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Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Why I Love the Movie Noah's Inaccuracies

Russell Crowe has a new movie out.  This movie is called Noah.  To say that it has ruffled some feathers would be an understatement.  I read a blog this morning that was urging Christians to stay away from this film.  Why?  I am a Christian and I am glad that the new movie Noah is completely inaccurate.  Hollywood has given us a gift but we are too consumed with our own self righteousness to realize it.  Satan wants nothing more than for us to stand up with fists raised in righteous indignation.  He wants us to be shouting from the street corners of the assault on our religious rights.  He gets excited when we post our scathing reviews on Facebook.  He wants our pastors to be castigating the movie industry and urging good Christians everywhere to boycott this film.

I want to suggest a different course of action.  It is one that will not push people farther from God.  I believe that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  If I believe that simple thought to be true then I must believe that the Lord can make something wonderful of this woefully inaccurate movie.  So, I suggest we see this movie.  I suggest we forget what we are hearing and we watch it with an open mind.  I think we should be intentional about finding moments in this film that we enjoyed.  It can be the dialogue, it can be the special effects, or it can be the music.  Just find something.

I ask you to do this because the moment will come when we are faced with a non Christian who has seen this film and enjoyed it.  Imagine their surprise, knowing you are a Christian, when you join the conversation explaining the things you really enjoyed about the movie.  Think of the opportunity you will have to explain to them how much you loved the movie but how much you love the original story more.  There is a good chance they might ask you what you mean.  You have now been presented with an opportunity to share God's word with someone.

Leading people to Christ is not about having coffee shops in our churches.  It is not about "Fill the pews" Sundays or Youth group allnighters.  It is simply about relationships and opportunities.  We are presented with opportunities everyday to positively influence our relationships.  The real question I have for you today is what are you doing with your opportunities?

Looking for opportunities,
Jeremy

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

The Results of Putting on the Wrong Armor

The Armor of God
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.  Ephesians 6:10-18 (NIV)

Men, every day is a battle.  The minute our feet hit the floor in the morning, the assaults start.  Fortunately, God gives us the tools we need to fight.  But in order to fight, we first have to be aware of the battles, and we must be aligned with God in order to fight them.  The outcomes depend on just that.  So the question is not "if" you will face a battle today, the question is "how" will you face your battles today. 
There are basically three necessary components for a battle to be successful.  First, we have to have the right tools.  Second, we have to have a good commander.  Third, we have to know who we are fighting.  If one or more of these components are missing, we will lose.  Let me give you an example of what this looks like.

A week or so ago, my wife and I got into an argument.  As a friend of mine puts it, we had an extended period of "intense fellowship" with each other.  And as a man of God, I take responsibility for this.  Before you pat me on the back, I need to add a disclaimer.  I take responsibility now.  If I would have taken responsibility at the time, our fellowship might not have been as intense.  Looking back, I can see what I did and what I didn't do.
I put on the wrong armor.  Instead of putting on the full armor of God, I put on my armor.  I wrapped myself in the Cloak of Pride.  I grabbed my Sheild of Stubbornness and held it tight.  I secured the Belt of Selfishness around my waist and tucked in Twin Daggers of Anger and Self-Righteousness.  And I topped it off with the Helmet of Immaturity.  Anyone had this armor on before?
If that wasn't bad enough, I clearly didn't follow the right commander.  As I look back at things I said, and the way I treated the most precious person in my life, I can clearly see I wasn't following Jesus.  And because I wasn't following Jesus, I  lost sight of who my enemy is.  Instead of recognizing Satan's attempt to tear down my relationship with my wife, I chose to see her as my enemy instead.  We know that Satan wants to tear apart marriage relationships.  The marriage relationship is a representation of the relationship between Christ and the Church.  We are definitely on the radar. 
And so the results of putting on the wrong armor, and following the wrong commander into the wrong battle were awful.  My wife and I ended up wounding each other instead of loving each other.  Fortunately, we recognized what was happening.  Maybe not as quickly as either of us would have liked, but we did.  And we have endless grace for each other.  And so we live to fight another day!
Learn from my mistakes.  Put on the full armor of God.  Follow Jesus and recognize who the fight is really against.  Recognize when Satan attacks and draw your precious wife close to you.  We are made to lead our wives and our children.  But we can't lead them if we aren't following Jesus.  We have to be in alignment.  When we are in proper alignment, we remember this:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35


Walking Tall through Christ,
Kevin






Tuesday, February 11, 2014

I am broken

I was recently having a conversation with a friend.  We were talking about various topics and somehow we started talking about being broken.  It got me thinking about my own life and the journey I have been on for the last decade.  I have had some minor successes but it was through the tragedies or setbacks in my life that I was truly transformed.

