Does God Care About The Little Things?

September 26, 2006 @ 7:37 am by Pressed

A common perception among people, including Christians, is that God doesn’t really care about the little things. In fact, God has become the excuse for many sins because we make the assumption that God doesn’t have a problem with smaller things as long as we are not out committing big sins. I have even heard people say with one breath that sin is sin both big and small and in the same thought they will convince themselves that God doesn’t really care about the smaller ones or that the smaller ones are not really even sin at all. It’s almost like a defense mechanism to remove any guilt or thought that we could even possibly be sinners. If we simply wish the small stuff away, then we can continue to do what we want guilt free and wallow in our own self deception. So is this true? Is the God of the Bible a God that doesn’t care about the little things?

Maybe our problem is that we tend to have a very human perception of God. When our own philosophy is “don’t sweat the small stuff” we tend to place that same quality upon God. We tend to take all of our philosophies about life and use them to shape our view of God when God should be the one shaping our philosophies.

Should we sweat the small stuff? The quick answer is yes. When it comes to holiness and our own sanctification (becoming like Christ) we should sweat the small stuff!

Le 11:44 “I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.”

Le 11:45 “I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.”

Le 19:2 “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy”

Le 20:7 “‘Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God.”

Le 20:26 “You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own”

1Co 1:2 “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ–their Lord and ours.”

Eph 1:4 “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love”

Heb 12:14 “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.“

1Pe 1:15 “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;”

1Pe 1:16 “for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

We cannot deny that God has called us to be holy. In 1879 John Ryle wrote this:

“I have had a deep conviction for many years that practical holiness and entire self-consecration to God are not sufficiently attended to by modern Christians in this country. Politics, or controversy, or party spirit, or worldliness, have eaten out the heart of lively piety in too many of us.”

I believe what was true for Ryle 127 years ago in England is true for America today. We get so caught up in worldliness and politics that personal integrity and holiness is the furthest thing from our minds. At the slightest whim, many modern day Christians in America will speed, drink, cuss, gossip, over eat, disrespect others, ignore people in need, watch inappropriate movies, listen to inappropriate music, steal from their jobs (food, envelopes, stamps, paper, whatever is taken without permission or without compensation or spending time on the internet or e-mail without actually working), steal from God (refuse to tithe), lie to people, cheat on tests, have affairs, commit sexual immorality and then go to church with no conviction or thought of repentance for the “small stuff”. This attitude is prevalent among not only Christians but among those who have been called to be leaders or pastors in the church. Those in a position to lead by example are doing a good job of leading by example…its too bad they are giving the church a bad example to follow.

Does God really care if we eat too much? Is God bothered by us saying a few cuss words? Is it ok to break the law as long as it isn’t a major deal? As long as you haven’t killed anyone or stolen anything or hurt another human being, surely God doesn’t care if you speed. I’m sure there are Christian leaders who would laugh at me for even suggesting that they no longer speed so that they might have integrity and be holy. People that have become so arrogant that their own selfish pride keeps them from even entertaining the idea that breaking or bending the law is sin. Their own self-importance blinds them to the fact that the small sins are just as debase, corrupt, and putrid before God. It is conceit that draws Christians and Christian leaders into the realm of unrepentant sin. Even Christian leaders can become so full of themselves that they think they have everything under control. They can be so pompous that they feel no need to show any reverence or humility for the small things because they are apparently “so good” at everything else. This hogwash can corrupt the best of all us. You can be an excellent pastor, preacher, teacher, and leader and still be a lousy Christian.

Being holy or sanctified is a process. It’s not something that happens instantly, it is something that must be worked at every day of our lives. It is kind of like being healthy. We have to constantly watch what we eat and get plenty of exercise in order to stay fit and healthy. If we stop exercising and begin to eat whatever we want we begin to become fat and lazy. Eventually our fatness and laziness will lead to disease, sickness, and ultimately our death. To be holy we have to constantly work at dealing with our issues and sins every day of our life and when we don’t we become spiritually fat and lazy.

God has called us to be holy because he is holy. This doesn’t mean we are trying to achieve some human idea of holiness, we are called to achieve Godly holiness. To be like Christ, holy and blameless. This process starts with the small stuff.

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A View Into The Future

September 25, 2006 @ 1:35 pm by Pressed

This is a ceiling mural in a smoker’s lounge.

I also found it interesting that in Branson, MO at Silver Dollar City one of the designated smoker areas is in the graveyard. One of the Tombstones read “Smokey Bones”. I got a kick out of that. I’m a dork, I know.

