After Our Hearts

I have long been fascinated with a scripture out of the book of Hosea chapter 6 verse 6. It says “For I delight in faithfulness, not simply sacrifice; I delight in acknowledging God, not simply whole burnt offerings.” I found this scripture my freshman year of college while I was writing a devotional for my home Church. I was reminded of this scripture again on my drive back here to Artesia on this past Saturday night. At times in my life I think that if I do enough and give sacrifices to God that my duties are done and all the items on my check list have a check by them. I think that the things I am doing for God are all that I need to do, and I forget that the base of a relationship with God is more than just doing things but it is truly knowing God it is loving God it is allowing God to have your heart! In the book of Luke chapter 11, Jesus speaks against the Pharisees. Not because of them not doing things but because of the position of their hearts. Jesus puts it like his “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” Christ goes on to call them unmarked graves (in other gospels he calls them white washed tombs) Again, Jesus doesn't say that their gifts or the things they give to God aren't important He is challenging them that our love for God should be more important to us and should be our focus. The other things are important as well though; Jesus highlighted that as well as the prophet Hosea!! But when you get down to the nitty gritty, us knowing God and being known by Him is far more important than the things we do. Sacrifice is good, but faithfulness is better! Sacrifice is good, but knowing God is much better!! You see God in His infinite wisdom knows that if we allow Him to have our hearts that those other things will follow. Yesterday I posted a tweet saying “It's our heart He is after! God knows that if He has our hearts our gifts and talents will follow!". I said that it was the thought of the day, well I believe more than that God desires for it to be the thought of every day! As it says in Hosea 6:6 “For I delight in faithfulness, not simply sacrifice; I delight in acknowledging God, not simply whole burnt offerings.” God is after our hearts!!

Tired of just going through the motions, ready for faithfulness and acknowledgement of God

sg

Why Do You Want That?

A few weeks ago I started reading the book "Forgotten God, Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit" by Francis Chan, it has been a blessed read so far!  (Im just in the beginning of the 4th Chapter, but would definitely recommend it) The fourth chapter is titled "Why Do You Want Him?" referring to the Holy Spirit.  He starts off the chapter with a great story and the story hit home and made me began to think about my walk with God and about the things I have asked God for in my life.  After reading that first page of that chapter the question "Why do/did you want that?".  The that has ranged from anything from maybe a good grade on a paper, that some girl would date me,  to getting a truck, to finding a job, or that God would heal a family member, and the list goes on.... I am reminded of Christ's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Christ prays in Chapter 26 of Matthew in verse 39 "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."Christ is asking His Father in Heaven for something, but knowing that there is a good chance of what He is asking wont happen.  He asked for this knowing what would be ahead of Him in the coming day, but also knowing that it was more important for God to be glorified in Him than for His human desires to be filled.  The end of His prayer "Yet not as I will, but as you will." I am sure has been repeated and prayed a couple million times after Christ prayed this, heck I bet I have even prayed it a few times in my life. Most of the time I pray it though, I prayed it just following a learned prayer from others.  Not actually meaning what I said.  Praying hoping that my will would be done, not His.  There have been a few times distinctly where I truly meant it when I said, "yet not my will, but Your will be done." Most of the time I have prayed that I have been at the end of my rope, and was tired of trying to do things my own way.  One specific time was when I was looking for a job after graduating from college.  I had a few disappointments in the job hunting process.  I was tired of trying to impress people, because obviously a young and single guy applying for a job to work with kids wasn't appealing for too many churches.  I remember on my drive to Artesia I prayed to God and pretty much said, "God, apparently I am not doing the right things to get hired by a church so you know what, I'm just gonna go to the interview answer their questions as open and as honestly as I could then leave and go back to Texas and God if you want me here, then You do what you need to do."  He did what He needed to do, in fact He had been doing what He needed to do way before I even knew about the job!  But, there have been many other times though.  Times when I have prayed out of nothing more than selfish reasons.  I prayed "yet not my will, but your will be done", but lived out a life that shouted I will do things my way no matter the cost.  These thoughts have made me seriously re-evaluate the things I am currently asking God for.  It has made me stop and think about why I want what I am asking for.  Do I want them in order to serve my own selfish reasons, or do I desire to glorify God with what I am asking for?  I am striving to pray and ask for only the things that will ultimately glorify God.  Pray for me as God is once again blowing up the way I think about things in order that He might put them back in the order He desires!

