The "Christ" in Christmas is not Silent

Just hours after most people have devoured their Thanksgiving meals stores opened up earlier than midnight to start Black Friday. Some stores started their Black Friday deals as early as 6 pm! By that time my turkey hasn't yet hit my lower intestine!

Now with Black Friday in the past and Cyber Monday behind us we can see some of the headlines of the aftermath and it's astonishing! There were stories of people being tased by other civilians, trampling of little old ladies, and even people fist fighting over 29 cent towels at Wal-Mart! 

It's easy to get caught up with the mega deals at stores, the holiday food, hosting family get togethers, traveling, the gifts, and all chaos of trying to have a good holiday season.

What we shouldn't forget is that this is the time of Advent.

Advent comes from the Latin word for "coming". Advent is the season of looking forward to the coming of Christ to earth. This is our time of waiting.

Christ came to this earth already as our perfect Savior. Now we eagerly wait for his return again. We wait for his promise of a new heaven and a new earth. We wait for our Savior to come once again and wipe away our tears, to end our sorrow, and to make all things new.

Let's not be distracted by mega deals or mall fights but lets have our eyes and hearts totally set on eagerly waiting for the coming of our Savior.

Life Happens

Life happens. You become a new believer, your passion is on high and you actively pursue Christ in everything you do. But then life happens. Your daily routine, responsibilities, work and other forces start to wear on you and start to change your over flowing passion for God into something more complacent. When life happens it's tough to hold strong onto our anchor that is Jesus Christ.

Once we start being changed from looking like a reflection of Christ to looking like we were molded by pop culture and other influential forces from this world thats when we have to look at ourselves and ask if we have fallen victim to neglect.

The Book of Hebrews warns of neglect.

I love how the Book of Hebrews start without any sort of salutaion or greeting but goes straight to reminding us what Jesus Christ has done for us and establishes Christ's superiority over the prophets, angels, and any other messengers and letting us know there is no one higher.

Hebrews1:3-4 "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs."

Then in Hebrews 2:1-4 he follows with the warning: "Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will."

It is important that we can hold on to the only true thing in this universe and thats the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, life can be hard, mundane, distracting, but we can't forget who gave us life. He gave us life but not only to simply live but to have life at it's fullest. To have life to the fullest we have to know that we are free in Him because he paid the price for which we deserved. Living for Christ is exciting and fulfilling. Let's not neglect that ultimate love from God

Too Much of a Good Thing

I was sharing the gospel with someone rather close to me (let's call him Alex) at 1 in the morning at a Chili's. Before Chili's, I took Alex out to a small venue out in Midlothian, TX to go see a few local metal bands play. All these bands were Christian Metal bands and every song was filled with the gospel. Between songs the lead vocalist for some of the bands would share their testimonies and how past pain and God's intervention in that pain inspired the next song to be played. Some came from broken families, drug abuse, sexual immorality, struggles with unbelief, self harm, and other heartbreaking sins. They also gave encouragement and expressed the love they felt from Jesus Christ. Truly an inspiring night.

After the concert I knew I had to go deeper into the gospel with Alex because he is an unbeliever and I couldn't let all that was shared that night from the bands go unaddressed (did I make-up a word?). So that's when I decided to take Alex out to eat.

Over cheesy fries and a couple of burgers, I began to probe his mind about what he thought about the bands and some of their messages.

"It was cool. The music was good. But I don't think I'm ready for any of this God stuff. Nothing bad has happened to me yet to where I need God. Even talking about how perfect heaven is doesn't sound all that great. Haven't you heard of too much of a good thing?"

We had that conversation almost like 5 months ago and every now and then it would crawl to the front of my mind. Can God be too much of a good thing?

In a worldly sense, too much of a good thing is a reasonable thought. Too much candy can get you diabetes. Too much pizza can bring so many health problems. Even too much water can result into water poisoning! Candy, pizza, and water are not all bad but too much of it can give bad results (some people might argue my pizza example ~~Bianca~~). But can God's love and perfection be too much? No.

All through out history in scripture we are constantly reminded of how broken our world is and how we long for things to go back to what they once where before the fall. Once Adam and Eve ate that fruit everything was fractured. There was peace, harmony, rhythm, joy, love, unity, perfection but all was broken. Shame was realized, violence against our God erupted, and sin ran rampant.

