Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life, Ministry, Preaching

Defending the Faith Conference

--How do you stand up for truth in a word gone mad--

I wrote a bit of a teaser for it yesterday, but as promised, I want to tell you about Guadalupe Christian Camp’s upcoming “Defending the Faith Conference”. This is the first annual apologetics conference that the camp is going to be hosting on July 29-31, and I would absolutely love for you to join us. Let me get some housekeeping issues out of the way. If you are interested, make your plans now, because there are only a few days left for the early bird rate of $45 per person. After July 3, the price goes up to $55 per person. All you need to do to register is to contact David Shaw at dcshaw529@gmail.com, letting him know how many will be joining your party. Then you pay when you get to the camp on Saturday.

How do you stand up for truth in a world gone mad?!

So let me pose a question. “How do you stand up for truth in a world gone mad?!” That’s exactly the question that we are going to be trying to walk through during the main sessions and the Q&A times throughout the event. And that is one of the most important and relevant questions that we as Christ followers need to answer in our own lives. We have to be ready to give a defense of our faith at a moments notice. That doesn’t mean that we have to have all the answers. That would be impossible. But we need to be prepared. In fact, Paul challenges Timothy with that specifically. In II Timothy 4:2-4, Paul writes the following to Timothy;

2 Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching. 3 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. 4 They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.

Verses 3 and 4 sound like Paul was looking directly into our time. There is no absolute truth anymore, according to the society we live in. There are many ways to God, and the fact that Christianity claims to be the only way to God is insensitive…or at least that’s what the world around us is screaming at the top of its lungs. All paths lead to God. Well, if you are a Christ follower, then you know that that is not what Jesus taught. Jesus made a very bold claim in John 14:6-7. He said;

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Like I said, that is a bold claim. But Jesus backed that claim up by going to the cross and God raising Him from the dead. We have to stand firm. We have to be bold. We know the truth: Jesus is the only way to God. But we have to speak that truth in love. That’s what we are going to be discussing in this inaugural event held at Guadalupe Christian Camp. I, along with three other area preachers, will be presenting on a variety of different topics. Stephen B, a Christian comedian will also be there on Saturday night presenting his comedy routine. This promises to be a great weekend, and we would love to have you join us. The camp is located at 56 Christian Camp Road, Carlsbad, NM 88220, about an hour outside of Carlsbad.

Let’s come together, and answer the question. “How do you stand up for truth in a world gone mad?!”

Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life, Ministry

Refreshed and Refocused

I’ve been absent for a little while. My apologies for that. But I was working a week of church camp last week at Guadalupe Christian Camp for Jr. and Sr. High students. While I had access to internet there, I felt my time was more valuable investing in the week there instead of trying to write for “Thoughts From a Crosseyed Jesus Freak”. I mean, I had to write a sermon while I was there anyway, so I didn’t take anymore time for this.

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It was a great week. We had 38 teenagers and quite a few adults from West Texas and Southeast New Mexico that attended the week, and I do believe that lives were changed. We had a speaker from Illinois that blew it out of the water, as well as a Christian band from El Paso that was just as interested in investing in the lives of the teens there as they were about playing music for the evening sessions.

We got to get away from our normal hectic schedules and spend time with fellow Christ followers, up on a mountain, away from distractions. Although it was a scorching hot week, we were able to enjoy God’s creation together in a few different ways as well. One of those was spending time at Sitting Bull Falls, hiking and swimming one afternoon (the temperature gauge in the van I drove read 108 degrees when we parked at the falls). On Friday morning, we went on the annual hike to the ridge that has quickly become one of my favorite places that I have seen in person on this earth.

Sitting Bull Falls

The Ridge

As tired as I have been since returning, the physical exhaustion has been well worth it. I came back mentally, emotionally, and spiritually refreshed. That’s something that I’ve needed for a long time. I got to spend time with other ministers, discussing our churches and what things we need prayer and support in. Just bouncing ideas off of others is so beneficial. I got to have some good laughs with the other adults there as well.

