Stress has a funny way of affecting the human body.  Some People get ulcers, some develop a twitch, others get high blood pressure.  If you’re really lucky, you get more than one. If you’re me you get all three.  That’s right, I’m that guy.  The guy that, when I reach my stressed-out-to-the-max level I get a stomach Ulcer. To be fair, though, that exists partially because I didn’t read the bottle of aspirin that tells you not to take too much. My left eye will not stop twitching, which I’m convinced is just Satan messing with me, and when I went to the doctor she told me my blood pressure was a little high.

I can attribute 2 out of 3 of these to unusually high levels of stress.  The third I can attribute to being an idiot, but stress does make it worse.  The fact of the matter is that something like 90% of the illnesses that kill people nowadays are rooted in stress. Does that tell us that the human body wasn’t meant to deal with so much of it, all the time?  We can actually avoid dying by avoiding stress.  That’s a thought that will keep you up at night stressing, “How do I avoid stress?”

A job brings stress, so you quit.  This brings more stress because you can’t eat.  You could get a less stressful job, but that probably won’t pay as much. So that isn’t an option.  Hmmmmm…… You could go on vacation, but that costs money, so that when you come back because you’re now in deeper debt, and now your more stressed than when you left.  Plus the stressors that were there when you left are still there when you return.  So how can you avoid stress?   There are a couple of ways.  You could become a beach bum living in a shack somewhere “off the grid” so your debtor’s wont catch you.  Or you could take your stress to God, give it to him to carry, and do your best to obey his word.

I have to let you in on a secret that I’ve discovered; you can’t avoid every bit of stress that comes your way.  Life happens, stress comes.  God tells us that “In this world we will have trouble” – John 16:33.  But Jesus doesn’t leave it at that; he tells us in the next part of that statement that we shouldn’t fear because “I have overcome the world” –John 16:33.  You might as well take the word “Fear” and replace it with “stress” because this is what Jesus is talking about.  This is coming from a man who knows the feeling.

Imagine knowing that you were going to be beaten within an inch of your life, be whipped with a torture device that would rip the skin off of your bones, be ridiculed by everyone, deserted by those that are supposed to be your closest friends, have to carry a large heavy wooden cross through a crowd that is hurling every insult imaginable, and then to top it off  you’d be nailed to that very same cross for something that you didn’t even do.  Now that’s stress.  But in John 16 he isn’t freaking out or “venting” to his disciples.  No, he is concerned about them, and he actually takes the time to comfort them.   Now I’m not saying that Jesus didn’t stress out over the agony that he would have to endure.  Jesus actually stressed to the point that he sweated blood from the pores in his skin.  How many times have you experienced that extreme of an amount of stress?  But Jesus took the time before he was going to die a very painful and humiliating death to comfort those he loved.  Guess what: he LOVES YOU!!! So he offers comfort now just as he did then.

When you think that you are at your limit, you have reached your max, and you can’t take anymore, Jesus says to look to him.  He asks for your burdens, he offers to trade you his yoke for yours.  The good news is his yoke is light and he wants to carry your problems.  Stop trying to do it alone; it will not work.  Trust me, I’m stubborn. I’ve tried!  I can’t do it alone, I need Jesus!! I need to have a shepherd to run to when I’m freaking out.  When I do he extends his arms and says welcome home, what took you so long (well maybe not the last part but he’s probably thinking it)!!

Remember the Holy Spirit lives in you so Be the Church!!

Matt Damon plays Chief Miller, an American soldier charged with uncovering the infamous WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). An Iraqi citizen comes to him, looking for help, and they begin working together, each doing his best to cross the cultural divide between them. At the outset it appears they both want the same thing for Iraq: freedom. But soon it becomes clear that this word means two very different things, based on their perspectives. In a heated moment between the two Freddy, the Iraqi citizen, calls Chief Miller out on the carpet, exclaiming, “Whatever you want, I want more than you want!”

