April 22, 2014: Inheritance

Proverbs 13:22 - A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children.

As a young father of an infant daughter, it is difficult at times to look past next week, let alone the next 3 decades.  Life has a way of pulling our attention exclusively towards the present and away from the future.

But God clearly calls us to have a vision for the future.  He calls to us to live in a way that leaves an inheritance for our grandchildren.  An inheritance is an unearned fortune that does to the heirs.  It is intended to give the heirs a head start.

While this proverb is talking about money, an inheritance can be more than just money.  An inheritance can be a heritage or a legacy that get passed down.  Not all inheritances are blessings.  An inheritance of alcoholism or addiction can certainly be passed from generation to generation, but none would wish for that.

A better legacy to leave would be one in which the pattern of abuse or addiction is broken and no longer passed down.

Deuteronomy -7:9  Understand, therefore, that the LORD your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands.

The Lord himself keeps covenant for a thousand generations to those who are faithful to Him.  In other words, the spiritual investment that you make in the King and His kingdom touches a thousand generations after you.  

This is quite a legacy.  The momentum that can be generated from one lifetime of living for God ripples for a thousand generations.  This is the kind of vision that the Lord wants us to have.  He wants us to have a vision for our children's children and beyond.  He wants us to recognize that how we live now, and the choices that we make now will impacts the generations to come.

Let's plan with boldness and faith to leave a wake of blessing and hope for those who follow us.

April 19, 2014: Heart Sick

Proverbs 13:12 - Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Every time I would read this verse, I would interpret 'hope deferred' as delayed gratification.  I would understand this to mean that if the things that we hope and dream about take a season or more to arrive, we get heart sick.

This is really not the meaning of the verse.  There is a difference between the meaning of deferred and delayed.  Deferred means to pass or to yield.  In a sense 'hope deferred' means to forego the option of hope.

Imagine that you are surrounded by discouragement.  I believe that the word of God promises us that out of all the paths that can lead us to discouragement and disappointment, there is always a path of home that leads us to life.  To defer hope is to reject this path.

This means that hope is not something that we wait for, it is something that we take hold of.  Therefore it is possible to become heart sick by being passive.  If hope can be deferred then it can be beheld.  Don't expect hope to force itself upon you.  It will always be present, but we need to make the choice to wear it.

Faith is what allows us to see the tree of life on the other side of hope.  If our vision can be focused of the tree of life in every situation, we can always see hope and choose to follow its path.  Being heart sick is not the condition, it is the symptom of the real condition, which is not choosing hope.  Choose hope in every situation, for it leads to the tree of life, which is Jesus Christ.   

April 16, 2014: Rejoice in the Lord

Psalm 85:6  Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

The pinnacle of human maturity is to rejoice in the Lord; to be able to find joy and delight in Him alone.  Rejoicing in the Lord is worship. Some of the most powerful seasons of spiritual growth in my life have simply been seasons where I am constantly rejoicing in the Lord.  It feels like 24/7 worship happening in my life.  I awake in praise and go to sleep with my thoughts turned toward Him.

This should be the normal life for a worship leader.  We should not come to worship rehearsal and need to spend time "refocusing" due to the fact that the whole week has been spent unfocused on God.  The walk of a worship leader is meant to keep us in a place of worship so that when we take the stage, we can simply be authentic and still lead people in worship.

This does not mean we shouldn't have problem and life should be perfect all of the time.

Will you not revive us again...

Even in the course of a single week, enough life happens that we need to the Lord to revive us many times over.  The problem is that we often turn to other things to revive us: our thoughts, entertainment, relationships, etc.  If we allow the Lord to revive, then the outcome is us rejoicing in Him.

He can be everything for us if we allow Him to be.  He can be our joy in times of sorrow.  He can be our strength in times of weakness.

If we choose to life in a way where we can constantly find joy and delight in him, then we can life in a never-ending season of praise.  And we can lead others with complete authenticity because we live a worshiping lifestyle.

April 15, 2014: Walking Blameless

Psalm 84:11 - no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

God delights in giving good things to his children.  He does not lack in generosity; nor does He give begrudgingly.  Even more, there is no good thing that he withholds.  Anything that is good He will not withhold.

I cannot even fathom all that this statement encompasses.  Surely there are many good things.  And God does not withhold any of them.

There is only one prerequisite for becoming the target of God's goodness: Being blameless.  This can lead us to one of few possible responses.  We can try harder to sin less, hoping this is what it means to be blameless or we can give up entirely and believe that God's goodness is only for the super spiritual saints.

But there is another way we can respond to the call to live blameless lives.  We can acknowledge that in our own strength we cannot live up to this call, therefore are undeserving of His goodness.  But profess that there is One is walk is blameless who has taken our blame upon Himself.