One thing happened on two separate nights, however, that may top any camp experience I have ever had. Well, not really because I received my call into ministry at a week of camp, but this was awesome anyway…just not on the exact same level. On Thursday night, we were having a camp fire/smores night, and a couple of the band members were there playing acoustic guitars. The night was coming to an end, and I jokingly asked the lead band member if he knew “Jesus Freak” and explained my website. They didn’t know the song by memory, but looked up the chords and started playing. That is when a bunch of the other adults and I started singing our lungs out to an impromptu jam session of “Jesus Freak”. It was incredible.

Then, the next night at worship was supposed to be more of a concert style worship with the band. Wally told me early that night that he was going to call me from the sound booth to come up to the stage to help him with something, but that it was for the kids. I asked what, but he wouldn’t tell me. When he finally called me up, he handed me a mic and said they were going to play “Jesus Freak”. I got the other guy at camp with a Jesus Freak tattoo to join me on stage, handed him the mic, because I don’t sing into mics, and we got to sing on stage to a live version of “Jesus Freak”. As you could imagine, this Crosseyed Jesus Freak was flying high after that.

It just reminds me of where our focus should be though. Where does your passion lay? This world tries to distract us, but if I’m going to claim to be a Crosseyed Jesus Freak, I need to be focused on Jesus 100% of the time…or at least as much of that time as I can be. We have to be strong in our faith. That’s why this event that I want to tell you about is so important. Guadalupe Christian Camp is getting ready to host its First Annual “Defending the Faith Conference” at the end of July. Check back here tomorrow for an article about that, but if you are in southeast New Mexico or west Texas, consider joining us for this conference.

Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life, Ministry, Newspaper

Betrayal

I was texting with a friend of mine back east this week. I hadn’t had a chance to check in with her in a few weeks, and I could just sense something was wrong through some things on social media. So I checked in on her. I asked if everything was ok. She had recently started dating someone, and I just had the sense that something bad had happened to that relationship. And unfortunately I was correct. He had ended the relationship with my friend, and she felt betrayed. Her heart was broken, and she was still processing what was going on.

We didn’t have a lot of time to chat at the time, but the whole situation got me thinking about betrayal. I don’t know what it is, but there is just something in human nature that seems to make us betray one another. If you have never faced the betrayal of another human being, I would count you very fortunate. Even Jesus Himself was betrayed. And that betrayal came from one of His twelve closest companions over the last three years of His life.

My heart hurts for my friend. She deserves so much better than what happened. But the fact remains that we all face betrayals from time to time. That doesn’t make it any easier to process them when they happen though. Whether it’s a significant other turning their back on you, a friend spreading a rumor about something that you told them in confidence, a co-worker stabbing you in the back to get ahead, or whatever other betrayals you could imagine, being betrayed hurts.

Betraying others hurts as well. And whether we want to admit it or not, as much as we have faced betrayals from others, we have probably betrayed someone ourselves at some point. Whether we wanted to or not. That doesn’t make it right, but that is the reality of sin. It makes this world that we live in broken. And broken people treat each other horribly at times. That’s where God’s grace comes in. Through a relationship with Him, through the blood of Jesus, we can set aside that human nature, and strive to treat each other with love and respect.

God will never leave us or abandon us.

That doesn’t mean that we will never sin or mess up again. Of course we will, because we live in a broken world. But that is no longer our default setting if we have truly given our lives to Jesus in being a Christ follower. People are going to betray each other, and that hurts. Pretty much everyone of us knows that firsthand. But here is the best news of all. God will never leave us or abandon us. He will never betray us. The author of Hebrews puts it this way in Hebrews 13:5; “Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.” He is quoting a passage from Deuteronomy 31, where God promised that He would never abandon His people.

