Have you ever had one of those moments where you realized that what you want is so not where you are? When you look at your life and you think to yourself, "how did I get here?" I just had one.

Have you ever looked at something and thought, "man, that's going to cause me pain and heartbreak. It's going to require repentance and discipline, and not just one time. Probably more than I care to know?"

Have you ever stared that straight in the face and realized that brokenness leads to wonder, pain leads to pure joy and repentance and discipline leads to humility? And then, as you step back and look even closer, you realize that heartbreak is not over what you give up, but what you've already missed out on in your own arrogance.

But we rest on grace.......... that alone makes it bearable, but it will not ease my pain, for I know what I've missed. This isn't a beat up on myself, but it is a refreshingly honest look at my life. Praise God for His word.

Why is it that the church only seems to stand against things? I got to thinking the other day how I can't remember the last time that the collective church rose up in Canada to stand for, instead of against something.

We speak of a God of love, justice, a God who cares for His creation, a God of second chances, mercy, grace, forgiveness, but we as the church, more often than not, condemn. I'm tired of the excuse that Jesus stood for truth and expects us to do the same. It's a crutch we are using and the way that we are implementing that command is a joke and an insult to Jesus Christ.

I'm for standing for truth, but part of standing for truth means that we stand for the pro-active heart of Christ and not just the reactive. Why are we not working to alleviate poverty as a church, or hunger, or any other huge problem in the world today? We have a world that is passionate about the environment. Well, we were charged with taking care of the earth as christians. What an opportunity to share Christ with the world. We live in a world where advocacy is in style. As followers of christ, were we not called to bring hope to those who are hopeless, to liberate the oppressed? Were we not called to these things?

I dream of the day that we stop calling implementing those things the "selling" of Christ. It's not selling Christ by meeting the world, it's the truth of who Jesus is and has been, from Old Testament to New, and when we finally start doing these things, we will have influence and our opinion will no longer be judgmental, but respected.

The quest for equality

I've been thinking about our world and the quest for equality. I've been thinking about how whether it's racial, gender or religious equality, or any other kind most people, within the church and outside of it aren't really interested in equality.

See the whole thing about equality is that it puts you on the same level as everyone else. By it's truest definition, equality places everybody on the level playing field. That means, those who are requesting equality get pulled up the level of those the request is being made of. But that's as far as it goes.

But take a look at your life, does it reflect a desire for equality, or superiority? Are you interested in having equality? are you interested in being challenged by someone equal on what you believe or how you live? See, the problem is most people will say, "I want equality. I want to be considered equal." But they are really saying. I want to be able to believe what I believe and do what I do without challenge, because that's my right, and it's your right. However, that attitude is about superiority. There is no room for that kind of thinking in the world as we live in our day to day lives, and there is no place for that in the church.

How can we possibly have authentic community when we approach any discussion of faith that we have as more a debate than an opportunity to grow. How often have I, have you brought our package of beliefs into a debate and walked away saying that somebody attacked us because they challenged our beliefs? You are not your beliefs. How can there be equality when we refuse to accept that the person that we are talking is bringing equal beliefs to the conversation?

I guess the challenge is to walk in equality. Don't live like you are superior and function in the equal community we were called to function in.

The seconds of firstfruits

I was at Parachute Band last night at my church and God just hit me with this thought. We get together with all these believers for this night of worship, and the opening line is: "Are you ready to worship God tonight?"

Now, to clarify, these guys do not think worship is just music. They talked at length about the importance and seperation between music and worship. They talked about a need to help the needy, be hope to the world, to be salt and light. This is not a rip of the Parachute Band.

However, in the midst of it all, I was left to think. If that is our view, that we are getting together for a night of worship, I believe God challenges us to look at our hearts. I believe that God requires and desires our hearts to be in a spot that our sacrifice of praise in the house of the Lord is not where it ends.

Over and over in the Old Testament God speaks out against the hypocrisy of festivals and praise of the Israelites. Their actions and lives didn't back up celebrating the things that God had called them to do.

But the one example that stood out to me last night was the example of Cain. Cain, who did not offer his best to the Lord but brought him the less desirable parts. It got me thinking. If we have it backwards in our lives and the firstfruits are the times we take for ourselves, or the time that we indulge in ourselves, neglecting both God and those around us that we have been called to love, then the sacrifice of church or songs is unacceptable. It is not enough. It is empty, it is the hypocrisy of our praise and it is not only what God does not want, our praise, much like Cain's sacrifice will not be accepted.

Just my thoughts though.

Life Abundant

There's this verse in the Bible that says that God's gifts and His call are irrevocable. This is great news. This makes me very happy and very glad that I serve a God who has incredible mercy, grace and has placed that much value on me.

