Archive: Letter to the City

To the city, the one that God created and the one He loves, I want to take more of an interest in you and love you with a new found passion. I don’t want to continually take from you as I please but rather give back to you. I want to help your inhabitants and bring healing where there is hurt, bring joy where there is sorrow and love where there is hate. I want to devote my life to healing it by spreading the love of God so He can heal it from the inside out. Oh God have mercy on us – your sinful children - who have denied what you have called us to do and have strayed from you! Jesus, give us your passion, your heart and help us to bare your name wherever we go without shame. Lord, give us courage to come out of hiding and to take a stand for what is right and hate all that is wicked. Help us to grab a hold of all that pleases you and forsake our own selfish / sinful desires. With your help we can turn this city around. Forgive us Lord, for the times we prostitute the city for our own good, where we continually take from it and treat it as if it owed us something. It owes us nothing but we owe it our lives. So here it is to the city I commit my life to rebuilding its walls and its people. I knowingly make this vow to you oh city that I can’t do it alone but only with the help of Him who created you. Just as Jesus laid down His life for us to have a way to heaven so must we lay down our lives for the city. In doing so, it is our hope that “greater things are yet to come and greater things are still be done in this city” that she may be directed to Christ our savior in order that He might redeem us – a fallen and miserable people. It is my hope and prayer that we as a community of faith can bring others to an understanding of what God longs for us to do in our cities – it is after all, the great commission!

Archive: Embracing the Journey

As they say hind sight is always 20/20, I have a tendency to want to analyze and try to make sense out of chaos and in some crazy way this has been one aspect of survival that I found worked for me. I think there is a lot to be gained by looking at where you have been and where you come from to evaluate your current circumstances. However, it can also be very dangerous ground if you let your past dictate your future and allow it to paralyze you further from making necessary changes in your life. I began to dig deeply asking God why He had been silent in the midst of my storms; the answer I found was pretty profound. God was not silent I was simply not paying attention to what He was trying to tell me. The one thing I realized is that in order to be free from the pain of my past experiences I had to actually deal with them! In today’s society, it is so easy to be on some sort of mood stabilizing drug to help escape life's problems. How are  people expected to live happy holistic lives when they can’t or won’t take the time to deal with their pain? You always have the option of running away and taking the easy route but when looking at the long term picture: is that what is truly best for you? I guess in a lot of ways that was me! Although, I have never been on mood stabilizing drugs, I tried to take the easy way out by running away from my problems. I was talking to God like He was some giant genie in the sky and that he was going to make all my problems just – poof – disappear! That’s not reality and that’s not the way God operates. He wants us to be completely well not just gain a temporary fix!

When my problems did not disappear I began to get frustrated with God, as I mentioned earlier. I did not understand why this was happening to me as I had lived the way I knew God wanted me to, I had done everything in my power to do the right thing ( of course failing many many many times but that is what’s called – grace!) and tried to be a good person. In a moment of desperation, I was praying and in this still small voice God was asking me to let all of the hurt go because He was going to help me with it. I had been trying to carry all of my own burdens as if they were my cross to bear never fully understanding that I could actually be healed from the inside out. Once I opened my heart, the opportunities for true healing finally started to come – yes, admittedly there were times where I thought I couldn’t bare where God was taking me but He somehow gave me the strength I lacked. I now can look back and say why didn’t I do this sooner! I have felt so free and God has given me the ability to start to open up my heart to others when I thought I would never be able to. I had been hurt many times that it seemed easier to keep everyone at a distance that way I could protect myself. However, it began to be clear to me I was living in my own form of prison and was not happy with my own solution to the problem because it only isolated me further from where I truly longed to be.

It is so vital to our survival to understand that we cannot do anything all by ourselves and that there is a loving and caring God who loves us and wants us to live in His freedom. Of course, this path is never the easy way, but it is the path of greatest fulfillment and healing. As I gave everything over to Christ, I watched as my load became lighter and the wounds were merely becoming scars to only serve as a reminder of where I had been. Now, I needed to be willing to reach out to others who are hurting. How can we help others when we ourselves aren’t well? We can’t, if we are always running from our own problems, pain and wounds that plague us. The thing I learned was to give it to my creator – let it all go – everything! Embrace the journey by surrendering it all over to Christ, I can now live in His freedom and have the ability to be healed. We are in a “quick fix” generation where we say we want it RIGHT NOW! - if not yesterday! Can we really apply this way of thinking to our own emotional well being and deceive ourselves into thinking that it’s taking care of the problem? Unfortunately, too many people are buying it and it’s pretty apparent when you open your eyes and look around at all the destruction that is present in people’s lives.

