Holding back on God

Malachi 1:8-10

⁸ When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the LORD of hosts. ⁹And now entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you? says the LORD of hosts. ¹⁰ Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the LORD of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand.

This passage was written to Old Testament Jews who were losing step in there covenant relationship with God but it can be just as powerful to us today. This hit me hard because it comes down to the issue of the heart and worship. In Romans the bible says that your life should be a living sacrifice and your life should be your spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1-2). The truth is that my heart is often misplaced and so this passage is for me. The Jews were just going through the motions of worship and giving God the left over’s. They were not giving God their whole self which is what He wanted. Specifically these Jews were giving the “bad” sheep as sacrifice, and leaving the good ones for themselves. They reason they did this is because those bad sheep would not sell for much. They were giving second and third best. 

The same can be true for us, I know I often go to church and go through the motions or serve and help out but I do not have a humble serving heart. If God is my master and father then where is His respect and honor that he is due? Why do my actions and heart not line up? Why does this not bother me more?

I want to give God my all, I don’t want to be day dreaming while in church or saying a prayer to impress someone. I want an authentic relationship with Christ; this is what my heart longs for. Part of authenticity means giving Jesus all of you because this is what ultimately will fill our desires and longings. This is what we were made for; we were made to worship God.

We see God’s response to our lack luster worship of Him in verse 10. He gets sick of prayer meetings that only get used to gossip about other people, He gets sick of political power plays in church leadership, and He gets sick of people not being authentic and giving themselves wholly to Him.

In all of those cases we have a hidden problem. The problem is idolatry; we are worshiping something, or holding something in higher regard then God. The answer is to look at Jesus. There is no 10 step solution in order to give God your all. The solution is to become enthralled with Jesus himself, as He really is. Open your bible today and meet him. He is a good God who paid the penalty for your sin.

"Give Life Church a Shot"

This Saturday from 10 to midnight Life Church will be giving away shot glasses with a Life Church logo at “The Brickyard” sports bar in Lancaster City. Several of our team members will be there to answer questions that anyone has about God & Life Church.

So why would a church be giving out shot glasses at a bar? Well, for us it’s simple. At Life Church we really dig Jesus. We think he makes all the difference in life. But unfortunately most people don’t really know too much about Jesus because they are not comfortable showing up in church on a Sunday morning - mostly because they fear being judged or they figure they will not fit in. We understand that - cuz we don’t fit into church-world either. So our hope is to take Jesus out of the church building and bring Him to places where people are comfortable and can engage in conversations about who He is and what He has done for us.

So if your in Lancaster on Saturday, Head to the Brickyard and come talk with us. It will be easy to find us, we will be wearing the “Give us a shot” t-shirts.

Lastly, be sure to come check us out on Sunday at 10:30am in the Lancaster County Convention Center.

Pastor Jason.

Who Killed Jesus?

It seems this controversial topic has been struck up once again. This time the current Pope Benedict XVI writes that the Jews did not kill Jesus. He claims that a subset of the Jewish community, the "aristocracy of the Temple," killed Jesus and all of the Jews should not take the blame. For many years people have blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus. I know this issue is highly contended and the debate has been going on for quite some time.

It does not matter who killed Jesus, because the truth is that the only reason Jesus was in that position was because He put Himself there:

Jesus was not murdered, he willingly laid his life down. Jesus was on a mission

¹⁷ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:17-18)

 Jesus was not shocked to find people coming to kill him, nor was he expecting anything different. Jesus laid His life down because He had a singular mission that was much bigger then doing good works on earth. Jesus came to earth with a single goal in mind. Still though the truth that He laid down his own life raises questions, like "Why did He lay his own life down?" or even "Why did He not stop it? He could have done a lot more good on earth." So who killed Jesus? Why did he lay his life down?

Well, I am part of the reason Jesus laid His life down, and you too are part of the reason that Jesus came to this earth and died. You see we have the blood on our hands because we are ultimately the reason Jesus had to die and we are also the reason that Jesus died. He had to die for us because we broke relationship with God and ran from Him. Jesus came to earth on a mission to fix that relationship by taking away our sins. 

So ultimately you and I killed Jesus, we killed Jesus because we are perverted, we killed Jesus because we get angry and we have tempers. We killed Jesus because we are proud and hated God. We sinned and rebelled against God and because God still wants relationship with us He sent Jesus to come down and die a bloody humiliating death on a wooden torture device. The big question now is why? Why death?

God will not simply wink at sin and let it slide. That is not fair, God loves justice and so he must punish sin and wrong doing. We sinned and rebelled against God, and in a stunning act of kindness never before seen God sent Jesus to come here on earth and lay His life down as the payment for our crimes. Our crimes called for the death penalty and Jesus stepped in and laid His life down for us.

You see the person or group of people who takes the blame for killing Jesus should be us. You cannot blame the Jews nor the Romans because we killed Jesus - you and I. The Jews and Romans may have worked together to actually do the deed but the reason Jesus was killed lies on us. He laid His life down for us willingly.

So you see why I can say that you and I killed Jesus, I was part of the reason He had to come. I do not care what group of people killed Jesus 2,000 some years ago because that is not important. Jesus came to earth to die, that was the main reason why He came. Instead of pointing fingers at people let's point them back at us because we were part of the reason Jesus died.

You can accept that or not but right now we are in a period were Jesus is offering amnesty to the rebels who ran away from Him. We should be turning to Jesus in faith and thanking Him for laying his life down.