Try Japanese, Try Jesus

Driving home today I saw a typical, cheesy,Christian bumper sticker on the back of a soccer mom’s gas sucking SUV that said ‘Try Jesus’, and I almost threw up in my mouth as I began to think about all the cheesy messages that Christians are sending the world. Our God is a creative God who SPOKE the entire universe into existence (read Genesis 1 and count how many times “and God said” appears) and breathed life into man, and the best we can give is a bumper sticker? Creative NOT Cheese

Is Jesus just another commodity to try? The implications of the sticker is that if I ‘try’ Jesus then I am going to like him like the first time I tried Japanese? What about the people who ‘try’ Jesus and don’t like him like some try Japanese and don’t like it?

The picture that I see in the gospels is that ‘trying’ Jesus doesn’t come without a high price to pay. Luke 14 says unless you hate your father or mother, your children – even your own life – you cannot be his disciple. Later in the chapter unless you take up your cross and give up everything you cannot be his disciple. Being a disciple of Jesus is demanding.

Jesus paid a high price for redemption. He is not a mere commodity to try and to toss out if we don’t like him or keep if we do. He demands and desires a life of Loving him with ALL of our heart and mind.

Try Japanese

Are You a New Creation?

I found this today and was BLOWN away!!

Dex performing New Creation at one of Fellowship Church’s weekend services at the Grapevine Campus.New Creation is a featured song on the upcoming album “Closer To The Start” by Fellowship Church. Check it out at closertothestart.com!

more about "New Creation on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

In Dry Places

I feel really close to God when everything is neatly put together in my life.  What I have learned is things are rarely neat and put together.  I believe that 85% of life doesn’t work out the way we plan and maybe 15% does work out the way we plan.  The story of Joseph the son of Israel in the book of Genesis in Hebrew scriptures is the story of a young man who God gave a dream (a vision) to and his entire family thought he was a lunatic when he said that they would one day bow down to him.  Instead of killing him the scriptures say:

and they took him and threw him into the cistern - Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

This is Life.  God has given us a vision and purpose and we are pushing hard towards it and then we are thrown — not gently lowered or caressed — into a dry, empty place where we feel alone and abandoned. 

I am reminded that while in the dry cistern that the LORD will fulfill his purposes, for me and His LOVE endures FOREVER! Ps. 138:8

Hold fast to the vision that God has given you.  Even if others think you are a lunatic.  
Expect and anticipate the dry cisterns and joy in the cisterns that hold the water in the dry places of your life.