Archive: An Amazing Display of Love

For those of us who are Christians, I wonder how many of us ever truly think about Jesus and the price that He paid for us. The price for sin is death and God chose to send His only Son to die the most horrific death – for us! I don’t know about you but it is really hard for me to imagine or to even comprehend this kind of love. In my own humanity, I would never be able to love a complete stranger in this manner! I think I can say with certainty that God’s love far surpasses our comprehension! God gave His perfect, sinless Son and placed Him the hands of self righteous, hateful, brutal human beings. Jesus, knowing the condition of our hearts and all the sins we have done and will ever do was still willing to carry out His Father’s will and die on our behalf! It is difficult to imagine Jesus on that cross but let’s make this personal for a second. Let your mind wonder to that moment where Jesus was beaten so badly that he barely looked human and then think that while He was nailed to that tree He was thinking about you and me! He was thinking about every hateful word, every evil deed and anything that would keep us from our Holy Creator. By Jesus’ obedience to His Father’s will He provided a bridge by which we can cross over into heaven because His blood covers all our imperfections. I have asked myself why do I deserve this- why do we deserve this? What have any of us done that is so good to gain God’s absolute AMAZING love? NOTHING- we have done nothing! Throughout the Bible God has put His love for us on display and through this free gift of love He shows us that He is faithful, caring and at the same time just. There is a penalty for imperfection which has to be paid - so what does God do? He gave us His Son to pay that penalty and in return has only asked that we accept His payment for sin! How much easier could God have made this for us?!!!! Yet, there are so many who simply don’t see, don’t confess and don’t accept this free gift. Why would we want to spend eternity without this kind of love? Why do you think God gave so much for us – could it be because He knew how horrible eternal damnation would be and as a result God went through great lengths to make it easier for us? I would say that this is a rhetorical question. As I believe this could be answered simply by looking at the very nature of God and who He is! We as humans are confined to the physical world – what we can see, feel, hear, and touch – if something is outside this realm it becomes a bit obscure almost to the point where we would assume it’s not real. I would like to challenge this misconception – sometimes it is necessary to look outside the box because the answers may not be found in the world in which God has created. Rather seeking after God himself for answers He will be faithful to reveal Himself as being true and real! Does the world we live in offer the kind of flawless, sacrificial love that Christ offers us? NO! This requires some seeking outside the box.

Today, as it is Easter Sunday – I am reminded of all the suffering, death and the resurrection my beloved Savior went through to show that He has all power and all authority. I acknowledge that Jesus is/was perfect, He is my atonement for sin, He is the Son of God, He defied death, He was raised to life and in doing so provided a way for us to live victoriously in Him! AMEN!!!
~ALD

Why Have We Embraced So Much Darkness?

I have been reading the book God.net by James Alexander Langteaux on page 39 a paragraph practically jumped off the page at me. It is a question I do believe we should all be asking ourselves. I will put the exert here:

            Sin IS desperately DECEITFUL and diabolically designed to take us all DOWN.

Disobedience leads to distraction, and distraction can take us into darkness in any number of ways. … The longer I live, the more surprised I am at how many who claim to be followers of Jesus are allowing the heinous of things to pass through the windows of our souls. If we were completely honest with ourselves, we’ll realize that the bulk of films we watch are full of vile and obnoxious things – things that would have been offensive to nearly all audiences not even twenty-five years ago. How have we allowed ourselves to embrace so much darkness and yet feel absolutely no guilt, remorse or shame? Jesus made no bones about it. He will not hang out where there is darkness and sin. God won’t tolerate our taking it in.  Because what we see is what we will eventually become. AS WE SEE, so SHALL WE BE. I know I sound old fashioned, but there’s no time for fashion when the world is spiraling so wildly out of control. And there’s more than just our single soul at stake. There are souls of all the people we meet – all those we encounter, to whom we should speak – and if we aren’t full of HIS light and filled with HIS love, the words we have for them will be uninspired, unimpressive and unbelievably cold….. God is not looking for people who are holier than thou but for those who are trying like crazy to be more like HIM! I think that the only part of the struggle involves trying; most of the battle is about dying – all about realizing that we are powerless apart from God. When we come to that place, we can lay down our man made holiness and in our very real and honest weakness look to HIM and make us strong. In our weakness HE makes us strong. When we let HIM. When we ask HIM.

