Summer Passages...
Summer is a time for disrupted routines... or at least new routines. One of those new routines for me is spending many weeks in one passage of Scripture. To take time to read, reflect, study, journal and memorize - allowing God's word to shape and transform. A couple of summers ago it was Ephesians 3:14-21, and this summer is Romans 12. Great passages to study and shape how we think about God and our relationship with Him. My encouragement to you is to find a passage of Scripture to soak in this summer and allow the Word of God and the Spirit of God to transform you in thinking and obedience.
Have a great summer!
Posted by Bruce Enns on June 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment (0) | TrackBack (0)
Growing Pains...
I just met a guy who actually grew 12 inches in one year when he was thirteen years old. He said it hurt alot... I can only imagine. Everyone of us has gone through a growth spurt at some point in our young lives where we've grown considerably taller in one year more than any other. Many of us remember some of the growing pains that came with that growth spurt.
Spiritual growth and maturity also usually involve growing pains of one kind or another. Paul, as a church planter, saw that most prominently in this fledgling young group of house churches in the city of Corinth - a church that seemed to give him more challenges than all the others put together. 2 Corinthians is filled with all kinds of ways that are required to grow up in our faith, as Paul speaks into the life of this church. Understanding pain and using comfort to help others, learning how to repent and forgive in community, understanding the impact of others on our lives, persevering through the worst of times, deciding to no longer be evaluated by the world's standards, living generous lives... These are some of the significant (and sometimes painful) ways that Paul points to growth and maturity in Christ.
Sometimes we'd like to just stay comfortable in church and consider it growth - life doesn't give us that option - neither does God. "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing" (James 1:2,3).
Too bad our endurance never gets fully developed in this life...
Posted by Bruce Enns on April 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment (0) | TrackBack (0)
Easter... Moving from "how?" to "why?"
Our human nature seems to have a need to continually figure out how things work. Okay, it's maybe not everyone, but for most people we want to take things apart or somehow get a better understanding of how something actually works. My kids continually ask questions about the world in which we live - whether its how a moon goes from full to a thin sliver (there's a technical name for that), or how God hears the prayers of so many people on the planet, or how a plumbing system works in the house (yes, one asked that). Being a bit of a woodworker, whenever I go into a wood furniture store I'm continually looking underneath to see how a piece is put together.
In John chapter 3, Nicodemus was consumed with "how" - "how are these things possible?" he asked Jesus in verse 9. Jesus had introduced him to some ideas of what a personal relationship with the living God was like that challenged all of this well respected and well educated man's ideas of what God was like. Jesus then goes on to say some of the most familiar and powerful words in scripture - "For God so loved the world..." This simple, life changing verse gets at the core of the "why" of Easter - that God loves us more than we'll ever understand and his desire is that all people would have a full and eternal life in relationship with the living God.
Sometimes we get hung up with the "how" question when it comes to God in our lives. Often times if we're honest - I think it's just a diversion. I truly think that was part of it for Nicodemus. When God enters into our lives in some personal way that shakes up our understandings - it can get uncomfortable. The love and grace of God can do that. Why did Jesus willingly suffer and die for such evil and rebellious people - including me? Why does God never give up on me? Why would the God who created the entire universe want a personal relationship with me? It's these important "why" questions that will change our lives forever.
As you celebrate Easter this year - move past the "how" diversions and let the "why" questions seep into your very soul in a new way.
Posted by Bruce Enns on March 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment (0) | TrackBack (0)
A Word of Encouragement...
There are many things I am really not good at. Technology, for instance, is a friend of which I hesitate to trust - a deceptive friend at best. I can do many things with technology, and do so everyday as a point of necessity, but it doesn't take much to get me stumped. While staying at a place out of province once, I had to call a "techie" friend of mine to walk me through the fray of three remote controls, just to watch cable. He identified with ease the buttons and terms that were necessary to understand and navigate this intimidating maze. He was in his comfort zone - I was lost.
We tend to be inspired and enjoy working in ways and on things that we're good at. And yet, so much of our time is spent focused on our weaknesses and trying to improve in areas where really, we'll likely never be very good. At this time of year, we often become absorbed in some torturous forms of self-denial initiatives to bring an areas of weakness up from a scale of "2" to maybe a "4", not even dreaming of encroaching anywhere near a "10" in our lifetime.
What if this year was different? What if we viewed the aspirations of our individual and corporate (community) lives through the lens of Philippians 4:8-9 which is given by Paul to the church at Philippi as a concluding word of great encouragement. To continue to fix our thoughts on things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and admirable. These immediately point us to Christ and the work of his kingdom, no doubt, but they are not abstract ideas disconnected from our everyday lives. We are, after all, image bearers of the King, created in the image of God and the pinnacle of all creation (Gen. 1). And corporately, as the church, we are the temple of the Living God (2 Cor. 6:16). Therefore, many of these very things are also in our lives.
Yet we so often focus on what is wrong in our lives and in the church. All the while there is so much that is good and true, honorable and admirable in both these areas. What would happen if our energy and focus went into these things? We tend to refer to these things as our strengths, even though this passage does point us beyond merely our strengths. But what if we did press into our right and good and admirable strengths?
So as you go into this year reflecting on your life and the church - find the things that you do well - that are right - and pour into them with more intensity than ever. Focus your thoughts and your discipline into the unique way that you have been created as a fingerprint of God (again, individually and corporately) - not your deficiencies. We might be surprised at the outcome!
Posted by Bruce Enns on January 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment (0) | TrackBack (0)
A Green Christmas...
When we talk about a "green" Christmas, we're not talking about jumping on the green and white of the Saskatchewan Roughrider "Grey Cup Champions" bandwagon (though that is not at all discouraged). We're also not talking about a political statement on environmental issues. Nor are we speaking about all the "greenbacks" that the consumer side of Christmas seem to take out of us.
Green is a color that symbolizes many things - but most importantly, and the focus of this season, is the image of life and hope and growth that gets at the core of what Christmas is all about. The life that is found in Jesus Christ. Green is about LIFE.
There are all kinds of things that can suck the life out of us. We feel it in the pressures of our work life that never seem to subside but only increase. We can experience it in the pain of disappointment of relationships, grieving a significant loss in our life, or even experiencing the failure of our bodies and our health. For those who are people pleasers, the expectations of others can eventually run you dry and suck the life right out of you. The list can be long and it's a personal list that's different for everyone of us - what sucks the life out of you?
Part of our challenge, as Paul point out in 1 Cor 13 is that right now "we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror"... and that all we know now is partial and incomplete, though one day we will know so much more and we'll see things completely, just as God knows us completely right now. Be encouraged in that this Christmas season - God knows you COMPLETELY. That means he knows your limitations and temptations, he knows your strengths and vulnerabilities, he knows all your circumstances - even the ones that suck life out of you. But there are some things that last forever, that can be counted on regardless of how we might feel - those are faith, hope, and love. The greatest one is the life changing, life breathing love of God. He invites us to embrace these gifts from him and to live them out in the lives of others around us - even though it always seems partial and incomplete. When we do, we begin to experience life - we grow, we change, and we begin to find hope again. God invites you to go green this Christmas - he'll make you into a new creation.
Posted by Bruce Enns on November 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment (0) | TrackBack (0)
