Inside Out

In recent years, superhero movies have become the most popular movies made.  Last year three of the top five box office movies were superhero movies.  Hancock, Iron Man, and the Dark Knight.  This year, a superhero movie has been released already, with several more to come out in later months.  Why is it that these movies are so popular?  Is it the Hollywood action sequences?  The dazzling special effects?  The intense soundtracks?  Do we love these movies so much because they’re about normal citizens like ourselves battling evil on a sometimes global basis?  I think the reason these movies are so popular is due to a more spiritual, natural thing…

A thousand times I’ve failed
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I’m caught in your grace

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
my heart and my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Your will above all else, my purpose remains
The art of losing myself in bringing you praise

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
In my heart, in my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out Lord, my soul cries out

These are the lyrics for a song that’s really popular in my youth group called “Inside Out” by Hillsong.  God created us to desire something more than just an ordinary life on earth.  Whether we know it or not, we crave a relationship with our Maker.  From the inside out, our souls cry out for God.  We all want someone extraordinary to look up to; this is why so many people love superhero movies.  It’s because we really want a relationship with God.

Hopping the Border of Christianity

Ok, so we’re all aware that the U.S. border patrol isn’t doing the greatest job.  Thousands of illegal aliens have “hopped the border” and are now in the U.S.  But hey, who can really blame the people in Mexico for wanting to come live in the United States?  I mean, sure we’re going through a recession, but we don’t have drug lords starting gang wars all over the nation…at least not to the extent that Mexico does.  The black market and petty drug dealers are on the rise in Mexico, and many people want to escape that and start a new life in the States.

Of course there are many other reasons to want to live in the United States too.  Most of the freedoms we enjoy and take for granted here are not shared by the majority of the human populace across the globe.  So it’s understandable that people from Mexico would want to come live here.  The problem is that they’re obviously doing it in an illegal way (now obviously not all of them are illegal, but for the purpose of this post, we’ll focus on the ones who are).  They live in our country, but they aren’t really Americans.  They’re imposters, illegal aliens.  They live among us but are not part of us.  They are looked at as Americans, but when push comes to shove, they aren’t Americans and won’t enjoy the same benefits we do. 

It’s the same way with Christianity.  There are people among us who may claim to be Christians, but truly are not.  They’ve hopped the border of Christianity and are impersonating Christians.  They may blend in with us, but when they die, their eternal life will be much different from ours.  I write this not to disparage those people in any way, but so that we may be alert and always vigilant in our watch for our unsaved friends.  Now I cannot pretend to know what goes on in any person’s heart, so we may never truly know if someone is a Christian or not.  The only real way to tell is by examining a person’s actions.  Actions speak louder than words, and if someone is a Christian, then their actions will portray it.  Therefore we must be aware that there are those around us that might not be saved and still need to be witnessed to.  You never know when you’ll have an oppurtunity to witness to someone who has hopped the border of Christianity…

Judges 4 & 5: God Works Through People To Bring Himself Glory

It was at Endeavor Elementary School, 2001, and I was in second grade.  My class went out to the playground for recess, like we did every day.  It was a pretty nice playground, with several slides and climbing walls.  There were tubes and swings, and even the crown jewel… the monkey bars!  The only bad part about this playground was that the designer, being the supergenius he is, covered the only thing with tiny, sharp rocks.  Not grass, not wood chips…rocks!  So anyways, i rushed out to the playground, racing all the other kids.  The first place that I ran to was the ever popular monkey bars.  I hoisted myself up the ladder and then quickly started my favorite activity.  I was halfway through the monkey bars when it happened.  My sweaty hands lost their grip on the scarlet bars, and I fell toward the razor-sharp rocks below.  One pointy little pebble cut a deep gash in my knee, and I cried out in pain.  The rocks around me were crimson with blood.  Tears welled up in my eyes as my classmates and my teacher rushed towards me.  I ended up getting a few stitches, and everything was fine after that, but I still had a scar.  However, the wound I got from that incident is nothing compared to the cut received by Sisera in Judges 4.