The prophets spoke about creation restored. In Isaiah 11:6-9 "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat . . . They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain." In our fallen world the wolf doesn't dwell with the lamb he destroys it! In our hurting world the leopard doesn't lie down with the lamb he devours it! In Revelation 21 God says there will be no more mourning, no more pain, and he will wipe away all of our tears. He is declaring to restore thing like they once were in Eden before the fall. We long to have peace restored!

Eternal peace isn't too much of a good thing. Ultimate love isn't too much of a good thing. Creation renewed isn't too much of a good thing. God isn't too much of a good thing. It's what we long for.

How Long

"2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear me? Or cry to you 'Violence!' and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted. (The Lord's Answer) 5 'Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.'"

                                                  -Habakkuk 1:2-5

        
How Long (Love Constraining To Obedience) from Wayfarer: Repurposed Hymns on Vimeo.

Brothers and Sisters Fighting Lust

The wedding date is just a little more that two months away and it's getting difficult. There are so many little details that we have to take care of that we didn't even think about before! And I'm still worried that more of these small, but HUGE, details will rear their ugly heads as we get closer to the wedding. Another difficult thing in our engagement is the lust.

The more we speak to other married or engaged couples the more we find that a significant struggle for couples is that physical longing intensifies for one another as the big day gets closer.  I did struggle with this. I usually initiated a lot of it, but we came together and humbled ourselves and began to seek accountability with another couple close to us.

The accountability that we have is great, but we knew we couldn't stop there. We prayed that God would make us more Christ-like and prayed for a heart change and along with that our thinking.

Kevin DeYoung is the author of A Hole in our Holiness and he wrote something along the lines of seeing one another as Brothers and Sisters in Christ before we both say "I do". Kim is still my Sister in Christ. She will be until we actually become one. This truth has greatly shaped I viewed my relationship with Kim.

This even works for young men and women who struggle with lust.

If we are not married to that person, they are our Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Our desire for them shouldn't be physical but our desire should be that we help mature one another in Christ! Even if they are not saved just yet, our hope shouldn't be trying to get them to come home with us but our hope should be that they get to know and experience Christ!

God is building his Church using every Brother and Sister that even the gates of hell can't stand against.

Who are called to be saints?

" . . . through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." - Romans 1:5-7

In the beginning of the letter that Paul wrote to the Romans, Paul says he is called to be an apostle and then in v.6 he writes that we are ". . . called to belong to Jesus Christ." and again in v.7 Paul writes "To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints." Paul puts an emphasis on a calling.

The good news is that we are all called. We are all called through Jesus Christ. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we are called to be with him! God uses the Gospel to call us into him. He wants us to belong to Him.

The tougher pill to swallow is not everyone will accept the calling. The Gospel of Jesus Christ will be heard by everyone. When the Gospel is heard not everyone will accept it. Some will accept it in the moment but then later on will fall off. The ones that do hear the Gospel and accept it and live it out by holding on tightly to God's love are the ones called to be saints. 

We are all called to be saints! It comes down to the matter of us accepting that loving call.

Hillsong UNITED Relentless Music Video from Hillsong Church on Vimeo.

Time to Celebrate!!!

The L/\UNCH youth group is at Daytona, Florida attending the Student Life Conference and I couldn't be more excited about the news I received today!

Here at home a few of us got to stream the audio at Daytona live and were listening to the sermon that Louie Giglio was delivering. He spoke about being dead. Giglio said our sin doesn't make us a bad person but something far worse; our sin make us dead. If we think sin makes us just a bad person and we somehow have to clean up our act to be presentable to God then we are just being religious. Only God can bring us back to life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God is calling us to be ALIVE! Free from sin! Not trying to pull off some Weekend-At-Bernie's skit disguising ourselves trying to pass through life as if we're alive but in reality we're dead.

Such a powerful message about how deadly sin really is and how Jesus came and conquered death, defeated the grave and rose back to life. This allows us to be fully alive.

Towards the end of the sermon Louie asked everyone in the building who were once dead but are now alive at that moment to stand up walk down towards the lower level. Back at home we could only stream audio from the conference but we could hear shuffling of the feet of all the people who were once dead but now God has brought them to life.

We immediately started praying for everyone in the building and were hoping that all our kids in L/\UNCH were saved from death and brought to life.