I was blown away by this one sentence. To think of an American soldier, dedicated to his work and with good intentions and solid moral convictions, fighting with his very life to make a foreign nation into a better place, and to realize this incredible sense of duty in a good man held nothing in it to rival the love one citizen had for his home.

In his book Orthodoxy,  G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves, is exactly the man who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without a reason. If a man loves some feature of [America, Iraq], he may find himself defending [America] itself. But if he simply loves [America] itself, he may lay it waste and turn it into the new Jerusalem.”

The question we should be asking ourselves here, I think, is do we love our nation enough to change it? If we do love it, do we have a reason for doing so, due to its liberties and its conveniences, or perhaps because of its culture and its landscape? Or do we love it because it is ours?

There’s no doubting the fact that our nation is undergoing some difficult changes right now, and there are no promises as to how she will fare coming through it all. We’re a land with a history full of blessings and wonderful liberties, and now is the time to question ourselves about the motives behind our patriotism, just when those liberties are looking to be threatened. Do we love our nation because it has been good to us? Or is it good because we have loved it? Do we love it for its beauty, or does its beauty stem from our love for it?

Having spent the better part of five years enrolled in a university, and being involved with Chi Alpha leadership for the past four, I’ve held plenty of conversations with students about majors and ultimate goals in life, and probably one out of three I’ve talked to have confessed that their struggling to find direction. A lot of undeclared majors, and just as many declared who are pursuing degrees that don’t line up with their passions in life.

Our society seems to have an infinite number of prerequisites for life, a great many of them unspoken or at least not elaborated upon.

Upon graduating high school there’s a push towards the university, or some other form of secondary education, no matter what the individual goals and dreams of the graduate. There are students taking classes they simply do not care about, sometimes picking majors they’ll never be motivated toward, all because they feel the pressure towards college without the purpose of calling.

In Matthew chapter 4 we see a snapshot of Jesus calling his first disciples to follow after him. There are two almost parallel accounts of Jesus picking out his disciples. In each, Jesus is going someplace, heading in a specific direction. He sees people doing something and he tells them to follow him (in the second this can be inferred). And they follow. Surprising? Maybe. When read in light of our culture the fact the disciples immediately dropped what they were doing and followed Jesus when he asked may seem unusual. We don’t understand this behavior, I don’t think. But I think it’s possible to draw something significant out of these accounts.

¹⁸ As He was walking along the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea, since they were fishermen. ¹⁹ “Follow Me,” He told them, “and I will make you fish for people!” ²⁰ Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.

²¹ Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and He called them. ²² Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him.

The common element here, in both Jesus’ action and the disciples’, is that of intentionality. Jesus called out to the disciples and gave them specific instructions: “follow me.” In doing this he was outlining a goal for them: “be like me.” At least, this is what they would have taken him to mean read in the context of 1st century Jewish culture. The fact they were fishing tells us that at some point a rabbi told each of them that they could not be like him (each respective rabbi, that is). They were learning a vocation, most likely their second choice in the area of ultimate lifelong goals. When Jesus told them he believed they could be like him, he was redeeming their first choice. And when they threw down their nets at this very word, they did so intentionally. They did so with the intention of becoming like him.

Here is my challenge to each of you reading this: Answer this question: In living your life, what is your intention? What are you working toward, specifically? What are your goals? Better put, what is your goal? To be like Jesus, every day with every breath and with every step? You’re going somewhere in life, and if you haven’t marked your course it means someone will do it for you. Find your direction, or else you’ll completely miss out on life.

This might hurt, it’s not safe
But I know that I’ve gotta make a change
I don’t care if I break,
At least I’ll be feeling something
‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life

I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking,
“What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?”

No regrets, not this time
I’m gonna let my heart defeat my mind
Let Your love make me whole
I think I’m finally feeling something
‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of this life

‘Cause I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking,
“What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?”

That song is amazing…. because we are human. We aren’t perfect; we are sinners. We should want more than just going through the motions. This song hit me hard and challenged me: Am I going through the motions, or am I doing everything I can to bring more people to Christ? Am I just going to church, but acting different everywhere else, or am I the same child of God that wants to glorify him with everything i do or say?

