The Great Commandment

I had the distinct pleasure of speaking at my church's youth group again a few weeks ago. The direction given to me was "living by faith" with a picture of a heart, one arrow pointed up and another out, symbolizing how the Christian should love God and others as a result of their faith. Immediately I was drawn to the Great Commandment and its implications for the saved and even those who do not understand the Gospel. The Bible teaches us we are not deserving of God, or even trying to deserve him, but that he decided to set his love upon us. So he sent his son, Jesus, who was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died on the cross, and rose three days later, to pay for our sins. Now those who are able to trust in him and want to live for him will spend eternity in life with God, not the Hell we deserve.

There lies a truth many do not understand or they outright reject: we must want to live for Christ Jesus. Someone who professes faith and claims salvation should question their claims (with a mentor, a pastor, prayerfully) if they say "I am saved, so I can live for myself/however I want/for the pleasures of the world." Maybe this is you, but you've been told it is alright by a pastor or leader of some sort. Why should you believe me over them? What do I have that they don't? There is no reason and I have nothing. However, what you should believe, if you are a Christian, is the Bible. Never take anyone at their word, but check their truthfulness against the error-less Word of God.

Here is a passage from Matthew 22 for us to consider:

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
(Matthew 22:34-40 ESV)

There are different accounts of similar teachings in other books of the Bible, but I noticed something about this instance in Matthew. The first couple verses are a counter-example of what Christ is about to teach us. For those unaware, the Pharisees and Sadducees were two competing teachers of Jewish law. You may think of them as denominations of the Church today: They are both Jewish, but think differently about the Law and our world, always trying to show each other up, always trying to be seen as the authority of teaching. Here, we see that plainly. The Pharisees were trying to get Jesus to say something incorrect or blasphemous, right after the Sadducees tried and failed. In fact, we see one man, a lawyer (i.e. studier of the Law), looking to be seen as a great Pharisee among Pharisees. It is clear in verses 34-35 that the Pharisees, and specifically this man, are looking to glorify themselves, and oppose the teaching Jesus is about to explain.

 Despite their unrighteous and selfish motives, Christ answers their question. He says the great commandment is to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (v 37) It is very important to note that this idea is not added by Christ, but was at first a summary of the law by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:5. You have heard that when Jesus came, everything changed. And this is true in a sense. But he is clear that the law has not and will not change (Matthew 5:18). So never stand for the teaching that Christ came so we could ignore the law and commandments, for that is not what he is teaching here. In fact, God requires love before the commandments because worship or even obedience are meaningless without love for him. Imagine I send my fiance flowers. If I do so out of duty, because I'm supposed to, or in any other motive than love for her, they will simply be plants cut and put in a vase. They may be pretty, but their value is lost. In the same way, if we are singing songs of praise, serving our community, or obeying our Father but do not love him, then it is useless and meaningless to him. More so, we will not truly obey God without love for him. Those who do not love God are incapable and unwilling to follow his commands but are still slaves to their selfish nature. This is the first and great commandment.

"And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The starting phrase holds so much truth about this command. By saying that this is a second command, Jesus correctly declares that loving others is important, but not as important as loving our God. However, by saying it is like it he specifies that loving others is dependent on the first command. Here Christ teaches something controversial. Naturally man is devoted to himself, so there is an absence of true charity without the love of God. I have wrote about this before to the same effect, but we must look at what the Bible calls love in a Biblical way. If God is the best and knows the best for anyone, then the true form of love would be to help him draw the loved closer to himself. But, man naturally does not seek God and only can when he loves them first and gives them a new heart. Therefore, the natural man does not desire God for himself or others, and will not help draw others closer to the Father. So Jesus is telling us that we must love God, then and only then we will also love others as ourselves. That is, along with ourselves. We do not take care of our needs, then another's, but we take care of the needs of all as one.

