The Perpetual Worshiper

The Story of the Common Christian.

I hate what the Common Christian has become.

• The CC that is ignorant
• The CC that hates homosexuals
• The CC that hates prostitutes
• The CC that hates other races
• The CC that hates drug addicts
• The CC that hates sex addicts
• The CC that walks, talks, and acts like a non-Christian
• The CC that cusses and curses
• The CC that listens to their HEART
• The CC thinks its okay to have sex outside of marriage
• The CC that dresses like a hipster
• The CC that is materialistic
• The CC that gossips
• The CC that likes Drama
• The CC that likes putting others down
• The CC that thinks its okay to do the wrong thing “Because Jesus will love them regardless”
• The CC that doesn’t carry a Cross everywhere they go
• The CC that has so many things wrong, that they need Jesus JUST AS MUCH as the non-Christian
• The CC that looks absolutely nothing like Jesus

Christians need to live out Hebrews 12:14 [Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord], and beyond that, to live out John 15:12-13 [12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends] for/to everyone, and even to go beyond and beyond that, to be willing to be Crucified for every single person, and to live and treat every single person no matter who they are, as if they would… so if said person[s] actually did get crucified and experience all the social, mental, emotional, and physical pain that Jesus endured, then those people would not be surprised that the person did that for them, because he/she treated them as such, he/she lived a life as a “living sacrifice.”

Read Romans 12. You’ll get the picture.

Read the entire Bible. Leviticus may be irrelevant in terms of content relating to the culture and the world the people lived in then… but its relevance [because I believe all scripture is God-breathed and timeless] is in the fact that its a book of the Bible that reminds us that the law is [and always was] impossible to follow perfectly and fully, and that if we look to the New Testament, God gave a new example for us to live by, one that may also be impossible to perfectly and fully replicate, but offers forgiveness and redemption for our transgressions.
 

 ”Jesus will love me anyway.” Well, do people who say that truly love Jesus? Did they follow Jesus because its convenient? Do they follow Jesus because it was the cool thing to do? Did they follow Jesus because He’s a “Get-out-of-Jail-Free-Card”? Did they follow Jesus just to feel good and to get rid of all their crap?

The more we, I and all people, understand the weight of our sin, the more we love Jesus, because we understand how inherently evil we are and how much we need Him to save us from ourselves and our sin. I mean people don’t understand how terrible sin is, and how its worse than disease, heartache, everything. They don’t understand the burden and weight it carries, because if they did, they would never justify their wrongs. As a result of understanding how evil we are and the weight of our sin, we realize we need Jesus. As a result of understanding how much we need Jesus and how incredibly amazing He is, the more we Love Him, desire to know Him and know His Word. 

As a result of all of that, of knowing Him and His Word; Loving Him and His Word… the Better we are at Loving People.

Because God is madly, insanely, desperately, undeniably IN LOVE with People, and He wants to spend all of eternity with them. 

How do people say they know Jesus, and that they love Jesus, when they don’t love people? It baffles me.

If you don’t love People then you don’t know, much less love, Jesus. 

What’s really awful is that the Common Christian say they love people, but they allow those same people to stay and live comfortably in their sin. The “CC” believe that this relationship with Jesus is about you giving all your crap to Jesus so you don’t have to deal with it. Essentially, what they describe it as, is that you are a plot of soil, and Jesus is a gardener, and that your relationship with Jesus is that you give Him the weeds that stick out above the ground, but you don’t let Him dig deep into the roots and plow and rid yourself of the deadly roots of the weeds, the things deep inside that keep you from growing fresh fruit, fruit that will grow and be beautiful. You are to give yourself, all of the soil which you are, to Jesus.

You are not to give your crap to Jesus, you are to give yourself to Jesus, the Founder and Perfecter of our Faith. Jesus will make light of what you need to fix, and using a community of believers, the accountability of other people, discipleship, truth, and ultimately, Grace and His Word, He turn you into the Beautiful Garden He intended for you to be. 

This doesn’t sound easy, and that’s because its not. Its uncomfortable; it requires complete humility and vulnerability.

But its worth it.

Just not to the Common Christian.

I’m tired of the hate-religion hipster poet guy.

Goodness. 

Story of Our Hearts…

I think that everyone in the universe can relate to the fact that we’ve all done something in our life that looking back at it we ask ourselves “What was I thinking in that moment?” or “Why did I do that?” or something of that nature… whether it was the yearbook picture  with the funky hair-do that you thought was cool at the time, or that guy or girl you dated and now you think to yourself “Why in the world did I date him? How did I think he was so cool?”  or “Why did I ask her out? What made me think she was pretty?” Or it was a job you worked at or a party you went to…

We all have those moments in our lives where, looking back, we wonder “How could I have been so stupid? That was probably the dumbest decision I could’ve made in that moment.” And now, looking back with 20-20 vision, it was SO obvious, and it was so apparent that it was a bad decision and now we think “I should have never gone that way, I should have never done that, I should have never decided that thing in my life.”

What if some of the decisions that you and I are living out right now are the moments that we’re going to look back on in the future and ask ourselves “What was I thinking?” What if some of the things that we are involved in, in our lives, some of the practices we have going on in our day to day routine, are going to end up one day being our biggest regrets? And how would we know that?  How would we figure that out? We get that scripture doesn’t have a black and a white for every single situation, now there are some places in the Bible that specifically say don’t ever ever ever ever ever do this or that or etc. Scripture says that about Adultery; Adultery is always always always always always a bad idea… and if you and I decide to violate that, if we say, “I’m just not going to listen to what scripture says clearly and openly and without apology,” then we deserve regret and we deserve moments of looking back and saying, “Wow, I completely messed up.”