We are called to be disciples. The 12 disciples that followed Jesus didn’t just “go through the motions.” They healed people, they learned from Jesus, they followed him with all their might. Why is it soo hard for us to do the same? Yeah it might hurt a little, but without falling a little in your life, how can you ever fully trust God? The answer is…. you can’t. We should take the path less traveled, every day. God shines through us…. to be lights for this dark, cold world. A world full of chaos, destruction, lust, hatred, jealousy, and immorality. We should shine the beacon of light that brings the world salvation. There is no way we can do that by just going though the motions….. the question is…… how are you living your life?

The reason I love this verse so much is because I have chosen not to settle for a mediocre life. I want God’s best and nothing less. The dreams I have in my heart, for now and for my future, I know God not only wants to fulfill those dreams, but has even bigger and better dreams and plans for my life. That excites me! Why would I settle for less than God’s best for my life?

The thing is, the enemy wants us to settle. He wants us to be satisfied with a mediocre life. He wants us to miss out on the blessings that the Lord has for us, which happens to most of us at some point because it is easier to settle for what is right in front of us instead of waiting for the Lord, and for his full and beautiful plans to unfold. I am not saying it’s easier to live this way, waiting on God, because at times it is not. But it is so worth it.

Always remember, God has plans for you, plans far better and more incredible than you could ever dream of. But the question is this: are you willing to wait for it?

We live in a culture in which, oftentimes, perception is considered reality. Another way to put this is to call us a superficial culture. I challenge you to visit a bookstore today, and to look at the all the different book covers. The phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover” doesn’t seem to apply here. The covers are designed to catch your eye, to draw you in, to send you to the cash register. We’re used to making decisions based on appearances. The difficulty comes, though, when you set the superficial as your foundation.

Psalm 118 tells a prophecy about Israel’s future Messiah, saying that the stone the builder rejected would one day become the chief cornerstone, in architectural terms, the stone upon which the whole integrity and design rests in a given structure. Jesus reminds his audience of this prophecy in the passage above, and he challenges them with a question: what does the meaning of this scripture?

Scripture doesn’t say he gave them an opportunity to answer, but I can’t imagine him not. Jesus is a revolutionary rabbi and teacher, and often his method involved posing a question in order to force his audience to think through what he was talking about. I can see a temple crowd, full of pensive faces, every person holding their tongue, patiently listening for his answer to his own question.

How’s this for an answer: “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken… and if it falls on anyone, it will grind him to powder.” Are we still talking about a Messiah here?

In this postmodern climate we’re living in today, truth is often seen as relative, especially in the academic arena. But even in our personal lives, it’s not uncommon to listen to a friend of neighbor justifying a lifestyle or behavior, saying it’s all a matter of preference. Everyone does their own thing: this has become our motto as a nation, whether we’re discussing bedtime ritual, political bent or religious stance. Where has the standard of truth gone?

Nothing is absolute, and the philosophers of our day, rather of searching out for a basis for life that is epistemologically tenable, have decided that truth with a capital T does not exist, or if it does is unattainable.

Not only that, but there’s also an increasing trend towards pluralism, the belief, essentially, that all roads lead to Rome. These two moods overlap in our culture, blending to paint a very unstable picture of reality. If truth cannot be found, and if at their core all truths are just different faces of the same truth, we are ultimately doomed to build our worldview, our picture of reality, on a foundation without real substance. The stones we use to build our values forfeit their strength to the idea that it doesn’t really matter which stone goes where, the building will still look the same when all is said and done.

The problem with this blended point of view, though, is that the entire cosmos points to an existence and a reality full of structure and substance. The Bible says that the whole of creation points to the existence of God. The fact there are things in our own life that we treat as special and sacred betray the fact that, at our very nature, we recognize something bigger and more holy than ourselves.

The first verse of a popular new worship song, “How He Loves Me” by John Mark McMillan, goes like this:

He (God) is jealous for me.
Loves like a hurricane,
I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his grace and mercy.

