Daily Life

Jude 20-21

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 

This passage says so much with so few words. Family, these verses are things we need to remember, these are our daily goals in life as Christians. 

Are we building ourselves up in our faith? Are we seeking God with everything we are? Are we constantly striving to grow in our walk? Are we becoming more and more like Him every day we live? If not, what is standing in our way and what/who will mean more to us?

Are we praying? Are we spending time on our knees, crying out to the most holy God? Are we talking to Him and getting to know Him? Are we treating Him like a wishing well, asking for requests for ourselves more than anything or are we praising Him and thanking Him for all the He has done in our life? Family, how often are we found before the throne of God? Prayer is a beautiful thing, we get to speak to the God, the Creator, the King that forgave us after we rejected Him and committed vile actions in His sight and He listens. He truly listens to us if we approach Him like we ought to. How amazing is this? It is such a privilege, yet so few of us truly take advantage of this opportunity! Why?

Family, do we keep ourselves in the love of God? Do we abide in it? Can we be found living in God’s love, never wanting to leave? Are we truly experiencing this love? If we never experience this love, this pure, unadulterated, limitless, and crazy love, how can we claim to abide in it? Family, God is love, abiding in His love is abiding in Him and on His Word. May we seek to grow with Him and abide in Him. 

Lastly, may we wait for God’s mercy that leads to eternal life. Family, are we eagerly awaiting to be able to spend eternity with our King? I have to admit, it is tough at times. We all have hopes for our lives. Many of us can’t wait to marry and have a family, others want to reach a point of success before death, some desire just to live more and do more things, but family, if these goals are dampening our desire to be with God and making us less excited to be with Him, then we must revaluate these things. They may be a hinderance and, in all reality, they are us holding onto our desires, our worldly hopes and saying that we long for our hopes more than we do God’s. There is nothing wrong with hoping to have a family, or hoping to do well with a career, or living life, but they are wrong when they steal our desire from longing to be with God and looking forward to His return.

May we live a Jude 20-21 life every single day.

Blessings family,

-Ryan

Radical or Average?

3 John 11

Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

Though our works are not what brings about salvation in our lives, works are a huge indication of a life. They can be manipulated to portray a false reality by posing to play a role, however, genuine actions are a key indicator of the status of a personal standing with God. The outlook on sin that one has, the love that flows from them, the desire to share His word, all of these and so many more are indicators of where one stands. A person that is sold out for God views sin as disgusting and wants nothing to do with partaking in sin, they seek to avoid compromise to the best of their ability, they have a love like God would have for everyone, friends and enemies alike, and they would have a burning passion to share His word with everyone, not just people that are similar to them. Now, many people’s response to this is “well, that’s great and all, but that’s for a RADICAL CHRISTIAN, what about if I just want to be an ORDINARY CHRISTIAN?” My response to that is, is there such thing as an ordinary Christian? This is a question that I can answer with no certainty. Personally I believe that a true follower of God, wants to be a radical Christian, and is never content with not following Him with everything. The concept of an “ordinary” Christian strikes me as one of a desire for less than is required, a lack of desire to excel, a misplaced passion, a desire to live one’s own life, a desire to make God the passenger rather than the driver. This to me sounds more like a good person than a godly one. It sounds to me like a person that is in love with the world and its offers and isn’t willing to give it all up for God. Family, as people that are called to imitate good, and since good is defined by God, we are to imitate Him. We are to be holy as He is holy (I Peter 1:16). We are to be imitators of Christ. Christ lived nothing short of a radical life, He challenged the status quo because He knew that it was short of what God desired! If our King came and lived a radical life to the point that He died for it, what makes us think that we don’t have to? 

Even if being an “ordinary Christian” was good enough for salvation (though I am not sure it is because only God can decide), I would not be looking forward to the day that I would stand before my King, and look Him in the eye and say, “God, I was an ordinary Christian for you.” Only to hear His reply, “Why? I gave you so much potential and had so much that I desired to do through you to reach my people. Why were you happy with throwing away what I hoped for you?” That response would devastate me and make me wish that I could do it all over again to be a radical Christian.

May we be RADICAL CHRISTIANS FOR GOD.

A love letter to those who rebelled against Him

2 John 9

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.

