Hungry

Our family spent our vacation in San Diego a few weeks back and had a great time. We had the opportunity to bring our kids with us and we were unsure how the flight would go since Caleb was only 6 weeks old. Benjamin had flown direct to Hawaii a couple years back and he did great. Things were wonderful on the way out there and we had an awesome time visiting friends and family. Our flight on the way back was going to get us back to Atlanta around midnight so it was past the kids bedtime and they were tired. As we approached Atlanta, we started our descent to the city and the pressure started to mount on our ears as they tried to adjust to the altitude. In the process, Benjamin was not able to adjust well and he started complaining about his ears hurting. On the way out to San Diego this happened also but we were able to adjust them by all the methods we knew of swallowing and drinking and yawing, etc. This time, though, none of those methods worked. It seemed that it took us forever to land and we might have had to circle around a few times because of a delay at the airport. The entire time Benjamin was complaining of a pain in his ear. He was hurting and crying the entire descent which must have been at least 20 minutes. He climbed in my lap and I wrapped my arms around him trying to comfort and distract him at the same time by looking outside at the lights. This would only work for a few moments because the pain was too much for him. As a father, what do you do? My son was in my lap and there was nothing I could do to make this pain go away. He kept looking to me for relief and it was completely out of my hands....I felt helpless.

This was only 20 minutes of misery for myself and my son, but imagine it wasn't a pain in your ear. Imagine if this was food. Imagine that this wasn't 20 minutes of my son telling me that he was hungry and we were still in the car with no food and we only had to wait until we walked in the door to give him a meal. What if it was more than 20 minutes? What if it was a night that went by wear your child had to go to bed hungry because you couldn't give him anything to eat? How would that make you feel as a parent? Thinking that your child was going to bed constantly crying and complaining because he had no food to eat and it made his entire body ache. As a parent, you would feel helpless. You would feel the weight of the world on your shoulders because you were not able to provide food for your kids.

Around our world, there are an estimated 350-400 million children that will go to bed tonight in that exact situation. There are 350-400 million kids that will go to bed hungry and have parents (or no parents) that can do nothing about it. They have no money, they have no food, they only have children wondering why they can not eat. Every 5 seconds a child dies because they are in poverty. Every 5 seconds a child dies because they are hungry. There are 3 billion people in this world today that live on less than $2 per day. That is one cup of Starbucks coffee!

This is the world we live in. I do not come with answers to this problem, although we must work to them to make change in our world. I come to you because we care too much about not being able to afford the upgrade. We complain to our parents about not being able to get the latest phone or game system or you name it. We are consumed by our insatiable desire for stuff without thinking for a second that there are people in our world that are dying because they can not afford to eat.

The reason we should think about these things is that Jesus thinks about these things. Jesus seems to put a premium on the poor and under-resourced. All throughout the Bible, God is calling his people to care about those that are poor and oppressed. Jesus says if we give the poor a glass of water and a shirt to wear that we are doing this for him. James says if we see someone in need and do nothing about it that our faith is dead. It is time that we wake up to the reality of the world around us and stop making excuses for why other things are more important. Again, this particular lesson is not about specific actions to take but about a mindset. It is time that we pray for a change of heart about these things and begin to think through how we can push back the darkness and claim this territory for the kingdom of God. The first step is not action, but a change of belief about our responsibility as Christians. About our responsibility as followers of Jesus.

Tom Watson
8|17|07

The God I live I believe In

The God I live I believe In

The issues I have been wrestling with today and over the past year have made me very uncomfortable. I have moved from this idea that the gospel is mainly about going to heaven when I die and about a particular decision I made in elementary school where I ask Jesus to come into my heart; from that place I have moved into a Jesus that wants to save me from myself today. To a Jesus who's message has just as much as an impact on my life today because of the grace and mercy he shows me. To a Jesus who has already forgiven the sin that I will commit tomorrow. I am at a place now in my walk with Jesus that I have moved from a place of right doctrine as a premium in my life, and into a place where what I live is actually what I believe in. I am understanding now that Jesus seems to care more about the broken and oppressed than he does about the righteous and those who have all the answers. I am beginning to see a world where the people who continually live as though they systematically have God figured out are the ones who do nothing with their faith. I have seen people that care care only about making the life here on earth as good as they can for themselves, and in comparison am seeing a Jesus who leads us into an uncomfortable life of sacrifice. Don't get me wrong here- my salvation experience and right doctrine are important because they have grounded me. What I see though are people who care more about being grounded than they do about living out the kingdom of God.

So I have started to feel uncomfortable lately because of all of this in comparison with the life that I lead. I live in a nice house, have Christian friends, go to a nice Christian church but am literally making little to no impact on the broken world around me. Yes I can point to little things that I do here and there that may impact the kingdom of God, but am I actually living as though that is what I believe my mission is in this life? I don't think so. My neighborhood is full of people that don't know Jesus. There are widows, kids with no moms or dads in the home and other people that don't even know my name. There are families within walking distance of me that had no roof on their heads during Christmas and I did not do anything about it. I could potentially live in one of the most diverse areas in Atlanta and I have literally zero impact. I have done nothing to spread the kingdom of God where I live.

Truly the God I live I believe in. I repent from this life and that God for the mercy and grace he has shown me by making me uncomfortable in the way I live my life. He is starting to show me areas in my life where there needs to be change if I am going to be a follower of Jesus. It is not the God I say I believe in that matters so much, but the God I live I believe in that will make a difference in the kingdom of God.

Romans 2: 23-24

Romans 2:23-24

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

This passage makes me reflect on my own leaning to live by the law and how so many people that don’t know Jesus react to the Church because of the standards we put on them. I think it is in a lot of us to relate to God by a list of activities that we need to do in order to superficially satisfy our conscience before God. In other words, we think that God is happy with us when we obey a certain standard. In our effort to obey this standard, we impose this standard on others and in doing that we are boasting in that standard. We are saying to others that this is how you make God happy with you. This is not possible because it is impossible to hold up this standard all the time and when others see that, it dishonors the name of God. When the name of God is dishonored by those who wear it, the people who do not know God will be turned away because of this hypocritical lifestyle.

What is the solution? What is the alternative to this life so that the name of God will be honored by the way His Church wears His name? The answer is GRACE. Grace does not allow us to point to us in anything we try to do, therefore giving God all of the glory and making His name great. This is the only way his name can be held up for all of the glory it deserves. That is, when His children live by grace alone, by faith alone as the only standard for living. How can His name be blasphemed when the Church points to God’s grace and not their ability to make things right by their own strength?

This grace has come to us by the name of Christ. In Christ alone can we find the grace to know God.