Local News

Dan Currie is the Senior Pastor at the First Baptist Church of Hastings. He has been experiencing some very severe health challenges over the past several months. Pray for Dan and the community of faith at First Baptist Church.

Thornapple Valley Church held their second Rockin’ Christmas under the leadership of Brian Mote. It was loud, well done, and Rockin’. Brian worked with some incredibly talented musicians to pull this off.

I am reminded of how rich we are with the communities of faith we have serving Jesus Christ in the greater Hastings area.

Stuff I am hearing

I received a call this morning from a lady who wanted to mail our church a thank you card for a couple of reasons. 1. some people provided some wood for their home heating needs. 2. a young man from our community of faith remembered her and her five children by name even though it had been three years since seeing them…she was impressed.

A young man from our community of faith donated $100 to help provide dinner meals to children from a local school.

A woman from our community of faith started mentoring a child from a local school. Then she learned that there were some children who needed a dinner to take home with them so they would have a meal that evening, so she got a list of names and began bagging up dinners for the kids to take home with them. She also connected some of these children up with winter clothing.

I am so proud to be serving with this group of people.

my friend

My friend, Paul Dudley, leads a community of faith in Lynchburg, Virginia. You have to read this blog written about an event they recently hosted.

Very cool to hear what’s going on with them from an outside source.

vacation – celebrating 25 years of marriage

What an incredible time I was able to spend with my wife. We went to Mazatlan Mexico for a week. Highly recommended for a time in the sun. We stayed at the Best Western Posada Freeman (Check out the mexican tourism website for significantly reduced rates) with a view of the ocean. The people of Mexico are beautiful. We speak less than ten words of Spanish between us but it wasn’t a problem. The food is tasty and sometimes quite interesting. We read less than ten words of Spanish between us also. We walked all over. We sat in the Plaza. We enjoyed the sunsets. We watched the parade introducing the Carnaval candidates.

The crazy thing is it has been 25 years since we stood up and said, “I do.” We have accumulated this huge bank of shared memories yet it seems like yesterday when we set off for our honeymoon.

We were walking along the Malecon and a street salesman approached us with an opportunity to purchase an afternoon excursion and when I said, “No” he asked what we intended to do for fun during our stay. I pointed at my wife. He stopped and turned to someone else. It’s true I really enjoy my wife. 

I am just hoping that the next 25 go a little bit slower.

life change 5

I was talking to a young man the other day and the conversation got around to life change. I said something to the effect of, “Being a Christian is not primarily about behavioral modification. First and foremost it is about heart change which leads to life change.”

In order to experience heart change we need to spend time with Jesus. As we spend time with him listening to him, meditating on his teachings, working with him we are confronted with some of the junk that has claimed ownership of our heart. It is at that point when we are faced with a choice: Embrace the change that comes with Jesus or stay enslaved with our old way of living.

We are confronted by selfish habits and attitudes as we spend time with Jesus. We experience some regret as we come to understand how deeply we are entrenched in a lifestyle that is contrary to the life Jesus is inviting us to live. We are confronted with learning new behaviors as we spend time with Jesus. We are affirmed by some of the things we are already doing. We make progress by training consistently and intentionally living close to Jesus.  

In a coming post I will talk about the need to belong to a community of faith. How God didn’t intend for us to experience these changes on our own. But, for life change to stick we must be the ones who make the decision to change.  

How is your time with Jesus going?

How is your consistency?

Are you making some of the changes that you sense you should be making or are you putting them off?

This isn’t about guilt or shame. It is about actually changing. About being honest with ourselves.

life change 4

Honesty is a must if life change is ever going to occur. This seems obvious doesn’t it? But it isn’t nearly as obvious as it may seem. I am not talking about honesty with others although that is needed. I am talking about honesty with ourselves. We are incredibly creative when it comes to self deception…justifying, rationalizing, comparing and what not. Consider some of the foods we eat…this one large bowl will not hurt me…and then a few days later we refuse to look back but we dish up another large bowl with the same thought pattern. 

Paul told the Corinthians…”Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.” 2 Cor 13.5

The Psalmist wrote…”Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139.23-24 

If we are ever going to experience life change we need to be honest…with ourselves. Trust God that he will reveal as much of our self deception (which means he will help us to see the real person looking back at us in the mirror) as he needs to for us to realize that what we are doing or what we are thinking is harmful and not life giving. He will also lead us to wholeness one step at a time.

How are you doing with the whole honesty thing?

