Relationship with God (His Will, Real Life Example)

I am excited as movie makers continue to craft movies based on the Biblical narrative. One story I really hope they make a movie about is the story of Esther. It literally has everything Hollywood could want in a movie. It has drama, romance, sex, violence, assassins, politics, genocide and a whole lot more.

The following passage stood out to me as I was reading. Esther 4:13-17 

Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, "Go gather all the Jews to be found in Susa and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the King, though it is against the law and if I perish, I perish. Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. 

Essentially, God will do what God wants to do regardless of human participation. Mordecai understands this and realizes that no matter how Esther acts or doesn't at, God will keep His promise to His people and will provide deliverance.  Mordecai also understands that God likes to use people to accomplish His will and so He encourages Esther to be apart of what God is going to do. 

Now Esther is, as we might expect her to be, confused, uncertain and probably scared. Yet her response is beautiful. She doesn't complain, "oh sucks to me" as we often do. She doesn't "wait on God to give her a sign" Another classic Christian cop out. She embraces the reality of the situation and steps forward in faith. Faith in God not faith for a specific result. I think a big misunderstanding we have about faith is that we think we're supposed to have faith for something to happen. When the truth is we are supposed to have faith in Him who can make all things come about. Rather than me having faith that "God will heal this person." I need to have faith in "God who is the healer" Esther doesn't know what will happen to her. She knows that God will keep His promises but if she perishes, she perishes.  

We have much in common with Esther and we can learn much from her example. Like Esther we don't know the future or all the ramifications of our actions. Like Esther we don't have a perfect understanding of how God's will applies specifically to the day to day interaction of our lives. Like Esther we have different "good" forces telling us to act different ways. For Esther, she had Mordecai on one hand giving her advice and on the other side she had the law which threatened her with death. From Esther we can learn to not hide from what's happening around us. From Esther we can learn that death, perishing, shouldn't hinder us from doing what we know is right. From Esther we can learn that God will keep His promises. From Esther we can learn that we don't need to have all the answers before we should just jump in and do our best. 

Life is a daunting task and the world is a big place. If Esther can embrace her reality and step forward in faith not being sure of the result. Than I know in my comfortable 21st century American life I can embrace the life that God has given me and be His ambassador wherever I happen to be. 

This antique is of me in 2009 when I played Mordecai in an epic church drama. 

Relationship With God (Forgiveness)

Bless the Lord of my soul,

and forget not all his benefits

who forgives all your iniquity

who heals all your disease

Psalm 103:2-3

Through faith the promises of God become tangible realities. The truth of God's mercy and grace remains simply a truth until the Church becomes the legs for that truth to become proclaimed throughout the world. King David, in the midst of his own life full trials and tribulations reminds himself who God is. It's easy to shake a fist at God, to blame Him for the negative things going on, to demand justice, as if one could put God on trial and demand an explanation for things one doesn't understand. David could have done this. He had many really awful things that happened which would have given him "evidence against God" The reality of course is that the same God who isn't exacting "justice" on random bad guy who we think deserves it, is the same God that isn't exacting justice on you and me for the ungodliness within ourselves. 

The correct response is a recognition of our own inadequacy, faith that God is good and an intentional remembering of who He is and all that He has done, is doing and will do. In this posture of humility and grace we can fulfill  the command to forgive others as Christ has forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32)  and experience the joy that heaven has when a sinner turns and repents. 

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice. 

Relationship WIth God (The Like Factor)

I have been made aware of an unfortunate reality. It came about as a result of the this abridged version of my mental dialogue.

Hey Caleb,

hey

Do we love God?

probably

Is there a way to tell if we love God?

Love for God is defined by obedience. (John 14:23)

Do we like God?

sure, probably

But do we like God?

Don't be weird.

No, for real, how can we say we love God if you don't like  Him? How can we be excited for heaven which is eternal fellowship with God if we don't even enjoy hanging out with Him here?

ummmm well I will think about that.

Conclusion: I don't really like God that much, I don't wake up in the morning excited for a new day full of God's presence. I look forward to being with God because it prepares me for life not because I like just being with God. I obey God because He is my Lord. I honor God because He is my savior. I don't like God because I just don't know him as a very likable person. To me He seems big impersonal demanding and often cold and insensitive.

Click the link http://ask.fm/sirlagan ask me a question.

Someone asked me a question about heroes. My brain got excited because I have lots of heroes. Military heroes(Robert E Lee, Genghis Khan Isoroku Yamamoto) religious heroes (Athanasius, Paphutius, Hudson Taylor), fictional heroes(Gandalf, Reepicheep, Luna Lovegood.) As I was creating this long mental list I had this realization. "Gosh, Jesus is not on this list, shouldn't He be on this list? Why isn't He on this list? What the heck is wrong with me, if anyone is heroic Jesus is the ultimate hero of heroes. Like every conceivable definition for hero applies to Jesus.All the avengers and Batman together aren't worth half of Jesus"

Whenever I think about or read books my heroes my heart goes pitter patter and jumpity bump in my chest. I am inspired and humbled and motivated all at the same time. And now it's like what do I do now? If anyone should inspire us it's Jesus. But the reality is, for most of us He doesn't We read about Him, we watch movies about Him, we hear from other people about Him. We are thankful for Jesus, we praise Him and we try to obey Him but when we right down to it most of us don't really like Jesus. Not that we dislike Him but He doesn't come to mind as somebody cool or somebody we want to tell our friends we want to be like. So what do we do with this obvious paradox. What do you do when a person is a certain way and you just don't see it. Someone tells a joke and you recognize the humor and understand the punch line but it just doesn't provoke a laugh? What does it mean when you're driving early in the morning and you see the sun bloom up over a hill in all it's glorious gold and pinks and somehow your soul is not aware of the beauty you know is present? What has happened to Jesus? What have we done to Him that billions of people across the globe can claimed to have been saved by him and yet very few of them will spend as much time with Him as they will with their video game avatars.

