Less Of Me

I have been feeling like kind of a jerk lately. I feel kind of irritable and kind of faithless. I feel like some of my most important relationships have been kind of weak lately. I have just felt kind “not myself”. I was thinking about that this morning and reading and praying and then it came to me. The real problem is not that I have been becoming less like myself, but that I have been becoming more like myself. I have been kind of selfish and I have been missing my time with God, which in turn causes me to become less like Him and more like the me of the flesh. It’s like John the Baptist talks about in John 3:30. He said of his relationship with Christ, “He must become greater and I must become less”. I see that same principle play out in my life so often. When I stop investing my relationship with Christ and stop investing in my spirit I become less and less like the person that I want to be and more like the person I loathe being. I just need to remember that when I feel miserable or I notice that I am getting upset with others with great frequency, it’s on me, not on them.

Happiness

This week in church the message was about something like"Are you Really Happy?" Something like that. I really dont know what was said because I missed the service due to a youth meeting (I need to go back and watch it) anyways It really made me think. I try to have the messages with the youth kind of follow the messages of the main service, so I thought about happiness and I talked with the students about that on Sunday. I concluded this; happiness is a strange thing and it is so hard to understand. What I can understand is this... It is good, we all want it, It is easy to obtain and for some odd reason some people just choose not to get it. They would rather feel sorry for themselves by looking at how bad things are and be unhappy about it. I know that sounds really cruel and insensitive to say, but that is the best way I can understand it. I'll say what I often say to my clients at work and what I got from a John Maxwell book; "Would you rather be a thermometer or a thermostat?" We actually get to decide that every time something starts to bring us down.

Bad Daddy

As I journal this week I am thinking about what God has been teaching me. He has been teaching me so much. I have been so busy trying to get ready for the kick-off of //epidemic and working so many hours at ACT and I have been finding the lessons in our financial position. God has been teaching me so much, I just need to open my eyes to see them. The biggest thing I have been learning and having to work on this week though is my inadequate daddy skills. I try to be a good dad, and it kills me to learn that I fall short. I have been realizing lately that I am often too hard on Shaylee, and then my wife pointed it out as well. I make these expectations for her and hold her to such a high standard. I get way too upset with her when she makes messes. I expect too much from her in pre-school. God doesn’t do that to us. God loves us and accepts us for who we are, and helps us to be better people. I am reading through Paul’s response in Galatians to Christians who are trying to do this to new Christians. God, please don’t let me be like that to others, especially to my beautiful daughter.

Checklist Xtianity:

A couple weeks ago my pastor and I were talking and he was asking for good ideas to put in his sermon about why we Christians sometimes suck. I told him Christians sometimes suck because we prescribe to what I like to call checklist Christianity. We make this long, or not so long, checklist of what Christianity is all about or how we maintain our “relationship” with Christ. For instance:

__ Pray at least once a day

__ Read my Bible

__ Go to church at least 3 times a week

__ Give my offering

__ Tell at least 2 people about Jesus

__ Have a Christian bumper sticker

__ Listen to Christian music

__ Act happy when in public

__ Read a Christian book

__ …

… and what ever else somebody might find to put on this checklist. Then we go out and live by this checklist that we’ve compiled. We get all these ideas and “formulas” of what others (pastors, videos, music, etc.) say Xtianity is supposed to be or look like and we make our checklist to live by. And we then fix our efforts to just go by each week making sure we can check off each thing on our list. The more “Christian” we are the more things we have on our list. And as long as we complete our task sheet we thing we are right on track with Christ.

And, it doesn’t stop there. We then proceed to look at our checklist and hold others up to that standard that we have adapted for ourselves. We see that some people don’t have a very long checklist, or that as far as we can tell, they aren’t doing these “very spiritual” things that are on our checklist. So we conclude that they must not be very good Christians; at least not as good as we are.

We have to be very careful to make sure that our relationship with Christ is not reduced to a set of ritualistic formulas that we check off of a list. Jesus never gave formulas for how to live for him or remain close to him. Please don’t misunderstand! Most of these things are very beneficial disciplines that we would do well to have as a part of our lives. But… not because it makes us measure up, not because it makes us better than others, not because it impresses God. Scripture makes it very clear that God looks only at our hearts, man looks at the outward. This checklist is all too often an outward thing, especially when the heart is not right with God. He only sees our hearts, and we as men can’t fully see another man’s heart, so let’s not judge their hearts. And, let’s not make checklists to follow. Let’s instead just follow our hearts and how God is prompting. Yes, develop spiritual disciplines, but make sure they are not part of an empty routine or checklist.

In Christ,

Geoff

2nd impressions

Second Impressions!