Over that time frame I have experienced broken relationships, a miscarriage, illness, the death of a spouse, and the death of my mother.  The culmination of these events cut me open and left me on my knees crying out to God.  I was weak, broken, damaged,  and hemorrhaging.  It brought me to the edge of a darkness that I had not experienced before.  It was through those trials that I realized I was weak, broken, damaged, and hemorrhaging.


Brokenness was not a hindrance, it was a blessing.  It was through that brokenness that I found Jesus.  I believe that being broken is an essential part of true spiritual growth.  It forces you to let go and put 100% of your trust in God.  This is very important on an individual basis but I believe it is important for our churches.  I don't think our churches have to experience a corporate trauma in order to be broken.  Brokenness comes from the realization that our efforts are not enough.

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

"Unless we come to the end of ourselves and learn to allow Him to work through us, we will never reach our full potential in Christ." (Stanley, 2014)  This doesn't only apply to us individually.  It applies to us corporately as well.  We can't continue to operate business as usual.  We need our pastors to be broken.  We need our church boards to be broken.  We need our Sunday school teachers to be broken.  We need our choir and band members to be broken.  We need our Ushers and greeters to be broken.  

We don't need more programs, we need more brokenness.   I pray that the Lord continues to break me.   It is through that brokenness that I have grown closer to Christ and that is where I want to stay.  Break me today Jesus.

Following the voice,
Jeremy


Stanley, Dr. Charles. (2014) God's Purpose for Brokenness. InTouch.Org.  Retrieved February 11, 2014, from http://WWW.intouch.org.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Waking Up in the Dark

“Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.” Psalm 112:4

I was standing at the coffee station at work a few weeks ago, and a friend of mine came for a refill.  We began the usual back and forth, conversing about the previous weekend and possible plans for the next one.  If we were sports fans, I’m sure there would have been a detailed evaluation of the weekend’s games, etc.  Eventually the conversation moved to the upcoming time change.  Since we were in late October, we were quickly approaching that glorious time of year when we get an “extra” hour of sleep.  Although for me, that usually is an extra hour of awake instead.  Daylight savings time has been around for a long time. Each year in the fall we “fall back” an hour and in the spring we “spring forward” an hour.  The purpose of this is to capitalize on the most daylight possible during the seasons.  As we were talking about the impending change and the benefits of it, he made a statement that inspired me.  He said “Nobody wants to wake up in the dark”.  It was a simple reference to the fact that during the winter months we usually wake before the sun rises.  But his statement stuck in my brain and I spent the next few days mulling it over.

As I began to go deeper into thought about that simple statement, and began dissecting it, several things came to mind.  First being a bit obvious.  Nobody wants to wake up in the dark.  So true.  Who could possibly want to wake up in the dark?  The dark is depressing.  It’s hard to see.  You tend to trip over and run into things in the dark.  Toes get stubbed.  It feels colder.  It’s harder to be positive and joyful about the day.  Overall, waking up in the dark is unpleasant.  So on the surface, it’s already a negative thing.  It makes me want to hit the snooze button just writing this. 

But is waking up in the dark always a bad thing?  Proverbs 31:15 says “And she arises while it is still night and gives food to her household and tasks to her servant girls.” Sometimes getting up before the sun can be a good thing.  You can get more accomplished, prepare for the day or even find some much needed peaceful solitude to spend in God’s word.  So when thinking literally about physically waking up before dawn, it’s easy to see there are both pros and cons.

But it’s quite profound to think about waking up in the dark?  Almost feels like an oxymoron when you are in the context of the biblical light.  Waking up out of the dark seems more accurate.  How many of us though are honestly waking up in the dark?  We get out of bed, we don’t pray, we don’t worship Him, we don’t thank him for what he has given us.  We may open our eyes, brush our teeth and head to work, but we are still in the dark.  In a sense we are stuck in the dark.  But how do we get out of it?  How do we wake up out of the dark instead of staying in it?  How do we, as we read in Romans, “Put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light”  13:12

The answer is obvious.  We come out of the darkness and into the light through the Son.  Enter the Gospel!  “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son he loves” Colossians 1:13  Before the Son, there was darkness, but now there is Light. 

