Be FOR Something, Not Just Against Something

Too many Churches have spent their existence being against sin, against evil, against the devil, etc.  We,  as a nation, have spent the first part of our 21st Century being "against poverty", "against terrorism", "against joblessness", against this, that or the other. Even politicians spend their whole careers being against the other politician.

Why not live a life of being FOR something? Lets be FOR creativity, FOR building businesses, FOR building relationships, FOR peace, FOR cooperation, FOR enjoying life to the fullest.

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." ~ Jesus

Don't live your entire life being against something. Be FOR something greater than yourself.

Jesus is more about being FOR US than just being "against sin".
Let's live a life that was meant to be.

Boyd Merriman

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Enjoy Life to the Must!

 "Holy Must Batman!"

Do you have a Holy Must? 


Luke 2:49,
And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I  must be about My Father’s business?”

Luke 13:33
Nevertheless I  must journey today, tomorrow, and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem.

John 3:30
He  must increase, but I  must decrease.

John 9:4
I  must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.

2 Peter 1:14
knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.

Of course, there are many musts throughout the bible and no need to visit them all.  But I had begun to wonder if our lives are filled with musts, or are they filled with “would be nice if” or “I should” or, here’s a good one, one in which we come close to endangering ourselves to blaming God for our failures…”If the Lord willing…”

Must, is a powerful statement. "I must" is saying “to heck with the excuses, the worries, the finances, the neighbors, families, friends, and even pastors and churches!  I MUST…..”

Do you have a “Must” in your life? Or are you living a wish?  Wishing to me is being “wishy washy”.  “I wish(y-washy) I had a way to go“ turns into “I MUST go and there is a Way!”

I do not want anyone to fuss at me for seemingly ignoring key scriptures such as:

James 4:12-16
Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.


But should we use that as an excuse to not move forward?  Should we lay back and do nothing based on assuming that it’s not God’s will?  We look for signs of God telling us to move forward when God simply never put the sign up there that we should stop!  If you drove down the road and saw an intersection, but there was not a stop sign, would you stop? Do you need a “Go” sign?  Or do you simply drive on through assuming that the other road crossing this intersection is the one with the stop sign?

Luke 11:29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.”

We keep looking for Go signs where there are none except this:

Matthew 28:19-20  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Emphasis of course, is mine in this quote)

That is our Holy Must, and in our everyday life, we have our Musts we ascribe to.

What is it that you Must do?  Build a business?  Go back to school?  Become  more active in your church?  Spend more time with family?  YOU have to dig deep inside yourself, (ask the holy spirit for help on this one) and find your MUST in your life.

I highly recommend popular book "The Shack" by William P. Young, the Holy Spirit is depicted as Sarayu, a small, delicate and eclectic woman of Asian descent, who loves to dig out weeds in your "garden", which is deep into your soul.

I also highly recommend "Your God is Too Safe" (Rediscovering the Wonder of a God You Can’t Control.) by Mark Buchanan, which helps you get out of your "Border Land", much like The Shack helps you get out of your Shack of a life.

Ecclesiastes 9:10
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might,….”

 Don't just live a musty life, enjoy life to the Must!

Boyd
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Boyd Merriman

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Do You Want Overcooked Broccoli or Ice Cream?

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Or: You can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd.

This is a good analogy for me since I am an Ice Cream Junkie! (Now you know where I got that round thingy my belt is holding in)

Imagine, you are with your friends and out on the town, having a great time. Then your friends decided to stop at the local ice cream shop to have some ice cream.  Wonderful! Everyone agreed and went in, including you.

But then you started to worry about your health, your diet (or other weird things like that), so you decided to order Steamed Broccoli.  Sounds silly? Of course it does!

But isn’t that what we try to do in God’s Kingdom?

Humanity is in an ice cream shop eating over cooked broccoli! (It’s over cooked because Ice Cream shops are really not in the broccoli business)  Now if that don’t sound silly, I don’t know what is! (But then again, Ben and Jerry has been known to come up with broccoli ice cream, but that is another story)

Let’s get with the Kingdom program!  Jesus has you in His Shop and you are trying to order from a vegan menu!  It’s like crying out "Steeeeer-rike!" at a foot ball game, or playing punk rock at a ballroom dance, or as the old Roger Miller song goes, “You can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd”.