Looking for the connection? I’ll give it to you: our God is a God of substance. Such substance, in fact, that his love alone is enough to flatten our persons to the ground, and when we experience the fullness of his love for us we can do nothing but be overpowered by the hurricane-like power. How sublime! Jesus was telling his first century audience that they had a choice to make as to which stones they would use to build their reality.

If they chose to put him at the foundation of their worldview, to build their attitude of the world around the Messiah, the integrity within their structured reality would reflect his truth and substance. Some people might stumble over Christ, looking for the right cornerstone, and they would be broken, but they would live to tell about it. Building with the wrong cornerstone, though, taking Jesus away from the foundation of their worldview, would result in a collapse. They would be eventually crushed by the substance of his true nature.

If we’re honest with ourselves, as we’re working to piece together our own answers to the difficult questions in life, we must recognize that not every stone is identical. There is a cornerstone, a right one that offers no substitute, and we must search it out if we want to have a worldview that rightly defines life and reality. When it comes to spelling the word truth, we must recognize the fact that there is indeed a capital “T”.

I know what you’re thinking: I committed a sin yesterday; I lied to my wife about how much I spent on that truck part. Or, I can’t be perfect; only Jesus was perfect. And you’re right. We can’t be perfect, and yes, we have all sinned.

Romans 5:18 says “For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners (talking about Adam), also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous (talking about Jesus).”  This means that we are made righteous by Jesus’ dying on the cross.  Jesus has taken our crime and pardoned us by dying in our place.  When we accept Christ, he takes the evil and the sin out of us and replaces it with The Holy Spirit.

What does this mean for you in your daily life?  It means that when you truly accept Jesus, and I mean give him all of you, allow him to lead you, and lay down your life for him, you then become unable to tolerate Sin.  You inherit the attributes of God.  God gives you his consciousness and his morals; he helps you to live a better life.

Are you going to fall short, have tough times and feel discouraged? Yes. The bible doesn’t teach that it will be easy. In fact, Jesus tells his disciples in John 16:33 “in this world you will have many troubles…”  But Jesus followed that statement up with an even more important truth, “...but fear not, for I have overcome the world.”

Now I’m not saying that you will never sin again once you’ve come to God. I know I have.  But praise God we don’t get only one chance to get this Christian living thing right.  What I’m saying is that when you give yourself over to God you will be changed. You will shed the old you from the inside out and become a new creation, and the more you fill your new self with the things of God, the less room the enemy will have to fill you with sin.

Remember the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, so be the Church!

The other night I was playing Halo with my life group dudes, and over and over again I kept getting smoked. Eventually I just started wandering around lobbing grenades every few seconds, which taken out of context sounds like a mean thing to do. But seriously, this, in my mind, was the most likely way I was going to win. Which I never did.

The good news, though, is that despite the fact my character died (it’s not important how many times), I personally experienced no pain, outside that of my wounded ego.

The moment I agreed to jump on the controller and play soldier, I knew I was going to lose. But the consequences were so minimal that I wasn’t concerned. I had a very limited buy-in. The commitment needed for me to play Halo was  small.

That’s not the case with Christianity, though. Colossians 2:11-12 reads, ¹¹ In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of the Messiah. ¹² Having been buried with Him in baptism, you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

The “in Him” Paul is talking about here is Jesus Christ, the Messiah. When we sign up for Christianity we’re doing so much more than simply repeating a prayer or quoting something vaguely spiritual, making us feel better about ourselves. We’re making a commitment, and a strong one at that.

Paul says that if we commit to this Christian life and theology, what we’re doing is undergoing a circumcision. In other words, a permanent change, one that changes our identity to the world. This isn’t a surface level commitment Paul is talking about. It’s deep, and it hurts at first.

Paul then mentions being “buried” with Christ. This implies death. Just as Christ died for our sins, when we are baptized (another sign of a commitment) we die to our old nature. Our sin nature. Scary yet? Well, stay with me, because the best is yet to come. The verse goes on to tell us we are “also raised with Him, through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” There’s hope, see?

