Awaken Ministries

Welcome to the first Sunday of Lent. This is always a wonderful, yet sobering time of the year. We wait to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, yet we have 40 days of reflection–sober reflection leading up to that time. Today, I want to look briefly at the crucifixion day. We often think of God looking down on us from His throne in Heaven. But, today think about a different view. Instead of from “on high”, think about how Jesus viewed US from the Cross.

Think of what He must have been seeing as the minutes of His life ticked down to zero. He loved us so much, but yet we had Him sent to die on a cross. Notice I am “us” and not “them” when describing this scene. We were there, I was there.

Jesus—God incarnate—was looking out at His people. I was there. I was there as one of the spectators on the day of the crucifixion. Perhaps I was the criminal with the hardened heart, who looked at Jesus and chided Him even until his last breath. Maybe I was the criminal who saw Jesus for who He said He was and believed in Him at that critical hour. Or, maybe I was Judas–whose body may have still been hanging on a tree somewhere around. Or maybe I was Peter–and was so devastated that I had actually denied my Lord. Or Mary–who knew from the beginning that her son was going to be special, but had no idea it would end this way. Or maybe I was John, or Simon of Cyrene. Surely, I was someone on that day. But that day, Jesus saw ME. This is the most harrowing thought I have had in some time. He saw me for who I really am. Not who I project myself as.

Jesus saw all this and He still said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In other words, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive Jeremy, for he knows not what he does.” To you, He prayed, “Father, forgive ________, for he/she knows not what he/she does.”

More to come…
Jeremy

Do we think “Christianly” about what happens in our world? I know most of you who read this blog and others like it do!! Our faith is such a robust one that it truly can handle even the biggest questions of the day…

How do we think “Christianly”…

about the Syrian refugee crisis?

about allowing refugees to settle in our communities?

about assisted-suicide?

about abortion?

about helping women dealing with ‘unwanted’ pregnancies?

about climate change?

about gun laws?

about the upcoming presidential election?

about the candidates for the upcoming presidential election?

about immigration policies?

about immigrants settling in our communities?

I’m sure I left many other hard issues out, but sometimes I encounter folks–well-intentioned folks–who just don’t like to think about these hard issues because there aren’t easy answers and they could lead to uneasy conversations.

But, the fact is that it doesn’t matter if you think about these things or not–they still impact your life and the lives of your loved ones.

As Paul says in Colossians 3:12-17:

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Amen, now let’s get dealing with those hard things the way Christ would have us!

More to come…
Jeremy

Last time, we looked at how Daniel denied himself the king’s spoils and how that led him to be reminded that he didn’t belong to the Babylonians, but rather God.

Today, I want to look at another discipline that Daniel demonstrated for us. That discipline is repentance. See if you can hear Daniel’s repentant heart in this passage, “in the first year of his (Darius’) reign, I, Daniel perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, 70 years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules,'” (Daniel 9:2-5).

In this blog, I have often said that if I find someone else makes a point more coherently than me, I will use their words and give them the credit. T.M. Moore–in the Advent devotional “He Has Come” says this regarding Daniel and Christians today:

“Even the prophet Daniel, who stands out among the giants of Biblical characters with respect to personal piety, fell to profound and passionate expressions of repentance for himself and his nation upon reading in the book of Jeremiah concerning the end of Israel’s captivity in Babylon. In his prayer of repentance we see a man broken before the faithfulness and grace of God to an undeserving people, a man not in the least reluctant to apply Israel’s wickedness to himself and to exert himself in dramatic and outspoken declarations of repentance, pleading with God to restore favor to His people.

We evangelicals have established a place of prominence for ourselves in this society by our penchant for declaiming loudly against the sins of others. We have denounced the secular humanists, chastised the evolutionists, decried the postmodernists, and raged against the immoral practices of the people of our day.

Yet, we hear little such passion in the acknowledgement of our own sins before the God of judgment and mercy–sins of complacency, failure in mission, poor stewardship, ecclesiastical in-fighting, and a host of others.” (Moore, “He Has Come” p. 9)

In other words, we sure want others to change the way they live, but we think we are doing OK. I think Jesus had something to say about that (see Matthew 6:12 and 7:1-5).

