Humble Pie

    Just received a huge slice of humble pie...one of the youth at the church I have been apart of for the last 3 years of which I served as the Youth Pastor was the baker. During the time as a Youth Pastor I learned more about God and how He interacts with us on the day to day than I ever had before. Ministering to the youth I learned how He speaks so differently to everyone yet we can personally understand Him in a deeper way with what He spoke to that individual. To some God speaks to them more in an atmosphere of worship than through reading the word. Some times He finds a way to place the right scripture in your mind from what your reading. Others He uses silence and stepping away from distractions and then speaks to their soul, He gives strong intuition or feeling so we know what we need to do, others hear Him speak out loud for them to hear. I'm not going to lie I'm slightly jealous of those people at times, I mean who doesn't want to hear God speak their name and give clear direction to their life!? God has used so many ways to bring me closer and teach or tell me things so I know there are even more ways then I have listed above. Take my word for it, God is not in a box so why should His methods of communicating with us be limited to one?

    If you don’t want to trust me check out Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." How about Romans 9:20 “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?'” You guys see, God doesn't have to answer to us for He created us! We don’t have to understand Him because He is above our understanding and knits the very universe together! He pokes holes in the veil that covers our eyes so that we may see His splendor shooting through as stars dance across the sky's that we might glimpse His marvelous light and find hope! For as I spoke of earlier, I was reminded that God loves us no matter the cost and will always continue to prove it by giving us, His bride, flowers! Maybe I Just lost you, to understand read this blog that is beautifully written by Karla, she was the baker of my humble pie. click the link and read it > Flowers. But don’t loose focus on whats happening here! God loves us, His Son is well pleased with us! He intends to bring us before His father as His Beloved. In the end times beautifully dressed in white forgiven of our sins and washed clean. HIS BRIDE! To think your self unworthy no matter the truth that may lay behind those words you must know, Jesus has called you to something better. He doesn't want you paying attention to the rear view mirror as He is trying to move us forward, He wants us focused on what lies before us. The Kingdom of Heaven! He wants our Focus as a good friend of mine would say, Kingdom oriented. It always comes back to the Kingdom, am I right David Cooper? But check out 1 Peter 1:15 “But as he who called you is Holy, you also be Holy in all your conduct.” Jesus is the one who has called us to be as Him, Holy living in the Heaven mindset not the earthly one of mistakes made. Know where your heading, know that our good Father will give us Spiritual Gifts, Blessings or Flowers to remind us He loves us. Regardless of where we are at with our feelings towards Him.

    So that Humble pie I was given came from that blog I posted a link for. The reason it was humbling is that at times I have struggled with feeling not being good enough. I have felt inadequate to be used by such an amazing God and this reminded me that its not because I want to be used that He uses me. He uses me because HE WANTS ME to be used by Him, because He wants me to walk in His light and rejoice in my freedom! God often times uses the old blue screwdriver that's stained with oil, has a cracked handle, and chipped head instead of the new crowbar because He knows its just right for this kind of job. Its tried and true and had its fair share of scars and mishaps along the way. But now its just the thing He needs. That's how it is with God, He often uses the things we would never think of, to do the things He wants because He wants to show its by His will that its possible and not by our own will. I realized that reading this post, God doesn't need me or to take my crap. HE WANTS ME though and all my junk, He wants to give me flowers. Who am I to say no? Receive the blessings God gives you, enjoy them and give thanks for them. Don't question or doubt them.

Much Love,

The Bear

Boldness

How many of you have seen the new Robin Hood Movie? The one featuring Russell Crow. There is a quote from the movie that positively hangs in my mind whenever I think of it. The quote written on the hilt of his sword, the one carved into the bottom of the stone steps, the one that burns a lasting impression on my heart. “Rise and Rise again until Lambs become Lions.” This quote inspires the common man to never give up or give in. To take risk and rise again after being knocked down. This…is…Boldness! When I think of Boldness I instantly go to Daniel chapter 3.

We see in verse 13-15 that King Nebuchadnezzar (Chadnezzar for short) is enraged that these 3 Jewish men for not bowing down and worshiping his golden image. He has them brought before him to question them. He tells them that if they don’t give into his commands, bow before his statue, and worship him, they will be thrown into a furnace alive. Then old Chadnezzar does the one thing you should never do to a praying Christian, He challenges our God. “Who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” Chadnezzar boasts. This is where it gets good. 16-18 “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver out of your hand, O king. But if not, be known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.’” Can you say BURN! Shad, Mesh, and Abe basically just told the king of the greatest empire in the world at this time, “Aint nobody got time for that!” They had the one true God to worship. They couldn’t take their worship away from the creator of the world and life breather to give false praise to a fallible man.  What blows my mind the most though is that despite all that was at risk and despite the fact that they faced death they trusted God would save them more then Chadnezzer would kill them.

            Then Chadnezzer the dude that once had favor for this triumphant trio turned his fury against them! His furry what? No, fury, as in ‘anger’ but more angrier.  He commands the furnace to be heated seven times more than normal! So it’s pretty dang warm! After having some of his best army men bind the trio’s hands and they through them in that hot place. The fire is so hot that the mighty green army men that through them in died. They practically melted! But seriously they melted! Shad, Mesh and Abe landed in the furnace but didn’t die. They had Boldly stood fast to what God has called them to and what God had taught them was right.

            The fire burned the bindings of the 3 men and when king nevercan-kneesher looked he saw four…yes I said 4 as in one more than 3, walking around. Now let me hang on that for just a moment. In the midst of persecution, in the midst of trial, in the midst of hard times they had boldness and faith and one “like the son of gods” came and saved them and was walking around with them. Now if I were in that situation I don’t think I would be walking around. Its freak out time!! The thing is when we have Boldness in hard times God will give us peace not to freak out. He will give us peace to walk through fire and not be burned.

Another awesome thing to realize is they were surrounded in a sea of flames, like as in there was nothing but the floor they stood on and flame. They were walking around! Did you catch that! David pointed it out but come one really! Yet no harm befell them not even the smallest burn when those bindings were burned to a crisp and falling off their wrists.

            So king Nebuchadnezzar sees this and calls them out. Not a hair was singed not even a scent of smoke on their clothes. Amazed the king gave glory to God! Your life is a light that was made to be Lived or Burned with boldness. This light is infectious, more so than Ebola or a baby’s laugh. …ok that first one was a bad metaphor but you get the point. What David’s getting at is that when we let our lives be used of God we unconsciously awaked the light that lives in all who live their lives for Christ. Isaiah 60:1-3 “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and His glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

This jumps back to the quote we started with, “Rise and Rise again until Lambs become Lions.” When we shine our light, that is Christ dwelling in us, it becomes infectious. It’s like when the sun cracks over the horizon in the morning creeps in your window and touches your face. You wake up and know it’s time to rise. Don’t let yourself become discouraged because God loves Boldness and wants us to take risk because it helps to further the kingdom. So we will leave you with one final verse as a reminder. Ephesians 5:13-14 says “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O Sleeper, and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.’”

            So Church we challenge you Go with all Boldness putting fear aside jumping head first into a life of lightbearing!!!

Much Love,
The Bear
And David Cooper