Hey there! I just wanted to start by saying that I hope that you are having an awesome day! For Purdue Students, it's the monday before spring break! But of course, all the professors think it is necessary to put a test the week before spring break so for most of us, including myself, this week is going to to be stressful. So i just wanted to provide everyone with a little study break perhaps, and more importantly a quick refresher about God! Let's do it!
So the title of todays post is Feed My Sheep. Not literally. For one that would be very creepy and two I do not own sheep so good luck with that one. Before we really start getting into the good stuff, I wanted to open things up with an awesome video I found on youtube (and for those of you out there wondering, no I did not go to youtube and search for sheep videos. I had already seen this one.)
WATCH THIS AWESOME LINK BEFORE YOU CONTINUE READING.
Who knew you could have so much fun with sheep? Major props to those guys though. Last week, I posted something called chasing, and I just gave a brief intro into the question, "What are we chasing?" A lot of times, I think that we get caught up in the world and we end up chasing something that we know can never bring us an everlasting joy like Jesus will. That was a quick recap of last week. This week, I want to turn our attention to this verse:
John 21:17 "The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.""
So here Peter is, standing around talking to Jesus, and Jesus pops the question on him, "Do you love me?" First of all, this is a big question coming from anybody, but coming from Jesus, the Savior of the Universe, God's own son, this is HUGE! And to add insult to injury, Jesus goes on to ask the same question two more times! So now Peter is dejected and just like of course! I've said it twice before what are you looking for. And it's really interesting what Jesus's response is. He doesn't say, "Good, just making sure," or "Haha got ya I know you love me." Instead, He simply says, "Feed my sheep." I can picture the other disciples or anyone else who heard this exchange looking around scratching their beards. What sheep is Jesus talking about? And what do you feed sheep? But in these three words, Christ gives us so much. It is a command on how we should live our lives, and not just any command, but if you delve deeper into it, you can really see where Christ was coming from.
Oswald Chambers, a christian author, rights a devotional called My Utmost for His Highest. I got the idea for this blog from one of his devotions, but I thought that the concept was so true that I had to share it with anyone who was willing to read it. Jesus calls us to feed his sheep. Well who are his sheep exactly? I can't sit here and tell you exactly who the sheep you are supposed to feed are, but I can tell you that Jesus has some pretty extraordinary sheep. Not every sheep is going to be pristine, white, and flawless. Oswald Chambers describes these are sheep in this way. He says, "some sheep are going to be unkempt and dirty, some are awkward and pushy, and some have gone astray." However, God loves each of them nonetheless and His command for us to feed them. We are to practice God's overflowing love and carry out His commands, regardless of who the sheep is or what it has done.
When we look at is this way, we can clearly see that the love that we are supposed to be practicing, the love of God, doesn't focus on any prejudices or attitudes that we bring to the table. We have all of these preconceived notions about who people are supposed to be, act, and live, that sometimes we allow these notions to get in our way from practicing God's true love. This kind of threw me for spin because so many times, I think that I try to show God's love to somebody, but in most cases, it is always within my own bounds. THE LOVE OF GOD KNOWS NO BOUNDS! It does not judge, it is holy and pure, and it is something that we should strive for everyday.
I have to get going now, and I hope that some of this makes sense. Think of how much of a better place we could make your environments if you were constantly aware of trying to demonstrate the true love of Christ. I want to leave you all with a verse that I read today that really made me excited and got to me.
Romans 8:37 - "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."
We are conquerers in Christ. Have a great day and a great rest of your week!
Your brother in Christ,
JD
Monday, March 7, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Chasing
As I was at Brunch Bunch this past Sunday, I had the opportunity to talk to two of my friends about my plans for the future and some of my goals I would like to see accomplished. We talked about what the balance was between having our own goals and completely trusting in God's plan for our lives, or if there is even a balance. Coming into college, I had all of these goals and plans for this career/lifestyle that were being more fueled by my personal desires, and since then, I've really tried to align my desires with those of God, and to try to follow the path that he has for me. This isn't always easy, because it's not like God has this neon sign pointing here that say, "This is the way to go!", but with faithful prayer, I think that we can learn what God has planned for our lives.
So one of the responses that got raised at brunch about this conversation was, "How do we know what God wants us to do?" As I said in the line before, obviously prayer has a huge part in it. 1st Thessalonians 5:17 calls us to "Pray Continually." If we look back through the bible, the people who seemed most in line with God's calling were the ones who talked to him the most.