As I hope you have seen in this series, we have much to learn by studying and applying how Daniel remained faithful to God regardless of his circumstances. The circumstances we are in now also call for leaders such as Daniel. Desperately, we need leaders who think and act and can lead others to act like Jesus in our difficult days. Who will step into the role that God would have them in these turbulent times?

More to come…
Jeremy

This week we continue our look at Daniel and how God used him to influence the culture in which he was exiled. As we see in the first chapter of Daniel, he was identified as being “skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent,” (Daniel 1:4).

Now, Daniel could have been just crushed that he was given all of these gifts from God but yet now they would be wasted as he was part of a conquered people. But, he didn’t pout! He was faithful to God in all he did and then when the king assigned to him the king’s portion of food and wine (which I imagine would have been like eating at 3 and 4 star restaurants everyday) “Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank,” (Daniel 1:8).

Nebuchadnezzar’s plan was to slowly replace Daniel’s God by making him so comfortable that assimilation to the Babylonian culture would just kind of happen slowly over time. Could this be a lesson for us today? He gave him free education here, some great food and wine over there, and he figured that soon Daniel and the other Israelites would form a growing dependence to the royal court.

It would take a conscious effort by Daniel and his friends to remain undefiled in this lifestyle. Denying himself helped Daniel to be reminded that he was an exile living in a foreign land and that he belonged to God and not Babylon.

Another important point we can learn from Daniel is that he was respectful of his captors. He didn’t post satirical memes on his Facebook page and tweet out pro-Israelite messages to antagonize his captors (or whatever the equivalent to that was for his time!) More on this point another time!

Daniel acted this way because he was able to see the larger picture at a time when the current picture was about as dismal as ever for his people. Anwar Sadat, who as president of Egypt helped broker the Camp David Peace Accords with Israel said, “He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress.” Think of the importance of that statement for both Sadat (who was assassinated for his part in making peace with Israel) and for Daniel (who was a captive in a foreign land). Instead of focusing on what had been, or what was lost, they had to think about what could be possible in their situations. They were transformational thinkers and doers. Do we have these type of transformational leaders in the church now? I think we do but we need to cut through all the noise so we can hear them. Leadership nowadays is so much based on who can get the best sound bite or the best quip that will “go viral” on social media. Daniel, on the other hand, was a man of deep integrity who served God in a humble and deep way.

Let us all seek to be more like him as he sought to be more like Him!

More to come…
Jeremy

We all remember the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets that were widely popular and even now are still around. The purpose of the bracelets was to try to think through what Jesus would do in whatever situation you were facing.

Given the culture we live in today in the 21st century, Marvin Olasky of World Magazine thinks that maybe another bracelet would be extremely useful to Christians today—WWDD (What Would Daniel Do?)

Yes, he is talking about the Daniel of the Bible. The Daniel that as Olaskly says, “for at least 66 years, from 605 to 539 B.C. was a Babylonian public servant who really did try to serve a strange public while remaining true to God. He faced down two death threats and saw his friends survive a third.” (September 19th edition, p. 64)

I think looking to Daniel could be very wise for Christians today. His example of how he remained faithful to God while living in exile in Babylon in extremely powerful.

Today, it is all too easy for Christians to be so assimilated to the culture in which we live that there is hardly a difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. I think the reason for this is that we are afraid of being marginalized by the culture. We don’t want to be “those people”.

But, as Daniel showed us, we can live for God while still living in the culture that we are a part of. In fact, that is what we are called to do! We are called to make disciples and that can’t be done in places where everyone is already a Christian.

We live in difficult days—but Daniel lived in some difficult days and by the way, Jesus lived in some really difficult days also!! Isn’t wonderful that we have examples of how to live in our times!!

The challenge this week is to read to first chapter of Daniel. Study the decisions Daniel made that would allow his witness to bring godly influence to his times. Pray about what you learn and see if God brings you to a resolution like He did Daniel.

More to come…
Jeremy

Last week we discussed how people today either have or lack grit. Why even talk about grit? What makes this a character quality worth developing?

