Cool Quote

I have some serious angst toward and hesitation to ever mention my Baptist upbringing, but this quote may be slowly changing my thoughts.

“We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man.”

—Charles H. Spurgeon

Crossing A Bridge That May Not Be Built

In doing a lot of thinking on a constant basis I cannot think of a time when I have been totally content with how life has worked itself out thus far. I am a college grad with a B.S. in Film and I moved to NYC with virtually no money and the money I currently make is enough to put me in the “poverty” category according to US statistics. Whatever I make, i must spend on bills and haven’t made enough to save for even a slightly humid day let alone a rainy one. In the midst of all of my anguish and frustration with my life not meeting deadlines I have in my head or grand visions I have dreamed, I can’t help but thinking that I should live more in the “now”. All too often have many of us dreamed of the future and whether our futures look as we had hoped or not, we look back and wish we had thoroughly lived in the moments and been content with the life that we had during our journey. I keep thinking that God wants to show me something, teach me something or invite me to grow through the desert I am in currently. Each time I go through a struggle or distress all I can think about is what the green fields and soft streams will look like when I come out of the desert. I have always been extremely focus driven and in most situations and in most company people praise that sort of thing and they even have a name for it; highly motivated/focused. Although I enjoy being praised as much as the next guy, I can’t help but wonder how can I start learning from today and looking forward to tomorrow instead of rushing through today and dreaming of tomorrow. Because, what if tomorrow never comes? What if God’s plan is for my journey to never end and my ideas of the destination don’t actually exist? How can I love the people around me, leave a legacy and grow while I am living today? To tell the truth I don’t know if I have the answers to any of those questions yet, but I do know I am going to try and seek God more on these topics. My more practical questions are: what job should I take while I pursue my destiny? Should I still pursue filmmaking? Is pursuit of a passion a worthless cause? Ok, that last one was more philosophical, but I can’t help it, it’s within me to be philosophical I guess. More practicality: Should I get married and when is a good time to start pursuing that? Should I wait until I am a successful filmmaker to pursue love? Is the pursuit of marriage actually a worthwhile pursuit for someone with my passions and dreams? Am I asinine to think the road to being a household name directing negates my ability to be married?

With all of my questioning at some point I need to come to some conclusions or answers. I have concluded that right now is not the day for those answers. Until then I need to find a balance between what I need to be concerned with today and what things I need to trust God with. It is illogical to say that I should not be concerned with the things of tomorrow as most Christians would tell you. That’s like saying you shouldn’t think about grocery shopping today despite your food supply consisting 1 can of beats and nothing else, because tomorrow will worry about itself. I think at some level you do have to put logic that God gave us into your trust and guidance from God. So the question is when and how much. We all tend to lean all the way to the left in life or all the way to the right. We know we want and must live in the middle but there is somehow too much momentum when we try to equal out that only allows us to be centered for a short time. So my thoughts now are leaning on how to trust God, take initiative, continue pursuits, people I should invest in and how much of it is actually going to be done out of my hands. Meaning God actually is taking serious movement in my life. As I pursue filmmaking everyday I learn more and more how success is gained by meeting the right people. Who are these people and if they exist where can I find them? because if I know those small details I can make this thing happen asap. Or, do I just feebly move forward and then hopefully one day God just makes it happen? As is probably evident I do not enjoy leaning on the later of my questioning. It seems really hard to find the balance of how of my thumb to stick up my butt and how much action I should take. So this post will not end on a cheerful or inspiring note but more of a note of questioning that prayerfully will have a post somewhere in the future that will have some answers. As always, Shalom.

-Mickey

Holistic Living Vision

Some spiritual disciplines we need to begin:

-daily meditation

-solitude

Spiritual practices we need to refocus:

-prayer -fasting

-study

-worship

Becoming a community of believers that shows Christ in every aspect of our lives is very important. We need to not just see God as something we talk about on a weekly or daily basis but needs to be a state of consciousness. We need to include God in our Relational life, gifts and talents, financial life, spiritual practices, emotional life and physical life. A more holistic way of seeing God and running life with him like a flowing river needs to be our newfound focus. I have recently begun this personal and inner journey. Inviting God into our relational life may look like, taking steps to reconcile a strained relationship with a parent or friend or maybe praying and seeking to be more sensitive and aware of the needs of those around you. How each of us connect with God and live that out is going to look different and that’s the way God intended it. In the end he wants to shape us into the people we were meant to be and love us even if we are from that future sanctified self. The body of Christ needs to be shaped in the image of how God has designed us and not something that we try to fit into. Always striving to be Christ like (Christian), but holding true to who God has made us individually, to further his beautiful picture of life with a God and his beloved people.

We cannot just talk about changing the world, we need to start change in our own lives (by the power of the Spirit) and the natural overflow will be a change in those around us.  The well we draw from will be what we offer to those around us far and near.

That’s my prayer and vision for the Gallery Church in 2010 and beyond!

I have been doing a lot of study in the area of meditation and solitude and will be posting more thoughts and concepts here in the coming days.