The question at hand: How have we allowed ourselves to embrace so much darkness and yet feel absolutely no guilt, remorse or shame?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYDCMg4d7ks

I came across a verse in the bible, quite honestly I never thought I would ever find – it is a chilling reminder of who we belong to before accepting Jesus as our savior. 

John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” 

One thing that God spoke to my heart about finding this verse and the above exert is: am I going to allow Satan to use me as a tool for carrying out his plans? Weather that be with what I watch on TV, movies I watch or the music I listen to, the way I am around my friends. There are a million ways Satan desires to deceive us, to trap us in believing a lie. What is the opposite of a lie – it is truth. God stands for truth. “Man will suppress, distort, reject and exchange God’s truth for lies.” (Truth Project) 2 Timothy 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from truth and be turned aside to fables.” 

When it describes itching ear my study bible says that this is referring to only hearing what you want to hear. How many times have we heard the phrase “if it feels good do it”? It’s the same idea about hearing what you want: it’s how you want to hear it because that is good for you and it suits your purpose. We are so easily deceived as we willingly run into sin whereby buying into Satan’s lies. 

Here is the last example from Isaiah I will leave this post with: Isaiah 44: 14 -17 “He cuts down cedars for himself…..16 He burns half of it in a fire, with this he eats meat, he roasts a roast and is satisfied, he even warms himself and says “Ah I am warm”…..and the rest of it he makes into a god. His carved image he falls down before it and worships it and prays to it and says “Deliver me, for you are my god.” 

How absurd to make a god out of the same tree that gives firewood – but I wonder what things we make into our own gods, perhaps is not a tree or a craved image but rather fame, fortune, and or power. The way we feel about bowing down to a piece of wood, I am sure God looks on at whatever we make into our idols and feels that much more disgusted. If we make a god of our own choosing we are deceiving ourselves – we know from John 8:44 who speaks lies and therefore we cannot expect Satan to empower us or our lives. Satan has one sole purpose to oppose God and everything He is – he wants to rob us from our eternity, from our creator! I think this is the answer to the above question about how we can embrace so much darkness with little remorse – it is because we have been deceived! Are we going to let Satan’s lies defeat, destroy and rob us? You know you can stop the subscription to the master of lies and start seeking truth and the one who stands behind it - Jesus.

~ALD

Archive: A Difference a Day Can Make

         Today while doing my devotions, I came across a verse in Psalm 138: 1-3 which states: “ I will praise You with my whole heart; Before the gods I will sing praises to You. I will worship toward your holy temple, and praise Your name for your loving kindness and Your truth; For you have magnified Your word above all Your name. In the day I cried out, You answered me and made me bold with strength in my soul.”

         As I read this, I began to wonder how many times I have taken God for granted for all of the wonderful things and blessings He has given me. How many times have I failed to proclaim Him? How many times have I cried out to Him and received what I asked for? More importantly, how many times have I praised and thanked him? In being honest with myself, I know the answer to these questions and sadly I know not nearly enough. What about you? I think it is possible for us all to agree there are improvements each of us could make. More than ever, I am being mindful to give time to stop and praise Jesus for even the simple things – like waking up this morning. It’s so easy to get distracted by all of the things we have competing for our time but we sometimes need to stop and realize that we have been given one more day to enjoy life, creation and fellowship.

