Hey y'all! My dad recently emailed me this and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. It's not very long and I HIGHLY recommend it(I bolded the bits that really struck me):
THE QUESTION that CHANGED MY LIFE
-by David Ryser.

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of teaching at a school of ministry. My students were hungry for God, and I was constantly searching for ways to challenge them to fall more in love with Jesus and to become voices for revival in the Church. I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this:
Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise. Some of the students were only 18 or 19 years old--barely out of diapers--and I wanted them to understand and appreciate the import of the last line, so I clarified it by adding, "An enterprise. That's a business." After a few moments Martha, the youngest student in the class, raised her hand. I could not imagine what her question might be. I thought the little vignette was self-explanatory, and that I had performed it brilliantly. Nevertheless, I acknowledged Martha's raised hand, "Yes, Martha." She asked such a simple question, "A business? But isn't it supposed to be a body?" I could not envision where this line of questioning was going, and the only response I could think of was, "Yes." She continued, "But when a body becomes a business, isn't that a prostitute?"

The room went dead silent. For several seconds no one moved or spoke. We were stunned, afraid to make a sound because the presence of God had flooded into the room, and we knew we were on holy ground. All I could think in those sacred moments was, "Wow, I wish I'd thought of that." I didn't dare express that thought aloud. God had taken over the class.

Martha's question changed my life. For six months, I thought about her question at least once every day. "When a body becomes a business, isn't that a prostitute?" There is only one answer to her question. The answer is "Yes." The American Church, tragically, is heavily populated by people who do not love God. How can we love Him? We don't even know Him; and I mean really know Him.

... I stand by my statement that most American Christians do not know God--much less love Him. The root of this condition originates in how we came to God. Most of us came to Him because of what we were told He would do for us. We were promised that He would bless us in life and take us to heaven after death. We married Him for His money, and we don't care if He lives or dies as long as we can get His stuff. We have made the Kingdom of God into a business, merchandising His anointing. This should not be. We are commanded to love God, and are called to be the Bride of Christ--that's pretty intimate stuff. We are supposed to be His lovers. How can we love someone we don't even know? And even if we do know someone, is that a guarantee that we truly love them? Are we lovers or prostitutes?

I was pondering Martha's question again one day, and considered the question, "What's the difference between a lover and a prostitute?" I realized that both do many of the same things, but a lover does what she does because she loves. A prostitute pretends to love, but only as long as you pay. Then I asked the question, "What would happen if God stopped paying me?"

For the next several months, I allowed God to search me to uncover my motives for loving and serving Him. Was I really a true lover of God? What would happen if He stopped blessing me? What if He never did another thing for me? Would I still love Him? Please understand, I believe in the promises and blessings of God. The issue here is not whether God blesses His children; the issue is the condition of my heart. Why do I serve Him? Are His blessings in my life the gifts of a loving Father, or are they a wage that I have earned or a bribe/payment to love Him? Do I love God without any conditions? It took several months to work through these questions. Even now I wonder if my desire to love God is always matched by my attitude and behavior. I still catch myself being disappointed with God and angry that He has not met some perceived need in my life. I suspect this is something which is never fully resolved, but I want more than anything else to be a true lover of God.

So what is it going to be? Which are we, lover or prostitute? There are no prostitutes in heaven, or in the Kingdom of God for that matter, but there are plenty of former prostitutes in both places. Take it from a recovering prostitute when I say there is no substitute or unconditional, intimate relationship with God. And I mean there is no palatable substitute available to us (take another look at Matthew 7:21-23 sometime). We must choose.

Dr. David Ryser.

Impressions

Okay, So I have been thinking a lot about what else I would like to talk about concerning the sermon series you all are listening too, but to be honest there are just to many things I want to talk about. When I think about the sermons I think of issues like: sabbath, importance of Fathers, priorities, self examination and many many more things. But I wanted to open things up and see what gripped you. So I would love for you all to comment below on what impacted you the most from these sermons?

daniel

Price Tags

It is because of the price tags that we perceive, decide or embrace that we do everything. This is the main summation of Les' 2nd sermon. So the main question is, what are your prices tags next year. What do you feel like you need to guard? What are you putting the highest price tag on

Also any other discussion on the sermon is completely welcomed

daniel

Accepting Limits

This blog is part of y’alls June assignment, which is to listen to the sermons series Dolphins and Dragonflies which can be found at http://www.trinityomaha.com/igsbase/igstemplate.cfm?SRC=MD014&SRCN=index&GnavID=9&SnavID=29&TnavID=137. This post is in response to the first sermon from 8.13.06 entitled “Dolphins & Dragonflies” please let me know what you think.

