Archive for God
“When your son asks…” Part 4: How to answer your children’s questions
Posted by: | CommentsIn your endeavor to answer children’s questions, it is important to keep a few things in mind:
Seek to build within your child a Biblical worldview, that is, a Biblical filter for seeing the world. We all have certain lenses by which see all of life through. For the Christian, these underlying assumptions about the world should increasingly conform to the truths of Scripture. As parents, you play a vital role in shaping those assumptions for children, and therefore in answering questions, as in all conversation and instruction with your child, you must consciously strive to help children and teens see the world through the truth contained in God’s word. The Bible is your ultimate authority in instructing your children.
Welcome the questions! Your child’s inquisitiveness is a gift from God and a vital part of their learning and discovery process. However, if you sense that they are asking questions to challenge your authority or avoid obedience, deal with this appropriately. For example, if a simple explanation to a “why” concerning a request does not satisfy a child, say to your child, “First, do what I’ve asked, then I’ll answer any questions you have about it.” This shows your child the importance of obedience, as well as your interest in answering any legitimate questions. A similar answer can be given if the questions come at times which it you are unable to answer. Return to these questions later for further instruction. The time you spend addressing your child’s curiosities, not only teaches them about the world in which they live, but also about how much you love and care for them.
If you don’t know the answer, find it out! Not only should you be honest when you don’t know the answer to your child’s question, but you can also use this as a time to show your child where to turn for answers. Is it a question whose answer can be found in Scripture? Open your Bible, consult a Bible dictionary, or call your pastor or trusted Christian friend for help discovering the appropriate passage. Is it a question about how something works? Check out a book from the library, find a reliable website with information, or call a friend knowledgeable in this area. By so doing, you model to your child the importance of life-long learning as well as share a fun and meaningful learning experience with them.
For more on answering children’s questions, check out the other “When your son asks…” posts:
Part 1: Why Should I Answer Why?, Part 2: The Healthy Lifestyle, Part 3: Death & Tragedy
Cultivating a Heart for Love
Posted by: | CommentsJohn 14:15-21 teaches that if you love God you will keep his commandments. We need to be careful about assuming that obedience equals love. The passage does not explicitly say that simple obedience is the same as love for God. The Pharisees were insanely legalistic about adherence to the law and keeping God’s commandments, yet it is obvious that they did not love God. How do we know this? Because when God showed up and said, “Howdy!” they executed Him on a wooden cross. We need to be very careful in understanding the relationship between love and obedience.
It is true that obedience is the result of a heart that loves God. If you love God you will keep His commandments. But obedience is not the same as love. So how do we cultivate a heart that loves God? Because if we can find out how to cultivate a genuine love for God then obedience will be easy. I am persuaded that 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 gives us instruction on how to begin cultivating our heart for a genuine experiencing and expressing of love both to God and our fellow man.
“When your son asks…” Part 3: Death and Tragedy
Posted by: | CommentsToday I’d like to tackle a tough question, actually a question not just asked by kiddos, but one that many adults struggle with as well—death. When we experience death—be it of a family member, friend, or even beloved pet—or when we see deadly disasters, such as the recent earthquake in Haiti, we are often left with an unsettled “why” question. Perhaps more than any other topic, parents are unsure how to answer these tough questions from their children. At times it may seem easier to give simple answers such as “they’re in a better place” or “it was just their time,” or perhaps avoid the topic all together: My grandparents used to tell a humorous story about my mom as a child and her pet goldfish. Every day when she got home from school, my mom would run to check on her goldfish and feed it. One day while she was at school, the goldfish died. In an effort to avoid heartache, my grandma sent my grandpa to the store to buy a new one, hoping my mom wouldn’t notice the difference. The only problem—the goldfish he brought back was much larger. They put it in the tank and when my mom got home, she ran to check on the goldfish. Fearing her reaction and the ensuing conversation, my grandma soon heard her daughter exclaim: “Momma! Momma! My fish grew today!”
Perhaps you’ve been tempted to spare your child heartache through similar means. But the reality is, death is unavoidable and each encounter with it provides an opportunity to learn, grow, and place faith in our all-loving, all-powerful, Father.
In understanding the answer to this question, we return once again to the three-part story of God’s creation, man’s sin, and God’s redemption.