I think that one of the most important things to realize is that even though God didn't highlight and define the specific path that we are supposed to follow, He still instructs us on how we should live our lives. In 1st Peter 1:16, God says that, "for it is written, "Be holy, because I am holy."" This is such a strong command, that packs so much into so few words. With this statement, God basically tells each of us the standard to how we should live and conduct ourselves.
This got me thinking. Are we really pursing God and attempting to "Be Holy?" or are we trying to match up to the worlds standards, while being a generally good person? So I guess the question of this becomes, what are you chasing. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend Passion Conference this past January, and Louie Giglio spoke one night about freedom, and what it meant to have true freedom. So many of us are trying so desperately to obtain this sense of freedom, and in that desperate search, we begin to fill our lives with things that we think will give us that feeling. The way that Louie described it was imagine if we had this chain that we carry around with us. The chain is our desire to get this "true sense of freedom" that the world does such a good job of telling us we need. We go around attaching our chain to different ideas, to other people, or to relationships. The list is endless, but what it boils down to is that most of us are so willing to attach ourselves to anything besides Jesus. And I guess my question is, why do we chase after things of this world, when Jesus is the only one who can break all of our chains and set us completely free.
Why do we need the world now when we are given a paradise in Heaven?
Along with God calling us to be holy, he also calls us to be perfect. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect." At first, I was a bit put off by this verse, because the bible very clearly says that we are all sinners, and that we have all fallen short of the glory of God. So why would God call us to do something that He then goes on to say is virtually impossible because we are all sinners. After a lot of thought and talking with some friends, I think that God had to call us to perfection. If He called us to anything less, eventually, someone somehow would reach that level. So He calls us to perfection, not because he is trying to make life impossible, but because with Him, life is possible and that is what we should be striving for. A perfect and holy lifestyle.
That's all I have for right now, but as you go throughout this week, try to stop and think about what or who you are chasing. If the answer to that question is anything but God, then try to identify what you have latched your chain around and begin to break the hold that is separating you from a satisfying life in the pursuit of God.
We are a house of Worship.
JD
So one of the responses that got raised at brunch about this conversation was, "How do we know what God wants us to do?" As I said in the line before, obviously prayer has a huge part in it. 1st Thessalonians 5:17 calls us to "Pray Continually." If we look back through the bible, the people who seemed most in line with God's calling were the ones who talked to him the most.
I think that one of the most important things to realize is that even though God didn't highlight and define the specific path that we are supposed to follow, He still instructs us on how we should live our lives. In 1st Peter 1:16, God says that, "for it is written, "Be holy, because I am holy."" This is such a strong command, that packs so much into so few words. With this statement, God basically tells each of us the standard to how we should live and conduct ourselves.
This got me thinking. Are we really pursing God and attempting to "Be Holy?" or are we trying to match up to the worlds standards, while being a generally good person? So I guess the question of this becomes, what are you chasing. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend Passion Conference this past January, and Louie Giglio spoke one night about freedom, and what it meant to have true freedom. So many of us are trying so desperately to obtain this sense of freedom, and in that desperate search, we begin to fill our lives with things that we think will give us that feeling. The way that Louie described it was imagine if we had this chain that we carry around with us. The chain is our desire to get this "true sense of freedom" that the world does such a good job of telling us we need. We go around attaching our chain to different ideas, to other people, or to relationships. The list is endless, but what it boils down to is that most of us are so willing to attach ourselves to anything besides Jesus. And I guess my question is, why do we chase after things of this world, when Jesus is the only one who can break all of our chains and set us completely free.
Why do we need the world now when we are given a paradise in Heaven?
Along with God calling us to be holy, he also calls us to be perfect. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect." At first, I was a bit put off by this verse, because the bible very clearly says that we are all sinners, and that we have all fallen short of the glory of God. So why would God call us to do something that He then goes on to say is virtually impossible because we are all sinners. After a lot of thought and talking with some friends, I think that God had to call us to perfection. If He called us to anything less, eventually, someone somehow would reach that level. So He calls us to perfection, not because he is trying to make life impossible, but because with Him, life is possible and that is what we should be striving for. A perfect and holy lifestyle.
That's all I have for right now, but as you go throughout this week, try to stop and think about what or who you are chasing. If the answer to that question is anything but God, then try to identify what you have latched your chain around and begin to break the hold that is separating you from a satisfying life in the pursuit of God.
We are a house of Worship.
JD
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