Put your trust in God. Give your life to Him. Life will always be tough. We will mess up, and we will hurt one another. But we have a promise from God that He will never betray us!

thoughts-from-a-crosseyed-jesus-freak

Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life

Marriage is Not a Competition

I’m not the perfect husband. In fact, I get marriage wrong more than I would like to admit. I love my wife, but there are times that I don’t treat her as well as I should. But I’m trying to get better. I’m trying to love her with the love that she deserves. I want to have the strongest marriage possible. In other words, our marriage is a work in progress. Most are. I’m not a marriage expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m trying to be the best partner I can be for my wife.

I write that to get to this. We have seriously got to change our attitude, thoughts, expectations, and even our jokes about marriage in this country. This is especially true if you are a Christ follower. I almost wrote this post a couple of months ago, but decided not to at the time. I can’t sit silent any longer. We have an incorrect view of what marriage should be. It’s a partnership in life and love, but most of the time you hear it talked about as a competition. Who gets the most out of it, and if you’re not the one winning, what do you need to do to get what you deserve?

At least that seems to be the attitude that is most prevalent in our society today. Let me give you an example. This is what finally pushed me over the edge to write this post. I came across this picture the other day on social media. It reads, “Marriage is simple. Your wife does whatever she wants and you do whatever she wants.”

Marriage, really?

Really? That’s what we think about love and agreeing to spend the rest of our lives with someone anymore? And it’s not just this one picture or thought floating around out there. It is hammered down our throats everywhere we look. There is a winner and a loser in marriage relationships. Fights are normal. Make sure you win, no matter the cost. There is an episode of the sitcom Friends that shows this same thought process. Monica and Chandler are discussing something, and Chandler thought they had already come to a decision. Monica, however, makes another decision. Chandler responds with something like, “but we’ve already discussed this and I won.” Monica’s response is the attitude I’m talking about here. She says, “…and now that you’re marrying me, you don’t get to win anymore.”

Like I said earlier, I’m not a marriage expert, but that attitude is not healthy. I know that most would argue that the picture above is something that was done as a joke. I would agree, at least I would like to think that. But even if that is the case, it eventually leads to a misperception about marriage. If you joke about something long enough and to enough people, you start to believe it, even if you never intended to in the first place. And the real issue is that a fellow Christ follower is the one that posted the picture. That’s not the Biblical picture of what marriage should be.

The same day I saw the pic above, I found what follows (shared by the same person). You see the difference right? Like the description says, it’s not about control. It’s about respect. Mutual respect. No one partner any more important than the other. A true partnership. There may be different roles in a marriage, but it should be a true partnership.

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That’s what I see when I read the instructions for marriage throughout the New Testament. It’s not about the man being the dominant partner. It’s not about the woman being the dominant partner either. It’s about a true partnership. Let me share this with you. This is part of a wedding ceremony that I did last year. Names have been removed for privacy. It starts with a reading of Ephesians 5:21-33.

Let’s take a look at what Paul writes about marriage in his letter to the Ephesians. Reading from chapter 5:21-33;

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Over the years, this passage has been taken out of context and been used to say only that women should submit to men. But there is something so beautiful in this passage when you realize that Paul is actually giving equality to men and women in marriage. During the time of Paul, women were considered little more than property, so when Paul turned around and said that husbands were to love their wives as Christ loves the church, that was a radical new idea.

So, Groom, while it is true that Bride is encouraged to follow your lead, you are encouraged to love her sacrificially, putting her wants and needs in front of your own. You are encouraged to care for her. You are encouraged to love her with an unbreakable and unending love. And you are encouraged to love her in Christ.

Bride, the same can be said for you. You are encouraged to love Groom sacrificially, putting his wants and needs in front of your own. You are encouraged to care for him. You are encouraged to love him with an unbreakable and unending love. And you are encouraged to love him in Christ.

Marriage is not a competition between two people, and when we treat it like it is, even in a joking manner, we make a mockery of what God intended to be a life partnership. One that He uses to also describe the relationship that He wants with us. Christ followers, stop falling into the trap that society is perpetuating. Marriage is a beautiful thing. It is God-honoring when done correctly. We are to be helpmates to one another in our marriages, not fighting against each other to see who can “win”. When that is what we focus on, neither partner truly wins. It’s a loss across the board.