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Dating In The Real World {Part II}

@ 9:55 am by Pressed

Why do I date and when am I ready?

I began this message with the question, why do we date? The students had several answers. For fun, to find a mate, to learn what and who you like, and so on and so forth. So really, why do we date? Is it to find Mr. or Ms. Right? Is it to have fun, go out, and do things as a couple because the world is organized around coupledom?

I admit. Dating can be fun, it can help us to learn more about the opposite sex and it is certainly an exciting thing to do that teenagers rush into as soon as they can. But what is its real purpose? Ultimately it is to find someone who you would want to spend the rest of your life with. This very rarely happens in high school by the way. 1 in 10 relationships last over a year and less than that make it more than two or three years. If you are dating to find a mate now, the odds are stacked against you.

The world is so bend around dating that telling teens not to date at all most likely isn’t the answer either. We can tell teens that they shouldn’t date until they are older, more mature, and able to know where there life is going and what they want and need, but it won’t stop them from dating. So we have not helped them at all. Really what needs to be taught here is dating smarts. What can teens do to make their dating relationships both successful and godly? That is the purpose of the rest of this series. However, I do want to make the point that it is ok to not date. It is ok to wait, regardless of what everyone else is doing. If 40 million people believe in a dumb idea it is what? Still a dumb idea. So you don’t have to follow the crowd. It is best if you wait to date, but if that just isn’t going to happen or if you want some tips on dating in the future when you do decide to start dating then here are some basic steps to take to start the process.

Dating doesn’t begin with just finding someone who you think is a cutie and trying your hardest to get them to notice you until ya’ll get together and smooch. Doing everything with feelings, emotions, and with sight is the wrong way to start a dating relationship. Dating involves using your head! The first thing you need to do is discover something about yourself: What do I want in a partner? What don’t I want? How do I communicate what I want or need? How do I meet others needs without disrespecting myself or them? What does it really feel like to love and to be loved?

“But what I’ve noticed is that way too often, people get involved and immediately try to force the other person into being their image of what a partner is supposed to be. They ignore red flags, bad behavior, incompatibilities, and try to change the person instead of realizing that this is not the right person for them. Dating is a selection process. The problem is that most people don’t have a clear idea of what they’re looking for. That’s why it’s important to make a list of qualities that you’re looking for. Then, when a person falls short of matching that list, it’s important to say, “Next.”

Here is the first question I have for you: Do you have a realistic idea of what you’re looking for in a partner, or is a fairy tale running the show? You must stop to consider exactly what you want and why?

I asked our students to list characteristics of a perfect mate. Starting with the guys and allowing only the guys to speak I asked this question. Their answers looked somewhat like this: Cute, Blonde, Godly, Christian, Plays X-Box, Not bossy, nice, goes to church, doesn’t nag, prays. For the girls I did the same question and their answers looked like this: Hot, smells good, good sense of fashion, hunts, short hair, nice bod, Christian, treats me like a princess.

While their list was not exactly like these listed, it was similar. Once we had our lists we talked about things that were important such as Godliness, kindness, love, commitment, purity, church, holiness, praying, growing, being Christian and things that were good characters to look for in a person. We then pointed out those things that were superficial like hot, smells good, plays xbox, hunts, fashion. We crossed out the superficial things and circled the good things. Now you have a list of things to look for in someone you date. If the person you are thinking about dating doesn’t have all of the circled qualities then you need to say “Next!” If they have all the superficial qualities and few of the others then it is not the right relationship for you.

Maybe the problem with dating is not that you are doing it, but that your priorities are all messed up. Maybe God needs to change your perspective about who you date and what you look for and need. Some of these qualities are superficial and will fade away with time and you have to ask yourself the questions, will you no longer like the person when they do?

What is the point of dating if the other person doesn’t match your idea of a perfect mate? It is a waste of your time, your emotions, and if you go to far it could be a waste of your purity.

I asked the students to share their list with a friend and allow the friend to be honest about the qualities of someone they consider dating.

The world tends to think of dating as a system of disposable relationships, and the social necessity of being in a relationship is incredibly high but you also need to know that waiting is not impossible. Can you wait for the person that matches your list? By gaining self worth from God, you can wait patiently for the special person God has for you and save yourself a ton of hassle along the way.

Put more work into what is most important, who you are:

The most important thing that you need to know before you begin dating is who you are. Work on your internal qualities and your relationship with God and allow God to take over the rest.