Today, we received news that my little brother, Joshua "Handsome" Herrera had an amazing night that night and was saved from the grave and brought to life!!!

"I used to be dead and now I'm alive." - Joshua "Handsome" Herrera


It is now time to rejoice and celebrate! Luke 15:10

Did You Hear the News?

This was a blog post from The Gospel Coalition. Click here for the link!

"Most people in your city think that Christianity is all about advice—that it's a list of "do's" and "don'ts." They couldn't be more wrong.We react far differently to news than we do to advice. Imagine a young wife who, nine months earlier, sent her husband off to war. It's been a devastating, frightening, and lonely nine months. But a good friend comes over and gives her some sound and helpful advice to help her through. The friend tells her: "Be strong. Be patient. Stay busy. Find yourself a good hobby and some projects to fill your time until your husband comes home. Keep writing him those letters. Stay strong."

How is the young wife going to react? She'll likely appreciate the advice and try to absorb it. It will be a help of sorts, but the advice doesn't produce joy or relief.
Imagine, though, the same young wife in the same situation. Imagine that same friend coming over, but instead of offering good advice she speaks good news: "Did you hear the news? The war is over! Your husband is coming home! He's coming back!"
How will that young wife respond? Will she break down and cry tears of relief? Will she run into her friend's arms, screaming and celebrating? One thing is certain: she will rejoice! People react differently to good news than they do to good advice. Advice gives people more work to do. Good news gives people freedom.

News Brings Joy

Jesus didn't come with advice for us to absorb and follow; he came with news. The word gospel means "good news." It is news that brings joy. The gospel is history-making, life-shaping, paradigm-shattering news. It is news about something done, in history, that changes you, that changes everything, forever. Jesus does something so radical, so violent, so dramatic, and it seals this good news and makes a way for us to join the Big Story.

It is this news that makes Jesus so attractive; it is this news that separates him from all other religions. He didn't come dispensing advice on how to clean yourself up and make yourself better. He didn't offer a list of action items or set of instructions about things you must do to find God, freedom, rest, or peace. No! Jesus came saying you can be known, loved, set free, forgiven, and made new.

This new life is open to anyone. Anyone can be made new, made clean, set free, given a relationship with the living God. And it is free. There is no earning it. It is yours, no strings attached. The gospel says all this has been done. There isn't any more doing to do. It's not advice, so don't treat the gospel like mere advice. Jesus came, lived, died, and rose again to earn the way to God, freedom, rest, and peace for you.

Nobody else has ever spoken this way, arriving on the scene and offering news of a new life instead of advice about a better life. Founders of other religions and worldviews ask you to do something—to perform and obey—to bring your doing to the table in order to enjoy the benefits of karma, nirvana, inner peace, a better future, salvation, or whatever the benefit might be. Christianity is the one faith whose founder tells us not to bring him our doing, but our need.

 This article has been adapted from Justin Buzzard's new book, The Big Story: How the Bible Makes out of Life (Moody, 2013).

Sweatin' the Small Stuff

I have this horrible problem of constantly misplacing my wallet which leads me to panic a little inside because my thinking is that I lost my wallet and now someone can take my identity. Even as I typed that last sentence my chest sank in fear and I padded the right side of my butt just to check if I still had my wallet on me.

Whenever I misplace my wallet I tend to be a little dramatic. You could probably never tell on the outside but on the inside I AM FREAKING OUT. My mind and heart start racing and I think of all the horrible (sometimes unrealistic) possibilities of what could happen if the wrong person grabbed a hold of my wallet. When I am in the midst of my freak out I become irritable, I become short with people, and am not as nice as I know I could be to people who try to help me. I become unpleasant.

Its been about a year now since my last freak out. That's because God humbled me.

Right before I was about to leave the house I was doing my regular mental check list of the things I needed for work. (Phone? Check. Keys? Check. Wallet? . . . panic.) Inside of my wallet was the key that I needed to open up the place I was working at. Without my wallet we couldn't open up the store and I had maybe just ten minutes to find my wallet so I could open up the store on time.

I started flipping couch cushions, unfolding blankets, moving couches, and questioning everyone in the house about where my wallet was last seen. I tried to retrace my steps in my mind but I couldn't even remember if I had it on me last night. My wallet was nowhere to be found and I had no clue about where it could be.

That's when I calmed myself down and started praying.

