Living Sacrifices

I love Christmas… I really do. It is one of my favorite times of the year. It always has been. There are so many blessings that come with Christmas, blessings that go way beyond the presents. Family, friends, traditions and memories collectively accumulate in to an annual celebration of blessing until one of two things occurs:
1. Our hearts become overwhelmed by the blessing and we in turn offer grattitude in humble and sometimes uncomfortable ways.
2. We become so accustomed to the blessing that we assume the blessing as if we somehow deserve to be blessed and in turn discard our gratitude.

These two scenarios play out in Luke 17 as Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem. Luke tells the story of ten men with Leprosy meeting Jesus as he entered a village between Samaria and Galilee. He says they stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice for Jesus to have pity on them. Jesus, of course, did take pity on them and then instructed them to go show themselves to the priest. While the men were on their way to see the priest they were cleansed of their sickness. One of the ten, noticing he had been healed made his way back to Christ. The bible tells us that he “He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him.” Jesus was obviously perplexed that out of the ten men only one came back to thank him and asked the one, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?”

I don’t know, nor will I try to understand, the hearts of the nine men who did not come back to see Jesus. They may have been so overcome with joy that they were quick to run and tell their friends and family about their new and improved lives or maybe they were filled with such emotion, they got caught up in the moment and lost track of where the blessing came from. I do know this, they accepted the blessing and discarded the one who blessed them.

In our world, where anything we want is only as far away as we are willing to go, it is easy to assume the blessing and discard the gratitude. We see it play out every year about this time; Thanksgiving becomes a speed bump on the road to Christmas. People almost treat it as though the four day weekend was conceived to make time in our busy schedules for hanging lights and setting up the tree. As much as I love Christmas and all the joy the season brings I think it is very important that we do not forget the gratitude that goes along with the Thanksgiving holiday.

This Thanksgiving holiday, don’t skip the gratitude and go straight for the blessing. Before the tree goes up, before the lights turn on take time to thank God for what He has done. Go back to God, realizing that He has given you so much and thank Him for the blessings that make your life possible. Even when the rest of the world forgets, you be the one to go back and fall at the feet of Christ Jesus, then you can go on living the blessing he so graciously gives to all of us.

Tuesday Question of the Week #3

What is it that makes you feel closest to God?

Hello from Breckenridge, CO! Andy, Nathan, Jacob and I are up in the Colorado mountains leading worship for 300 on fire High School students for an annual event called Youth Quake.

Jacob is finally back in the U.S. after his long mission trip to Asia. It has been awesome to reconnect with him and have him back in the worship band. This is the last go-round for us as a band. It’s a bitter sweet ending since I love doing summer youth camps with these guys, especially Youth Quake. Please pray for the hearts of all the students who gave up so much to be a part of this week, for the sponsors who also sacrificed to help bring the word of God into the hearts of the kids, for Joe and Jarred and th other youth ministers who are leading this week and for us (Andy, Jacob, Nathan and I) as we try to bring the whole host of Youth Quakers to the throne of God. I have limited time so I will have to share some of the amazing stories we have already experienced in a future blog. Peace for now…

Pic’s coming soon!

Tim

Friday is Mad Prop’s Day! This is the day I give my “Prop’s” to someone who has done something outstanding during the week. Feel free to leave your own “prop’s”, “atta boy’s”, or whatever it is you happen say to let someone know they are friggin awesome.

Mad Prop’s Friday Week #2
This week’s “Mad Prop’s” goes out my boy Jerry Barham and his sound team. JB as, I affectionately call him, is the lead sound tech for our congregation and has been for as long as I have been here. (eight, plus years) For a while he was the only sound tech and every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening he would show up for services and rehearsals ready go go and help the worship team give their best.
This past week Jerry pulled triple duty. Starting last Wednesday JB ran sound for our normal Wednesday evening rehearsals, helped tear down the Sunday morning set and re-set the FIGHT Night set only to come back and run a the FIGHT Night rehearsal on Thursday. Then he ran dress rehearsal on Saturday afternoon and evening only to move the FIGHT Night set again and re-set for Sunday morning. When our Sunday morning sound checks began I feared the worst. Mic’s, instruments and cables had been plugged an unplugged so many times I thought for sure that we would spend all of our sound check and rehearsal time troubleshooting and running down cables. Or worse, we would have technical issues in first service because we would run out of time to fix everything. Thankfully my fears were wrong and JB and his boys had it all under control. We did not have one issue the whole morning. I should know by now to have more faith in those guys…
When services were over we had to tear down the Sunday morning set, re-set the FIGHT Night set, be ready for our last dress rehearsal at 4:00 and the the kick off at 7:00. Add to all that Jerry was the lead sound tech for FIGHT Night, a four night event lasting from Sunday night to Wednesday night. All of this as a volunteer!
So MAD PROPS to Jerry!! Thanks for being a great example of a Living Sacrifice!

Writers Block! I hate it… maybe its appropriate that this is my first official post. Some people are amazing writers. They can write non-stop and the words jump off the screen with passion and intrigue. I on the other hand get through about three sentences and my words seem to die out like the flowers I bought for my wife on Mother’s Day. Question: How do you stay consistently creative and keep the ideas flowing?