Waiting For My Time

For the few years, I have always connected to the life of King David more than any other person in the Bible, but before he became king. I always identified with him as a child with his childhood, and now I identify with him even more with where I stand waiting to fulfill God's calling for me. David was Israel's most important king that displayed the epitome of Israel's power throughout the Old Testament (Elwell & Beitzel, 1988).

Unlike me who is the middle child, David is the youngest son in Jesse's family. Within that family, Jesse was not seen of importance. In the same way, when I was younger, I felt that I was often disregarded. Don't get me wrong, it could have been a perception issue of mine and I love my family more than anything. I know my family now views me differently than when I was younger and we all have each other's back no matter what. When I was younger, however, it did not seem like that to me. I would sit in the back of our family van and nobody could hear me when I spoke, which ultimately led to me becoming reserved. I mostly did my own thing, stayed in my room, and was self-motivated (oddly enough following Adler's theory of birth order) #psychmajor #christianstudiesmajor #doubledegreeing. Despite theories that those factors lead to developing the traits of a follower, God had other plans for both David and myself.

In 1 Samuel 16, David was chosen by God instead of his siblings who seemed to fit the characteristics man pictures when they envision a leader. God looked at the heart and told the prophet Samuel to anoint David and endow him with the Spirit of the Lord. At that moment, there were no immediate change in the daily life of David and he continued to do what he was doing before, tend the sheep. Similarly, my sophomore year of high school, I felt a tug on my heart to pursue youth ministry. Thinking it was just an idea spawned from my love towards my youth group, I repressed the call. Again in the senior year when I was college searching, I felt the calling again. I tried to repress it again, but ultimately I lost. At the moment I accepted God's calling, I was anointed in a way and I felt the Spirit of God move in me in a way it had not in the past. However, at that moment, nothing really changed in my daily life. Sure I got a bit more involved in church and I changed my choice of college and major, but my daily life remained steady. I still had school and I still had work.

David continued to serve others and be sensitive to what the Lord was telling him, but he did not rush into leadership opportunities despite his calling and talents. That is where I made a mistake. I took on any leadership opportunity that was presented to me because I have the calling and I know I have the talents, but that does not mean it is God's timing. I know and I have been told by my peers and mentors, that I could successfully run a youth ministry, but that does not mean I should at this point.

David had a couple opportunities to take the role of king away from Saul, but he knew God had ordained Saul for work at that moment. David waiting until God removed Saul from the throne instead of taking it himself. In church's I have been a part of, I saw people in leadership not remaining faithful to the will or commands of God. I did not think they should be in church leadership, and I probably could have had them removed with the information I knew, but I did not. People in the church are aware of those kinds of things, but God has them in a place for that time. The truth always comes out and God's will always prevails.

David became king in due time. When it is my time to become a youth pastor I will know. Although I have been offered positions at other church's, I know God wants me to stay at my church despite what I want to do. He has me here for a reason and in time He will put me where He wants me. At this point, I am not going to continue begging people to utilize my talents and let me serve where I can; instead, if they want/need something, they can come to me. Until the day where somebody comes to me with a pastoral position and I know it is blessed by God, I will continue to put all my efforts to be a shepherd in my daily life whether at school or either of my two jobs.

References

Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

Called To Live A Holy Life

This week we are discussing living a holy life. A big question that is asked in youth and young adults is “why should I live my life any differently?” If you are asking that, you need to ask yourself next if you authentically know the Lord and have a relationship with him. Have you surrendered all traces of your life to him and are you a follower of Jesus Christ?  These questions should reside in the back of our minds with every decision we make. All of us make or have made decisions that don’t align with how we know we should be living our lives, whether it is sex outside of marriage, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, or putting people and things above God in our lives, and those are the cause for nearly all of our difficulties in life. Wait, does God really care how we live our lives? Does it matter if we live our lives different? I mean as long as you believe in Jesus, you are fine because you are saved right? There is no reason to go to church or be a stick in the mud. Well, yes and no. We are saved through the blood of Jesus alone, that is true, but that does not make it right or fine. Society broadcasts that if you believe in Jesus that you can live any way you want. That is where we go back to our relationship with Jesus and ask if it is an authentic one?

