This is my life as an intern at Saddleback Church while working on the Regional Ministries Support Team. Check back regularly for updates, things I am learning and random thoughts about life.

The Desert

For a little while I have felt like I have been being led by God to experience some temptations. It has been very difficult to deal with. At times I have felt like I am being drug through the gutter. I know God will sustain me but that doesn’t make it less difficult. Today I opened an email from my mother that was from “Prime Time with God”. I’ve never heard of that before but it caught my attention when it had the verse that I have been reading and reflecting a lot on lately. Below is what it had to say. When I read it I have to admit it brought a few tears to my eyes because it confirmed a little of what I have been going through. 

Being Led into the Desert
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman
11-14-2009

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matt 4:1-2).

After Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist He was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be temped by the devil. Jesus was being tempted as a man, not as God. Jesus came to earth as a man to live His life with the same limitations as you and I. Satan wanted him to come out of His human condition into His God nature to deal with His hunger. It was Jesus’ first real test to be a human being.

Some people think God would never lead His people into the desert to be tested. Some would even say this is the devil’s doing. The fact is, both statements are true. God actually uses Satan to test His servants to help develop obedience in their lives.

Jesus had to tap into the power of the Holy Spirit in His life just like you must in order to have victory over temptation. God was testing His obedience. He was not allowed to be God in this situation. This would be true for the rest of His life. The miracles He would perform were the result of seeing what the Father was doing and obeying His commands. Jesus said we would do even greater works than He did because we have the same access to the Father as He did.

God led the people of Israel into the desert to learn something about themselves. They learned about their level of obedience when life became difficult. “Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands” (Deut 8:2).

When God leads you into the desert, He is allowing you to learn something about yourself. We all need to learn how we will respond to temptations in our lives. As we press into God during these times the roots of our faith are forced deeper and deeper into the soil of His grace.

Do not fear being led into the desert. This too is the way of God. 

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The Sunglasses of Discipline

I recently went on a road trip to see U2 with some friends. On our way home I took my place in the back seat, because someone else with us got car sick. Frankly I hate sitting in the back seat…

The Sunglasses of Discipline

I recently went on a road trip to see U2 with some friends. On our way home I took my place in the back seat, because someone else with us got car sick. Frankly I hate sitting in the back seat because you will generally be left out of the conversation and the music will be too loud to hear anything that is being said. So I had a lot of time to sit and think.
As I was sitting in the back seat I began to think about sunglasses and world views. They say world views are like glasses we put on that affect how we see the world, while I don’t agree with that concept wholeheartedly I think it can be appropriate at times. As I this thought snowballed in my head I started thinking about spiritual disciplines as sunglass changers. How we can use different disciplines to change our perspectives. While this isn’t the only goal of a spiritual discipline I think it is a facet of them.

This is something I am going to continue to think through. As I think about it more I will share. 

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The Holy Spirit

Life Church.tv is starting a new series on the Holy Spirit. The video is great. Check it out.

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The Holy Spirit

Life Church.tv is starting a new series on the Holy Spirit. The video is great. Check it out.

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Check out this link (Shared via http://ow.ly):

Check out this website I found at ow.ly

A friend shared this on twitter. I really enjoyed his perspective. We cannot spend to much time on any one specific task. If we do we will become unbalanced and not very useful.

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Service Without Requirements

A few weeks ago I watched this video. And I have to admit that was slightly concerned over the video. Why would these people willingly help people who would continue in their sin? It seemed like they were enabling the girls who lived there, and as a Christian shouldn’t I be against enabling people to sin? In the midst of thinking this thought a story from the Bible came to mind. The story is found in Luke chapter 17 verses 11 to 19. In this story Jesus heals 10 lepers but only one turns back to praise Jesus because he was actually healed. Now this passage would have little impact on our understanding if Jesus just healed everyone he came in contact with, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. In addition we see in John 5:19 that Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing. So it leaves us to reckon that God, the Father, knew what would happen as well as Jesus, the Son of God. If one or both knew what would happen and still healed these men than they would have healed them knowing they wouldn’t respond correctly. What strikes me is that Jesus healed them anyways, regardless of their response to him. His healing was given without requirements, and so should our service. We should serve those around us without any requirements placed on our service. Now I am not one of those who is in favor of never telling someone why we serve them. I think we should be open about our service for Christ. We should share that we are doing it because we are called to love like Christ but then leave it at that. We share that we are serving because of Christ and leave it to them when they are ready to hear more. Although we should always allow the Spirit to move and if the Spirit tells us to speak we should speak. We certainly should never serve someone with a requirement that they follow Christ, for this would be contrary to the Gospel, the Gospel is not forceful upon others. The Gospel respects the freewill of the person, although there are consequences for rejection.

What do you think about service to others without requirements? What do you think about these people helping out a brothel? Any other thoughts?

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Video Test

Testing to see how this works with a video. 

<p>Third Culture Video - Short from Newsong Church on Vimeo.</p> 

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Video Test

Testing to see how this works with a video. 

<p>Third Culture Video - Short from Newsong Church on Vimeo.</p> 

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Creativity?

I find that I’m not a very creative person, but I wish I was. I wish I had creativity sparked within me every once and a while. Occasionally it comes out but I’m not sure where it comes from and I’m…