Tell me how you can personally improve holistically. In what areas can you begin to include God? Let’s write it here so there is global accountability.

-Mickey

Follow the Beams

I was just listening to a sermon by John Piper where he briefly spoke about miracles and specifically the feeding of the five thousand. He mentioned that maybe God withholds certain miracles because we would be so fixed on the miracles and not the one who provided the miracle. This struck a chord with me and I couldn’t agree more. I think far too often Christians are too focused on “blessings”. In church settings, with friends, in prayer we ALL thank God for providing this and that or doing this and that. I sincerely think that all of us 98% of the time are focused on gifts over giver. We had our fill and enjoyed it. That’s making our faith based on His usefulness to natural desires; desires for health, money, love, success, etc. We get our bellies full and do not follow the beams upward to which the miracles or “blessings” came from. If we see an imaginary beam that connects God and his blessings, I’d say we see the product and ignore the beams and where the beams lead. So I challenge myself, you and all Christians to redefine our “love for Christ” and seek to love Him and not how he fills our bellies. Let’s see signs, signs of God and all he encompasses and not just what he provides. Look past your blessings and suffering and know that Christ IS enough even if he had nothing on earth. I wrote these words but it will me a million times harder to live by them. But, I am here to live for Christ and I need to know why I do it: because He loves us and is enough.

So follow the beams and Love God!

Shalom,

Mickey

Confession, Prayer, Revelation…CALL!

In recent days I have hit financial hardship unlike any other in my own life. I was without money for the longest time and was extremely concerned and worried about food and paying my  bills. Truth be told, this financial low revealed my idols and revealed how much I actually live by what I say. I see that despite all God has provided for in the past, this time I chose to not trust in his steadfast provision. I often quote John Piper in his popular phrase “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him even in the midst of despair.” Truly I have forgotten the Gospel. I was so distraught and over-dramatic when I felt the weight of loss and despair. Woe is me that I have not truly lived and believed all that is promised in the scriptures by our God of hope. We need to remember that the Gospel is NOT, you accept Christ and you get everything you want. It’s you get Christ and he’ll be enough no matter what. Wow, what a beautiful and heavy truth that is. It’s in moments of loss and despair that we reveal to ourselves and to the world where our eyes are set and what we see as most important. Through prayer, confession and repentance, idolatry in me has been revealed in a new way.

My biggest Idols:

Security

Comfort

Respect

Appearance before men

Our prayer lives reveal the idolatry in our hearts.

Prayer expresses our trust in Christ and whether our mouths reflect our hearts and desires. When we pray it is a humbling act that is casting our life issues onto God and acknowledging that He is all powerful and we are mere humans. Trust is the biggest issue our church deals with when it comes to their faith. We usually don’t trust that God is going to do what he has promised or provide for our needs. The father knows our every need and by bringing it to Him we show our faith. But we must believe what we pray about or it is in vain.

It is now my prayer that I will continue to sit in and wrap myself in His steadfast truths found within scripture despite my situation. By doing this, Job was able to worship God in heartache and remain faithful and trust God. He did not deny his hurt but he casted it unto God and worshipped him because he knows that God is the only one who can save us from any depth.

Cast your cares on the LORD
and he will sustain you;
he will never let the righteous fall.  -Psalm 55:22

CALL: My biggest prayer is that as a church  (THE GALLERY) we would know the Gospel and come as we are, (dirty) and cast our cares unto him with full faith that He hears us.  Also to know that the Gospel is that Christ is enough no matter what and we can live in his love and promises daily.

Let’s not just be able who says “yes I agree with those words” but a people who dwells in these ideas and continually lives in a state of worship of God by our faith in His promises and desires for our lives.

Love Christ. Love people. All else is peripheral.

John 3:30

Directionally Challenged

I recently hung out with my pastor and his family and we went to the Manhattan Children’s Museum to hang and let his kids play. We took the subway to get there and when we were about halfway there his 2 year old said “Hey Daddy, here’s our stop”. He was so confident and happy that he knew what stop we were getting off at- but he was wrong. We still had quite a few more to go, but it was so funny because he said it as if his father didn’t notice and he was reminding him and showing off his sense of direction. But there weren’t any clues that should have made him think we were getting off yet, it was just so out of the blue.

Later when we walked down a few blocks to the local bakery he did something similar on the way there. We were near a random corner store and he stopped and excitedly exclaimed, “Oh, here we are daddy.” He was so sure that the corner store was a bakery. I must also mention that this store looked nothing like the bakery. I really wonder what went through his mind when he came to that conclusion since nothing about the store resembled our final destination. After we had purchased the food from the bakery we walked back outside and the 2 year old led the way  and swiftly  made a hard right and wanted us to follow him. Sorry buddy but once again you’re  a bit off. We needed to go left to get back to the apartment. Again he looked a bit perplexed that his confident thought process had been wrong. But we kindly reminded him where to go and guided him in that direction.

