Have a great summer!

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...

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.

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!

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.

The harsh reality that author and pastor Chuck Swindoll reminds us of is that forgiveness is not synonymous with the returning of all rights and privileges. God's grace and forgiveness are there as an ever present invitation to receive with brokenness, repentance and humility, but it doesn't mean that we won't walk with a limp. While forgiveness continues to be the pulse-beat of a grace-oriented ministry, a firm commitment to holiness remains vital , because there is so much pain when lose sight of that in our lives. And some limps can be difficult to walk with for a lifetime - even when we have experienced forgiveness. King David was continually called a 'man after God's own heart'. Yet, once he crawled into bed with Uriah's wife on that moonlit spring night, never again did he know all the former joys of close family ties, public trust, or military invincibility (2 Samuel 11).

I wish I could say that God's grace is always astounding to me. Unfortunately, if I'm honest, I too often take it for granted or miss it altogether. The longer I walk with people, the more I realize how we all walk with a limp of one kind or another, from the circumstances of our lives to the choices we make. There is ever expanding evidence of God's grace from the first chapters of Genesis and throughout the rest of Scripture. It's also abundantly in our lives as well, if we have eyes to see it. This fall we want to explore stories of God's grace in some uncommon places in the Old Testament, that have the potential to change the way we view our limp.

"For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are. Nothing in all creation can hide from him. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. This is the God to whom we must explain all that we have done." (Heb 4:12,13)

This is a verse of vulnerability. Without being vulnerable, we will not change. It is also a verse about the power and the presence of God. In Ephes 4:22,23 we are called to spiritual renewal in our thoughts and attitudes by continually "putting off" the old self, and "putting on" the new self, created to be like God... change.

I just finished reading the amazing book that tells the story of Serge LeClerc's life, called "Untwisted". It is a book of profound change that only the power of the word of God and the work of the spirit of God can do in somebody's life. God's change is irreversible, the old is gone and the new has come - it's a transformation into a completely different and new creation.

That is the continual and daily journey of change that God calls us to. Change is a gift to embrace and a promised future to step into. Not only is it on an individual basis, but God also calls the church to the same... but that's a topic for next time.

The greatest gift that God has given the world is the hope that is found in the Easter message. Death has been conquered and we don't have to fear it anymore. It has truthfully been said that we can only truly live once we no longer fear death - that is the hope we can hold onto and proclaim to our world.

It is a hope that reminds us again and again - whatever you are going through, however bleak things may seem, whatever challenges are in front of you - you can stare them right in the face and KNOW that this is not all there is. That there is a God who loves you more than you can ever know, that there is an eternity available to all right now, and that God desires for you a fulness of life that is more than the sum of our current experiences. That the God who created everything that is seen and everything that is unseen, desires to enter into your experience and walk with you.

May you know the power and the hope of the resurrected Christ this Easter!

Maybe it's because I'm about to head to Thailand on a two week missions trip, but it has struck me again recently, that our long term missionaries understand more of these rapidly changing world and cultural dynamics better than most. They are some of the first to use technology to their advantage together with being ruthlessly intent on understanding their culture and making a kingdom difference. Combine that with a keen awareness of what a life of sacrifice looks like (because they're living it) and there is the evidence of transformed lives as they walk day by day in the power of God's spirit. May God give each one of us the compassion of Christ and a heightened awareness of our culture in order to love people into the kingdom of God.

Seeing our lives and the cultures of the world through the transformation that only Jesus Christ can bring has a "flattening" effect in the best way possible as we come to see our common human need for forgiveness, just as it says in Colossians 1:6 - "This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is changing lives everywhere, just as it changed yours that very first day you heard and understood the truth about God's great kindness to sinners".

Christmas is also a time that evokes every extreme of emotion and experience as well - from loneliness/despair to joy, from hunger to gluttony, from selfless giving to fist fights over the last Play Station on the shelf. But Chistmas is also a time where we can point to an unknown God for so many in the world in which we live.

In Acts 17:16-31, the Apostle Paul addresses a culture that knew very little of the living God that he served. He sees their altars to "an unknown god" and begins to connect with them about who the one true, living God really is. Christmas in so many ways has become an altar to an "unknown God" - but what better time to point people to the God who created them, who loves them, and sent his Son that we might have a personal relationship with this God.

A couple of years ago a local talk show asked the question... "Is there still room for Jesus in our modern day Christmas?" It's a good question. One that can give us many good conversations this Christmas as we point people to Christ.

As we see nations in turmoil around the world - in Chad, Sudan, Iraq, and so many other places - the words of this passage give such encouragement and hope... "God's purpose in all of this was that the nations should seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him - though he is not far from any one of us." (Acts 17:27)

I pray that the people of all nations would feel their way to the unknown God this Christmas.

The Spiritual Discipline that we want to emphasize in the month of February is "giving". Absolutely everything in our North American culture pushes us to be selfish, to be consumers, and to look out for "number one" - giving is the antidote for that. One of the growing trends identified by analysts in our culture is a "joyless prosperity" that seems to be increasingly pervasive. People have more disposable income than ever and yet are still feeling an emptiness deep within.

Jesus talked about money so much because he understood the deception that it so quickly leads to in our human weakness. Giving all of who we are (Romans 12:1) including (and maybe especially) our money, helps us to experience the freedom that Jesus offers. Maybe a good question to ask is - is there anything counter-cultural about your approach to "giving"? As the Macedonians found out... giving is a gift and a privilege that leads to a very real joy.