Christmas is just a few short days away and it’s definitely a time to reflect on the gift of light we have been given.  We, as Christians, celebrate Christmas for a much more valuable reason than the rest of the world.  We know Christmas isn’t about presents or trees or food.  It's a celebration of God’s coming into the world as a man.  To save us from our sins.  To bring us out of darkness into light.  We have been given the gift of his presence.  And all we have to do is accept it and follow Him.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so thankful He showed me how to wake up out of the dark!

Walking Tall Through Christ,
Kevin

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Selfies. Got your duck face ready?


Here at small2TALL we talk a lot about raising men into God-fearing gentlemen, but we have daughters too. And we need to instill the right values in them as well. I, myself, have a daughter and two step-daughters.  Two of them are teenagers and one will be soon enough.  It's equally important that I teach and guide them as well as my sons and step-sons.  That thought has recently led me to the selfie craze.  This may, on the surface seem like a topic that isn't even worth discussing.  I can't even count how many times, in response to this issue, I've heard "What's the big deal?  They're all doing it these days."  And if you don't dig deep, it's easy to leave it there.  But, as men of God and intentional fathers, we have to dig deep.  So, let's look at selfies. (pun intended)

"They're all doing it these days" is unfortunately a true statement.  In fact "selfie" was named the 2013 oxford word of the year. That fact brings a chuckle to most people, but it makes me cringe.  I thought maybe I was in the minority, thinking that the selfie craze is a problem but a quick google search will turn up hundreds of articles and research studies that have examined the history of, reasons for and effects of selfies.
Selfies have become an extention of social media's assault on our lives.  They further the idea that we should give the world an all access pass to our lives.  This began with Myspace and Facebook.  The concept of a Facebook status was to give interesting information to friends and family about what's going on in our lives.  Over the years, our social media society has taken that too far.  Now instead of posting about a trip to Europe, or the birth of a child, we post what we are having for dinner or the fact that we are at the gym.  Why? 
Selfies have made the same transition.  They've been around for decades.  You can find portraits on the Internet of people taking selfies almost as soon as cameras were available.  The first use of the word "selfie" can be traced back to about 2002.  But the recent progression should cause us to pause and examine what's going on.  Like Facebook statuses, what once was an occasional picture to commemorate a special event, has morphed into hundreds of teenage girls (and boys) posting pictures of themselves almost constantly, not to commemorate an event, but just to be posting a picture.  And that begs the same question.  Why?  And what has fostered this change is the ubiquitous access to technology.  Practically every teenage child walks around with a camera and internet access in their pocket every day. 

So what's the purpose of the selfie?  The research shows two possibilities for the answer to that question and neither of them are good.  Reason number one: Vanity/Pride.  Reason number two: Insecurity.  Both of these come from a need to have someone affirm our outer beauty.  If that, by itself, isn't a red flag to all fathers, we have a problem.  Our daughters are posting pictures of themselves on the Internet for the world to see.  I can't imagine that I'm the only father who sees the problem. 

The other response I hear a lot in response to selfies is "It doesn't really hurt anything".  If you agree, you should take a look at the study "Tagger's delight? Disclosure and liking in Facebook: the effects of sharing photographs amongst multiple known social circles" Houghton, David and Joinson, Adam and Caldwell, Nigel and Marder, Ben (2013).  This study shows that overuse of selfies can actually damage real-life relationships.  That's not a hard statement to wrap your mind around.  If you know someone who is constantly posting pictures of herself to gather comments and praise from friends, you probably have already felt how it can damage a real-life relationship.  Those that repeatedly post pictures on social media sites are seen as self-centered and shallow.  That's not how I want to raise my daughters, or how I want the world to view them. 

As fathers, and as men of God, we have a responsibility to teach our daughters what to do and what not to do.  I mentioned earlier that the purpose of posting selfies is to fish for affirmation of beauty.  We need to be teaching our daughters what true beauty is.  That beauty comes from within.  That God created them to think much more of themselves than to try to fish for compliments on the Internet.  We need to see them, and teach them to see themselves from God's eyes.  As His creations.  As His daughters.  As His princesses.

 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Phillipians 4:8.

You can't see that in a selfie.

Walking tall through Christ,
Kevin

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

What is the real state of our union?

I am sitting here watching the State of the Union address by President Obama.  There was a time in my past that I would have my own running commentary.  I love politics.  The partisan response to the various comments by the President was amusing to me.  It was theater and I enjoyed it.  Election day was like my super bowl.  I would stay up late into the night watching the returns.  I love politics.

My life has changed drastically in the last three years.  Tonight, as sit here listening to the State of the Union, there is one question that is consuming my thoughts.  What is the real state of our union?  I am not concerned with the deficit.  I am not concerned with health care reform.  I am not concerned with income equality or the unemployment rate.  I am concerned with the deficit of committed, faithful, enthusiastic, honorable men of God.