When God first created the world, it was good, actually He called it, “very good” (Genesis 1:31). There was no death or decay. Violence, disasters, and heartache were unknown to the world. Man experienced perfect fellowship with their Creator. However, in man’s deliberate rejection of the Creator, sin entered the world. This sin changed everything. As God said, “in the day you eat of, you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17), and thusly death entered the world.
This death is two-fold: a spiritual separation from the Creator and physical death (which also brings with it aging and illness). A few weeks ago at the Oatway Children’s Life Group, we learned about the devastating effects of sin, making a “Death came through sin” collage which included pictures of people, places, and animals demonstrating some of the effects of sin. Pictures included dangerous animals, buildings destroyed by disaster, people fighting, dead plants, families plagued by famine, and signs of war and pollution—all of which were not a part of God’s design for Earth but brought on through our sin.
When facing the issue of death in your family, it is important to explain to children that this is not how God intended the world to be. As a loving God, His plan was for us to experience paradise—not pain and suffering. Those came into the picture when we rebelled against His created order. Children (and us adults too!) need to understand God’s love in times of tragedy. Explaining the underlying reason for death and heartache can be a helpful first step in building trust amidst sorrow.
And it doesn’t simply in there. As Paul says, “But thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15). Mankind is not left in a cycle of heartache as consequence for our sin. Although we fully deserve to experience death and separation from the source of life, God provided a solution. He sent His son, Jesus, to take on our sins through death on the cross and then conquer death through His resurrection. Because of this sacrifice, we can have our sins forgiven and enjoy a reversal of its effects.
Yes, we will still experience pain on Earth, but we have the promise of something more. We have the opportunity to have a relationship with Him right now. We also have the promise that through accepting this gift, we will be with Him for eternity (Luke 23:43). And one day, He will recreate the Heavens and Earth, restoring it to its original state of perfection; we will have new bodies, ones not subject to death, pain, or sorrow.
Explaining this hope to children can provide comfort in the face of death or fear of their own death.
The subject of death does not need to by shied away from and may be a topic to consider discussing with your child before faced with it personally, as it provides a great opportunity for you to speak openly and honestly with your child, helping them to see God’s bigger picture, including His love and mercy. Explore the Scriptures with your child, discovering His promises about Heaven. A book I highly recommend on the subject is “Heaven for Kids” by Randy Alcorn (the adult version is fantastic as well). In this book, Randy Alcorn builds hope and anticipation through understanding the realities of an eternity with our Creator, something that we all need a good reminder of!
Christmas: Hold Your Life Cheap
Posted by: | Comments“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
I want you to give yourself and everything you have –give it all away for the sake of the Gospel this Christmas season and every day of your life thereafter. I want you to completely surrender your fortunes, families, and lives this Holiday season for the sake of God. Give Him everything. Give Him –EVERYTHING! Did I just say ‘families?’ Yes- give Him your kids! Did I just ask you to lay down your life? Uh-huh -I want this Holiday season to be remembered as the year you committed a lifestyle suicide! Am I talking about that vacation fund you’ve been saving for three years to go to Italy? Yes. Am I talking about that new big screen TV you were hoping for? Yes. Am I talking about your entire lifestyle and the basic way you even budget your money? Absolutely. Am I referring to a complete reorientation of your life’s principles and priorities? Yup, and then some. Am I about to waffle at this point and indicate that it’s okay to have lavish vacations and big screen TVs as long as you ‘go to church and love Jesus’? No way! I’m being dead serious. Why do I make such a bold request? Because icy hearts are warmed by sacrificial generosity and loving giving. It is possible to excite a humble joyful heart that will turn to embrace the Father with love, and then turn to thank you as a brother or sister -if you are willing to give with a sacrificial generosity and loving heart. So know this: I’m about to ask you to give your life away. I want you to consider your life as cheap and easy to give to others. But before I make my request let me remind you about the reason for the season as I was reminded of it a few years ago in a Hospital ER:
Christmas is really about a Painful Execution as God’s Gift to You under the Christmas Tree
I was startled from my revere by the blood curdling groaning and gasping of a man in extreme agony. I had driven my brother to the E.R. to get stitches in his scalp (that’s another story). As I was sitting bored in the waiting room glancing reluctantly at the bad selection of reading material and thinking about my high school finals that would take place the next week, an ambulance pulled up and harried paramedics were wheeling the gurney through the sliding doors directly into trauma care. It was a graphic site to behold: the man was strapped to the gurney laying on his left side with a four foot steel rod pierced through the right side of his body. His right arm, twisted behind him, was also impaled on the sharpened metal. As I stared transfixed, a lady next to me whispered, “It must have been an industrial accident.” They wheeled past quickly and in an instant he was gone. The horrible image lingered.