But you can try.

Boyd Merriman

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I am afraid of what others might think!

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I heard that many times in life, and have found myself using it as well. That has stopped many people from enjoying life, moving forward and taking risks. Including me.

But what does this mean when we look at it in the reality of who and what we are in Christ?

I will go over each word individually, but also as part of the whole. For every word spoken in this sentence, adds more problems exponentially.

I: "I" is a big word.  It is all about Me.  Me, myself and I.  MeMeMeeee! The first thing we do is start off with “me” when we should be starting off with the Triune God.  So we say “I” instead of saying “Our Father”.

I am:  Like Adam, we begin to replace God, the Great I AM, with our own version of “I am”.  (Gen. 3:10) We have ideas of what we are outside of who and what we are in Christ. If we start with the true “I AM”, the Trinity, then we would not be so focused on this broken "I am".

Afraid:  Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). So right off the bat, we are not using the fruit of the Holy Spirit: Love.  The very first words of Adam to God after he took of that forbidden fruit were, “I was [am] afraid”.   Fear sums up all of the troubles and sins of humanity.  And the first victim of that fear was God.  Adam and Eve found a new fear and hid themselves from God.   But Jesus Christ removed that fear.  So why are we still hiding from God and from each other?  We still hold on to that fear because we are still seeing ourselves as “I am” rather than seeing God.

Of What:  Yes, of what?  What are you afraid of?  An unknown?  “I am afraid of what” is a good question.  We too often don’t even know what we are afraid of, so we lash out against God and everything and everyone else. 

Others:  That committee of others.  Whoever they are. Like the “what”, we don’t even know "who".  We have yet to meet them.  So we just call them “others”.  What is so detrimental about this is that the “others” might be your family, friends and neighbors!  Why are we afraid of them?  What have they done to deserve such a critical view of them?  It shows how critical and accusing we have become.  Again, like Adam who blamed God and Eve for his fears and troubles.

Might: Not will, just “might”. We are not even sure that they will think or not think. We just stop our lives in mid stroke just based on a “might”, a "maybe", a “not sure but just in case”.  There is no reality to this fear except our own.

Think:  Not do, just "think". Now when did the thought of others actually hurt you?  The only way the thoughts of others can hurt you is when they act or speak out those thoughts.  But we have not gotten that far yet. We are still just on “think”.  Maybe they did think these things (whatever it is that we think they thunk), and IF they did, they may have changed their thoughts immediately and started thinking right (called repentance). Or maybe their thoughts were very good towards you (Like God’s thoughts towards Adam and Eve were good), but we are afraid of them anyway, even though they may not have thought them at all.

Put them all together and you are revealing a whole mess of broken theology at work in your lives!

When you really think about it (speaking of which), you will find that our fears are based on selfishness and believing that others are taking their valuable time and concern and negatively placing it towards you and that what they think are actually evil thoughts!   In reality, they are actually our evil thoughts towards them!  How dare we to stop living based on our misconceptions of our family, friends and neighbors. And who said they were thinking about you anyway you selfish “i am”?  They have their own concerns!

Who knows?  The "Others" may want to support you in your mission in life! And if they don't, that is their life, not yours.

“I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” John 10:10 Yes, Jesus said “might” (KVJ), but not because Jesus is holding back, but because we still allow our selfish, paranoid fears to hold us back from the reality of who and what Jesus is and our wonderful relationship we have with God.  We can now live back in His garden, living off of the Tree of Life, who is Jesus.

“I am afraid of what others might think” is so wrong on so many levels!

If Jesus thought like that, he never would have walked on water, or healed on the Sabbath, or picked grain on the Sabbath! He is the real "I AM" and I AM is not afraid of what others might think!

I will admit that some people do have broken relationships with someone thinking negatively towards them, but chances are, they are thinking negatively towards a lot more than just you and the life you are living in Christ. It is them, not you.

Boyd Merriman

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