For those of us who are believers, we also will take this time to start beating ourselves up for not being a good enough believer.  For not loving enough, for being selfish, for failing to be perfect.  We might start making resolutions to be a better Christian, to be a better believer.  We will read the Bible more, pray more, spend more time with God.  We will bring more people into the fold.  I am here to encourage you to not think that way.  I am here to say that you cannot be a better Christian.  Or maybe I should say you cannot WILL yourself into being a better Christian.  You cannot put God and faith into a checkbox.  Reading Scripture more, will improve your relationship with Scripture.

It is impossible to be a better Christian.  It is like saying, this year I am going to be saved MORE!  Go ahead, try it.  Try to be saved more.  The truth of the matter is that salvation is not on a scale, it is a simple yes or no.  If one is drowning, and we all have been at some time in a figurative sense, and someone saves you, you are saved.  You cannot turn to your rescuer and say, next time…save me more!  What happened at Calvary took care of everything. The belief in the salvation at Calvary is what makes us Christian.  That is it.  It is FINISHED!

Sure in the new year, we can do all the things listed above, but what good are those things, if we live in a state of neglecting the relationship with the Father?  My encouragement for everyone in the New Year is to trust Him more.  That is all.  Through trusting Him more, we might find ourselves in meaningful conversations with Him as opposed to simple petitions of prayer.  As we learn to trust Him, we might find true wisdom in the Scriptures as opposed to knowledge of what 1 Corinthians 1:1 is.  We will find the life of Christ in our lives.  We will move past the mundane to-do list, and enter into His kingdom.  We will make His kingdom known to those around us by more than just our words.  We will make Him known by our love for those around us and putting the Scriptures into action.  We will use them to truly guide our lives and not just our discussions.

We will wake up one day and find the somehow without even trying we have taken on the same mission of Christ, to reveal the Kingdom of God.  We will make the Kingdom tangible and real to those around us.

The more I thought about this fact, the more I realized that in life, the obstacles we face don’t change. If we are diagnosed with cancer, the cancer does not magically change one day into perfect cells.  If we struggle with pornography, we will always battle that.

The obstacles do not change, but we can!

It seems to me that with this realization, I might have to change the way that I pray.  So often when we pray, we want God to remove the obstacle.  We beg and plead with Him to remove the obstacle from our lives.  We pray that the cancer is removed.  We pray that we no longer struggle with our addictions.  We will pray with fervor that God remove the obstacle.  AND we expect Him to do just that.  But I do not think that is what He wants.  I do not think that helps Him manifest Himself to us, in us, and through us.

We must remember that we are NEW creations through HIM.  What does this mean, it means that the obstacles will not change, but WE do.  We have been made into a creation that has the ability to respond to the obstacle with His grace and His very character.  It means that He is not going to remove the obstacle, but it means that He has made us able to overcome it in a manner that will bring glory to God the Father and the Son.  The more we learn how to trust Him, the more we gain wisdom through opening the eyes and ears of our hearts, the more we change.

The more we accept that we are new, the more the obstacles cease to be obstacles.  The more we acknowledge the one who makes all things new, the more we will see the obstacle as a chance to glorify Him.  Each day we remain sober, each day we live with the cancer and still walk in the light, we can give glory to the maker and perfecter of our faith.  As our mindset changes so does the obstacle.  It is no longer an obstacle but an opportunity.

I know that sounds quite cliched, but I have never seen an obstacle disappear.  I have never seen the obstacles change, but I have.  Who I am inside has changed.  The more I acknowledge that I am made in His image, the more I am able to tackle and conquer the challenges of life. The more I am able to just be in His presence, the more I am able to love the co-worker that drives me nuts, the more I am able to see past my own faults and my own challenges.  The more that I listen to His voice about who I am, the easier it is not to get depressed about my imperfections or the fact that not everyone loves me as much as I wish they did.

The obstacles we face don’t change…only our abilities to overcome them.

I recently completed the reading and re-reading of Chapter four of “From the Garden to the City”.  For me the book is starting to get interesting and I think that it will be harder and harder to stick to only reading the one chapter at a time.  I will try.  This particular chapter played to my interests from the beginning.  With my history in web development and programming, seeing the code snippets were a welcome mat to information to come.  Before we get into a discussion about  technology in Genesis, John Dyer, lays a groundwork that we must understand.

To read the rest of this post please visit here.

To learn more about the book please go to: http://fromthegardentothecity.com/

I was able to relate quite well to the stories in this chapter.  From the story about a projector to the comparisons between texting, online chatting and telephone usage, I could see the author’s intent and point.  It is to some degree the very reason that I work with computers.  At the time, I was looking for my first job, they were becoming more and more prominent in homes and in the workplace.  They were something new and exciting and I wanted to know about this new “technology”.  My dad had worked from a terminal for a while, and it intrigued me.

I am hoping that starting in chapter 2 the author’s intent with Scripture will come into play a little more.  I am curious to see how the author is going to make the leap from the Bible to the uses of technology today.  After reading chapter one, I am slightly inclined to say that my interpretation of technology will have to be altered.  When I started reading the book or read the book summary, I saw technology as a finite idea.  It was defined by items (computers, ipods, smart phones, the web, etc.).   It appears that the working definition will be a little more fluid.

