If we love Him, we obey Him. In my opinion, this is the hardest teaching that Jesus ever gave. Lately, this instruction on obedience has been coming up a lot, and challenging me to my core.
As a father, my relationship with him has caused me to consider my relationship with our Heavenly Father on numerous occasions. The other night, he once again opened my eyes to a new understanding of the Father.
“How hard could kick-starting really be?” The first couple of times I stepped on the kicker with no luck. My wife informed me that her dad used to really jump on it when kick-starting it. “Alright,” I thought “I can do this!”
Much like other parents, my wife and I try to be intentional about praying with our oldest son. It’s tough to stay on top of it, but as I said, we’re trying! Since he’s been praying on his own, his typical prayer will sound something like the following.
There’s a deeper calling. Our music leaders are being led by the Spirit. They aren’t simply picking song that fit. They’re being led to bring songs that will carry the mind of the congregation toward the Biblical principle of that particular gathering.
Why do we do what we do? Are we stuck between legalistic church life (pursing religious piety) and prideful rebellion (self-seeking glory)? How are these behaviours centred on the Gospel? How are they reflecting Jesus to our world?
Human beings have been tempted to keep a spiritual checklist for centuries; striving to do enough good or avoid enough bad to be accepted by God. It’s an unhealthy temptation of our sinful nature that slips into the church. It surfaces when someone is trying to be a “good Christian” by adhering to certain rules and standards.
What is boasting? According to Merriam-Webster, boasting is defined as, “to speak with exaggeration and excessive pride, especially about oneself.” Unfortunately, many people struggle with self-boasting, present company included. It happens so quickly and easily.
As Believers, we can get caught up in what we ought to do, or ought not to do. We try to justify our feelings about actions we should be or shouldn’t be taking. All of this is in order to achieve a type of holiness through self-imposed regulations.
During my youth pastor days, we worked through John Eldredge’s EPIC series within our High School Discipleship program. John explains Christianity as a great story that we are living. He proposes that history’s great stories became great because they have the key elements of our story.
Loss is hard. I remember walking with my wife after losing her father. It was really hard. However, when I think back, it was during our family’s sorrow that I found a renewed understanding of eternity and God’s faithfulness.
I’ve been processing through the morning my father-in-law lost his battle with lung cancer. That morning will forever be solidified in my mind. It was my first real, close-to-home experience with grief, and I was not prepared for how debilitating it would be.