Actual vs. Budgeted Christianity

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     In business we have certain lingo to describe our sales and our hours scheduled. This is Actual vs. Budgeted. I'll break it down a little bit for you.


     If I have a schedule of 40 hours a week, that is what I am "budgeted" to work. In other words, I am projected to work for this amount of hours this week. If I end up working 37 hours, that is my "actual" hours worked. Make sense?


     God has budgeted us a certain lifestyle in His word. We are called to spread the word in the Great Commission to pretty much live a life like Jesus in all of our ways. We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

     Good news is that in retail, if we do not follow budget then we are not fired, but maybe we are gotten on to, like a slap on the wrist. If we go under hours that is a benefit because that saves the company money, but if you go over budgeted hours then someone is getting overtime and then that costs the company more money to pay for that employee.

     If we live up to the guidelines that God laid out for us in His word then that is great and we will live life more abundantly and filled with joy and blessings because we follow His word. If we fall short and are still saved by His grace and a follower of Jesus and only in that way, we are not "fire"d but instead we live life a little less blessed and receive a little slap on the wrist from God (The Holy Spirit) disguised as a conviction of the heart. That means that we feel guilty, as a good adjective, for going against His word and commandments.

    God wants us to live by budget. He wants us to thrive in life and live according to His word and guidelines laid out so simply for us in the Bible.

God budgeted a life for us that is summed up very well in this verse:

     "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. -1 Thessalonians 5: 16-22

     So, walk in freedom and abundance living in the life God budgeted out for you in His word. It is a difficult life, but a blessed life and highly favored in the eyes of your Savior. 

Defining Success: God's Way

Success means many things to many people. I'm sure hundreds of books sit on a plethora of shelves all housing scores of information all defining what it means to be successful. I will not take the time to address the role of gender and give my definition of success for the man and for the woman, although it has a lot to do with family, I will rather elaborate on success in general. 

I'll start with a quote from a book I'm reading called "The Circle Maker", and it reads as follows:

"You need to circle the goals God wants you to go after, the promises God wants you to claim, and the dreams God wants you to pursue."

In other words as the book also suggests, success is not circumstantial because it is less about "doing" God's will and more about "being" God's will.  

People get high and mighty over what they want to achieve in life. Your job ultimately determines your success, or maybe your money. Whatever it is, most of the time there's a blank to fill in and an overwhelming percent of the time it is something tangible. Let me give you an alternative: 

Try filling in the blank of what defines success with something intangible.

Most of my life and even now I'm in a battle, as are most of you out there, and if you're not you may be in denial, about what path I want to go on in life and if that direction is right for me. There's a problem with that. I'm defining success in terms of something tangible. Will my job be right? That's tangible. Will my place of location be right? That's tangible. Will I choose the right house? That's tangible. Why can't we define success in a different way?

Here comes the part where I tell you what I believe and following this I'll give you a challenge. I believe success is defined by your character and respect in life. Both of my grandfathers hold weight as respectable men in business and both of my grandmothers as amazing supporting women in the home. Are either of those roles something outstanding and highly achievable positions by people in America? Maybe so, but most likely not. Success for them was defined by their character! The respect held for them by everyone around them, family or not, determined their success. They only cared about being famous in their own homes, and to them that was their greatest fortune ( that last line paraphrased from The Circle Maker). 

Let your success be defined by how you raise your children, how you treat others, how you are respected, the reflection of your character and MOST importantly for us believers, how you are BEING God's will and not just doing it. Do not be held captive to the motions of just church alone, or life in general, but rather be the will of God in your life. Show others Jesus wherever you're at. Show others Jesus in whatever job you're meant to be in, carrying out that specific potential God placed on your life. 

Now for the challenge. After reading this and reflecting on your own, grab a piece of paper and pen, or your Notes app, and write this question:

How do I define success?

Answer that honestly and compare that to God's definition which is the way you show the world Him. Compare your own personal acts of justice and the respect your family, peers and everyone who comes in contact with you in whatever area of life you're in, have on you. See how that compares and change anything tangible to things meaningful and also Godly. 

Having A Wholly Committed Heart

"It remains to be seen what God will do with a man who gives himself up wholly to Him." - Henry Varley

     We keep our hearts to ourselves don't we? My heart is something I hold dear and because of my past I want to keep it very private, and maybe even put up a wall to others, and sometimes even Christ. I sometimes like to keep my own heart locked up in a cage only accessible to me. But as Christians I don't think we are meant to keep our hearts all locked up only accessible by us. 