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Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life

Give Honor Where Honor is Due: Remembering the Fallen, and the Sacrifice of Jesus

Memorial Day

I want to take a moment this morning to honor and thank all of those that have given their lives for this country. Memorial Day is much more than just a 3-day weekend and an excuse to grill out (although I do plan to do some grilling today). It’s about honoring those that have given the ultimate sacrifice of their lives for the freedom that we enjoy in the U.S.A today. In that vain, we showed a video yesterday in our church service honoring those that have fallen. You can watch the video here if you’d like.

We showed it right before our message time, and I followed the video with a short reminder. It wasn’t scripted and I didn’t record it, so I don’t remember word for word what I said. But it is this reminder that I want to write about this morning. The video, in case you didn’t watch it, was a recording of a speech that late U.S. President Ronald Reagan gave regarding the sacrifices that so many have made to make and keep this country free. At the end, he said something along the lines of “we will always be willing to make these sacrifices, because we are AMERICANS”.

While I think it is a very good thing to honor and remember those that have fought and died to keep this country free, we, as Christ followers have to remember as well that our citizenship is in Heaven. We may be Americans, but more importantly, we are Christ followers. We have countless men and women that have given their lives for this country and our freedom. But we have to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for this whole world (and us individually).

Adding to those thoughts, we need to realize something. All to often, we get these out of order. And it’s easy to do so, because we can often see the results of the sacrifices made for our freedom. They are tangible. We see the families of those lost. We can visit places like Arlington National Cemetery. So it is easier to wrap our minds around these sacrifices, and because of that, we celebrate, remember, and honor these more than the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross.

Our allegiance, as Christ followers, needs to be Christ first. I’m not saying not to have pride in your country. I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t be honoring the men and women of our military. I’m not even saying that we should cease to be patriotic. Anyone that knows me knows that I have a high respect for our military. I love this country. The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays every year.

But what I am saying is, if you are a Christ follower, you need to be living for and celebrating Him more than our country. You need to be placing your allegiance in Christ above your country, meaning that if and when something goes against Christ and His teachings, we follow Jesus. With or without our country, and the freedom that has been fought and sacrificed so hard for, none of us really have a chance if it wasn’t for Jesus.

Our military men and women have a long history of fighting for our freedom, and I am so thankful for that. But Jesus is the one that made the ultimate sacrifice that paid the price for our sins. A price that we could never pay on our own. Because the wages of sin is death, and He paid the price for anyone and everyone that is willing to follow Him. The apostle Paul tells us about this sacrifice and what it really means for us. In Romans 5:6-8, he writes;

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So, while you are celebrating Memorial Day, remember first that it is more than just a 3-day weekend and an excuse to grill. It is about honoring and remembering those that have given their lives for this country. And it is right that we do so. But also remember that the ultimate act of sacrificial love was performed over 2,000 years ago, on a cross, by a man that didn’t deserve what He went through. Jesus willingly went to the cross for my sin, for your sin, for the sin of the world. Ultimate freedom is found in Him, and only Him.

Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life, Ministry

Keep Your Focus

CleVs.Bos

Last Friday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers took a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals over the Boston Celtics with an embarrassing 40+ point win. Boston couldn’t do anything, and it looked as if they had just completely given up. I, along with just about anyone that I heard say anything about the series assumed it was over. Cleveland, who had won both of the first two games in Boston, was coming home and was going to easily win the next two games to sweep the series and go to the NBA Finals. There was little doubt, especially since Boston’s star player had been ruled out for the rest of the playoffs due to an injury in the first half of game two.

The problem is that Cleveland seemed to take this for granted as well. They seemed to just assume they had the series won, and it was going to easily fall to them. And during the first half of game three on Sunday, that is exactly what seemed to be happening. The Cavaliers took a commanding 21-pt lead at one point, entering halftime with a 16-point lead. I actually stopped watching the game at that point, helping out with something else around the house. I thought the game was over.

