20somethingpastor.com

We talked last week about Loving God and Loving People but I want to look at one more point in that same scripture. When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was, he 613 options from the Old Testament. He chose this one:

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these” (Mark 12:29-31)

Do you? Do you love yourself? Let me throw this out there, take it or leave it. 

If you do not love yourself, you can not love others or God.

You can’t love the creator if you don’t love the creation. If you don’t love yourself, you will only be filled with jealousy and envy of others.

Hey, speaking of blogs… if you are interested in starting your own there are some great resources out there for you to get started. Today, I will try to help point you to them and feel free to pass this along to others who you know may be interested.

• Go to Terry Storch’s Blog. He is a tech/internet guru and can really help you. Here is post he made about blogging with links to some great tools! –> Terry’s Blog 
• Terry also helped author a book,  The Blogging Church. I have read it and definately recommend the book if you are interested in blogging. It will help answer the questions, “Who should Blog,” “Why blog,” and “How do I blog.” You can find the book on Terry’s blog or go to Amazon Books. 
• Want to know the difference between WordPress.com and Wordpress.org? Go here.

Hope this helps!!

Well, lately it has been all I could do just to keep a regular post going. But things have settled down a little bit and I am ready to get back into true blogging. I haven’t read another blog in over a month, barely had time to check my own. So thanks to all of you who have stuck with me.

 As far as the future goes, I am planning on doing several things now that I have learned to use Word-Press a little better.

• I plan on setting up an additional page/domain (I’m not sure yet) for family. Include picture, videos and stories from our adventures in Colorado as a family. Not updated as often but at least on a regular basis.
• I also would like to one day get to the point where I can have another domain that strictly has youth ministry resources for free. Now there a more than a dozen other websites that you can get free sources and hundreds more that are fairly cheap. But what good does it do me to invest so much time into writing sermons, creating small group material, etc to use once and then sit on it? I am not trying to become famous or start speaking at youth conferences. Just me sharing what I got to those who want it.
• Create another page/domain for my students here at KCBC. Try to establish a good online community through blogging. Our future plans are to have small groups use the same material (tailored for a specific group) that they use as they are divided up by age/gender. But they will be able to go online and continue conversations, ideas, thoughts, etc with the entire youth ministry through an online blog. It will also provide them with a calendar of upcoming events and a place to download permission slip forms, registration forms, etc.

Well, that’s it so far.

 Thoughts?

When asked about the most important commandment, Jesus said”…(Love God with everything you have ) The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.”

No.. I didn’t have a typo there. He said “Commandment (singular) than these (plural).” Did Jesus make a mistake? No, I think he meant it. Besides that fact that he said it in Greek and not English. Because I think Jesus was saying that you can’t separate these two commandments.

You can’t love God without loving others. God is love. Jesus, God incarnate, was the very definition of love by both his life and his words. You can not love the God of love, and not love his people.

You can’t love God without loving others.

Just as a side note from yesterday’s post, about God and giving money. I just want to throw this out there

GOD DOESN”T NEED YOUR MONEY!!!!

He has never been running short on funds and had to take up a special offering. He has never had to put the universe on hold because the bills were piling up. Maybe ministries need your money to continue running and maybe some preachers need your money to… do whatever they do with the money. But God doesn’t need it.

We give because we take and take and take and use resources from the church and it’s only right that we keep up our end of the deal. We give because it’s not ours anyway. We give because our treasure should be in the next life, not this one. We give because we trust that God is our provider. We give because we are commanded to and it is an act of obedience.

We don’t give because God needs it.

Sorry for the rant but I just wanted to clear that up.

Love is Revealed through Action.

That is probably more of a no brain-er the more I think about it. But I think it goes deeper than just an outward behavior.

What does it mean to love God? Take a look at the poor widow in Mark 12:41-44. She gave two copper coins (not even worth a full penny) to the temple treasury while so many others were putting in thousands of dollars. Jesus told his disciples that she gave more.

Why?

Because her giving came from her poverty while the others came from their wealth. It cost them nothing to give that money away because they had so much extra. But she believed in something so much that she was willing to give up everything for the cause.

I think we all long to believe in something that much.

Where does your outward action come from? Are you obeying because it costs you nothing and it’s the right thing to do. Or do you believe in it so much that, you aren’t just willing, but you have given everything? (And I’m not talking about money here)

When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment (of the 613 commandments in the Old Testament) he said this “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these” (Mark 12:29-31)

What does it mean to love God?

“If you love me, you will obey what I command.” - Jesus (John 14:15)

He said it not me.

Your Love is revealed through your action.

Well, we made it without a hitch (outside of taking an hour to get the Budget truck started the morning of the move).

I finally feel planted which is something that I have not felt in a long time. I don’t know if I can even fully tell you why. Psychologists say that the most difficult (stress causing) life experiences include: moving, changing jobs, getting married/divorced, having children and losing a loved one. Over the past two years I have changed jobs, moved three times, got married, had a child and lost a grandfather. On top of that, I have had a burning passion in me that I know was placed by God that I have suppressed for too long.

In the midst of all the change that I have experienced, I finally feel “planted.” I don’t even know if I can express it to you, but there is not a better way to say it, than I feel “planted.” I feel like I am where I am supposed to be. I feel like I am finally ready to start growing and building deeper roots. Almost, as though I have been stuck in a flower pot for so long and someone finally put me in the middle of an open field. Now, there is unlimited potential and I have all the room and nutrients I need to grow.

I forgot what this feels like. Are you ”planted?” If not… let’s change something.

Well, it has been a long day full of packing and loading the Budget truck. I am off to Colorado at 5am tomorrow and will tell you about all my adventures when I arrive in the next few days!

 Pray for good weather!!

Adam