God’s first commandment was to multiply and subdue the earth.

Christ’s last commandment was to go into all the earth and make disciples.

These to commandments go together like chocolate and peanut butter.  What better way to make disciples than to raise your own children to love and obey God, and to teach them to teach their children and their children’s children and everyone they come in contact with?  If Christian parents would model the perfect love of God for their friends AND families, that whole Great Commission thing would be a snap.

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God has a plan.  Are you a part of it?  Would you like to be?  You can be an integral part of what God is doing, but you have to be willing to get on board with God’s plans and align your plans with his rather than vise versa.

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Are you making opportunities to obey the Spirit and teach the world about who God is?  It’s kind of a big deal if you think about it.  If you’ve been saved by God, that means you were rescued from death–plucked from the fiery pit of Hell and turned from a wicked and sinful monster into a saint.  But Jesus didn’t sacrifice himself to turn you into a decoration (like the statues you see of dead people).  He gave his life so that you could have life, and then he said it’s your turn now!  Go into all the world and save some people!  Don’t waste the precious gift you’ve been given…spread it around.  There’s more than enough to go around.  God doesn’t want anybody to die without him.  If you’ve found God’s grace don’t hide it, divide it!

If you haven’t been saved, that means you’re still dead in your sins.  And you probably already know exactly what I’m talking about.  Your own conscience is probably telling you exactly what it is that is keeping you apart from a relationship with your Creator.  Today is the day of salvation.  Make the choice to leave your sins in the past and to start living for God, and you will find a life more amazing than anything you’ve ever known.  It’s not always easy.  In fact, Jesus guarantees that you’ll face persecution if you live life his way.  But it is so worth it!  To actually live in relationship to God and know his presence in your life outweighs all the troubles you could ever face.  And we haven’t even gotten to Heaven yet.  That’s the icing on the cake of a real relationship with Jesus!  Make the decision to find forgiveness and turn your life around and live by the awesome power of the Holy Spirit.  You won’t be disappointed!

PS. Thank you to NASA for a great title. 🙂

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The things you own can end up owning you.  And he who dies with the most toys is dead.

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Did you know that all Christians are supposed to be missionaries?  We might not all be called to travel to a foreign country, but Jesus did say to go into all the world and make disciples, to baptize them and teach them to obey everything that he taught.  And guess what?  Even if you’re not in some foreign country your still in the world somewhere—unless you’re an astronaut—though even in orbit there are people we can teach Christ’s commandments to.  No matter where you are, you are called to teach people to obey what Christ taught.  Maybe you’ve never thought about it before, but if you are not making disciples wherever you go, you are disobeying Jesus Christ.  And if you are disobeying Jesus Christ then that proves he is not your Lord and that you don’t love him.  Remember, he said “Those who obey my commands are the ones who love me.”  So if you don’t obey Jesus, and he is not your Lord, and you are not making disciples, then are you really a Christian?  Or are you simply mislabeling yourself?  James Chapter 2 makes it pretty clear that there’s a big difference between knowing God exists, and living a life that demonstrates your faith in him.  Even the demons “believe” in God and tremble.  So the question is, do you TRUST and OBEY God?   And inexperience or lack of education are both extremely lousy excuses, since all Christians are supposed to have the Holy Spirit living inside them and directing them.  After all, the only way you can get experience is by doing something.  Don’t you think it’s time you got started?

This talk is really just a short report on a building project we sent a team to help out with.  It was a trip in support of mission training and work, but all missionaries need support too.  So if you’re not ministering in a foreign country somewhere, be sure that you are helping to support that work with your money as well as sharing the Good News of Jesus yourself.  Just like the early disciples, we should be both spreading the Gospel AND financially supporting others who are making disciples around the world.

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I’ve heard so many people give me opinions of what Jesus was like who have obviously never studied the Bible.  They say silly things like he was a great teacher and he loved everybody and taught tolerance.  But you usually don’t see people clamoring to execute nice teachers who teach tolerance.  Jesus was a hard man.  He was full of compassion and kindness, but his teachings were not soft and tolerant in the slightest.  He said things that made people want to kill him.  And they did kill him.  And he told his disciples to expect it.  And he told them if they were going to follow him they should expect the same kind of treatment from people.