That is, until the fourth quarter started and I happened to glance at the game again. That huge halftime lead had been cut to single digits. So, I started watching the game again, hoping that the Cavs would hold on and start playing with some purpose again. But that didn’t happen. Boston, who looked completely out of the series and ready for the off-season fought back and hit a game-winning three-point shot with .01 seconds left. LeBron James, who played the entire fourth quarter, went scoreless in it. If you follow basketball at all, you know that is something that rarely happens.

So what happened? How did a team that was dominating the entire playoffs, and especially this series, give up a 21-point lead to allow Boston to steal a game in Cleveland? It’s a pretty simple explanation, and it is definitely something that we, as Christ followers, can learn a lot from as well. Continue reading “Keep Your Focus” →

Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life

Have You Begun to Live?

Every man dies. Not every man really lives

The parable of the Prodigal Son that Jesus tells is probably His most well known story. It is the one that we are most familiar with, and in my opinion it is because we can all relate to it in one way or another. The story is found recorded in the gospel of Luke, and is actually one story in a collection of three about lost things being found that Luke records in chapter 15. You can read them here if you are not familiar or just want a refresher.

It’s one of my favorite stories as well. I relate so much to the story, and it resonates with me. In fact, we are gearing up for a sermon series based around some themes found throughout the story of the prodigal son. I can tell the story in detail from memory because it is so familiar to me. But, just like other passages that we read over and over, we can get something new out of it every time. And just that happened to me recently.

I was reading through the story as part of my daily devotion time. It is easy to zone out sometimes when reading such a familiar passage, especially when it is early in the morning. And I admit that was happening to me this time around. But then I came to the last few verses, when the older brother was throwing a fit because the younger brother was being celebrated. The father in the story steps in and explains why they needed to celebrate. And bam, there it was. Something stuck out to me a little different than in any other time I have read the story.

I was reading in the NASB translation, which I try to do when I am studying on my own or prepping a message. I teach out of the NIV usually. So, I am more familiar with the story in NIV format, and reading in NASB is what caused something to stick out this time.

Luke 15:31-32 in the NIV reads,

31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

He was dead and is alive again. That’s the way I have always heard this part of Jesus’ parable. And that is a significant statement. Returning to the Father is the only way we have life. Otherwise, we are dead in our sins. That is what the story is getting at. It is also teaching that there is a celebration that happens when anyone gives their life to Jesus through baptism. But the NASB translation worded things a little differently, and it made the passage come to life in an amazing way for me.

Luke 15:31-32 in the NASB reads,

31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”

He was dead and has begun to live. That paints a little different picture. The earlier translation makes it seem like the son was alive, died, and began to live again. But here, in the NASB, there is a picture painted of how things truly are. Before we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, no matter what we are doing in our lives, how successful we are in worldly standards, what our bank statements show, how our relationships are going, or anything else, we are dead in our sins. We are the walking dead so to speak.

We are living in the sense that our physical bodies are alive, but we are dead men walking. Nothing we do matters in the grand scheme of things. We are searching for life, something to fill the void that we know is there, but for some reason just cannot figure out why it is there. And then we come to Jesus.

A relationship with Jesus Christ is the only way to truly live.

Someone introduces us to Him, and we are open to learning more. Before we realize it, that void that we have been seeking to fill in our lives starts to disappear, and we don’t really understand what is happening. We accept Jesus our Lord and Savior of our lives, we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and we truly begin to live. A relationship with Jesus Christ is the only way to truly live. That void that we all feel is only filled by God; nothing else that we attempt to fill it with will ever completely fill the void.

This idea of being dead in our sins and finding life in Christ is a common theme in Paul’s writings, so it’s not like the idea is new to me (You can read some of them here, here, and here). I have often taught about the freedom that is actually found in surrendering to Jesus. The world around us would think that it would be just the opposite; to follow Jesus would mean becoming more restricted. But something great happens when your sins are forgiven through the blood of Jesus and we truly begin to live in the freedom that He grants us.

