This post is from Janurary of 2007: 

The topic of habits seems to be coming up frequently in my life.  I was at a leadership training meeting for a youth trip that I was going to be a leader on with my church.  Brad, the youth pastor, was sharing about helping to encourage your students to develop godly habits such as a daily communion time with God.  He said that when people begin habits at a young age that they are more likely to continue in them for a lifetime.  I was also recently reading a book about developing godly habits.  Habits seem to come almost natural to us in some areas.  Do you ever notice how you always seem to sit in the same seat in a class at school or at church?  Do you ever notice that you stop by the same place at the same time everyday to get a drink?  We so easily get caught up into habits with everyday random activities, but it all of a sudden becomes really hard when we try to develop other habits such as memorizing scripture or taking time to pray.  I know that in my life when I try to develop these habits in my own life that I tend to become tired when I am about to do what I am trying to incorporate into my routine or I just make excuses to myself why I am not going to do it.  My prayer and desire is to begin, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to make scripture memory, prayer, and accountability more of a habit in my life.  I know that the enemy is going to try to discourage me and keep me from following through, but my God is much bigger than any sleepiness or excuse that he can place in my mind. 

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to hang out with Benny Proffitt, the founder and national director of First Priority which is the organization that has and continues to help define who I am and where God desires to use me in ministry.  It was a great time of encouragement and challenge.  One thing that he said was that “Duty is our responsibility, and results are God’s responsibility.”   It is our role to be faithful to where God has us and where He has given us to serve.  We should not get caught up in how many people show up from week to week or what results we see here and now. Our focus should be on being faithful and doing our best with who God has given us to minister too.  I want to be found faithful to what God has called me to do and to be.  I want to receive a “Well done” from my King when I stand before Him and give account for how I spent my life, time, and gifts.  Lord, make me into a man of you who gives his all for Your glory and fame alone!

This morning, I went to the second week of our Tuesday morning prayer times at the Church at Brook Hills.  As a congregation under the leadership of Dr. David Platt, we have adopted a mission of global evangelism.  Everything that we seek to do as a church is intended to bring glory to God and to lead the nations of the world to worship God.  Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at despiration and seeking after God both personally and as a congregation.  This morning was a step further in this direction.  It was such a blessing to gather together with others in seeking God both to increase a passion for Him in us personally but also to spur us on to display His holiness and great glory to the nations.  As Dr. Platt so often says, our prayer is “God, give us the nations in a way that only you can get the glory!”  I am excited to see what God can do in and through a congregation of people who will seek his face and glory in order to reach those who do not know the name of Jesus!  My prayer is that God would open each one of our eyes to see what He desires to do in the nations through His bride - the church.  I want to be a part in what God is doing for His glory and fame alone!

Social justice is something that we as an American church seem to pay no attention to.  Jesus clearly calls us as Christians to reach out to the oppressed, but we have so quickly made the gospel so much about us that we miss Jesus’ heart for the oppressed.  Our whole experience at church and with our Christian faith is so focused on us and our relationship before God and personal salvation that we miss the call of Jesus to do things for the “least of these.”  I was reminded once again of the fact that I so often make my Christianity about me yesterday when our college ministry watched a documentary on the Invisible Children of Africa.  This was a sad and heartbreaking film following the stories of 2 young boys in the midst of a village that daily faces death by either starvation, preventable disease, or the war that is ravaging the country.  The two boys followed in the story, Daniel and Sunday, had both lost their parents and were living life surviving on their own.  They both had hopes, dreams, and aspirations of who they desired to become, but they are living with odds stacked against even their very survival.  This film broke my heart and has challenged me further that the gospel does not stop at my personal profession of faith but should go on to impact not just the people around me but the children made in the image of God around the world that need the church’s help. 

This post is from January 2007: 

There is something indescribable about being together with thousands of people for the purpose of worshipping and praising God.  This was what God really showed me through Passion 07 this year.  I have been reflecting on Passion over the last week and the worship just really came back to my mind.  Francis Chan, one of the speakers at Passion and senior pastor at a church in Simi Valley, California, said that he had prayed that God would bring a whole stadium of people together in order to worship and give glory and praise to God alone.  He had this thought while watching the LA Lakers play a game several years ago.  He noted how sad it was that people were so excited over something so pointless as some people trying to put a ball in a net.  This really stuck with me over the last week.  When we come to worship, we get lost in the greatness and grace of God.  In the time of worship as we gathered in that courtyard between the Georgia Dome and Phillips Arena (see picture above), the things that we so frequently allow to cause divisions in the body of Christ faded away.  It did not matter what area of the country you were from, whether you were a Democrat or a Republican, what denomination you represented, or even whether you call yourself a Calvinist or Armenianist.  All of these things faded into the background as we worship our Savior.  I think that this is going to be what heaven will be like.  All of our differences fading into the background because nothing else will matter but being lost in the glory and grace of Jesus our King!

This post was written in the fall of 2006: 

This Saturday, I was blessed with the opportunity to go see my favorite football team play.  I always love going into a massive stadium full of people.  The passion and energy in that place just amazes me.  You cannot come to a game and sit in the stands and not be drawn into the action.  The people that surround you go from being random people that you have never seen before to your best friends in less than four hours.  You are all gathered together for a common cause – to cheer your team on to victory.  The unity in that place so strong that you rejoice together and mourn together.  Unfortunately Saturday was a day of mourning together for me and the rest of the Alabama fans that filled that stadium.  As I was walking down the strip through the heart of campus after the game, I could just feel the sadness and shock.  There were no parties because there was nothing to celebrate.  Then I began to think about church which I attended the next day.  Where is that passion in our churches?  We come together on Saturday and seem to get the essence of worship and community.  In that stadium there was a strong passionate desire to rejoice and celebrate out team.  We were proud to be wearing crimson.  Are we as Christians proud to be wearing the name of Christ each day?  We easily get upset at out team playing poorly.  Why do we not get upset when we live lives full of sin that reflect poorly on the Jesus that we represent?  We understand worship, but for some reason, it seems easier for us to worship on Saturday in the stadium than on Sunday in the sanctuary.  The community that was built in the stadium is the community that we see built in a church that is focused on the mission, message, and glory of Christ.  We see in Acts where “they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer” (Acts 2: 42).  God has really been bringing me back constantly to this model of fellowship and the early church.  In order for this to begin to happen, we need to be willing to bring the Saturday passion for our football team into a Sunday morning passion for God!