This week, we will see that Jesus had an incredible amount of grit. He dealt with things–even before his “trial” and crucifixion that would have sent most of us crying and whimpering and asking to be “tapped out” of the life we were living.

Let’s start with the temptation of Jesus that we see in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. First, He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. I could leave it at that and we would have a powerful example of grit. But, you also throw in that He was tempted by Satan in ways that most of us humans would have succumbed to and you have a powerful example of Jesus’ grit. It also shows us that if He had to pray and fast before starting His Galilean ministry, then we should probably do the same before we step out in ministry.

Later in the same 3 Gospels, Jesus returns to His hometown of Nazareth and is run out-of-town and His life is threatened. Only by what had to be a miracle did He survive. (see Luke 4:28-30)

On countless occasions, the Pharisees tried to trip Jesus up by asking Him questions that were meant to expose Him as a fraud. Eventually, they get so tired of Him that they try to kill Him.

Then, the whole last week of Jesus’ life is just a study in gut-wrenching grit. He is trying to teach His disciples the lessons He has been living out for the last 3 years. They aren’t getting it! One of them even agrees to turn Him over to those wanting to kill Him.

He goes through a farce of a trial and then is condemned to die. One of the disciples He invested the most in denies that he even knows Him 3 times.

He is left alone by those who love Him most and endures beatings and a humiliating death.

Of course, we on this side of the resurrection understand why this had to be. But, let’s not kid ourselves and think that this made it easier for Jesus to go through.

So, if Jesus Christ had to endure these painful and excruciating hardships the question is–Why would we think that we should be entitled to an easy life? Why do we sometimes get caught being so surprised when “unfair” and painful things happen to us. Jesus gave us ultimate victory through His grit. But, we still have to develop our own “grit muscle”. We will still have battles we need to fight. Paul said, “I have fought the good fight” towards the end of his ministry. He didn’t say, “I have finished my life of ease in the name of Jesus”.

So, take heart, you battle-hardened readers!! Your trials will be difficult, yet trust that Jesus loves you and will see you through one way or the other. The grit you are developing today will prepare you for more ministry and will make you more like Jesus who was the grittiest of us all!

More to come…
Jeremy

I have been intrigued–yet pleased–to see grit making somewhat of a comeback on several different national platforms lately.

Let me give you some examples where grit, or pointing out the lack of grit–has been talked about both in secular and Christian circles. Now, I need to say this as a disclaimer since the next two blogs will be about grit. I am not indicting the culture while turning a blind eye to my own life. I struggle with “grit development” in both myself and now as a parent. I understand the temptation to take the easy path. This brief outline of my study on grit comes because I see how I need it for me and my family.

Our first example comes from the October 15th Breakpoint commentary “Bubble-wrapping Our Kids” where John Stonestreet quotes research professor at Boston College Peter Gray’s article “Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges” that discusses how college students today are lacking the essential skills to deal with everyday life. Stonestreet also quotes Dan Jones, the past president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors as saying, “[Students] haven’t developed skills in how to soothe themselves, because their parents have solved all their problems and removed the obstacles. They don’t seem to have as much grit as previous generations.”

Second example, let me quote Judy Holland’s Washington Post article “Grit: The key ingredient to your kids’ success”:

“When parents and educators launched the ‘self-esteem’ movement in the 1980’s, lavishly praising kids…they expected everyone would try harder. But the opposite was true. Coddled kids became softer, slower and less likely to persevere. In other words, they didn’t learn grit.” (If you have kids—this is a great article!)

John Maxwell’s recent “Minute With Maxwell” focused on “Barriers”. Here is some of what he said:

“There is no such thing as an easy life.”
“For leaders, there are never two consecutive good days in the life of a leader.”
“People that are successful aren’t people who had a life that was barrier free, they are people who just faced their barriers. They understood they were part of the journey.”

Lastly, Kevin P. Emmert wrote in a July 28, 2015 Christianity Today article “Jesus suffers with us–and we with Him”:

“The twists and turns of life aren’t obstacles to God’s plan for our lives but necessary steps to get there. God uses our sufferings that we might share in the life of Christ. Suffering is not something we want to avoid. Rather, like Paul, we want to pass through it for it is a key means of experiencing deeper union with Christ.”