I began to say to God, "I am sorry about my actions, Father. You know my need, Lord. I need to find my wallet but I am going to give you all of my anxieties, Lord . . ." As I was praying I was walking to my room one last time.  I placed my hands on the edge of the bed and began to kneel. On my way down to my knees I felt something under the mangled blankets I was throwing around on my bed. I lifted my blanket and there she was!

Even though my anxiety was blinding me from seeing my wallet right in front of me God made it clear to me that all my worrying was for nothing. My anxiety was foolish. I should not be sweating the small stuff.

Here are some verses on casting our anxieties on our Father:

Philippians 4:5-6
1 Peter 5:7
Matthew 6:27
Matthew 6:31-33
Lamentations 3:23

Fighting

There are times where we can feel so stressed and burdened by what is going on around us that it can actually drive us to complete silence with God. It's as if our own sin is acting as a gag on us completely keeping us from crying out to God. We start feeling like we are bound by sin and evil, unable to find our joy in God again. Unable to pray.

I was having a conversation with David Borrego (literally an hour before typing this) about stresses and finding joy again. He said to me, "See, what I do is just think about Jesus. I think about what the Gospel is as a whole. I try to fight the good fight. John Piper talks about fighting for joy and that's what I do I fight everyday."

That is exactly what I needed to hear. Lately, whenever I have been praying I felt as if I wasn't getting my point across or voicing my needs to God. But The Spirit knew exactly what I was trying to say even though I couldn't piece together the words, God understood what I was praying for (Romans 8:26). God, through David, told me to keeping fighting, to keep fighting for joy everyday. I have to remember what Christ did for the world and to be filled by this truth.



Here is a great blog post by Ray Ortlund about the inability to pray and how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/06/14/when-you-cant-even-pray/ . This influenced the blog today.

Righteous Headbanging!

I am a lover of all kinds of art that glorifies God. That includes metal. I understand that this might not be everyone's cup of tea but this is actually a ministry that glorifies God. This ministry has actually been a light in such a dark place that is the metal scene. Thank God for this metal ministry.

Now here is your new music of the month! Exiting The Fall!

They Will Say . . .

They will say . . . "You'll get over this. "

They will say . . . "You're still the same. Now lets get back to were we were."

They will say . . . "Like all those other times this fad will pass."


I will say . . . "I will remain in the light of His love."

"What Jesus Did Do" Not "WWJD"

Starting off my walk as a christian I felt so inadequate. Not even the signature phrase "What would Jesus do" applied to me, because I had no idea what Jesus would do! I was just starting to read my bible! I had no knowledge of all the teachings of Jesus or even the most basic stories of the Old Testament.

This motivated me to become like a sponge. I soaked up all the knowledge I could by YouTube-ing sermons, reading blogs, reading books, and learning what was actually in my bible.

But Jody and Jimmy, respectively, both taught me something. Jody's sermon series Start Dancing, Stop Marching (Which could be found on our website and Podcast! Check it!) taught me I needed to start enjoying God's glory and to stop being so religious in my reading. And just this past Sunday Jimmy said "It's not WWJD but it's What Jesus Did Do!"

Jesus died so I am free to act on what God has instructed me, and us, to do! Through His death and resurrection I am free to love! I am now dancing with Christ!

I Will Remain In the Light of Your Love

I will try and post new music from up and coming christian artists at least once a month. Now get into Thad Kopec! Go download the new album for free from Noisetrade.com

Adopted

This past weekend we as Love City Church served in Our Calling Ministries in Downtown Dallas. We helped give out clothing, tooth brushes, water, and we got to worship with some of the homeless in Dallas. We were also encouraged to build relationships with these people and to share God's truth with them.

 I approached one of the homeless men there and asked him where he was from and his name. He said, "Oh, I'm nobody." He said this with all sincerity. This broke my heart.

I knew if he accepted Christ he could see that we become someone because we are adopted into God's family.

When we think about the gospel we often forget this element of our salvation (I am guilty of this as well). This idea of adoption shows us that God accepts sinners as his sons and daughters. Our salvation does not just save us from spending eternity from God but make us a part of a great community that is God. We become someone in God's family!

We are all adopted!

