Jesus and to America?  Can I give my allegiance to both Jesus and my political party?

My loyalty lies with the King of the Universe, Jesus Christ.

My absolute allegiance and commitment lies in Jesus Christ.  All other commitments I have are secondary to Him.  My allegiance to Jennifer Reynolds is contingent on that relationship not taking the place of my relationship with Christ.  My relationship with the rest of my family is the same way.  My citizenship in the U.S.A. is secondary to my citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.  When the U.S.A. dissipates, the Kingdom of Heaven will still be.

I am not a coach who is a Christ-follower.  I am not an American who is a Christ-follower.  I am not a husband who is a Christ-follower.  I am a Christ-follower who has been placed in this portion of the world for God's purpose.  Contrary to popular belief, God's purpose is not to make me famous or to make my name great.  It is not to get me a lot of money, a beautiful house, or anything of that nature.  God's purpose is that He be made known.   My purpose in life is to know God and to make Him known.  That is it.  He allows me to be where I am because that is where He placed me.  I am a coach because that is how He will achieve His purpose.  I am married to my amazing wife because that is a part of His plan.  I am a foster/adoptive parent because that's how He will spread His love.  All authority on earth is subordinate to Christ.

My affiliation doesn't matter aside from who I am in God.  God asks for ALL of me.

If you call yourself a Christian/Christ-follower, the same should be said of you.  God isn't waiting for America to turn back to Him.  He's waiting for you and He's waiting for me to turn back to Him.  He is waiting for us to start living by the Bible.  We have to adopt a new worldview.  For so long, we have adopted this so-called "Christian Worldview."  That worldview is skewed by our Americanized Christianity.  We must align ourselves with the God of the Bible.  That transforms us into a Biblical Worldview.  Sadly, we've westernized everything in creation, the Bible included.

We have to be people of the Bible.  The WHOLE Bible. Not just the bits and pieces that make us feel good.  The parts that make us feel uncomfortable.  These scriptures I have quoted have brought me discomfort, because I know I am not truly living like they say.  I am not always living like a citizen of the Kingdom and I am not always giving God what is His.

I pray that you hear my heart in this writing.  I write what I am going through.  This subject has been and will always be a subject of contention in our country.  I pray that God continues to mold my heart and mind toward his purpose and away from mine.  I pray that you seek the same thing.

Who We Reflect

I get to have a unique perspective on daily life in the relatively small community I live in.  It has always been interesting living in a town with a dynamic such as Henderson.  It’s a good-sized town with 12,000+ people, but it has that feeling of Mayberry, where everyone knows everyone and everything.  If they don’t know who you are, they know your parents or grandparents.  You carry around this invisible label.  

That’s an interesting concept that I’d like to take a look at today.  However,  not from the perspective that one usually looks at this subject from.  I’d like to offer a different opinion, one that I’d not thought about until recently. 

So, as a coach, I talk to my student-athletes a lot about who they are representing.  I walk through the normal line-up.  They represent themselves, their parents, their families, the athletic program, the school, and the town.  If you have worn the Henderson H in middle school in the last seven years, you’ve heard me say that a dozen or more times per year.  Students don’t usually think that way.  They may realize they represent themselves and maybe their families, but come on, the average student in America doesn’t think in terms beyond either themself or their family unit.  Some don’t get past themself.  

From time to time, in that speech I’ve thrown out that students represented their church and God.  I’ve always thought of that as the legit way to get them to commit to make right decisions.  No one wants to disappoint God after all, right?  

So, I’ve started really thinking about this.  God’s really been pointing something out to me.  There shouldn’t be anything beyond representing Him. Our job on this earth, as believers, is to do nothing else but represent God.  We are citizens of the Kingdom of God.  Philippians 3:20 tells us that “our citizenship is in Heaven.”  So, as the Bible says, so we should act like, right? 

We do our best to represent our parents well, usually.  We try hard to represent our schools or workplaces. However, we rarely put it to mind that we represent the Lord.  We worry so much about the parts of this life that are temporary, when we need to focus solely on the portion of this life that is eternal.  The way that we represent God is eternally significant.  We are called to imitate Him.  He would be about His Kingdom business!  We’ve got to be about His Kingdom business!  

We have to be intentional in everything.  It’s of the utmost importance.  Our relationships must be authentic with the goal being nothing but displaying the love of God to the world around us.  We must be the mirror reflecting God.  

As I look around, however, we don’t do that.  We fall into this category of chasing our desires until we’ve had our fill, then we go to church for our “fill up”.  We treat our churches like gas stations and go once or twice a week to get filled.  The funny thing is, God did not intend for our lives to be like that at all.  He intended for us to reflect His glory.  To be a beacon to show Himself to other people.  

The problem becomes when we try to ride the fence.  I do it from time to time too y’all.  However, we’ve got to stop riding the fence.  We’ve got to start being authentic.  Be the person you are at church, at home.  Be the person you are at home, at work.  Be the person you are at work, in the community.  Be a true Christ-follower.  Chase after pleasing Christ rather than pleasing everyone else.  Allow the Lord to prune away the parts of your life that are not going to point others to him.  In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul talks about how we are “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”  What he’s talking about there is us becoming more and more like our God.  

We MUST stop living the two-faced life.  Choose to follow Christ and follow Him!  Don’t just follow him on Wednesday and Sunday.  Love God and Love People.  That’s the image.  The do’s and don’ts fall into place!  God will guide you, trust Him and stop trying to do it all alone.  You will fail on your own!  Chase Him!