It has been way too long.

Hey guys, 

I know I have been slacking in the blog department lately. Truth is, me and Lindsey (my wife) are moving and we are going crazy with all the packing stuff. Any free time is spent with close friends and family. Although, blogging should be part of the family... it is not. So, I will begin again soon and give you all updates asap. 

Aloha and Mahalos

Luke

Surfing and God... What else is there...

Hi all,

Take a look at this new Christian surfing magazine. It is called Reversal.

Open publication - Free publishing - More surfing

The Book of John as a Surf Magazine. Check it out.

Open publication - Free publishing - More surfing

This is true Worship in action.  This mag was birthed out of a love for God and two guys who wanted to use their gifts for God. Awesome and challenging. 

What will you do? Where will you go?

If you feel God calling you to support this movement financially please visit their website and contact them directly. 

www.reversalmag.com 

Sing over me

"The LORD your God is with you, 
       the Mighty Warrior who saves. 
       He will take great delight in you; 
       in his love he will no longer rebuke you, 
       but will rejoice over you with singing." - Zephaniah 3:17

This is an amazing passage that encourages me and points me straight to God. Read over it again and focus in on the bigness of God. I like to keep it in nice and simple words; big, other, above, set apart. For all of you intellectuals we like to call it the transcendence of God. In Psalm 8:1 we read, "LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens." We see this picture all over the Bible, we have 100s of songs written about it, God is altogether more wonderful than we can understand. He is transcendent. 

But as we look at the rest of that verse, we see that God takes delight in us. For all the readers of 'the Shack' God is especially fond of each one of us.  This is the idea that God is mindful of us. In His fully transcendent and other nature, He "comes down to visit sinful humans and address their problems and needs" (Wiersbe). This shows his great immanence. For all those who are bad with large and scary words, God loves us enough to sit with us in our crap and carry us through. He is the dearest friend who will not abandon you. 

But, as I read last line in Zeph, I can't help it! I have to smile! Read it again...  Are you kidding me? The great God of the universe cares and loves me so much that He rejoices over me with singing! That is amazing. We often take it for granted that God cares for us and knows the hairs on our heads... we have all heard the stories and seen the flannel-graphs, but we fail to grasp it. I know that we don't understand because if we did, our lives would be drastically changed. Think about it. I dare you. 

Here is the kicker. The word that was translated to 'rejoice', in its original context, would me better translated, dance. It is literally: Spinning and whirling around with shouts of joy. The automatic picture I get is of King David dancing in the streets in undignified worship. So, God Almighty sings and dances over us with absolute joy! This is of course after he has already saved us. 

Jared Anderson wrote a song about this amazing passage. The song is titled "Amazed." Listen to it and remember that God, although our minds will never comprehend his greatness, loves us.

Lord, I come in humility. Grateful for the truth in this passage, that you care for each one of us. We love you and proclaim your greatness. Father, fill us with your Spirit that we might proclaim your Son boldly. - Luke

It is the same Spirit

"The Same power that conquered the grave lives in me, lives in me! Jesus, your love that rescued the earth lives in me, lives in me." - Hillsong, You Are Here (Same Power)

Isn't it amazing how far we have come! We look back on the early church and look at the difference. It is night and day. We have great big churches and we have packed out worship events. We have a Billion dollar industry that has everything "Christian" that you can imagine. 

I hope you are reading that as I wrote it, with sarcasm. 

What is amazing is that in all of it we seem to have lost something. We seemed to have lost the passion and mystery that Peter and the early church had.  I recently heard Francis Chan speak and he really got me thinking. He asked a few simple questions in light of a passage in Exodus. The one where Israel sees and hears God with thunder and fire. Long story short they are afraid of God and say, "Moses, you go... we can't lest we die!"

Francis asked, "Do we believe that happened? Do we believe that God is the same still, that He hasn't changed?  Do we live like they did in the early church walking boldly in the Spirit and doing miracles all the time?"

What is different? Is it that God is less powerful and that the Spirit is less powerful now? NO. ...I used to think (well not seriously or spoken but understood) that the Holy Spirit was the same but just divided between all the believers... so that would leave me with about 1/1,000,000,000 of the whole. God doesn't work like that. I have 100% of the Holy Spirit in me... then why am I still like this?