Hate Sin

A big reason as to why I was an atheist early on in my life was because I was baffled as to why such a "loving" God would allow such heartache and violence happen all across our globe. I used 9/11, Columbine, random terrorist attacks, and other tragic events as "proof" that there was no God. But I was only looking at the surface. Now I am a follower of Christ and I now understand. (This next idea didn't come from me originally but from a blogger at The Gospel Coalition. She wrote about the Sandy Hook shooting. Her name escapes me but I am giving the credit to her.) These horrible world tragedies aren't God's fault, Its sin's fault. When the bombs at the Boston Marathon exploded (Killing three people)our initial reaction shouldn't be "Why have you done this God!?" but it should be "I hate sin." Sin caused this. Sin brings on destruction. The sins of people causes them to commit terrible acts of violence. But they are not the only ones with sin, we also sin daily. This is what our sin and everybody else's sin in the world is capable of doing. I don't know about you but I hate my sin more today than I did yesterday. I pray that God brings peace and understanding to the people who are hurting here, Boston, and everywhere else in the world. I pray that we all realize that Christ died for our sins so we didn't have to suffer for all of eternity. He died the death we deserved and lived the life we couldn't live.

For Jack!

Philippians 2:3-4 "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit but with humility of mind regard one another more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest but also for the interest of others."

The Nebraska football team regarded Jack as more important than themselves, and it was beautiful.

All the glory to God for allowing us to love one another so much.

Its All Around You

The winter weather has been hanging around these parts a little too long this season. But now the spring weather is coming! So now is a good time to go out and enjoy the nature that God has surrounded us with.

In Romans 1:19-20 its reads, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse."

God is saying "Just look all around you!"

The trees, leaves, grass, hills, mountains are all witnesses to how good God is! The are all proclaiming and shouting "I am God's creation!" We are also his creation. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. It's time we go outside and and enjoy what God has made

Why Jesus Over Everything

He backed up everything he said.

Today, over 2000 yrs ago, Christ was crucified.

Today, over 2000 yrs ago, "God claimed to be God, and it was called blasphemy!"

Today, over 2000 yrs ago, Jesus saw what was on the other side of the cross that no one else could see at Calvary. What he saw was beautiful, Jesus saw us. He knew what had to be done. He was even offered a drink to numb his pain but Jesus knew he had to take the entire wrath of the Father.

Our God is a just God. Our God is a loving God. Because God is such a just God, He had to punish sin. Sin cannot be simply withdrawn. Because God is a loving God, He willing chose to bare His Fathers wrath.

Jesus told the Jews, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
Christ backed it up.

Spoken Word

I am a lover of art, music, and just everything dealing with culture. Lately, i have been in love with the power of Spoken Word Poetry. It is amazing how God has instilled artistic passions in people for God's own glory. Here is one of my favorites:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JNVW5iWqzCQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

We Are Not Alone

In Luke 4, Jesus was tempted by Satan and Jesus kept Satan at bay. He kept Satan from successfully tempting him by reciting scripture back at him. He didn't use the power and wrath that he had as the Son of God to fend him off but instead he used scripture. Every time Satan tempted Jesus he quoted from Deuteronomy. What if the only thing between us and Satan's temptations was our knowledge of scripture from Deuteronomy?  I don't know if many of us would be successful.

Reading God's Word is essential to our growth, 1 Peter 2:2 "Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation"

Reading God's Word is also essential to our maturity, Hebrews 5:11-14 "About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil."

But even with all that said,.we still make up excuses: "I'm too tired" "I gotta get up early in the morning" "I don't have the mental focus after such a long day to read" etc. We even get discouraged when reading because we aren't getting or seeing the same things everyone else seems to be getting out of scripture. These could be frustrating. I know because I've said all of these at some point.

But here is some advice, whenever we start making these excuses in our minds we have to really think about how high reading God's word is on our priority list. The answer: it has to be top priority.

Now some encouragement, we are not alone when we read scripture. All though out man-kind God has become more and more intimate with us. First, there was the Tabernacle. Then God took on flesh and walked among us. Now God's very Spirit dwells in us. We are not alone when we read scripture because we have the Holy Spirit. Anyone can read scripture but if you have the Spirit you are able to understand it. All this takes time and learning though. But God has given us more than enough by giving us His word. We are to use this Bible we have in our hands to keep Satan at bay and to ultimately have a closer and richer relationship with God.

He Cannot Deny Himself

Yes, it's only Wednesday. Only halfway through the week. But now is the perfect time to remember the goodness of God!

