The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me 
because God anointed me. 
He sent me to preach good news to the poor, 
heal the heartbroken,
Announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners.

God sent me to announce the year of his grace— 
a celebration of God’s destruction of our enemies— 
and to comfort all who mourn,

To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, 
give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, 
Messages of joy instead of news of doom, 
a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. 
Rename them “Oaks of Righteousness” 
planted by God to display his glory.

Isaiah 61:1-3

This beginning section of Isaiah 61 is a prophet declaring what his mission is.  There are two types of people referred to here.  The first is the hurting, mourning, heavy-hearted, prisoners, etc.  The second is the one chosen to announce the message.  We are born into a world of pain, heartache, gloom and doom.  A lot of our lives we spend living in that prison of devastation.  But then Christ comes along and changes all that.  Breaks us free.  Heals our wounds.  Gives us hope.  Then we are moved from the first group to the second.

Because of what Jesus did for us way back in the day, we are no longer stuck in the cycle of destruction.  Christ followers have been moved into a new life of light, beauty and hope!  But because we are in this new group, we are called to share this message.  Too often we leave that to the pastors of the local church.  ”Oh, God called them to this so they are better at it than I will ever be.”  Well don’t forget that your neighbors and friends that you already have relationships with need to hear this message too!

Remember this week that as a Christ follower you are called to share the message of God’s grace and love!

There are crosses everywhere.  We wear them around our necks.  Tattoo them on our skin.  Print them on shirts.  Put them in our churches.  It is a symbol of our faith.  But a lot of the time it seems like we focus on the cross so much that we forget/ignore/neglect the biggest part of the redeeming work of Christ!

If there’s no resurrection, there’s no living Christ. And face it—if there’s no resurrection for Christ, everything we’ve told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you’ve staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ—sheer fabrications, if there’s no resurrection. If corpses can’t be raised, then Christ wasn’t, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ wasn’t raised, then all you’re doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It’s even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they’re already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries. There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ.

It’s resurrection, resurrection, always resurrection, that undergirds what I do and say, the way I live. If there’s no resurrection, “We eat, we drink, the next day we die,” and that’s all there is to it.

1 Corinthians 15:13-22, 32

As you live your life this week, listen to Paul!  Don’t forget that there is more to it than Jesus dying on the cross.  He conquered death!  That’s HUGE!  Without the resurrection we are still dead!  But because He didn’t stay down for the count, we have life!

I don’t know how many times I have heard someone say that God will not give us more than we can handle.  Stamp that with a big Dwight K. Shrute “FALSE”.  The thought is taken from 1 Corinthians, but the verse says that we will not be tempted beyond what we can handle.  That is quite a bit different.  The Message says it this way.

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.

1 Corinthians 10:13

But if you keep on trucking through the New Testament you get to Ephesians and Paul gives us a different warning.  He tells us that we are up against more than we can handle!

Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet.

Ephesians 6:13

Many times we are given more than we can handle (on our own) so that we finally shut up and realize that it is more than we can handle.  Then we turn to Him.  I know I’m tired of trying to handle things on my own and believing that I CAN handle it all on my own.  I should be using all the weapons He has provided me to help me stand up.  No more lone wolf for me!

Ever been stuck in traffic so bad that you feel like your grandpa using his walker with tennis balls on it would be going faster?  You sit in the back with countless cars in front of you just praying to go just 20 mph.  You have somewhere to be.  You’ve tried changing lanes when the other is going faster only to watch it stop dead and the first start up.  Yup.  Traffic sucks.

When you are sitting back there behind all the traffic, it looks as though there is no hope.  All you see is brake lights.  No one moving.  Nothing good.  We all know that it is easy to see life this way.  Things get rough and there is no hope.  Nothing giving.  Nothing moving.  Everything seems to be standing still.  Even moving backwards.  Yeah, when all you can see from your point of view is the insurmountable problems in front of you, it is hard to see what is good.