So don’t you wish that there was something to help you navigate your way through those moments/situations in life? The cool part about it is that there is. In fact, there is an entire book of the Bible dedicated to helping you and I make wise decisions when the decision isn’t black and white, when the decision could have multiple answers depending on what happened the last time you did that, or what your current circumstances are right now, or when I look into the future and you say “This is where I want my life to get to some day and when I’m done this is where I want to land in my life.” There is a book in the Bible that says “Here is Wisdom. Here are good answers that literally if you take the time to listen, if you allow these words to be intertwined with your life and, if anything, allow them to envelope your way of thinking or living; when you’re making decisions and it isn’t black and white, and they aren’t totally clear, it could go either way, is it the wise thing, is it the smart thing for me to do…” and that book is the  book of Proverbs… in which God enlists the wisest man who ever walked the face of the earth and says “I need you to write down wisdom principles. I need you to write down things that if Christians, Followers of God, were willing to let this speak into their lives, if they were willing to listen and apply it to their lives when wisdom was offered… their lives would be changed.”

At first glance at Proverbs you and I go, “Wow, why wouldn’t you read a book like that? Why wouldn’t everybody just pour themselves into the book of Proverbs. I mean if that’s what it can do… If it can take what is unclear and fuzzy and make it clear then, man, why doesn’t everybody just pour themselves into the book of proverbs?”

And yet, here’s the answer…  Sometimes…  A lot of times… Wisdom is not the most comfortable answer; that when we first listen to Wisdom, our initial response is “Thanks… but No Thanks. If that’s what it means to be wise then I choose to be stupid.”

There are some questions that aren’t specifically mentioned in the Bible that we are constantly looking for answers to in our lives today, like, “Should I buy a car?” or, “Should I go to this school?” or, “Should I date this person?” But these can all be answered through prayer obviously, and, specifically now, wisdom. You see, God may not say directly in the Bible, “Thou shalt not get thyself a cool Mercedes,” but the Bible does call us to be wise with our money and to put it towards things that will benefit eternity, things that will further the kingdom in the sense of giving selflessly, buying what is necessary, etc.. The Bible might not directly tell you, “Thou shalt go to Biola or APU,” or something like that, but the Bible does say to be wise about the environments you put yourself in, and that it might be wiser for you to go to a school like a cheap community college or a safe university as opposed to a party school like Santa Barbara or ASU where sex and partying are an all-too casual occurrence. The Bible may not make light of whether or not you should date a specific person, but it definitely shows the type of person you should pursue, and it is all too easy to justify ourselves and what we feel in our hearts when we want to date someone who is attractive on the outside, and sure they are Christian, but based on some of their actions in past relationships, it sure isn’t a true, pure reflection of Jesus on the inside.

We all have a sinful nature that is constantly deterring us away from God. We are inherently evil people, and just because you and I may have a relationship with God doesn’t mean we are any closer to being a perfect human being than someone who doesn’t know Jesus; we just have a relationship with God that gives us the opportunity to be refined and to better serve those and help those who cannot help themselves and most importantly show the unconditional love of our Father. BUT, just because we have a relationship with Jesus, doesn’t mean that we are being refined into everything we were made to be, and that is not Jesus’ fault, it’s our fault. We always have an opportunity to be better people, but when the moment comes, we fail, because Proverbs is too inconvenient for us because it isn’t easy.

Proverbs desperate cry is to get realigned with God, and if you listen to these principles and allow them to change the course of your life, then you’re going to go the direction that God wants you to head in… as it pertains to being a good student, a good boyfriend or girlfriend, a good brother or sister, or a good employee; as it pertains to the kind of alliances we make, the decisions we make, as it pertains to how we respond to wisdom, or what kind are person are we.

I want to “talk” in a sense about something that is very prevalent in our culture today, something that people talk about all the time, everyone kind of wants to know what it’s all about, everyone has their own idea about it, etc.. We’re not going to listen to what the world has to say about it, we’re solely going to rely on what the Bible has to say, and solely heed to the advice that scripture, especially proverbs, has to offer.

When it comes to making a decision, where we are forced to act according to what we believe is right and what we believe is wrong. We want to do what is right and we want to go the high road and head the right way, but something inside us that is causing us to do something that we don’t want to do, that is pulling us away from where we want to go… Ultimately, in this sense, it controls the outcome… and it’s the dilemma of what it means to be a sinful human being in the light of a righteous and holy God. “I want to go this way God and do what is right, but there is something inside of me that is causing me to go the opposite direction, and I can’t stand it.”

We identify there is something inside of us that leads us where we know is not where we should go… “Why did I make such a poor decision? What was that all about?” We get that, that’s a part of our reality, that we make decisions that we makes us ask ourselves, “ Why did I just do that again?”

This is the thing inside of us that causes us to fall in love, it is the thing that breeds hate… it is the thing inside of us that pulls us towards Christ, and the same thing that pulls us away from Christ… it is the thing inside of us that pursues righteousness… but it is also the thing inside of us that pursues absolute evil. It causes us to be compassionate and to look upon people who are hurting and say, “Oh my heart breaks for them.” It is also the thing inside of us that creates bitterness, “I don’t care about it, it’s about me.” It allows for us to be grateful for what we have, a house, a car, friends and family, but also to be very envious of what other people have; “They don’t deserve that! They are terribly wretched people! I deserve that, I am a good person. They don’t deserve that house. He’s a crook. I’m honest with people.” It’s that thing that helps us identify with the fact that we were made in the image of the almighty God, and He made us the way He wanted to make us. It’s also the thing that allows us to look in the mirror and say, “God you just messed up with this one, you messed up with me;” so we don’t see ourselves in the image of Christ, and as a side-note, I must ask what right do we have to describe ourselves or to look at ourselves and even each other in any other way other than in the way of our Creator who made us fearfully, wonderfully, beautifully and perfectly… Unfortunately, regardless of that, we see ourselves in the way everyone else sees us. That thing inside of us helps navigate that and direct us either way. It allows us to be very selfless, to think of other first. It is the thing inside us that makes us incredibly selfish, and only think of ourselves. “I don’t have time to do all the work I need to do, I don’t even have enough money to pay for rent; how am I going to be able to give money to the church?” I relate to this all too well unfortunately. That same moment, that same thing is inside of us. I am going to have share with you honestly about the heart, focusing on Proverbs 4.