If you spend all of your time trying to become something other than what you are in order to win over some boy or girl you like you are lying to them, you are trying to change yourself, and you will ultimately be disappointed every-time.

However, once you begin to know who you are, you will be able to understand what you need better.

The best way to date is the place it in the hands of God:

Psalm 37:3-4 “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

While I believe it is important to take care of ourselves and our physical appearance, it is even more important to develop our character, spiritual life, and personality. What is inside will last forever. The qualities that are on our lists are qualities that are internal and not external. Wait for the one that fits your list and you will save time, money, and heartache along the way.

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Dating In The Real World {Part I}

September 19, 2006 @ 10:21 am by Pressed

We started a new series on dating for our Wednesday evening youth program. I wanted to start the semester off with a few practical messages that the students would be able to apply to their lives at the beginning of the school year. I broke the series down into 5 messages and used 5 questions about dating as the title and theme of each message. The first message of the series is:

What do I need to know about me before I start dating?

Topic: Discovering who we really are and how that affects our relationships

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. ” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I was brought up to believe that how I saw myself was more important than how others saw me.” – Anwar el-Sadat

“I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others.” – Jennifer Louden

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” – Richard Feynman

“Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be.” – Fannie Brice

“Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got.” – Betty Ford

Who are you? What do you know about yoruself? Do you know what you want in life? Do you understand what is truely important to you? “Know Thyself” - This is the first step in preparing to date.

What does it mean to be a man or a woman? While we are created in the image of God and we are all human, the fact remains that Men and Women are very different. How our body works and what happens to us and to our hormones when we are teenagers affects who we are and ultimately directs our relationships with the opposite sex if we let it.

It should be obvious that males and females are different. Duh, right? We can be quick to say that this is a true statement, but do we live it? You see, the problem is that when males interact with females and females with males they unconciously expect the other gender to think the same way they do, and this is not going to happen. You are very different.

When you are a teenager you begin to experience some hormonal changes that change the way your body works and the way your mind thinks. Once this begins, it will happen for the rest of your life, and as this continues you will have to learn how to deal with this in the appropriate way. Yes, I did say that you have to learn to deal with it! This is not something that you will be able to ignore or hide. All of you will experience it and will have to deal with it in some way. Why? Because these hormones have the ability to turn an otherwise normal and nice teen into a self-absorbed, self-gratifying person with a one-track mind, pleasing self. Your body is changing so quickly that your mind may not necessarily know how to keep up and this will go spinning out of control if not dealt with. Once you come to grips with the fact that you body is either changing or is going to, you need to ask yourself the question: “What does God want from me?”

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:3,4

This is a message to everyone, including teenagers! Being a teenager and being flooded with hormones does not exempt you from this Scripture verse, it makes it that much more important to learn how to control your body so that you might honor God. It is the will of God that you remain sanctified or pure, that you avoid sexual immorality, and that you learn to control your body so that you may be holy and honorable. This is what God wants from you.

If you know that these things are happening inside you and that you have these feelings and that to honor God you must control them, the next step is to learn how to control them.

Dating seems like such an innocent thing, but the world seems to have a warped view of dating. Teenagers believe that they must date. That in order to fit in to society, dating is the norm. The world also makes them believe that dating means being physical with one another, and if you don’t get physical in any way then you’re not really dating. To teens, dating also seem like a world of paradise where everything is perfect and wonderful and yet rarely do the relationship last because this fantasy bubble will always be popped, 100% of the time. Teens feel that dating will solve many of their problems, that if they can just date they may be popular or accepted, or more special, but the truth is that dating causes the majority of teens to be stressed out and even more self absorbed. Many feel that dating is safe and fun and yet dating violence is one of the most common forms of violence against teens (verbal, emotional, and physical).

Dating isn’t just a walk in the park, it can alter your future, your dreams, and everything that you hoped for. It can destroy you if you let it. Here is a message that you may not often hear “dating can be dangerous”. It can control our present and future lives. It can completely consume us. That is why it is so important to do it right, or don’t bother doing it at all.

Here is the point I want to make, you can survive high school, and even college without even dating and you would be better for it, not worse. I’m not trying to say that dating is a horrible thing, but it is a risk that can be very dangerous. For the next several weeks we are going to be talking about taking that risk, the reasons people date, how to know when you are ready, what to do when you are ready, and how to deal with sex and other issues that will come up when dating. Before we talking about those things, I want to make this point right now, you do not have to date right now! You have plenty of time. Time is actually on your side. You will be older, wiser, and have a better idea of what you want in life and what you need in a partner when you are older than you will right now. And lets face it, only 12% of relationships will ever last over a year when you are in high school. The odds are not in your favor at all.