Jesus closes these commands with the declaration that all the Law and prophets hang on these commands. Again, these are in no way a replacement of either, and it is foolishness to think so. Many will teach that Christ said all we must do is love God and others and we can do that with no regard to the rest of the word. These commands are not meant to replace anything but act as a foundation for the Law and the prophets; First, a love for God, then a love for others. For all commandments are useless without these two. If you are to give soup to a homeless man with no love for God and no love for the man, what have you done? You have successfully filled his belly, but left his soul empty. You have made yourself look like a hero and brought all the attention to yourself. But I tell you this man has not received what he truly needs. It does not matter if you give him a house or teach him to fish, if you do not give him the Gospel in love, he has gained nothing.

Here is what we should know as Christians: we were made to live out our faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 explains that we are saved by grace through faith, which is a gift from God, and not of anything we do. Verse 10 explains our faith will be seen. Explicitly, it says "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (ESV) We have not been created anew in Christ to live for ourselves but to live by faith through good works. Additionally, these are not random acts we must find, but works God has prepared for us before everything. We have specific purposes on this Earth, and they are to work for our Father in bringing him glory. What joy it is to know God has hand-picked actions for each of us to walk in, that we are not blind in our service of his will, but given the opportunities directly!

So, the Bible clearly teaches us that we are not saved to live for ourselves or the pleasure of the world with disregard for the commandments and Law. Christ died so we are free to love the Lord our God and our neighbors through specific acts and opportunities laid out for us by our sovereign Creator. If you are a Christian, you will live to love God and others, for this is our purpose and our calling.

MOVE 2012 - Day 5 and Wrap-Up

Man, oh man, oh man. This week was awesome. Let's start with the last day though.
If I had to sum up the day in one sentence, it would be "what are you doing when you leave?" Let me tell you, it was a motivating and challenging question. So often when we leave a conference or "emotional high," we fall fast the next day, or even hour, after getting home. We were fortunate enough to be a part of God saving one of the students, her and another already-saved student being baptized in Western Illinois University's pool, and countless, immeasurable life-change at the hands of our Father. We had a lot to forget about in the next hour and I know from experience the enemy and his demons attack hard even as we sit down in the van homeward.
Our speaker that night challenged us hard, as to help kick us into high gear and awareness. The message he spoke was on Matthew 5:13-16, that we are the salt and light to the world. We are supposed to make the world thirst for water (Jesus) and light their way to him. But, as he was sure to point out, if we lose our saltiness, we are worthless. This bold truth was met by shock from the audience. However, he continued saying that we are all looking for worth in life, and we're only going to find it in Christ and working for his glory. It was a great message.
The session ended with acknowledging those who made commitments to follow Christ for the first time and accept the mercy and grace he offers through his sacrifice, repenting of sin and returning to him, and a desire to pursue vocational ministry. We then cleared out the floor to worship our God together, complete with a little fun of the worship leader getting into a giant hamster ball for the last song. Not necessary, but enjoyable to watch.

At MOVE, I saw a fire ignite, and reignite, in the hearts of our high school students. It is times like these I know that the students of my church can do more for the Kingdom than I ever will, if they let God use them. I look up to a couple of them and cannot wait to see them spread God's word and gospel through the world.

MOVE 2012 - Day 4

If God forgave you, why wouldn't you forgive others? Today at MOVE, we reflected and worked towards this, in the power of the Spirit. It's late and I'm tired, so I'll sum up the idea and a highlight or two.
When we are saved by God's grace, he erases a debt that we have no way of paying. No one will ever be perfect but him and good works only work to separate us more. So he spares us through the death of Jesus, if we accept the gift. But our brothers and sisters or even the lost owe us a small fraction of the debt we owed God. How can we demand that of them when he has erased our debts from the record? We can't and should not if we are saved.
Tonight we all wore white shirts with pieces of red paper taped to them. On the back of the paper was a situation or two we needed forgiveness in or to forgive. We were to seek out the person, or spend time in prayer and work to forgive or be forgiven. When we had, we took off the papers to be clean again.
I got to see so many great situations in our group get worked out by God's overflowing grace. I even saw friends and siblings holding hands on the way to the nearest trash bin to toss out these debts.