     We are built for community. We were made for each other. When we go through life and encounter certain situations, we aren't meant to go through them alone. We are meant to find those we trust, fellow Christians, those true friends that add the light of Christ to our lives and share our hearts with them. We make them our accountability partner if we have to. I know about being burned. Sharing your hearts with those that betray them isn't fun. But we aren't meant for that. We aren't meant to keep everything in our lives caged up only accessible by our own selves. Keeping our hearts caged up keeps us from being completely whole with God because it makes us less willing to give up our own will and take on His. That leads me to my next point. 

     As Christians, God owns our hearts. It is Him who has come and made a home in you, by sending His Spirit. So the last thing God wants is for you to keep your heart, now housing His Spirit, locked up only to yourself and to hide your feelings and needs from God. Just like your heart is built for communion and fellowship with others, those accountability buddies that you highly respect and trust, God is the holder of your heart so holding things back from Him in your own mind is naive for your own self, and for the fact that He knows your needs already. Hiding things from God only hurts you because He knows all things even when you're trying to be private and sneaky. 

Share your heart with your friends, those true Christians you look up to or those you use as accountability buddies. This will begin to opening up your heart to be fully committed to The Lord because holding it all in only restricts your spiritual growth and keeps it all in your hands, which is a place it isn't meant to be. 

2 Chronicles 16:9 

"The eyes of The Lord range throughout the  earth to sterf then those whose hearts are fully committed to him."

Not Safe Friday

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     What does today mean? Some take it for granted. Some use it as a holiday. Some though, use it as a pinnacle part of their faith story. A God-man sent to Earth to fulfill prophecies, save the sinner, and to die on this day for all of us. I want to be clear. This day is named Good Friday for a reason and not Safe Friday for many more reasons. Here are a few but I could continue.



Following Jesus isn't safe, but it is good.

"Counting all sufferings as joy", as Paul said, isn't safe but it is good.

Leading others to Christ isn't safe, but it is good.

Fulfilling the Great Commission isn't safe, but it is good. 

     As it was said by Mr. Beaver referring to Aslan the lion in C.S. Lewis's acclaimed novel, God is not safe, but He is good. We live our lives bound by this safety net because it's not one that has us trapped, but instead we choose to stay bound in it ourselves. We want to make sure our lifestyles exhibit the factor of safety over goodness. Sometimes safety means disregarding what is good morally. You may make a decision for your own comfort that may not glorify God, like choosing not to witness to that struggling coworker in hopes to make sure you stay in your safety of your own comfort zone.

     Today in history did not represent safety. This day surely wasn't safe for Christ and did not ensure a life of safety for the rest of the world who would choose to follow Him. This life of Christ reflected what was morally good but not comfortable for humans. He knew that though. He knew that once this was done there would be those that choose the comfort and safety of the world over the solid goodness of Christ. Operating under the love of Christ, and spreading that, institutes a life of moral goodness. You will struggle, you will fall short, you will lose many earthly battles and if you are willing to spread the Word to all nations, or just all of your neighborhood, then your safety could be in jeopardy while still your morality will reflect God's goodness. 

     I'm not suggesting us to go out there and use bad judgement in regards to our own physical safety, but we want to use a type of adventurous judgement that will be rewarded on our final day of Judgement. 

     We want to choose the good life over the safe life.

     An example I've adopted recently is the idea of adventures. Adventures thrill me and I am stoked to fill my life with them. An adventure always represents a risk, partly one of our own safety. Being comfortable is not a common factor on an adventure, and sometimes our safety isn't either. That being said, adventures can bring about some of the best life lessons, some of the closest encounters with God, and some of the best stories to share with others. Do not live your life in a bubble safety net being afraid to spread the Word in hopes that your own safety of your ego be upheld. Humble yourself and bring your soul to a point where you are perfectly fine with living a life of goodness for Christ no matter what that may cost you. Because remember on this Good Friday, it cost Him everything to bring about a life of goodness in Him for us. 

The God-Saving Us Story.

