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Dave Rave – The Five Joys

daverave

This is the season of joy, right? The season that we remember how blessed we are. So here are my five joys:

  1. The joy of family.  Thank God for Paula, my girls, my sons-in-law, and all they mean to me.
  2. The joy of my faith-family. The Gathering is not just the love of my life, but my best friends.  I get to serve with people I love and admire, and make a difference in the world.
  3. The joy of my band of brothers.  Thank God for the Eagles, the Holy Smokes, and the other good men who walk with me and support me on a weekly basis.
  4. The joy of meaningful work. Thank you, Lord, that I get to do work that matters and changes the world.
  5. The joy that God knows me, loves me, and has a wonderful plan for my life.

These are my five joys.  How could you add to them?

Why There are So Many Mean Christians

When I was first converted to Christ, I was naive in the best sense of that word.  I was trusting.  I believed that everyone who said they were a Christian understood that Christ is the center of Christian; that Christian is about what God has done for us, not what we do for Him; that Christian is being loved as I am, not as I ought to be; that Christian is something that God did inside of me, not just something I worked up through religious observance and compliance.

I soon learned, like many of you, that not everyone who calls themselves Christian, is.  As a matter of fact, a lot of people who call themselves Christian are just mean, mad, and messed-up people with a little religious flavor thrown in for good measure.  So the question is, “Why are there so many mean people who call themselves Christians?”  I don’t know all the answers, but I am sure of this: that until you feel loved, accepted, and worthy, you will never, ever live in a way that you give any of that to anyone else.

Bottom line, if your religion is about working hard and being good, it’s going to make you a weirder version of yourself.  But if your faith is in Jesus Christ, the One who loves you, cares for you, accepts you, includes you, adopts you, and will never let you go, then you will, at the core of your life, live as though you were already loved, already accepted, and already promised the guarantee of eternal life.  We give what we have and until we have more, we can’t give more.  Because I’ve been loved, because I’ve been given grace and mercy, it’s a lot easier for me to live out of the overflow of that reality.

If your faith is dry, dead, and dusty, maybe you need Jesus as a living reality at the core of who you are and why you’re here.

There Is No Comfort in Religion

One of the major themes of my life’s work has been to make a distinction between religion as a thing we do to try to appease God, and being Christian which is a relationship initiated with us by God, through Christ.

My singular passion in our Polyester Jesus series is to help you clearly understand the difference between an artificial, religious practice and an authentic, genuine relationship with Jesus.  Jesus is a giver.  He gives assurance, contentment, peace, rest, and, most of all, comfort.  The problem with religion is it can’t give what it doesn’t have.  A religious person isn’t filled up with the overflowing joy of their efforts; they are worn out by working so hard to please God.

So today we talked about the concept that you simply cannot give what you do not have.  If you’re going to have love, comfort, joy, and peace, you’re going to have to find someone who has it that’s willing to give it to you.  And that’s Jesus. Then and only then can you give it. Listen to today’s talk and see what I mean.

FMBS 031 John 14 The One Thing God Demands From You

No matter how long you’ve been walking with God, or how sophisticated your knowledge, or how complete your experience, you’ll never get beyond one single demand.

What demand is that? It’s not moral perfection, or doctrinal sophistication.  It’s not faithful church attendance, or the willingness to be nice to each other.  It’s the one thing without which your life without God is not possible.  It’s simply this.  Jesus demanded that we trust Him.  Of all the beautiful things that are promised in this chapter – Heaven, the Holy Spirit, fruitfulness, blessing, peace of mind, the purposeful life – none of it can be accessed through effort, through family, or through business achievement.  All of it hinges on your ability to trust God, to test God and take Him at His word.  This is what He demands.  And on this, He will not compromise.

But if you can trust Him, all things open up. The world gets bigger.  His promises drop into place.  Listen to them as we study together in our Friday Morning Bible Study.

RG2G 048 Why Are There So Many Mean Christians?

Everywhere I go I meet people who have been wounded by other Christians. The landscape all across America is littered with broken hearts and shattered dreams of those who have been turned away and turned off by churches.

I believe there is a big difference between Christianity and what it means to be a Christian.  The ianity part added onto Christ is about religious rules: moralism, legalism, fundamentalism, and all those other kinds of isms that obscure the fact that Jesus loves people, not rules, not denominations, and not empty buildings with big steeples on top.

I think over these years I’ve discovered some reasons why so many people who call themselves Christians are really mean.  I don’t think it’s because they’re crude and cruel.  I happen to think it’s because they are wounded and afraid.  So in this week’s episode of Renegade, I talk about the one reason why I think so many Christians find it hard to be gracious, loving, humble, and filled with joy.  See what you think.  Let me know if you think I’m onto something.