Proverbs 4 is written in this tone, like a father talking to a son, in a sense, a theme throughout proverbs and especially prevalent here. In a way its set up as, “Listen, my son,” about three or four times. Listen, pay attention, focus…. Ah, focus, my worst enemy. I have the worst attention span in the world; just ask the world, they’ll unfortunately vouch for me. Learning to drive, my mom and dad always put a huge deal of emphasis on paying attention, focusing, “eyes on the road,” etc., when it came to driving, because if I didn’t listen to the words they were articulating and if I didn’t focus and pay attention to the road, I could seriously hurt or kill someone, all drivers know this. It’s a similar kind of tone that Proverbs has. “Listen to me. Pay Attention to my words. Eyes up here, focus.”

Proverbs 4:20-22 says this:
²⁰ My child, pay attention to what I say. 
      Listen carefully to my words. 
 ²¹ Don’t lose sight of them. 
      Let them penetrate deep into your heart, 
 ²² for they bring life to those who find them, 
      and healing to their whole body.

Now, verse 23 is a verse you need to highlight, underline, circle, put boxes, squares, hearts, rectangles, dots, and stars around. This verse will revolutionize your life, much like every verse in the Bible, but this is one of the verses that will do that especially. Proverbs has already given a bunch of advice, I’ve told you what wisdom is all about and that she’s awesome and she’s amazing and that you need to follow and live after it and if you don’t you’re going to make a bunch of mistakes. That’s important, but this is most incredibly important.

Proverbs 4:23 says this:
²³ Guard your heart above all else, 
      for it effects everything you do.

It effects everything you dp. It effects the way you speak, everything you do and don’t do, it effects the way you handle people, the way you don’t handle people, the way you argue and don’t argue, it effects all of it. It effects all areas of life; one translation says it is the wellspring for life. This is how I know that: If you have ever been in a car with an angry driver, you know this is true. You’re in the passenger seat and your-angry-driver friend is driving on the freeway and you get behind someone really slow. The driver suddenly turns into a maniac. “OH MY GOSH BUGGIDYTHISFGSDGSDGS!” Their hands are wailing all around and throwing fingers in the air and using naughty words and such and slapping the wheel and punching the window, and you’re like “I love you,” and he’s like “SHUT UP! I’M TRYING TO DRIVE BEHIND STUPID DRIVERS.” They just turn into this wretched person. But then, they get around that person and start coasting at their desired speed and then everything changes. They’re all, “Man, wasn’t that weird,” with this big smile on this face. They turn to you all cheerful, “Hey buddy! Let’s go to In’n’Out, my treat, get’chya a shake cause you’re fantastic. Honey! You’re beautiful. Wasn’t Bryan’s blog post last night just amazing? So inspiring, he nailed that sucker, praise God.” As the passenger you’re just freaking out because they were demon-possessed and then an angel. So if you’ve witnessed that or been that then you know then something weird is goin’ on, that something causing that, that the whole friggen-flabbergasted-to-“Samaritan of the year”-award-within-five-seconds isn’t just happenstance. It’s the heart. It’s just that crazy evil thing inside of us. I mean, if we’re not careful, it’s going to lead in a direction we don’t want to go.

I mentioned earlier that I am a terrible driver. I am even worse as a navigator. I am terrible with directions and everything; I don’t even know left and right, always getting lost. Thankfully, I have a GPS on my super cool smart-phone. Beautiful. British lady tells me what to do. New best friend. Sorry Taylor. Just type the address BAM I’m there. If I get lost? Make wrong turn? “Recalculating.”

Something important I learned about the GPS though. What you put into the GPS is where it takes you. You mess up one letter, or one number… “Getting to the nearest Walmart takes 12 hours? What?! GPS said it so, oh well.” What you put into the GPS is where it takes you. What you allow in your heart will determine the course of your life. What you put in your heart, what you allow in will effect where you go, what you do, what you say, how you act, the kind of girlfriend you are, the kind of boyfriend you are, the kind of coffee you drink… it effects everything. If you’re the kind of person who seeks attention, you will do nothing, spare no one to make sure the light is always on you. If you’re lonely, “Oh ho-hum.” Then you’ll marry the wrong guy, you’ll hang out with the wrong people. “Well at least I’m not alone.” You go to church and read the bible and tithe and it’s just this holy check-list for you, “Check-Check-Check! Ok God look at me! I’m awesome, now bless me!” So long as we go through that list every single week or every single week then God is going to bless us, but at the end of the day we realize, “I don’t hear God, I don’t have a relationship with God,” because it’s all about a to-do list and not about a relationship. In reality that list is all about you, it’s all about you. Or it’s all about me. “Do all these things in order for God to love me.” You’ll never see God. You won’t.

