Messed Up

We spend so much time trying to give the impression that we have got our act together, in control and on top of things. The reality is that, even on our best days, we are pretty messed up. No, we are not a pool of blubbering tears, but we are still a mess.

Every day we make bad judgment calls. We sin. We fall over. We forget what is important. We zig when we should have zagged. We look down when we should have looked up.

We do lots of good things. We often get things right but we are like the best baseball player who is doing pretty good if he bats 300. That's getting a hit 3 times out of every 10 times at bat. And they give millions of dollars if you can do that.

Now this disparaging picture of ourselves is no cause for beating ourselves up. As disciples of Jesus we have had the messed up life of ours made holy. Not just right but holy. God's grace towards us is abundant. If we continue to follow Him in faith He continues to fellowship with us. Reminds of the song Broken Things

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so_VRTb-HWQ

Being messed up has implications for our relationships with others as well as with God. We are all broken people but that doesn't mean that we can avoid the consequences of our bad decisions.

I am so glad that God still uses messed up people in His kingdom. Otherwise I would be of very little use in the kingdom. I realistically think that I am not that useful to God but I am so grateful that He still wants to use me.

There is a song that says it well

O, Lord, who uses broken things;
Who through broken clouds gives us sweet, sweet rain;
Who gives us bread from broken grain;
O, Lord, make me stronger through broken things


Don't know who wrote it but they got it right. 


http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

project:northside Website Launch

After a lot of preliminary planning and prayer I uploaded the website promoting my future work in Sydney Australia next year. Here it is.
project:northside website!

Hey, Someone's Burning My Bible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FkbgeR8LKs
Just when you thought it was safe to go to church. I wish I was surprised by this video. Some believers are just plain uninformed and boy does the media love to give them a platform. It's crazy Christian story time again.

How's Your Day

Days come and days go. “How’s your day?” so many ask. We very rarely say anything other than it is fine, even when it isn’t. That makes our days sound so ordinary doesn’t it? Yet life is made up of these days and life in Christ is far from ordinary. However, many say, “Seems pretty ordinary to me.” Sometimes it might seem that way but the reality is very different.

Each day we live as disciples of Jesus is packed full of potential. How? Firstly, by what God brings to each day.

Consider the woman at the well (John 4). As I was teaching about her recently I couldn’t help but feel that she experienced a pretty special day that day at the well. But how did it begin?

I expect it was a day like any other for her. She woke up, cared of her household and then started on her daily journey to the well to fetch water. No hot and cold running water in Sychar. (In fact, no water at all.) She had to, along with everyone else I the village, walk some distance to the well and carry the water back in a big jar. Sounds like a difficult job as well as a tedious one. Every day, walking to the well, and carrying back that heavy load.

But this was no ordinary day. Today she would meet the messiah who she and her people, the Samaritans, had been looking for for many centuries. She would not only meet him. He would change her whole life. Yet the day began as hundreds had before. She had no warning that today would be the pivotal day in her life. It would be the most important trip she had taken to the well.

What’s the point? Simply this; every one of us will have days like this in our lives. They will be special days to which God will bring something extraordinary. Most of our days He will rely upon our obedience to his word and our responding to the leading of the Spirit to set the agenda, but on some days He will do some things that have the potential to change us completely.

What are your special days? For me it was the day a preacher knocked on my family’s door in 1974 and set a Bible study up with my mother. My whole spiritual journey can be traced to that day. It was the day I first saw Julie. From that day on my life would be incredibly blessed because of her. It was the day each of our sons were born. It was the day I first preached at Glendale. It was the day I first heard Jim McGuiggan preach. There have been so many special days.

For some of these special days we have some warning but for most of them we don’t. God springs them on us, usually when we least expect it. Today could be one of those days. So could tomorrow. Consider it. Today could be the day in which, while you are taking care of the mundane (yet important) things of life, God will bring someone into your day who will change your whole life or at least change your year.

This is why the ancient songwriter sang, "This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24). No matter what day the Lord gives you, rejoice in it. It may be a day of waiting. It may be a day of work. It may be a non-descript day. It may be a day of fulfillment. It may be a day at the well. Expect it. It is coming every twenty-four hours and it is loaded with potential because of what God can bring to it.

What can He bring to it? Amazing things. Challenging things. Glorious things. Tragic things. Life-changing things. This isn’t just a matter of a positive mental attitude. It is a matter of God’s intentional planning for you and me. "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us," Ephesians 3:20.

What has God got planned for you? According to his clear word here in Ephesians, it is more than we can imagine with all the positive mental attitude in the world.

And when is He going to do this? He doesn’t say. He does say He is going to do it, but the timing is His. It could be today.

As you go through your day, today, doing all the things that you should do and need to do, keep an eye out. Keep an eye out for that man at the well, that knock at the door, that email, that sermon, that phone call from a friend, that birth, that death. This could be your day at the well and you wouldn’t want to miss it would you? Imagine if the woman at the well had ignored Jesus’ question. Imagine what would if she had followed the custom of the day and chosen to be offended by this uncouth single man.

