You’re an equal
…Proclaim to it the message I give to you. – Jonah 3:2
Yesterday was media day at the Super Bowl. A general circus of reporters clamour for players attention and ask some of the most ludicrous questions you could imagine.
My team, the Patriots, are in the Super Bowl this year and as such I was interested in what would be said, who would be talking, etc… About 20 minutes in to the event a reporter asked Tom Brady what his purpose in life was. “Why do you have this platform?” he asked.
Hmmm…
Jonah had a platform. He was charged with going into Nineveh and proclaiming God’s message. Scared, he ran from God but our God is so big there’s nowhere to hide. God will never force us to do what he asks but we will face trials by disobeying. Once we obey we find that what He asks of us was never more than we can bear. It wasn’t so bad after all.
For the longest time I wanted a giant platform. How cool would it be to be Tom Brady? To sit on that stage, in front of hundreds of reporters, broadcast on ESPN all over the world and proclaim Jesus Christ is Lord! I could make a difference!
It took me a long time to realize that I had a platform all along. Tom Brady couldn’t get to know each person individually at a computer company. It just wouldn’t work. Some don’t follow football, most don’t get the metro look. But God knew I could.
For most of us we are only concerned about ourselves. We want a different job and a better bigger platform. I couldn’t be a doctor but there are Christian brothers out there right now curing ailments and bringing God’s message to hospital staff and patients.
Like Jonah we run and try to do what is best for us. Once we surrender and stop thinking about ourselves we can begin to exact change in our very own backyards. Jonah finally obeyed and saved an entire city from destruction and hell.
Psalm 96:2 says: “Sing to the Lord, praise His name; proclaim His salvation day after day.” Be happy with where you are. You’re there for a reason doing a task only God felt you could handle. You may hate it, as I sometimes do, but remember that nothing is impossible with God and your platform is just as important as ever other. What is your purpose in life?
It smells so good!
Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. -Romans 6:11
A couple of months ago I was walking to my car after work and recognized an unmistakable smell; The smell of autumn. It was 45-50 degrees, the sun was beginning to set, and it just smelled like fall. I love that smell for some reason. Maybe it’s memories, maybe it’s the changing landscape but something about that smell seems calming.
I started thinking about what the smell actually was and it dawned on me that it was leaves. And I started thinking about why leaves die and regrow, why they change color, and why do they smell so good in the fall.
God gives us a perfect example of His word in a real world visual. See, leaves bud, the sun gives them light and they grow. They mature and turn in to a vibrant color of green. As the sun moves farther away from the earth and the days become darker the leaves begin to lose their vibrant green. For a few weeks they explode into beautiful yellows, reds, and oranges, cascading through the neighborhoods and forests, indulging our eyes. We actually plan vacations around this! But those bright colors are short lived. Without the sun the leaves lose their food. They begin withering and fall off the tree and within days are brown and brittle.
In those few weeks of colorful explosions and in the days preceding when the leaves have fallen and are brown and brittle they give off this smell I call “fall”. It smells so good, and personally, I love basking in a perfect fall day.
You probably already see the example, we are the leaves, Jesus is the sun, the son of God. When we turn our lives over to Him he changes us. We grow and become vibrant leaves.(Romans 6:4)
We are all sinners(Romans 3:23) and eventually that sin rears it’s ugly head even when we have committed are lives to Christ. Sometimes it’s brief, sometimes we backslide for a while. And during that time sin seems good. We feel good, we change color, we feel as though life is going fine. And for that brief time we look good to the world. We’re the bright reds and yellows, and oranges that attract other non-believers. We have more friends, we can do more things.(Matthew 7:13)
Eventually sin consumes you, you lose your connection with God and He becomes far away. Without food you wither and die.(1 Corinthians 10:3-4) You become brown and britle. Sin smells so good. Those reds, oranges, and yellows are so pretty to look at and on a nice fall day the smells can consume you. However, just like fire with it’s reds, yellows, and oranges, sin will consume you and devour everything turning it to dust.
