Author: crosseyedjesusfreak

Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (‭1 Samuel‬ ‭8‬:‭19-20‬ NASB)

Does this sound like anyone you know? Maybe yourself? The part I’m really looking at and thinking of is the people’s response. Especially one line. “that we also may be like all the nations…” The nation of Israel had the God of the universe as their leader and King, but they wanted to settle for a human king. Why? Because they wanted to be like everyone else. They were satisfied being led by an imperfect human instead of letting the holy God lead them.

The problem is, we do the same thing. We try to blend in. We want to be just like everyone around us, instead of standing out because we live the way God wants us to live. I know I struggle greatly with this. And the sad thing about it is we have this example of Israel, and how poorly that worked out for them. So why do we do it? Sometimes, it just seems easier to blend in. It doesn’t cost us anything. But to be a true follower of Jesus, which is what we claim to be, we have to stand out. It may cost us friends, family, money, status, or many other things. But, in the end, it’s much better to follow Christ and lose those things.

Jesus said in Luke 9:23-26, “Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”

When we focus on things of this world, we run the risk of losing our very soul. Which is better? Blending in and being just everyone around us, or stepping out in our faith, which may draw persecution or cost us things in this world. There are eternal consequences and rewards associated with this choice.

Jesus addresses the idea multiple times throughout John that we are not really of this world if we are His followers. Paul in Romans 12 tells us that we are not to conform to the patterns of this world anymore. And he also tells us in Philippians;
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” (‭Philippians‬ ‭3‬:‭20-21‬ NASB)

Let’s learn from the history of Israel as well as Jesus’ own words. Do not blend in. We are to follow Christ, no matter what it costs us in this world. That can be a very hard thing to do at times, but again, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?”

God Bless,

Kraig

“Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 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.” (‭Joshua‬ ‭24‬:‭14-15‬ NASB)

We are surrounded by different choices we could make as to who we want to follow as our God. Those of us that choose to follow God, as in the Christian God, made that decision through baptism. But the thing is, it’s not just a one time decision. To follow our God and Jesus is to make the decision daily. “Pick up you cross daily and follow me” is the message we here.

You can make the decision to follow God and think it’s a one time decision. When you do that, you tend to live you life on you own terms. To steal a phrase from our current sermon series, you’re just a fan. It doesn’t cost you anything. But to become a truly committed follower, it may cost you something. And that leads you to making the decision on a daily basis whether to follow our God. I hope and pray that you come to the conclusion Joshua did. “but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

It’s been a few days since I have posted about our 90 day Bible reading challenge. If you are on schedule, you have now made it through the first five books of the Bible in just over two weeks! Congratulations. If you’re not on schedule, that’s ok too. The important thing is trying to be in God’s word on a daily basis, so we can learn from in and apply it to our daily lives. Keep plugging along, whether you are on schedule or not!

As I was reading the first few chapters of Joshua tonight, there was a phrase that really stuck out to me. And it’s one that I feel is a phrase we as Christians need to take to heart, especially with the religious climate that we are starting to find ourselves in today. Just in the first chapter, the phrase “be strong and courageous” or “be strong and very courageous” is found multiple times. God tells Joshua this, and Joshua tells the people of Israel this. This is because God was giving them the land of Canaan, but He knew the opposition they would face. He was encouraging them to put their courage in Him.

We may not have the promise of a physical land like the land of Canaan, but we have the promised land of eternity in heaven to look forward to. But there is a lot of opposition that we are beginning to have to face in this country. Our Christian faith is under constant scrutiny and attack, while other religions are given almost free reign. We can’t hold organized prayers on public property without drawing huge criticism. This can be a very scary thing for those of us that are outspoken about our faith. In other words, those of us that have taken serious the task of becoming completely, committed, followers of Jesus.

Things may get worse before they get better. But I can assure you of this. We have the promise of eternity with our Lord if we are able to stay the course. I don’t know what is in store for us as Christians in this country. I pray that we are on the verge of another Great Awakening in which revival will just sweep across this country. But for that to happen, in all reality, we may have to face a time of persecution to get there. Whatever happens, I think it’s reasonable for us to think that Christ is whispering and encouraging us, “Be strong and very courageous for My name”.

Did you notice the mention of sacrifices to Molech in the day 9 reading? It may have been easy to breeze right past it, because it wasn’t focused on very much. But it’s important enough that I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little about why this was so detestable to God.

First, it was human sacrifice, which God never wanted. Jesus was the only human sacrifice ever planned by God, and that was by His choice. Jesus’ perfect life is the only reason this was planned, because it was the ultimate sacrifice to end sacrifice.