Our days are full of potential because of what we bring to them as well but that’s for another article. Remember the Psalmist proclamation and make it your own. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

Australia on My Mind

Last Sunday the elders of the Glendale Church, where I labor for the Lord, and I announced my intention to return to Australia in April of 2010. Family issues have precipitated our return. We have been talking and praying about this for 4 months now and have kept it confidential but now it is out there and I can speak publicly about it.

After 7 years, and almost 8 by the time Julie and I head back to Sydney, living in Southern California, I am meditating on our lives in Christ. Julie and I have been on a wild ride since our first years of ministry at the Eastside Church in Sydney in 1979 which was also our first year of marriage. My main thought is that I am so glad that the ride through God's kingdom continues with all the unexpectedness that has characterized our journey so far. The years advance but God continues to use this wreck of a life of mine to His ends in the kingdom.

I am so excited about the Glendale Church. God has lead them into a closer walk with Him in these past few years. They have strengthened in faith and are maturing in Christ. They have allowed God to work in their lives and wow, how He has worked. They now understand that Jesus is the center of the kingdom, not the church. They now believe that our message to the world is Jesus Christ, not ourselves. They now see their primary spiritual relationship as being with Jesus not with a church schedule. They have grown in their appreciation of God's grace and see their lives as motivated by that grace (rather than an effort to secure that grace). I love this church. I really do not want to leave but I will. Lots of mixed feelings here. Better bite my lip before I say something stupid.

I am also excited for our future. God will keep us connected with Glendale but He is opening up doors to a new enterprise in His kingdom. More on that at another time.

Lord keep us close to your heart and to your will.

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

Right and Wrong and Right

Some Christians have given the impression that their main job is to be the arbiters of morality. They rant (and then rant some more) about how immoral the world is. Preachers seem to have the idea that their main job is to point out the moral shortcomings of people (especially those who are not Christian).

And as though that wasn't bad enough some of these moralists bemoan the loss of morals as a sign of what a terrible world we live in and they we are all "going to hell in a hand basket".

God certainly has revealed that there are things we should not do. True morality is centered in His will. The central focus of the message Jesus gave us to proclaim is that there is an escape from our immorality and sin. It's called grace. It's not cheap. It cost a lot not. Not for you but for God.

Yes, we must oppose any attempt to justify sin or to make any sin a righteous thing. In fact I am preaching on that this Sunday. But to do so without talking of the lavish grace God wants to extend to all sinners is just as wrong as the sin that is condemned.

It's like a doctor diagnosing you with a life threatening illness and NOT telling you of the cure that is readily available. That is wrong.

Some of us Christians have got to get off our moral high horses and get about the task Jesus has given us; telling everyone that God loves them, is desperate to forgive them and wants to adopt them into His family. Yes, God is our judge, but He also is our justifier (Romans 3:26). Let's warn people of judgment but let's also reveal to them the cure

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

Branding Your Church

I hate some things. Here are some of my thoughts (aka: rant) about one of my pet peeves.

For ages people have had their say. It’s okay to get their name wrong but it is NOT okay to call them late for dinner.

Shakespeare expressed doubt that getting a name right has any great consequence in his “a rose by any other name would smell the same” quote.

However we have grown up in a culture where it is vitally important to call things by their right names. Let me challenge you with this idea, actually, question. In the kingdom of God, which is more important, right name or right practice?

Your first thought is probably the same as mine. Let’s do both. But, lets think a little outside of our usual idealism. If you had to choose, and believe me we often do, which would you choose? Calling things by their right name. Or doing the right things.

Here are some observations of mine. Yes, just George’s opinion. I have seen some argue strongly for the use of the term deacon but are unconcerned when a deacon is not actually serving anybody. Evangelists who are correctly titled but who do not preach good news. Shepherds who we insist must be called a certain title and who haven’t visited the sheep in years.

You see, we do choose. Too often we choose right name over right practice. Is it because we are superficial? Maybe. I know I often am. Is it because it is easier to get the name right than getting the practice right? Maybe.

I have heard strong worded arguments for calling the church by the “right” name. And that name, they argue, is the Church of Christ. Some argue for a small “c” on church but they all come from the same point of view i.e. that we must make it a priority to call the church by its right name. They claim biblical authority for this. Yet, the do not apply that same level of intensity to the church living out its purpose.

Yet, the Bible I read (I’m sure it is the same one I read) never uses the phrase, Church of Christ. It actually uses others when referring to a church, but I digress. My point is this; we put so much energy into calling the church by the “right” name and we put very little energy on actually being the church that Christ is building.

I would rather have a church that calls itself the Glendale Church (for which there is clear biblical authority) and actually practices what the Bible says members of the church should be doing rather than one who has the “right” name and acts like a bunch of unbelievers.

We have let our culture change us too much. We, too often, have become just as superficial as our society in trying to make everything look good in name and have ignored the more important things. Didn’t Jesus say something about this? ““Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” Matthew 23:23, NIV.

Get the practice right and get the name right but if you have to choose, get the practice right. Let’s BE the church that Christ is building.

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/