Lately we are experiencing more than usual giving opportunities. I realize that every time a new month rolls around I am asking you to give to something new...a soap drive for the fair outreach ministry, missions offering, student adoption, Operation Christmas Child, Seizing a God-Sized Vision, building fund,
etc. This can get taxing, but realize that each one of these opportunities is something God has designed for Calvary Church to express His abundant overflow of grace.
Whenever I am thinking and praying about a giving opportunity I am usually asking myself, "How good has God been good to me?" This question prompts me to want to give as generously as God provides for the Linneruds. You see I am a recipient of a grace that is so abundant it's almost indescribable. Paul describes it this way,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. (Ephesians 1:3 ESV)
As grace receivers we are now called on to be grace givers. I believe it is God's desire that we be conduits of His abundant grace to those around us. Paul expressed this as a "debt" or "obligation" in Romans 1:14. The obligation just didn't come out of need, but truly out of a sense of God's grace in his life.
I just happen to feel that the more we give the more we are blessed. We get to be a small part of what God is doing in the world. We may never know how God will use our gifts to change people, but remember how He used a child's lunch? Can't forget that one. He even used a "hodge podge" of people to plant a church in Philippi (Acts 16). We must ask how God wants to use us.
I want to encourage you to give graciously and abundantly in the days ahead. Sacrifice as Jesus sacrificed to meet the needs of others.
Grace & Peace,
Scott
On the way home yesterday (9-28-09) I had a most wonderful conversation with our oldest, Ben. Over the phone I could almost feel him "jumping out of his skin" in enthusiasm about his love for God. Lately I have been praying specifically for our kids to greatly enjoy the presence of God through the gift of His Spirit. I ask the Lord to help them in their journey of faith and to fall in love with Him in a fresh way each day. And this is the answer to prayer I get!
We talked about joy and how our relationship with the Creator greatly affects our outlook on life. We even talked about when the joy begins to fade. But I told him that it never needs to fade. Yes, our expectations of being joyfully enthralled with our heavenly Father teaches us that we cannot sustain that high level of jubilance for an entire lifetime, but I just think that's bunk! God doesn't change...we do. So Ben and I finished our conversation with encouraging one another to "fight for joy"!
I am such a blessed man to be the father of such wonderful children. I stand amazed in the overflowing abundant grace of God.
Grace & Peace,
Scott
I think we all struggle from time-to-time with attachment to this world. There is so much that we see, taste, touch and feel that we sense to compulsion to fall in love with the temporal and forget about the eternal. After all, the world that God created is beautiful in so many different ways and He did create it for us to enjoy. The danger comes when we fall in love with the creation instead of the Creator.
Yes, the creation was given for us to enjoy, but ultimately it was for the glory God. The world was given to reveal God to us (cf. Romans 1:20) and once God was revealed then we are responsible to respond to that revelation and honor God. The problem comes when we become so enthralled with the created thing that the Creator becomes secondary to our appreciation, or, even more tragically, is completely forgotten. That is the perversion of creation.
Yes, we pervert the world when we turn it into something that God never intended it to be. Paul clearly expressed this in Romans 1:
21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
It may also be surprising to discover that this is not what creation longs for. It doesn’t want the attention we have been giving it. It doesn’t want to be perverted to the point of worship. Notice how Scripture puts it:
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:22)
The world is crying out in pain to be release from the curse of sin that Adam caused through his disobedience to God.
I hope it makes you think…God created the world with an order and that order clearly points to His majestic beauty. God is truly a Grand Canyon God! Let’s not get it mixed up.
Grace & Peace, Scott
If you are a believer you have found that living in this world is no picnic (at least it shouldn’t be). The world is no friend of grace. It is repulsed at our doctrine and recoils at our Christian response to events. They are okay with us as long as we “go with the flow.” It is when we are swimming against the current that they are bothered and put out by us. Some believers have accepted this and continue in their plodding toward the kingdom while others have given in to the pressure of the world and have turned around to get along with the world’s ways and their way of thinking. Why do we do this? (Because we all do to some extent or at one time or the other.)
I believe the answer lies in the fact that we have grown tired of the struggle. Our expectations have changed. The enthusiasm has worn off for going at it God’s way. We reason that God should let up and give us a vacation from the pressure the world is putting on our lives.
