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