But there is hope.  There is a different view.  There are many other angles to see.  Each one shows the situation to be a little bit different.  If you move to the access road on the side of that packed highway you can see that there are cars moving.  There is space between them.  There is good coming.  Maybe you need to see the good in what was prevented.  You lost your job only to miss out on the scandal that was about to take place.  You got caught in your sin before it took you to a place beyond the reconciliation of your friendships.  Because you had to sit in that traffic you didn’t get to the intersection in time for the car crash that could have taken your family.

It is definitely hard to see the good when everything seems stacked against you, but God sees all the angles that we are incapable of seeing.  He knows the plans that He has for you.  For future.  For hope.  Next time you are backed up behind that impossible traffic, trust that you will get there.  In His timing.

If there is one thing I love it is animated movies.  Disney is one of the best.  My parents raised me well and prepared me for a life with kids.  Robin Hood.  Aladdin.  101 Dalmatians.  Jungle Book.  The Little Mermaid.  Beauty And The Beast.  The Lion King. And that’s just a few of my absolute favorites!  But there is one thing that they all have in common (outside of Disney, animation, stolen stories, etc.).  They all have exceptional music (probably why I was so disappointed with The Princess And The Frog).  Song after song. Movie after movie.  They all have amazing soundtracks.

In my preparation to become a father of enough kids to watch these movies for the rest of my life, I already have some of the songs on my iPhone.  Yesterday a song from Beauty And The Beast called Be Our Guest came on during my evening commute.  (Imagine with me if you will a guy in a Jeep Wrangler with the top down and doors off driving through Orange County listening to Be Our Guest at full blast.  Ha!)  I have heard the song a million times but a few of the lines hit me this time.

Life is so unnerving for a servant who’s not serving
He’s not whole without a soul to wait upon
Ah, those good old days when we were useful
Suddenly those good old days are gone
Ten years we’ve been rusting
Needing so much more than dusting
Needing exercise, a chance to use our skill

Obviously if you have seen the movie they are servants in a castle who are going to waste and not using their talents.  What hit me, though, is that so many of us (Christ followers) are just like that.  We have amazing gifts and message that we have been given.  We start out strong, but something happened a long the way, we got distracted and stopped being a servant.  We start viewing Christianity and the Church as something that is for us (consumers) and forget that following Christ is a call to serve!

When we became Christ followers we were given gifts of the Spirit and called to live our lives in service to those around us.  Jesus gave us the example to follow throughout His life.  Some followers understand that and are living it out, but many of us have forgotten that.  What about you?  Are you really serving those around you?  Are you really loving them as Christ loved us?  Find a way to serve.  Greet at church.  Mow a lawn.  Change a tire.  Hang out at a nursing home.  Love your neighbor.  Follow the example of Christ to serve.

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.

Galatians 5:13-14

Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God, You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome in power

And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against

Our God – Chris Tomlin

There is so much truth and power in these lyrics.  I love it.  He is the One to hold on to when life gets hard.  He is the One there to heal when we are broken.  He is unstoppable.

A few days ago I had lunch with a new friend of mine.  We had a time scheduled which he needed to change.  We hadn’t really exchanged proper contact info yet so in an effort to discuss a new time he had to go the old school way.  Yeah.  I mean walking uphill both ways…barefoot…in the snow.  That old school.  He had to talk to a friend who had to talk to a friend who then had to talk to me.  I’m glad we weren’t having much of a conversation that way or it would have likely turned into an unintended game of Telephone!

Fortunately, even with all that old schoolness he also tried to email me.  That worked out pretty well and the friend>friend>me thing wasn’t really necessary.  But it made me think.  How amazing is it that our God is so close and personal to us?  We don’t have to go to the priest who then goes to the bishop who then goes to the rook who then goes to the queen and then, check mate!  You’ve got your message to God!  The pawns that we are have immediate and personal access to a God so huge we can’t really even begin to describe how big He is (except by saying that He is so big that we can’t begin to describe it…that actually begins describing Him…but it’s also beside the point)!

Today as you are going about your normal life, talk to your God who is close and personal and intimate.  Thank Him for allowing us to have access to Him because of Jesus.  Because cutting out the grapevine is really a big deal…even though the California Raisins were pretty cool!