I don't often understand that it is the same spirit that dwelt in the ark of the covenant, and in the holy of holies, and that swept through the place on the day of pentecost, that lives in me. The same spirit. The same power. Wow. 

What would happen if we started to understand? What would happen if we were able to live and speak with boldness like the apostles? To top it off, those apostles that proclaim Christ in boldness. What did they ask for prayer for, more Boldness. Maybe that is it? Maybe we need to understand and live in boldness... and let the world watch. I think there would be more followers of Christ and less religious "christians." I think that we would see people come to Christ in droves. Because of the power that they see in us because of Christ and the work on the cross. 

Father, help me to receive your spirit and your leading. Help me to live boldly and speak boldly. Help me to be transparent so that Jesus can be seen in my life. Help me to live with abandonment for You because I realize your greatness. Lord, I want to be yielded to You and proclaim the name of Christ. 

I love you and proclaim you the lord of my life. 

- Luke

Francis' Blog: francischansblog.blogspot.com/ 

Life is fast

Do you ever get those times when you realize that your life is happening way faster than you could ever keep up with?  I mean... It has almost been a year since we have been married. But it seems like it has only been a few months. I will admit, I don't remember what it is like to sleep alone and say goodbye every night. But seriously, life is fast. 

At the rate we are going we'll be parents before we realize we are actually married!  I love it. I'm convinced that all of our parents were right... they still did feel like kids. Ha. (mom and dad, love you).  I thought that I would know what it feels like to be a husband right away, like some magic trick. But, now I realize that we grow into that role.  

It is like our Christian life. We inherit a new identity when we become christians. We are pure, we are holy, we are children of God, ext. But, just like marriage, we grow and develop into those roles.  I am a husband, but I'm learning how that plays out. It doesn't mean that I'm not, just that I'm in learning what that all means. 

That is my goal, to understand, and share with others that we ARE holy, we ARE saints, we ARE forgiven!, we ARE adopted as children of God! Thank you Jesus!

"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight". Eph 1:4

"giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Col 1: 12-14

"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." John 1: 12-13

Dependence

Well. It is a scary and exciting place to be; dependent on God. 

Lindsey (my wife) and I are in this place of waiting and total and complete dependence on God.  I have been unemployed and looking for work for a while now and we have no hope of doing this on our own.  I always thought it was funny when people said with a big smile on their face, "be careful what you pray for, God will answer." They laugh and smile and i used to laugh along. 

Well... I prayed for dependence. 

How could they say such a statement with a smile? Here is what I can say, on the other side of this I will most likely smile and laugh. But, now when we don't have money to pay rent and eat it is a little harder. Don't get me wrong. I love that we are learning of God's faithfulness and provision. Literally, money would show up on our doorstep and in our mailboxes. We are learning how hard tithe really is... when you need the money to live and then you give. 

I'm glad that God is breaking us from the mold of narcissistic self-focused christianity. I'm glad that we have been able to grow closer together with each other and with God. I'm even glad that we can feel what it is like to fear. But, it is still hard. 

I wish I could show you in the Bible encouraging words that are about us living healthy and wealthy. I wish that i was able to show you that if God cares about you then you will never have to worry about life and money.  But as we read. We see that God wants us to be dependent on him. We see Gideon. He was led by God to go to battle and he had at least 32,000 men with him. Then God says... "you have too many men... so Israel will know it was ME, send away those who are afraid." So, 20, 000 men left.  Ouch.  But, even worse. God said, nope... still too many men.  Gideon ended up defeating the Midians with 300 men.  Can you imagine what that must have been like???  Gideon was already skeptical before he saw the size of the army God wanted to use. Now... 300 men. 

That is the God we serve. He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. The same God that fought with Gideon is my Lord. That is real hope.  

"Father, Abba, you know our fears, you know the battles we face, please comfort us and protect us. Lord, I love that song, "God of our yesterdays." Not that You WERE our God. But rather, that You were faithful in our yesterdays. So, how much more should we trust You today? Abba, please fill us with Your Spirit and help us to walk in faith and realize our dependence on You."

God of our yesterdays - Matt Redman