Family, the Bible is our instructions from God on how to live this life. It is our love letter from Him. It is the greatest book ever written. The most accurate document ever written. It is the book with the highest standards. It is a gift from a holy God who did not have to reveal Himself to us. It is a gift from God after we spat in His face and displayed our hatred to Him via sinning. It is a gift after we ran with our sin and loved it more than our Maker. It is a gift that tells us that we have a chance of forgiveness IF we turn to Him and follow Him as His disciple. But yet, we treat this great book with such little reverence. We live life ignoring it so often. We turn to Facebook instead of getting our face in His Book. This verse in 2 John says it all though: “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.” If we are not reading His teachings, how can we know Him? Oswald Chambers said, “That is the way God speaks to us, not by visions and dreams, but by words.” If we never read His word, how can we be upset when things aren’t going well or we feel disconnected from Him? Family, what Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” This book is one of God’s channels of communication to us, and we access it so scarcely many times. How do we know God if we don’t access one of His most used channels of communication with us? He has so much to show us in His word, but we have to dive into it. As this passage talks about, without knowing His word, how can we say that we know Him? We need to be in this book as much as possible, at the very least every day. My question is this, do we long for and thirst for the word of God like we starve for food or long for drink? Do we need it more than anything, short of God Himself? May we not make His word our god by going too far the other way, but family, may we dig deeper and deeper into His word, seeking Him for He promises us that when we seek Him, we shall find Him (Luke 11:9). May we be people that know our God and know His word so that we may be workers equipped in and out of season (2 Tim 2:15). Family, this is our sword and we are going into war, may we know how to use it on the battlefield because we are so familiar with it because we have used it so much.

“A Bible that is falling apart, is usually the sign of a life that isn’t.”

- Vance Havner

Blessings

Victory

This is the last part of I John, my favorite book in the Bible along with Romans. May we apply everything to our lives as we seek to live radical lives because our King lived a radical life.

I John 5:1,4

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world... And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 

Children of God. That is who we are. We have found our identity in Him and have given up trying to make a name for ourselves. Family, as children of God do we overcome the world as we are told that we should? Today, we have become so caught up in diluting the scripture in our personal lives and rationalizing it in our minds. This verse literally means that we can overcome the world and all of its pleasures and temptations, IF we are born of God, meaning that we have been saved by Him and have become imitators of Him. Verse 4 tells us plainly that due to our faith, we have victory over the world, over our former addictions, former selves, former thoughts, future temptations. We can win this fight through God’s grace and power. We can’t do it on our own. Family, do we truly believe this? Do we live as if we are able to overcome the temptation to be like everyone else, or “improve” our life, or to give into addictions? I honestly can say that I didn’t for a long time. I did not live as if Philippians 4:13 was my reality. Family, may we truly believe that through God, ANYTHING is possible. If we are going through God, we have to be with Him and we allow our wills to conform with His when this happens. Faith is the key to freeing us from our bondage. May we realize that GRACE HAS ALREADY BROKEN OUR CHAINS OF ADDICTION, but we need to leave them in order to experience freedom from it. And more importantly, may we live as if we believe that all things are capable through our God if we truly are His children. 

May we seek to please the King

Crazy Love

I John 4:10-11

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Today, on Christmas 2010, may we remember that God the Creator and King over all creation, became like His creation 2000 years ago. He came because we rejected Him and His plan for us. We committed treasonous acts against the King and reaped death and other consequences. So then, He humbled Himself in a way that we can never comprehend, going from God to man, He lived a perfect life, experiencing many of the things that we go through so that we can never say that He doesn’t know what we are going through, He died a death after being betrayed by one of His closest friends, and that death was a death of embarrassment, one of agony, one of excruciating pain, and He did that so that we may know Him. He gave us this gift that we did not deserve. We deserve death, and He offers life. We choose darkness and He exposes us in light. He offers redemption for us who have prostituted ourselves to other gods. He offers love to us when we deserve hate. He offers us mercy when we deserve punishment. He offers us grace when we deserve no such thing. This is crazy love my friends. This is reckless love. Love that would stop at nothing to know you and to have your love in return. The price is not much, you take your beaten life, faulted plans, and broken heart and exchange it for fullness and healing, purpose and meaning, and love and grace and mercy. It’s a daily choice though. One day of acceptance does not guarantee something. It is a lifetime of living and walking. You can run a race and never finish it if you stop along the way. May we finish this race depending on the strength given to us from our God. And may we pass on this gift that He has given us to others with reckless abandonment. May we give our all for those who God loves and for our God who loves.

It starts in our heart, this love, and becomes a large part of who we are. May we seek to be people that love like God loved us, with reckless abandonment, not seeking repayment but seeking to love unconditionally regardless of the cost.

May grace and peace and love abound to you my family

Crux Point

This may hurt. This will be deep. This requires us being honest with ourselves and God. As we read from I John 3 may we remember who God made us to be, what He hoped for us. He made us to not experience sin. He desired that we may be blameless and pure and innocent children of His, not knowing the evils that have become so ingrained in who we are. The question should echo in our heads throughout this devotion is “In all honesty, do I devote myself to God a multitude of times more than I do to any form of sin (whether it is blatant sin, disregarding God’s commands, exaltation of oneself over God, or idolatry)?” And “Can I go a full day without sin? If not, why can I so often go weeks without God? Which do I depend on more, sin or God?”