Going online, porn or whatever; talking to other women when you’re dating someone else, or talking to other men when you’re dating someone else… you’ll never experience true intimacy. You’ll blow up relationships, eventually marriages; blow up your kids even… because you put this stuff inside and expect that the direction of your life is going to take you towards Christ? You’re kidding yourself. You think dating is not like marriage, but in reality you are practicing married life, how you treat your girlfriend or boyfriend will be how you treat your husband or wife, and how you act as a girlfriend or boyfriend will be how you act as a husband or wife to a certain degree, because Practice does NOT make Perfect… Practice. Makes. Permanent. You practice treating people poorly it becomes harder to stop viewing them negatively. You practice dating around, it’s going to be hard to commit to one person. The decisions you make now influence how you will make decisions later. Make wise decisions now, don’t wait until tomorrow. If you treat your girlfriend or boyfriend poorly, if you flirt around while you’re dating someone else, it’ll be easy to ruin your home, and ruin your marriage when you’re older.

You might be a person who stuffs everything. “I don’t like dealing with conflict, stuff-stuff-stuff-stuff.” You’re going to end up doing something insane or crazy. Because you never talked about it or made light of an important issue, or just got it out, so you stuff-stuff-stuff-stuff and you could end up having an affair… sleep with your boyfriend’s friend or a co-worker because you never talked about it, just stuffed it.

Proverbs 27:19 says:
 ¹⁹ As a face is reflected in water, 
      so the heart reflects the real person.

We wear our hearts on our sleeves. You spend a short amount of time with someone, you can sort of tell the direction of their life and what their about.

I want to share what we can do in response to understanding how much weight our hearts carry in terms of the direction of our lives. The Bible has a plethora of advice, I’ll give you two, ‘cause they’re big ones, two suggestions out of Proverbs.

First one, is in verse 23 of Proverbs 4.

“Guard your heart.”

In so many ways you can refer this to sports; basketball, footballs, soccer, etc. A goalie keeping the ball from getting into the net, linebackers protecting the quarterback from opposition, basketball players blocking the point guard from driving it in or putting the ball in the hoop… the whole goal of the linebacker or goalie or whatever is to make sure that the ball does not get through, and they are intense about it. What if we, with the same fervor and intensity, guarded our hearts from things like jealousy and selfishness and prejudice?  

The word in Hebrew for guard is “Mishmar.” The word “Guard” is used throughout Proverbs but this is the only time, the prefix of it is only used once in Proverbs. While it is super important to guard things on the outside, to keep things on the outside from coming in… the other part of that passage, of that word, is that it’s like a prison guard. The prison guard’s number one objective is to make sure the criminals do not make it out and harm the other people.

We have that inside of us, that sin nature that is evil. People that say mankind is good? They are liars. Mankind is not good. We have that thing inside of us that causes us to go the opposite direction of where we’re supposed to go. What the passage is saying is that we’ve got some in our lives as a result of being separated by Christ [and if we don’t have a relationship with Christ we don’t understand this, we may feel it but we won’t understand it without Jesus]. We have this thing inside of us that is keeping us from doing the things that we don’t want to do. Scripture is saying, “You investing a lot of time and energy into keeping things on the outside from coming in, which is good, but you’re not paying enough attention to what’s inside already!” Because even the best point guards, and goalies, let people slip by and put the ball in the hoop, or the net.

We’ve got stuff in our lives, baggage… We’ve got to not only keep things on the outside from invading the inside, we have to guard what’s on the inside because it’s going to get out and blow people up. We know what it’s like because we can see the trail of dead we have caused… past relationships, friends, people… behind us, our past and our present, as a result of us not guarding our heart.

There is a prevalent thought in our world today, “Trust your heart.” “What you put in your life, if you put positive in your heart then out will pour positive.” You are your own reality, you are in charge of your own heart, your heart is really good, and great and this and that but that is a lie. That is a bunch of people trying to figure out the meaning to life without Christ, because the Bible says [Proverbs 28:26], “Trusting one’s own heart is foolish, but those who walk in wisdom are safe.”

If you are a person that has adopted the idea that the heart is good, that trusting the heart; the Bible says that it’s foolish. The world likes to do that because they want to push God out.

Because the heart will tell a young couple or any couple, regardless of how long they have dated, to follow their heart, regardless of where it will lead. That sex before marriage is okay, etc. It will tell guys or girls that cheating is okay. “Oh, but he looooooooves me.” “We’re going to get married anyway.” Bull. Unacceptable. Our hearts are evil. If you ever watched a three-year-old with a toy and another three-year-old kid wants that toy, you’ve seen the toyless-kid hit the other three-year-old and take the toy so fast it’ll make your head spin. You can’t necessarily blame the parents for that one, “Oh what terrible parents.” That is inside of us. If you trust your heart then you’ll be doing that stuff as an adult, and maybe you have. The Bible says Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust the Lord, with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make light paths for your feet.” Trust the Lord, don’t trust yourself. Trust Him with everything you are, with your heart, with the thing that effects everything, Trust Him. Lean not on what you think is the right thing, because it always goes bad. In everything you say and in everything you do, in every action you are contemplating, acknowledge Him. He will direct your paths, He will make them straight.

It says this. Stop Depending on yourself, start trusting God. Stop reading “Self-Help” books, and just trust God. Stop listening to people who say “Trust your heart,” and listen solely to what God says. I want to list some great scripture, and I encourage you to read it entirety  and even more so explore it further and learn more about each passage [actually, just read all of Proverbs (actually, just read the entire Bible)].

Proverbs 3:11-13
¹¹ My child, don’t reject the LORD’s discipline, 
      and don’t be upset when he corrects you. 
 ¹² For the LORD corrects those he loves, 
      just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.
 ¹³ Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, 
      the one who gains understanding. 