There are many issues that are plaguing this country today.  Nothing is more serious than the disappearance  of Godly gentlemen.  With the disappearance of our Godly men, our sons have lost the role model they need to teach them how to pray.  I believe there is a serious prayer deficit in America today.  An entire generation is growing up not knowing how to cry out to our Heavenly Father.  Men, we are the spiritual head of our families.  If we are not teaching them how to pray then no one will.  If our children do not see us go to the Lord in prayer when we encounter trials, how will they know to do it when they have issues of their own?

Men, we have lost the ability to prioritize those things that are truly important.  We have forgotten what it means to take a stand for those things that are truly meaningful.  We choose sports programs versus worshipping with our families on Sunday mornings.  Sports programs are important.  They teach sportsmanship, teamwork, and ethics.  These are important but they are not more important than teaching our children how to worship.  Is there a better way to teach our children how to worship than having them watch us?  It is time for Dad's to take a stand and loudly declare that Sunday is the Lord's day and we will dedicate ourselves to keeping that day set apart.

We have some serious issues.  The good news is that we can overcome these issues.  We simply must rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the role in our families that the Lord intended for us.  We can take a stand.  It is not too late.

Joshua 24:15  If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Listening to the Voice,
Jeremy

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Too busy to follow Christ


Is it possible to get so caught up in the world that you miss doing Gods work?  While at the prayer conference in Texas last October, Pastor Corey Jones made a statement that delayed obedience is disobedience.  I like that.  It speaks to the issue that being a follower of Christ is a black or white issue.  It's not gray.  Simply believing in God doesn't make you a follower of Christ.  Some will say, "I believe in God."  That's great!  Are you following Christ?  If not, read James Chapter 2, verse 19.  "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."

Black and white.  Delayed obedience is disobedience.  If you're not with Him, you're against Him.  There are so many ways to say it.  I recently read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and Lord Foulgrin's Letters by Randy Alcorn.  They are both fictional accounts of letters written by "higher up" demons to their subordinates.  The message is the same.  The demons don't fight to win souls for Satan.  They fight to keep souls from God.  It's not a matter of choosing to follow Christ or choosing to follow Satan.  It's a matter of choosing to follow Christ or choosing to not follow Christ.  Anything else, mere belief in God, Agnosticism, Atheism, Buddhism, whatever...it's all the same.  It's all not following Christ.  

And for those of us that are parents or guardians, we have added responsibility.  If we don't lead our children to Christ, the world WILL lead them away from Him.  Black and white.  If we think that we can just live our Christian lives and hope that our children will pick up enough along the way to make the right choice on their own, we are sorely mistaken.  If we don't take specific and purposeful steps to lead our children to Christ, we will lose them to the world. We can't afford to sit idly by and hope for the best.  We have to put the strength of our backs and the sweat of our brows into the salvation of our children.

Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with ALL YOUR HEART."  Again, it's black and white.  Don't seek me a little bit, when you feel like it.  Seek me with all your heart.  With everything you have!  But this leads me to another question.  Is it also possible to get so busy doing God's work that you lose track of following Him?

Obviously the answer is yes.  It's almost a rhetorical question to bring up the point that we can get so caught up in doing for the Lord that we lose sight of Him.  We get so busy looking at the pretty trees that we miss the forest!  But again, there are instructions and guidelines in His Word for this too.  Hebrews Chapter 11 is all about faith in action.  Verse 6 says "without faith it's impossible to please God"  It doesn't say that without faith we only please Him occasionally.  It says without faith it's IMPOSSIBLE.  So we have to constantly look at our actions to see if they exist out of faith.  Faith without works is dead.  James 2:26.  However, the opposite is just as true.  Works without faith are just as dead.

There are lots of people that are busy for Christ without following Him.  Its an easy trap to fall into.  It could be leading a children's group, doing local missions work, perhaps even singing in the choir.  The question is, "why"?  Why are you leading the children?  Why are you doing the mission work?  Why are you in the choir?  Is it for your glory or His?  Or even worse, do you just see it as an obligation?

Tough questions.  But tough questions are what take us deeper into understanding ourselves, repenting our sins and humbling ourselves.  Quieting ourselves before Him and allowing Him to clean out these prideful and selfish ambitions are what readies our vessel for Him to fill it!

So what do we do?  We have to make the time to quiet ourselves before the Lord, to pray purposefully. To spend time with Him.

Walking Tall Through Christ,
Kevin