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:

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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.