I challenge you this week to see how you are doing on the “Grit Meter”. Follow the links provided (sorry, the CT article is subscription only).

Next week, we will look specifically at how Jesus models for us that the development of grit is something to be embraced, not avoided in our lives.

More to come…
Jeremy

Good morning! Following is my speaker notes from the October 4th sermon:

We Were Made For So Much More

KEY SCRIPTURE: Matthew 5:13-16 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Our Scripture today comes from the Sermon on the Mount. This particular passage is right after the beatitudes. Why did I pick this passage? Because this is laity Sunday and I love that Jesus didn’t teach the Sermon on the Mount as a keynote address at the annual Pharisees Retreat. No, this message was addressed to people like us—the laity! I’m here today to challenge us—the lay people—to realize that we were made for so much more than what we are living for right now.

You may be thinking that you can’t do anymore!! If you are like a lot of people I know, you are already exhausted. You are already facing numerous daunting problems and now I just said that you are made for more? You aren’t alone in thinking that, John Stott in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount said this, “Yet the very notion that Christians can exert a healthy influence in the world should bring us up with a start. What possible influence could the people described in the beatitudes exert in this hard, tough world? What lasting good can the poor and the meek do, the mourners and the merciful, and those who try to make peace not war? Would they not simply be overwhelmed by the flood tide of evil? What can they accomplish whose only passion is an appetite for righteousness, and whose only weapon is purity of heart? Are not such people too feeble to achieve anything, especially if they are a small minority in the world?” (Stott p. 57 “The Message of the Sermon on the Mount”)

The short answer to that question of can Christians change the world is—“YES!!” because of Jesus! Don’t believe me—look at Mother Teresa, look at Dietrich Bonhoeffer, look at William Wilberforce, or John Wesley.

We–just like those well-known Christians-are the salt and light of the world. We know this because Jesus said so!

So, if Jesus is calling us (and let’s remember that Jesus always initiates this call to us—we don’t initiate, we just respond) not only to be salt but also the light of the world; our activity is to be visible.

We have been saved not just for ourselves, but for everybody else too! If you have said yes to Jesus and accepted His atoning death on the cross for your sins, then share that with others. Don’t keep a good thing to yourself. The light we are called to be is for everyone. And the good news is that it isn’t too late to start living as salt and light right now! If God hasn’t called you home yet, then you have work to do. As Bill Allison told our men’s group a couple of years ago, “If you aren’t dead, then you aren’t done.” If you were waiting for the right time to start, then I would suggest that this is the right time! John Wesley said, “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” 


What keeps us from living this type of life? I think that all of us—and even a lot of well-meaning good people who are not here and generally don’t want to come to a church–really do want to help others out. They really do have good intentions—good plans to live a good life, but they just don’t quite execute those intentions where the rubber meets the road. There is an example in the Bible of someone like this. Someone who on the outside looked as if he had it all together, but as we will see that wasn’t the case. The Bible just calls him the rich, young man (read from Matthew 19:16-22)—I don’t think this passage is saying that if you have any possessions you aren’t saved, but I do think Jesus is making the profound statement that He doesn’t just want your stuff, He wants you!! All of you!! The rich young ruler had the head stuff down—he knew how to be religious and he probably really did love God, but even with that he knew he was still lacking something deep. He obviously (he says in the text, “What do I still lack?”) was still yearning for something more, but for whatever reason, he wouldn’t allow himself to live 100% for Jesus. Like so many of us, He wanted to hang on to part of himself. But Jesus wants all of us!

We really are made for so much more, but it is so easy for us to be deceived in our culture. It is so easy to get tricked into thinking that the tangible things, the distracting things, (dare I say the idols of our age) is all there is.

I also think in our culture that busyness is a major idol that gets in our way. We allow ourselves to be so busy with our day-to-day living. We get up in the morning—go 100 miles per hour all day and then we crash at night exhausted! Because of technology—which is another potential idol– we have the world at our fingertips. We have access to so much information and news that it can be overwhelming! It is so easy to start to feel useless because we realize that we can’t help everybody but yet because of our access to technology it seems we are exposed to everybody’s pain. Without a proper perspective, we can wind up focusing on what we can’t do instead of focusing on being salt and light where we are at—in our sphere of influence.