However, I've been thinking about how Jesus told us that He came to give us life abundant. And I started wondering. What does that mean? Does that mean that abundant life is struggling to feel His presence, trying to live right, trying to take care of my business and just get to the end of life.

What if God wants to pour out miracles in our generation? What if He wants us to take risks and to live in His abundance. I know that part of that is His grace and discipline and mercy, but I just can't shake the feeling that if the garden of Eden was the perfection of creation, and by that I mean, if it was what God wanted, then I'm led to believe that intimacy with God is what we were created for. His provision. Our obedience, His love, His power, our submission, our acceptance, His transformation.

I'm desperate to know what intimacy with God is like. I don't want to look back on my life and wish I would have been closer to God.

I just needed to get that off my chest.

Challenging prejudice and a little clarification

Okay. God's really been trying to get my attention lately. Sad to say since as we follow Christ we are supposed to be in the most intimate of relationships with Him.

In any case, I have these times where God takes me through things for the express purpose of ridding my heart of more of the blackness that persists and clings to me like death itself.

More often than not, He's not doing it because He's angry. It's almost as if He's saying "Tyler, I need to get rid of this in your life so that you and I can be closer because this is stopping us and it's breaking both our hearts."

Sometimes these revelations are for just me, and sometimes they apply to the world I see around me and this is one of those times.

God has been challenging me to look at my perspective of love.

Backtrack: This story starts at Home Depot Training about 3 weeks ago. We were doing this activity called respect for all people and the HR manager was leading it. So we get to talking about functioning as a team and how inside of that team, we can't be walking in prejudice over one another and God just decks me.

See, it turns out that my HR manager is a lesbian and, my oh my if that isn't the cardinal sin in the Christian world. I'm sitting in this room and I start to think of all the anti-gay protests, all the battle against same sex marriage, all the hatred towards homosexual people and God just says to me, "Tyler, do you love this woman?" He didn't ask it like somehow I was more honorable if I did. He asked it like He loved this woman and if I loved Him, than I needed to love this woman. It was like He said right to me "Tyler, have you stopped to see this woman as more than just someone who is homosexual?"....... I wish I could say yes, but the fact is, I'm prejudiced. I label people..... correction..... the vast majority of us label people. And we have no place for prejudice in our lives as followers of Christ.

God is challenging me to clarify what it means to love. So often, Christians associate love with the salvation of Christ. Not so. Did Christ save us because He loved us? Absolutely. Is that the only way that He loves us? Absolutely not. What about conviction? What about provision? What about leaving the 99 for the 1. These are ideals of the love of Christ that I think more often than not are overlooked or ignored for the sake of us living in prejudice.

We are no better. You can sit there and say that I would never be homosexual, make up lies like this person, pick up a prostitute, get drunk at a party, cheat on my spouse, look at pornography, but, outside of the life of Christ in you, you have no right to be that arrogant. And even with the life of Christ, you have no right to be that arrogant, because it's not even your holiness that makes you function the way you do. It's the Holy Spirit.

We have no idea what has led people to where they are today. Maybe they were abused and they don't know where to find love. Is protesting where they are finding it drawing them close to the love of God? Do you ever see Jesus protesting people's decisions with marches or petitions? Or is He making relationship with the people that He has come to save and clearly and boldly, but also gently and lovingly telling them that they need to find their fulfillment in Him.

Jesus told people very clearly what He required of them. "If you love me, you will obey what I command." It's in the book of John. But us responding in love was not a pre-requisite to Him loving us. Jesus died once for all because God so loved the world. You can't tell me that isn't applicable to drug addicts, abusers, homosexuals, liars, cheaters, people full of pride, the religous. Notice how everyone is in the same sentence. It's because we are all the same in God's eyes. Short of His glory. He's not mad about it though. In fact, He's made a way back to Him, also referred to as life abundant in the new Testament.

That leads me to this question. Think of the person in your life that you dislike most. Would you die for them? That's unconditional love. Would you die for them to experience life abundant? Or would you just make judgments and petitions and protests.

Christ loves us all unconditionally and while that love is associated with redemption and salvation, His love doesn't guarentee those things. What guarentees those things is relationship with Him. Not even deeds. Jesus tells a parable of people doing great things in His name, healing, taking care of the needy and God's words to them are "Depart from me, I never knew you."

Love is His gift to us. It's not then ours to bestow upon those we think are worthy, because we were never worthy of it either.

So stop the prejudice. Stop looking at people and only seeing the one thing about them you know. Stop seeing a homosexual and start seeing a hardworking person, who loves horses and ranching, and who needs the love of Christ and relationship with Him just as badly as you and I do.

Oh that we would actually love like Christ.