The Joy of the Lord is my Strength

What are the joys of the Lord?
The joy that comes as the power to do the right thing grows in us.
The joy that comes from having a peaceful conscience.
The joy that comes as we see the light grow in our hearts.

What would you add?

4 stages of love

Have you ever contemplated the object of your love, and the reason for your love of that one. These stages have been a helpful understanding for me of myself and others. We find many people responding to Christ in stage 2; and rightly so. Our hope is that we all move to stage 3 as we experience God and the world more fully.
1 - I love myself for my own sake. The most basic kind of love. I cannot have an interest in anything that does not relate to myself. I love myself; looking out for my needs, and seeking my own pleasure. However, I begin to see that I cannot make it on my own, nor can I survive without something beyond myself.
2 - I love God for my own sake. I begin to recognize that God protects me, and provides for me. I worship God for his love for me. Little by little God becomes known to me by experience. I taste and see that God is good to me, which leads to tasting and seeing that God is good (period).
3 - I love God for God's sake. Whether or not things go my way. Whether I live in plenty or in want. When trials come, I don't wonder how God could let this happen. Instead, I lean into God. Knowing that God is good! As I cultivate this relationship, it is one that grows steadily for a long time.
4 - I love myself for God's sake. This is where my own self get's completely lost for a time. Spending time with God, and not knowing I am there. According to the "spiritual greats", this only happens for short times, before we are reminded of the fallen world we live in.

Spend some time in 1 John 4:7-21, and work some of this out.

How does it make you feel?

Sometimes you couldn't get anymore excited even if you tried! Rain can bring out the best in us:) Here in Nebraska the wind blows for weeks at a time, but rain seems much more sporadic. It comes in big bunches, but not very often. So, I guess when it comes you enjoy it; splash, play, take pictures, pose, and get wet.

Sometimes our Spiritual experience is more like wind and other times it is more like rain.

How do your devotions make you feel? During and After? Does it improve your mood? Does it give you consolation and a sense of well-being?

Yes, and that is why you keep coming back. Your hooked on a feeling, High on believing... Would you spend time in prayer, reading, reflecting if you didn't feel better afterward? How about if it made you feel worse? What if our feelings aren't the purpose of devotion? What if devotion is the purpose of devotion? What if God is trying to cleanse me of using devotions/spiritual practices as a "self-help" tool? As a way to feel better about myself? What if God wants to lead me to a place of utter dependence on him, obedience, humility?

And what if I don't want that...

"A soul will never grow until it is able to let go of the tight grasp it has on God." -John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul

Discouraged devotion

Devotion=a series of religious duties to add to an already over-committed schedule.

No wonder we are so unlikely to stick with them if we even attempt to do them at all. Aren't we busy enough? Why would we be interested in being busier? What would we drop? Here is the thing: What are we busy doing? Are we busy serving ourselves? Or are we busy doing good to all people?

What if devotion is a head-over-heals, white-hot love of God? A pursued relationship of intentional lifestyle! And what if that white-hot flame strips me of selfishness, and creates in me a pure heart? Would this pure heart lead me to joyfully do good?

Romans 13:8-10

Not a care in the world

Is this your response to the Spirit of God?

What moves you to action? What trigger launches you out of your seat and into the foray of life? Why do you do anything at all? Could it be affections?

Newton's first law of motion suggests: An object at rest will stay at rest unless the object is acted upon by an external force. Nolt's first law of action suggests: The nature of human beings is to be inactive unless influenced by some affection.

Our affections (love, hate, hope, fear, desire, etc.) are the force that creates actions in our lives. We can try to do the right actions. But we don't really want to unless an emotion stirred by our affections tells us to. If certain people or their actions stir uneasiness or hatred in me, than I will have a hard time willing myself to show them love. However, if certain people and their actions stir love and confidence in me, than I will find it hard to hate them.

So, is it possible to be stirred with love for those who previously (or presently) stirred hatred in us? Yes, but not through forcing our will. Instead, through giving up our will, and taking on Christ's will. When we receive Christ, we receive the Spirit of God, and we have the power of godliness in our heart. This power will incline us to seek the things of God. But this power must be exercised. When we seek the Spirit and respond to the Spirit with affection and not just our heads, our sensitivity to the Spirit is increased. When we resist the Spirit, we notice it less. Our lack of desire creates a lack of noticing.

Lord, I pray that you would stir the fire of the Spirit in me, and may I be burnt till all that is left is you in me!

Disconnected Disciple

The disciple of Christ desires above all else to be like him. Sometimes I feel like a disconnected disciple. Disciples follow their teacher. You're sitting in class, working hard on your assignment, learning the material and taking a fascination to the exercises in the book. All of the sudden you look up and the classroom is empty, the teacher has gone somewhere else. The rest of the students have followed him. Panic strikes. Where did he go? How could I have missed the movement?

Many pastors and others who teach and preach in congregations have expressed this same scenario. We spend so much time preparing sermons, learning theology, setting up lessons using the text book (Bible); that we find it easy to neglect the Bible as a revelation of who the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are and what they are doing.

What's the fix? It's not quick. It's a lifetime of learning. It's following Christ; becoming a disciple. It's leaving all that we love, and following; dropping the nets, leaving the tax table, walking away from the family business, leaving the homeland, having no place to lay your head, taking up your cross, loving your enemies, praying for those who curse you, turning the other cheek, welcoming the little children, visiting the sick, those in prison, giving a glass of water, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, staying on the vine.

Harder and Easier

In my last post, I shared that my relationship with God/Jesus needs improvement. So, I should just try harder, read more, pray more fervently, and beat my will into submission.
Yeah, right! That is a recipe for discouragement, failure, and deeper loss. Instead of trying to do the "hard" work of disciplining my natural tendencies and selfish nature, I need to do the "easy" work of killing it. There is no way to control it. It must be put to death!
Then, we ask Christ to give us a new self. He gives us His-self. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:20.

Hello! Anybody still here?

My dad pointed out recently that it has been a while since I have posted here. He is right. A lot has happened since that last post on March 23. I passed the National Registry, and have my EMT license. I now have an extra 9 hours a week to get back to normal. The interesting thing is, it is hard to be normal again.
Follow me on this: Take everything that you are doing right now; work, family, hobbies, religion, volunteering, school, etc. Now add 9+ more hours of activity, which really removes 12+ hours a week that you have to do the things you were doing before. Do that for 4 months and it becomes the new normal. Now stop doing that added thing. What have you lost? What needs to be renewed or repaired? How do you get back to being yourself?
For me I have lost healthy things like leisure, spiritual disciplines, and I now feel guilty for taking a walk, or resting. And I know my work and personal life have suffered because of this.
Now my desire isn't to get back to where I was before the EMT class. And I would do it again; the class wasn't the problem. How do I move to a healthy place of balance again? How do I feed my soul? And I know everybody else has been or is in this place. So many good things to do and experience; people to spend time with and invest in. No answers today.
Follow this link to read a fellow pastor's reflections, which inspired this post:
http://blog.chron.com/thepeacepastor/2012/05/spiritual-energy-source/