Archives For Theology

Superbowl of Christianity

I’ve heard it over and over from pastors, working moms, big brothers, and volunteers. Easter is like the Superbowl for anyone who works in a church. All the work we do, the meetings we have, the lives we try to reach, are all because of the events that we remember on Good Friday and Easter. Jesus Christ took our sins to the cross and paid the ransom for our lives. Three days later, He rose from the grave and He lives as our Savior.

While it can be exciting to look at Easter in that way, I feel it lacks something. When you look at the game of football, you see that it starts with preseason drills and games that don’t matter in regards to standings. The season starts and every team works to win as much as possible in order to make it to the playoffs. The Pro Bowl happens and the all-stars get to show off a week before the big event. After at least 60 minutes of kicking, running, passing and tackling, a champion is decided and a city celebrates. Then comes the off-season. Continue Reading…

clarity

This is the fifth and final post in a series of posts as I decompress from an amazing weekend of seeking God. You can find an introduction to this series as well as links to the other posts here.

The thick fog that we drove through on the way to the cabin slowed us down enough to discuss what our expectations were for the weekend. Being on similar yet completely different walks in this journey of life, our expectations were all unique. One thing is certain though – we were all expecting big things.

I have not hidden the fact that I have been searching for answers from God regarding my calling. When I was in middle school, I went on a retreat where one of the other students received a call to go into ministry. I wanted so badly to experience what he did. My sister was a missionary with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) at the time, and so naturally this great desire in me to “hear a call” turned into an idea that I was being called to be a missionary. I’m not saying that I faked the calling of God on my life at that point, but I didn’t really understand what I was saying when I told my leader that I felt called to become a missionary.

Over the course of my high school years, I went on every mission trip and retreat that I could. I volunteered with the middle school ministry and learned to play guitar so that I could become a worship leader. I got baptized in a pool and began to own my faith. I had huge wins in my life and major failures, but God still had a plan for me. The memory of what I said on that retreat began to fade, but I would be reminded by that old leader whenever he saw me. He had moved on in his career and I only saw him once every few years, but every time he saw me, he would say “I haven’t forgotten that call to ministry.” Continue Reading…

Weights

This is the fourth post in a series of posts as I decompress from an amazing weekend of seeking God. You can find an introduction to this series as well as links to the other posts here.

The posts in response to the retreat I went on a couple of weekends ago have been straightforward up to this point. This one might turn out to be a little more abstract.

As humans on this earth, we all go through struggles and trials. You might think that those who are born into a life of privilege are not susceptible to difficulties that you have had to go through, but that does not mean that they have struggles of their own. One thing I learned from spending a couple of days away with a couple of friends is that we all have crap in our lives that we are dealing with on a daily basis. Continue Reading…

Sacrifices Nailed To The Cross

This is the third post in a series of posts as I decompress from an amazing weekend of seeking God. You can find an introduction to this series as well as links to the other posts here.

What part of your life do you need to let go of? Are you worried about where your life is headed? Maybe you feel like you don’t have the right job or your finances are a wreck. Maybe you need to forgive someone and you’ve been holding on to the pain they caused for far too long.

It is a common practice among churches and youth groups to occasionally offer these types of things to God in a metaphorical and even ceremonial way. Maybe you write them down and nail them to a cross on Good Friday. Maybe you throw them into a bonfire on a youth retreat. I watched as people wrote the things they needed to sacrifice on flash paper and then lit them on fire before being baptized. However it is done, there is significance in the act of physically letting go and offering them to God. Continue Reading…

Our God is a Consuming Fire

This is the second post in a series of posts as I decompress from an amazing weekend of seeking God. You can find an introduction to this series as well as links to the other posts here.

Saturday was filled with hiking through God’s creation. We visited Cucumber Falls, Ohiopyle Falls, and the Youghiogheny Dam. After a long day of fasting and experiencing the wonder of God through His creation (and needing some aspirin for the old guys), we gathered around the fire at the cabin to pray.