Let's look at 2 Timothy 2:8-13
"Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself."
I love the fact that no matter how much we struggle its for his glory that we persevere and no matter how little faith we have in him He cannot deny himself because he is a faithful God.

Also. all throughout scripture we can see how God becomes more and more intimate with us.  In Exodus 25:8 we see that God was in the temple so that he may dwell with his people, and even when we rebelled against him God wanted to get closer to us. That's when God took on flesh and became fully-man and fully-God and he walked among his own creation. And we still rebelled and we crucified Him. But even after all that God still wanted to be closer to us! So now he is inside of us. That's the Holy Spirit.

He is always in pursuit of us. He is wanting to be more and more intimate with you even if you rebel " . . . for he cannot deny himself."

Under The Authority Of God

In elementary school my father was the police officer who visited the local schools and gave demonstrations to the kids about what a police officer does. He explained gun safety, he taught about the purpose of having a trained police K-9, etc. He would also have a Q&A session with the kids. Most of the questions asked by my classmates were about fighting crime. They asked questions like, "How many bad guys did you catch today?" and "Who are the bad guys?" also "Is it scary being a police officer?" My father loved coming to the schools and I was so proud about having a father who was a police officer. But not only that, he was a real life superhero to me.

I was always the shy and quiet kid who loved playing with his Batman toys, my favorite superhero, by himself. But after word got out on the playground that the police officer was my father I instantly became the most popular kid in school. For a boy who was obsessed with Batman --and pretty much any superhero at the time-- this was huge for me! I started to feel like I had to follow my dads lead and become a crime fighter at my school. Like Spiderman, I said to myself, "With great power comes great responsibility." I knew I had to use my sudden popularity for good to triumph over evil.

The position of my father suddenly gave me the authority to stand up for injustice and for the voiceless in the schoolyard. I would stop bullying and stand up for the quiet kid, because I was once that quiet kid. I would stop kids from taking an extra carton of milk in the lunch line and made sure every game that was played was played fairly. And those kids actually listened to me. They listened because they knew of the authority I had due to the position of my father!

I think you all know where I am going with this, as Christians we have the authority of an almighty, heavenly Father to stand up to injustice. Proverbs 31:8-9 "Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy." When God created us he breathed life into our lungs. We are to open our mouths and use that very air that God has given us to speak against evil and injustice.

There are so many injustices in the world today. Pray about what God is calling you to stand up against. God could be calling you to stop bullying, to rise up against abortion, to stop domestic violence, to stand up for battered women, or to be a voice to 27 million voiceless slaves in the world right now. I don't believe Jesus was telling us to be passive when he told us to turn the other cheek (here, Jesus was talking about individuals who are seeking revenge or to punish an other individual. This can be discussed on another blog posting) but he gives us Romans 12:21 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." We can stand firm under the authority of God to be real life superheros for God's glory by standing up for the voiceless. For Paul wrote Romans 8:31&37, "If God is for us, who can be against us? . . . we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

My Sabbatical by Jonny Herrera

I am getting married! God has shown me undeserving grace in pairing me with Kimberly West! This is why I am taking a sabbatical from ministry duties at LoveCity Church. So that Kimberly and I are able to build a foundation. I am excited! I am excited because of Ephesians 5:31-33 "'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

Paul gives an awesome illustration to couples about what marriage is suppose to be like: Christ and the Church. But that isn't even his full point about marriage that Paul is trying to make. the point is that the relationship between Christ and the Church is eternal and that marriage is not. Our marriage is suppose to be a reflection and pointing upwards to Christ and his gospel. We are to be a parable of the gospel and with us being a parable we have roles to fulfill.

The role of the wife is to portray the church: a church that loves and serves the world and finds the glory that is in Christ. And the mans role is to portray Christ: the mans is to show Christ to the world, a savior that loves and will sacrifice all that he has for the church (Bart Box). I think John Piper puts it best,  "And therefore the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married."

This is why I am excited to take this sabbatical. Because I don't want to make little of the meaning of my upcoming marriage with Kim. I don't want my worldly emotional or romantic love to be the core of my relationship with Kim. By doing that i am saying that my lustful drive for Kim is greater than my love for God. My marriage will be a reflection of the gospel. A reflection of Gods holiness and grace. This will be the foundation to our marriage: a reflection of the greatest love story of all-time: Jesus.