Proverbs 6:21-23
 ²¹ Keep their words always in your heart. 
      Tie them around your neck. 
 ²² When you walk, their counsel will lead you. 
      When you sleep, they will protect you. 
      When you wake up, they will advise you. 
 ²³ For their command is a lamp 
      and their instruction a light; 
   their corrective discipline 
      is the way to life.

Proverbs 20:5
 ⁵ Though good advice lies deep within the heart, 
      a person with understanding will draw it out.

Proverbs 22:5
⁵ Corrupt people walk a thorny, treacherous road; 
      whoever values life will avoid it.

Proverbs 16:17
 ¹⁷ The path of the virtuous leads away from evil; 
      whoever follows that path is safe.

Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust the Lord, with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make light paths for your feet.”

And a great first step is reading your Bible, not just reading it because it’s important, or reading it because you feel guilty, or reading it because it’s what you’ve always done, but reading it and living out the principles out of obedience to Christ, because you love Him. Because the more you read it and the more you pray and the more you let it become a pivotal part of your life, the more you fall in love with Him. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. You treasure wisdom, you treasure your relationship, there will be a significant difference in your life. If you want to see dynamic things happen in your life, if you want to see yourself move mountains, if you want to see great and mighty things, it will happen as a result of the posture of your heart being lined up with a righteous and holy and amazing God, and choosing not to live the way the heart instinctively and initially leads you, but choosing to be obedient. I said it last post, Obedience is God’s Love Language. God will Love us no matter what, but when we are obedient to Him, we show God that we love Him. No amount of my posting blog posts and no amount of “Love Never Gives Up,” and no amount of talking about how good God is will prove that we love Him if we aren’t trusting God with the direction of our lives and trusting God with our hearts and pursuing a life that reflects His teachings, a life that reflects His Word, a life that reflects God’s Heart. We need to recognize that we are inherently evil and that our heart is not to be trusted by any means. We need to admit that, and align ourselves with what God wants and go where He wants us to go and as a result of pursuing that, we will find life and that is when the curse of our hearts become a reality that says, “I am going to rest in the will of God. Because His will be done.”

Live out Proverbs 4:23, Guard your heart.
Live out Proverbs 3:5, Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Story of Jonathon…

I love bicycles. Especially Mongooses… ?

How do you make that plural?

“Hey Joe! I just got my first  pet!”

“Really?! What’d ya get Jed?!”

“A Mongoose!”

“Really?! I just got three!”

“Three Mongooses?! That’s awesome!”

“Yeah! – Wait, Mongooses?”

“Yeah, Mongooses.”

“Dude, it’s Mongeese.”

“Dude, that’s ridiculous, it’s TOTALLY Mongooses!”

“Shut up.”

“Hey friends! I heard you got some Mongi!”

The End.

Okay, just felt compelled to share that stupid story, I think I ought to have one for every post that relates to the topic of the post… this time, I want to talk about my love for bike riding.

So I love riding bikes. I don’t have one any more, but I plan to get one again and ride it everywhere I go.

When I rode back in the day, I was pretty good at it. I would ride down the street, take my foot off the pedals, and put them on the handle bars and relax; I’d put my feet on the seat and lift myself up and nearly stand on my seat while I was riding it. I was just really good at riding it. I didn’t do ramps necessarily and my mountain biking experience was short-lived, but I did some cool stuff on it

I got a NEW Mongoose bike for Christmas and I loved it BUT there were Clicks, Wobbles, and No Handle Bars. Later, I rode it so much that I got good. I had it for a very long time but not as bad as my old piece of junk.

Imagine one day, someone sees me riding my cruddy bike and says, “Hey, I’ve been watching you ride that bike of yours, and let me tell ya… you’re pretty amazing. You’re so intense when you ride and I just love how you stand on the bike and handle it so well, you seem so confident on it and great! But the truth is Bryan, you could be doing so much better than that bike, and well, what I’m trying to say is… I got you a Motorcycle. Brand Spankin’ new, BMW Prototype Motorcycle!”

“Are you serious?! That’s insane! A Motorcycle?”

“Yep, a brand new motorcycle. And now you can do all that you’ve wanted and be all you can be!”

“Thank you so much! Wow – but, well, motorcycles, they’re really fast.  I know how to handle my bike and I know how fast I can go, and, what if I can’t control it? Like I’m going on a  bridge and I try to stop but it just keeps going! And gas?! Do you know how much gas costs these days? It’s unreal! My bike, well… I don’t need anything, all I need is air. And a Mechanic? What if it breaks? It’s gonna cost a ton… if something happens to my bike I can just fix it in my garage with misc. junk. You know, I really appreciate it… but I think I’m just gonna stick with my bike. As much as I’d want it, I don’t think could handle a Motorcycle. I mean, I get my ride, I know all of its weird kinks and stuff… Thanks, but I don’t think it’s for me.”

I think that a lot of Believers, a lot of people, are living Mongeese Lives, when God intended them to be Prototypes… I’m not talking about wealth or stature, I’m talking about Psalms 139 when He says the He knitted us together in our mother’s womb, I feel like God is saying this;

“I saw you being designed… I put into you things that would help you be alive, so that you wouldn’t just exist in this world but that you would do incredible things for Me and My name and My cause. I saw you being born, I saw you being developed, I had a hands on deal with that. You were not created to be average, you were not created to be mundane, you were created to be a Prototype, not a bicycle, not a mongoose.”

And in the monotony of this world, many of us have settled for a bicycle life, and God is saying there’s so much more for us. He designed us to do so much more.

