Uniformed Imaginations...

The caption reads "
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground"
Last week I wrote of the power of prayer to open up our imaginations to all the goodness that God has in store for all of us. Most of us, if not all of us, use our imaginations to dream of a life that is beyond words to describe. A life full of joy and marvellous in as many ways as it could be here on earth. We imagine for ourselves and for those who we love “great things” that are all positive and glorious and wonderful. We often use our imaginations as a form of “escape” from this current life of hardship, difficulty, trial, suffering, cruelty and pain. When we come to prayer with our imaginations engaged our prayers take on this type of language as well. We mostly pray for good things, great things, remarkable things, miracles, bliss, healing and basically all things positive, glorious and wonderful. I pray this way too but I wonder, I wonder if this is all that God has in mind when he speaks to us about his will for us as immeasurable more than we could ever think or imagine? Is there a way to inform our imaginations so that what we actually dream about is saturated with what the Holy Spirit really desires for us and not so much what we want the Holy Spirit to desire for us?
Remember Peter, after Jesus had informed him of his soon coming suffering and death. Remember how he responded? Even in his wildest imaginations he could not for the life of him imagine that the Messiah would have to endure such horrible things nor should he have to. The Son of God, the Anointed One, the Chosen One, the Holy One of God, most certainly would not have to go through such terrible things! In essence, his imagination was more informed by his religious culture than the words that had just come out of the Son of God’s mouth. The Son was trying to inform the disciple’s imaginations of what was truly great, what was truly positive, glorious and wonderful. Peter took offense; he took Jesus aside and in no uncertain terms told the Lord of the Universe that he shouldn’t talk like that.
I think Paul worked hard in most of his letters to debunk poorly informed imaginations about what the Christian life is all about. In what could be argued as his literary master piece, known as the Christ Hymn in Philippians 2:4-13, his writing is beautiful, poetic and dripping with powerful imagery to inform our imaginations of the true pathway to greatness, to glory, to wonder and to exaltation according to the mind of God.
When we imagine great things in the Lord, we must include this vital information about the pathway to the great things we imagine when we pray. Remember Peter? Remember what Christ said to him? Jesus responded to Peter’s rebuke with a shocking rebuke of his own, “Get behind me Satan! For you only have in mind the things of men and not the things of God!”
When we pray with our imaginations intact and engaged let us never be guilty of having only the things of men in our imaginations and not the things of God!
Let your imagination be well informed and stop trying to arm wrestle what we consider good things, great things, wonderful and positive things out of God and calling it prayer!

5 Habits in Spiritual Formation

I have been asked a couple of times to summarize the sermon on Saturday evening by reviewing the 5 habits we discussed. These habits are essential to good healthy growth in our spiritual lives. However, unless we are genuinely dissatisfied with our current rate of growth or perhaps our overall lack of growth in our Christian life these habits will become rigid and rule driven rather than stemming from a deep desire for greater intimacy with the Lord and each other.

Habit #1: regularly meditating and studying the scripture (2 Tim 3:16, Luke 4:4, Rom. 15:4)
Habit #2: a progressive, contemplative & imaginative prayer life. (Lk 5:16 & 18:1-8; Eph. 3:20)
Habit #3: cultivating relationships with fellow believers (Acts 2:46; Heb. 10:25)
Habit #4: an attitude and general posture in life of being a generous person (2 Cor. 8:7)
Habit #5: Volunteering in the greater community ( Mt.5:16 & 1 Peter 2:12)

Repetition, doing something over and over is the only way for it to turn into a habit. Not sure where this saying comes from but it is a good.
Sow a thought, reap an act
Sow an act, reap a habit
Sow a habit, reap a character
Sow a character, reap a destiny!

Happy Growing...

Imagine...

My faith has so many unique qualities about it that it never ceases to amaze me. There is wisdom and insight and things that stretch even the wildest of imaginations in christianity. In the spectrum of world religions it really does make it difficult at times to see why others would want to believe in anything else! Sounds like I am bragging doesn’t it... well just maybe I am and I am doing it as one who is boasting in his Lord, and that is part of a what I believe is a healthy christian life. For too long now we christians have been told to hush up about our marvelous faith, we've been told our ideals, philosophies and values do not belong in the public arena, we've been marginalized by savvy spin-doctors and script writers from TV and movies, from tricksy authors of books and brash radio announcers and, tragically, we've been really good at doing what were told! We've forgotten the words of both the Older and Newer Testaments... Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.
Last night our church hosted something we call a Prayer Pinnacle. An evening of meditation on God and his word, a time to sing worship songs that stir the soul, a place where prayer with other likeminded believers could take place uninterrupted. It was delightful to say the least. One of the things that so impressed me about the Lord last night was his ability to stir the imagination while in prayer. In fact, I would say that the bible pushes us to pray with our imaginations fully engaged, to let the word of God and the Holy Spirit leave stretch marks on imaginations, to pray with total confidence that whatever we ask of our God it will inevitably be smaller than what the Lord had in mind for us.
God is good all the time and his desire to lead us into greater goodness knows no limits. His love for us is described as abundant, his joy over us is described as exceeding, his mercy for us is described as new every morning and faithfulness toward us is described as great!
If that was all you knew about anyone else we would boast about them to the high heavens. If that was all we knew about the Lord there is enough here to keep our imaginations going for quite some time. Truth is, this little bit of information doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and his paths are beyond tracing out...
now let your imaginations soar…
and for heaven’s sake brag a little bit more about him today…
what’s not to brag about?

