Still Fighting It

It's rough growing up. I would know, I'm still doing it. Taking on new challenges daily, accepting the responsibility of adulthood with a heart of gratitude instead of grumbling, while still remembering to be humble in the process, is not easy for me. However, as we begin our series about family, aptly titled "Family Tree", it is necessary to look at what God expects out of each person in a family. As we learned on Sunday, He expects us to be thankful, responsible, and loving people. I don't think I have to explain why God expects this from us, because these are all attributes that we look for in our friends and that we'd love to see develop in ourselves, but we want those to develop on their own. Disagree? Think about it like this: would you want to be friends with someone who complains about everything, has no intention of ever working towards any future goal, speaks and acts hatefully towards everyone, and on top of all that, thinks that they're God's gift to the human race? Of course not. On the flip side of that, we all want to be someone who is perceived as: responsible and dependable, thankful for everything in their life, loving towards everybody, and one who thinks of themselves as no better than anyone else. So why is it so hard for us to put the work in to develop these characteristics in ourselves?

Why is it that those of us who live better than 90% of the planet seem to be so ungrateful all the time? I know kids who complain how they have to work on the weekends, when there are plenty of people (some of their parents) spending their time in the unemployment line. How many times have you screamed at your parents that they are "ruining your life" because they won't let you hang out at Ashley Park, when there are plenty of teens who don't have their parents around enough to care where they are? Our life is "over" because our parents decide we don't need a Playstation 3, and we'll just have to stick with our old Playstation 2. Do you see the problem here? We get so stuck on the things that we don't have, when God has blessed beyond what we need. Instead of thanking God for granting us with abilities so that we can work or giving us parents who love us or blessing us with the wealth that we have, we complain about the responsibilities that come with them or our lack of excess in our closet. We don't think about how we can bless others with what He has graciously granted us, instead, we complain about the fact that we can't get more of what we already have. What we need is to change our priorities, so we focus more on the desires of God instead of our own desire for excess.

A bi-product of our re-prioritizing is that it helps us become more responsible in our lives. As we talked about on Sunday, it is God's desire for us to all become individuals who take responsibility for their own lives. Unfortunately, this is not something that comes to us naturally. Many of us have been given the opportunity to get an education, by means of either college or high school, but we choose to put in the minimum amount of work, so that we can graduate. For many of you, God has given you the ability to get a job, something that we often take for granted, but you would rather spend your time outside of school hanging out with friends or whatever. Hopefully for everyone reading this, you know that God has helped you find a church where there are plenty opportunities to join a serving team, but you'd rather just put the 15-20 minutes that you put in because of group, then ever having to stay late after church or simply show up earlier, so you could be part of what God is doing in the world.

It's too convenient to blame your parents and say, "if they had made me do this stuff when I was young, then it wouldn't be so hard now"; although, I agree with that statement, you're now your own person. You are at the age now that you control the decisions you make, especially, if you have a driver's license. The Bible calls us to honor our parents, so you should follow their rules, but you are the one who decides what you do now. If your parents want you to focus on school rather than getting a job, maybe you should talk to them about it. If they still believe in that, then focus all your efforts on school, be responsible in that area. If they don't stay for two services on Sunday morning, or maybe they don't come at all, maybe this is God's way of telling you to step up and help them out. You don't necessarily have to find things to be responsible about, although it helps to take on more roles that require it, you can begin developing a responsible mindset in your life right now. Responsibility isn't a glass you have to fill with activities; it's a way of handling your God given talents and opportunities.

God is calling all of us to be responsible, grateful, and ultimately loving. Sometimes the hardest place for us to love like Jesus loves is within the group of people who were designed by God to show each other unconditional love. Let's be honest, there are many times our parents mess up. Even though our parents love us, they are still human, and sometimes they say things or do things that hurt us deeply. However, this never gives you the right to lash out towards them or to say hurtful things back to them. God does not hold us accountable for the things people do to us, but if we loved them like He loves us. Maybe you would say "love is all fine and good, but you don't know what my childhood was like", and you're probably right that you were mistreated. However, there have been countless times that we have turned our backs on Jesus, and He knew this would be the case, when He decided to still die for us. The point is, no matter how you spin it, Jesus loved us when we least deserved it, and He calls us to do the same. Because when you choose to love someone as Jesus loved you, you begin to see them in the way that He sees them, and love becomes a more natural part of your life.

This is the kind of freedom that Jesus calls us to. I know that this all seems like a lot right now, but life is a little brighter when you start to live the way God has called us to. People enjoy being around someone who is grateful and thankful more than someone who complains about everything. More opportunities open up in your life the more responsible you are, because if you can be trusted with a little, everyone (including God) can begin to trust you with a lot. Put simply, when we are truly grateful, responsible, and loving people, we become more and more like Christ.



Pray
That God can begin to form a grateful, responsible, and loving heart within you.

I Love/Hate You

Who's that special someone for you? You know the one I'm talking about. You can't stop thinking about them, any time they're brought up in conversation you just find yourself compelled to talk about them. You're obsessed; you think about them night and day, and you can't imagine anyone else being with them. Whenever you think about them, which is at least once a day, you get this strange feeling in the pit of your stomach. You know who I'm talking about, it's the object of your obsession: the person you hate. Now I know that "hate is a strong word", but sometimes it is an accurate word. Sometimes we view hate as something that could only be applied to the way we feel about murderers or Osama Bin Laden or rapists, and we forget that hate is a pretty commonplace thing. Jesus paired it in the same message with lust, which I think we can all agree is very commonplace, when he explained how serious an issue sin was. So, maybe this might be an issue that we all have dealt, will deal, or are currently dealing with right now.

Growing up you might have heard someone say "you don't have to like everybody, but you have to love everybody", and even though this is true, we might have exaggerated this statement too much in our minds. We often think that as long as we don't carry out our actions or wish horrible things on a person, than it isn't hate. But even the dictionary defines hate as "an intense hostility", which I think we all might have felt before. Do you know someone that anytime that person's name is brought up in conversation you can't seem to be happy until you have spoken bad about them at least once? Do you find yourself burning up thinking about how horrible or annoying they are, and how you don't understand how anyone else would ever want to be their friend? When something good happens to them do you find it hard to be happy for them, maybe you even dislike the fact that they're getting attention for it? If you're honest with yourself, you'd have to admit your probably hate this person. Just like Jonah, who couldn't understand how God could give grace to the people he hated the most, we don't want to believe that God would allow good things to happen to people who don't deserve it. We often forget that God already gave us grace, which is simply getting a good thing that you don't deserve, so why should we get to decide that someone else shouldn't get the same thing?

The basic truth behind the "you don't have to like everybody" statement is that it is okay for people to annoy you or for you not to enjoy somebody's company, but you should still hope that good things happen for them and rejoice with them when they do. See love and hate are not choices for those of us who call ourselves Christians. The Bible makes it clear that when we hate someone, than God's love is not in us; because if you can't even love someone that you can see, how could you ever love a God that you can't (refer to contest)? So, if we are to say that we love God, then we must love others, there is no choice.

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Pray
That God will help you to identify those that you do hate, and to help you to see them the way He does, so that you can extend His love and grace to them.