But not only was sacrifices to Molech human sacrifice, it was child sacrifice. Sometimes even infant sacrifice. If you remember in our “Urban Legends” series a few weeks ago, I mentioned Gehenna, which was a valley outside of Jerusalem, where pagan sacrifices used to take place. This is where these sacrifices to Molech were undertaken.

Molech was a pagan god, which the inhabitants of the land of Canaan before the Israelites, built an altar to him. This was a huge altar, shaped like a man seated with his arms stretched out in front of him. The back of the image was open and turned into a furnace. The fires in the furnace would be burned so hot, that it would make the arms of the altar glow red-hot. The child sacrifices would then be placed in the arms of Molech.

So, in the midst of telling His chosen people how to make sacrifices for their sins, God took the time to tell Moses to make sure that the people of Israel did not fall into the trap of making sacrifices to a pagan god. This act was detestable to God, and He didn’t want His people falling into it. Israel actually struggled with this throughout it’s history, however, which we will see as we continue this reading. Not really an insightful post, but more of an fyi this time.

God Bless,

Kraig

I was just recently looking through some files that I found on an old thumb drive, and came across my first testimony that I ever shared in a public setting.  This took place almost 14 years ago now, during a Teen Choir performance at Hale’s Chapel Christian Church in Gray, TN.  This brought back some good and bad memories, but it’s also very cool to see how much I’ve grown in my walk with Christ since then, not to mention my writing and speaking skills as well.  What follows is an unedited version of my testimony that I gave at the age of 17.

*Warning* This includes references and details of my dad’s death:

Hi, I’m Kraig Birchfield.  I’m a 17-year-old junior at Daniel Boone H.S.  I would like to share something with you.  My freshman year at Boone was just about over as the summer of 1999 approached.  My family and I had planned a trip to begin the summer to go to the Amish country in PA.  My dad was really looking forward to this trip, even more than I was.  For some reason my mom didn’t really want to go on this trip.  Finally my dad insisted enough that we go that mom gave in.  So when that last day of school came, we left for our vacation.  By midday the next day we had arrived in Gettysburg.  We toured the battlefield and then found a hotel room.  The next day we went on into the Amish country around Lancaster.  We had planned to stay in the area until we went home and on that Tuesday we made plans to go to Hershey, PA to tour the chocolate factory.  Little did I know that on Wednesday morning I would wake up to the unthinkable.  Mom woke me up and said that something was wrong with my dad.  Well she called 911 and then we pulled him off the bed so she could do CPR and I went out in the hall and cried until the paramedics left.  When the ambulance left, mom called Clint Andrews, our preacher. Then we went to the hospital and found out that it was pretty bad.  WE spent the day at the hospital and then went to our motel room.  When we went back to the hospital on Thursday, Clint came walking in.  He had driven all night so he could get there around midday on Thursday.  He realized that I needed to get out of the hospital so we went for a ride in his Miata that he calls his mid-life crisis.  Later that night, Clint and I went to a movie and when we returned to the hospital, there was my cousin Matt, who was in a full leg cast at the time, his mom, and my mom’s sister.  They had driven all day Thursday to get up there.  The hotel let my family stay in our room for no extra charge.  The next morning more support arrived.  My neighbor Boo Croley and his mom had driven all night Thursday to be with us.  On Friday my mom and aunts went to the hospital while Matt, Boo, Boo’s mom, and I drove around the countryside.  Sometime in the afternoon we went back to the hospital and Mom told me that the doctor’s needed us to make a decision whether or not to take Dad off of Life Support.  I looked at Mom and told her that we should because that is what Dad would want.  I went up to ICU to see Dad one more time and then Boo, Matt, and I were taken back to the hotel by Boo’s mom.  Mom, after telling the doctor’s our decision, started to second-guess her self.  But after seeing that they pulled the life support at around 5:30 P.M. and Dad died about 10:30 P.M., she knew we had made the right decision.  I would like to tell you how God prepared me for this and was a constant presence in my life throughout.  On Tuesday night before my dad’s heart attack, I was lying in bed and before I went to sleep I pictured paramedics rushing into our hotel room.  I would also like to thank God for the people He surrounded me with.  I would have never have made it through this hard time if it hadn’t been for people like Clint, Boo, Matt, my best friend Byron Tolley, really good friends like Michelle Keebler and Sheri Aubrey, the whole youth group here at Hale’s Chapel, and Curtis Booher.  But even with all their help, I wouldn’t have made it without God.  At the time all of this was going on, I couldn’t imagine any good ever coming from it and I didn’t understand why it was happening to me.  But now I see that through experience, God has helped me to grow up faster.  I’ve also developed a lot stronger faith in Him because of how I’ve learned to trust Him.  Just remember that whatever is going wrong in your life, God is with you and will always bring good out of a bad situation.

