evangelism linebacker; and,well, i wasn't sure at first

the evangelism linebacker was freakin hilarious...it reminded of another blog or post i read the other day...

several weeks ago my buddy brad put up a post on his blog that put out the challenge "the "great commission (mark 16:15)" or the "great commandment (Matthew 22:39)", or something like that...and after reading his post i wasn't sure how i felt...i didn't disagree at all and in fact i agreed with everything he said but i felt myself getting a little testy with that comment "the great commission (mark 16:15)" or "the great commandment (Matthew 22:39". i wasn't sure at first if it was downplaying the great commission and to be honest i had to ponder it for awhile...but then something happened that helped me see that the post was right, i met my neighbor matt...he lives about 3 doors down from our condo...i would say he is probably 25ish or so and has been walking his dog over the past year around the complex. i never had met him until last week. he was pretty cool and had a pretty cute shitzu and i have a pretty cute yorkie poo, so there you go...two really tough guys with their chick dogs, awesome!!!

in my conversation with him i was trying and or looking for a way to say something about jesus...and i felt desperate to be a witness and see him come to Jesus...as we talked i started to feel frustrated that I couldn't find an open door to win him to the lord...then i remembered brad's blog...he made the comment "are we trying to win someone or are we trying to love them"...if i had to answer that question honestly i would have to say i wasn't loving him rather i was waiting for him to give me that one sweet chance to win him...and i again recalled the "winning someone" rather than "loving them" comment...

i had to step back, check my heart, and realize that my zeal to win someone should only follow my heart and love for them, not the other way around. i look at the scripture "love your neighbor as yourself" and i see a great underlying command and that is giving people the gospel and giving people the real Jesus...i realized after seeing that scripture that the "great commission" and the "great commandment" are synonyms...one can't live without the other. By loving people i am compelled to give them Jesus. By loving people the great commission is fulfilled because of God's heart in me to GO (to the world)...by loving people i am compelled to be bothered by whole nations not knowing Jesus...and loving people let's me be myself and be a friend to my neighbor, by loving him the door will open for me to give him the gospel...for whatever reason there wasn't an open door with matt, and as much as it bothers me to not know if he has said yes to Jesus i know i can't throw it down his throat. It bothers me enough to make sure that next time he is outside with his dog, I will go back to him again...and again...and again. He will know that I care about him because he is my friend and not my project. I will pray for an open door to say something...and when that happens i gladly and boldly will walk through that door...because I love him.

i guess all that to say that the evangelism linebacker was funny but that approach doesn't and well, never will work...

word to your moms!!!

the pissing preacher (is pissing in the bible? i never knew)

uh this video just simply made me remember why preachers frustrate me at times. i sat there an watched it laughing trying to figure out if this was real or not...but then i heard the few amens and realized "crap this is for real". i even looked up the scripture and sure enough, "1 kings 14:10 Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall"...wow, i found the other passages as well...it's crazy what the bible has in it...hahaha

the one major thing that i have noticed over the last 15 years of church and ministry is that when we see a well meaning preacher standing in his pulpit yelling about some sorta of sin and or soap box he has, it usually means its what he or she is dealing with the most. in other words, it's like the preacher who gets up and says not to do the very thing he can't stop himself from doing when he is by his self or where no one can see him. or the tv evangelist preaching against sexual sins and then gets caught having an affair. unfortunately i have seen and been around men and woman of God who have fallen while condemning someone else while they are fallen (fallen means, getting caught doing something you shouldn't be doing) and for the longest time i have been shouting from the mountain tops "preach the GOSPEL"...the gospel isn't a soap box to stand on and pick on a particular sin or group of people who are sinning, it's the good news about how God redeemed man through jesus and because of this redemption we now have the ability of God in us to do the right thing...and when someone messes up we have the grace to forgive and restore...that is what God is and who He is in us if we will let Him be!!! we don't have to preach what we are against but we can preach, talk, communicate what we are for...and i am for the Gospel...God has made peace with man. Sin is no longer the issue rather identity is now the issue...when we know who we are in jesus sin is easy to walk away from!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God loves us so very much...more than we will ever know!

i find that when you have someone who screams "HOLINESS, LIVE HOLY OR GOD CAN'T USE YOU", that person usually isn't that holy when no one is watching. and really that statement is not true...because if it was God couldn't use anybody. he couldn't have used moses because he was a murderer and a complainer, he couldn't have used samson because he was a fornicator or was having sex with an ungodly woman who wasn't his wife, he couldn't have used king david, a man after His, God's own heart, because david was a liar, murderer, adulterer, cheater, and he even tried to cover up his sin too before getting caught. if holiness or "pissing sitting down" was the issue then none of us would qualify...that's why i believe so strongly in teaching and preaching and talking about "WHO WE ARE IN CHRIST" rather than "who we aren't and how we better try to be". the world needs to know God and that salvation comes through His son Jesus and because of jesus you are now qualified, accepted, worthy to be called His child. this is what frees people from sin and gives them the strength to live holy. i am not sure "standing up to piss" is what God is saying right now...or maybe He is and i am just totally misunderstanding salvation and reaching to the world with the love of God. yeah that's probably true...