This is conjecture now but I think heroes are heroes to us because they make the decisions that we would or like to think we would make in those same circumstances. So if I was the Norse God of Thunder with no college debt and a magical hammer I'd like to believe that I would choose to save mankind and fight for what's right. Now if most of us are honest with ourselves, we wouldn't do things the way Jesus does. Ask yourself, "if I were God with ultimate power and authority would I really let (inset name) have to deal with such a (insert difficult situation)?" We don't understand God, we don't trust God, we don't like His methods and we most of the time we don't really like Him. Maybe we like the way He made us feel that one time but I'd wager that most every human being if given God's power would have done things differently.

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

In the present we are encouraged to delight in the Lord.  Delight in the Lord as He is. Not in what He used to do. Not in what He's going to do. Not in what He did for that other guy. God did not disappear when Jesus rose from the dead nor is He on vacation until when Jesus returns. The Holy Spirit is within believers right now, empowering them and manifesting God's power in the world today. Let us delight ourselves in the Lord. Let us learn to humble ourselves, stop presuming we know better than God how to run the world that He created and just enjoy being His children.

I don't know exactly how to do this. Church History seems to indicate that taking delight in the Lord has looked very different throughout history depending on the specific person involved. Essential principles would be similar to the principles we use when making friends. Our friendships with each other are supposed to be reflections of the relationship within the trinity. So things like being respectful, being honest, being a good listener and being willing to work through misunderstanding and hurt feelings are what will allow us to delight in the Lord.

It's difficult to write all this because it's something I'm very bad at. I write as a student seeking to learn how to delight in the Lord. Despite my lack of knowledge and experience in delighting in the Lord I end this post encouraged. Because, whatever else  this Psalm teaches and despite whatever nonsense I've said in the last few paragraphs I know that God is a delightful being. I can delight in the God of my salvation. I can be inspired, motivated, encouraged and excited by Jesus. He can be my hero in addition to my king and I can wake up tomorrow excited because He will be there to greet me. He'll be in the sun shining in my window. the chill waiting outside my blankets, the unexpected sibling who needs me to drive them and the unexpected cup of tea that mom brings me when I'm feeling depressed about not having a job.

He who has an ear let Him hear what the Spirit of God is whispering to us. 

Relationship With God 1.1

Do you have one? A relationship with God? You do, even if you don't feel it or think it. The nature of God is such that He has relationship with all His creation. The question of importance is what sort of relationship do you have with God? In the heavenly records is your name listed among the rebels from or the citizens of God's Kingdom? 

We get to choose whether we will be servants of God or enemies of God. It's an interesting thing that the God of the universe who has all power at His fingertips has decided to leave that all important decision up to us stupid humans who have a hard time not burning our Pop Tarts. We fill our bodies with poisoned food and fill our minds with poisoned ideas and let our spirits starve but God believes we're equipped to decide our eternal destiny. I suppose if He believes we're capable than we must be capable and there is some comfort in that. I suppose also that if He think's we're capable of deciding our eternal destiny than we're capable of deciding our day to day destiny. 

If we can choose to live in fellowship with God after we die we can choose to live in union with Him before we die. And there is even more comfort in that. It means that I have the choice of deciding whether today I will drink of the life giving salvation that comes from right relationship with God. So what is incorporated in "right relationship with God?" 

What is included in a right relationship with God? 

I don't know. Not specifically. I do know that no two relationships are ever exactly the same. It's dangerous to read biographies of great Christians and seek to emulate them too closely because even if they got their relationship with God exactly right, it doesn't mean that your relationship with God should be that way. 

I also know that having a relationship with Jesus isn't the same as having a relationship with God. Jesus doesn't represent the entirety of God. I heard growing up that you need a relationship with Jesus. "Do what Jesus would do". Why didn't I also hear "Do what the Holy Spirit would do?" or "Do what the Father would do?" Obviously the point isn't to toy with semantics. The point is to live life the way God created us to live. To do that we need to be in relationship with Him and something I've been realizing recently is that fellowship with God includes intimacy with His Spirit. Evangelical Christianity generally speaking talks much more about Jesus than about the Spirit. This makes sense because Jesus is the one who died for our sins, not the Holy Spirit. However the Holy Spirit is the one that makes living as a Christian possible. Jesus went to Heaven and is at the right hand of the Father. The Holy Spirit resides on earth in His temples that are believers. I've just recently needed to reanalyze my understanding of the Holy Spirit and am currently doing alot of reading, praying, soul searching trying to figure out what intimacy with the Holy Spirit looks like. I am excited to write more as God has mercy on me and allows me to fellowship more and more intimately with Him in the days and weeks to come. 

                                       

                              I have been enjoying this song while writing this. Have a great day :)