Note to Graduates

Dear graduates,

It’s easy to look at this season as one of transition. It is easy to look at this S the end of a chapter and the start of another. It’s easy to look back on these experiences as necessary so that you can close the book on it andover forward into the next thing. But today i want to encourage you to think of it differently. I want to encourage you to think of it as putting you one step closer to being the person God has designed you to be. One step closer to fulfilling the role God has set aside for you.  Whether you are graduating from high school or med school the fact is that you have made a choice to more fully learn about the place God has for u in this world. And for that I am more immeasurably proud of you and excited for you than I know how to properly express. Congratulations and God bless.

Seiji

SDG

one more thought on the pearl of great price

So I’ve been camping out on Matthew 13:45-46 lately.  It’s a really short passage that has been a freaking lighthouse beacon for me.  I mean I opened by bible at random this morning to read something and that’s the page I opened up to.  I didn’t really want to read it again so I picked up a different bible, opened to a random page and VOILA – the same passage.

Now my first thoughts on the matter were recorded on @pacnwdadof6 ‘s blog HERE. Basically I say that the kingdom is worth much more than my limited hopes and dreams.  I mean I’m faced with a God who able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I can ask or think and all I can dream and hope for is some career stuff?  That’s pretty lame when you think about the God of the universe saying “what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 

Kingdom Conflict 5 – 4:2

So this is the last part about Kingdom Conflict.  You can read the other posts here.
Introduction
What does it look like?
Worship
Build a House

Looking at the model of Kingdom Conflict from Luke 4, the first attack Satan launches against Jesus is not the temptation of the flesh but one against Christ’s identity.  Satan says “IF you are the Son of God…” (and all you Greek scholars out there please grant me a little grace, since the only Greek I know is “oopa!”).   Anyways, I see this as a kind of two pronged attack: Satan is telling Jesus to prove who he is, and simultaneously tempting him with the flesh.  If it were me in that situation I’d probably come out losing because either I’d say “You don’t believe me? Just you watch” and then prove myself OR, I’d resist temptation and sit around for weeks if not months stewing in doubt.  “I didn’t do it.  Does that mean I’m not who I thought I was? Could I have done it if I had wanted to? But I didn’t?  What if I can’t?”  And so on.

3:20

No that is not the time.  This is actually probably one of my more favorite bible verses.  Some bible verses I write out, laminate and carve into my desk so that I can read them and see them again and again.  These are ones of which I need reminding like Jeramiah 33:3 or Acts 17:27.  Romans 8:28 and John 14:1 are there also (because there are days when I REALLY need those verses written out in front of me) but Ephesians 3:20-21 is not one of them.  In the New King James it reads

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.”

Who was Jesus exactly?

I asked myself this question on Sunday while preparing to talk to my youth group.  And it was kind of weird because normally I don’t ask myself that kind of question, but I’ll ask others.  It’s very much like holding up a mirror and asking a person what they see because more often than not, you’ll find that when a person is asked to describe Jesus, the answer will tell you more about the person answering, than it will about Jesus.  Most likely.  Not always, but most likely that will be the case.

So someone who says “Jesus is my homeboy,” is expressing a need for peers, for equal companionship and fellowship that they can find in Jesus.  Someone who says “Jesus is Healer,” might be suffering from some kind of ailment whether physical or emotional.  “Jesus is a rebel, he upsets the norm” is probably an outcast like me and wants to make a difference in an indifferent society.

To say “Jesus is a rock star” like I so often do, indicates a need for approval. (PS, I’m not fishing – I’m trying to be transparent)