On Purpose

Do you ever think about how many things you do over the course of a day that just sort of happen?  
Like, when I drive to work...it's not completely involuntary, but it often seems like I just point the car and it goes...  
Eventually, coming to a stop at my office...scary, I know. 
But the scarier thing yet, is when I get in the car to intentionally go somewhere and find myself heading home or to the office, when I intended to go to a completely different location.
Now, I know there might be some logical explanations for how this happens...fatigue, distraction...me simply being naturally a little scatterbrained...


However, it is interesting, given the little anecdote you read a moment ago, that we do so many things semi-intentionally, but don't really give much thought to what we're doing or where we are going.  Or, we get distracted from what we intended to do, because we've done something similar so many times, we kind of just go autopilot in the middle of it and just mail it in, so to speak.


Now, I could go a lot of different directions with this little post... leadership, pastoral ministry, business, relationships... you might even write a more thought provoking and poignant post after reading what I've written.  But, let's take this thought in the direction of love.


How often do we love on purpose?  We say we love people or things often without much thought.  We do things out of love, like taking out the trash, or lifting the toilet seat, or emptying the dishwasher and on and on...
But how often do we do those things with the intent of showing love.
Choosing to ignore the attitude that says, "if I didn't love you I wouldn't do_____."
Instead, let's take the attitude that says, "because I love you, I do this..."


You know, that reminds me of a guy named Jesus, who, many centuries ago, said something not unlike that.
"Because God loved the world so much, he gave his only son to die.  So, that we, (the world) could know God and if we believe in him and have relationship with him, have eternal life."
It wasn't a haphazard, involuntary or thoughtless rambling that motivated God to do that for us, it was love.
Intentional, on purpose love.
If we took that attitude that says, because I love you I do... How would that color the action itself?  It might mean we really think about what we're doing and for whom we do it.  We might actually, on purpose, love more deeply and beautifully than we ever thought possible.  
Our love might actually take on a life of its own and begin to do just what Jesus intended when he said, "by this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another."


Let's love each other today.  On purpose...

L.O.V.E.

Weddings are one of those services that we as ministers provide to people, outside of our Sunday and Wednesday duties...
I really see it as a privilege, that two people would entrust to me the beginning of the most significant human relationship they will ever have. That's pretty heavy stuff...
Except, I guess, if you view marriage through the lens of our culture...where anyone can go online, and in about 15 minutes, be ordained to perform marriages through any number of sanctioning "churches". For some reason this doesn't seem right to me...

It doesn't bother me that you don't have to actually be a pastor to perform marriage ceremonies. I think what bothers me is that this is just another symptom of how we in America have trivialized the significance of the union between a man and woman.

Even if you don't believe in God, there is something pretty amazing about the level of faith and commitment two individuals are placing in and toward one another when they take up the responsibility of uniting in marriage.
Maybe that's the whole issue right there...commitment is so fleeting and relationships treated as utterly disposable, that we take the path of least resistance when entering in to what essentially is a covenant between the man and woman.
Here I go...it's not just the marriage ceremony that's been corrupted, the whole idea of love is completely polluted. Love has become a means to an end, we use it to satisfy our selfish desires and twisted sense of entitlement and gratification. Love is no longer love...it is a vehicle that is bound to the servitude of self.
Love without strings attached...how quaint.
When you talk about deference and sacrifice for the sake of the highest good of your partner, people almost scoff with disdain and disbelief at the "unenlightened, irrelevant and antiquated", idealism and naivete that you possess.
You know what? I'm perfectly content to stay naive, idealistic, unenlightened, antiquated and even irrelevant, if it means that the love i give and receive is unfettered by the freedom genuine love supplies.
The measure of genuine love is just that: it is both freely given and freely received...just as God intended.
Man, i could go on and on, but the bottom line is this:
Love doesn't do what we feel like doing, true love is bound to the character of its creator and in that, we find all that we're looking for and more.
I Corinthians 13) says something like this: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
Indeed, how quaint...

"I say yes...you say no..."

Forgive me father, it has been two weeks since my last blog...

I really need to put this in my weekly plan (Ryan) so that i mark out the time to just do this. Otherwise, it goes by the wayside as the "urgency" of so many other things crowd out the blog.

So, last night at the Wednesday Night SHIFT_ I did something that is pretty uncharacteristic of me...
For you who know me, I'm pretty laid back and don't typically have a confrontational tone to my communication/teaching.
However, and maybe this is because I'm getting old and cranky, I firmly planted my foot in the sit down part of our student body last night...

I was talking about the love of God, (yes, I know, the irony is comical) and what our response to his love is to be.

For those of you who read this who were there, this will be a bit of a re-run, but none the less, for context sake, I press on.

For many of us, our problem when it comes to responding to God's love is; we put Him on this sliding scale of relationship worthiness...similar to what we'd use for any other potential suitor.
Example: when we're "falling" for someone we base much of our opinion or impression of them on what we see...are they visually appealing? etc...

With God, it's like dating in the dark..."he's a good kisser and all, but when the lights came on, it's like, on wow, um, he's not like the people I usually date..."

We can't see God and so when we are, pardon the term, groping around trying to determine what he's like and keep getting bad advice from other people who've never seen Him and base their opinions solely on hearsay instead of firsthand experience...
We don't like what we think we can "see" and typically avoid any further interaction.

Or we base our opinion on how He makes us feel or what He can do for us...
And when we use this flawed system of evaluation on God, 9 times out of 10, he's not even going to register.

You see, here's something we usually don't figure out until we've made a series of poor relationship decisions or until we're older and bear the scars of time; you fall in love with a person based on who they are, not: How they look, What they can do for you, or How they make you feel.

Because, looks don't last...I should know, I used to be smokin' hot!
Stuff (possessions) loses its luster and appeal,
Feelings are a false indicator; feelings are just feelings...

When it comes to love, it's all about choice.

We choose to love, not; "Oh today I feel like it, so I guess I'm in love...but tomorrow I might not be..."

Every single day we must choose to love, if we don't, on those days we don't feel like it, we probably will walk away, disillusioned, confused, angry and bitter.
And then turn around and jump right back into a relationship based on the same criteria...my what an intelligent bunch we are...

So, how does this all shake out with God? We have to take this infinite, all powerful being off the sliding scale of relationship worthiness and chose to love Him, in the same way that we must choose to love one another, every waking moment of every day.
And like in any other relationship, another primary factor to falling deeply in love is, TIME.

See, we can become infatuated with God, much like we do with people...We like the way He makes us feel, He does stuff for us, but when the feelings fade and the stuff He does isn't as obvious or it becomes, just not enough, we quickly fall out of "love" with Him.

...and this is where the foot gets firmly lodged...We've gotta stop farting around and commit ourselves to knowing God.
Not knowing of Him, or about Him, but in our brains, hearts and soul, spending the time, making the commitment to know Him! The Bible tells us, from cover to cover, that the only worthwhile pursuit in life is to know God.
"...but Pastor Troy, this sounds a lot harder than simply loving Him..."
Is it? When you're truly in love, you commit everything to being with the person, to knowing them...
In fact many of you know exactly what it's like to be in love...because,
you commit all your time to your: sport, music, theater, homework, vanity, so-called relationship, recreation, entertainment...
You love the world around you, but you're avoiding the one who loves you most.

God desperately loves you! And He's shown it, over and over again...all He asks in return is for your love and devotion.
The only question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to choose invest the time, in spite of what you don't know about Him?

It's a yes or no answer.