I want to share a bit about 1 Samuel 14, Old Testament for this particular post, and I’m just gonna give you a little bit of background real quick.

So Israel is like a whiny little kid. They want a king.

Ever been the Disney World? Yes? No?

You KNOW for a fact that it’s the “Happiest Place on Earth” when you hear a five year old crying every five minutes because they can’t get the toy they want…

“I want it! I want it! Come on! I want it! They got it! I want it!”

And you say to that little five year old, “Would you just PLEASE be quiet; fine just, here’s the toy.”

This is Israel, “We want a king! We want a king! We want a king!” Etc.

So God says to Samuel, God’s prophet, “Go ahead, get them a king; it’s not what I want them to have but give them a king.”

So this is Israel’s criteria for a king…

1. This guy’s gotta be hot.

2. This guy’s gotta be ripped.

3. This guy’s gotta know how to use a sword.

And that was their criteria for finding a king. So, they find Saul.

Saul stands up, he’s gorgeous. (1.check)

He’s ripped. (2.check)

He’s got a sword. (3.check)

So they’re like, “He’s our guy.”

The problem is, Saul is this Narcissistic, do-before-I-think, kinda guy; THEN blame it all on everyone else when it all goes bad. “DUH, Well it wasn’t my fault DUH it was his fault!” [His nickname was probably Adam or something (“It was that WOMAN… that YOU gave me!”).] DUH.

So Saul actually gets himself into a world of trouble. You see, before this passage (1st Samuel 14), the Phillistines have kinda gone all around the Israelites, basically surrounded them with their armies. And Saul’s army gets freaked out, so they’re all hiding in caves. “I’m outta here!” Pretty much. 2400 of his guys are “Peace Out, I’m gone.” And they go hide in caves. So Saul has 600 men now, and not only that, they don’t have any weapons… they’ve got shovels and hoes and things like that, they don’t have any weapons. So Saul gets reprimanded by Samuel, “By the way, because you’ve stepped on God’s toes, your kingdoms not going to last; it ends with you.” And Saul’s like, “Oh it so deflates my pride, bummer man,” and etc..

So we find in the beginning of this passage, here’s Saul and these guys sitting under a pomegranate tree and they’re just bummin’ out. “Oh man, this just stinks, ho hum,” and Saul is trying to figure out who to blame, and they’re just blech, etc, and in comes Jonathon.

Now Jonathon is Saul’s son. Jonathon is a sharp, sharp guy. He gets God, he gets what God wants to happen with Israel, and as an added bonus, he is an amazing, amazing fighter.

So where we find this passage, where it comes in, Jonathon is watching his father and watching these men sit under a pomegranate tree while they’re being surrounded by their enemy, and Jonathon’s says “No. Nuh-uh. This is not what we’re designed to do. Nuh-uh, it’s not going the way it should go.”

1 Samuel 14:6-14

Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few.”

“Do all that you have in mind,” his armor-bearer said. “Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.”

Jonathan said, “Come, then; we will cross over toward the men and let them see us.  If they say to us, ‘Wait there until we come to you,’ we will stay where we are and not go up to them.  But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the LORD has given them into our hands.”

So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. “Look!” said the Philistines. “The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in.” The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, “Come up to us and we’ll teach you a lesson.”

So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Climb up after me; the LORD has given them into the hand of Israel.”  Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him.  In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre.

How cool is that? This one guy, while the rest of the guys are chillin’ in the holes under a pomegranate tree, Jonathon says “No. No. No. Not gonna do it. In fact, I’m gonna do something crazy, I’m gonna go up to them and attack them myself and do this really radical, really crazy thing and attack them myself. In fact, it’s so ridiculous I’m going to make myself known to them,’ Hi! How are ya?! I’m insane!’ And do the craziest kinda battle you could ever do.”

Like everything about this doesn’t make sense, and yet it applies to us in such a huge way. About living this life the way God had intended for us to live, and using the gifts He has intended for us to use; so we can find the joy that we’ve been looking for, so we could find the fulfillment we’ve been searching for.

So I think Jonathon has shown us somethings and we’re gonna walk through those.

First, Jonathon moves. He doesn’t stand still, he doesn’t sit under the pomegranate tree with the rest of his crew and his father, who’s just sitting there, “What do we do? Ho hum, this stinks. Ah man.”

Jonathon says, “I’m getting out of here, I’ve got a calling on my life. I do not want these guys oppressing my people any more. I know what God wants me to do, and I gotta get outta here.”

So Jonathon’s first step is that he moves. And what I’ve found among people that I’ve got to talk to over the course of my life is that this first step is a difficult step, because we live in a world that craves monotony, that we live in a PDA type world. We have a schedule, and we have to keep the schedule, and because of the schedule and because of the monotony, we rarely move outside of that… and if we do it’s a really scary thing.

It’s kind of like this, when I was younger and when my parents asked me where I want to eat, I always would say McDonald’s or In’N’Out Burger; but In’N’Out Burger (which is my number one favorite fast-food place EVER) doesn’t have happy meals so I am not going to use them as an example. One of my favorite things in the universe was TY Beanie Babies. I used to have a ton, and there was a time when I was younger when they had miniature beanie-babies in the McDonald’s Happy Meal [now-a-days they have crappy crap-crap]. So when we’d go to McDonald’s, they would ask me what I’d want and I’d say “Happy Meal!”

It’s not like I’m obsessed with McDonald’s food, I like it, I’ll enjoy it, etc.; But I’m not like “I crave that heart-attack-on-a-bun,” or “I crave that Indigestion,” or whatever. What I would do is get in my cute little bag and the first thing I go for is the toy… the cute little toy inside. My Beanie Baby! Yay, woot. Whatever.

