Keeping the Faith; Never losing Hope; Always Loving

Job 17:15

S–”Where then is my hope?  Who will see my hope?”

H–Job finds himself in the pit of despair; life is terrible; he’s ready to give up.  Its easy to read this and also hear Paul situation in Acts 24-26.  Job is experiencing a reality in life that sometimes life sucks and there is no other way to explain.  The pressure of despair is weighing Job down and he’s ready to thrown in the towel.  In the midst of his despair he asks these provoca tive questions of “where is hope” and “who can see his hope.”  Its as i f Job is going to need some help from the outside to get out of this pit.  He doesn’t doubt hope, but yet reaches out for the help of another to see his hope and point him to it.  This is a huge lesson for all of us to learn about the difference between optimism and hope along with our need to travel with others in this journey of life.

A–I am reminded of a truth this morning about the difference between hope and optimism.  More specifically the different between followers of Jesus and positive thinkers.  On the surface, both can look very similar but there is a fundamental difference that this scripture brings to light today.  Positive thinkers are optimistic people that claim to create a “happy” life based upon their own positive thinking.  Their “happiness” is connected to their own ability to create a hope is what “they” can accomplish in the future; its a mindset.  For followers of Jesus, we are hopeful people.  We are not confident in the self created mindset that should produce future happiness.  We are confident in what Jesus has already done for us through His life, death, and resurrection; it is this truth that supplies our hope…not something in that might happen in the future but the reality of what did happen in the past.  The joy that comes from this reality is the promise that we are never alone; that God is with us; that others are traveling beside us.  Hence, when (its never a matter of “if” but always “when”) we find ourselves in the “pit” we have no desire to try to “happy think” our way out of it we just simply call it what it is and yell out for a fellow traveler to point us back to hope; to help us see the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.  And in that pointing we are reminded of the promise of Jesus and joy that comes by sharing in that victory and truth that Jesus has defeated the pit.

P–Lord, I want to thank you from freeing me from living the lie of having to pretend that I’m some happy, go lucky positive thinker but that I can be real and transparent about my life….the struggles, the joy, the hardships, the mountains, the valleys.  I thank you for showing me hope and inviting me to be a person of hope.  I pray you would use me today to point others to this hope and that you would bring people around me to point me to hope when I am in the pit of despair instead of pretending the pit doesn’t exist.  Thank you for this promise and fundamental truth of hope that we as followers of Jesus claim.  Amen.

E–I am not a positive thinker; I am a person that knows the reality of hope

Peace, Pastor P

chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com; www.wedesiremore.com

Acts 15:28 (majoring in the essentials)

S–For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden then the essentials.

H–there is already a temptation in the early church to become a bunch of rules and practices…..the exact thing that Israel was never able to live into through the law.  But here the church makes a turn toward grace instead of works.  This is a key moment.  There is this sense that if can grab hold of the essentials that everything else will take care of itself.  They choose to major in the majors instead of majoring in the minors.

A–so much of our lives are spent with structures and organization that major in minors.  So often, the church majors in minors; we focus on what divides us instead of what unites us.  My own denominational book of law and resolutions is probably double the size of the bible just to clarify these rules and regulations.  I wonder what would happen if we all took this to heart; if we just focused on the essentials.  What are the essentials?  Seems to me its pretty simple: “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.”  My hunch is that if we majored in this that a lot of our other problems (if not all of them) would take care of themselves.  My hope is that my life would reflect these essentials and that when my time has passed that the legacy I leave would be one of majoring in the essentials and not the minors.

P–Jesus, I want to thank you for this morning and giving me the grace to set aside this time to major in you.  So often I find myself setting you aside and majoring in the minors.  Please forgive me of that disobedience.  It grieves my heart to think of how many opportunities I’ve missed of encountering your presence because I’ve majored in minors.  I pray that you would empower Crossroads to be a community of faith that majored in the essentials and that you would protect us from spending our time doing things that don’t really matter.  Amen.

E–Focus is committing to majoring in the essentials; the vision and mission empower this focus.

Peace, Pastor P

www.wedeiremore.com; chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com

Below is how God is SHAPE (ing) me today.

Job 6:8-9

S–O that I might have my request, and that God would grant my desire; that it would please God to crush me, that he would let loose his hand and cut me off!