The Thinker

Romans 2:4 in the NASB bible reads this way... "Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience..." I suppose there could be a double meaning to the words "think lightly" here. One meaning could be to distain or hold in contempt or just not care the other meaning could be more literal, to just not give much thought to it. My challenge fell around the second meaning this morning. Not enough thought.
Thinking takes time. When we think about something intentionally we need space in our daily lives to do it. I believe that thinking time is on its death bed in our western culture. Thinking takes silence, that is the absence of noise, of T.V., telephones, text messages, DVD's, radio, CD's and MP3's and other people. Where can I go to flee from the presence of all these distractions?
Thinking needs a place. A quiet, comfortable, secluded place. A private place for solitude so that I can think undisturbed.
I think we think too little. We've lost the art of solitude. We've almost lost the capacity to think and spend intentional time thinking.
We must get it back or we will think too lightly which will lead to the first meaning. To hold in contempt; to just not care… and we breathe our last breath… and then it will be too late to think.

Death and Easter

The evening service was finished and I made my way toward the back of the sanctuary. As I stepped through the back door I noticed a group of folks, forming a tight circle around someone and they were all praying. As the circle opened up it revealed the one who was the focus of all the care and support. I saw my friend, tears streaming down her cheeks, eyes puffy, swollen from much crying, nose rimed with redness, tender from all the tissues rubbing it, and she was barely able to speak.
As it turned out, she was very sad because unknown to all of us it was the one year anniversary of her father’s passing. He had died suddenly from a heart attack and my friend missed him so much.

What can you say? Probably the better part of wisdom is just to remain silent, offer a hug, and a sigh of sympathy.

Death is such a robber. I hate it. I hate what it does to people; I hate how it separates us from each other. It steals loved ones, it steals young and it steals old, rich or poor, strong or weak. It plays no favorites and is always just a breath away from each of us.

The Bible is full of the stories of death because the Bible deals with life as it really is. No rose colored glasses there! It even provides us with a window into the origin of death. It goes way back to Adam and Eve when death was allowed to enter the human experience after the first couple disobeyed God. First it appeared in the animal skins God made for them and then it manifested its full ugliness when Cain murdered his brother Abel. And death has been with us since then. It is the wages for disobedience to God.
Jesus came to destroy death. He came to die, the perfect and pure saviour for the imperfect and impure human race. He then rose from the dead, conquered it, because it could not hold him down. He rose victorious over death 3 days later. He offers life to all but only those who receive it for themselves are saved.

It truly is an amazing story of how death brought us life! How the death of one man, Jesus Christ, has offered life to all human kind. The truly good part is that every single human being has been forgiven of every single death wage ever paid out for sin. All we have to do is humbly receive this amazing gift that is offered to us freely.

As the bible asks, “Death where is your sting?” For all who believe the sting is gone and life forever more has come.

This is the true meaning of the Easter season.

The Cry of The City....

5 conversations within a 24 hour period; 5 conversations with a common thread running through each one; 5 conversations with complete strangers, new acquaintances and intimate friends; 5 conversations expressing pain, suffering, longing, brokenness and uncertainty; 5 conversations and the city cries!
First it was my earliest encounter of the new day at the checkout counter of the grocery store. I said "good morning" she responded, "I will hold on the good"... a tale of a cancer fright, alone, with added relationship strain... all this while the queue behind us grew... Then onto a stranded woman, bonnet up, looking frustrated... I stopped and helped and out tumbled long term relationship broken, job lost and no luck finding a new one... what to do... it's been like this for year... from there I went for a cup a coffee and one of staff plunks themselves down as says, "something is wrong with me, a friend says it could be my heart, I’m kind of scared, I’m always so tired and my job is stressing me out like never before...." then later on as a conversation grew out dropped, "I feel so undervalued, so underpaid, so blah... I know that there is so much more out there for me but I feel trapped, unable because of circumstances to stretch out my wings and find it.... finally, a little boy, a broken home, he started reaching out to daddy's new girlfriend, mom freaks out and tells him to never come home again... he's 10 years old.
Pain, suffering, longing, brokenness and uncertainty and the city cries. The bible recognizes this condition of all human kind and it offers hope to the hopeless. It really is full of promises, full of wisdom, and full of stories of the human drama that can offer insights and guidance when times are tough. For example it says “The groans of those who are dying are heard from the city. Those who are wounded cry out for help.” And then it offers this council, God doesn’t hear! God refuses to move! At least that is our perception of him anyway... and ain’t that that how most of us really feel most of the time! But it goes on to tell us that He is indeed there, he is in the midst of whatever we are going through, hoping our desperate situation will cause us to call out to him for mercy and for salvation. And everyone who comes to him he will in no way cast out! He will listen to the prayers of the destitute. He will not reject their pleas. His invitation is sure… "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."