We have been set free.

That doesn’t give us carte blanche to keep sinning. God’s grace covers our sin, but we shouldn’t purposely keep sinning just to increase His grace. That’s not the point of the freedom we find in Christ. The point is that we are not enslaved by sin anymore. In our human nature, we are going to mess up from time to time, and sin. But we are free from the enslavement of sin. We have been set free. We, as Christ followers, have truly begun to live!

Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life

From Mountain Tops to Valleys: How are You Spending Time With God

Recently, I’ve been reading through the gospel of Mark. The other day, I came to Mark 9 and the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. You can read it here if you’re not familiar with it. I absolutely love how you can read a familiar passage over and over again, and still find something new in it each and every time. There is a reason why the Bible is called the Living Word.

So, as I read through the passage this time, there were a few different things that jumped off the pages at me. And none of them were about what takes place on the mountainside, which is usually where we all tend to focus our attention when reading this story. As Jesus, and the three disciples that are considered to be Jesus’ inner-circle, Peter, James, and John, come down the mountain, they are met with a commotion.

A crowd had gathered, and since Jesus was up on the mountain, the crowd was asking His disciples to heal their sick. There was a man that brought his son who was possessed by a spirit, and Jesus’ disciples were unable to heal the boy. When I’ve read this in the past, I always wondered why the disciples were not able to perform this healing. They had been given the ability to heal earlier in Jesus’ ministry, but they couldn’t successfully handle this situation.

Jesus’ response in verse 19, which reads, “‘You unbelieving generation,’ Jesus replied, ‘how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”’ was something I thought was directed at His disciples.

But when I read through the passage this time, I realized that it’s actually directed at the crowd, and those that didn’t believe Jesus was who He said He was. After healing the boy, and when they were away from the crowd, Jesus tells the disciples that this spirit could only be driven out by prayer.

So while the disciples were not able to heal the boy, it may have actually been because those around the situation didn’t believe that they could do it, not because the disciples didn’t have the ability or the faith to drive out the spirit.

The other things that jumped out of the text at me this time was a parallel that I see from the life of Moses, and a lesson we can learn from it. There is a time when Moses is up on the mountainside as well, getting the Ten Commandments from God (you can read that story here). He’s gone for a long time, and the Israelites get restless waiting on him. In fact, they fear that Moses has been killed by being that close to God. They turn to Moses’ brother Aaron and convince him to make them a golden calf to worship since they didn’t think Moses was coming back.

When Moses comes down the mountain, he finds the community of the Israelites in a commotion, worshiping a golden idol instead of worshiping God, who had just brought them out of slavery in Egypt. And he doesn’t react to well to the situation. He breaks the tablets that have the Ten Commandments on them, and eventually has to carve them again himself.

But here we have Moses and Jesus, both on a mountainside for an extended period of time. And when they come down the mountain, they walk into a commotion of unbelief. I love seeing parallels like that in the over-arching story of the Bible. But more than that, I love it even more when I can relate to and learn from those moments as well. And there is a big lesson we can learn from these parallels.

Jesus and Moses had been isolated on a mountainside in the presence of God. Jesus had three of His disciples with Him, and was visited by Moses and Elijah, while Moses was alone with God, but both were definitely times spent with God with no distractions from the world. Think about times when we feel closest with God. Times that we get to spend with God without much distraction from the world. Whether it be just times that we are just able to really focus on our relationship with God, times that we get out of our normal routine at a retreat, camp, conference, or mission trip, or however we are getting closer to God. Unfortunately those moments don’t last forever.

There is an ebb and flow to life. And we don’t always get to stay on the mountain top. It would be great if we could, but life gets in the way. When Moses and Jesus were on the mountainside, they had to physically come down. And when they did, life and commotion was waiting for them. When we have those mountain top experiences, those times that we are closest to God, it is not going to last. Not because we don’t want it too, but because attacks always come when we are closest to God.