Dave Rave -The 4 Ways of Rest

daveraveWell, it’s Christmas season and, like it or not, we’re in a mad dash for Christmas Eve.

Often we get overwhelmed with activities and responsibilities and trying to make everything just perfect for the ones we love.  And as good as all that is, you need not give up your sense of peace and being at rest.  As a matter of fact, rest is a big deal in the Scriptures.  It’s such a big deal that it’s, more times than not, how God describes the death of His children.  They enter into His rest.

So here are four ways that I am resting this holiday season.

  1. I am relaxed and at peace.  I’m at peace with God now and forever.  This is my Father’s world.  I’m going to relax and let Him run it and be at peace knowing that all things are right between me and my God.
  2. I am enjoying the now.  In Psalm 37, it’s amazing how many verbs are imperatives about the now: trust, delight, dwell, do good, do not fret, wait patiently.  All of these are insights on how to live in the now.  Living just for the now is stupid.  But living in the now is daring to believe that God has you exactly where He wants you to be, and doing exactly what His love knows should be done.
  3. I’m savoring this season.  Few of us know how to savor. We eat fast, we drive fast, we microwave our meals, and we use texts and email instead of face-to-face conversations. Savoring is slowing down to taste, to breathe in, to enjoy, to notice, to see, to be aware of this beautiful world with all of its colors, and all of its beauty.
  4. I’m trusting God’s timing. In Galations the Bible says, “It was just the right time, God sent forth His Son.”  God’s timing is impeccable, not only on the world’s stage, but in my life and yours.  If you need something, if a deadline is looming, remember God knows, and His timing can always be trusted.

The “Perp Walk” at Walmart

I was in our local Walmart the other day shopping for stuff I needed to decorate for Christmas.  Now think about it.  This is the Christmas season, the season of joy, right?  The season of it’s better to give than receive.

We had just come off of Black Friday. The news was good.  Spending was up 16% over this time last year.  Those who keep such statistics told us that we spent 52.4 billion dollars during Black Friday.  That’s good for the economy.  It tells us that people are not doing as badly as we thought.  Things are getting better.  The economy is reviving.  Where I live at least, the price of gas is even coming down.  So we should be filled with joy, right?  Well, we’re not.  When I watch people going up and down the aisles at Walmart they look like they’re doing a “perp walk” at the local prison.

Why is it that we look so serious, so bent over, so weighed down?  Why is it that we have it so well and at the same time feel that something is missing?  The truth of the matter is that it is.  It’s God.  I know.  That sounds religious and you would expect me to say that.  But it’s true. Everything that God has made is good.  The benefits, the blessings, the luxuries, the lifestyle that we enjoy has certainly come at the hands of God. But remember this:  things will never take the place of God.  Loving things ends in emptiness and disappointment.  Loving God may be frustrating because He doesn’t do what you want Him to do.  He often gives you not what you want but what you need.  But in spite of the mystery, the bigness, the scary nature of God, He does love you right where you are today. 

All the things that we see are mere reflections of His true essence, personality, and greatness.  I dare you to love Him – to fall in love with Jesus; not polyester Jesus, not wrinkle-free Jesus, not live-at-the-church Jesus, but the kind of Jesus who came down to be with us, was rejected, crucified, and came victoriously out of the grave.  This Jesus who put a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and a thrill in your soul.

God Loves You More When You’re Good; So be Good for Goodness Sake

You’ve all heard the little song, “You better watch out, you better not cry. You better not pout, I’m telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town. He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.  He knows when you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.”  I think a lot of us treat God like Santa Claus.  He loves us more when we’re good.  So we better be really, really good if we want God to love us more.

I’m amazed at the number of people who call themselves Christians who have absolutely no inner conviction or confidence that God loves them as they are, not as they ought to be.  That’s why we can’t rest.  That’s why we’re working constantly to prove ourselves and earn our way in life.  We’re trying to earn God’s love.  But you can’t do that.  Good works do not bridge the gap between you and God.  Only grace can do that.  Only Christ can offer grace.

So we started out in this talk by talking about why people are so serious, why people have such frowns on their faces, and we dealt with that with four reasons for our inner restlessness.  And then we talked about what rest really means.  We used the word rest and gave four points each based on a letter: R-E-S-T.  Listen to the talk and see if you find yourself reflected in the story about the tube of toothpaste.

Why Aren’t You More Prosperous?