Dating at this stage in your life is nothing more than a risk that will most likely end badly until you’ve messed up enough that you decide to do something different or until you’ve messed up so badly that you have no way out of it. I don’t want you to say years down the road, “Well, no one ever told me I didn’t have to date.”

Ok, so what do we know so far? At your age you are beginning to experience some issues with hormones and to honor God you’ll need to know how to deal with them. The other thing you know about yourself is that you have a choice. It’s not important that you date right now, but if you decide to do it you need to know how to do it properly.

What else do we need to know about ourselves?

Gen. 1:27 - “We are all created in the God’s image and created male and female. 31 - God saw what he had made and called it good.”

We are created as people who need relationships and we are created as people who are sexual beings - (That blasted hormone thing again) and both of these things are good. 1 Tim 4:4,5 “Everything God created is good”

Listen closely. Our hormones may begin to work in us causing us to go a little fritzoid and by doing so you may find a girl or boy that fits the description in your head of someone you would want to date and you may begin to look at yourself and say “I’m not good enough, I need to change this, I need to look like this, I need to do something different with myself because I’m not good enough for that person to accept me.” - But didn’t God say you are good? See, we begin to lie to ourselves and try to change ourselves in order to fit in to this dating scene. We try to change ourselves in order to become what we thing other poeple want us to be.

For some reasons we do things a little backwards. Instead of trying to change ourselves, we need to be satisfied with ourselves and then choose to date someone who is perfectly happy with who we are and with who God made us to be. If you need to change yourself to date someone, you are already fighting a losing battle.

As a teenager you are beinging the process of knowing who you are, of shaping who you are going to be. You are starting to develop your own personhood, your own personality and your own independance. Here is a news flash: dating can really mess that up if you don’t do it right.

Remember: You don’t have to jump into dating when you’re not ready:

It’s kind of like driving a car. You wouldn’t let your 1 year old sister drive the car. In fact she couldn’t. Her legs are not long enough and she couldn’t see over the steering wheel. However, when your sister is 9 years old she may be able to see over the steering wheel and touch the gas pedal. Now that she is perfectly capable of operating the vehicle controls, does that mean it is safe to let her drive the car? No. She isn’t old enough, she isn’t mature enough, and to let her drive the car prematurely could not only cause an accident, it could destroy her life. When she turns 16 and she is more mature and has taken the time to learn what she needs to learn in order to operate the vehicle, then you can let her drive the car. With dating you slowly learn and grow and when its time and when you are mature enough then things will go smoothly, but if you do it prematurely you are destined for disaster.

You have plenty of time. No hurry. You must learn self-control, don’t let yourself be out of control. When you discover who you are, what you need, and you begin to develop your own personal values and self control then you are that much closer to being ready to date.

Most young teenagers are so eager to start dating that they jump the gun, run into the dating life as fast as they can and then live to regret it all in the end. Don’t become another teenage statistic. Take the road less traveled.

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My Space: A Scary Place?

September 13, 2006 @ 11:27 am by Pressed

I finally took the plunge and joined My Space today. You can check it out at http://www.myspace.com/avoidingevil. I hear people talking about their My Space accounts all the time. Even my wife has had a My Space account for awhile now. I hear her talk about her comments and friends on there, so I decided to get into the loop. What’s this thang all about? Now that I’ve perused the website and I’ve viewed several of the My Space profiles of people I know from around here and even some of my students I must say MY GOODNESS. It’s very much like a blog. You can keep pictures on there, you can link to friends, and you can even keep a daily journal blog all under your profile. It’s also a place where you can see who’s getting drunk, getting high, having sex, and listen to songs about getting drunk, having sex, and getting high. The language, pictures, and content of many of these profiles are extreme. I feel kinda defiled after taking a trip on the My Space train today.

It’s interesting to look at some of these profiles and see the way people act and think. I’m the type of person who tends to watch people, study them, and forumlate opinions on why they act a certain way and even perdictions of what they will most likely do next. However, when it comes to seeing some of these profiles it turns into a more depressing moment. Especially when it is some of the people I have known for years. When you watch and see the way peoples lives change and what they do outside of certain environments it is both amusing and sad. It’s also life. Some survive, some don’t.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” - Matthew 7:13,14

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