Playing Halo, getting lit up in Halo, I feel no pain. In the same way, someone who conquers Halo, someone who achieves victory in the game, they don’t achieve real victory. Perhaps they feel proud for beating the game, but they are by no means a victorious soldier solely based on the game.

Committing to Christ commits us to a certain level of pain. Real pain. The buy-in is much greater here, and it comes with the cost of a changed identity, with the potential of leaving a scar. But the victory is real too. In the end we are raised with Christ, and his win is our win. We’re not just riding the couch, disconnected from the battle, but we’re in the fight with Him. And one day we will be victorious!

The marketing business has labels for people in reference to where they come in on the implementation time line of a new product. There are innovators, people who stand in line for hours to become the first person they know with the newest, shiniest gadget. There are early adapters, those who may not have it first but are still quick enough to get it to maintain their “trendy” status. And there are people like me, those you might see price checking DVD players when everyone else is kicking it with Blu-Ray.

I’m pretty sure I was one of the last people to hear about Apple’s newest product, the iPad. I was told about it last week by a friend, and when I mentioned it to my wife, she already knew about it. Not only that, but when I brought it up to my buddy Brian he told me he had already watched a two hour video on it in class, and the new association I felt with the product seemed silly, with everyone else already appearing so familiar with it.

Nothing stays ‘new’ very long anymore. I remember when Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis reigned supreme as the kings of video gaming for years without being pushed off their thrones. Lately, it seems we have a new king of the mountain every other week. Meanwhile, innovators like Apple have begun to stamp their products with a generation number, meaning anytime a new generation of product comes out for the company, the previous one is automatically outdated.

Back in Old Testament times a man or woman’s lifetime could last several hundred years, and reading about them makes me wonder how strong a man could be at 500 years old. It also makes me ponder the patience and mindset of God. He’s accomplished the full spectrum with mankind. At one time God let it be that a single man could achieve almost a millennium of experience in his lifetime. Eventually the average lifespan was whittled down (in some  parts of the world) to where 60 years was considered rare and ancient. Today we’re seeing advancements in medicine and technology in the developed nations of the world, and because of these progressions it surprises us when someone goes before reaching the age of 60.

We’ve become so accustomed to change and rapid progression that standing still frustrates us; we’ve gotten so used to the breakthroughs science and technology that death always tends to catch us off guard. I wonder if we’re not caught in a paradox, expecting life to go on forever, and at the same time expecting it to continue changing forever.

In the Bible it says that God is unchanging. If we really thought about it, I imagine this thought would make us a bit uncomfortable. It doesn’t make sense to the modern mind that a being could ever be content not changing. And I would even bet it’s hard for us to admit that there is a God who will outlast us in every way.

However, because he exists we must line up our lives to fit his precepts, and not the other way around. I encourage you today to think about the God who created you, and who has been forever. Think about what this means for your life, and, if you haven’t yet, consider giving your life to him, the unchanging, everlasting God. I trust it will change your view of the world forever.

I am not writing only about Valentines Day, but I do recognize that singleness can be lonely. I know it can be hard waiting, especially watching friends all around you  in relationships, or even getting married. It is a difficult place  to be at times. I understand. I have been there practically my entire life!

The thing that God has been showing me, over and over again, is that rather than just sitting around, feeling sorry for myself, He wants me to use this season of singleness in my life. He wants to use it to grow me in my relationship with him, with my life group girls, and so much more.

Ask anyone who is in a relationship, and they will tell you that it takes a lot of time and effort to keep it up and growing. Being single you can use that extra time to grow in your relationship with God, and to really seek him and let him mold you into who he wants you to be. This is amazing to me. God has just completely changed my mindset to where I am so grateful that I have this time just for him.

Just remember that this season of singleness is just that:  a season. And remember that God will provide in his perfect timing. So wait for him, knowing he has your very best interest in heart.

Try not to be too depressed this Valentines season, which I know for some it is inevitable. Be grateful for the season God has you in right now! And always remember to do as Psalm 37 :4 says, and “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”