For me, this didn’t just happen this Sunday, it has been a process that has climaxed in a dramatic way this Sunday. Nonetheless, I will begin earlier than Sunday. Earlier this fall I was given a book entitled Radical to read as some leaders in the church where giving them out. This book challenged me in the comforts we as have and how Jesus challenges and demands that we live in a way that requires Him. So as I look at my life, one area God pointed out was money. Yes, I’m going to start talking about giving first. The money I am given is from God, and when I look at my life, and when you look at your own, are you given in a way that is a sacrifice? I mean are you giving to God, knowing that He will need to continue to provide for you? I’m not talking about giving more, I’m talking about things like retirement plans, savings, the way we put our money away for that trip we’ve always wanted, I’m talking about giving in such a way that we completely, 100% rely on God. I venture to guess that NO ONE reading this right now is doing that. But I believe we ALL should be. I’m not going to go into details on how God has challenged myself and our family on that fact, but know that this has been very difficult.

So that’s was the beginning. God showing me that He needs to be the provider. God then has been challenging me that if we rely on Him for everything that He also demands so much more of our time, energy, talents, etc, etc. This is when the bigger struggle begins for me. As I have been looking for more ways to serve, I’ve also been challenged by how much time I spend with my family, and what can my family do together to serve, and all these thoughts get in my head, and I get pulled in so many different directions. But what ends up happening is that I end of thinking about things and going to work and then going home to a warm house sitting down, after what I think is a hard day, with a cup of coffee to relax to one of too many mindless TV shows or movies to watch as the day ends. And time passes and I still am thinking about this, and before you know it, I’ve done nothing to change. Oh, I can spend the time to make sure I am up to date on the latest TV Shows, or tech whatever (insert something else for yourself here), and make sure all of my comforts are taken care of, but really making a change, especially one that might get in the way of the comforts that you and I all think we deserve? That’s all together different, isn’t it?

Insert Sunday morning.

Read Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Instead of trying to describe more about this Sunday, I would like to have you read an excerpt from our Pastor’s latest blog post below.

On the second Sunday of Advent this year God met us at church in a startling fashion. He drew our attention to the needs in our own city. Not Toronto or Vancouver but Saskatoon. The way that happened was through Hands On Ministries down on 20th. We had Rick Langlais come and share at our Friday morning men’s breakfast. We left disturbed with the news of what is happening within our own city. We discovered that we have over 250 prostitutes under 16 working our streets. These are under age children so as Rick said let’s call it what it is….these girls are being raped.

It was a sobering, disturbing Sunday because we were talking about the coming of the Messiah. It should be nice and Christmas-like but the truth is Jesus came to change lives. He did not come so we could have church. He did not come to make us comfortable. He did not come so we could be nice. He came to change our hearts and to give us a message to share.

This is what wrecked me. In the Christmas story you will remember that when the angels came to the shepherds in the field that he said, “Do not be afraid, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” ALL THE PEOPLE, includes those girls in Saskatoon that are being abused. Jesus does want to save the world, and He wants US to be the ones who deliver hope. Not just those that are officially in paid ministry, but ALL of us. He doesn’t want us to be comfortable. So I am completely wrecked and I hope I don’t ever get fixed.

It’s time to get uncomfortable.

I’ll end with the Great Commission. And I like how the version, The Message, puts it.

From Matthew 28 – “Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life…”

Also, as soon as the audio podcast of Russ’s complete sermon from Sunday morning is available, I’ll post a link. Or you can subscribe to it via iTunes here and get it right away.

So I got chatting with someone tonight about my design background and how I got into this and what else I’ve done in the past and we talked and I showed him some of my stuff from the Poetic Industries site and that led me to talk about this site… Then i realized that I hadn’t posted for a while, when I had full intentions of starting to again. I guess I missed the boat on that one again. dang.

Anyways, I’m so glad I was reminded because today is a day to remember God’s blessing in my life and in the life of our little family. Today little Norah if officially 1 year old! Praise God!

I can’t believe how much differently this past year could have gone and to be reminded that God was and is still with us. He was with us during the hard labour of her birth one year ago today, He was with us when we learnt something was wrong with her heart, He was with us when we were told she would need surgery, He was with us when we needed to make arrangements and pay for expenses, He was with us when he had to pass her to a nurse and watch her go into the O.R. He was with us during what seemed like the longest wait of our lives, He was with us during recovery, and He is still with us as we continue to monitor her back and rib issues. Without God we wouldn’t have handled this in the way we have. I am so thankfully for every minute He has been with us, and thankful for how this has changed us, how it’s strengthened out faith and how it continues to stretch us. Looking back now, I don’t wish for any parent to have to go through what we’ve experienced, but I wouldn’t want to loss what God has taught us either.

Now if I go back farther in life, I am reminded of the stress and everything we have gone through just to get pregnant the first time, and to go through much of it again the second time. However, as stressfully and as painful as that experience was and very much could be if we look to more children, I know that God used that pain, and the way He worked in me to learn what the peace of God was, that I wouldn’t have been able to handle Norah’s surgery as well as I did. I heard it said once, that the things you are going through, the pain, the joy, the success and failures, are all being used to prepare you for something bigger that God has in store for you. I know this to be true in my 6 and some odd years in full-time ministry, but to begin to see hope God works in the realities of my day to day life and with my children and wife is something altogether and infinitely more special.