H–Here Job is crying out to God in despair; He is laying it all on the line.  Unbridled, raw, passionate feelings that are full of questions and finally of plea of “just take me out, I can’t take it anymore.”  Right after this one of Job’s friends (Bildad) basically tries to explain away his pain as if to tell him that “Job, you must be getting punished for something; just turn back to God and He’ll reward you.”

A–I find it just like us to try to explain away someone’s pain or our own as a punishment of God.  Or at the same time thinking that a blessing is a reward from God.  We have the screwed up picture that God is this hairy old man that sits up on a cloud and constantly keeps tabs of our lives choosing to constantly reward or punish us based on our decisions.  We make comments like, “God would never give you something you can’t handle.”  Tell Job that and see if he doesn’t smac k that taste out your mouth.  In our finite ignorance we are Bildad trying to put God in this tight little box and rewards and punish.  Live this way and God will protect you; Live that way and God will destroy you.  If that is what God is like I want nothing to do with that God.  However, if this God is a God where I can cry out from the depths of my soul with raw, unbridled, and passionate prayer as a part of our relationship then this is something I’m interested in.  My hope is not that we are able to understand the suffering of our lives but that we wouldn’t minimize the suffering or God to a simple punishment/reward paradigm.

P–Lord help me not today to pack you into a tight little box where you are nothing more then a angry school teacher keeping score of her students of who gets to play at recess and who doesn’t.  But yet, empower me to lay myself before you completely with raw, unbridled, emotion and may you meet me where I am today.  Be with those that find themselves in deep unexplainable pain; may your grace go to them today.  Please protect them from “good little Christians” that will try to explain away their pain into their finite, limited, human theologies of you.  Amen.

E–This God is not an angry school teacher keeping score but an infinite God that welcomes my cry.

Peace, Pastor P

chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com; www.wedesiremore.com

I am so hard headed when it comes to driving and directions.  I don’t need a guide; in fact, that’s the one thing I try to avoid at all costs.  This past spring I was out scouting for turkey season and I got turned around in this clear cut pine forest.  It was really thick and I didn’t have anything with me that could tell me which direction to go.  I walked for a long time and with each step a got a little more nervous that I might be getting really lost.  Finally, I made my way back to where I could see the field I walked in from and then backtracked my steps to the “turkey wagon” (my 94 4runner).  

The crazy thing about life is that we can get turned around in the wrong direction and don’t even realize how lost our lives are becoming.  And then step after step, decision after decision we are turning ourselves around and heading away from Jesus in into the world.  As this happens, the evil of the world preys upon our feelings and emotions as if to say, “it feels good keep doing it; its your life; you deserve it; don’t worry about anyone else; take care of yourself first.”  And then one day we look around and we don’t even know who we are; we are lost; and don’t know where to turn. 

The Psalmist tells us in Psalm 48 that God is our guide and that He will be with us forever.  God can see the way; God can see the big picture; God is that perfect guide that will direct our lives in such a way that we can experience life the way He intended.  Through Jesus Christ, we can hold onto the promise today that God knows the way and sent Jesus to us that we might have a guide that would take us to the promised land of an eternal relationship with this eternal God. 

May you hold onto this promise today; May you know that God can lead you through the forest of confusion and deliver you into the hope of His promise.   If you are lost today and headed in the wrong direction, may you know that God comes to us in Jesus to turn our lives around that we might experience true life in a relationship with Jesus Christ, who promises to be our guide forever.

Peace from Pastor P

www.wedesiremore.com; chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com

Its funny how we are born with so many characteristics that are unique to us that stay with us throughout our lives.  Cami is my middle child and right from the beginning she was a “live wire.”  I can remember laying in bed awake all night long pleading with God to let her go to sleep.  She was so stubborn; she would cry this screeching cry and then when we would pick her up she would stop but as soon as we would lay her down again she would begin crying.  I seriously contemplated high doses of infant Benadryl.  She is still a “live wire” and although she is a handful its probably the quality I love about her the most.  She’s going to change the world.

Now, our youngest, Lexi, is the opposite.  When she was born she was as “sweet” as she could be.  She continues to be this quiet, sweet child with a soft sincerity that makes my heart melt.  Its as if both of them are wired a certain way.  I’m sure you have your own stories of your children or your own life of these unique characteristics that make you who you are.