I am still curious on how the author is going to separate the technology though from the user.  That is to say how does technology have a purpose on its own, apart from how it is used?  I still see intent being a rather large factor and that is not determined by the technology but rather the end user.

I am looking forward to the upcoming chapters though and will hopefully get my next post up a little sooner.

To read this weeks featured blog on this chapter, please go to:  http://churchm.ag/from-the-garden-to-the-city-perspective/

At this point, the book has not addressed any of the issues, but simply posed the question.  Since I have not read the next chapter, I can offer my own unbiased opinion and admit that I am open to it being changed.  My answer to this question, more than likely will always be based around the “it depends” model.  How is the technology used?  If we are truly going to view things through the lens of Scripture, we must view it through the lens of Jesus Christ.  That is to say if the technology is being used with the same motivation that Christ had while he walked the planet, it will be good.  It will generally rest on the premise of will these advances bring glory to God the Father, or will they bring glory to me.  Am I utilizing these new tools to make the father known or to make myself known.  Who am I glorifying with the technology.

That is my stance now, but I am looking forward to actually being able to dive into the book soon.

Later this week, I will post my review of the introduction to the book.  This post was just to lay the groundwork for what is to come.  If you want to know more about this project you can follow all the fun at: http://fromthegardentothecity.com/

I will have the featured post on week 4, but the rest of the weeks, I will link to my posts in the comments.

This should be a fun journey.

So where we left off…I have walked the road and encountered this person known as Jesus and He was who I needed Him to be.  He was the father, I needed or the person who loved me for me like a husband loves a wife.  He was who I needed Him to be when I was searching for something more.  When I finally admitted that I could no longer do it on my own.  When I had no more life to give, He gave me His and was who I needed.  That lead me to try to be just like Him.  I would find myself trying to be who I thought He needed me to be.  I removed things from my life and tried to force my way deeper into His love.  I tried to look at the rules in the Scriptures and tried to live them out.  I found myself striving to be the best Christian that I could be.

Then I was exhausted.  Then I felt like I could honestly never be good enough.  I would never make it to heaven.  I honestly felt like I was back where I started.  It was as if this person that loved me all of a sudden turned into just another person that I could not please.  Christ became the father I couldn’t please, the husband that could never love me.

So, I was crucified.  So I decided to stop using the Bible as a how-to guide and read it.  I paid a lot of attention to the red letters.  I actually looked for meaning in the words of Christ and not just the directives.  I died…and on the third day I rose again.  I realized that I was one with Christ.  And I found that the truth in that is that I am not to walk in His footsteps, but that we (He and I) have already walked them together.  The mistakes I make, are not judgements that he is holding out against me.  They cannot revoke my place in His Kingdom.  I am His child and there is no removing  me from that family.

When my daughter makes a mistake, I do no push her out of the family until she gets back in line.  I do not remove or revoke my love until she does as she is commanded by me.  I am not in the removing my love from her and Christ is not going to remove His love from me when I slip up.  When my daughter disobeys, she risks hurting herself.  The rules and guidelines are there to protect, not restrict.  I love her, her mom loves her and there is nothing in this world that will stop that love.  The more and more, I started to see myself in the family of God (as a son), the more I realized that being In Christ is not about mimicking Him and more about living as He did, with the heart that He had.  The one that allowed Him to love those that no one else would (some one like me).  The same heart gave Him the courage to stand up and be strong in the Father’s name.

We have all been given that same ability if we will let go of the rules that seem to drive Christianity these days.  If we are willing to open ourselves up to the challenges that come with letting go, then we might just find the Jesus of the Scriptures.  We might just find the Jesus that loves each and every one of us enough to be exactly who we need Him to be the minute we need His love the most.

At the end of the last post, we are left with the Jesus we needed.  We are face to face with the person that we needed in our lives at that moment.  For some that was the father who loved us without question or condition.  For others it might be that husband figure who saw us as beautiful or was the perfect example of who we wanted to be in our future marriages.  For others maybe the Jesus you needed was just the friend who would listen.  I can only speak from my own experience with Him and when I found Him (and I mean truly found Him face-to-face), He was filling a role that I needed.  He filled a need, I had.  I met a longing I had.  It sounds selfish, but He was who I needed Him to be.

After this initial, phase, it would seem to me that over time, Jesus can (and did in my case) become more and more of someone I was supposed to emulate.  I started to study Scripture and tried to find out how to “be like Jesus”.  It started a list of things to accomplish and complete.  It was a matter of reading about Him and trying to do those things.  I found myself trying to force happiness, force humility, forcing myself to turn the other cheek, and any number of other things.  I honestly believed that I could will myself into being like Christ.  The Bible become a how-to manual.  Life became a matter of acting like Jesus.  I slowly drifted away from Him being who I needed, and tried to force myself to mimic Him.

