Don't mess with me God!

Have you ever watched a movie starring Matt Damon and Robin Williams called “Good Will Hunting” In this movie Matt Damon plays “Will” a Troubled man from the streets that also happens to be a Genius. His brilliance has been overlooked by everyone except his closest friends until one day he decides to show off and answer a math problem that has taken some of the greatest minds in the world years to answer. A professor decides to bring him under his wing and show off Will as the Genius that he discovered. Before he can help Will however he needs to get him serious psychiatric help. They go through therapist after therapist Will running each of them off until he meets Williams character “Sean”. After a rough beginning they become friends and Sean helps him work through many of his issues. However he is still a train wreck pushing everyone away that wants to get close until one day Sean gets to the heart of the issue. He pulls out medical records and photo’s of Will all beaten and bruised. They go into a discussion of what happened and how his dad was an alcoholic. He would come home drunk need something to hit and Will would be the target. Here is where the scene gets good Sean looks at Will and says

Sean: It’s not your fault.
Will: I know
Sean: It’s not your fault
Will: I know
Sean: It’s not your fault
Will: I KNOW
Sean: It’s not your fault
Will: Don’t mess with me Sean not you
Sean: It’s not your fault
Will: (Pushes Sean) Don’t mess with me
Sean: It’s not your fault
Will: (Crying) Sean: (Pulls him into a hug)

That was the beginning of the TRUE healing process for Will. Even though he knew in his head that “It wasn’t his fault” he needed someone to drive it home for him. He needed that understanding to sink deep into his soul before he could move on with his life. Until that time happened he would live a life far far less than he was created for. He would not be able to believe that he was capable of being loved.

Friends, I fear that this is where many if not most of us stand. You see when we were born we were steeped in sin. We didn’t stand a chance we were born in a sinful world surrounded by sin raised by sinful parents, had sinful role models, and it is a part of our very instinct to pursue self before anything else (Romans 3: 9 – 20) I think because of this we have a very hard time believing that GOD the creator of the universe could possibly love us. My life has been out of control and Satan beating me up since the day of my birth. God knows what we are against. He isn’t holding that against us. Of course he doesn’t want us to stay there either. That’s why he sent his son. When we read through Gods word we see one message constantly coming at us. A message that we can say “I know” but one that our actions clearly show we don’t completely believe. In Good will Hunting that message was “It’s not your fault” which I do think would play clearly here as well but there’s another message God wants us to know that’s more important.

God: I love you
You: I know
God: I love you
You: I know
God: I love YOU
You: Don’t mess with me God not you
God: I LOVE YOU!
You: Don’t mess with me you couldn’t possibly love me
God: I LOVE YOU!
You: (Crying) Why
God: I LOVE YOU!
You: (A puddle on the floor crying unable to respond)
God: (Wrapping his arms around you and whispers in your ear) I LOVE YOU
You: I KNOW

If we can learn to truly embrace this our lives would be completely different. No more self destructing. God would turn our world “UPSIDE DOWN”

Love! What's it look like?

So, I’ve spent quite a bit of time lately talking about “Love”. Loving your neighbor as you love yourself, Loving our family in Christ as Christ loves them. The New Testament is loaded with statements about love it goes so far as to say in 1 John 4:8 If you do not love you do not know God because God is Love. Love, Love, Love, Love. We look at ourselves and we seek love through family, friends, mates in many cases we even seek it through our employers/employees. If we don’t have it we are willing to go to the extreme to get it or at least a substitute for it. The sixties had “Free Love”, The Beatles sang All we need is Love, and of course the oldest profession is where we “Pay for Love” Kids give into peer pressure searching for love. Today men and women before they get married claim they “Fell in Love” then they get divorced and tell their kids “We just fell out of Love” I looked up the Webster Dictionary’s definition of Love and this is what I found

1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties child> (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests b : an assurance of love
2 : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion
3 a : the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration b (1) : a beloved person —often used as a term of endearment (2) British —used as an informal term of address
4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others b : a person's adoration of God
5 : a god or personification of love