         There is a saying “what a difference a day makes” – what if we don’t have the time to make a difference? I wonder how many of us are stuck on survive and the rat race that we are not left with anything to give back and therefore miss out on the opportunity to make a difference. A form of tunnel vision begins to implement its self and chokes out our vision and purpose. I saw as this happened in my own life – where I thought I wanted a prestigious job and the American dream. As I started to strive for this goal, I became increasingly unhappy. Why, you may be wondering – well God did not create us to live for ourselves and for us to raise ourselves above everything else. Perhaps, we could even say this form of existence could be called indifference or apathy. We eventually get to a point where we are only looking at ourselves and what’s going on in our own little world and it’s all that seems to matter. When we open our eyes and truly look at the world there is so much we can do and we begin to see everything as an opportunity – it’s all a matter of changing ones perspective. I know from experience, that if you truly want to make a change in your life ask God and He becomes the catalyst to make that happen- He becomes the strength, boldness and hope your soul so desperately longs for. He will put people in your path that will have a similar vision and so begins the journey to becoming free from all of those things that threaten to choke the very life out of you. In return, you will have a deeper more meaningful relationship with God as you watch Him transform your meaningless life into purpose.

         Here is another sobering reminder from the book of 2 Timothy 3:1-5 “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying it’s power. And from such people turn away. Let this be a challenge to not be conformed to society’s pressures – don’t settle for comfort without commitment – stand up against this way of life and live the way God intended.

Archive: Backwards Perception of Good Works and Going to Heaven

         I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine, regarding heaven and how we get there. During the course of our talk, a couple of things were brought up like: the idea all religions are the same. I was amazed by this comment – are they really?? My friend went on to say that as long as you are a good person and did good deeds - that is all there is to it. I then said that if this statement was true then all religions say that you have to do something. That something would be doing and being a generally good person; however is that in line with our human nature? No, we are not good! Have you looked around the world lately and seen the destruction? When left alone, there are all kinds of vices we will find ourselves succumbing to. For a small example: power, money, greed, and deceit.

         This sparked an interest to know a little more about what is going on in the general American population and what they think and believe. According to the Barna Group, 90% of Americans pray, but 87% don’t believe in the 10 commandments, 92% own a bible but only 11% actually read it, and lastly 62% claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus. I don’t know about you but these numbers are a bit staggered. If 62% claim to know Jesus and 87% don’t believe in all 10 commandments – can we really say they truly have a personal relationship with Jesus? What does the word relationship mean? To have a bond, affiliation with or a connection between people – it means more than one. So how can they claim to know Jesus but don’t believe His word – the Bible. The Bible is our connection and main source in defining who and what God is and is about. It is through reading His word that the Holy Spirit can speak to us - thus defining the relationship part. Another survey went on to state that 54% of the American population believes that if a person is good enough, does enough and obeys the law that they will earn their place in heaven.

         However the bible says in Romans 3: 10-19 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away; they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.”

         There are NO righteous people, which means that none of us are blameless, holy and pure. The rest of these verses are a reflection of the sinful human condition. Have you ever lied? Have you ever hurt someone with harsh words? Do you become angry with those that oppose you? Are you bitter towards anyone? If you answered yes to any of these questions: than this verse applies to you just as much as it does me and we stand guilty before a holy and just God. More importantly, we will be held accountable to Him for what we have done here on earth. So what can we do to fix our unrighteousness on our own? If we have never been righteous and we are sinful beings how then can we become blameless by our own works? 

         In light of the Christmas season, which has just passed where we celebrated Christ’s birth – in Matthew 1: 20- 21 …. “ Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for he will save His people from their sins.” This verse clearly shows us that we needed an intermediate to go on our behalf and save us for our sins - we needed a holy and blameless sacrifice.

         Ephesians 2:8-10 states: “For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” I think 54% of our society has the way to get to heaven backwards – they are trying to do good works to get into heaven but God gave us Jesus for atonement of our sins and for Him to be the ONLY way to heaven. As a result, of accepting Him good works were created for those who have acknowledged Jesus as Lord and Savior and are shown as a by product to honor and glorify Him. Not to save us!!!!!

         In closing, the beginning statement of this post my friend suggested that all religions are equal. However, I disagree. Being a Christian is about having a personal relationship with God and believing that God sent His Son for atonement of our sins and that we accept him as such – realizing that we on our own will never be good enough or do enough good deeds to make up the difference. By accepting Christ as your personal savior, you are acknowledging that He has paid all your debt for sin and that you are not sufficiently able to cover that cost on your own. Whereby, not making all religions equal!

Archive: The Room By Joshua Harris

This is one of my favorite illustrations which depicts the true genuine love God has for us.

In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in the room.
There were no distinguishing features except for the one wall covered with
small index card files. They were like the ones in libraries that list
titles by author or subject in alphabetical order. But these files, which
stretched from floor to ceiling and seemingly endless in either direction,
had very different headings.