Because it was the Christmas season and I had recently renewed my relationship and committed to walking afresh with God a few weeks prior, I couldn’t help but start imagining the horror of the cross in that ER waiting room. It was an amazing time of worship for me in that waiting room. Have you ever taken time to try and grasp the horror of Calvary? Have you ever lingered on the hill of Golgotha?
Can you smell the blood and the rancid odor of vomit? Can you hear groaning and crying? Can you hear laughter and mocking? Try to hear the sounds of the crucifixion. The nails would have been heavy and large, far heavier and larger than nails that are used in construction today. There may not have been a sharpened point at the tip of the nail. Do you hear the grunting of the soldier as the hammer swung home to the loud report of the nail’s ringing? Can you hear the squishing sounds of tissue tearing and blood squirting across an open palm? I thought of the man that had just wheeled past on the gurney. Lord, have mercy…
Can you imagine the rough grain of wood and bark? The idea of wood splinters digging deep into my backside always gives me pause… but only for a moment. Splinters were probably the least of His agonies as the flesh and muscle of his back was flayed from his body, spine, and ribs by the cat-tail whip-beating that He endured previously. Lord, have mercy…
My hand touched my brow as I tried to imagine the scraping of thorns into my head. I remembered my brother who was having stitches sewn into his head in the room next door. With Jesus they certainly didn’t gently place the razor-barbed thorns on his head. They would have lassoed that wreath of thorns around the back of his noggin and forcibly jerked them down his face. Perhaps they gave the thorns a quick clockwise yank rotating them deeper into His scalp to better secure them so they wouldn’t fall off as He gasped for breath on the cross. Lord, have mercy…
Poisonous carbon dioxide would trap in His lungs by the nature of the position in which He was suspended. The build of this poisonous gas in his lungs would result in a pounding migraine headache -if He didn’t have them already from the lack of sleep, the thorns driven into His skull, the loss of blood from the beatings, and the beard pulling that took place through the long night. As the intensity of the migraine grew, He would have been very sensitive to light and sounds. Ultimately, He would be choking to death. He must alleviate the choking. Heaving with all His might He would try to pull Himself up supporting His body weight on the hook of the nails driven into His hands and feet… just so He could exhale and take a fresh breath of air. The nails would pull on his nerve endings and flesh sending sharp stabbing pains up his arms and legs, causing the muscles in His neck to tense, exploding neurological sensory impulses into his skull as a terrible pain that would be felt just behind His eyes.
The tension in His neck would produce lactic acid in His muscles and cause Him to stiffen. It would have been hard and painful to swing His head around from side to side… Crows would have circled overhead surveying the situation, waiting until their victim was weak enough, then they would swoop in for an easy meal beginning with the softest tissues, probably the eyes.
It really didn’t matter what He did. He could hang helplessly and allow poison to build in His lungs resulting in choking, throbbing body aches, shooting pains in his arms and legs, migraine pain, and tension. Or He could pull up and exhale, an action resulting in exploding migraine pain and wracked torture sensations all over His body. What lovely options He had to choose from. Lord, have mercy…
Of course, He did have options. He did have a choice. He chose the nails. He chose the thorns. He chose the beatings. He chose the cross. He chose to be executed. He was rightfully executed. When I say rightfully, I don’t mean that He did anything wrong to deserve execution. I say rightfully because He endured the just punishment of rebellion and endured the legal sentence necessary for sin. He paid the price so that all those who are truly guilty are now set free. Lord, have mercy…
And He did. He had mercy on me and you. God’s gift to us under the Christmas tree was a Painful Execution just waiting to happen. This is the meaning of Christmas. A man died for you. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! What makes Christmas so merry?
Merry Christmas… Christ’s divine omniscience was aware of all of this suffering and agony from birth. His birth. The moment that a baby cried out in a cold and dark manger is that moment that we all celebrate as we wish each other a Merry Christmas. As we think about a baby in a manger, we probably don’t stop to consider the God-child living with a powerful God-ordained destiny. As the child grew into the stature of an adult man, the God side of Him would already know while the man side of Him would shudder in anticipation. The God-Man would spend His entire human life looking forward to this cataclysmic moment. That was why He was born. God could send any number of prophets to teach us the things that Christ taught us. God could have used any number of people to work the miracles that Jesus worked. But only His Son could die for us. Only God could make us right with Him. Being right with God means we now get to truly live like never before.
