So I was listening to Your Love Is Extravagant by The Almost today and was reminded about the intimacy we have with Christ. I heard this song a few years ago when it was originally done by Casting Crowns and fell in love with it, not only because is a well done song musically, but because it encapsulates the goal of my relationship with Christ. The love that Christ has for me is extravagant and big and over the top. He loves me more than anything and at the same time He is my most intimate friend that I am able to talk to and spend time with. When view my relationship with Christ I view being able to sit the arms of Christ and talk about how I'm feeling right then, knowing that He loves me and won't judge me. It's a great feeling. It's a feeling that many times we forget. We forget that our relationship with God isn't just a list of rules or a to dos, but it is a love relationship between the Creator and His creation. We just need to sit in His presence and soak in that intimacy. 

It’s great how God parallels teaching moments in the midst of crisis in our lives. Let me start with today and work backwards. Today I went for hike. I needed to get away due to some of the crisis that I’ll talk about later. Anyways, I went Mt. Madonna and I found a trail to go on. Now at the core of who I am, I’m a average athletic guy, except right now in my life I am overweight and out of shape, so the mere fact that I’m on a hike is a big step. Anyways, as I’m hiking on the trail I realize that I’ve been going downhill for a while and it pops into my head that what goes down will go up, but I continue anyways. I get to the bottom of the hill, I rest for a while and then start the ascension up the hill. I was fine for a little while and then it got hard. My heart was pumping, I was sweating like a pig and it seemed like the hill never ended. It came to the point where looking up at the hill and was a bit overwhelmed, so I just looked down at the ground and took one step at time. It worked. I got into a rhythm and was less overwhelmed and began making great progress.

I got me thinking to where I am currently in life. The last 7 months have been a whirlwind of craziness, but good craziness. My daughter was born 7 months ago and we purchased and moved into a new house about a month and half ago. Life is good, I’m cruising, going downhill. On Thursday I get the news that due to the financial status of our church, my full time position with benefits is being cut to part time position with no benefits. Crap (or other not family friendly expletive). A giant hill just sprung up. The last couple of days have been crisis mode basically figuring out how we’re going to make it. Needless to say, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed. Today I went on a hike to clear my mind and focus not only on what my personal life will look like during this change, but how my ministry will change and as I climbed the hill at Mt. Madonna, it hit me, one step at a time. When I look up and look at how big the hill is, I get overwhelmed, but when I look at what’s in front of me and take it one step at a time, I know that I can do it. I’m not sure what God is doing right now, all I do know is that my focus needs to be small right now in order to get over this hill. Pray for me and my family and my ministry as we go into new experiences in the following weeks. I know God will take care of us, I just don’t know what it looks like, but I’m taking it one step at a time. 

O- Jesus came not as someone who was going to make a new world order, but and anti-cultural revolutionary who will fulfill the law that is already written.

A- I read through Matthew 5-7 today. It's traditionally titled Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. He begins by saying that He came to earth not to get rid of the law that was currently there, but to fulfill it. Many times when we read the Bible we don't know the context of the story. At this time God had been silent to the Israelites for some 400 years. In this time the religious duties and voice had been the priests and officials of the temple (pharisees and sadducees). In the midst of God being silent they interpreted the Bible at the time to fulfill their perspective on what God wanted, in the process they created many rules and laws that didn't necessarily coincide with what was originally written by God, but they stressed the need to follow these laws in order to be close to God.

Now this revolutionary teacher Jesus comes onto the scene and throughout the whole New Testament, but more specifically through the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching how living in the kingdom on God or living a life follow God and His plan is more than just following the laws. My favorite phrase is "You've heard it said. . . But I say. . . " Time and time again Jesus lays out a law that was common at the time but then continues with what the heart of the matter is that Jesus is worried about. 

You've heard it say. . . but what I really care about is . . .  You've heard it said that lust is bad, but what I really care about is what you look at and what's in your heart. Jesus went beyond the normal laws of the current culture and focused on caring for the people affected by that culture. Many times in the American church we get so focused on whether we're obeying this law or that rule that we forget that what Jesus was worried about was not legalism and following rules, but it was at what was going on in the hearts of the people He interacted with. He was more worried about why they did what they did, rather than the actual action they did. Christ more focused on who we are than what we do.

P- God help me to have your attitude when I interact with people. I want to care for people for who they are rather than what they do. I want to help people be changed from the inside, not just their outside actions. In the same way, show me what and how to change who I am inside to be more in tune with your plan for my life.