In other words, when we are experiencing those mountain top times with God, we should know that eventually the valleys are going to come. We know this. We’ve experienced it time and time again, especially if we have been Christ followers for any length of time. But it is encouraging to actually see Jesus has experienced this Himself. And how He handled the situation should give us a clue how to handle it ourselves as well.

He grieved the unbelief and the pain that the valley brought. But He didn’t let it stop Him. All to often, when we come off the mountain and experience the valley, it can knock us for a loop. It can completely stall our relationship with God. We get depressed or we focus too much on the valley. In other words, we react like Moses and break the tablets. Jesus didn’t let it knock Him off His path. He healed the boy through His reliance on God.

We need to realize something. Even when we are in the valley, we can still focus on our relationship with God. We can either focus on everything that is going wrong, and let the junk of this world get us down even more, or we can continue to focus on God. It’s up to you. God is always there. He wants to meet with us. But do we make the time for Him, especially when it is hard to do so? When we are in the middle of a mountain top experience, it’s easy to focus on God. But when we come down from that, and life starts to get in the way again, what do we do?

For far too long in my own life, more than I would actually like to admit, my default was to just roll over and let life get in the way of my time with God. But that’s not what I want. And I have worked long and hard in my life not to let that happen anymore. What about you? Join me in focusing on God, in the good and the bad times.

God, Newspaper

Not a Joke

April Fool’s Day. It’s actually one of my favorite days of the year. I can be a very sarcastic (sometimes too sarcastic) of a person, so a day set aside to pull pranks on each other is just a fun day. Actually, I haven’t pulled an April Fool’s Day prank in recent history that I can remember. But it is still fun to watch others try to figure out if you are going to do something or not. It’s also fun to watch other pranks being pulled (mostly on television or the internet).

As I was trying to figure out what to write this article about this week, it occurred to me that it would run on April 1. And that made me think of a great analogy with Easter Sunday on its way as well. From today, Easter is in two weeks and a day. Before I go any further, I want to extend another invitation to join us at Central Christian Church on April 16. We would love to have you celebrate Easter with us.

But what about that first Easter morning? The one that we gather to celebrate every year (and some every day). Could you imagine something like that happening in today’s society? An empty tomb. A claim of a resurrection. The Son of God in the flesh, living as a human being, killed, buried, and then suddenly appearing again would have most of us looking around for the hidden cameras. We would just be waiting for someone to come around the corner, yelling “April Fool’s!” Or if it wasn’t April Fool’s Day, a simple “I got ya!”

But that’s not what happened. It wasn’t a prank. It wasn’t a joke. Jesus was crucified. He was beaten beyond recognition. And He died on the cross. But He did it willingly. No one forced Him to do it. He did it of His own free will. Why? Because He loves you. He did it to pay the price for each and every one of us because we could never cover the debt of our own sin sufficiently. Only His perfect blood could do that. Jesus says in John 10:14-15;

14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.” (Emphasis mine)

Three days later, He arose from the grave. God the Father raised Him back to life to finish the promise of Jesus’ sacrifice. There were some that thought this was all an elaborate prank. Especially the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They made the claim that Jesus’ disciples stole His body. But that’s not what happened. I don’t have a lot of space left to go into detail, but let me give you some evidence that Jesus really did come back from the dead.

First, women were the first one’s to claim that they saw Jesus after the resurrection, and they found the empty tomb. If you were going to try to fake something like this, women would have been the last one’s that you would want “finding the empty tomb”. In the culture they lived in, women were little more than property and they would not be believed as quickly as men would have been.

Second, all but one of the disciples, whom people claim stole the body to fool others, died horrible martyr’s deaths. All they had to do to escape these deaths was to denounce their belief in Jesus, and they would have been spared. If they had stolen the body, they would have known that Jesus was a fake, and I highly doubt eleven men would go to a martyr’s death willingly for what they knew to be a lie.