Also for a simply blog post I don’t proof read, so please overlook bad grammar

Let me first start off by saying I love Les Beauchamp, he is intense, high energy and says crazy things. I listened to this sermon series when it originally came out and it has always griped me about what type of life I want to live as a Christian. As he shares about his personal journey, and that of his church, I am inspired, humbled and moved. I leave the message with one main thought in my head…

We were created to be supernatural AND have limits.

I think of how he spoke about the abundant life in the beginning, and how it means that you have enough for you and some to give away. How we are called to impact people and nations. How we are called to raise the dead, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons. But at the same time we individually are not called to do that for every single person, because we don’t have that capacity.
When Katie, my wife and I, first came on staff as interns at Wesley together (it was her 2nd year interning, my 1st) we were ready to make the year count. And the translation for that was that we wanted to be extremely busy. We wanted to talk to every single person, be at every prayer meeting, do something elaborate for our ministry areas all the time. But in the midst of trying to be really good interns, we neglected each other, and in almost 3 years of marriage are still learning how to set boundaries, and truly care for each other first.

The most impactful prayer meeting in my life is one I didn’t go too. Katie and I had started dating, we were falling in love, you know it was the good stuff. There was going to be a campus wide prayer meeting at the Sidney Stovall chapel on I think a Sunday night where we were going to pray for city wide revival. We had pushed the meeting big at Wesley, and my first two years of college if there was a prayer meeting I was there. What I didn’t realize that behind this go-go-go mentality was thoughts like, “for revival to come I need to be there,” “I have to be at the prayer meeting or the Lord will not move.” At the heart of this go-go-go was the belief where I was the cornerstone of the kingdom, and let me say this, you all are NOT the cornerstone of Wesley. I am not, Bob is not, no one here is- Jesus is. After coming to this realization as Katie and I were deciding whether to go to the prayer meeting or not, we decided to have a night in and we spent amazing time together, and the Lord genuinely taught me that it is not about me.

Let me say this, I am not promoting laziness. Things that you have committed to are yours to do. The last thing I would want is this to come across as accepting idleness. But what I think it really is about is accepting the fact that you are entrusted with certain things in life, and everything else is extra. When that extra (which isn’t bad) over-shadows what you are entrusted with, then there is a need for realignment. The Lord has set limits on us. For instance, the Lord has built our staff to around 75 interns. To have a really good conversation with someone it takes at least an hour. In your average day you probably have about 1-2 hours of down time that you can choose what you want to do. And so if you choose that time to have a 1 hour conversation with 1 person then it will take you November to have a conversation with everyone. We simply do not have the capacity to know every single person on staff in a best friend type relationship. But what we can do is accept the limit (time in this case) that God has placed on us, and live faithfully. While we can’t all be best friends, we can be a body that builds itself up in love and where everyone plays their part and everyone’s needs are meet.
So to reiterate, I guess I finish this sermon thinking about how we are called to great things, but so are other people, and so accept your limits, and live the life YOU are called to live

I love how Les says in the sermon, “There is no reason to fear disappointing people, and therefore do the wrong thing." Because the truth is many people feel so much pressure to intern and be a world changer, to be intern MVP, but the truth is there are always going to be people to talk to, things to pray about, events to plan, and those things are great, but asking yourself, "is this what I have been entrusted with" goes a long way in living YOUR life and setting healthy boundaries.

So thoughts…

daniel

OK. LAST POST FORREAL.

and i recommend watching this.

OKAY I'M DONE.

-a

Articles & thoughts.

Hey friends, I stumbled across some posts from Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz and some other novels) that really challenged and encouraged me:

(1) Having Right Theology Does Not Mean You Know God
This first one is about how our theology can become an idol--the idea that we place our faith in our faith, and not in Jesus himself as the author and perfecter of it if you know what I mean.

(2) Could Your Church Survive If There Were No Sermons?
This second one really struck me as relevant to the environment we'll be living in next year. So many times, we depend on the pastor to spoon feed us enough, and them blame church or the church sermon if we don't get what we want. But church is a community, a living and breathing body. This article prompted me to think of how to play an active role in the body of Christ, not depending on our structure or looking to our leaders to tell us what to do--that's not their job.

Anyway, if you check these out, just let the Lord challenge you. For me it wasn't as much about word-for-word what Don Miller said, because I don't always agree with everything he says, BUT he has some really awesome ideas.

And as a side note, reading the comments about his blog posts were just as encouraging and challenging. Really made me think.

SORRY FOR THIS LONG POST. Love you guys.

-Autumn