Christmas is about life and living. We were all dead, but now we get to live! Now we are called back from the grave. As I ponder the life of Christ, I’ve concluded that living is giving. To truly live is to freely give. Free giving is true living.
What does it mean to Give?
With these thoughts always on the horizon Jesus would teach some amazing truths: love your enemy, love your neighbor as yourself, turn the other cheek, forgive as you have been freely forgiven, glorify your Father in Heaven.
He also taught this: give. He said specifically, “Give, and it will be given back to you.” In order to clarify Himself, He further elaborated: “For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” Many today twist this teaching into an idea of wealth and prosperity in this lifetime. The Messiah who gave us this teaching never knew wealth and prosperity. He taught the virtue of sacrificial giving as He approached a horrible tortured death –not a luxurious lifestyle.
And that’s the meaning of Christmas and life: giving. When we understood what He gave for us it is hard to justify our stingy hearts before Him. We are most like Him when we are giving. We are most like Him when we are generous. We are most like Him when we voluntarily and sacrificially give ourselves away for the sake of the Gospel. It is hard to be a Christian if you do not desire to give. It is impossible to know Christ and to join with Him as His disciple if you are not willing to sacrifice. To be a Christian means that based on God’s gift of forgiveness and redemption you are also willing to freely give: willing to grant forgivness, willing to freely offer grace, willing to be kind, willing to be friendly, willing to turn the other cheek, and willing to give of our meager possessions.
Here’s the truth: giving shows love, and when giving is done sacrificially it shows a confident trust in the One who provides all things. When you give forgiveness you show trust in the cross. When you give friendship you show belief in the eternal love of the Cross. When you demonstrate kindness you show agreement with the kindness of the cross. When you
At Bridge Church, I hope and pray that we will be a people that are giving, sacrificial, and generous with everything that we have and with everything that we are knowing the heart of the One who gives it to us. I pray that our church trust God with our entire lives. Rather than saving and spending our money for ourselves, I pray that we would radically give it away and entrust ourselves to the care and provision of the Father. Rather than spending lavishly on toys, I hope that our church would remember the many less fortunate who have never heard the gospel and never met the Father. I hope and pray that every member of our church family would prayerfully calculate how much they could do without so that they could give to the cause of advancing God’s kingdom, and take an active role as members of God’s family in directing those funds to those parts of the World that are desperately hurting to know the Father and to begin a relationship with Him. I dream of a day where we can give away half (50%) of our church budget for advancing the Kingdom all around Canada and the world. I dream of the day when the average church member asks me, “How much do you think I should keep for myself,” instead of, “How much do I have to give?”
Giving Breaks an Icy Heart’s Idolatry
You want to know the real reason we should give? It breaks our heart’s cold death grip on our trust in our money and our trust in ourselves. But sacrificial giving also shows the watching world that we place no value on self-reliance, and this is truly shocking to the watching world that knows nothing except self-reliance and independence. Sacrificial giving blows the watching world’s paradigm out of the water. Sacrificial giving demonstrates a love and trust in God that defies any logical or reasoned explanation. It defies the natural order of survival of the fittest. It is breath-taking to behold.
Sacrificial Giving is the meaning of the cross. It’s the meaning of Christmas. Only as we approach the cross in similarity to Christ –and that means total surrender of self and dying for something greater than ourselves- can we hope to win the hearts and minds of the masses. This thinking shouldn’t just touch our money. This thinking of dying-to-self-for-something-greater-than-ourselves should impact every aspect of our life. But it should also touch the way that we spend our money.
A lot of different attempts have been made and will continue to be made to explain away the significance of Christ and the Cross. But the Cross still stands. There are still many who behold the wonder of God’s Christmas gift to voluntarily take on the body of a man and willingly die, and they follow His example and give their lives up sacrificially for the opportunity to stand before kings, governors, judges, and executioners. They gladly trade their lives for opportunities to share the gospel. Having encountered the risen Christ in all His glory, they hold their lives cheaply. They hold the lives of others who do not know Him as extremely valuable and precious. And they make their trade based on that understanding. I hope and pray that Bridge Church would hold itself cheap.
