who are your peers?

it would be a grave, common mistake to compare your life only with those immediately around you.

when examining your life, it may be possible to elevate yourself to the level of "okay," "average" or even "pretty good" when your line of sight is no further than your culture or even your time in history.

do not limit yourself by the maturity and passion and dreams of your peers.

do not limit yourself by the current culture's expectations of a "good" life, or the American "dream."

make friends with Charles Spurgeon, George Mueller, Martin Luther, Jonathon Edwards.

examine your life with a peer-group of William Wilberforce, William Carey, and the apostle Paul.

then test your holiness, test your passion, test the works of your life against those God-honoring, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated lives.

the life of Spurgeon and Mueller have convicted me to the core and left my longing for that kind of faith, that sort of indwelling of His Spirit, that deep of a passion for His supremacy in all things for the joy of all people.

so i would recommend reading biographies.

why i love donald miller...

from his website biography:

Of his new book, Don says: “It might be the greatest book ever written. I
don’t think anybody is going to read a book again after they read my new one. I
think God is proud of me. I am going to make a killing off this thing and I’m
going to use the money to go to space.”

this pretty much made my whole day better...

Testing God

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.
Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the
floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room
enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in
your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. "Then all the
nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the
LORD Almighty.

--Malachi 3:10-12

"You can't outgive Me! The more you give, the more lavishly I will bless you."

It's like a raging waterfall pouring into a flask... close the flask, and store your 20 ounces all to yourself, or open the flask and allow the rushing downpour to unceasingly fill the flask, and splash over onto all those around...

Safe and stupid: "Ooh! My flask is full! I'd better protect what's mine! Who knows when the water might stop running!" (as soon as the flask closes off from the waterfall, it is cut off from the infinite source and limited its own finite supply)

Jesus: poured out.

Blessings are given to those who do not cling tightly to them. Or positively stated, blessings are given to those with open hands.

Safe and stupid is... stupid.

Test God.

What Paris Hilton, Jennifer Aniston and I all have in common

Paris Hilton just dropped $280,000 for a diamond encrusted dashboard for her Bentley...

Jennifer Aniston unloaded $50 grand for a month of $2,000 haircuts...

Does this make your stomach sick?

It should.

We are *really* good at pointing out sin in others' lives and then feeling alot better about ourselves. I dared to browse through the comments, and amid the usual "OMG F OBAMA STUPID PREISADENT GOD WIL JDGEU US KNOW!!11!1!@" comments, I found a rather insightful and convicting statement:

"for the people who are complaining about other people losing jobs and that she
should have given the money to poor people in Africa... ...maybe you should
think about giving up that Ipod, or plasma TV, or extra pair of high heels you
were going to splurge on and give the money to charity. In all honesty, I'm sure
starving children would probably look at us with our materialistic lifestyle in
the way we are looking at Paris Hilton with all her diamonds right now."

Instead of ranting about others' materialism, self-absorbtion and apathetic avoidance of their neighbors, I want to realize that *I* am the problem.

Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also.

If I look at my credit card statement, I *really* think that my standard of living is more important than others living.

I skated by the homeless on the Mon River Trail and dropped $12 bucks on dinner last night. Had I driven five more miles, I could have eaten at home for less than $5. What happened? I *really* wanted chinese. I *deserve* it. I've *earned* it. Right?

I. I. *I*. My tastes, my entitlement, my life, my kingdom.

That's what I was created for, right? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

God calls us to lay down our lives for His Kingdom...

... sometimes I can't even lay down my taste for Chinese food.

Paris Hilton, Jennifer Aniston, and I all love our lives, our kingdoms, our happiness.

He who loves his life in this world, will lose it (John 12:25).

Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. (Matthew 25:45)

How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. (Luke 18:24)

Jesus have mercy on us.

May we trade our selfish desires and materialism for the all-satisfying sufficiency of Christ. May we *live* sacrificially and *give* lavishly.

I do not want to stand before the Creator of the Universe, who emptied himself in humility and gave his love, his riches, his life, his all for his children with nothing but Chinese food receipts.

Christ & Crossroads in the Dominican Republic

Remember Reggie from "Lady in the Water?" This guy devoted all of his time to working out... but only his right arm. His right arm looked like "Ah-nold," but his left arm was a stick. Twenty members of the body of Christ at Crossroads are embarking on a mission trip to break ground on our first of many feeding centers in the Dominican Republic. This blog is a challenge for the rest of us. The question is "as 1/5 of our body is sent out on this great mission to grow in strength and service, what is our responsibility?" What is *our* mission? I would like to challenge you to pick one person on the Crossroad's Dominican Missions team and pray and fast for them for the entire week they are gone.


Pray...
Pray that God disturbs their hearts, changes their lives, and brings back a passion that grows like wildfire in Morgantown. Pray for Christ to be made much of in Dominican Republic. Pray against satan, demons, and temptation in their life. Pray that the way they serve will show Christ as supremely valuable. Pray for the kids they will impact and the families they will serve. Pray for Francesco and the other Pastors serving in Dominican to bring the Kingdom of God. Those are just some ideas to get you started.

Fast...

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"

--God, Isaiah 58:6-7

I challenge you to take $32 out of your food budget for the week (for many of us this will not be more than giving up two dinners during the week) and sponsor a child living in the Dominican Republic through compassion.com. If you can give more; do it. I don't know what it will look like for you to fast radically. It may be 2 dinners this week, it may be seven dinners, or it may be seven days completely.

$32 will provide a child with food, water, medical treatment, education, and the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ. This is not a nebulus, disconnected act of giving. This is a relationship. You will receive pictures and notes from the child you support, and be able to send them notes of encouragement, prayers, and greetings.

Crossroads' goal is to ultimately eradicate extreme poverty in the Dominican Republic. This vision has begun with the feeding center. Let's make it personal. Let's change the Dominican with one child at a time.

God *will* take care of the poor. He *will* feed his children. His Kingdom *is* coming through His body. The question is: will *you* be a part of it? We are the Body of Christ, and Jesus should *not* look like Reggie.

p.s. I recommend reading all of Isaiah 58, it's some soul-rending stuff.

p.p.s. this is just a suggestion for a bare minimum way we can grow and serve together. Service and love are the defining characteristics of a Christian (1 John, yes, the whole book). Buy some pizzas after church Sunday and go share your dinner and your story with the homeless, volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, take a cooler of sodas to the kids at the skatepark, offer free chauffering for crazy-drunk, frat guys on Friday night, baby-sit for a single-mom, spring clean for the elderly or tutor some kids in their homework... be creative, and pray about what God wants you to do to serve, but whatever you do, let's DO something. (James 4:17)

...the right way to be rich

All the airplane magazines say, "You've earned it! Buy a La-Z-Boy!"

What does that mean? It means that the chair you sit in should look like what you make. And my answer is, "No it shouldn't. No it shouldn't. It should look like Jesus is valuable, more valuable than chairs. That's what it should look like."

So you say to rich people, "Be rich in good deeds (1 Timothy 6:18)," which means you start doing as many good deeds as you can and on the way there you live a kind of life that would make Jesus look like your treasure.

Now on the other end, should you ever want to go there (and Paul is just crystal clear), "Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into many senseless and hurtful temptations that bring the soul into ruin" (1 Timothy 6:9). Wanting to be rich is dangerous.

--Excerpt from The Right Way to Be Rich, yesterday's "Ask Pastor John"