It’s just so funny how he kept thinking he knew where he was going but kept being either totally wrong or just not quite there yet. I think this is very telling of how we as Christians often interact with God. We often arrive at points in our lives where we feel like we have achieved a certain level of “holiness” or have gained victory over sins. We think, “OK, I’m in a good place and have been doing great. Look God, I’ve been good and obedient.” That’s when I feel like God looks at us and gently shakes his head and giggles a bit. One thing that we as Christians forget is that our lives will never have rest. We will never get to a good plateau of obedience and holiness that we can look up at God and he looks back and says, “you’ve made it.” We will always be in a state of sanctification if we are seeking Him. We gotta remember that repentance becomes more frequent as we mature in Christ. Because the more we grow the more God reveals to us what he wants us to repent of and to loosen our grip on. Repentance can never stop and we will not find rest until we are home in Heaven. When we start to head in a wrong direction in life God is right there to preach repentance to us like my pastor was for his son. He’s there to tell us we’re headed in a wrong direction and have us turn and follow Him. The main way that we know the will of God for our lives is already provided for us in the scriptures and so this is a beautiful truth that we can always turn to the Bible for wisdom and direction. So generally the more we know scripture our sense of direction is more clear and then it just comes down to choosing the correct direction and being obedient. So seek scripture and use wisdom in the truths that God has already laid out for us.

May we press on in suffering living a life of constant repentance and resting in our savior Christ Jesus and His scriptures.

Miracles and Truth Are No Match for Presupposition

Recently I have decided to start using my hour long commute on the Subway as a time to spend with God and so i now bring my bible on the train and listen to a Podcast or worship music simultaneously. Today i began using pen and paper because i realized that i needed to start write what God was revealing. Today I read a story out of Matthew about Jesus Casting out the demons into the pigs. It’s Matthew 8:28-34. In this story Jesus comes to a city and and two demon possessed men come out from the tombs and approach Him. They instantly know who He is and ask if He had come to torment them. First i find it ironic and comforting that the demons know their fate, know Jesus is the one who controls the fate of not only man but the demons and they are terrified of Him. I almost feel like these demons jumped out from behind the bushes hoping to scare and torment the next person to walk in their path and to their unfortunate surprise is was the Son of God. Sort of comical in a way. So  Jesus then proceeds to cast out the demons and He does so and moves them into some pigs that are in a herd nearby. I love that at the sound of His voice when He says “Go” they instantly do what He commands. This is another reassuring truth about Christ’s almighty power. Now the whole crew of people standing by have seen this and are most likely amazed. But then the Pigs all run off a steep bank into the sea. The herdsmen and bystanders are so astounded they run into the city and tell everyone they can find that this man Jesus just casted out demons and they possessed the pigs which in turn made them run into the sea and drown, loosing all their pigs.

Jesus did an amazing work but this did nothing to change the hearts of men. It must have scared them or something because when they returned to Him they begged Him to leave the city. Why did they beg Him to leave the city? This made me curious and so I looked into it once i got to my internship and I read many commentaries online. In a Matthew Henry commentary it said “Their covetousness made them willing to be rid of Him.” What were they coveting, or was coveting being used as a state of being covetous? Although this covetous business may have truth i feel as though God revealed two main things to me in this passage.

1) The people of the city valued property more than God’s deliverance. THis is often the case with everyday life and people. If you asked a non-Christian which they prefer more, the love of Christ or their HDTV, it’s a good bet they will mention their TV. Often times as Christians we allow the day by day walk through life to sway us from truth and Christ-centered focus. Our possessions, our clothes, our reputations and desires tend to be more important than God. We must not lose focus on Christ and keep persevering to be diligent in our relationships with Christ. Because time has proven that we cannot go through life without Christ.

2) Even divine miracles and evident truth will not convince people of the love of Christ at the cross or that God actually exists or Jesus was the son of God. Only the work of the Holy Spirit can do a good work in people and prepare their hearts to accept the Gospel of Christ. People’s presuppositions hinder open eyes/hearts and faith. We must remember that it is the Holy Spirit that brings people to Jesus and not us. We are just His humble servants used in the process. So prayer is absolutely essential to walk humbly with God and speak to those he wills us to speak to and love them as Christ does.

Below I found an anecdote at Biblegateway that I found relevant to my readings and study.

[People's presuppositions are so strong that even divine miracles will not always convert them. I once debated for about seven hours with a professor in his office, providing evidence to refute his objections to Christianity and citing line after line of evidence for the truth of the Christian faith, each of which he dismissed on the basis of presuppositions. Finally exasperated, I demanded, "Would you believe in Jesus if someone were raised from the dead in front of you in his name?"

"No," he responded, "I'd say they weren't really dead."

"And you have the audacity to call me closed-minded for being a Christian?" I retorted.]

Now that may not have been a great ending to such a long debate but the words of Spurgeon come to mind about Christ and mainly the Bible. He said “Scripture is like a lion. Who ever heard of defending a lion? Just turn it loose; it will defend itself.”

So my prayer is that we dedicate time to loving others, telling them of the Gospel and forsake being too focused on proving veracity of scripture and Christ. Let’s allow the Lord of all to be himself and show up when we as Christ followers are obedient to telling the gospel and loving as Christ does.

Shalom,

Mickey