The book of Revelation was recorded by John based on visions he received from above.  Among them were letters to seven chuches from the Lord.  The first letter was written to the church at Ephesus.  Ephesus was a very important city and church in the first century.  Paul stayed there for two years setting up the church.  He wrote a letter to them, called Ephesians, and he wrote to their young pastor, Timothy, twice.

Jesus commends them for their perseverance and their testing of true messengers, and shows great pride in how they have managed themselves, but then he says this:

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.  Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. [Revelation 2:4-5]

I was pierced when I read it because I found that shamefully true in my life.  It’s so easy to forget the love for Christ we had at first.  The excitement of when we were first baptized, excited to discover his Word, serve him, and talk with him all the time.  It’s so easy, now, to make that a task, and obligation, and a check-list.  I can remember the heights from which  I have fallen.

And so, very easily, he tells us to repent and do the things you did at first. Repent – turn away from it and walk and live differently.  And do the things you did at first.  When you first had that real, new, exciting love.

I challenge you to do remember what your love for Christ was like at the beginning, and I challenge you to turn back that way and do the things you did when that love was fresh.

May you take a step towards a real relationship with God once again.

We then had a very productive time planning the calendar for the rest of the year.  Wow!  There are a lot of really good things going on at Outlook.  Part of that process was coming up with a theme for the year.  “Ready to Go” was selected to represent the two main functions of the Community Outreach Ministry: 1. To make sure Outlookers are Ready to serve in the community by providing information, education and contacts, and 2. To motivate us to actually get up and Go!

Our World Outreach Team is working with a group getting Ready to Go to Kenya for a short term missions trip.  They will depart on March 8, 2012 for Nairobi and will return March 17, 2012.  Please keep them in your prayers for safe travel and effective outreach and service.  Outlook Student Ministry is going to Mexico City July 20-29, 2012 and to Honduras July 17-26, 2013.

Please prayerfully consider where and how God is calling you to serve!  Are YOU “Ready to Go”?

 My group has been having breakfast together every Thursday of the year since our first meeting at Steak ‘n Shake in spring 2003. We moved to Bob Evans years ago and occupy a corner table from 7:00 to 8:30am.  Our presence, if not visible, is definitely audible. Mostly from raucous laughter. The rare times we’re quiet is prayer or tears.

 To the three remaining original members God has brought great new ladies to our group, with a fun variety of age, background, and experience. Single women, widows, moms, teachers, retirees, a missionary, businesswomen, a soldier.  Each has made a unique contribution; each has taught us something and helped us grow.

Last week we discussed a question inspired by Mark Watkins’ New Year’s Day sermon.  What from the past do you want to leave behind, and toward what do you want to press forward?  Confessions were made, and new resolution expressed. “I want to be more involved in humanitarian work.” “I want to make a positive impact on the people around me regardless of how I feel at the time.” “I want to receive gifts graciously.”

 This morning it was my turn to answer the question. I won’t share my confession, but I will say that the wise and insightful counsel I received was a gracious gift from God that will help me better follow Jesus and fulfill His purposes in my life. 

 Deep, transparent relationships are risky.  Love and growth is worth it.  I love my group, and owe them more than I can say.

This year, 2011, is one that I am relieved to be done with.  Although it had it’s great moments- becoming a grandparent for the first time- it also had it’s times of trouble.  My wife Betty spent almost three weeks in the hospital during the month of October.  Seeing someone I love suffer was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  But thanks be to God, she is up and about and ready to come back to work right after the New Year’s holiday.

While she was in the hospital I can remember feeling uncertain at times, but never despairing.  I didn’t feel like some kind of super spiritual guy, but just knew everything was going to be all right.  God has been so faithful it just felt natural to trust Him.  I hope you have that kind of assurance as well.  Outlook Christian Church is a great place to get to know God.  I hope you will.

See you Sunday!

A couple of months ago, I loaned Juliana Mutheu Matheka 25 dollars.

It was easy.  I went to bigdent.org.

And I received an email this week that she has now repaid 100% of the loan!  It went on to say…

Juliana is grateful to be a part of Missions of Hope and has done an excellent job in paying back her loan on time.  With this loan, she has been able to increase her beadwork business by adding new products to sell.  Though she has done well to stabilize the business during this time, she also has worked to increase her savings and has her eye set on another loan from which to further her business as much as possible.  Your gift of a loan is changing an entire family’s economic and emotional situation, and, ultimately, impacting an entire community.

A dud gift lies forgotten in the back of a closet.  It gets sent to Goodwill.

I wonder if Jesus ever feels like a dud gift.  Christmas busyness removes him to the back shelf of our attention, to the bottom of our Christmas list. God forbid! We choose how to observe Christmas. Let our homes go undecorated, but don’t let us neglect to worship Emmanuel, God With Us, the Glory, Hope, and Joy of the World.