     Guys, check this out. There came a time when God was in heaven and looking down on His creation. He saw the line of human thought and behavior now tainted by  a "broken beyond repair" sort of sin. There was no more animosity, no more passion, and while chaos and turmoil ran wild you know what He decided to do? When man decided to substitute himself for God, which is a sum definition of sin, God substituted himself for man. Let that sink in. To save humanity, He made Himself the perfect by-product of the alter ego of humanity at the time which was a perfect man. A living, breathing, full functioning "hey look at what I made you to be" now here on earth. A man-God radiating love, passion and a heart boundless and free. God came to reset the timeline, to flip the switch from humanity needing saving producing a savior (boom here's God-man) to now God-man has arisen and isn't here and instead we are now left with a lesson to be learned and followed. A conclusion and end-story made from a God who substituted Himself for man while we were substituting ourselves for Him. So what do we do with this unfathomable act of love and kindness? We put ourselves higher on pedestals. We strive to become the next God-man. We build idols (pop culture, money, success, fame, what have you) and on a daily basis substitute ourselves for God. So since we know rationally that's imaginary, we can't be God, we now have a problem. There will be no more God-man to walk around and save our sinful nation. It is up to plain man. It is up to the sinful humans to lead OTHER sinful humans to the now arisen God-man. Am I the only one blown away by this? But is this goal unreachable? No, but true answer: Daily Double. God knows us (our doubts, conditional love, and our unwilling nature to lead people to Him) AND His love beats out ours. His love is present for us continually, and no we don't understand it because our love is conditional, having to fit certain standards before we love, but His isn't. So we have a task, to tap into this unconditional love and lead others by example to knowing the perfect God-man Jesus, a Great Commission as He calls it, and it's a goal. It's this. To have men lead other men away from God-substitution and into God-permanence. That just means to stop putting God where you want Him when you want Him and sinning the rest of the time by substituting yourself as God, and to make Him where He wants Him all the time He wants Him there permanently. Got that? Thus making Him no longer needed for substitution when you are practicing God-permanence. If we do that, people can change people when they are in a state of God-permanence. You can lead people to Christ when you are not trying to BE Christ but to behave like Him. Love like Him. Teach like Him. Lead like Him. That is what makes God's heart smile and puts true Christians back into the soul-saving, discipleship making business. So here's the scene. There's a God in heaven. A God-man named Jesus in heaven. And a Holy Spirit here in us. That is what leads us to practice this God permanence and lead others to Christ through this Spirit of love and kindness inside of us. Through that we can save humanity again. Because man saving man is pointless and impossible without some sort of divine aid. That Spirit is in us, or available to us if you are not already aware of it, and we have a goal now. One set by the God-man. So let's do it. How will you practice God-permanence tomorrow?

From Beggars to Disciples

(Pic credit: http://theprosperityproject.blogspot.com/2011/02/beggars-rags.html)

    So as I was doing some random reading in Acts, I came across just a little story/scenario at the beginning of Chapter 3 about when Peter healed a beggar in the name of Jesus. Here is the real text:


"Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock prayer service. 2 As they approached the Temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day he was put beside the Temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from the people going into the Temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money.

4 Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. 6 But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene,[a] get up and[b] walk!”

7 Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened. 8 He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk! Then, walking, leaping, and praising God, he went into the Temple with them.

9 All the people saw him walking and heard him praising God. 10 When they realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at the Beautiful Gate, they were absolutely astounded! 11 They all rushed out in amazement to Solomon’s Colonnade, where the man was holding tightly to Peter and John."

    Okay so this is not one of those stories that does not require that much deep interpretation but instead a little shift of perspective. After you read the original text, read it below as it relates to you and me now. I'm replacing the word beggar and his description to one that better fits you and me:

     I saw Peter and John approaching the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock prayer service. As they approached the Temple, I was being carried in. Each day I was put beside the Temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so I could beg from the people going into the Temple.  When I saw Peter and John about to enter, I asked them for some money.

      Peter and John looked at me intently, and Peter said to me, “Look at us!” I looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”

     Then Peter took me by the right hand and helped me up. And as he did, my feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened.  I jumped up, stood on my feet, and began to walk! Then, walking, leaping, and praising God, I went into the Temple with them.

     All the people saw me walking and heard me praising God. When they realized I was the lame beggar they had seen so often at the Beautiful Gate, they were absolutely astounded! They all rushed out in amazement to Solomon’s Colonnade, where I was holding tightly to Peter and John.

     So guys, this is us. We are just like that beggar. We oftentimes are spiritually lame just as this beggar is physically lame. We have to have some sort of collision with people of God and then encounter the Spirit of God to be able to walk again. We sit outside of God's house all the time, afraid to make the next crazy move in fear that it will hurt our dignity somehow. So instead we play it safe outside of His house and beg for some sort of compensation. Maybe not more money but either some sort of sign or works to get us back to life again, to heal our downtrodden spirits. We start losing faith in God and what He can do so we slowly leave the temple, open the gate and proceed to take our seat outside the gate on the ground and hope someone of God can come around to heal our brokenness so we can enter again.