Jesus is the only One deserving of God's abundant goodness, yet He freely offers His life to us.

Colossians 1:22 - he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him

In Christ, we are made blameless and presented blameless before the Father.  It has nothing to do with our behavior or our actions, our perfection comes in our trusting in Christ.  If blamelessness is based on what you do, you need to live perfect to be perfect.  But if blamelessness can be transferred from one who took the punishment for our blame, then we can be perfect just by trusting in Him.

The conclusion to all of this is that all good things are found in Christ.  In Him alone is found the reconciliation that makes us blameless to God.  And in that is found the life that God does not withhold any good thing.

April 14, 2014: Increase Our Faith

Luke 17:6 - If you have faith as small as as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that even small faith can make big things happen.  In our minds faith needs to be large to do marginal things.  But Jesus tells us that this is not the case.  This could mean a couple different things:

1) We do not really understand what faith is.

2) We do not understand how to apply faith in our lives.

In my life, both have probably been the case.  There have been times where what I thought was large faith on my part was really just works driven effort.  Not a bad thing, but also not faith.  There have also been times in my life where I think I did have faith, but I did not attempt to apply that faith in my life.

Faith, according to Hebrews 11:1 is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Faith is not supported by your circumstance or reality that you currently face.  Faith is conceived in heaven and it's born here on earth.  When a couple discovers they are pregnant, they immediate change their plans to accommodate a person who has not yet arrived.

Faith is both an assurance and a conviction.  An assurance is a guarantee that brings peace; it brings peace because the guarantee is for something that was hoped for.  It settles the uncertainty.

A conviction is meant to bring us to action or conclusion.  It leads us to a decision that requires a response on our part.  This response is based on things not seen.

The application of this verse may be different in every circumstance.  Sometimes faith may be as simple as no longer worry about a situation.  Sometimes faith may be to move into a ministry God is calling you. Sometimes it may require you to speak to the mountain to move.  In Luke, the disciples asked for increased faith in response to Jesus teaching them to forgive over and over again.  Faith is required for forgiveness.

But Jesus shows us that faith only needs to be the size of a mustard seed to accomplish great things.  Faith itself is a seed.  Faith does not need to begin as a mountain to move the mountain.  Faith is so powerful that if you can find the seed, you can overcome anything.      

April 13, 2014: Trusted With Little

Luke 16:10 - Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

Favor can be found in small venues and in small errands.  Favor comes by saying yes to the small things as if you were saying yes to the big thing.  God wants to entrust us with much, but the way that He does that is by entrusting us with little things.

Worship leading is a journey, not a destination.  It is important for us to appreciate every step in that journey.  It is good for us to learn faithfulness, commitment, and character from the earliest stages of the journey.  The principles of being trustworthy with small things are the same principles that are needed to be trustworthy with big things.  That's why if you can thrive with the small things you can thrive with much bigger things.

No good father burdens their children with the too much responsibility too soon.  A good father gives their children little things to manage and care for and over time adds more.  And our heavenly father does the same.

They way to respond to the things that we have been entrusted with as worship leaders is not to complain that we could handle a lot more, but rather see them as the opportunity for excellence.  Take pride in doing the best that you can in the little things.  If they are truly little, then it should be relatively easy to do well.  We almost always find their to be an opportunity to grow and improve.

This is how we need to pursue our destiny as worship leaders.  We need to value the responsibility that we have currently been entrusted with.  We need to serve other first rather than serve our own ambitions. Jumping from one opportunity to the next only to serve your ambitions is a manipulation of God's plan for promotion in your life.  And it usually does not end well.

God does have a promotion plan for our lives; it's not self-promotion is selfless serving.  Serving someone else's vision instead of our own creates more opportunities in our lives than pursuing self interests.  God wants to bring us to a place where we can be entrusted with much, so let us be faithful with what he has given us now.

April 10, 2014: Sheep of His Pasture

Psalm 79:13 - Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will praise you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.

Everyone one has a pasture; a place of feeding or a place of rest.  I would suggest that the world has many pastures to offer.  It could be entertainment, it could be relationship, it could a career.  A pasture is simply a place to feed and revive your soul.

But just like in the natural, there is good food and there is junk food.

There is a heavenly pasture that the Lord offers to all of us.  This is the place of true refreshing and restoration.

When we keep ourselves in His pasture, the result is praise that lasts forever! 

This is more than just having a quiet time or a devotional everyday.  It includes that but it is more than just a small block of time.  Sheep do not pasture for 15 minutes a day.  This is about positioning our focus and our awareness on His presence at all time.  Keeping our awareness on him reminds us that when wolves and storms head our way, our Shepard is always near.

This empowers us to bring praise in every situation and to thrive under adversity.