One way to keep Christ in Christmas is by daily advent Scripture readings. You can read through the accounts of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke and look back at the references to Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah.  Listen to music that focuses on the Christmas story. Christmas devotions can be found online, like http://www.d365.org/followingthestar/ and elsewhere.

We need to move beyond both buying into and decrying secular Christmas materialism.  Every crass ad and massive inflatable Santa can serve to remind us of the Word that became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.

Getting away is essential for students these days.  It’s why we see some many powerful things happen when they take a week, weekend, or trip and leave their phone, iPod, computers and TVs behind.  When we can disconnect from the world, we are better able to connect with the Creator.  And he spoke to them.

Our theme this year was clarity.  But it was much more than a theme.

It is an identity.

It’s our goal as leaders to these students.  We strive to provide clarity into God’s Word for them, and to allow God to provide clarity for their lives.  Ultimately, it is God who proves clarity.  But he has made so much clear to us through his Scripture.  Over these retreats we talked about clarity and how to make this idea present in our lives.

Clarity is easily lost when we aren’t connected to God.

But we also discovered clarity to be the essence of what we are and strive to do already.  And it’s under this discovery that we’ve decided to mold the identity of our Sunday evening Student gatherings behind the theme of clarity.  We want to provide clarity to God’s Word to students.  And we want to allow God to provide clarity to each student’s life while they join us.

I’m excited about how this new identity will travel.  How it can make what we do, more clear.  How it can help students understand why we gather, and to invite others to take a part in it.

God wants to provide clarity in your life.

Proverbs 3:6, “in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Psalm 37:23, “The LORD makes firm the steps of those who delight in Him.”

Isaiah 30:21, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’ “

Will you open his Word to find clarity?

What I mean is this:  If I have a Biblical theology of grace, forgiveness and love, but I neglect to exercise and embody the REALITY of these virtues, I am not living out the Christian life to its fullest.  As a worship minister, I am confronted with this same principle:  If I have a Biblical theology of worship but neglect to live out a life a worship (reality), then my worship is incomplete.

The same is true for our family life, how we treat our coworkers, steward our resources, etc.  We can have a great depth of theology concerning these matters, but if our theology does not translate to reality, we fall short.

Join me in this challenge and ask yourself, “Does my theology translate to reality?”  As we seek to live the Christian life, let us be ever-improving and always growing, remaining on the path toward a theology that translates to reality, and a reality that reflects a Biblical theology.

This week at Camp Outlook we were talking about our families…and much to the children’s chagrin, we talked about why God commands us to obey our parents.

Families are powerful.  God’s understands it, we need to understand it as well.

The Power Of Family.

My kids love the new Charlie an the Chocolate Factory movie.  At the end of the new version of the movie it adds a few scenes that were not in the original movie.  For me these last few scenes made the movie so much more powerful than the original movie with Gene Wilder.  It really drove home that the four kids and their parents who didn’t make it out of the factory misunderstood one thing.  The power of family.

Charlie didn’t have all the things that the other kids had but he had so much more. He had a family that loved him enough to believe in him and give him boundaries to keep him safe.

Family is God’s idea.  He created it to be a vehicle to show His power and love.  When functioning well, it is a shining beacon on a hill.  But we must teach our kids self-control, right priorities; we must refrain from giving our kids everything they want while giving them proper boundaries and teaching them to respect their elders.

Family is important.  We must never forget the power of family.  We are bombarded daily by so many things that call themselves important but really aren’t.  The spouse and/or kids God has given you are your main assignment.  You only get one shot.  Make the most of it.

At Outlook we strive to partner with parents in raising their children to know God and to love God.  This weekend is an example of that partnership.  During church on Sunday we will be having the Parent/Child Dedication.  A time where parents (with their family) step forward before God, their family, and the church as they dedicate themselves to raise their children in a home that honors Jesus Christ as Lord, to be a part of our larger church family, to teach our children God’s Word, to guard them, guide them, and love them into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ.   And God has commanded us as a church to support these families, so we will promise to support and partner with the parents as we love their children into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ.

On a chilly and windy Saturday morning, we all participated in a prayer walk that ended with each of us "taking up our cross."

I was so blessed to attend our Men’s Retreat last weekend.  I can’t thank enough the godly men who worked so hard to make it such a great experience for over 50 of our guys.

I was well fed God’s Word by my brothers in Christ.  It was fun, meaningful, challenging, and relaxing all at the same time.  A true retreat!

If you (or the man in your life) can make it, I wholeheartedly encourage you to mark your calendar for next year’s Men’s Retreat.