A writer of Scripture that reminds me of this is Jeremiah. Now if anybody had reason to throw in the proverbial towel on following God it would have been him. After all, we call him the “weeping prophet.” He struggled with what God was up to and even questioned the Almighty. One particular passage that comes to mind is Jeremiah 12:1-4. In this passage he is questioning the justice of God. His question (v. 1) is good, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” Good question, but God’s answer (v. 5) is better, “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?” God was saying in essence, “If you think you got it tough now, what are you going to do when the pressure is really turned on?”
God’s answer is a statement about endurance…about the long haul. Friedrich Nietzsche got it when he wrote, “The essential thing in heaven and earth is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction.” This “long obedience” will be difficult in a world that bombards us with fast food, thirty-second commercials, microwave popcorn, and GPS shortcuts. But endurance in the Christian is absolutely essential. Fortunately the Bible is full of instructions on how we can make it on this tough faith journey. All we have to do is crack open God’s Word and meditate on His roadmap for our lives.
Grace & Peace, Scott
Last Sunday I preached the final message from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He eloquently and appropriately ended His teaching with an illustration about two builders. One builder He calls “wise” because he not only hears the words of Jesus but he also puts them into practice. The other builder is not so fortunate…Jesus labels him a “fool” because he hears his words but refuses to practice them. I want to stress three points about this illustration and then I’ll give the Sermon on the Mount a rest for a little while.
First, it all swings on obedience. When Jesus observes that one builder “Hears these words of mind and does them” while the other “hears these words of mind and does not do them” He is referring back to the entire teaching He presented in Matthew 5-7. He is saying that hearing is not enough; just hearing leaves us better informed, but not changed. The aim of God’s truth is to change us, not make us smarter. James echoes this in his letter to the scattered and embittered believing Jews of his time:
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (James 1:22)
Second, storms will crash into our lives. Jesus is specific, He speaks as straightforward and honest as He can, “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house” (cf. Matthew 7:27). Calamities are an inevitable part of human existence…we cannot escape them. The storm that hits you may not necessarily be like anyone else’s. But you can bet the farm on the fact that storms will come. According to Jesus, only those who have built their lives in obedience to the norms of the kingdom (i.e., Matthew 5-7) will survive.
Third, eternity is at stake. Some who read this may be thinking, “So what.” That is the prevalent attitude in the world today and I am afraid it is also the prevailing attitude in the church. Now, good, church-going, giving, people may not verbally say this, but it is expressed in their nonchalant, ho-hum attitude toward the life Jesus teaches about in the Sermon on the Mount. We must come to grips with the consequences Jesus is teaching about. On one hand, some people’s houses (i.e., their lives) will stand in spite of being hit by torrential problems. He is saying that those lives will make it into heaven in the end. On the other hand, other’s houses will fall (and it will be a great fall), meaning that they will face eternity without God (cf. Matthew 7:19, 23).
Grace & Peace, Scott
This is my favorite time of year. The weather begins to cool down. On Friday nights we find ourselves cheering for our team. Excitement is high and you can just feel the electricity in the air. We have Friday night football, Saturday football, Sunday football, Monday night football, Thursday night football…any others? It’s also a time of year we “close” things…pools, cottages, campers, motorcycles, and boats. So it’s sort of a beginning and ending time of year.
Now I realize that this cool weather is not here to stay. I’m writing this on Wednesday and by the time you read this it will have warmed up at least ten degrees already. But I just can’t help but love the fall. One of the reasons I am so over-the-top when September rolls around is because I’m a pastor, and this time of year brings to life built-in signals for us all.
Let me give you an example: bear hibernation. Who exactly tells a bear when it’s time to hibernate? Are park rangers extra busy because they are running around the woods with a bullhorn shouting, “It’s time to hibernate!” Or maybe, the “Hibernation Fairy” is flying around the woods sprinkling fairy dust on all the bears. No, nobody makes an announcement and there is no such thing as a “Hibernation Fairy”…bears just hibernate.
I see this played out in the church. Vacations are over. Kids are going back to school. Families are getting back into a routine. The beach is a lonely, cold place. Generally it’s a good time for the church because everyone is coming back. It’s just exciting…I love it! I’m not saying that most people are absent from church all summer, not at all. I just notice people missing for a week or two because of family plans and other obligations in the summer that don’t happen any other time of year.
What I’m trying to say is that I love to see you all on Sunday morning. It refreshes my soul and brings a smile to my face. My point is that you never know what your presence will do for someone; you never know what a kind word will mean. Just being present may be the encouragement someone needs to get them through a difficult week. I hope you don’t take that for granted.
Grace & Peace, Scott