not ok with just ok,
sg

An Unexpected Arrival

I don't usually use stories to illustrate ideas, but this past week I heard a true story from some people I met and God began to speak to me through that story so I am gonna share it with you all. So this past week the local coffee shop and local Church Youth Groups brought in a band named Silverline. As I was hanging out with the band a little bit they told me what had happened to them the day before. They had been booked to do a show in a town about 3 hours away. They said as they showed up and called their contact person that he acted almost surprised that they had shown up, even though he had booked them. He then began to tell them that he hadn't really promoted the show that much and also that there were now some scheduling conflicts and that they wouldn't be able do the show that night. They also said that they wouldn't be able to compensate them any for traveling expenses or anything like that. Some of you might be already thinking, wow that's pretty poor on that churches part for not honoring their booking of a band and even worse on their part for not compensating them for their travel expenses! I would completely agree with you! I was brought up and raised to have the mindset of, if you commit to something you stay committed and you finish what you started. I was thinking of this story yesterday when God pressed this message on my heart, "How many times have you invited Me into your life, but when I show up you are surprised I showed up and even more than that you come up with some excuse why you don't want Me to work in your life?" How true is that for your life? For my life sadly its so true. I have prayed and asked God to be active in my life and for Him to move in my life, and when He shows up to Do Work for some reason I am surprised that He actually showed up. I then proceed to try and figure out some reason why this isn't a good time, and try to brush Him out the door before He starts moving things around in my life. Because I know that if He does start to work it's gonna cost me, not in money value but things will have to change and many times I am not willing to pay the price of change because where I am is so comfortable. For so long I have lived a life like this. A safe life where God is kept out of the areas of my life that most need His change most. A safe life that keeps me in a comfort zone where my Christian faith costs me nothing more than an hour or two during the week. A safe life that is powerless and keeps God away from the controls of my life. I want to live a life that matters! A life that isn't safe. A life that longs for God to show up and Do Work! A life that expects and longs for God's presence and for His life giving change that comes with His presence! I think that's all I have to say on this subject today. Pray for me as I pray for you to find the passion that God so desires us to have about our faith!

tired of just ok,
sg

What consumes my life?

Over the last week or so God has really been pressing a bunch of things on my heart. I could probably right a small novel on what I feel He has been speaking into my life (which I probably should do in my handy dandy journal, but will save you all the painful reading of disjointed thoughts and ideas); but I will give you a small glimpse into a few of the things. The first came in the way of a pod cast from Matt Chandler I listened to on the way out to Catalyst '09 while riding in the van with my good friends James and Penny. It was a challenge to make prayer a larger focal point in our lives. (Something I have struggled with off an on throughout my Christian walk). This is also something that over the last 4 months God has really been pressing in on my heart to live a prayer centered life. So I heard this message and like most messages I thought to myself that's good, but at the very moment there wasn't much change in my life. A couple days later during the Catalyst conference Matt Chandler was also one of the presenting speakers/pastors. He talked about how if God is calling you to anything there is a hitch on your part from following through with what God is calling you to, that is sin and that you need to repent and act on what God is calling you to. That hit me square in the face. So looking back over the last 4-5 months, and possible longer I see that I have been living in disobedience to God, I have been living in unresolved sin because I know God is calling me to something but yet I am unwilling to listen to His beckoning calling me to lead a life centered on prayer. So, last night on the way back from the Bible Study I go to on Monday's I listened to a podcast by Mark Driscoll on the book of proverbs focusing on how we organize our lives. I felt convicted on what and how my life is centered! If you know me well a good portion of my time is spent being well connected with the people around me as well as those around the world via facebook, twitter, etc. So, not only am I not obeying God in some of the things He is calling me to, I have also arranged my life where it is often hard for me to connect with God because I am so connected to the things around me that there is no space, no room for any more connections, no room for the God of the Universe to speak into my heart. (btw, most of the times God has pressed these things on my heart has been in times when I have been disconnected from all or part of the world) So, today I tried something new. I will get to that in a bit but I want to give you a glimpse into what a normal day for me at work looks like this. I go into work. If I am not too busy I chat a little with others in the office to see how their days are going and such, and then I sit down at my desk and then proceed to check my email, facebook, and look at all of my friends most current tweets to see if there is anything I have missed out on. (the email is somewhat essential to my job, but facebook, and twitter?? really? should that be a priority in my daily work schedule?) I then proceed to keep my email, facebook, and tweet page up for the rest of the day just incase there is something I cant do without hearing for a few hours. These three things often cause distractions as well as a open door to hours wasted while at work. So, like I said, today I tried something new. I got to work, visited a little (I think it's essential for working relationships), checked my email, then I proceeded to not even open up my facebook or tweet pages. Now some of you this may be a no big deal type of thing, but for me in my world it was a first step towards aiming my life towards more of what God has called/is calling me to. You see we are so easily distracted by the things around us. It is so easy for us to become consumed by irrelevant and insignificant things. My life, without me even being truly aware is being stolen from me before my eyes without me even putting up much of a fight for it, by things that in the bigger picture of God's story have no eternal significance. So, I would ask for your prayers for my life. That I would be conscience of what is consuming my life. That I would be conscience of what God is speaking into my life, and even more than that, that I would be obedient to what God is calling me to because He is truly what my life should be consumed by! I think that's all for now..

striving towards obedience.
sg