this is true about me, i would never want to sit in the seat of the scornful judging a preacher for what they feel God is giving them to preach on but i do challenge preachers to sit down and listen to what and how they are saying it. is what i am preaching about coming from a place of love for people, is what i am saying going build up someone and give them the courage to go on and live right? condemnation doesn't produce God's ability in someone to do the right thing rather it hinders it. jesus never pointed his finger and yelled "we have men sitting down to piss today and i am the Son of God and i pee only the way God's pee's and that is STANDING UP, GLORY". however you do have jesus pointing his finger to religious leaders and telling them that they were a bunch of judgmental snakes...you also see jesus turning and reaching out his hand to a woman caught in adultery and giving her the strength to not sin anymore, forgiving her, showing her acceptance...we have jesus when he was on earth challenging every religious duty that was listed under the law and on the other hand forgiving a ruthless criminal hanging next to him on a cross. He was and is the living gospel...what he does is what i do!!! you don't have scripture of jesus ever condemning the world, rather you do have him standing up against church people for being judgmental...does jesus have a standard for holiness? yes, but the way he preached was different from ours. he actually gave a sinner the right to call God abba or father first. he established the relationship with God, told people who they were and who God has made them to be, THEN, they had the ability and strength to change there behavior, and maybe that was peeing sitting down, maybe someone really struggled being a "standing up to piss" kind of a guy...really, maybe!!!

in closing this preacher struck a good nerve in me that had me look inside and make sure that what i am saying is out of love and not out of being right...it had me thinking i guess.

hmm, i had to write about this too because, well, maybe i feel guilty...i sit down when i pee...ask tonya...

peace

joshuaproject.net

wow what an eye opening site...the best i have found on the web about the great commission and unreached people groups!!!

jesus, friend of sinners

its been a while and i am glad to be blogging again.

for several weeks i have been really thinking and pondering the life of jesus and who he was to people especially when he walked on this earth...i read this scripture the other day "matthew 26:50 jesus replied, "friend, do what you came for." and after reading and hearing it, it blew my mind. matthew 26 is the chapter that has jesus at the last supper and getting betrayed by judas. and here jesus, knowing what is about to happen, calls judas a friend.

think about it...the words "friend do what you came for" were directed at judas when he came to betray jesus. and like i said jesus knew judas was going to betray him yet, in the midst of betrayal, jesus still had enough love in him to call judas "friend". for GOD'S sake!!! judas basically gave him up to die for money...how crazy it is for judas to betray jesus in this manner and jesus have the nerve to still call him friend...i mean was jesus being sarcastic...? the word "friend" in matthew 26:50 literally means in its original language 1. a comrade, mate, partner 2. a kindly address 3. friend, (my good friend)...wow, so in context of this scripture jesus was literally addressing judas as a "good friend" or "comrade"...

when i sit and think about jesus and who he was i am humbled by his love for us. it's as if jesus was telling us that even if we betray him, turn our back, deny him, he will still call us friend! this seems sorta unfair...it's unfair because it almost sounds as if i can be a prick and you can be a good christian, pay your tithes and yet we both are still called friends of God...i can almost find it hard to believe but then i found more scripture...luke 7:34 the son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a "friend" of publicans and sinners! Matthew 11:19 the son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions." so jesus is a friend of sinners hmm, i looked up the word "friend" again in these passages and for the greek scholars out there the word "friend" means:
1) friend, to be friendly to one, wish him well
a) a friend b) an associate c) he who associates familiarly with one, a companion
d) one of the bridegroom's friends who on his behalf asked the hand of the bride and rendered him various services in closing the marriage and celebrating the nuptials
after looking this up you can safely say that jesus is calling drunks and tax collectors companions. and here you have judas betraying jesus, and jesus being accused of being a gluttonous person because he is hanging with sinners, it starts to become clear on who jesus was trying to reach...who he was trying extend himself too. i wonder if we could learn something here...and yes i know he came for everyone but that's not my point...i am in my on heart searching to see who he had his focus on...

so in conclusion i found a specific pattern in the life of jesus that is found in the gospels...jesus the son of our holy living God was a friend to people who betrayed him and to people who sinned alot...why was jesus accused of being a glutton and a drunkard...it's because that was who he hung around, that is who he associated with. don't believe me, read the gospels and you tell me who he hung around most other than his disciples...on the flip side who was jesus most frustrated with? you might be suprised, and well, that's another post at a later time...jesus was a real friend and he didn't put a condition on whether or not he was befriended back.

a clue, jesus hung out with sinners and yet was sinless while the church is to afraid to engage sinners because of sin. it really is time to quit being afraid of the world and it's sin and start reaching out without sinning, uh, it can be done...jesus did and if he did so can we...not only can we but i believe jesus called us to it. the bible says that God isn't willing that any should perish and it's time the church take it's rightful place and love people even when there's betrayal...what would jesus do? HELLO WE KNOW WHAT HE WOULD DO so let's start DOING WHAT JESUS DOES and that's love people and let God love them through us with no conditions!!!! wow, loving with no conditions hmm we can do it...

peace my peeps...