    But the beggar is better off than we are in this case! When Peter and John come forth to heal him by the power of God, the beggar rejoices and then enters the temple. But does the beggar return to his post to become sick again, low in spirit and faith? Absolutely not! The beggar rejoices and praises God even "singing" and "leaping"! After that he "[held] tightly to Peter and John".

     That is the mirror image of what God wants. When God found us we were lame and sitting outside of His kingdom begging for mercy, grace, forgiveness and healing from our inner human illnesses. Then here comes God walking up and demands us to "get up and walk" and this is where the road either goes His way or ours. We either say, "You know what God, go ahead in, I'm fine right here today thank you", or we actually get up and follow Him in. Say we do that and follow Him in and upon doing that we are in with God at this point. We forget that when He holds us He doesn't let go but what do some of us do? We slowly fade and stray away and go hang out at the punch bowl. Then before we know it we open up the doors to His house, we exit and go sit back outside the gates again and begin to beg and plead for someone other than the Savior inside to heal us from our brokenness. So out walks Jesus and pulls us back in, and we just go right back outside and sit again and again. If I were God, I wouldn't have patience for myself and countless other Christians that do that. But thank goodness I am not the Judge. God has grace. The beautiful thing is that no matter how many times we go back outside he leaves His kingdom to come bring us back in continually, picks us up off our feet, and walks us back inside knowing we will be right back out there again. He doesn't mind though because he loves us lame, sick hearted humans. He just knows that we fail and need His hand guiding us back in a whole lot and that's what His grace does for us and that is why the love of Jesus is so beautiful. No matter how many times we go sit back outside the beautiful gate of His heart He always walks us right back into His presence.

     So all we have to do is to learn how to stay inside longer. We have to learn the unfailing love of Christ. We have to do more of the "walking, leaping and praising" and less of the running back outside. We have to realize that His love never fails and that even if we feel like we failed Him and belong outside of that gate we actually always belong inside of His temple with Him because we are no longer lame but instead new creations through Him. It isn't always up to Him though. We may be healed but we are still healed beggars in our minds. We have to not only heal our hearts and receive Jesus but heal our minds to shift from the mindset of the beggar, to the mindset of John and Peter. Because being healed is great, and I will always leap, sing and praise God but we have a responsibility now. There are others sitting outside of that gate and its up to us to go let them in. Beggars can only let beggars in before they run back outside. We have to be the disciples that let the beggars in and continually show them Christ and His life and then turn those beggars into disciples until there isn't anyone else left outside of the gate. It is the Great Commission and our calling so now that you are no longer beggars but disciples if saved, who will you let in the gate to experience God's love today?

Presenting the Gospel in a Secular World- Pt. 1 "Influx of New Age"

(Pic Credit: Google Image Search)

     "We must come to terms with the impact of secularism. How does the Gospel need to be presented in changing demographics & a changing society?" -Ravi Zacharias

     First of all I cannot believe my last blog post was all the way back on July 8th! That is crazy! I guess moving, getting full time job status and just life hitting full force is enough to throw one off track a little bit until adjustments are made. I figured since I haven't been on here in a while I would come back strong. I want to come back swinging with a new series titled "Presenting the Gospel in a Secular World" because I think this may be one of the most important topics that we can deal with. The main theme here is this: What can I do with my own talents and abilities to spread the gospel in a world turning more towards secularism, including major philosophical shifts, and back to God and the love of Jesus? This is only part one of an "I don't know how many" series. We will see. These posts will include pop culture, emerging ideas, new and revamped philosophies and more. So let's begin shall we?

     Our society is turning more and more secular as most of you know. Culture and even new ideas are taking over morality and steering us away from the origin of our values and trying to present a new way to view them hoping to somehow create a new truth we can choose to live by until another one comes around that smells better.  From pop culture to "new age" philosophies something arises daily to take our focus off of our morality and inner longing for a connection with a God. I will tackle the influx of "New Age" philosophy in this first blog post. It will have holes I am sure but I will try my best. I mentioned it a couple lines ago and that is this new influx of philosophy called "New Age". I am not even sure how to categorize it but it includes many things that we are familiar with but takes a new spin on them. Things like the moon, the stars, "spirituality", lunar phases, solar equinoxes, astrology and the interconnectivity of our mind, body and spirit. I know Wikipedia is a little flawed but I think this is a pretty good description as to what New Age is.