I think too many church people think that being a Christian is about putting on a happy face and singing songs and getting along with everybody.  But Jesus said that his teachings would cause people to hate your guts—even your own family members sometimes.  And he said if you’re not ready to be hated by your own family, if you don’t love me enough to give up everything else you love and prepare yourself for death, you’re not ready to be my follower!  That doesn’t sound like the friendly tolerant Jesus that a lot of people talk about does it?  But I dare you to read through the Gospels and then prove me wrong.

One of the things Jesus said over and over is “Take up your cross and follow me.”  In other words prepare yourself for extreme difficulty.  Before it became a popular piece of jewelry, the cross was an implement of bloody, humiliating, painful, horrible death.  It wasn’t pretty.  And when people came to follow Jesus he said you’re not ready to follow me until you’re ready to die for me.  Until you’re ready to sacrifice yourself for the cause of saving other people from Hell, you’re no good to me.

Jesus never deserved to die.  He never did anything wrong.  But he condemned sin and hypocrisy, and people don’t like it when you do that to them.  And the crazy thing is, he died to offer even his executioners a way to find forgiveness and new life.  He died to save people—including everybody who wanted him dead at first.

How about you?  Are you ready to die to save anybody—much less somebody who hates your guts.  Are you ready to love your enemy and try to bring him salvation.  Because if not, Jesus said, “If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine.  If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.”  Check it out in Matthew, chapter 10.

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We live in a fast paced culture.  Right?  Nobody likes to wait for anything.  We want everything now.  We hate red lights and long lines and people who show up late.  I’ve seen people lose it because they had to wait 5 minutes to get their fast food.  Just the other day I was at a stoplight, and across the intersection was a guy whose car had stopped running.  I could hear his starter kick in over and over as he tried to get his engine started again.  And when the light turned green, the guy behind him laid on the horn–several times. We love to be able to fast forward through the commercials.  We live faced paced lives.

But I’ve noticed that a lot of people who get involved with churches or pray some little prayer that’s supposed to magically change them into Christians are more than happy to wait.  Oh, they still want the sermons to be over fast so they can get back to more fast paced life.  But when it comes to making the world a better place, they don’t mind at all just to wait…to wait for Jesus to come back to fix things, to wait till they die to change their lives, to wait for somebody else to do something so they won’t have to.

So is that right?  Is that the way it ought to be?  Does God just want people to go to a church, sing a few songs, pray a few prayers and then sit around and wait?  The Bible seems pretty clear about how people who claim to follow him ought to be impacting and affecting the world around them.  Jesus talked all the time about helping the poor and the widows and orphans and prisoners and foreigners.  He was very clear that we’re supposed to stand up for justice and teach people to obey his commandments.  So then why do so many people who call themselves Christians seem to be waiting?

By the way, what are you waiting for?

PS. I mention a visual aid in part of this talk that might be a little difficult to see in the audio recording.  So for anybody curious about that.  I tied off a big roll of string and began to unwind it across the room.  A little way out, I used a marker to mark a tiny spot on the string.  Then I kept unwinding it all around the room.  I’d go all the way to one wall, wrap the string around something and go back the other way.  Eventually the string was unwound all over the place.  I thought it was fun.

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Have you ever felt passion for something?  Do you feel a drive for anything in life?  What sets you on fire?  What really motivates you?  There are all sorts of things that we’re told we have to do out of responsibility…pay your taxes, vote, mow your lawn, obey the Golden Rule, go to church on Sundays.  But when it comes to religious stuff and all the things we are called to do as Christians, what God really wants is passion.  He wants to use the energy and drive that you have naturally and use your passion to accomplish great things!  He wants to give us all a mission from God that will set our hearts on fire.

This talk focuses a lot on youth and seeing kids and young people as an important and valuable part of the church.  Young people aren’t the future, they are part of the present, and we should treat them as such.

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