My ID: The Antidote To My Worries

"But more than anything else, put God's work first and do what He wants.  Then the other things will be yours as well."  (Matthew 6:33)

Reading: Matthew 6:24-34

If I don't have ID I don't get in.  Without proper identification of who I am there are certain places I cannot go.  There are certain privileges I cannot enjoy.  And there are experiences I cannot have.  It is amazing how a badge or a passport or a license that displays identity can make or break how my life gets lived and experienced.  In this world we live in there is always reason for worries and anxieties.  You name it.  Someone is struggling through it.  It is hard to fight against worries and anxieties.  They plague us all the time.  They don't seem to stop coming.  Books are written, have been written, and will be written about them. But they will always be there.  Wouldn't you like to be in a state or place of being where you don't have to worry or be anxious?  Wouldn't you like to enter a place... an environment where worries and anxieties don't get to poison your mind, your heart, or at least your day?  In Matthew 6:24-34 we will find that Jesus talks about such a place.  It is an awesome state of consciousness where even money (a major cause of worries and anxieties) can't take away our peace of mind.  There is only one problem: we need ID to enter this incredible worry-free place.   I need my dad to get this ID.  It is his ID actually that I wear in my heart and soul.  It is a supernatural ID because my true dad is supernatural.  Jesus calls him "ABBA"... my father... dad.  This ID marks me as the one who loves my daddy more than money... or anything.  When I wear this ID it identifies me as someone who lives for my daddy's business and ONLY His business.  As a result with this ID I get to enter a worry-free zone... an anxiety-clear environment.   If you're deep in worries and anxieties.  Take a look at your heart.  Who's ID are you wearing?  If it's not your supernatural dad's ID then you're probably in the wrong place.

"Lord I would really like to wear your ID in my heart.  I can't live with all these worries and anxieties.  They will kill me.  Let your ID be reflected in my priorities, and my values... that my business in life is YOURS and ONLY YOUR business.  Oh!  I'm in?  Wow! This is a great place to be!"  

A Supernatural Kind of Love

"Take away my foolish desires, and let me find life by walking with you."  (Psalm 119:37)

Reading: Psalm 119:33-40

What kind of a love is it that allows us to love someone forever... the love that allows us to forgive even when it hurts deeply... the love that still loves where there is no reason or grounds to even love at all... the love that persists even when it is unreturned or reciprocated... the love that still has passion and feeling with no conditions or strings attached?  The answer is simple and profound.  It is a love that doesn't originate from us.  It is the same love that made the infinite fragile and frail to the point of death because of a passion for one so base and selfish as myself.  In short, this kind of love is downright out of this world.  It is completely supernatural.  Psalm 119:33-40 echoes what all of Psalm 119 is really to its core... an attempt to visualize how we frail limited human beings can experience and live this supernatural love.  These verses about God's laws, precepts, or words are really desperate cries for a supernatural presence to become an intimate part of our daily life.   Mark the focus verse (119:37).  We are asking this supernatural presence to purge our foolish, self-serving nature and reorient us with a deep desire and passion just to walk with this supernatural presence.  That is living.  And living is loving.  Can't mix oil and water.  Can't mix love and selfishness.    In the Louisiana gulf oil spill, entire ecosystems were destroyed because oil couldn't mix with any living ecosystem.  The ecosystem of love that is necessary for us to "really" live cannot thrive when contaminated with the "crude" oil of our selfish nature.  We need to be delivered from the foolishness of our self-centeredness.  We need to live by loving this supernatural presence so deeply that we will only walk in life with this presence.  This is loving of a supernatural kind.

"Lord I confess I am the most selfish person around.  I am tired of my life being poisoned by this foolish desire only for what is best for me.  I want to live!  I want to love!  Please set me free from my selfishness and let me find myself in loving you and only you.  Amen." 

Breaking Down Prosperity

"... Choose life!  Be completely faithful to the Lord your God, love Him and do whatever He tells you..." (Deuteronomy 30:19d-20a)

Text: Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Have you ever wondered why you try to do the right thing and live a life of integrity and honesty and yet you somehow feel that somebody you know who lives the exact opposite lifestyle- doing all the wrong and selfish things and living a life of lies and dishonesty seems to be happier and better off than you?  In fact you are so convinced of this that it appears your life of doing the right and honest way is bringing you nothing but pain, suffering, and misery.  Yet there is your neighbor prospering and happy in what seems to be a life that you wish you had.  Deuteronomy seems to contradict this feeling by saying that if you do the right thing and live an honest life of integrity then you will be successful and prosperous.  In fact as Christians many of us have bought into this "prosperity theology".  But in many ways we end up still wondering in the end how we can be so miserable doing the right and honest thing while the selfish and untrustworthy seems to be the ones prospering.  In the Old Testament the people of God suffered this complex.  They constantly went after other gods because in their eyes these gods made all the other peoples rich and prosperous.  They seemed poor and unsophisticated in comparison.  Here's the breakdown on biblical-style prosperity: we are only as blessed and prosperous as the center of our love and devotion.   The excised section of the so-called "prosperity" passage in Deuteronomy gives this away.  Choose life!  But real life is defined as living faithful to "someone" supernatural... that this someone is the object of our total love and affection.  It is out of this intimate, no-strings-attached passion that we "follow and obey" the supernatural one we love... that we live like Him... right... honest... truthful.  Let's try this experiment (this is the dare in Deuteronomy): let's live right and honest for no other reason than because we love a right and honest Lord... no conditions... no strings attached.   Maybe the reason we're miserable is because we are trying to do the right and honest thing for the wrong reasons.

"Jesus I am really wanting to understand the point of living right, honest, and truthful.  But Lord it just doesn't seem to make me happy or fulfilled.  I confess I end up resenting the right, honest, and truthful choices I make  because it doesn't make me prosperous, happy, or successful.  Lead me Lord!  I want to follow you and stay faithful to you because I love you... and I want to love you!  Please let that be enough for me... please Lord."