So much happened today and I regret I don't have the energy to share it all. Hopefully I get a chance to tell all you readers in person.

MOVE 2012 - Day 3

Today was filled with learning. Our morning speaker even piqued my interest by starting off his message with zombies. He brought up the "you've heard... but I say..." phrases in the sermon on the mount. These are phrases Jesus used to start subjects that contradicted their traditions. Jesus spoke less to these misconceptions and said they weren't going far enough. These ideas of blindly following rules are zombies. They resemble real godliness, but aren't. They infect our lives and ruin a chance we have at really being close to God by making us feel like we could get there because they aren't committed enough. We need to shoot them in the head.
Next we had group time in a local coffee shop and talked about dealing with temptation, etc.
After lunch, we split up for electives and each learned about something different. PB and I went to a video message by Jeff Walling. He talked about how crazy it is to love our enemies like Jesus commands. He made the claim Jesus didn't tell us to love our enemies as enemies, but to love them and not regard them as enemies at all!
Later, I got the chance to rematch Love Costs Every Thing (last year's documentary about the persecution of the church) and others saw it for the first time. I cried, like I do every time.
The evening speaker challenged us with Jesus' words about not judging. We are so ready to throw stones of judgement, but none of us have that right. Rather, we should hold that stone like an oyster would. When oysters hold stones, they turn into pearls. When we deny ourselves of judging others, we can find more value in loving them.
We took in a lot today and relaxed over the talent show, The Alternative. Good times, good times, good times.

MOVE 2012 - Day 2

What is being fatherless all about? That was a major theme today at MOVE. We started off our session discussing the beatitudes in Matthew 5 and continued constantly addressing God as our Father. After our encounter (morning session) speaker finished, we watched a documentary called "Becoming Sons and Daughters" by CIY about the fatherless generation.
The idea of a dad deciding he was done and voluntarily leaving his family is relatively new and prevalent in our generation. You may have heard that being raised by one parent is not a bad thing, but some statistics may have you question that.
* 63% of youth who commit suicide are from fatherless homes.
* 71% of pregnant teen girls are from fatherless homes.
* 85% of young men in prison are from fatherless homes.
These statistics are shocking and were the jumping point for the film. It followed a few stories of the fatherless or those helping them and how God helped them through struggles that resulted. A touching point for me was when a young man wanted to take a pastor's (last) name as his middle name because the pastor spent an hour a week with him, showing him what being a man was about. The pastor told this story and looked at the camera with tears in his eyes saying "are you kidding me?!"
We split into our various youth groups afterward and talked about the film. No one who spoke up in our group could relate, but we were all touched and had a greater sense of how good we have it.
As a personal story, I got to spend my lunch with just our pastor, Bill. I was encouraged by getting to know him more and realize how great a man of God he is. We are blessed to have him as a pastor. Praise the Lord!
Our evening session also focused on God as our Father. The speaker, Whitney, is a passionate speaker and clarified that God loves his children dearly. She used Matthew 6:25-33 to show us we need to trust our Father with everything. And we can believe this because Jesus said so. He would know, because he trusted his Father so much that he would follow his commands, even to the cross.
The topic brought up a lot of stories of trusting God from our students. They have seen so much already, but have been learning to trust their Father with it. Praise him for helping them do that, because they don't know how alone (as with all of us).
I am excited to see how God will continue work this week.