There are other evidences as well, yet I run out of space. My invitation to have coffee with you and discuss further still stands. Contact me at kraig@crosseyedjesusfreak.com.

thoughts-from-a-crosseyed-jesus-freak

Christian Living, Encouragement, God, Life, Ministry

Community: Passionately Pursuing Jesus Together

A few days ago, I wrote about passions. How as Christ followers, we should be passionate about following Him and carrying out our mission. We can have other things that we are passionate about, but Jesus should be something that we undoubtedly have a passion in our souls for. Around the same time, I came across an article that stated we should not rely on our passion for ministry, because passion can run out. After reading the article in disbelief, I discovered that it was written by someone that I have never agreed with on anything that he has written, and his argument against passion is just added to the list. Let me explain.

I do not mean to make lite of anyone’s profession when I say this. But ministry and preaching every Sunday is not an easy thing to do. If you haven’t done it personally, realize that you might just not understand what all goes into it. And that’s fine. Again, I’m not arguing that my job is any harder than anyone else. But it is difficult. And I don’t think I could do it week in, week out if God had not given me a passion for preaching His word. That’s why I changed from Youth Ministry to Preaching, because God changed my passion. I still really enjoy working with and being around teenagers. But my passion is preaching His word week in and week out. Without that passion for Jesus and for preaching His word, I don’t think I could handle all the demands that ministry and preaching have.

But that is not what I want to focus on in this post. It was just something that got me thinking. You see, in my last article about passion, I stated again that passion for Jesus and learning more and more about Him should be paramount. I heard about a 12-year old this week that is doing just that, and it gave me a renewed hope. Our Wednesday night Kid’s ministry lost one of our own a couple weeks ago. His family moved out of state. The last week he was here, we cancelled Adult Bible Study, and the Kid’s ministry along with myself threw him a going away party. The teachers, on their own, got together and bought him a teen study Bible, we played games, and ate pizza.

My wife told me after this past Wednesday night that the Kid’s ministry must have really had an impact on our friend that left. You see, the week before was spring break, and we don’t do any Kid’s programming that week. But this past Wednesday, our friend who now lives in Michigan, called one of the teachers and asked if he could participate in the Bible lesson time over the phone. Even better than that, we know that he was truly listening, as he was apparently answering questions after the lesson time.

Now, it is my heartfelt prayer that our friend can find a group to connect with in MI, not because we don’t want him in our group, but because he needs to be in a group that he can connect with face to face. But the fact that he has been impacted enough to want to continue learning even over the phone is pretty incredible. He has a passion building for Jesus in his heart, and it shows.

Passionately Pursuing Jesus Let me ask you. Do you have that kind of passion for Jesus that you would call so that you could be a part of a lesson? Do you have a group of people that you have connected with so much that you would do anything you could to continue connecting with them? That’s what the local church is supposed to be. That’s why I love the idea of small groups, even if you’re in a church that could be classified as a small group itself.

My wife and I have a group that meets at our house. Right now, it’s just four of us, but we hope to expand that. Actually, the prayer is that we can reach our neighbors through this group. But for now, it’s just the four of us. And I can tell you this. I miss it terribly when something happens and we are not able to meet one week. Sometimes we meet and just talk about life. Other times we actually do a session of a Bible study. Sometimes it’s both. But here’s the thing. We, as Christ followers, have been built to be in community. And that community should be together more than just an hour or two on Sundays.

Following Jesus passionately means finding a community of Christ followers to be connected with. That’s why I have a passion for the local church as well. The Church has a lot of flaws. How could it not, it’s run on earth by flawed human beings. But it is the Bride of Christ, and a community meant to help each other walk as Christ followers. If you are in the Carlsbad area and don’t have a church that you gather with regularly, we would love to have you at Central. If you are not in the Carlsbad area, please find somewhere that you can join a community of fellow Christ followers!

thoughts-from-a-crosseyed-jesus-freak