This Is It

God loves you. Read it again. Again. At least one more time. This is it. This is where everything starts. This is how it finishes. This has to be the message the church, us, those that follow Jesus, will scream at the top of our lungs. This is what we have to be saying with a fierceness in our eyes that proves we believe it. This is where we find life, this is where we die. God's love. Its real. Its everything.

Why are people...people? Why are we here? Whats our "purpose?" All of those stuffy intellectual questions we ask around expensive cups of coffee find there answer somewhere in this truth. God loves you. I recently had a discussion with some people, fellow believers, about why we are here. The favored explanation was for God's glory. To bring glory to God. This is so true, but I don't think it satisfies my question. Put down your rock, and let me explain. When asked why we are here, why God created us I have a hard time believing that the answer is "for God's glory", because that sounds to me like before God created us He was lacking in something, glory perhaps? Was God sitting around in the cosmos and thinking, "I'm just not getting enough glory up here, what to do about that..." Now don't get me wrong, I do think everything, including us, exists for the sole purpose of bringing God glory, but I don't think its "why" we are here. I wonder if why God created us is more about what God would give then what He would get.

I think its because God loves us. Think about it. God, the best thing there is, who is not lacking in anything decided to create something that could share how good He is. I've heard it said that the most selfless thing a perfect being could offer would be Himself. So why did God create us? To give Himself. The best thing He could give. Because He loves us. The reason we were brought into existence is because God loves us. God loved us so much that we were created in a way that when we give God glory, enjoy just how good He is, we are most satisfied.

We have to understand this. We have to communicate this. Because this is where everything starts and ends. When we experience God's love, all that is required of us is to respond to it. That's what this is all about. Responding to the love of our Creator. Obedience isn't just obedience, its a response of love. Its the product of a relationship. Its not just following rules for the sake of following rules, its living in a way that allows you to have a relationship with God, who loves you. I've heard it said that your head will let you get away with a lot more than your heart will.

My friend told me about a conversation he had with a family member who is struggling to understand his position with God. The family member asked, "I just don't know where I stand. What am I supposed to do?" My friend responded with, "Its not about what you do." Its about realizing you're loved by God and then responding to that love.

Some of us claim to love God, to follow Him, but do we though? Really? I would like to think that to be loved by God means to find my satisfaction, my identity, my security, my worth, in Him, how He feels about me. To love Him back would be to live like a person who finds my satisfaction, identity, security and worth in Him. What are we wanting to love us?

We...love because God first...loved...us. This is it.

Charleston

Over the past few weeks I've had a lot of people ask me about the possible church plant in Charleston so I thought I'd share briefly with whats in the mix. I'm not going to be overly detailed here on the world wide web, buuuut here's what I'm thinking. For those of you who want to know more e-mail me at nicholas.charles1010@gmail.com and maybe we could arrange a time where we could all get together and chat.

Here's the deal. God has given me a passion for church planting. Duh. I've been somewhat crazy about the city of Charleston since I moved to South Carolina. I get really excited when I think about what could happen if you took something similar to what is going on at Midtown and offered it to the city of Charleston. It would have to be different in some respects, but you get my drift.
Charleston is a city of extremes. I'm no expert, but from what I've seen and from the people I've talked to that have and do live there, that seems to be case. The economy is incredibly lopsided, you can find some of the most wealthy people in South Carlolina living right next to some of the poorest. The social/racial realtions don't look a whole lot different from how they probably were 50 years ago, and even if they do look different, they're nowhere near healthy. The city has so much potential. Just imagine what could happen there if a group of people shared with them the love of Christ, lived the way Jesus did. What would happen if one group of people started to care about another group of people and decided to make it different. There's a lot more, but we can save that for later. If you're interested in hearing more, send me an e-mail and maybe we can all get together. Peace!

Snooze You Lose

Rock Band. It brings people together. Maybe we should play it after communion. What's up with me and communion? Rock Band, you should play it, and hug someone, or just figh five them, but like you mean it.

So I'm feeling a little convicted. Go figure. That seems to happen quite a bit when I'm reading Scripture. The good thing about conviction though is that it brings hope, not guilt. Anyway. I owe the conviction to this little diddy of Scripture;

"And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."
Romans 13:11-12

I'm a little tired of compromising. Of putting this relationship with God and the purpose He has for my life on hold. It's almost like I hit the snooze button on what I'm going to do with my life. Don't we all kind of do that though? We're not ready to give Him all that we have, we're not ready to love Him with our entire being. I've heard myself and others say things like, "I'm young, I'm just enjoying myself." It's as if we believe that we're allowed a certain number of our years to live how we want to with no consequence then once we're out of college, have a job, maybe thirty or something, we will live our lives in love with God.

I just feel like we're waisting our time. I mean if we really believe that loving God is what we were created to do and if obeying Him is how we demonstrate that love, then why don't we do it? Its not a matter of being moral for the sake of just being good. Or trying to make yourself "ok", or being better than someboyd else, or holy-er than thoug, its a matter of loving God, and being loved by Him. Its like we're cheating on Him with all the crap this world has to offer.
I guess I just feel like its time to wake up. I don't want to find myself twenty years down the road saying things like, "I never thought I'd end up here."

I like what Donald Miller says, "Time, which was God’s friend, is now His enemy, and you and I are going to end with it soon. If you will lift a glass of wine with me, I would like to remember Him: Here’s to Christ for making us, to Christ for rescuing us, and to Christ, who gives hope for tomorrow.”

Here's to being awake. Here's to loving God and finding our purpose and meaning from being loved by Him. Here's to living life to the fullest, all that it could be, all that it should be. I'm tired of waiting.