I John 3:6,9

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him... No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 

Family, though no one of us will ever be perfect until we pass on from this life into eternity with God, one of our goals as Christians is to be holy as God is holy (I Peter 1:16). My question is how much do we pursue to live lifestyles that are pleasing to our King? And I am not necessarily discussing solely actions, but rather intentions and desire. If we go through the actions without the passion to please God and without a desire to serve Him joyfully, then what good do our actions do for anyone? Faith without works is dead, but works without faith is meaningless. If we do not have the belief in our God and the desire and passion to serve Him then why bother serving someone that you don’t love? Furthermore, if we are to call ourselves children of God, shouldn’t we be representatives of Him to this world? Instead, we often find ourselves entangled in addictions and lifestyles that are not pleasing to God and instead camouflage us in this world. Nothing sets us apart from them aside from our statement of beliefs which is not in practice. I say this out of love family. I have often found myself in this place of addiction and that place of living a lie. I know the pain that occurs there, the dark places that we do not want to revisit or have exposed, but if they are never dealt with, are we telling God that He cannot have what is rightfully His, that the Creator of everything known and unknown to us cannot have an area of our lives because we don’t want Him to. My response is, which do we love more? It is easy to reply that we love God more than the addiction, but if we are willing to reject Him for the addiction, the addiction is what our heart truly desires and what we truly love. We must fight this war family. Now is not the time for rest. THIS IS WAR! Will we fight the fight so that we may please our God or will we allow our sin to control us and our desires, causing us to reject the One we call Lord? I, for one, choose to fight.

This choice needs to be a daily one. It is a daily war. Will we fight it? It is a core foundational piece of our life. It is a crux point. This declares our true intentions. May we not be complacent, may we not be compromising, may we not be content.. May we be driven by Grace.

Blessings

Daily Living

1 John 2:15-17

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Every day of our life that we wake up, we make a decision, a decision that is a declaration of what/who we will live for that day... We wake up to check our phones, eat, go on facebook, or just go through our day. However, how much more significant is it to stop, before anything else begins and just spend a bit of time with God? Though this may not be your personal devotion time, why not spend a few minutes at His throne in order to start your day out focused on Him and prepared by stating your purpose for that day in Christ. Honestly, very rarely do we ever even have a legitimate excuse not to do this. If we think about it, we sleep in to give ourselves more rest, we have other options and even if we wake up earlier, 5 minutes won’t kill us. We check our phones and facebooks and reboot our social life within a matter of minutes it seems, but we tell God to wait for us to finish with our friends and our social life. My family, this should be so heavy on our hearts if we do this, I am one who does this many times and am greatly convicted of it. We are telling God, the Creator of the Universe, the One who gives us life, our Father who saved us from an eternity of hell and has forgiven our heinous actions against Him, and we look at Him and tell Him that our social life is more of a priority to us than spending five minutes with Him. When we think about it that way, it’s a lot more serious. 

In this passage John warns us of loving the world. It is so attractive. Everything is presented to us so nicely. Alcohol  is advertised to take away your problems and help you have a great time, where really it makes you look like a fool, brings problems back stronger, and leaves you with a headache. Sex is presented to be the greatest thing ever and to be pursued in every relationship and hookup. Only thing is, it doesn’t fill that gap that is there. It just widens it. It doesn’t take away pain or make you more or less of a man/woman, it only says that you have given in to whatever everyone else wants you to do, a real man/woman would stand up for their beliefs. Lying is the easy fix, but never really seems to get easier as lies compound among each other. Pursuit of one’s own happiness never gets you to where you hoped you would be. You may reach the pinnacle of fame/success/love/etc... as you hoped, but it isn’t exactly what you had thought it would be. You still aren’t happy with it. This, my family, is the great lie of the world, that if you do/get these things, you will be happy. This is the truth, you will be far from happy. God wants you to find true joy and that can only be found in Him, by searching for Him, by knowing Him, by spending quality time at His feet. Will we do this today? 

May we seek Him from our very innermost being, allowing Him to have the core of who we are and everything else

Lifelong Commitment

I John 1:7

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin

A prayer is not our salvation as Christians, a lifestyle is. A lifelong walk with God; one that may hit hard spots, pain, and much more, but never ends is what saves you. You don’t really know someone because you spoke with them once. You know someone because you have a true relationship with them. If this is the case, why then do we so often refuse to make God the best relationship in our life? I mean, He died for us, so that we can be forgiven, yet we barely acknowledge Him in our lives anymore. It almost seems like we personally are fine with Him taking the backseat in our life or not even being there at all. It’s so easy to just let life get in the way of knowing God, but God needs to come first.. Life is short and anything can end it at any time.. We need to make sure that we are ready to meet Him before its over because it can end at time. Are we prepared to stand before God? Will He say that He is proud of us, or that we had great potential but didn’t do anything with it, or that He never knew us? I hope that we all live in a way to receive the first statement. I can’t wait to hear God say “well done my good and faithful servant.” He truly has given us so much to live for, what will we give our life for?