Are there things you are doing or thinking that no one else knows about that are killing you slowly? Have you revealed this to anybody?

Are you doing the things the Holy Spirit is leading you to do that will lead you to wholeness?

You are not alone and you are not the only one working to become whole. Not only trust in God but also trust in the community of faith he has lead you to become a part of.

life change 3

Ok, so a couple of posts ago I asked, “Can life change be guaranteed?”

It is an interesting question and my mind drifts to some people I have seen struggle with their relationship to Jesus Christ…alot. I have seen others give up and walk away. I have experienced intense struggles in my own life. Struggles aside, “Can life change be guaranteed?” 

Yes! To say otherwise is to say that some are outside the transforming power of God. 

Then what gives? Why are some transformed and some walk away? Those are good questions and require some careful thought. It would be easy to say some haven’t tried hard enough. Or is it that they were trying hard but they were trying hard at doing the wrong things. 

Effort is required but effort alone will not produce life change. John Ortberg teaches that it is not trying harder that most people need but training in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted. (By the way, John Ortberg is brilliant and I would recommend every book he has written.)

If training is the key then getting a good trainer is a must. We have the Holy Spirit and we have trainers. If we are training then we can look at every situation we find ourselves in as a training ground for life change. For instance a mechanic at work can learn relying on others when help is needed, assisting others when they are in need, dependence on others for things we need (i.e. parts), discipline in time management, character development when faced with challenges in diagnosing a problem or working with others, and the list can go on.

“Can life change be guaranteed?” Yes. 

My challenge…look around you and see how you may be trained to become a person of God where you are at.

life change 2

Ok, so I asked a few questions in the last post to get the conversation going. One question I did not ask is, what are we being changed from and who are we being changed to? Or, what are we leaving and who we are becoming?

It is important to know who we are being changed from. The Bible uses phrases like: separated from the life of God, enemies of God, and sinners. It’s not like we really need to be told that we are separated from the life of God or ’sinners’. Some people struggle with the idea of being an enemy of God, but that is how we are described when we work in a way that is contrary to his plan. The Holy Spirit reveals to us who we are. Others confirm what we already know to be true. When we are confronted with the truth of who we are it really does cause an internal conflict. The conflict is not a bad thing although it causes us to be uncomfortable. It’s the same conflict we have when we notice the picture on the wall is hanging crooked. We know it’s wrong and something inside moves us to adjust it. It’s almost like God has planted a picture of what our lives could be deep inside us. And at different times he reveals that picture to us.   

The picture he reveals of who we can become would include phrases like: the people of God, ambassadors of Jesus, kindgom of priests, servants of the Most High, holy or set apart as special to God, followers of Jesus Christ, and citizens of heaven.

Are you content with who you are becoming?

Are the steps you are taking, leading you to become that kind of person?

life change

Let’s talk about life change for a bit. Not just change in general but the change that God desires to do in us as he transforms us to become the people of God. Let me start with a few questions…

1. Can life change be guaranteed?

2. Is it possible to deter/prevent/derail God’s plan to transform? 

3. If so, How? If so, By whom?

4. If not, Why Not?

5. Are there powers at work that are more powerful than God?

6. How does God work to transform us?

7. Does he work differently in different people?

Ok, enough questions for now. Next post we’ll start to unravel this issue of life change.

Transformation

I told you about a book I read by Bob Roberts Jr in my last post. Let me tell you about another book he has written titled: Transformation. It is an interesting look at an ancient topic…transformation. He gives the idea of transformation some new language called “T-life” and “T-world”.

In the beginning of the book he poses some challenging questions like: “Why are we growing churches apart from transformation?” And, “When will Jesus be enough?” He says the following on page 82, “If we are not convinced God has given us enough, we will have an incessant need for others to affirm us. We will want others to give us praise, we will crave money, and we will wish to be viewed as the best, the most talented, and the most likely to succeed…Why? Because they look for what others have to offer to make them feel significant instead of finding their identity in Christ.”

T-life consists of three components that I am to pursue as a follower of Christ: Transparent Connections (relationships), Glocal Impact (service locally and globally), and Interactive Relationship (connection to God).

T-world consists of three components that I am to contribute to as part of a community of faith: Community Development, Church Multiplication, and Nation Building.

These six components make up a transformed life. I appreciate the way he connects transformation with more than personal habits that could easily make transformation all about me. Instead, he links transformation to a life of making a difference in the world. Good stuff and reaffirming at points and challenging in others. What God is doing through Mr. Roberts is both a faith builder and encouraging at the same time.