I'm Screaming It

Conversations with people dressed in ski gear are quite refreshing. You really have no idea what they look like and you talk to them with no preconcieved notion about who they are or what they are like. Plus everyone looks fluffy, perhaps a bit jolly even. I kind of just want to push them down and watch them try to get up. I mean that in the nicest way.

Read this, its the Bible, you have to.
"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."
Romans 12:9-12

Nothing gets under my skin more than when those of us who follow Jesus live in despair. I don't understand. Its almost like we have given up, as if the fights over. The world is not beyond reach. I don't know if you know this or not, but in the end God wins. Its almost like we see the darkness of the world we live in and ask, "Why bother?" This is what I'm screaming, "BE JOYFUL IN HOPE, PATIENT IN AFFLICTION, FAITHFUL IN PRAYER!" Yes, the world is often a dark place, full of despair, but check out 1 John 2: 8, "the darkness is passing and the true light is already shinning." The end of the Romans 12 passage says this, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

What if? What if we believed that what Jesus came to start, the dream and intention God had for His creation could actually be a reality? What if in those moments of despair when the question, "Why bother?" shows up, we instead asked, "How can I not bother?" That would be something. That would be everything.

You

Communion breath smells bad. The combination of grape juice and bread does not produce a pleasant aroma. Maybe I just have a case of halitosis.

Lately I've been blown away by the power of community. I went on the "Family Vacation" with my church, Midtown, last weekend. Something like 75 people went to Gatlinburg and packed into two cabins to share our stories with each other. It was incredible. Its nice to be a part of something you can believe in, something you can give your life to.

It just got me thinking about how important it is for us, human beings, to be in community with one another. Its not just a good idea, its essential. I was reading the creation account in Genesis, and most of us are familiar with what God said after creating something, "It is good." Kind of like me after I finish eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Especially a sandwich made with cold bread, grape jelly, and crunch peanut butter. Its nice to if the sandwich has actually been in existence for a while so the jelly is coming through the outside of the bread, all smooshed up like somebody sat on it. Anyway...

Did you know that there is actually one time before the fall of man that God actually says "It is not good..." Really He does. Genesis chapter 3 God says, "It is not good for man to be alone." I find this very compelling. God looks at Adam, the perfect creation, without flaw, someone who finds their worth entirely in his Creator, and sees that he's lonely. I mean this guy is perfect, with out insecurity and he's lonely, and God recognizes that. This is before sin, all the bad stuff, is introduced into creation so nothing is "wrong" at this point, but God still says its not good for man to be alone. So its ok that I don't like to be alone? Its ok that I need companionship? Absolutely.

In John 17 Jesus prays for this. He prays that we, you and me, will be united, be one as the Father and Son are one. Unity. Companionship. We need each other. Its funny though because whenever we are struggling with something we have a tendency to retreat. We become recluses. We even advice people to do this. "All you need is God right now, focus on Him." Or we find ourselves saying things like "I just need to get away from everybody, I need some just me and God time." I do think that we need solitude, times of intimacy with God, but here's Adam, perfect without flaw and God see's him alone and says its not good.
God works through people. Always has, always will. We need each other. We need to share our burdens, our accomplishments, our joys, our sorrows. Not for fulfilment, not for worth, but for companionship. I need that. I need you.

Mud In Your Eyes

New Years, as fun as it was, is always a bit of a let down. It never lives up to its expectations. I did however enjoy my New Years Eve. Rock Band is simply amazing.

So I ran out of coffee filters the other day. How does that happen? I feel like that's something that you should see coming. Thanks to good friends that are gracious enough to give me some coffee filters.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and encouragements, it really does mean a lot. God is big, really big.

John chapter 9 has become one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. Its the story of when Jesus heals a man born blind. The chapter starts off with the disciples asking the question, "who sinned, this man or his parents? that he was born blind?" Interesting question. Jesus lets them know that it was neither, but it was so that work of God could be displayed in his life. Back to the question though. They are asking essential what is the source of this imperfection. I was trying to think why I would ask this question, why I would want to know how this man ended up being born blind. I came to conclusion that I would probably ask this question to know how to avoid this happening to me.
I think this lets us in on how humans view sin and how it affects our lives. Our view of sin is far to small. We think of it only as the actions that we do, things we do wrong. Its much bigger than that. Sometimes I feel like we look at sin as something, for some unknown reason, God chose to hate and the only reason we're not supposed to do it is because God just doesn't like it. God doesn't like sin because God can't like sin. Its the complete opposite of God. Sin is rebellion to God. Sin is what has broken and destroyed God's creation. Its more than just what we do, its what we're born into. This man's blindness wasn't the result of some one's individual sin, but it was the result of being born into a war-torn creation that has been devastated by sin. A bit of helplessness creeps in.
I feel like they're asking the question in hopes of discovering some sort of formula. What must I do/not do, what steps do I have to take in order to prevent this from happening to me? We can't, we're broken. We need to be fixed. We need the work of God, we need to be restored. That's what Jesus does...
Its bizarre actually. Jesus spit in the dirt, made a mud pie and smeared it on the man's eyes. This is how Jesus heals him. Interesting. The debate is over the the cause of the blindness. Jesus somewhat answers the question with the method of the healing. See in Genesis chapter 2 it says that God formed man from the dust, from the dirt. He breathed into it. Jesus heals the man with what he's made out of.
We're broken versions of what we were meant to be. We need the work of God in our lives. We need to be restored. The hope though is that Jesus doesn't want to make us into something we're not, but instead to restore us to what we were always meant to be.