Our Identity.....

        What we find our identity in is important. As human beings we can find our identity in many things from sports teams, religion, and sports. However, God has commanded that we fins our identity in him. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ you may think that this would be second nature, but it is not for many christians. I was raised in a traditional Southern Baptist home with Southern Baptist values. I also accepted Jesus Christ at the age of seven. However, this did not help me in understanding that as a believer I was supposed to be living a different lifestyle. The church I grew up in was medium sized in its heyday and always had what I would call hell, fire and brimstone preachers in the pulpit. I grew up in fear of God and not ever understanding the grace that was really extended to me as a believer.

Angry Preacher

         What I have come to understand as a believer is that God loves all of his children regardless of where they are in their lives. However, we as believers are meant to show the same love to those who are outside the faith. I have learned to find my identity in my Father in heaven and not the things or people of this world. By doing this I have been allowed to learn that the love of God and Jesus Christ is boundless and can change the lives of anyone who is willing to submit to the will of the Father in heaven. 

          What many will find is that none of us are ever in control of our own destiny. If we think we are in control of our own destiny we spend our lives running around in circles and filling our lives with miserable attempts to fulfill a void that only God can fill in our lives. God never promises man that when he or she chooses to submit to his will for their lives that it will be easy. Submitting to something that you have no control over is never easy. However, you have to ask yourself "How much control did I really have in the first place?". 

           Reaching out in the world and being involved in destructive behavior are outward signs of a longing to fill a void that can only be filled by the love of God. Binge drinking, pre-marital sex, gossiping are all sins that believers and nonbelievers can avoid. The problem is that we as believers and nonbelievers need to be willing to get to the root of a problem. We need to be willing to look into our hearts and ask the hard questions. Too many time the believer and nonbeliever avoid "uncomfortable conversations" as my mother-in-law would put it. We fail to discover what is at the heart of the problem we are dealing with. 

            The United States has been at a moral crossroads for many years now because we have chosen not to have those hard conversations with each other as believers. When we have those hard conversations with ourselves and with others inside and outside our faith community we will find that those relationships can grow deeply. I know some of you just had the alarm bells go off and think I have fallen outta my chair and bumped my head. Sadly, you might be wrong about that. 

            By identifying with our Father in heaven and our savior Jesus Christ we find that we do not need to find fulfillment in other places. These include sex and sexual relationships which seem to be one of the biggest problems we have in our society. We are so worried about whether or not we are compatible with others when we meet them. Believers and nonbelievers alike engage in premarital sex in the hope that they will find someone they are compatible with. Well thanks to Matt Chandler I will quote you as he says it "Are you male?, Is she female? Then you are compatible.". Why are you compatible? The simple reason is that your relationship cannot be based off of the antithesis that you have mad sex into. Rather, your relationship is a covenant before God. You in marriage are not committed because they make you happy, rich, or prosperous. Rather, you are committed because you have made a covenant before God and you have chosen not to violate that covenant with premarital sex and you have chosen to honor each other no matter the circumstances throughout you marriage. 

             God has made a covenant to the believer and nonbeliever. He has chosen to love you no matter where you are he just wants you to submit to his will so you can experience the full love of Jesus Christ. Allow yourself to be identified by your relationship with God and not the things of this world. In this way you will be able to fully understand the love God has for you. 

For Me to Live is Christ...

        I attended Passion 2014 this year in Atlanta, Georgia and during that time I knew that my life was on a rapid track towards change. For the previous eight years of my life I have been in the United States Army. During that time I have spent time in South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Colorado and Florida. Sometimes living in those places for a significant amount of time or just training there for a few weeks. During those eight years I discovered that God wanted me not to be one person but another. During that time I discovered through prayer that God has a plan for me and I have almost no understanding of the significance of it. While at the Passion 2014 conference I realized that although my family and I had a wonderful security blanket for the past eight years of our lives God was going to provide something better in the near future.
        I am nearing the end of my transition period with the Army and I have yet to find a job in the ministry. However, I have learned that I can hear God speaking through those around me in my life. One of those people is my mother-in-law. She sat me down this week while on a trip to Georgia during Spring Break and had a real discussion with me about why I went to seminary in the first place, what my motivations were, and never to give up on my passions. Then my wife also jumped in and encouraged me to take a different route. I think she might be right on this one. Just as a sidebar I can count on my right hand the amount of times I have been right versus the amount of times she has been right. Then finally I heard God speak through my Father-in-law. He has been a music minister for decades and just pushed me not to give up on what God has called me to do with my life. However, that door might not be open yet.
         Anyone who knows me will tell you I have a problem with humility. One of my issues is that because I think I have great experience I am right about having great experience. What I have learned from family this week is that I might be very wrong about this and that I need to go before God in a humbler way about what he wants for me.
         Philippians 1:21 tells us "For me to live is Christ. To die is gain.".  For me to live a life like Christ is to be humble. This is something I have trouble doing on a daily basis. I grew up in a house where I was praised constantly for athletic talent that has now faded because of multiple knee surgeries. I personally absorbed that praise and since childhood have always been overconfident, cocky and arrogant about my abilities to do anything. A few weeks ago I preached at my grandmothers funeral and delivered what my parents, relatives and visitors told me was a great message. However, I couldn't help but feel humbled and a little proud afterwards. This feeling of pride was the wrong feeling when I finished delivering my sermon. I should have been completely humbled by the fact that I was asked to speak at her funeral and that God would allow me a sinner of such great magnitude the right to preach His word. Christ was humble when he reached out to those he knew needed to hear God's message. Christ humbly submitted to being tortured for our sins. Christ also took on our sins as a sacrifice for us all. So, even as one who teaches God's Word I should never be proud in doing so. Rather, I should be humble when presenting the gospel to those who are saved or unsaved.
           We as christians cannot let the salvation we have received make us feel as if we are an elitist society. If we do we become nothing more than Pharisees. We should approach the unbeliever as humble, loving, and understanding of where they are in life. If we do this I am convinced God will use the Holy Spirit to work through us and them. If we fail to do this we cannot reach those who do not believe because they will see us as no different than themselves. So in conclusion we must die to ourselves and allow Christ and the Holy Spirit to work through us for the betterment of His kingdom.

God Bless