I'm sorry I'm a Christian...

Found this video via Carlos Whittaker's blog.

It has me thinking along the lines of how sorry I am that as the poet says "I'm sorry I stain the name of God."

As Christians we need to take our faith and the life change that God has produced in us and act on it. It is time for us to live as Christ called us to live, to love as He has called us to love. We are to be the light of the world, a city on a hill and all of our petty infighting and judgmental-ism is making us a joke to those who we are supposed to be loving in Christ's name.

Just a few thoughts for now. Curious to hear yours...

Sinking/Drowning

I am sinking/drowning in awe and wonder at God. The sermons I have been hearing, the books I have been reading the people that He has put into my life blow my mind. God is so Holy, so set apart from us, and yet He loves us. He provides for us. The creator God that holds the universe in His mighty hands also tenderly holds our bruised and broken hearts. Not only that He gives us strength to stand in a fallen and broken sinful world and say I am a child of the one God, adopted into His family by grace and by the shed blood of Jesus Christ my Savior and Lord. I belong to His church and the gates of hell shall not overcome it. The God who laid the foundations of the earth created me, sent His only Son to die in my place, and sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in me and give me power in His name. I want to drown in these thoughts, to sink deeper into His love, to follow His leading with single minded focus and devotion. Our God is mighty and powerful, tender and caring, he needs none of us, yet desires us to know Him. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.

Lent

It is Ash Wednesday today. which marks the start of Lent and leads us into one of my favorite times of the year. I love the Easter season. Not because of bunnies, chocolate, painted eggs or anything like that. The reason that I love Easter is because it is the culmination of Christ's ministry. It is the end of sin and death's reign on earth, God wins. Good Friday we remember the crucifixion, we remember that it all looked lost, it looked like death and evil won. Easter morning the stone is rolled away and our Lord lives, He is a living God that defeated the grave. That gives us hope, because if Christ had just died for us and there was no resurrection death would still be the end. But because our Lord rose again we have the hope of eternal life, we have forgiveness, grace and mercy.

The reason I am excited for lent is because it is a time to prepare ourselves for that hope and the celebration of the resurrection. Oftentimes we give something up for lent as a symbolic gesture of remembrance of Christ's temptation in the wilderness. Catholics typically fast and if what I have read on the interwebs is right have many rules for eating during Lent, in my view this is reminiscent of the very legalistic view the Pharisees had during Jesus' day. I do however believe that there is value in giving something up that helps you focus more on Christ and His sacrifice for us. I also think that it is important to add something that helps us grow in our walk with Him. That is why for the first time in my life I am going to do something in observance of lent, in the past I have given up things like water-skiing or skydiving. I took it as a joke and gave up things that I don't do, or can't do because of the weather in Minnesota.

So this year I have decided to do the following...
-Fast during daylight hours during Lent.
-In an effort to take better care of myself I am also going to exercise on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays during Lent, hopefully this will carry over into the rest of the year. I am attempting to attach the idea that "my body is a temple" to this, but it is really probably more about having a day to start so that I can no longer say "I'll start tomorrow."
-I am going to read a book on and practice Lectio Divina as a way to further my study and understanding of the bible.

My hope and prayer is that these will help me grow closer to Christ and through this process I will better understand His love and Grace for humanity.

Are you doing anything to prepare for the celebration of Easter? If so what? If not why not?

DR Bound

Today was a stressful day. I won't bore you with the mundane details of it. I am writing this because I recognize that the stress I am feeling may be because someting amazing is going to occur this week. Lindsey and I leave in a few hours to go to our other home, the Dominican Republic. We are so excited to serve our Lord there, i can barely contain myself. Unfortunately in the days leading up to this trip I have been distracted by many things that frustrate me that I can not explain. I have found myself focusing on what I will be missing rather than on what I will be giving.

This week my prayer for myself and for the team in the DR, as well as all of you is that we focus on what we can give of ourselves to God. Let HIM take our meager offerings and multiply them for HIS kingdom. Focus on HIM and the rest will fall into place or by the wayside.

Please keep us in prayer this week. We will be doing the same for you.

Shine On,
Jason

2:00am

I am sitting up, wide awake. It is now 2am two days before Christmas. I am thinking about how lucky and how blessed I have been this year. A little over a year ago I received a call from a great friend of mine offering me the chance to lead worship for a mission trip group in the Dominican Republic. Little did I know it then but that trip, that experience would be instrumental in leading me to where I am today.
As this year of 2009 winds down and we again get ready to celebrate our Saviors birth it seems good to list the ways that I feel blessed.
-First of all my Wife is amazing. I don't tell her that enough, but without her I don't think I would have had the strength to step out in faith and try to follow this crazy idea that I should go back to school and into ministry as a career. I definitely do not let her know enough that without her belief and encouragement I would still be stuck in the rut that I was a year ago.
-Second, When I needed it, in the middle of the worst recession of my life time i was blessed to have friends in decision making positions who hired me when i was in need of employment. They were able to come through for me at a time when i really needed it. They probably do not know how thankful i am for the opportunities that they provided.
-Third. I have been blessed to have the opportunity to work with and help lead an awesome team of people and congregation at the CornerStone gathering at MGLC.
-Fourth. Minnesota Metro Lutheran Teens Encounter Christ has provided me with the opportunity to exercise my leadership skills as well as being able to worship with some of the best people on the planet.
-Fifth. My parents, their hard work has allowed me to have an amazingly comfortable life and pursue my dreams. Mom and Dad, I hope that when I have kids I can do half as well as you have done.
-Sixth. The God of second chances loves me, forgives my sins, and gives me life. Without Him the rest of this list means nothing.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, or in any particular order. If you are reading this how do you feel blessed, leave it in the comments section.

Shine On.

Another Post

I am thinking about the small differences we can make in people's lives without realizing it. Recently I received an email from the mother of a student who went through a TEC weekend. She related that her daughter has been writing a verse on her hand everyday since the retreat and printing out copies to share with her friends. It is so awesome to hear stories of people doing small acts like that, that can have a major impact on someones day or on there life. The thing that struck me as the coolest about what is happening is that through her enthusiasm and love for scripture she has gotten her friends excited about hearing from God's word. We serve an awesome amazing God who will find something small that we do and He will take it and make it flourish.
For more information on the Teens Encounter Christ Retreats in the Twin Cities go to www.mmltec.org.

Shine On

I felt like God forgot about us

I want to relate a story I heard today about someone's mission trip experience.

Ken a world servants volunteer told this story tonight. He was talking about his trip serving on an island off the coast of Ecuador. He said that the group he was leading was the first group to go there to serve people. Doctors had gone there, but no one had gone to just serve and love the people. They spent a week there working with the community. On the last day there was a worship/farewell service that included a time for sharing experiences or thoughts on the week. A teenage boy who lived on the island got up and said "Until you came here, I thought God had forgotten about us."

That story just blew me away. I was struck by the emptiness that the boy who said that must have been feeling. I can't imagine feeling like God forgot about me. In our country we are so blessed with wealth and comforts. At the same time though in our communities people are looking for God and reminders or signs of His love. There are people hurting. There are people questioning. There are people who NEED to know Him. I hope that we can all be like that group of world servants and use our lives as a reminder of God's love for us.