I slowly tried to be the person that I read about in the pages of Scripture.  I read the parables about Jesus and work hard to be a branch connected to the vine.  I tried to die to myself daily and be a good follower, but over time, I found myself not loving Christ.  I found myself chasing and ideal that I could not attain.  I found myself believing that following in His footsteps, meant just that…trying to put my foot down in the exact place He did on everything.

I wish I could blame this behavior on something outside of myself.  I wish I could say that I was not caught up in the “What Would Jesus Do?” hoopla of my time, but I cannot.  I cannot blame it on any particular church that I was a part of because I was roaming from church to church – trying to be with everyone.  I wish I could blame my parents, but I can’t…I was doing all of this on my own.  I was pushing, and trying and striving to be perfect.  I was proud of myself because I honestly thought that if I acted like Jesus, then I must be growing in Him.  So I was proud of my non-drinking, non-cussing, non-tattoed, non-loving, judgmental self.  Because at least, I was better off than all those other people.

Jesus had gone from being who I needed Him to be in my life, to being someone I was desperately trying to imitate.  He was no different than another clique that existed in school.  Where everybody wears the same thing, acts the same way and they are all secretly unhappy and hiding from the truth.  I was no different.  I was hiding from THE TRUTH.

The answer to this question for me shaped who I have become in Jesus.  So I put the following before any and all to consider.  Who is Jesus to you?  If He was the father figure you were missing, then maybe, just maybe, you slowly became that father you picture Him to be for you.  You take your parenting very seriously and desire to parent as Jesus would.  If you saw Jesus as the groom coming for His bride, perhaps you focused on learning what the husband looks like, or you focused on what it means to be the bride of Christ (or at least a part of it).  If you saw Jesus as the man who came to challenge the status quo or challenge the religious system then perhaps you take pride in doing the same.  Perhaps you spend time fighting and focusing on the systems of the world.

I look over my life and can truly only use that as a starting point, but when I found Christ, it changed how I viewed the world.  When I first found Him, He was who I needed Him to be.  He was the One that I was looking for and filled a role in my life.  And that role that He filled started my quest to know Him more.  As that relationship started, I started to find Him more and more in that role.  For me it started as a Father.  So now that I am a Father, I desire more than anything to display Christ in my parenting.  I desire to have the heart of Christ as I take care of my daughter.  I find myself watching other parents and (wrongfully) judging them.  I get frustrated when I see someone that does not enjoy their children as much as I feel Christ loves us.  (I fully admit that this judgement is not right, but I am trying to be honest).  The Lord delights in His children and He sacrificed all for them.  It is in this role that I discovered the love of Christ.

As I grew older in life and (hopefully) matured, who Jesus was transitioned somewhat.  He became “the groom”.  I desired to find His heart in what it means to be a husband.  I am far from the perfect husband, but I am trying to take who Jesus is an be that.  I am trying to take the example He has given us and place it into my marriage.

And perhaps Jesus became all of these things to you as you grew in maturity.  Perhaps He was originally the father you never had, but over time you have grown to see Him as the husband you mimic or long to wed.  Maybe you now fight the systems of the world, desiring to make His kingdom real in the here and now.  I know that it is a simple question to ask, but it can be difficult to answer.  I have found though that in life, it is often the best place to start when we feel that we have lost ourselves.  When we are trying to find out what our identity is in Christ, finding out who Christ is, is a fantastic place to start.

He is always willing to be who you need Him to be, when you need Him to you find your way back to Him.  He will be there.  He will always be the father to the fatherless, the bridegroom coming for his bride, the freedom from the world we need.  So often though we find ourselves caught up in trying to mimic Him that we forget to find His love that provides the motivation we need.  When we allow Him to love us, the way we need to be loved, that is when we learn how to love as He does.  Loving as Christ does is more than trying not to get upset at our children, our wives, and the world.  Loving as Christ does is finding the heart of Christ and displaying that.  Most people can tell the difference between someone who is fighting their will to get upset or angry and the person that is able to forgive because they are living through Christ.

So I leave you with these questions Who is Jesus to you, in this moment?  How can that help you grow to love Him more?

Please do not see my posting these as my looking to find things wrong, but an admission that there are things to be careful in the organic church, just as there are things to be wary of in the traditional church system.  I am a firm believer that you must go where the Lord has you; that you must go where the Spirit leads you to be – Organic or Traditional.  Go where God has you and you are fine by me.

What’s Wrong with Organic Church (8 Parts)

Invisible to Community

Too Inwardly Focused

Too Isolated from Traditional Churches

Church Discipline

Lack of Networking with Other Organic Churches

No Spiritual Covering

Lack of Strong Leadership

Too Proud of Ourselves

Pitfalls of Organic Church (6 Parts)

Break Your Liturgy

Draw Out the Wallflowers and Reign in the Soap Boxers

Let Jesus Be the Leader

Plan to Multiply Into New Groups From Day 1

Practice Brutal Honesty and Shocking Truth

Rotate Locations Early and Often

These are just a couple of series that were written that I thought were well thought out and thought provoking.  I will probably follow this up with some thoughts of my own on some of these matters.