            Open your Bibles to 1 Peter 1:13-25.

            Last time, we talked about living in hope. Despite our past and the persecution of this earth, we can go through life with hope. After our time on this planet has come to an end, we can look forward to being in the presence of God. Because of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, we are able to get salvation through our faith in him and that yields hope. Now Peter tells us how we need to respond to these truths. The first main point is we should live to please God. In the message, it says “so roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives.” When I read this, I pictured the younger me when I saw my uncle. I would roll up my sleeves to get ready for action. I would put my mind in attack mode and think of a plan of action. By the time he walked through the door, I was already shaking my bum in preparation to tackle him. I got ready to take action. I knew how I would knock him over and I was focused; I was sober minded. When Peter says sober-minded, he is not saying sober in contrast to drunkenness per say, but instead he is saying to be focused and have self-control. When you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, it is difficult for you to focus and have self-control so you will find yourself doing things that you wouldn’t do sober. So we have to remain ready, focused, and intentional of who God is calling us to be and how we should live our lives. We need to live our lives as obedient children. Your obedience is a strong indicator of the standing of your relationship with God.  I am a God father. When my goddaughter, Teresa, first began speaking, her first words were words that you shouldn’t say at any age because my uncle thought it was funny to teach her. As soon as I heard her say it, my face when stern and I told to never repeat those words again. From that moment, she never said another curse word in front of me again. Her dad were ask her to say this or that and she would turn to me then turn to him and then shake her head. Those moments brought me great joy because I saw her obeying me and making good choices. In the same way, God watches us and is filled with joy when He sees His children making wise choices. Conversely, He is saddened when He sees his children disobeying him and making unwise choices. We cannot separate faith and obedience. Jesus repeats numerous times that if we love him then we will obey his commands. With him saying that, He is telling us an “if then” statement. If we truly love Jesus, then we will obey him; that is how we show our love. It tells us in James that faith without works, obedience, is dead.” Loving means obeying. He tells us to obey Him and not conform to our former lives of sin. When my friend Mike started following Christ, it was noticeable. He stopped doing drugs, stopped going to parties, and stopped chasing sex. He was on fire for God, but then school started back up and he returned to his old friends. Hanging out with these people caused him to start slipping back to his old ways and conforming again. As an obedient child, he noticed it, was convicted, and did what he had to do, no matter how hard it was, in order to stay on the narrow path. The Holy Spirit convicted Mike. As Christians, we need to hear that voice that tells us what is keeping us from God and follow it. As believers in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit and its power to live differently than the world.  We are called to be holy, just as God is holy and we are to represent him. We must represent Him in every area of our lives. So you know that secret sin you have in your life. That one that you think it is okay to do because it isn’t hurting anybody and nobody knows about it, whether be it porn or recreational drug use, does not represent God. Having a secret sin in your life is not okay. We need to truly fear God for that will affect how you live.

Read 17.

            We are to fear God, but it not really trepidation, but instead a healthy honor and respect for God. We are called to live in fear of God so that we obey him. It is a holy fear.