I was just like, “Toy, Toy, Toy, Toy, Toy.”

It got so bad my parents would say, “Look Bryan, if you don’t eat that food what will make you feel miserable, you don’t get the toy! You need to eat that miserable food that isn’t good for you and that will give you a stomach ache and yada yada yada or you don’t get the toy!”

So, I’ll take a bite, just to go right back to the toy.

That’s us, some of us…

“I don’t like what I’m doing with my life, I don’t like the job I’m at, I’m miserable, I’m joyless, I’m not being the friend I want to be, I’m not being the sibling I want to be, I’m not being parent I want to be; but I make a good pay-check,” or “I get him good presents,” or “she loves the stuff I get her.” Or whatever. “At least it pays the bills,” I don’t know…

But we start throwing our but’s all over the place, “But, But, But, Bu-But, Bu-Bu-But But But.” It’s no different.

“At least  I got a toy. I know this is making me feel miserable, this junk food crud, but at least I got a cool toy… At least I pay the bills.” And we run our whole lives by this, some of us… some of us are going down that road school, work, sleep. Nothing else. TV maybe. Idk. Facebook, nothing else.

And Jonathon proves in this moment, “NO!” Some of us just need to take a step. You may be a business executive or hoping to be one… but there’s part of you that you feel is being called to be a missionary… do a short-term mission trip or something… help the homeless for a day, do Buscuit Ministry, something outside of this mundane life that some of us are stuck in. See what happens. Don’t be like Saul, sitting under a Pomegranate tree.

The next step Jonathon takes, is a big one… and some of us don’t want to hear it… He risks.

I’m a big thespian… love acting, love singing, etc.. In fact, in late Fall, early December of 2008 I won 1st place out of the entire state of Alabama in Duo Musical Theater with my great and talented friend Zeke Bandy. It was for a theater class at school and first we went to a District competition, got passed on to State competition, and at State we took first place. We each got really nice trophies and it was an amazing experience… But me and Zeke wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if we hadn’t risked. It takes guts to sing and act and even dance on a stage in front of people. When me and Zeke did our first audition, we performed for the judges and a small classroom full of strangers. We were only familiar with one person, and it was a random chaperon. We could have said no, but we did it, and it got us to State. We practiced and practiced and I basically annoyed the heck out of him… “WE NEED BETTER DICTION!!!” Well, I needed it, but we both needed practice [especially me]. And when State came, it was held in like a miniature theater, only it was still pretty big, with more 60 people watching at the least. And it took risk, it took guts. And we did it and we won. Entire State of Alabama, 1st place. It was one of my greatest performances; I am thankful for Zeke for working as hard as he did, and for solely for the glory of God. He is an inspirational person, just ask every single person who has met him.

Some people are in an amazing relationship right now, some of us are married. Talk about risk right there guys… It takes so much to get up and go up to a beautiful girl and ask, “Will you go on a date with me?” Anyone who has ever risked to enter a relationship who has been married for a long time will look back and say, “Man, that was totally worth it, because I found my soul mate.”

But we don’t like to risk. We like to put ourselves in a box. We put boxes around our lives and say, “Oh God please use me, use me.” But we’re never willing to step out of the box and take the box off and say, “God, honestly, everything I have is yours. I give it to you completely.” Church’s were built on risk, in fact, hopefully it’s one of the vision statements of the church today, because some God’s greatest moments, His absolute greatest moments, happen on the other side of risk… and Jonathon got to see that. It wasn’t “Hey, the enemy is gonna come down to us…” that wasn’t God’s greatest moment. Jonathon says that “We have to go up to them. We have to do the hard thing, that’s when God’s gonna show up.”

That’s a scary deal, I know. If I’m his armor bearer, I’m thinkin’ this guy is nuts. “You want us to first go up and say ‘Hey! Here we are!’ And then you want us to go climb up the mountain while they’re jabbing us with their spears?! No thank you! I’m out.”

No. You see, Jonathon knows something, he knows something really spectacular. He’s heard the stories about Joshua. About how he risked and he walked around those walls 7 times and screaming at the and the walls came tumbling down.

Or Gideon. He starts out with 32,000 men to take down an army like sand on a sea shore the Bible says… He’s out numbered insanely… and then God chisels it, “Too many, Too many, Too many,” all the way down to 300 men “Now you’re ready.” No weapons, just torches and horns. And people are like what?! Insane? But Gideon risks for God, and when they blow the horns at night it is thunderous and loud, and people on gaurd on the walls hear it and see the lights and the entire city begins to fall in panic. That was a “God’s greatest” moment.

“You risk for me,” He says, “And I’ll show up in a huge way.” And He did.

I think if you’ve never risked for God, then you’ve never really seen God the way He needs to be seen… because God shows up on the other side of risk, or I should say He truly shows Himself to you on the other side of risk. He shows Himself on the other side of sacrifice in a totally huge way.

So if you’ve never really risked something for God, well, that’s the third thing.

You see, Jonathon got to see God show up in a huge, amazing way… to the point where he couldn’t say that it was about him, that it wasn’t him who did it. “It wasn’t about me, it was about God; and I was just a vessel, I just walked and did the steps and did what I felt like I was supposed to do,” and in fact, earlier on in that passage he says,  “Maybe God will show up.” And Jonathon got to see God show up in a really powerful way, so nowhere at that point could he ever have taken credit. If you’re at a point in your life when you’re saying that it’s all about you… you’re not risking. You’re not moving.

Because at the end of the day when you move, and you risk, there is nothing you can say but “That was God.” Almighty God showed Himself as a result of that risk.