There is another characteristic that we have that we all share in common that connects us to each other.  We each have God’s presence that is actively working in our lives.  There is something inside of us that draws us to Jesus.  We are all made in the image of God and although sin tries to cover up that image, God, in Christ, is actively pursuing us to recover that image upon our lives.  Its as if we are born with this hope that we will respond to God’s grace in our lives and become the person God desires for us to be.  However, we are able to resist God’s grace in our lives and God loves us enough to let us live our whole lives ignoring this presence and even all the way to eternal separation.  God doesn’t make us recognize His presence in our lives and at the same time God’s grace is pursuing us trying to empower us to respond to this grace that we might come into relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Don’t forget today that you were created with a truth that will last forever.  Don’t forget that whether you know it or care to know it God’s presence is upon your life and  actively pursuing your life.  Remember that everyone you encounter today was created with the same grace and has the same presence actively pursuing their lives too.  Ask God to give you a chance to connect with Him today and to use you to connect someone else to what He is doing in their lives.  The truth that abides in you will be with you forever!  Thanks 2 John verse 2.

Peace,

Pastor P

Do you ever feel pressure in your life?  Do you ever need more hours in the day?  So often I find myself running wide open trying to find more time in the day.  In fact, I often explain my life as a constant sprint.  At times it gets so bad that I don’t realize it until the stress brings me to the breaking point and I realize that I am trying to do everything on my own and that is my biggest problem. I sprint because I’m trying to do it within my own power.  And the more I try to do it on my own the more I feel like I’m fishing the whole ocean and there is not one single fish willing to bite.

There is this story in the 21st chapter of the gospel of John of the disciples going out to fish after they think Jesus has been killed and remains in the grave.  They are out their fishing all night and they don’t catch a thing.  Jesus then appears and tells them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat.  They do and they can’t even pull in all the fish that are there.  They fish all night on their own and catch nothing; they make one cast through the guidance of Jesus and they catch so many fish they can’t haul in the net.  Jesus was able to do in one cast what they couldn’t do the whole stinkin’ night.

Yep, that’s my life!  I “fish” all night on my own and catch nothing and then through grace Jesus appears and says throw it on the other side and I am amazed at the catch of “fish.”

My prayer is for Jesus to come to my life in such a way today that I will fish on the other side of the boat.  I ask Jesus to forgive me for doing the fishing on my own and wasting valuable time trying to do it on my “own” instead of allowing Jesus to drive my life.  I don’t want to fish all night for fishing sake; I desire to catch enough fish that I can’t haul in the net; I desire for Jesus to tell me where to throw the net.

My hope for your life is that you will not fish on your own.  Instead, may you wait on Jesus to come along side you and tell you where you throw your net.  May the most important time of your day be the time you wait to listen to Jesus.  May you not get sucked in to thinking that fishing for fishing sake is ok.  May you not be deceived into thinking that fishing all day and not catching any fish is better then making one cast and catching more then you can haul.  May you realize that the most important use of your time today is not the sprint but the quiet time of sitting with a God that isn’t in the grave but is alive and loves you enough to tell you where to throw the net.

Keep the Faith; Never Lose Hope; Always Love

Pastor P.

There are a few words that I can’t stand.  There are a few words that are more repulsive to me then many “cuss” words.  One of those is “volunteer.”  As a follower of Jesus, I can’t stand this word; it invites satan to slip in my life and create a “I deserve something” mentality.

Let’s face it, when we volunteer for something or when we ask someone to volunteer it assumes that the “act” is going to be a pain or that we are asking the person to do something they should get paid for but we are too cheap to pay them so we ask them to give their time instead.  The result is we associate this word and the volunteer action with a negative feeling.  Yes, we do it because we are supposed to but when it comes down to getting in the car and heading over to our “volunteer place” we think in our minds, “man, I wish I didn’t have to go and do this.”  Then, all of a sudden I have created a mentality that “these people ought to be thankful I’m coming to do this for them.”

(Hold on a second, I’m getting ready to vomit…….”bluhhhhhhh”….ok, that’s better.)

As a follower of Jesus, this volunteer mentality makes me sick.  Jesus tells me in John 13:15 that I am to do what He has done for me.  Jesus washes the dirty, disgusting feet of the disciples and tells them (and me and you) that we should do the same.  Jesus isn’t “volunteering” His time; He’s “serving.”  Jesus doesn’t call me (or you) to be a “volunteer”; He calls me (and you) to be a servant.  Guess what, this is a privilege.  Serving is the divine invitation to follow our Master.  Being a servant is a opportunity to walk in the footsteps of our leader that came to serve us so we could now serve others.

Please, don’t insult the ways of Jesus today by “volunteering” your time or becoming a “volunteer.”  In fact, if you’re on the “volunteer” side of things, don’t even sign up; go and do something for yourself because its all about “you” anyways if this is your mentality.