I have been thinking for the past week about how people perceive us. As I was prepping for our Sunday morning youth service, in which we are discussing new beginnings and how we get a new start and a clean slate at the beginning of each new school year, especially for those students moving to new schools. God led me to the realization that some people have negative impressions of us for things we have done in the past or things they have heard and how sometimes that makes new beginnings difficult. There are people that have negative opinions of us. We typically have two responses to that; (1) people pleasing and trying to get them to change the way they fell about us, or (2) saying “well forget them, I don’t need people to like me or approve of me”. I don’t think that either approach is the way God would have us respond. As ambassadors of Christ we ought to strive to reveal Christ and all his goodness through our lives. We ought to strive to change people’s impressions of us by giving them a godly impression. After all that is truly what an impression is, something that is pressed onto a person’s memory. We in our humanity press a bad image of ourselves and the Christ we represent into people’s minds. We can change that impression though. I keep a painting that my wife painted in my office. It has no frame and is painted on a cardboard painting canvas. It has sat for years on top of a book case and leaned against the wall. After leaning for years it became very concaved and it makes they Tuscan countryside portrayed in the picture look distorted. So when we moved just recently, I took the picture out of it’s box and laid it flat for 2 months. The picture is now flattened again and the image is a beautiful as ever. We have that ability with the image of ourselves that is shaped in others minds. It may be distorted or unattractive but we can, through a long series of positive impressions shape a godly image. First impressions aren’t lasting, continuous impressions are lasting.

Diss - A - Plin

God always has lessons for us. Yesterday in church the all wise oracle (Orin Borgelt) said something to the effect of "when God has a lesson for us he usually wraps it in a problem and if it is a big lesson it is wrapped in a big problem." I like that thought, it certainly echoes Paul's notion in Philippians when he was suggesting to rejoice in everything and especially in the "problems". Well i know that God has been teaching me some very necessary lessons lately, and it is actually not because I see this problem facing me, but it is because of increased responsibility and strategies and disciplines I am being forced to establish. Yes, forced.
My wife and I have been so blessed since moving back to Olathe, and it has been so wonderful. We really lucked out and got into an awesome house when we shouldn't have been able to do so, and since we got this house in a not so great financial position, we are now being told that we need to establish a very strict budget and account for all of our spending and prove that our financial position is consistently improving. Wow! It is difficult to do that and I really appreciate Orin's sermon series at just the right time and trying to execute something like that really makes me admire someone like him. So God is forcing me to learn a great deal of financial discipline in order to pull this thing off.
I am also being forced to learn new disciplines at work. I got a promotion, which is awesome! I have only been at this job for three months and technically am still in a probationary period, but that said that they have been so impressed with my work that they want promote we to a supervisor, even though there are people who have been there for years and years, some more than a decade, who have been waiting and working for this promotion. That was undoubtedly the favor of God in my life. Praise God. With this position though comes some serious responsibilities. I am kinda nervous and excited at the same time.
Now the most difficult thing is being a bachelor again for a while. My wife and my daughter went on vacation to stay with my family for a while. (isn't that awesome that my family is strong enough and close enough that my wife goes and stays with her in-laws without me. I wish i could be there too, but that is life sometimes.) Whenever my wife goes away for a period of time i am tempted to be a bum for a while. Just spend $$$ and play video games and get out of my routine. Today God convicted me about that, telling me to be a disciplined person and stick to a routine, maybe be even more strict about it.

The really cool things about discipline and learning discipline is that be learning discipline we are assured that we will be better people and be in a better situation later down the road in life as a result of our learned discipline. Welcome discipline. Seek out discipline and increased responsibility.

Hebrews 12:5-13 says...
5And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."^[a]

7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

12Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13"Make level paths for your feet,"^[b] so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Thats an awesome truth about God and about humanity.

Be cool!

Seek God!

In Christ,

Geoff Lundy

1Corinthians 3:4-6

4Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. 5Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

I love this passage. It has helped me so many times through out my years in ministry. I am not naturally a confident or bold person so I often 2nd guess myself and I tend to get pretty insecure. (I know what a sissy, huh!) But, thats me and I hate it and I have to allow God to use me with all my insufficiencies. Since coming to Olathe Life fellowship, I have all the confidence in the world. I am confident that we will be okay, I am confident that OLF will grow and do incredible things for the Kingdom of God. I am confident that //epidemic will explode onto the scene and transform student's lives in awesome ways. I am full of faith and confidence, which is so uncharacteristic for me. But, I realize my confidence is so overwhelming because the Spirit of God is so overwhelming in what we are doing. OLF and //epidemic are doing God's work free from any restraints. No religious restraints, no tradition to consider. We are just calling on God asking for His Spirit and His direction and we are going. We are receiving vision from God and going in that direction with great confidence. Not confidence in ourselves, just in God and His Spirit.

Apply that principle in your lives and wow, what a difference it makes. It feels so good to actually be confident in what you are doing in life because you know you are doing God's will and you know God is blessing everything you do.

Seek God

In Christ,
Pastor Geoff Lundy