As I was reading through the first part of the book of Exodus yesterday, the story of Moses and Pharaoh really showed me the power of our God. You see, I have always known the power of God, but this story in Exodus should show us all exactly what our God is capable of. In fact, if you look at the story of the plagues of Egypt and the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea, and really look at the significance of those events, then we can see that our God is the one true God. There are no other gods.

It’s always been interesting to me that the story tells us that God hardens the heart of Pharaoh. Some use that to try and claim that God is not just, that He is manipulative. But that’s not the case. God knew the heart of Pharaoh before hand and knew that Pharaoh would not let the people go easily. What God does through Moses and Aaron in front of Pharaoh is actually trying to give Pharaoh every chance to realize that He is the true God. How do I know that?

It’s simple actually. When you look at each plague in the context of Egyptian history and religion, each plague is a direct attack on an Egyptian god. Each plague is basically demonstrating to Pharaoh and his officials that the God of the Hebrews is actually more powerful and in control of everything that their gods are supposed to be controlling. And each plague kind of builds on the previous. In other words, each plague takes on a more “powerful” Egyptian ‘god’ as they continue. The plagues culminate in the death of the firstborn of all families and livestock in Egypt.

But God’s demonstration of power does not stop there. As the Hebrew nation leaves Egypt, there are actually more direct routes that they could have taken, but God leads them to the Red Sea. Also, He has them stop there for a period of time, instead of allowing them to cross quickly. “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. (‭Exodus‬ ‭14‬:‭2‬ NIV). This is perhaps the most significant act that God uses to demonstrate His power over the Egyptians and their gods. You see, Pi Hahiroth was where the temple to the Egyptian god of the sea was located. It was within site of where the Hebrews were led across the Red Sea on dry ground, and where the entire Egyptian army was lost in the sea. God was not only showing the Egyptians His power, but He was also letting those know in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land if you will, that His power was great, because they would have heard about the Egyptian army.

God used the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea as a show of His supreme power, and it’s when we are able to see that in its true context that we can truly appreciate the story of the 10 plagues of Egypt.

God Bless,

Kraig

I challenged our faith family at Central Christian Church to read through the Bible in 90 days with me starting 1-1-2015. We want to focus on truly growing in Christ this year and one of those ways is through reading the entirety of God’s word. I also have pointed out before that the entire Bible either points ahead to Jesus and the cross, or back to Jesus and the cross. For those of you that have never done this kind of study before, that is one theme that should become clear as you read the whole Bible this quickly.

So I thought I would take a few minutes to point out a couple of things that point to Jesus from the first couple of days of this reading plan. Day 1 is pretty obvious as it is a direct prophecy about what is to come. It comes from Genesis 3, after the serpent’s deception causes Adam and Eve to sin.

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (‭Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭15‬ NIV)”

This refers to what Jesus does on the cross and in His resurrection. He defeats Satan, even though Satan is able to hurt Him. God’s plan of salvation has been in place since the beginning, in the garden of Eden. That’s why the whole Bible either points forward or back to Jesus. He was always the plan, and we see that in the garden during this encounter.

What I saw in the day two reading isn’t as obvious, but it is just as powerful, if not more so. Look at Genesis 22. It’s the story of Abraham being told to sacrifice his only son Isaac, the son God promised Abraham that descendants as numerous as the stars would come from. God is testing Abraham’s faithfulness and trust.

The obvious part of this is that Abraham is being asked to sacrifice his son, just like God is eventually going to do with Jesus. But the coolest part is easy to miss if you don’t know the history of the geography of the area. God tells Abraham to take Isaac to a place called Moriah. This is s mountain, or hillside right outside of the area that would eventually become the great city of Jerusalem! In other words, Abraham takes Isaac to sacrifice him in the same place that thousands of years later, Jesus would be crucified for the sins of the world. This is direct foreshadowing of what is to come and one of the main ways that we see the OT pointing toward Jesus and the cross.

I plan on writing reflections of our readings on a somewhat regular basis over the next 90 days, but it won’t be everyday. Let me know if you come across any questions during your reading and I will do my best to answer them.

God Bless,

Kraig