God is more than Enough
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s a man that I love and consider my friend though we’ve never met. His life inspires me. He was, at the time that I first heard of him, a bright and rising star. He served as the youth minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church, a church that numbers around fourteen thousand in attendance in North Dallas. He was serving as a Youth Pastor at the time that I had just stepped into a Youth Pastor position. His preaching was passionate and bold. He was thoroughly committed to the Bible as a means to relationship with God, and not as a means of legalistic ritualistic adherence to a set of moral codes. I shared this passion, and because of the example that he set, I was challenged to rethink my style of preaching to engage people into a relational understanding of Christ rather than simply trying to pull “application points” out of a passage.
He left his position at Prestonwood, said “no” to a lot of really amazing offers at large and prestigious churches, and chose rather to step into the pastorate of a dying church in Flower Mound, Texas at the age of twenty-eight. There were less than eighty people at this church. Close friends and family said that he was throwing his life away, and making a horrible career move. But he felt God’s call, and he couldn’t turn back from that.
Within six years that church grew from eighty people to about six thousand. The church grew by about a thousand a year for the last six years. This man committed to giving away more than half of his church’s budget to foreign missions, and he led the people of his church to live bold sacrificial lives that gave generously to their neighborhoods and communities for the hope of gaining an audience to share Christ. This man led his church to begin engaging in church planting, and over the last three years they’ve planted or assisted with five different church plants. The ministry of this church has reached out and touched every continent.
On November 26, 2009, as this man stood in his kitchen helping his wife prepare thanksgiving dinner he experienced a sudden and unexpected seizure. He is only thirty-five years old. He fell to the floor striking his head on the way down. He was rushed to the hospital. Tests were run. Blood was drawn. MRI and CT scans were ordered. By the end of the day, a neurologist and a brain surgeon sat across from his bed and gave him the bad news: “You’ve got a tumor about one inch in diameter and about two and half inches in length in the right front of your temporal lobe. We need to operate immediately or you will die.” The surgery was scheduled.
The day before his surgery, my friend whom I love, recorded a video for his church. With his wife and three small kids standing by this is what he said:
“For the past six years we’ve seen some amazing things happen. God has moved and worked in our presence and many have come to enjoy and embrace a personal relationship with Him. I’ve had more fun than ever, and I’ve enjoyed being your pastor. I love all of you. There’s a passage in Hebrews 11 that talks of the amazing things that God’s people were able to accomplish through faith and trusting in Him. Hebrews 11:32-34 says, ‘…time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets – who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight, received back their dead…’ This is what we’ve seen in our once small and dying church. We’ve seen God work. We’ve seen miracles happen. We’ve seen spiritual Kingdoms conquered. We’ve seen the enemy put to flight. We, though were weak, became strong in God. Praise God for the amazing things He has done in our presence!
People have said to me, ‘You celebrate and praise God just because of all the amazing things you’re getting to see Him do. You’re just enjoying God right now because your church is exploding and growing.’ I’ve often wondered if they were right. The passage in Hebrews goes on in verse 35, ‘…some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. Of these the world was not worthy.’ Now, I’ve seen miracles. I’ve been present to observe God do some amazing things in this church. Now God is allowing me to suffer. Now God is afflicting me with a brain tumor that may keep me from ever stepping into the pulpit ever again.
And I still thank Him. I am glad and grateful for this tumor. Thank you, God, for giving me this tumor. Do you want to know why I am happy to have this happen to me? Because now I am given the opportunity to show the world that God is more than enough. I don’t need all the wonderful things that He has given me in my life to be happy. I don’t need a clear and sharp thinking mind to be happy. I don’t need all these idols to be happy. All I really need is Him. Knowing God is more than enough to satisfy my heart. And I thank Him for this miraculous opportunity to prove it.”
That’s what my friend said to his congregation. He was actually grateful for the tumor. I hope and pray that if God gave me such an amazing opportunity to show to the world that He is more than enough to bring joy and happiness in my life –I hope and pray that I would be worthy of that opportunity and that my faith and trust in Him would not fail. My hope and prayer for all of Bridge Church and for all of our communities in Kamloops and Logan Lake is that we can show the world that God is more than enough for us. In the midst of depression, suffering, death, disease, and heart-ache, please, I pray- let God be MORE THAN ENOUGH in your life.