So today marks a special reminder of the real life example of God at work in my life over the past year. Thanks be to God. I hope that you get a time to reflect on how God has worked in your life over the past year or so. If you’ve got a story to tell, email or comment here. Who knows maybe what I’ve wrote will impact you or maybe your comment will impact someone else.

Now I will post the full article as seen on Relevant Magazine written by Jason Boyett

How to read the Bible without trying to make it into something it’s not.

One of the most curious artifacts of my Bible-belted, Southern Baptist childhood was an activity called Bible Drill, in which kids in grades four through six compete on how well they know the Word of God. We’d be quizzed on our ability to quote verses, memorize references and identify passages. One of the coolest parts of the competition was a timed event where we had 10 seconds to locate a specific book of the Bible. We’d line up, facing a crowd of nervous parents, and the moderator would call out the get-your-Bibles-ready command: “Attention. Present swords. Begin!” And in a flurry, we’d scramble to locate, say, the book of Amos.

I rocked Bible Drill. And weirdly, I still find that archaic phrase “present swords” fluttering through my mind, like song lyrics without a melody.

There’s plenty of precedent for using Scripture as offensive weaponry, including the famous Armor of God passage in Ephesians 6. But we’ve taken that metaphor much further, turning the Bible into a box of ammunition. Individual verses have become our bullets in the culture war. Fighting homosexuality? Load up on Romans 1:27. Battling Hollywood filth? Chamber a round of Philippians 4:8.

The problem is that the Bible is so much more than a rulebook. Granted, parts of the Bible—Leviticus and much of Deuteronomy, for example—were sets of rules. But Jesus redefined that way of thinking and living. Later, Paul made it clear that an over-reliance on the “law” side of Scripture was like living under a curse (Galatians 3:10) or looking at life through a veil (2 Corinthians 3:14).

If the Bible can be reduced to a collection of ethical principles, how do we deal with the fact that Christians throughout the centuries have come to contradictory conclusions on what they are?

The Bible as Toolbox

You can’t walk through a bookstore these days—religious or otherwise—without seeing the Good Book made into a tool to enhance your life. Biblical steps to weight loss. Biblical steps to overcoming addictions. Biblical steps to business success. We crack open the Bible for parenting advice, marital tips and scary prophetic insight into oil prices and the Middle East.

That’s missing the point, too. Not that the Bible doesn’t have a lot of great information about living a fulfilled life. It’s useful, Timothy says, for teaching, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). But our tendency is to jump into a passage, yank out a principle about joy or perseverance, apply it to some out-of-context situation, then pat ourselves on the back for our dedication to the Word.

But that’s like watching a great movie so you can find an inspirational quote to tape to your fridge. Sure, it’s one way of interacting with Scripture, but there’s so much more to it than that.

The Bible as Science Book

Not long ago, I came across a statement by a creation-science lecturer who pretty much said this: If you don’t believe the world is 6,000 years old, then you don’t believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Therefore, you don’t believe the Bible, and your faith is in jeopardy.

Yikes. Focusing on the factual accuracy of the Bible is a wrong approach, because the core of my faith has nothing to do with whether or not the days of creation are 24-hour days. My salvation doesn’t depend on my interpretation of Genesis. It depends on whether or not I believe the Gospels, whether I believe Jesus is who He says He is. According to Paul, our faith hinges on the resurrection, not on Noah and the flood.

To get bogged down in the math and physics and biology and chronology of Scripture is to major in trivia. It misses the point.

The Bible as easy answer book

“God wrote it, I believe it, that settles it.” According to this mindset, the Bible fell from heaven one day, bound in black leather and helpfully divided into chapter and verse. With a satin bookmark.

The truth is that the Bible and its history aren’t nearly that simple. The Old and New Testaments come from a bunch of crumbling scraps in a mix of genres, written across the centuries by dozens of different scribes.

Don’t worry: I believe the Bible is God-inspired and perfect in what it communicates. But the “God wrote it, I believe it” brand of inspiration fails to account for an important kink in the process: People are idiots. While the Bible’s message may be perfect, those of us reading it are unequivocably not. It’s easy to rip verses out of their cultural and literary context so we can slap them on a bumper sticker.

The easy-answer approach makes it that much easier to misuse or abuse the Bible. A number of recent evils, from modern sexism to slavery and genocide, can be and have been backed up by carefully selected passages of Scripture. A better approach is to read the Bible with careful analysis of context, an acknowledgment of its complexity and a healthy dose of humility.

What, Then, Is the Bible?

The Bible contains powerful moral authority, but it’s not just a weapon. The Bible points to a fulfilled life, but it’s not just an advice manual. The Bible tells us where we came from, but it’s not a history or biology textbook. The Bible addresses many of life’s biggest questions, but it’s by no means an easy read. To reduce the Bible to these ways of understanding is to spotlight little truths at the expense of the big Truth.

