Weekly Devotional - This Is Disicipleship

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. - Col 2:6-7

Jesus was a unique man. Besides the obvious, the whole equally God and equally man hypostatic union... thing... we see a man who was fearless but humble, fierce but gentle, and a man who turned every expectation upside down. He cut through the insincere practices of religion, getting to the heart of God. He healed sickness and disease, fed thousands, and preached mercy and forgiveness. He loved with a radical and overwhelming love and was killed for it.

And we are told to walk in him. 

What does that even mean?

Everyone has a different answer to that question. Super-Conservatives will tell you exactly what it means. They have endless lists with subpoints, charts and graphs. Super-Liberals will give you a wishy-washy answer that has something to do with feelings and fair trade coffee.

But it simply comes down to imitating the life of Jesus. I don't mean wearing a tunic and sandals and walking all over the desert preaching against the religious and political leaders. I mean being the type of person that Jesus was.

But to do that, you have to build a solid foundation - a solid root. You need to know who he was before you can imitate him. And the only reliable way to do that is to constantly be reading the gospels, asking yourself, "Who is this Jesus?"

This is discipleship.

As you continue to do this, you will find yourself being built up. You'll start to see your life change. You'll start acting like Jesus.

So do you know what Jesus was like? How can you start acting more like him?

Weekly Devotional - Living A Kingdom Focused Life

A few days ago, my friend Toby found himself being dragged to a McDonald's parking lot. This was obviously strange and terrible, as McDonald's food is nasty. But as it turned out they weren't there to buy food.

Earlier that week, Toby had his cell phone stolen. And to make matters worse, in his attempt to retrieve his phone from the thieves, he dropped his car keys in their car while they were making their get-away. As a phone-less, key-less, broke college kid, Toby was understandably upset. After hours of trying to think of a solution to his unfortunate predicament, he realized there was nothing he could do. He was powerless to fix his situation.

But in an act of Christ-like generosity, Toby's friends conspired together to replace his phone.

Like Toby, they are also poor college students. But they figured they could make a little bit of a sacrifice, and help a friend out. Which is what Christ did, albeit on a much larger scale. This lifestyle of sacrifice is what we, as Christians are supposed to be doing with our lives. We're supposed to be kingdom-focused.

The Christians in Colossae were apparently pretty good at this.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. (Colossians 1:3-8, ESV)

The Christians in Colossae loved each other, just like Jesus commanded us. But why? Paul says its because they were looking at the big picture. They were looking forward to Heaven. They knew how their story ended, and it gave them hope. They were kingdom-minded.

Kingdom-minded means suffering is temporary. Which frees you up to sacrifice - like Toby's friends. It frees you up to spend less time on yourself, and more time on other people. It means when times are tough, we can grit our teeth and take the pain because our story ends well.

Kingdom-minded means looking to God. Later in Chapter 1 it says this, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (1:15-16). Paul writes with absolute clarity - Jesus IS God. He made the world. He is over and above all rulers and authorities. Jesus is in control. He's God, and everything is for his glory. We can worship him in the difficult times by resting in the truth of his being in control of everything. 

Kingdom-minded means loving people. It's just one of those things. If you truly love God, you will love people. If you don't love people, maybe you don't love God. When Paul talks about the Gospel, "bearing fruit," this is what he means. They heard the Gospel. They heard about Jesus - God coming into human history as a man, living the life we couldn't live, paying the price we couldn't pay, and dying the death we all deserved to die - and, "understood the grace of God" (1:6). And it led them to love each other with the same type of self-sacrificial love that Jesus demonstrated, and the same type of self-sacrificial love that Toby's friends demonstrated. Mother Teresa said this, " I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

So how can you shift your perspective to be a bit more kingdom focused this week?

Bill Nye Vs. Ken Ham: Who Won?

Tuesday night Bill Nye (The Science Guy) debated Ken Ham, founder and CEO of Answers In Genesis (AIG) and President of the Creation Museum. The debate was highly publicized and live streamed on CNN. It focused on the question, "Is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern, scientific era?" Unsurprisingly, many peoples opinions on who won had more to do with their beliefs before the debate than the actual debate.

That said, the debate is below for your viewing pleasure. Additionally, here are some links to articles covering the debate from both sides of the table.