As I drew near the wall of files, the first to catch my attention was
one that read "Girls I have liked".

I opened it and began flipping through the cards. I quickly shut it, shocked
to realize that I recognized the names written on each one.

And then without being told, I knew exactly where I was.
This lifeless room with its small files was a crude catalog system for
my life, in a detail my memory couldn't match. A sense of wonder and
curiosity, coupled with horror, stirred within me as I began randomly
opening files and exploring their content. Some brought joy and sweet
memories; others a sense of shame and regret so intense that I would
look over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching.

FILE NAMES

A file named Friends was next to one marked
"Friends I have betrayed".

The titles ranged from the mundane to the outright weird.
Books I Have Read
Lies I Have Told
Comfort I have Given
Jokes I Have Laughed at

Some were almost hilarious in their exactness:
Things I've yelled at my brothers

Others I couldn't laugh at:
Things I Have Done in My Anger
Things I Have Muttered Under My Breath at My Parents

I never ceased to be surprised by the contents. Often there were many more
cards than I expected. Sometimes fewer than I hoped. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the life I had lived. Could it be possible that I had the time
in my years to each of these thousands or even millions of cards?
But each card confirmed this truth. Each was written in my own handwriting.
Each signed with my signature. When I pulled out the file marked
"TV Shows I have watched" I realized the files grew to contain their contents.

The cards were packed tightly, and yet after 2 or 3 yards, I hadn't found
the end of the file. I shut it, shamed, not so much by the quality of
shows but more by the vast time I knew that file represented.

When I came to a file marked "Lustful Thoughts"
I felt a chill run through my body. I pulled the file out
only an inch, not willing to test its size, and drew out a
card. I shuddered at its detailed content. I felt sick to
think that such a moment had been recorded.

An almost animal rage broke on me. One thought dominated my mind:
No one must ever see these cards! No one must ever see this room! I have to
destroy them! In insane frenzy I yanked the file out. Its size didn't
matter now. I had to empty it and burn the cards. But as I took it at one
end and began pounding it on the floor, I could not dislodge a single card.

I became desperate and pulled out a card, only to find it as strong as steel
when I tried to tear it. Defeated and utterly helpless, I returned the file
to its slot. Leaning my forehead against the wall, I let out a long,
self-pitying sigh. And then I saw it. The title bore

"People I Have Shared the Gospel With"

The handle was brighter than those around it, newer, almost unused.
I pulled on its handle and a small box not more than 3 inches long fell
into my hands. I could count the cards it contained on one hand. Then the
tears came. I began to weep. Sobs so deep that they hurt. They started in
my stomach and shook through me.

I fell on my knees and cried. I cried out of shame, from the
overwhelming shame of it all. The rows of file shelves
swirled in my tear-filled eyes. No one must ever, ever know
of this room. I must lock it up and hide the key.

But then as I pushed away the tears, I saw Him. No, please not Him! Not here!
Oh, anyone but Jesus! I watched helplessly as He began to open the files and read the cards. I couldn't bear to watch His response. And in the moments I could bring myself to look at His face, I saw a sorrow deeper than my own. He seemed to intuitively go to the worst boxes. Why did He have to read every one?
Finally He turned and looked at me from across the room. He looked at me with
pity in His eyes. But this was a pity that didn't anger me. I dropped my head,
covered my face with my hands and began to cry again. He walked over and put His arm around me. He could have said so many things. But He didn't say a word. He just cried with me. Then He got up and walked back to the wall of files.

Starting at one end of the room, He took out a file and,
one by one, began to sign His name over mine on each card.
NO! I shouted rushing to Him. All I could find to say was

NO! NO! as I pulled the card from Him. His name shouldn't
be on these cards! But there it was, written in red so rich,
so dark, so alive. The name of Jesus covered mine. It was
written with His blood. He gently took the card back.
He smiled a sad smile and began to sign the cards.

I don't think I'll ever understand how He did it so quickly,
but the next instant it seemed I heard Him close the last
file and walk back to my side. He placed His hand on my
shoulder and said, "It is finished." I stood up, and He
led me out of the room. There was no lock on its door.

There were still cards to be written.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13

God so loved the world that He gave His only son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish
but have eternal life.