This past Sunday we continued our series, Polyester Jesus, distinguishing the difference between artificial religion and authentic faith.

Each weekend we’ve been talking about one of the benefits that real Jesus offers.  We’ve been talking about things like assurance, contentment, peace, and this week we focused on prosperity.  One of the most difficult things, it seems, for Christians to understand is that God intends for there to be a harmony between our spiritual and our physical well-being.

Being raised in a conservative, protestant church, I never heard 3 John where John says, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”

I’ve heard about prosperity.  I’ve heard preachers on TV talk about it.  I’ve even heard about a thing called prosperity gospel which means if you do enough things, you can obligate God to be really, really, really good to you.  As a matter of fact, whatever you’re experiencing right now is in direct correlation to how well you’re doing spiritually.  But is that really what the Scriptures teach?

In this talk we talk about life math: the difference between addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in the real world. We also talk about the three ingredients of prosperity.  Actually there are 4, but we only had time to talk about 3. And then we give a practical four-step process on how you actually go about doing this and realizing true prosperity in your everyday life.

If prosperity isn’t just more, or more than you; if prosperity isn’t power and the ability to control and manipulate, then what is it? It was Victor Hugo who said, “Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.”  How is it that we can prosper in all the dimensions of our lives, and that be a good thing and a God thing?  You’ll find out in this talk.

FMBS 030 John 13: You Will be Humbled Eventually

The fear of being humiliated is one of the strongest fears we have to defeat if we’re going to live well.

Jesus introduces this idea of humility through the practice of feet-washing.  You probably know this is a cultural thing; that feet were washed by servants when people entered the house after a long journey.  But what the disciples could never have expected was that Jesus, their God, Lord, and Messiah, the One they had left everything for, would humble Himself to wash their feet. He taught them that humility was the bedrock of our faith, that we are servants, not task masters, not Lords, not those who demand their own way.

One of the great contributions of this chapter is Jesus giving us a very clear, focused understanding of how we are to express our faith in the real world.  And that’s simply this, that if we love other people, particularly other Christians, that becomes one of the first evidences of our faith.

You can’t say that you love God and not love people, period.  That rules out hate, prejudice, any of the stuff that we see people using to excuse their behavior in God’s name.

Humility is a beautiful thing.  Humiliation can become a beautiful thing as God applies His grace to it.  It’s His love that grows strong in us that allows us to be strong in the world, even as we take up the towel as our Savior did, and serve others.

 

 

RG2G 047 Taking Christianity Back From the Fans

I love being a Christian.  By that I mean I love following Jesus.  By that I mean I love trying to follow Jesus, attempting to follow Jesus, aspiring to live the life for which I was created.

When I was converted, I just assumed that everyone who named the name of Christian took their faith seriously, that it was a core issue; not just a cosmetic confession. I learned all too early that there is a big difference between Christ-followers and the fans of Christ. 

You’ve seen fans, right?  Those are the people who wear the shirt, identify with the team, make bold proclamations as long as everything is going well, when it costs them little to nothing to be a fan.  Then there are other fans who buy the tickets, attend the games, and yet there’s a big difference between fans and players.

One of my driving passions for my whole life has been to take Christianity back from the fans – those people who somehow feel like they own Jesus, own His church, and can manipulate it for their own benefit; those who take their confessions lightly and oftentimes send mixed messages to those who are trying to find their way to God.

This week on Renegade we’ll be talking about how to distinguish between fans and followers, between posers and players.  This is a huge distinction and you need to know how to make it.

Don’t Make Samsung’s Mistake

If you’re involved in Twitter or online searching the internet, you’ve probably come across the YouTube version of Samsung’s new commercial bashing iPhone. It’s incredibly well done if the aim is to make fun of people.  And I’m not sure that should be the aim of any business, product or marketing.

Look at it for yourself and see if you don’t come away with that conclusion; that if you use an iPhone, you’re stupid.  You’re an idiot.   Well, studies have shown that people who use Mac products are highly educated.  And that’s not really even the point, is it?  You don’t sell your product by making your competitor’s buyers look stupid.  Apple has never done that.  No one has ever done it and won long-term, and I predict Samsung won’t either.

But you might say, “What about the ‘switcher’ ads that Apple ran against PC?”  Yes, and the very point of those ads is to compare the products.  John Hodgeman was the PC, not the PC user.  Remember that.  You can make fun of a product.  You can tell how yours is far superior.  But when you start making fun of people, even your competitor’s customers, to make your customers feel ok about buying your product, one day it’s going to come around and bite you hard.  You don’t sell and succeed by shaming, ridiculing, or making fun of people, period.