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational psychology,holistic health, parapsychology, consciousness research and quantum physics".^[2] The term New Age refers to the coming astrological Age of Aquarius.^[1]

The New Age aims to create "a spirituality without borders or confining dogmas" that is inclusive and pluralistic.^[3] It holds to "a holistic worldview",^[4]emphasizing that the Mind, Body, and Spirit are interrelated^[1] and that there is a form of monism and unity throughout the universe.^[5] It attempts to create "a worldview that includes both science and spirituality"^[6] and embraces a number of forms of mainstream science as well as other forms of science that are considered fringe.

     So this idea is not very "new age" either. It was developed in the 1900's but I think this idea goes back much further. I would even say perhaps Greek and Roman mythology with roots in Paganism. People worshipped gods and goddesses of the moon, sun, etc. and I think this is a spin off of that. I think this philosophy is so enticing because people talk about it a lot. Yep I think it is an simple as that. I think a whole lot of modern art contributes to its discussion along with the longing for answers (which is what most new philosophies are born out of). I think the MOST important line in the Wiki description is this: "It attempts to create 'a worldview that includes both science and spirituality'". I think that sums it up. New Age to me really just focuses on how the soul and the universe are somehow connected and in that connection we are supposed to find some sort of comfort. I also always thought it included some pretty fringe philosophies as well. I wouldn't even hesitate to say a lot of origins of New Age come straight from pagan philosophy and ideas, fortune tellers, voodoo rituals and other things of sorts. A lot of "New Age" believers do not even know what they believe and they spend their whole lives "searching" for some sort of connection and some sort of answer that really has been right in front of them the whole time. I think here-in lies the problem.

     Why must we turn to the philosophy of "New Age"? Why worship the moon, space, the sun, or even search for a connection between us and the universe? I think this all goes back to the ultimate battle between good and evil, Lucifer and Christ. You really have two camps in the world today right now. One side consists of atheists, pantheists, agnostics, tolerant individuals, "new age"ers, those who claim to just be "spiritual" and the sorts. The other side is monotheistic, mainly consisting of Christians with a few riding in the gray, and if one is in the gray then you really belong to the former camp, maybe the "tolerants". Personally I think that Christ is enough for people, always has been, and that the demonstration of the biblical Jesus is the answer. So what happens when people do not think it is the answer and search for something else? What happens when people are not just satisfied with enough being enough and the actual truth? You get ideas just like "New Age" theology that's what. There is no concrete belief system in "New Age" ideas. You pull lots of things from different outlets and really just get some jumbled pot pie of ideas you constitute as your "spirituality". Do you realize that believing in multiple things doesn't make you right, or any more the smarter? You can say "yeah I know about Jesus but I need to do some more 'soul searching'". Be careful in which way you go with that. Do not start turning to worship those things like art, the moon, the sun, science, horoscopes and those sorts because remember those things (besides horoscopes because I don't think that came from above at all) all have a Creator. Be careful not to worship the "creation" but instead the "Creator" that made them. Live to not succumb to the new idea of "New Age" just because more people write books on this topic, which in fact, actually makes sense because when you do not know what you believe there tends to be more opinions on something abstract and unanswerable than something like Christianity. There are more books on "New Age" right now than Christianity I bet you and that is only because you can only present the truth so many ways to try and reach out to people but you can present abstractness in multiple ways because it has no definite answer. So, do some research, LISTEN to the link below on this subject and figure out how you can overcome this new emerging ideas and relocate your roots in the love of Christ which is real and concrete, and not some abstract almost pagan origin philosophies. Remember, God created your spirit and science, so why worship them when you can worship their Creator?

     So how do we present the gospel to the "New Age"ers? I think the best way is not to preach to them just yet. Demonstrate how living a concrete, coherent lifestyle in the truth actually looks like. Many people turn to new ideas because they see how most Christians act with what they claim is the "ultimate" truth and the lifestyle they actually live contradicts that truth and their Christ. So we must mirror the behavior of Christ to them, buy books and CD's to give them, most are intelligent types and will be open to reading new ideas on Christianity and books I believe. Learn to educate yourself on these ideas of theirs and how to present God in a way that encompasses ALL things including the soul, science and the like in order to present the truth in a way they can relate to and grab a hold of. The days of handing out tracts are pretty much over. Most go straight to the garbage can and then they pick up their book by Rhonda Byrne titled "The Secret" and search for answers there. Educate yourself to show yourself able to lead people by example of what you believe and the truth that is in your heart. Do not jump down people's throats because that doesn't change people, that only pushes them away. Lead a life similar to that of Christ and you will likely change more minds that way.

LISTEN to this!!!
http://www.rzim.org/just-thinking-broadcasts/the-new-age-part-1-of-4/