I’ve learned something pretty profound in my life… God’s love language is obedience. Anytime that Israel obeyed God, God blessed them and they saw God in a huge way. Anytime Israel disobeyed, God withdrew His hand, and that’s how they got Saul.

In your life, if you want to feel God, if you’re saying “I want to feel God, I’m missing out on something, I’m missing out on His presence,” It’s not God. It’s quite possibly that you’ve never moved… and you’ve never risked… so it’s quite possibly you’ve never seen the God of the universe move in your life the way He’s so desiring to move.

I’m not necessarily talking about going out on the mission field, though some of us are called to do that, I’m talking about doing something that you love to do and that you’re good at. I told you about how me and Zeke did the musical thing. He is an amazing man of God and He has a heart for music… not only that, he’s amazing at it. You look at him when he’s doin’ music and you can just tell that was what he was born to do.

You look at people like Zeke, and you can tell that’s what God intended them to do, that is who God intended them to be.

Some of us haven’t been able to use our gifts in a way that we could say, “Wow that was awesome. That wasn’t me, that was me doing what God wanted me to do… That was me moving, that was me risking… and here I am seeing God show Himself in an unbelievable way.”

We wouldn’t be alive without risk; for when our dads moved and risked and asked our moms out on that first date, it made way to a relationship, to marriage, and eventually to having us. Some of us wouldn’t be in a relationship or be married without risk. Guys, we look at our girlfriend or our wife and think, “There is no way I could have done this without you God. No way she would love me if it weren’t for you.” Girls, the same. You risked saying yes, risked your time with whoever, and I hope God showed up in a huge way too. “I can’t believe such an amazing Christian guy could both look good, and like me too. God HAS to have had something to do with this, I owe nothing to myself for this.”

The last and final thing that Jonathon got to see as a result of obeying God, and moving, and risking, and seeing God show Himself in a huge way, He killed twenty men which inflicted fear on the Phillistines and caused the earth to shake and as a result to that Saul as he is sitting under the pomegranate tree goes, “Woah, hey, what’s goin’ on?” and the 600 men were like, “Yeah man let’s go do somethin’!” And as the 600 leave the other 2400 notice somethings happening and they get up and start attacking too and they destroy the Phillistines as the result of ONE PERSON’S MOVEMENT, as the result of ONE PERSON’S RISK. ONE. PERSON’S. OBEDIENCE.

In Matthew chapter 5, God calls us to be salt and light in this world, to be an absolute contrast… and because of the monotony we live in, and because of our PDA lives, we often don’t achieve that. In order to be a contrast, in order to be a stark difference in this work… it’s gonna take movement, it’s gonna take risk, and then we see God show Himself, and THEN people want to follow us… cause they say “I want to see that kind of joy in my life. I want to have that kind of fulfillment in my life.

You’ll see this joy in Zeke’s life, and you would have seen this fulfillment in Jonathon’s life, and it’s because they are doing something they love. They are moving. And they are risking. I’m not saying they are perfect, and I’m definitely not perfect… especially considering how far from my potential I am… but at some points I’ve been able to move and I’ve been able to risk, and even though I’ve messed up, despite my imperfect nature, I’ve seen God do amazing things, and it took awhile; but it got other people interested in what I had too.

I know so many people that are living life like this now, not just Zeke, but others too… and I honor you so much all of you.

A lot of people are in the middle, they want to but they’re not sure, they’ve taken steps but they are still trying and then there are those of us at our wit’s end… we are depressed, we are joyless, we are broken, and “I just need something more than just what I’m doing right now…”

I understand that this is hard. I do. And I think I can help.

All next week, Monday-Friday I should say, list everything you love in your day-to-day stuff, things that strengthen you or that make you stronger. Times when you use your strengths to make you happy or fulfilled. List things that you love, in your day-to-day schedule, etc..

But also, on the back of that sheet on which you listed your strengths or whatever, write/list on the side or back, seperate page, etc., things that weaken you, things that keep you from your best, things that totally drain you from joy and fulfillment.

Then after next week, evaluate yourself. Afterwards, if you want, feel free to share it with me or someone you trust, someone who can help you… like an accountability partner.

My E-Mail is on this <betz.bryan@gmail.com> if you would like to share it with me. I’m totally willing, but I do suggest doing so with a very, very close friend, and if anything a parent/mentor.

Consider this as I wrap this post up…

When I was young and free, and my imagination had no limits I dreamed of changing the world. As grew older and wiser I discovered the world was not to change… so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country; but it seemed too immovable. As I grew into my twilight years in one last desperate attempt to change my family, those closest to me. But alas, they would not have any of it… And now I realize as I lay on my deathbed, if only I had changed myself first… then by example I would change my family, and from their inspiration and encouragement I would have been able to better my country… and who knows? I might have even changed the world.

And thats where some of us are today… because it starts with you wanting to change, to move and say “It starts with me. If I can move, if I can risk, I can see God show Himself and other people will want to follow that.”

In your mind, say you’re not content with being monotonous. You’re not content with living a PDA style life anymore. You want to use your gifts for God so that you can really truly be alive and not just surviving.

May God bless you, not just for living but being alive in Him. God has come to give us life to live it to the full; may we embrace what God has given us and channel it by using those gifts in a way that glorifies Him. May you move and may you risk, so  that one day you’ll see God, and others will too and praise Him.

Thank you for reading.

Whether I commit to this or not…

I will try.
I am going to attempt to commit to blogging for the next 12 days.

First 12 days of 2012, and I hope you like it.

We’ll see. :) Bed, I’ll post it by evening tomorrow.

Happy New Year, I hope you are loved.