What you believe defines you

Have you ever been challenged with who you really are? How you are perceived? I know for many years (especially in college) I struggled with knowing my “identity”. I played football in high school, Jr. College and at Colorado State Univeristy  and for most of my life I was known as a football player. I was that stereotypical meathead football player who always spent time on the couch watching football, talking football and talking about football. Then my senior year came at CSU and I suffered my 8th concussion durring Fall Camp. My football career was over and in my opinion the one thing that defined me was now taken away from me. I remember being so frustrated at life and especailly at God. How could this happen?

Looking back, this situation was the best thing that ever happened to me and I know it is weird to say, but I am so glad that God took football away from me when He did. You see, I became a “Christian” while in college but never really understood what it meant. It wasnt until after my injury did I see my life and my faith differently. I was confronted by a verse in a Bible Study with a good friend, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). I was challenged by this because I never really knew what it meant to be “in Christ”. A couple of years after my injury I finally moved from labeling myself a Christian and became a devoted follower of Jesus. This new relationship has now defined me in many ways. I am defined not by what I do but by what Jesus has already done. The challenge is that we allow so many other things to define us but the one thing that can bring true definition to who we are sometimes get overlooked. You are defined by what you believe to be true. Not only about yourself but what you believe about life and faith.

The definition of my life is about what I know to be true about life and faith. There is an old Rich Mullins song that I absolutely love, it is called “I believe”. I want you to take a look at the lyrics and allow the lyrics to speak to your heart.

“I Believe”

I believe in God the Father almighty
Maker of Heaven and Maker of Earth
And in Jesus Christ
His only begotten Son, our Lord
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
Born of the virgin Mary
Suffered under Pontius Pilate
He was crucified and dead and buried

CHORUS:
And I believe what I believe
Is what makes me what I am
I did not make it, no it is making me
It is the very truth of God and not
The invention of any man

I believe that He who suffered
Was crucified, buried, and dead
He descended into hell and
On the third day, rose again
He ascended into Heaven where
He sits at God’s mighty right hand
I believe that He’s returning to
Judge the quick and the dead
Of the sons of men

CHORUS

I believe it, I believe it
I believe it
I believe it, I believe it

I believe in God the Father almighty
Maker of Heaven and Maker of Earth
And in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son,
Our Lord
I believe in the Holy Spirit
One Holy Church, the communion of Saints
The forgiveness of sin
I believe in the resurrection
I believe in a life that never ends

LET LOVE LIVE!!!

Brokenness and Hope

This week at Timberline Pastor Dary really challenged all of us in seeing our brokenness in a different light. Allyson and I have experienced moments of extreme brokenness as individuals before we were married and also as a married couple. One thing Dary said really made me think; He said that brokenness forces introspection and when we get burned we are careful not to get burned again. This obviously makes sense, who wants to be burned a second time?

However the danger in this is that it can cause us to be frozen in fear rather than move forward in confidence. The word courage does not mean without fear, courage can be defined as moving forward when you are scared. There have been times in my life that I felt like such a coward because of my fear, but I am glad to say that in SOME situations (sadly not all) I have been able to move forward in spite of that fear. What about you? Do you find yourself frozen with fear because of past hurt, pain or brokenness?

If I have learned anything about a relationship with God, its that God is a God of Hope. Hope is something that we all look towards, for many of us (Whether we know it or not) it is hope that keeps us moving forward in life. Barak Obama was elected president of the United States mainly because of the message of Hope that he preached during the election. Setting political agendas aside I think that his campaign exposed something in our culture, people are looking for hope in life. There are so many things that cause us to loose hope, these are real things and it would be foolish to minimize them by saying a cliche like “Keep Hope Alive” or “Everything happens for a reason”. The reality is that somethings are senseless and others sometimes do things that effect Innocent people and causes them to loose hope in certain situations (Financial, relational, emotional, physical, etc…). HOWEVER, there is hope in life. Jesus himself preached a message of Hope to a generation of people and that message continues to spark hearts all over the world.

Brokenness can cause you to see things in a different light, and that can be a good thing. Don’t let brokeness keep you from moving forward. “Do not loose heart… I have overcome the world” (Jesus of Nazareth). What a great promise to rest in.

Let Love Live

Canceling the noise

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone at a concert? Or how about a motor speedway, or under at roller coaster as the cars roll along the track right above you. Well, its insane to try to carry on a conversation with someone when there is a ton of noise around. I don’t fly very often but when I do I love looking at the “Sky Mall” Magazine, it is full of a bunch of creative inventions that I probably don’t need in life but would sure like to have. One thing I always see advertised in the Sky Mall is noise cancelling headphones for your ipod / mp3 player. Why do people want noise cancelling headphones when they are on airplanes? That’s right, to cancel out the noise so they can focus on what they want to hear.

nine70’s discipleship environment is called “grow@nine70” and the purpose of the environment is to create a place where people can dedicate themselves to the apostles’ teachings and to following the Words of Jesus of Nazareth. Steve Anderson is a great friend who has a heart to grow this young adult generation deeper in their commitment to the Lord. It is a 5 week environment that has a teaching, discussion and a weekly challenge for those that are a part of the class. This last Sunday the discussion in class was on “Hearing God’s Voice”. The principles we talked about were:

-          THROUGHOUT THE BIBLE GOD SPOKE TO HIS PEOPLE

-          WHEN GOD SPEAKS HE ALWAYS PROVIDES US WITH THE MEANS TO HEAR HIS VOICE

-          HEARING GOD’S VOICE IS BORN OUT OF RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM

-          GOD GIVES US THE ABILITY TO EXPERIENCE ALL OF HIS ATTRIBUTES, INCLUDING HIS VOICE, THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT

 

God is desperately wanting to communicate to His people and the problem isn’t whether or not God wants to talk to us, the issue is whether or not we will allow distractions in our lives to subside so that we can hear what He is saying. We have so much noise in our lives that it drowns out the voice of God as He tries to communicate with us. We challenged this class to take a Media Fast this week and eliminate as many distractions from their lives as possible. No Facebook, no internet (Except for school / work), no TV, no radio, no podcasts, etc…. The purpose isn’t to see if we can avoid these things, the purpose is to put ourselves in a mindset where we would develop into a true disciple of Christ, the key word in the word Disciple is discipline, we want to help those that chose to walk through this environment replace bad disciplines for Godly ones. We continually talk about Matthew 6:33 “Seek first His Kingdom…” this week is a great way for those that want to dig deep in being a disciple to seek HIM first.

It is for this reason that I wont be posting anything to my Twitter / Facebook profiles this week. I also realized that it is the first week of the NBA playoffs so hopefully the Nuggets will get through the week so I can watch them next week. So friends, see you all next week, I look forward to Tweeting all that God teaches me this week.

Let Love Live,

Reza