— at love : holding one's opponent scoreless in tennis

— in love : inspired by affection

Look at all those definitions. It’s clear Love is an over used adjective that nobody really knows the meaning. How can we follow Gods Command to Love if we don’t really know what Love is? I want to try and clear it up right now. Ok that probably wont happen so let me rephrase. I want to give my opinion of what Love is. When Christ was asked “What’s the greatest commandment?” he responded “Love the Lord your God with all your Heart mind, Soul and Strength. The second is like it “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” Christ spent his entire ministry telling us to “Love” “Love your neighbor as you Love yourself” In John 13 and in John 15 he COMMANDS us to Love as he has loved. The problem I think we have with Love is that for some reason we “Think” love is an emotion a feeling But if it’s an emotion or feeling then we don’t have a ton of control over it. If we don’t have complete control over it why would we be commanded to do it? Because of this I have come to the conclusion that Love is A CHOICE that’s it plain and simple Love is a choice or maybe a better definition would be Love is an ACTION that you choose to do. Think about it LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART. This means in all I do I need to look to God first. If I choose to put him first in everything I am loving him completely. If I choose to keep something to myself then I am loving God with everything EXCEPT that one thing? This is where it gets fun. Lets go to the command to “Love our neighbor as we love our self” In all of life I know what I would want someone to do for me. If I then choose to not do all the same things for ANYONE then where I am not doing for them I am not loving them where I am not loving them I am NOT LOVING GOD. God says to love him with our whole heart. Now lets go to a brother or sister in Christ. Here we are commanded to love them as Christ Loved them. This means we need to be willing to sacrifice for them. We usually stop at be willing to die for them because that’s easy rarely is anyone called to die for another. But what about giving up something we hold dear to help a brother in need? What about giving to someone in need and not expecting to ever see it again? What about answering that call at 3:00 in the morning to comfort a mourning or depressed or scared brother/sister? I’m on my way to work and find someone desperately needs me am I willing to risk my job to help? Brothers and sisters on the other side of the world need help in just the area you are skilled in. Are you willing to pack up and leave your job and friends to go help? What if you have no idea how you yourself will make ends meet? Where we are not willing to put ANY brother or Sister in Christ first (Not just the one’s we know) we are falling short of Gods command to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.

Are you overwhelmed yet? I know I am. I’m sitting here reading what I just typed and thinking “Wow, I could never do that.” Well thankfully we are living under the umbrella of Gods Grace so when we fall short we’re still good. However that is no excuse to not try and get there. It really is a great check of where we stand in how much we are willing to love God. When we recognize that we haven’t loved someone as God commands we now know where we can get to work on learning to love. Training ourselves to act. Then we grow in Love because we’ve learned to act. Whoops I failed to Love again God help me to grow my Love in this area. Thanks God! I can now love more. Shoot I didn’t love again! God can you help me again. Shew, Thanks again God. Continue to repeat the process.

What do you say gang? Are you willing to choose love even if you don’t feel like it. I think this is also what God calls our “Spiritual Act of Worship”. Just think about it if we can learn to Love like this we will turn our world “Upside Down”

Time to show a little love.

Today I experienced a very cool thing. There is this guy that goes to my church as far as I can tell he is the epitome of the word “servant”. Whenever a call for help goes out he is there. If he sees someone needs assistance and it’s something he can’t do he’ll let others that can help know. He’s quick with a smile and a greeting. A few from his church recognized this and wanted to say thank you so they put together what we at the Upside Down Group call an “Encouragement Party” They had people write Thank you notes and send them to him throughout the week then today he was invited to someone’s house for lunch and while he was there all these people began showing up. It didn’t take long for him to realize he was in the middle of a party and was the guest of honor. He was blown away and had a smile on his face that stretched from ear to ear. Now it turns out that this guy had been struggling with some stuff as well and the party is exactly what he needed. It’s not why they threw it but the timing was perfect. This is a great example of what I was talking about last week. “LOVE” in this case love reigned supreme. Mike serves others not because he has to but because he wants to and he wants to because God has placed a love for others in his heart. Mikes family (Re-church) recognized what he does for others and showed love by giving him this party. Nobody was out anything maybe 15 minutes to write a note of Thanks and another hour to join a party (Big Sacrifice) and Mikes day if not week was made his spirits lifted. This my friends is what life in Christ is all about. It’s about taking the time to serve one another. When we serve we love. God is Love.