The big Truth of the Bible is Jesus. Yes, there are layers upon layers of depth and truth and revelation to be found studying Scripture, but the main story of the Bible is Jesus. The purpose of its thousands of words is to point us to God’s final Word: Jesus Christ.

This article originally appeared in RELEVANT magazine.

Jeremiah 1:4-5, “The Word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’”

God knew me before He made me. Again, God knew you and me before we existed.

God has been with me from the very start. Before I knew Him, before anything. It also says that God then knew what I would do before I was born too! You might just think this is written to Jeremiah, but Eph 2:10 tells us that we are created to do good works. God setup and prepared good things for us to do long before we existed. Sure I’ve heard all this before, but stop and think about how crazy it really is; that the God of the universe knew each of us before we existed and that HE prepared God thinks for us to do. I know that I have past by some of these good things before and I’m sure you have too. For me, one of the reasons I don’t do them, is because I think I won’t do a good job or that the job really should be done by someone else. Firstly, these good things are prepared for each of us and if God tells me to do it, it means it was created for me, not someone else. Secondly, we don’t need to be scared of failing. This is the same problem Jeremiah had and God told him, “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you.” It goes on to say that God touches his mouth and gives him the words he needs. Remember that God prepared these good things and that He will also guide us to do them as He wants. It is HIS plan not ours. Now that is crazy.

It’s such a simple truth, yet I know I fail at it.

The toughest question that has come from this section of the book so far….

The greatest good on this earth is God. God’s one goal for us is Himself. The best things in life are gifts from the One who loves us (God), but we need to ask ourselves if we are in love with God or just His stuff? Do I love the things He provides me with, the feeling He gives me when I succeed at a good work He gave me or do I earnestly love God Himself? I’ll be wrestling with that for the next while. What about you?

As I understand the season of Lent is a time to fast and pray. Many people do this by the giving up of something they do on a regular basis so as to have more time/energy/etc to give to becoming more like Christ. It is a time to draw ourselves closer to Christ. I also understand that some people give up something to connect closer with the poor. One blog writes,

Abstaining from meat traditionally also linked us to the poor, who could seldom afford meat for their meals. It can do the same today if we remember the purpose of abstinence and embrace it as a spiritual link to those whose diets are sparse and simple. That should be the goal we set for ourselves—a sparse and simple meal. Avoiding meat while eating lobster misses the whole point!

Therefore, the picture you see is the last cup of coffee I will drink till the end of the season of Lent. For those that know me they will know that this is going to be difficult. I drink a lot of coffee each day. It is something I use to get rid of headaches, to get me through the day, and to enjoy with friends. I hope to try to use the “desire” to have coffee each day, to “draw” myself closer to Christ. I also think that I must give up ALL coffee and not just “Tim’s” or “Starbucks” as I have thought of doing. I feel this would be like the “eating lobster instead of meat”, and would miss the point. Another plus, is that I hope to save the money I would use to buy coffee to donate to those in need. Perhaps buy some food to give to the Food Bank.

I will try to post along the way to let you know how this goes. Stay tuned for more.

I read through the Bible cover to cover in my graduating year of high school and twice more during my two years at Bible College. But since then sporadic (or maybe non-existent) would be the best word to describe my commitment to this discipline. It’s certainly a little guilt-inducing that I would much rather read what someone else writes about the Bible than reading it myself.

The rest of the post continues to state, very closely to what I feel is the main reason why I too, have problems reading scriptures regularly. I must admit that I have a very very sporadic method of reading scriptures. In fact, I like to bing when I do read, by that I mean reading alot in one sitting. One quote from the post which I really love is ,”Devotion is more important than doing devotions.” This is something I have held onto quite tightly as I feel passionate about my devotion to God and to pursuing the life that God has for me. While I am far from perfect and need much improvement in both my reading of scripture and my devotion to God, it is this reality that maybe helps me to avoid tackling the deep issues of the scriptures.

This issue, along with a disciplined prayer life, which I believe is doing better than this issue, are the two biggest hurdlest in my spiritual growth as a believer. However, I must add, that being in full time ministry and interacting alot with others in ministry is where the body of Christ is holding me together. It is these people in my life to dialogue about these issues with that keep me grounded in learning more about who God is, and what His plan is. I would also say that being free to share on this blog is also a way in which I grow as it encourages me to share, question and avoid that ‘fake’ Christian torch that we can become to carry if we aren’t careful.

Now I think I need to go and read some scripture.

It is futile for us to live in anticipation of life always coming together.
It will come together as it does in those moments in life that just seem
‘perfect.’ It will again. And then the next day, it will be disrupted. It
may even fall apart. The hope is to live fully in the moments of laughter
and contentment- and to also be present in the moments of fear and
disappointment. We need to remember that every part of it has purpose and
meaning. We need to live as if we really believe the greater purpose for us
is transformation – to believe that sanctification takes priority over
enjoyment.

– from Becoming a Dad