We so often get consumed with holding onto stuff that we should surrender to Jesus.  It is so easy to get caught up in holding onto our past failures and sins.  Satan finds it fun to bring these back up again and again in our minds.  He reminds us that we have done ___________ and therefore who are we to serve God and minister to people.  He brings up not only the sends of the long ago past but the failures of yesterday.  He focuses our minds on our walk with Christ as being a time of continual failure and sin.  He then plants thoughts into our minds and hearts that Jesus is looking down on us with a frown and that we will never measure up.  This is true in one sense that we will never measure up to the holy standard of God.  This is why Jesus came to be adequate on our behalf.  This is one thing that we so frequently hold.  Another think that we hold is our successes.  We look back on our resumes and accomplishments and decided that we can do it on our own.  We think that we are smart enough, good enough, and strong enough and that we do not need God.  In both of these times you have full hands which inhibit you in two ways.  The first way is that they keep you from letting the Holy Spirit hold your hand and walk you along this journey of faith.  Your hands are either so full of your failures that you do not think His hand is there or so full of your successes to think that you do not need the hand that is offered.  The second thing that they do is they keep you from reaching out to others.  Your hands are so full of your own failures or successes that you do not have a hand to reach out to others around you in love and be the hands and feet of Jesus.  So it is really important where you have your hands and what they are full of.  This was inspired by the following video.  I hope that this is both a challenge and encouragement to you.

Click here to see the video clip.

This weekend a local talk show host who is a very outspoken Christian, Rick Burgess, and his family experienced something that no one ever wants to have to go through - the loss of a child.  Rick, who is one half of the award-winning Rick and Bubba Show, lost his two year old son, Bronner, in a swimming pool accident in the backyard of his home.  When the accident happened, Rick was out of state in Gatlinburg preaching at a youth conference.  Rick and his family have allowed the Holy Spirit to work in and through them and are following God’s leading to take this tragedy and turn it into an opportunity to proclaim the greatness and grace of Jesus Christ.  It has been frequently said that it is easy to be a follower of Christ when everything is going well, but a Christians faith shines forth the brightest in the midst of indescribable pain and suffering to be able to stand up and say that Jesus is worth it all and He is the only one who completely satisfies.  I want to leave you with three video clips from the heart of a father sharing at his son’s memorial service that the Holy Spirit is using to do just that:

A Father’s Heart: Part 1
A Father’s Heart: Part 2
A Father’s Heart: Part 3

The strength of Jesus Christ is perfect when all our strength is gone.  He will provide the words when there are none.  Keep the Burgess family in your thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks.

This post is from May 2007: 

Over the last few hours, I have heard about two people whom I know going home to be with the Lord.  So here are some thoughts kind of working through this whole idea of people passing away in my mind.  Death is such a hard thing on the human end for the people left behind.  It is one of those things that you know is coming eventually, but you do not even want to think about it.  I was thinking about heaven a few minutes ago and how wonderful it would be to be standing looking into the eyes of a Savior who knows my every flaw yet is unconditionally and uncontrollably in love with me.  This, I believe, would be an experience that is indescribable.  And then to see Him, the God of the universe, look into your eyes and say “well done my good and faithful servant.”  Just typing these words is giving me chills and this longing to be at home in the place of perfect peace in the presence of my Abba Father.  C. S. Lewis ends his Narnia series with words that I think paint a great picture of going to heaven: 

“…all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead.  The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream has ended: this is the morning…the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for this is not the end of all stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world…had only been the cover and the title page: now they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” 

As I reflect on how God has used people who have gone to be with Him to shape my life, I not only have a craving for union with God but also to live a life worthy of a “well done” from my King.  Life is short, but God is still God.  Even in the midst of death, pain, and hurt, He is still on the throne and is working His will and His way for His glory and the good of His children.

One of the effects of the worldview of secular humanism and its scientific cousin of Darwinism is the reduction of all of life to the processes of evolution and biology.  This weeks issue of Timemagazine so clearly paints the picture of what happens when secular humanism and Darwinism goes from theories and ideologies presented in the halls of academia to a worldview that is lived out in the real world.  When you so easily and quickly reduce the entire world to biology, matter, and the process of evolution, you have a tendency to choke out the joys of life and living in that it becomes an explainable scientific phenomenon that any true meaning and feeling behind an action is merely reduced to the explainable.  I personally do not want to have emotions and feelings of love, caring, and friendship reduced to a merely biological response to given stimuli.  This is one reason that the Christian worldview gets to the heart of people.  The Christian worldview over and against any other explanation of the world presents the world as we know that it should be.  Feelings of love and care cannot be reduced to mere functions of biology due to the fact that they come deep from the heart of each man and woman.  They have been placed into each one of our hearts by a God who created us for love care and community.  This is how we reflect His image by living out on earth the loving community that is found in the triune God.  Let us fully embrace His image and not let our humanity and hearts be reduced to scientific explanations.