A couple hours later a group of friends got together for dinner to celebrate the promotion of someone in the group. She had just been offered her dream job and her friends wanted to celebrate with her. That is yet one more example of “Love” Rejoicing with those who rejoice. Of course that’s the easy half of love isn’t it. We don’t do it enough but when we do we are always glad we did. It’s great fun making another smile. The tough part is remembering to mourn with those that mourn yet we are called to this as well. We are called to be “Light” in a dark world. We are called to love. We are called to show love even when it’s tough. As I said last week that is now my goal to walk in love but what does that look like? How do we “Walk in Love”? How do we follow Gods lead? You just read two examples. Do you want to see more? I want to show you. Here is how I plan to do it. Throughout my little road trip every time I updated this blog it was with what God had been showing or teaching me during the week. Now that I’m home I think I’ll mix it up a bit. I don’t expect God to stop so at times I will continue with the “Lesson” type posts. However what I expect to begin seeing with my new focus on “Modeling Gods love” is incredible examples of his people living it out. So even more often I will be writing about just that. What Gods people are doing in his community to show his love. I may write a little about things I was able to do but hopefully I’ll be able to spend more time writing about his community and what they are doing. I pray that in turn this will inspire each of us to step away from fear and into love. The more we are able to do this the better our world becomes. I believe that our community can change drastically overnight when “Love” becomes the driving force. Looking at my calendar it is now April 11 three and a half months into the new year. If each of us committed to model Gods love throughout the rest of the year our city would be turned upside down and if our city flips so does our state. We have the power to change the world my friends it’s about time we harness that power and turn our world “Upside Down” as well.

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Now What?

By now most of you probably already know that my 6 month road trip has come to an end. It was everything I expected and nothing like I expected all at the same time. Before day 1 my plans began to change or to be more accurate I should say “Were changed for me”. I left one week later than planned for a number of different reasons, Weather that hit on day number 2 changed the direction I was riding not only that but it literally corralled me into a very specific direction. Yet even in all of that I had a strange peace knowing that my God was in control of it all. You see God is why I chose to go for a ride. Ok, in an effort of full disclosure God said “Get alone with me for awhile” I’m the one that chose the road trip. Yes he could have spoken to me anywhere, in a coffee shop, locked in my room, a cabin in the country, wherever. I chose to leave so I could avoid distraction and because I’ve always wanted to do this. What’s cool is God loves me. He knew what I would choose he blessed it, and worked in it. If you can’t tell already I am about to talk about this trip and what the next step is. If you’ve been following this blog long you will see that it has become a weekly lesson of sorts those lessons come from what God had been speaking to me about during the week. I’m not completely sure because I haven’t done it yet myself but I bet if you were to go back to the beginning and read up through now you would stumble on a theme. I know that once I look at all God has shown me (Some I’ve shared some will stay between God and I) I see a clear theme for the trip and that began even before I hopped on the bike as well. I’ll begin with a painting. You see, I called up a local Artist (Bill Butler) and asked him to do a painting for me. I wanted something in front of me that would remind me of why I was on this trip. I wanted him for a number of reasons but primarily because he is a “Prophetic Artist”. We chatted for awhile he went to prayer and came up with a Painting called “Great Love” John 15: 12-13 I’ve quoted this verse a number of times over the last 6 months and he couldn’t have chosen a better verse. I could even call this tour of mine the “Great Love Tour” because that is what God revealed over and over and over again. He loves me so much that he gave me this trip. He loves us enough that he gave us this universe, he gave us his son, he gave us freedom, he gave us a choice.