Because no matter how many bad things are happening all over the world at a given time, we can still have the high title of Ambassadors of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” Isn’t that so awesome! We get to be ambassadors for Christ in this world!! I can’t think of a more deeply satisfying job title than this!

You see—Jesus is for us. This is why we are made for so much more. Because Christ is in us. So let’s get going shall we? Because there is no shortage of need in the world is there? Matthew 9:37-38 “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” We are the answer to that prayer! We are the laborers. As laborers, we have work to do. Part of that work is being salt and light in the world by being able to articulate what we believe and why we believe it. I’m not so sure that in our culture today that it’s enough just to believe strongly in something. I think in this age, we need to be able to talk about what we believe intelligently and passionately with others. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”. I love that verse, because it calls us to always be ready to give an account of our faith—but to do it in a way that is gentle and respectful. If we can do that, we will stand out in the coarse culture we are in today.

In this manner we will be the salt and light of the world, we will live the life Jesus wants for us. But just know there are two paths we can take–Esther 4:14 says, “For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” God’s plan and purposes will be fulfilled—with us or without us—but I know that I want to be a part of His story.

Now, how about some encouragement to close this message out? How can we do this? How can we live out our faith in this world? Do we have any help? Yes! We have a helper!! John 7:37-38, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” John 14:15-18 says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

You see, we keep searching for answers to life’s problems in all the wrong places. The Holy Spirit is already with us. For those of us who believe, He is with us! But that isn’t all He has given us! Jesus knows that He made us relational beings so we also have access to other believers around us. I have a group of 7 other men I meet with weekly who help me to be an ambassador of Jesus. This past week when we met I was kind of having a pity party talking about some of the job related stress I was experiencing. They told me just what I needed to hear to get over my pity party, they said Jesus loves you, we love you—now suck-it-up buttercup and get back out there living for Christ! Now, they didn’t say it that way—they listened as I shared about my situations and then they actually laid hands on me and prayed over me. I can’t even express how much that meant to me and how those prayers impacted me. It changed the attitude of my heart just like that. Don’t we all need to know that in this hard, tough world that there are actually people pulling for us when it seems like so many are pulling against us?

In closing, I pray that as you get ready to leave this morning that you leave knowing that you are not alone! The Holy Spirit is here in this place and that same Holy Spirit will go with you as you leave. I also pray that you would realize that you have access to other loving believers who can walk the road of life with you. Lastly, I pray that you would look at today as the day where you surrendered all to Jesus and started to realize that Jesus made you for so much more. Amen!

More to come…
Jeremy

I love the title of this blog! I like the title because it is something that I need to hold before me often as I go through my days.

I wish I could say that I always LIVE OUT the said title, but that isn’t always the case.

I was reading an article from Rick Warren called “6 Vows Great Leaders Are Willing to Make and Keep” when vow number 3, “Vow to relax and trust God” really struck me as something I don’t often read about in leadership articles. As a matter of fact, I don’t know of any leadership book or article that has used the word “relax”! Now, I realize that the second part of the vow is where the power comes from, but still the “relax” got my attention.

This is what Rick Warren says about this vow:

“If you’re going to be in ministry, you’ve got to learn to relax. You need to be concerned about the people around you, but at the same time, you’re not God. You can’t bear everybody’s burdens all the time.

How do you release those burdens? First, you’ve got to pray. Ultimately, God is the one responsible for your flock. He’s the one responsible for the growth of your ministry. Share your burdens with him in prayer.

Then you need to spend some time in God’s Word meditating on his promises. Remember what God has done in the past–in God’s Word and in your own life. God has a good track record of taking care of us. Remember what God has done for you when you’re tempted to let the stress of your ministry position overwhelm you.

Will you commit to surrendering your stress to God?”

Wow!! I need to make and keep this vow!! I am very guilty of trying to do too much and I can worry with the best of them!

Did you need to hear this word today? Are there others that you know that need to hear this? Pass it on.

By the way, if you want to know the other 5 vows Warren talks about, then click here!

More to come…
Jeremy