MOVE 2012 - Day 1

So this blog originated to follow my adventure and journey working for CIY MOVE the Summer of 2011. I'm happy to relort back at MOVE! But this time as a sponsor (read leader) of my church, Fox River Christian, and for one week only. But I praise God for bringing me back here with the students I love.
Today not much happened, as it was the first day. We drove in, getting Chick-Fil-A on the way, to Western Illinois University, registered, ate, and had a session followed by youth group time. Before the session, our leaders spoke to a minister from another church about how he saw issues may come to a head this week between some attendees with their church given the topics at hand. It was sweet to encourage and pray for a brother we barely know and to reflect on how God is sovereign and planned each of our attendance. Amazing!
At the session, our worship band encouraged students to worship their Father, not them as musicians, and to let any "craziness" in "rocking" be in praise to God and worship of him. Great reminder and it really helps us all to focus on why we're there.
Our message tonight was a video introducing the week's topic: the sermon on the mount. The speaker showed us his preparation for, and actual, riding of a bull. This is something that is dangerous, and you can't "kind of" do. One cannot expect to ride a bull completely safely or half-heartedly. He pointed out that if we take Jesus' teaching seriously, following him is much like riding a bull that way. We may and probably will get hurt and we can't "sort of" do it. We'll forgo our lives and go all-in.
Please pray for stamina, wisdom, and loving natures for our leaders Mike, Laura, Pastor Bill, and myself. And please pray for learning hearts, inquisitive minds, and openness to the Holy Spirit's work for our students.
Thank you.

When God Is Good

Turns out a lot of what I write about is spurred from social networks. If you have Christian friends on Facebook, you have no doubt seen them get excited about something that has happened and end the status or post with "God is sooooo good!" And they are right: God is a good God. But this ending proclamation is much less prevalent if someone isn't happy. Have we forgotten He is good because of our circumstances?

First of all, I don't think this is the case with any true follower of Christ. If someone has a basic truthful understanding of God, he or she should know that He is good, otherwise He is not worthy of our praise. If you remain unconvinced, consider Psalm 34:8, 100:5, and 25:8, to name a few. The God of the Bible is good, and worthy of constant, continuous worship.

But how, then, do we consider our trials and calamities? One base to lay down is that He is in control of everything, or sovereign. A good illustration is in Acts 17:25 (I'll focus on the last half), which says "(God) himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." There is a difference here that should be noted between life, the start of a person's time on Earth, and breath, the continuation of that with each inhale and exhale. This means God not only gives someone life, but continues that life himself, and not in a passive manner (Isaiah 42:5 uses the word "gives" in terms of this breath, a very active word). Now think of the implications of the term "all mankind." He not only extends a purposeful life to His children, but to everyone who walks the earth. From you to me to heroes to villains, anyone who is alive is not "left" alive, but He literally keeps them alive. Therefore, God gives life and sustains it purposefully of all who are on the earth. A God this sovereign must have a plan then, if He's to be good.

My personal favorite proof of this plan in the Bible is the story of Joseph (the one with the Technicolor dream coat). As a brief overview, he was beaten within an inch of his life by his own brothers, who then threw him into a well and sold him into slavery. While a slave he was accused of trying to rape his master's wife and, despite being innocent, imprisoned. Eventually he was brought out of prison to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, with God's power, and because of the interpretations, a famine was foretold and the country could prepare, even to the point of helping others. We see in Genesis 50, Joseph's brothers apologizing to him, and his response is one that may shock us. "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." (v 20) Joseph was not allowed to go through these trials and calamities for no reason, nor was the saving of people's lives a passive after thought. God meant it, in His good and perfect will (Romans 12:2).

Note, this is not an accurate reenactment.

We do not usually have the privilege of seeing this plan from the vantage point of a recounting of events in the Bible, nor do we usually see it while we're in the midst of our trials and calamities. But we trust that He is good, and that He is in control. We have faith in our God's goodness in times of happiness and times of sorrow because He is sovereign and for those who love Him all things work together for good (Romans 8:28). Thus, He is worthy of praise all the time.

If you never knew the meaning of my blog's name, it is derived from Luke 19, when the Pharisees criticize Jesus for letting his disciples shout in praise. "He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.'" (Luke 19:40) Christ followers should keep in mind that God is good all the time, and always worth of praise. Don't let the stones speak: fill the air with praise so they don't need to.