I’m the kind of guy that loves to boil things down to it’s most basic principle. Once you get rid of all the fluff what are you left with? With Christianity however I’ve allowed myself to get all caught up in the theories, debates. I have to admit I even enjoy these types of discussions. I really enjoy chatting Denominational differences. But what we have to do before we ever get bogged down with this type of discussion is understand the basis of everything. Who is God to us? Who are we to God? This is what God showed me. This is what he emphasized in my studies, in who I met, where I went to church, on hikes, while riding my bike, in that painting I told you about. You see my lesson wasn’t a new revelation. You’ll hear it and say “I knew that” but this time God gave me the opportunity to see what that really means. This is called the “Great Love” tour because that’s exactly who God is. 1 John 4:6… God is Love. That is the basics of Christianity right there. God is love and everything he does is “LOVE” God sent Jesus to die for us because he is LOVE, the Spirit has been sent as a helper because God is LOVE, God created this mighty Universe for us to enjoy because God is LOVE. That is exactly what he has shown me in its most basic form. First he showed me how much he loves me. The trip he gave me modeled his Love, His provisions, The Support Group he Gave, The Bike, Our Conversations, God made it abundantly clear that he loves me (Again you can go to my past posts and find specific examples) Next God showed me that he loves all his children. I sat in a town that you couldn’t walk through and not experience the spiritual oppression yet there was a church in the middle of this town that acted like a Sanctuary from the oppression. He gave his children a special grace and gave them a location for regeneration. In the midst of that Oppression I saw how much God loves EVERYONE even those who have nothing to do with him. There was a spiritual warfare and this means God was fighting for them. He is fighting for you. I saw many more very specific examples that I once again mention in past posts.

Then God takes me to scripture and there is not one Apostle not one book in the New Testament that doesn’t hit on LOVE as a major point in the Christian life. You see God loves us so much that yes he sent his only son for us. He loves us so much that he spelled his plan out for us to see in The Old Testament. He didn’t want us to miss it. He loved us so much that even though we didn’t ask for forgiveness he had Jesus die to offer it that way we just had to grab it. He loves us so much that as soon as we turn to him and accept his forgiveness we become a member of his family. Now here’s the catch and the next thing God showed me so clearly. Once we become a member of his family Sons and daughters of God. WE BECOME LOVE! That’s right if God is Love and we are his it only makes sense that we are love. Since we are Love God wants us to act like it. He sent his son to this earth to be love on Earth. He was! Now we are his children on this Earth so we must be Love on Earth. What does that mean? “Love your neighbor as yourself” Your car is broken down and your neighbor has a spare. You would want your neighbor to offer the spare until it’s fixed. time to offer yours to him. Do you enjoy random people giving you money for no reason? Try doing that as well. John 15: 12,13 “A new command I give you Love as I have loved you. No greater love has man than this that he lay down his life for his friends you are my friends if you do as I command you.” In other words treat your brothers and sisters in Christ better than you would yourself. Sacrifice for them. “SACRIFICE FOR THEM”

This is the Gospel in its most basic form. 1. God is love, 2. We are adopted into his family, 3. We are love, 4. Be Love and don’t forget he sent help in the form of The Holy Spirit USE IT!!! This is the main lesson God has shown me over the past 6 months. He is love, we are love, we need to begin acting like it. Sit down for a few minutes and think about what that truly means. What are we really called too.

Now that I’ve told you all of that, the biggest question I’ve been asked is “What’s next?” or “What do you do now?” I honestly don’t know exactly. I have some idea’s that I’m going to walk towards and see what God blesses. The one thing I do know is this. If I walk away from this trip with the lessons that God has shown me and I don’t move toward Love then this past year would have been a waste of time. I plan on waking up in the morning and asking “God who do you have for me to love today?” Then I’m going to walk my day looking for his answer. Once I find it I’ll ask “God how do you want me to love them?” Then I’ll do it! Will I do it every time? Probably not. Will I miss some opportunities? Most likely. But it’s my goal to try. It’s my goal to each and everyday become love. I want to invite you to come along on this Journey of Love. Ya never know if you do your life may just be turned “Upside Down”