Hello everyone,
I just wanted to let everyone know The Beginning of Wisdom has moved to a new home with a new look. Check it out at justinjantz.com and subscribe to get my blog updates via email. Thank you for keeping up with my blog and I hope you continue to stay connected and continue to let me know what you think. I also have a new email if you have any questions or comments, justin@justinjantz.com. See you guys there.
Justin
This morning I can’t get this instance out of my mind.
Last week I was sitting in Carmax selling my truck, and I missed my chance. Not my chance to get a good deal, not my chance to save money, but my chance to show God to people. And I wish I would have just opened my spiritual eyes to see what God was doing.
It was cold and rainy outside. A homeless man came in with a basket of banana nut bread ( which is the best gift known to man). He came in to sell it to raise money for his shelter, which could or couldn’t be real, but that’s not the point. He began to share his story of how God helped him over come his addiction and had saved his life. I sat there listening intently, and these stupid words came out of my mouth:
“Sorry man, I don’t have any cash on me…”
And that was how I left it. As soon as the man left, I knew I had missed the opportunity to just simply pray for a hurting human.
This morning don’t miss your chance to show people God. Don’t miss your chance to build a relationship and speak life today.
I follow a blog by a worship leader named Carlos Whittaker. It’s some good stuff, so if you haven’t heard of him, now you have. But the reason I love reading what he writes, is because it’s real.
I’ve said it before, but people are searching for real in a world that is full of fake. I’m sure I’m not the first to say that, and I don’t think I’ll be the last. Anyway, Carlos recently had a post titled ” Judging Sin, Pissing Of Baby Mamas, And A Bad Case Of PlankEye”. He set the hook on one particular person in particular, to judge, and then that person went further than needed. But that’s people, right?
So as I finished up reading this post, I started thinking. And it’s not exactly where he took his post, but that’s where it started.
So here is my thought…
Why has this world gotten to the point to where good, honest, true Christians are so hard to find, and have become the “exception”. Why is it that “normal” has become families falling apart, people not helping each other, selfishness ruling over people?
It shouldn’t be crazy to help someone out, or to talk to people about God, or to not be selfish and serve others, or to stand out.
I wish it was normal to be the exception, and the exception normal.
We have to become uncomfortable with ourselves and become comfortable with people.
Genesis 11 tells the story Babel. The people of the city decided to build a tower, the tower of Babel. This tower was intended to reach Heaven. On the outside it seemed to honor God. But the people of Babylon didn’t build this tower as a form of praise, they built it to make a name for themselves. God came to see what they had built and quickly saw past their performance.
He saw that their hearts weren’t in the right place and took away what they had wanted so desperately to keep. God changed their languages and scattered the people across the earth. They no longer could understand each other and the world no longer had only one language. If they tried to communicate with each other it sounded like “babble”.
Our God is all-knowing. He sees past all acts that you put on. We all fall guilty…
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So the Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. But Jesus replied,“My Father is always working, and so am I.” So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God. (John 5:16-18)
Read: 1Samuel 1:1-2:21, John 5:1-23, Psalm 105:37-45, Proverbs 14:28-29
Relate: Out of the mouths of children… I was asked once, “Why do we have church on Sunday instead of Saturday?” I started to answer when I was interrupted, “No. God rests on the seventh day and He doesn’t like it when we all sing at Him while He is trying to sleep.” Even as I struggled not to laugh I started explaining how God never sleeps. The response I got, “I know, duh. It was a joke.”
React: I can smile…
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We are continuously met with new challenges every day. Both good and bad. New things can be exciting, and also a little scary. New brings a long with it ups and downs, glorious highs and deep lows. New brings differences and unknowings. I have just recently embarked on a new journey in my own life by being called into ministry even more so, and stepping up into the role of being a youth pastor. It is a time of great excitement. It is also a time of nervousness.
I know I am not the only one to ever doubt myself or my thoughts. I know I am not the only one that has questioned the voice of God. Questioning your calling is not uncommon. We are human. We have self doubt and we can be our own biggest critics. We ask God if we are really good enough for the job he has called us to do, if we are even truly being called at all, if this is the right time to pursue our calling, are we prepared and equipped to do the job at hand. I could go on and on with the questions I have heard asked and questions I have asked myself. I have heard it said this way, and I’m sure you have too, God does not call the equipped, He equips the called.
Be willing to change the things in your life, to make yourself new in Christ, to truly serve God. Become new in God so you can find the you God sees.
“The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.” – C.S. Lewis
Do not talk, or think yourself out of the calling and anointing God has put upon your life. God will continuously place new opportunities in front of you every day. Don’t hold yourself back and take a risk to grow the kingdom of heaven.
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. -Martin Luther King, Jr.
We live in a world full of repeated offenders. Not just criminals, but all of us are repeated offenders. We constantly fall back on the things of this world. We get uncomfortable or we loose sight of what God has in front of us, and we look back to the world for our answers.
Why? Why do we turn away from a God that tells us He loves us, tells us we are everything to Him, and tells us we are important? Why?
We walk through our lives at times without giving a second thought to the fact that God sent His only son to earth to die for us. He died thinking of you and me and every other person that has, is, or will walk this earth but we don’t even give him a second thought. We forget that the God who created everything, the God who made the sun, the stars, and the moon, thinks of us every day. The God who spoke life into us before we were ever born, that is the God we turn away from.
How many times will it take for us to realize this world has nothing for us compared to what God has for us? How many times will we turn our back to God until we finally say enough is enough? How many times will stand by and give in to the ways of this world?
It is impossible for us to be perfect. It will always be impossible. If you think you are perfect and if you think you have made it, it’s not done. We will never be sin free; however, we can do our best to be without sin. We can do our best to be like our heavenly father.
Peter denied Jesus three times knowing exactly what he was doing, after seeing all the miracles that Jesus performed, and after walking on water. If Peter can walk on water and still deny God and turn away from what he knew to be absolutely true, then it’s safe to say we will turn away from God as well.
As followers of Christ, we must do our best to turn away from the hypocrisy and lies of this world, and begin to fall into the arms of our heavenly Father. He is where we will find ourselves and where we will find our peace, our hope, our joy, and our happiness.
It’s human nature to not trust God until you have to. – Rick Warren
How many times will we turn our back on God until we truly need him?
The Beginning of Wisdom 