However, Go and “serve” today; be a servant.  Take Jesus up on the awesome opportunity you have today to walk in His ways and serve.  Become a servant and experience the privilege of injecting God’s love into the lives of others.  Being a servant is an awesome opportunity to experience life.  My prayer is that you experience Life today.

Peace,

Pastor P (chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com; www.wedesiremore.com)

Why is it that we have such a hard time with the idea of a God who punishes us?  I don’t seem to have a problem with the idea of punishing my children when they have crossed a line.  In fact, that punishment is almost always to protect them, to prevent them from continuing on a path that could cause more harm to them or someone else.

Is there some magic age when I know longer need corrected when I am crossing a line that could cause harm to myself or someone else?  Do I get my voters registration card or have my first beer and say, “ok, I’ve now arrived, no need for correction and I can now see in all directions.”

The reality is, I punish my kids as an act of mercy (that’s the way it should work, I am ashamed to say that I am guilty of punishment out of anger too), I am able to see ahead the consequences to their action and I punish them because I don’t want them to continue down this road they cannot see is heading to great consequences.

Do you really believe for a second that you are able on your own to see in every direction that consequences to your own actions and make those corrections on your own?  Let me help you…..no you can’t!  It’s that simple; you can’t do it on your own.

I am so thankful that I am in a relationship with a God that can see in all directions.  I am more thankful that I am in a relationship with a God that loves me enough to have mercy on me through punishment.  In fact, if God doesn’t show me mercy through punishment I am going to end up screwing up my life and the lives of others.

The prophet Isaiah understood this truth.  In Isaiah 60:10, the prophet says, “for in my wrath I struck you down, but in my favor I have had mercy on you.”  In fact, you can’t have punishment without mercy and maybe you can’t have mercy without punishment.  Both work together by a God who loves us so much that His actions of punishment are a result of His favor He is pouring on us through mercy.

Never forget that God’s punishment is not out of anger (which is where we go wrong, so often our actions of punishment are fueled by anger……) but God’s punishment is rooted in a love that desires to pour out His favor on us through mercy that we might be an asset, and not a liability, to God’s mission in the world.

Peace,

Pastor P

(chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com; www.wedesiremore.com)

What does your Jesus look like?  If you had to draw a picture of Jesus based upon your understanding of what His actions are like in your life, what would He look like?

There are so many different pictures of Jesus within our culture how do we know what is an accurate picture.  Sadly, most of our pictures of Jesus seem to be contrary to who Jesus is and who He desires us to be and more of the same egocentric, iso-centric pictures of our culture.

The majority of churches in our culture spend their time communicating a message that God sent Jesus to “do” for us; that we are to “receive” from Jesus.  Jesus becomes nothing more then a AAA card that should make our lives more like the way we want them to be.  The message we most hear in our culture today is to be a Christian is to be a “receiver” of Jesus Christ.  We don’t explicitly say that but its what we most often communicate.  This is the message that puts bodies in seats and money in the offering; this is the message that looks exactly like our culture and world.

This is the message that 2 Peter 2:21 is warning us against.  In fact, this message (to be receivers) is like a “dog turning back to its own vomit.”  2 Peter warns us that it would be better never to have heard the message of Jesus then to hear the message and turn it into a message where we are “receivers” of Jesus.

On the contrary, Jesus calls us to be “followers of Him” not “receivers of Him.”  Does your picture of Jesus show a Jesus that serves you or a Jesus that is using you as a tool to serve the world.  To be a follower of Jesus means to be an instrument (through Grace) that Jesus uses to serve the world.  That’s what it means to be a disciple; I am a creation that Jesus has where He serves the world through me.  It has nothing to do with my life being easier, happier, more comfortable, etc.  It has to do with being a tool Jesus uses to serve the world He came to save.

Jesus came into the world, died on the cross, and rose from the dead not that you could become a receiver of Him but so you could become a follower of Him and be a part of God’s mission and vision in the world.  Any other message is not the message of Jesus and it would be better for you not to hear the message at all then to hear a message that Jesus came so you could be a receiver.

Frankly, I don’t want you to be like a dog that licks its own vomit.  I desire for you to be a follower of Jesus; to be a tool of the living God that Jesus uses to serve the world that He came to save.

For it would have better for them never to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them.

Peace,

Pastor P

chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com; www.wedesiremore.com