Thanksgiving (I know it's cliche, but still...)

Thanksgiving.... Why should we be thankful today?? I mean, we live lives that are so consumed with the latest and greatest, for our gratification and fulfillment, why should we take today to stop, only to pick it back up a few hours later with Black Friday and all its craze. Christmas even has become this way, losing all of its meaning for most, and has become a day to worship self and others through receiving gifts and giving gifts to others out of reciprocity. Yet, Christmas is our reminder of Jesus’ birth, of the humbling that He partook in so that we may know Him and not perish, but be redeemed. He died and that was His gift to us. Something we did not merit, but was given to us without regret. This is our purpose of Christmas, to remember that and to treasure that and to share it. This is our joy. For many, the holidays suck and Thanksgiving signifies the beginning of this time of pain and loneliness. They are reminded of loved ones that have passed away, of the problems that haunt their life, they see portrayals all over of people smiling and worry-free as they swipe their credit cards to purchase gifts and those real people are asking real questions of “why am I not happy,” “why am I alone,” “what is the point of this,” and “what am I missing that they apparently have?” 

The bible tells us in Philippians that we are to rejoice ALWAYS. How can we rejoice always? It’s not easy. Things go wrong, life throws curveballs at you all the time. People hurt you, you let yourself down, promises are broken, people judge, you feel lonely, you feel empty, life feels like it loses its meaning. How can you feel thankful for this? May I suggest that we can because even though things may be going wrong in life, we have life, though we have fights with family and friends, we have family and friends, though work may be rough, we have a job, though school can be so tiring and it may suck, we are gifted with the ability to learn and to gain an education. Most importantly, you have been saved and have the promise of eternal life and your sin and mistakes have been covered and erased, IF you believe in God with all of your heart. If nothing else, you can be thankful for this.

Life itself is a precious gift that we have abused and take for granted.. May we remember how much our life means to our Creator and live like we believe it. 

I am truly thankful for you family. As we walk through life together, may we grow with each other and with our King. May we glorify and please our King.

Be blessed and be a blessing. 

The Church

Matthew 16:15-18, “He (Jesus) said to them (the disciples), “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” The rock that Jesus refers to is the foundation of Christianity, that Jesus is the Son of the Living God. That there is a living and active God who is involved in our lives and that we have a relationship with and have placed our trust and belief in. Without this, we cannot be saved (John 3:18- Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God). If you believe in Him, you are a Christian, a follower of God. You are part of a much larger group as a Christian. As a true follower of God you are a part of the Church. The body of believers that have been saved by faith and belief in God through His grace. You serve a purpose in this body of believers. What it is, I don’t know. But, God does. His plan for you includes your role in this group. Without you, the body is not as strong as it could be. You have been given specific gifts (discussed in I Corinthians 12) that contribute to the body of the Church. The Bible talks about this body as God’s bride that He will marry (ex: Jeremiah 3:14, Revelation 19:7-9, and 2 Corinthians 11:2). We eagerly wait for His return so that we may be with Him forevermore. Though the Church is usually thought to refer to a group of Christians gathering for an organized service in a specific location, it refers to the universal group of believers of all times. The church (lowercase “c”) typically refers to the local group of believers. This is not the building. We, the people of God, are the Church and anytime we are together, we are the church. God created this group to give His people a community. A sense of family. A group of people that would experience life together, that would learn to be godly people together, exhorting one another in love to strive towards the goal that he has set before us. Paul, in I Corinthians, discusses division in the Church. We are not to be divided with any hostility, though we will have differing views, and problems will arise between people, we are to realize that we are people under God, saved by His grace that now have been transformed through Him and will all spend eternity together. We are to demonstrate the love of God to them regardless of their beliefs or our disagreements. It almost seems that we can be more open to hearing people of a different belief speak rather than people of a different denomination or a differing perspective on non-salvational topics (such as the time of a rapture, whether we are predestined to salvation or have total free will, and many other topics). The church has been given a specific mission by Christ to do until the time of our physical death or until He returns. This is known as the Great Commission. It states, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV).” This is our mission, our hope (our future) is that we will spend eternity with the King.

May we grow as a body with one mind, spirit, joy,  and goal to serve the one God and King. Let’s experience life as one. You are not alone in this walk. Family is always there.

Blessings family