This is AIG's post debate coverage: http://bit.ly/1l0SZse
Here's an article written from Bill's perspective: http://bit.ly/1fz85Sh
Here's an article that thinks both sides are wrong: http://bit.ly/1byZKP3
Here's another interesting article from a Christian with a slightly different take: http://thebea.st/1eBWPXa

"Poison Tree" - From Depravity To Life

“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." - Luke 6:43-45 ESV

Last week at Love City Church we did a song during worship called Poison Tree. One of the reasons I love the song is because of the striking and powerful lyrics.

The song begins with a profound description of our own depravity - one which pierces to the soul. But then the Chorus takes a turn from the macabre and swells into a beautiful declaration of our hope in the blood of Christ. The whole song reminds me of a quote from Jack Miller, "Cheer up! You’re a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you’re more loved than you ever dared hope."



Here are the lyrics:

Verse 1:
This tree bears strange fruit
There’s blood on the leaves, it’s dead at the roots
The cracked grey branches are decaying within
Just like the black poison that hangs from its limbs

Pre-Chorus:
Come and dig me up
Reach down to the root
Rip the deadness out
And plant something new

Chorus:
I am alive, I will abide
In the life giving blood of Christ
I’m grafted in, You’ve killed my sin
Now I will live, I’ll live in him.

Verse 2:
I tried to tie good fruit
To a tree that had poison all the way through
It rotted and fell off
It was dead to the core
It even killed the ground I was worse than before

There Are Two Kinds of Funerals

            I haven’t been to many funerals but I’ve been to enough to notice a difference between a few of these.

            When I was going into my freshman year of high school I lost a close relative of mine. I was heartbroken. We all knew it was coming but none of us were truly prepared to deal with the loss. When it was time for the viewing there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Before the service began there were a few sniffles with boxes of tissues being passed around and there was arguing in front of the casket. Once the preacher began to speak sobbing ensued.

            With the tears being shed it was almost as if there was no real peace in the room, no peace in our family or in our hearts. The preacher had to speak loudly for everyone to hear. I can’t remember too much about what was said, but I remember the theme of the message matching the tone of my family’s tears: They are forever gone. Now there will always be something missing in our lives and there is nothing that can mend our hearts. We should just take our loss and try to find a way to cope and move on.

At this time I was not in Christ. All I knew up until then was that there is no life after death.

Since then I have been to more Christ centered funerals. Recently I went to a funeral to support a friend who lost a loved one. I’ve never heard such laughter, felt such love and seen so many embraces being passed around by the family who where rejoicing in the lives once lived by the recently passed. Of course there were tears but these tears were not the same as the tears I’ve seen being shed in the past. These tears had more life and love in them. These tears were uplifting, merciful, and in worship to God.

The difference between these funerals was God. God was invited and he was praised.

In this funeral the Pastor had a greater message that summed up what our attitudes about life and death should be. He read the passage Philippians 1:21 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”. What a perfect verse to speak on at a funeral. If we truly give ourselves up to God there is no real deep sorrow but a great joy. We rejoice because death is not the end of us. We don’t simply live and die. We are given a life so that we might know Christ and to have the ability to proclaim his name. Death should not be feared because Christ has taken away its sting. It is now something we should readily accept because it brings us back to Christ. We live our lives on earth for the gospel of Jesus Christ and whenever we do pass we are reunited with our savior!

We are so thankful that you have joined us on this journey to become and make disciples of Jesus. We have enjoyed the blessings of the Lord this past year and a half. It has been an incredible journey so far full of ups and downs, but we have seen God move in ways we could have never imagined. We hope and pray that you have experienced God’s presence in your time with us.

As great as the past year has been we are expectant and eagerly looking forward to what we believe God is leading us to in the next year. We wanted to take a moment to get you up to speed.

We will be kicking of “Groups” at the beginning of the year. This is a place for the whole family to plug into a deeper community environment throughout the week. While there will be one structured meeting time during the week, our hope is that you will develop relationship that will overflow into daily interaction with one-another.

We also want to get you more involved. As a result there will be more opportunities for you to serve on various “servant” teams and once a quarter we as a church will be partnering in love with an outside organization with our giving and/or volunteering.

Lastly, many of you have asked or been curious and the answer is yes, we are actively pursuing a building of our own. Right now it doesn’t make sense for us to purchase so we are looking for a place to lease. By obtaining a space of our own we will be able to better accommodate families, do more outreach in the community, and (drum roll please) have a later start time for our Sunday gathering.

There is more, but we know that you are thrilled with excitement and currently can’t contain your joy so we will allow you to express yourself and will share the rest with you when you have calmed down a bit. We look forward to this next year with you and hope you continue to partner with us on this journey to pursue Jesus. We love you.

Jimmy Rodriguez

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.