In Judges 4, Israel fell into sin and was doing evil in the eyes of the ord.  So God punished them by turning them over over to the Canaanite King Jabin of Hazor.  King Jabin had a commander named Sisera who commanded a vast army including 900 chariots.  For twenty years, Sisera abused the people of Israel, and after twenty years, they finally cried out to God for help.  When this happened, the Lord commanded the prophet Deborah to summon Barak son Abinoam.  When Barak arrived to talk to Deborah, she told him this:  “The God of Israel commands you to call out 10,000 warriors from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun at Mount Tabor.  I will call out Sisera and his army to the Kishon River, where the Lord will give you victory over him.” 

However, Barak told Deborah he would only do it if she came with him.  Deborah told Barak that she would go with him, but because he didn’t obey the first time, the glory of killing Sisera would not go to him, but to a woman.  So the battle was fought and the Israelites completely annihilated the forces of Sisera, but Sisera escaped by chariot.  While he was fleeing the fight, he came upon the tent of Heber the Kenite and his wife Jael.  Heber had always been friendly with King Jabin, so Sisera approached the tent.  Jael invited him in and showed him a place to lie and rest.  Sisera asked for some water, and Jael have him some milk, which made him fall asleep.  Once Sisera was asleep, Jael took a tent peg and a chisel and she drove the tent peg through his temple and into the ground.  After this, Barak showed up and asked her if she had seen Sisera.  When she showed him Sisera, he undertood how the glory would go to a woman.  Deborah then burst into song through all of Judges 5.  So God was glorified through the woman Jael, and there was peace in Israel for forty years.

 Now in John 17, Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane right before he was arrested.  In verses 1-5, Jesus prays to God and asks him to bring glory to God through Jesus.  Very soon  thereafter, Jesus commits the ultimate sacrifce, paying for our sins and glorifying God in the most amazing miracle in history.  Jesus is the perfect picture:  God was glorified through his life, death, and resurrection.  And that’s the point…God works through people to bring glory to Himself.  I just want to challenge you to ask God every day to glorify Himself through you.  Trust me, it will make your life so much better…

Rearming

If you turn on the news today, odds are you’ll see something about Russian President Dmitry Medvedev making a statement that he plans to “rearm” the Russian army and navy. He says he wants to commence a massive rearmament that will have seventy percent of Russia’s military modernized by 2020. As you can probably imagine, this scares a lot of people, because the U.S. hasn’t always been on the best terms with Russia (anyone remember the Cold War?).

So like I was saying, a lot of people are getting scared about this.  The thing is, as Christians we need a Rearmament too.  Many of us have just fallen into the habit of laying back and hoping other Christians will go out and evangelize.  I know that at times I’ve been guilty of that sin.  We can’t be that way anymore.  As Christians we need to rearm to; we need to get on fire for God and actually help lead others to Christ.  This life is short, and after it we won’t have another chance to impact anyone else for Christ.  If we don’t start reaching out now, people we know and could have saved will go to hell.  However, we shouldn’t witness only to people we know…

Think about how many people you come across every day.  Each and every one of them will either go to heaven or hell when they die.  We need to witness to them, and think about it… why should we care what these people think about us.  That shouldn’t stop us from sharing Christ with them.  The chances are we’ll never see them again anyway.  So why should we care about them?  God instructs us to love all people.  So let’s try and think about it like this:  look at the person you love most in your life, whether it’s a spouse, a child, a friend, whatever.  Look at the love you have for them, and now try and have that love for ALL people.  This is a very difficult thing to do, but it’s worth it.  It’s time to rearm.

Christocentrism

Ok, so what is this strange word at the top of the page on my blog? Well, Christocentrism isn’t just a word, it’s more like a whole philosophy. It basically means Christ-centered. Easy enough right? The sad thing is, while Christocentrism might be easy enough for us to understand, it’s shockingly absent in so many things in our lives.

Even preachers don’t always use Christocentrism. A lot of pastors out there don’t even reference Christ in their sermons. That’s not right, because all scripture ultimately points to Christ. Without Christ, life would be pointless. Without Christ, we would all be eternally damned to hell. That’s why our lives should be centered on Christ. More to come on Christocentrism…