As I was stoking the fire to get it going, I began to think about the hot coals and embers that keep the fire hot. If you were to take one of the hot embers from the middle of the fire and put it off to the side, it would not be long before it cooled down. The orange glow would fade and the ember would eventually be nothing more than a cold black piece of charred wood.

This is not unlike a person in the Church, in The Body of Christ. When you are engaged and involved and growing in community with other believers, you tend to stay hotter in your faith. The joys in your life encourage others and keep their faith hot. When you share your struggles with fellow Christians, you have the support of the Body of Christ to keep you from growing cold. If you remove yourself from the Church, who is there to share in your joys and struggles? Continue Reading…

God's not dead

This is the first post in a series of posts as I decompress from an amazing weekend of seeking God. You can find an introduction to this series as well as links to the other posts here.

If there was one theme that was true for the three of us who went to my cabin this past weekend, it would be the proclamation that the enemy has already been defeated. From the text message that one got from his wife about one of their children getting sick to the fact that something goes wrong at work any time I am away for a weekend, it seemed as though the enemy did not want us to accomplish our goal of seeking God.

The enemy has been defeated
And death couldn’t hold You down
We’re gonna lift our voice in victory
We’re gonna make Your praises loud

Shout Unto God – Joel Houston | Marty Sampson © 2004 Hillsong Music Publishing (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing)

After driving through heavy fog that would have stopped the faint of heart, we arrived at the cabin in the middle of the night. Our plan was to fast through saturday as we prayed for our pastors and the leadership around us as well as seeking God for direction in our own lives. Continue Reading…

Spiritual Retreat

I had the privilege of taking a couple of days off this past weekend to go on a bit of a spiritual retreat with a couple of my friends. Leaving friday night and returning sunday evening, we traveled through the heavy fog to one of the most beautiful state parks in Pennsylvania. With a family cabin nearby and amazing weather this weekend, it was the perfect place and time to go.

When telling other friends and coworkers, we got responses indicating that they thought we were just going there to drink, fish, shoot stuff, play poker, and go white water rafting. While we did play cards for a little while saturday night, our purpose for going on this “retreat” was more about going on the offense in our spiritual battle. We went to pray for the people who lead us. We went seek God’s direction for our lives and families in the coming year. We went to hear from God. Continue Reading…

New Year Calendar

When people ask me if I have any resolutions for the new year, I first wonder why they are asking me about pixel dimensions in the new year. Seriously though, I don’t really like making New Years Resolutions. It’s not that I don’t have things I’d like to accomplish in the new year, just that I tend to fail at resolutions. The most ambitious resolution I ever made was to read through the entire Bible, cover to cover.

I’m not going to make a New Year’s Resolution this year, but I do have some goals as well as some themes that I plan to pray through in the coming months. These goals and themes might last the whole year or maybe just a few weeks. Continue Reading…

ESV

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:8-9 ESV

I was struggling with some things that I know about a friend of mine the other day, and I shared my struggles with another friend as he was driving me home. I was comparing myself to this friend and feeling like I deserved more than him. I was almost envious of the things and status that my friend has. Although I knew my thoughts were not thoughts I should have, I could not block them out of my mind.

The following day, Ted sent me a verse that he had read later that night. Philippians 4:8-9. The only way to remove thoughts that you do not want in your mind is to think on other things.

It’s like when you get that really annoying song stuck in your head and you can’t help but play the most annoying line from the song on repeat in you mind. The only way to get that song out of your head is to listen to another song or start singing another song. When you have evil, impure, worrisome, despicable, or painful thoughts, the only way to break that cycle of bad thoughts is to think about the true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, and excellent things. Continue Reading…

Deja Vu from "The Matrix"

Deja Vu from “The Matrix”

Do you ever wonder why you seem to keep hearing the same thing over and over again? I don’t mean the mudslinging political ads that say the same things about different candidates ever four years. I mean things that directly affect your daily life, how you respond to events, and your thought processes in general.

Some might say that an overactive conscience can bring someone to believe that everything they hear is directed towards them personally. Others would say that it’s the universe keeping itself in balance. I think most Christians would say that it’s probably God trying to tell you something.

Continue Reading…