Fear is not the only reason that we are to live to please God. Why are we to live to please God? Let’s look at verse 13:  Jesus is returning. He came once and He said that He is coming back with His rewards in hand. We live this life to invest in the life after. Jesus is coming back to reward and to punish. This is a great motivation to live to please God, but that isn’t all. Verses 15-16 says that God is holy. Because God is holy, we need to be holy. God can’t tolerate sin, it goes against His nature. When we have sin active in our lives, it puts up walls that thwart our relationship with God. We need to repent. That means asking for forgiveness and turning away from sin. Verse 17 says that your life will be judged. We will be held accountable for our actions on this planet. Believers are going to heaven nonetheless, but we will be rewarded or not based on how we use our time and resources on this planet for good. Verse 18-21 reminds us that Jesus gave His life for us.  He loved us so much that He was tortured and died on the cross to pay for our sins even though He was without sin. Why wouldn’t we be wanted to make Him happy? That is a perfect reason to live to please God. Pleasing God will purify our lives. He changes us and teaches us how to love Him, ourselves, and others, and how to be loved. We are transformed into a new person. While the things of this world are temporary as it shows in verse 24, God is eternal and our salvation with him is everlasting. Anything we accomplish or acquire in this world is going to perish, it won’t last and we cannot take it to our afterlives. God and everything He has spoken is true and everything we do is to please Him.

We want to be in relationship with God. We get to know Him and communicate with Him so that we learn what pleases Him and what doesn’t. We understand how to let God into our lives so that we can live it out. God has revealed Himself primarily through the Bible. In the Bible, we find out who God really is and what he wants for us. We learn what is pleasing to Him and what isn’t. The more that we know Scripture, the more we understand what pleases God. Verse 23 says we are born again through the enduring word of God and verse 25 says the word of the Lord endures forever and this is the word that was preached to you. God does care how we live our lives and the choices we make matters. This means that just saying we believe something doesn’t make it real, it is how we live our lives that reveal what we truly believe. If you say you love God, you should be living differently. You should be living to please God in all areas of our lives. Here is your take away for the week: make the life you are living reflect what you profess you believe. If you were on trial, would there be enough evidence to convict you of being a Christian? Give all parts of your life completely over to Him.

Born Again Into A Living Hope

I grew up in a Christian home. I went to a Nazarene church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, while attending a Catholic school from preschool to 2nd grade. It never crossed my mind that there was not a God, let alone people worshiping different gods or no gods. I left St. Vincent de Paul school and began attending Coyote Ridge, a public school that was near my house. There is where I encountered a culture shock. Although there were many Christians around me, there were atheists and other religions. In fact, my best friends in elementary and middle school were a Jew and a Hindu. It was not until I started high school at Independence High School that I faced persecution for being a Christian. In my first semester, my 3rd period was gym class. In Arizona public schools, gym class is a mandatory class that you cannot get out of. So I dreaded 3rd period each day. Every day I wore a wooden cross necklace that I got from my confirmation class at St. Thomas Aquinas. One day while changing for gym, I hung it on a locker and forgot to secure it within mine. I came back after class to find it cut in half on the floor in front of my locker. I later discovered that it was a group of people who found Christianity as a joke. I even had friends who poked at me for being a Christian and it really took a toll on me. That situation only exacerbated when I transferred to Phoenix Country Day School. I was out of my comfort zone surrounded by people who were more wealthy and privileged than myself. Most of the students there were Atheist or Jewish or plain up anti-Christian. I found myself one of the few Christians at the school. At that point in my life, I was not firm in my faith. I was already questioning my religion now with the added stress of having to defend something I was not completely sure of. This was the impetus to dive deep into the Word and do outside research. Though it was trying, this time of life refined my faith and gave me a foundation. I learned why I believe what I believe and I made my faith alone. It was not atypical for fellow students to mock Christianity or look at Christians as intellectually inferior. In the end, it was a pathetic form of persecution. It was nothing compared to the persecution of the early church.

During Nero’s reign in Rome in 62-32 A.D. Christians of the early church were persecuted. Christians of the church of Jerusalem were being tortured, killed, and driven out of Jerusalem and forced to scatter throughout Asia minor. The early church refused to worship the emperor as a god, so they were seen as atheists by some. They refused to worship at pagan temples and they rejected the pagan culture, so they were seen as pretentious for not joining their celebrations. Even in modern day, our morals do not fit with the standards of the world. We profess abstinence until marriage, we profess sobriety, we profess forgiveness. Most people view Christians as pretentious for having a higher standard than the rest of society, but really we are being true to God’s word. Why do we stick to it? It would be so much easier to go with the flow than to go against the current, right? In some aspects sure, but our reward is not of this lifetime.