Our little girl is almost 4 months old now.  We have had some good times and some bad times when it comes to putting her to bed.  Sometimes we have multiple times in one night.  But the one thing that stays the same every night is that my wife and I want to help her rest, eat and sleep.

As I was putting her to bed last night the thought occurred to me.  We are just like my little girl.  Our loving Daddy, God, wants us to rest in Him.  But just like my her we fight and squirm and try to get away.  Sometimes we just don’t feel worthy of it.  Other times we think we know how to do it on our own.  Or we just want to do something else.  But no matter what the situation is, Daddy knows what’s best for us.  He knows we need to rest in Him and when we don’t we suffer.

Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?

Psalm 127:2

Are you tired?  Worn out?  Hurting?  Wanting?  Rest in your Daddy’s arms.  Don’t worry.  He wants you to.

You know that one song that you just love?  The one that when you hear it makes you feel like you are just so close to God?  Sometimes it’s just so easy to worship Him!  But what about that one song that you just can’t stand.  Yeah, it’s about God and Jesus and stuff, the words are real spiritual, but you just can’t worship to it.  Sometimes it’s just difficult.  The feelings aren’t there and it would just be forced, right?

So many times we spend our days just living our lives.  We just go about our normal lives and wait until Sunday provides (or doesn’t provide) that perfect opportunity for us to be able to worship God.  I know, I hear you.  The chorus after the bridge of that song is so powerful that you can’t help but worship!  That’s good but we are still leaving out a major chunk of our lives.  Paul tries to make us understand in Romans.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.

Romans 12:1

We are told to live our everyday lives for God.  That is worship.  Not just our sing church songs-pass the offering plate-listen to a sermon-everyweek Sunday.  Worship is far more than just the time that your bulletin has listed under the “Worship” category.  Well, maybe that’s all it is for you, but it should be our lives.  We have to make the choice to worship God in all we do.  When we only worship because it feels right, we are aren’t following the Biblical instruction we are given in Romans.

Worshipping is an attitude.  It’s not based on feelings.  If our feelings were the key ingredient then there would be nothing wrong with not worshipping God when we don’t feel like it.  But according to Romans, even when we don’t feel like it we should be worshipping.  We shouldn’t worship just to our favorite song.  It’s great if a song makes you feel closer to God or gets your emotions going because of who He is or what He has done, but if that’s all our worship is, then it is shallow and not truly honoring Him.

This week I’m gonna try to worship God with my whole life and not just the convenient, mountain top, camp high or planned “worship” times.  When Sunday rolls around and your church plays that song that just aren’t feeling, remember that worship is more than a feeling.  It is a choice.  Choose to worship God for who He is and not for how you feel.

Recently we had a breakfast for married couples at Kingsfield.  As a worship leader it was a pretty standard day for me.  Set up, hang with the wife, eat some food, lead a few worship songs, listen to the speaker, hang out and tear down.  But as we were singing one of the songs I realized something.  Normally I want to do everything I can to minimize distractions and help people block out everything and everyone around them.  But this time I was seeing something else.

As I looked across the room of 25 or so couples, I saw what an amazing privilege it is to get to worship through music with your spouse!  Personally I don’t get to do this much since I’m usually in the band or involved in some way that doesn’t allow me to be with her all the time.  I love getting to worship with her when I do get the chance.  There is something about the music that makes it easy for us to just forget everything around us and focus, but sometimes it is awesome to focus with your other half.  You can be free together.  You can sing together.  You can raise your hands or kneel or sit or pray.  But however you worship God you get to do that with the love of your life!

Take advantage of these opportunities!  When you have the chance, make it happen!  Change your volunteer schedule so you can go to church together.  Forget that you have sat in that same seat for the past forever and sit together.  Stop worrying about what others think and love God together.  Make the kids sit on the other side of you.  Whatever it is you need to do, reorganize to do it!  Make a change and spend time worshipping your Savior with one of the biggest blessings you can ever have: your spouse!

What a privilege to worship with your spouse. Take advantage of it. Make it happen. Reorganize to do it.