Here’s the beauty of Christ: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”(1 John 1:9) You know what that means? That means, like a leaf in spring time we can rebud. We grow again! No task required, no 15 hail mary’s, no physical death. Just dead to sin, alive in Christ. Glorious, wondrous grace from the cross. That’s it! If you don’t get goosebumps reading that!
Don’t let sin consume you, don’t let Satan take hold and drag you down. It may feel good right now but in a few days, weeks, months, years, you are going to be hurting. Renew yourself now. Confess your sins, submit to His will for your life and let Him make you whole. You need food to survive and so does your soul. Pick up the Bible read a chapter, and pray to your Father in heaven. He’ll turn you a vibrant shade of green!
Don’t play house
Therefore what God has joined together, let man not seperate. – Matthew 19:6
I feel I must get on my soap box after having a conversation a couple of days ago with several non-believers. Two are around my age, one around my dad’s age. It troubled me to the point I needed a few days to grapple with what it really means.
Recalling how the conversation actually started is difficult, and probably irrelevant, but we all somehow managed to get on the conversation of marriage. One spoke up and said he and his wife moved in together and then got married so marriage wasn’t a “big decision” for them. Another chimed in and confirmed, saying her and her husband even bought a house together before getting married. The older of the 3, in partial disbelief, said “what is the world coming to?”. And proclaimed that it was much different in his time. You would think that was enough for me to chew on but it gets better.
In the world we live in none of this was really a shock to me. It’s a part of every day life now, a passing thought in the minds of all. Then came this revelation: “Oh it’s the way to go. I’m going to tell my kids to do it.” Hold on, WHAT?! The logic itself was flawed. When pried for an answer as to why the response was “with the divorce rate so high why would you not want to test it out first? It only makes sense.”
Even a non-believer was questioning this. And it made me think how much easier it must have been 30yrs ago to live a more stringent Christian life. How disgusting is this world than even just 30yrs ago? It’s so hard to stay on course when all around you are things to tickle your senses.
Then it hit me. The world doesn’t have a moral and spiritual compass to guide them. They step out in to the woods unprepared and are confused when they get lost. Don’t believe me? Try convincing a non-believer that the big bang is impossible. Yes, logically it makes no sense but they don’t have any other answer for how we got here so it must be right. 2 Peter 3:3 says in the last days scoffers will come following their own evil desires. It’s so easy for them to scoff at logic in the face of doing what they want. Following logic would mean changing and why change when things are “ok” as they are?
You don’t need to read far in to the Bible to see the answer. Genesis 2:24: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. See, you want the divorce rate to go down? Don’t mess around before getting married. Sex is more than a feeling. It’s a union of two spirits, it’s something humans can not understand. Only God understands the complex union of two into one.
So you say, I’ve already had sex am I doomed? No, because the blood of Christ cleanses us of all sin.(Hebrews 9:14) When you except Christ in your life God only sees a blameless lamb, it’s the beauty of grace! In following a Christian life, divorce becomes a mute point. Through the power and glory of God He makes all things whole.
The divorce rate is so high because without a compass there is no guide to say “no that’s the wrong direction”. Unbelievers simply see it as a decision. black and white. Oh it’s sad, but you can find someone else. Not true. We should not break what God has joined together.(Matthew 19:6) It’s not just a decision. It’s a breaking of a union of two souls. Ever heard the saying “He took a piece of me with him.”? In a sense, this is true. If you give over to sex you have joined together as one and breaking that leaves a lasting impression.
I felt broken inside hearing that these children are going to be given no compass and be given misguided information on how to live their lives. I felt powerless, hopeless for them. I wish you could just shake someone into believing sometimes.
Remember, nothing is hopeless with God. He has a plan for each and every one of us. If you’ve stumbled, if your marriage seems irrepairable, if you’re a non-believer, don’t lose hope! Pour out your heart to God. He will hear you, he will pour out His blessings on you, even though we don’t deserve them. With God all things are possible(Matthew 19:26)!!