Peter starts off with “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” Right off the bat, Peter displays an unwavering confidence and gratefulness to God despite all the persecution He and the church experienced. If I were in his situation, praise and thankfulness would not be my first thought. Because of Christ, my friends and family are being abused, persecuted, separated, and more. What Peter knows, that I would not have realized, is the great trade off that we get when we follow Christ.  “In his great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope though the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into the inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.” We have to realize that by following Christ, we are already receiving mercy and love that we do not deserve. We are born into a new birth, a spiritual birth. It is the act of the Holy Spirit adopting us into the family of God where we have a new identity and a new inheritance. We are born again. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 that nobody can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again and born of water and the Spirit. Your Spirit is born again into a living hope. It is a fresh beginning based upon our salvation in God and promise of eternal life. Salvation is the “deliverance from eternal consequences of sin.” Anybody who believes in Christ has eternal life. That birth into a living hope is dependent upon our trust and believe in Jesus. Jesus died and resurrected. He is the only person in history to be resurrected, not resuscitated, but resurrected and not die again. No other religion has their god come to Earth and die; no other religion has anybody resurrecting from the dead. Because of His resurrection we have an inheritance. Not one of the world where moths and rust can ruin it, but a spiritual one. We get an inheritance of eternal life in the eternal city with our father. Our salvation does come from our works but from our faith of God’s works. Because of this, it cannot perish, spoil, or fade. It cannot be stained by our disobedience or mistakes.

“This inheritance is kept in heaven for you” you being the Christians scattered in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia whom he is writing to, but it also can refer to you as followers of Christ. Your inheritance is untouchable so there is nothing to fear. “This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith [in Jesus] are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” Our money is protected by the bank, there have been depressions, bank robbers, computer errors. Our materials are shielded by our houses can be broken into or burned down. But our souls…our souls, our afterlife, our inheritance is shielded by God’s power. We are insured until the coming salvation in the new heaven and new earth is revealed in the last time being judgment day.

That is something to be excited about. Eternity with God. Peter says “In all this you greatly rejoice” not just be content but rejoice. We have scored the ultimate prize because of Jesus. “though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” Peter acknowledges that suffering will happen. It is not ignored nor sugarcoated. In fact it is expected. But like Peter says, it is for a little while. Compare your time on earth of suffering to the eternity of joy and peace with our heavenly Father. Peter explains to us why we suffer. We suffer all kinds of grief to prove the “genuineness of your faith.” It is a test, a crucible to refine your faith. True faith that withstands hardships is worth more than gold. While gold perishes when it is under fire, faith strictly purifies. Faith is the “trust or reliance upon something or someone despite a lack of concrete proof.” A genuine faith will result in “praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Whenever we battle grief or persecution we always ask the wrong questions like “why are you allowing this to happen to me God?” Instead, we need to have a new response so we can endeavor to see from God’s perspective. We need confidence in God’s direction. He holds us up and has a plan for our lives and we need to have confidence that it is good. We need to persevere through the hardships and not give in to anger or bitterness. And we need courage to face the trials because we have Jesus. He does not abandon us, but instead suffers with us and carries us. He is a high priest that can sympathize with our weaknesses and adores you more than you can comprehend.

Jesus says “Blessed are those who have not seen [me] and yet have believed.” We have not seen Jesus yet we believe and we love him. We still don’t see him now, and we believe. Because of this we “are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy” for we are blessed. You will get the end result of your faith. Evil will be punished and your faith will be rewarded with the salvation of your soul. The end result is justice and salvation when we faithfully serve God. Such hope should motivate us despite the persecution you will endure. Expect the persecution, but do not be afraid. Your take away for this week is faith yields salvation, and salvation yields hope.