Hope or Wishful Thinking?

Hopeful or wishful? These words seem to be synonymous, right? One could say either I hope, or I wish, we could have our Thanksgiving dinner earlier this year, and either would work for the sake of a conversation. But I believe we have smashed these words together, and they need to be pulled apart and set back on their own.

Wishing has at its center, optimism. As an optimist one believes that either they can or that someone else will. Wishful thinking then can be super optimistic, and although it might offer a rosier view of a personally hoped for future, it is really no more than just that. Optimism at the end of the day then is when we put our hope in ourself, someone, or something else.

Now this wishful thinking can appear hopeful, but true hope has its confidence in God, so as wishful thinkers think they can or that others will, a person with true hope knows God will. So an optimist might look at a flat tire and say: "Sure, but it is only flat on the bottom." While someone who has their hope in God on the other hand, is not cued by circumstance and will look for God in any and all situations. True hope also has an odd calculator - the worse things get, true hope grows stronger and more confident.

"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope," (Romans 5:3, 4 ESV)

Hope stops being wishful thinking when we put it where it belongs: IN God. When we put hope in anything else, well that is simply wishful thinking.

In His grip,

Pastor Pat

Work, Work, Work

When it comes to work, we look at our “job” as the vehicle we use so we can live like we really want to live: free. Freedom to do what we want, when we want, and how we want, and work for some, is the necessary evil that is required to accomplish this. Not to condemn this, but isn’t there more to life than spending over half of it working so we can live the other half as we want to?

I am not suggesting that we all need to find the “perfect” job, because as I see it, there really is no such thing. We live in an imperfect world, full of imperfect people trying to get along, so they can continue moving on. So that being said, if there is no perfect job to be had, how do we get to a place where we can enjoy our work? This is really a simple process, but this does not mean it is easy. Finding joy in your work is not solely found in the “type” of work you are doing, but in the “whom” you are doing the work for.

Look at this verse:

Colossians 3:23 ESV
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,”

What would your “work” look like if you approached it as if you were doing it for God? Would you come at it with the same attitude and way you do now? We need to be living lives as followers of Christ, and pursuing the things of Him first, and not the things for us first. This is how we change everything: this changes the world we are living in by changing who we are living for in it…it can also change who our kids are living for too.

So it’s not so much about the work you have, but who you do the work you have for.

In His Grip,

Pastor Pat

Dream Much

So where do dreams come from? Not the asleep kind, but the ones we have about our future. Why do some dreams seem to come true and some don't? I believe that God is a creative God, and the evidence of this is in His creation. No two people are exactly alike; thousands of plant and animal species, and a universe that is expanding - wow! So with that said, I believe that dreams are a product of our creator; they are part of how we are made.

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us," Ephesians 3:20 ESV

Another way of saying what Paul wrote here is that the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us, is capable of doing more than we could dream. I don't want to get into the details of how, why, or what they necessarily mean so much, but how we, as Christians, respond to them. Often times, when it comes to dreams, they can become our goal, and God is simply the means we as Christians, want to use as the means by which we get it. But, I don't think that is the right approach.

I believe God gives us dreams to bring Him glory, not so much just to put us in a better place. If the dream was just for us, then asking God to help us get it would be like asking Him to serve us (our dream), and that is not how it works. God gives us dreams so His power can be shown in and through our lives. But this is not where the problem is; the problem comes when a dream comes from God and God shows up and the dream comes to life, and then the dream dies.

When this happens, we can feel like God has let us down, or worse, taken away our dream, to hurt us. God doesn't do anything to hurt us, if it is from God it is good. Period. But, God can and will test us, and when a dream dies, it just might be a test. Look at this quote from Matt Chandler in his book All In:

"Which do you love more; the dream God gave to you or the God who gave you the dream?"

GREAT question! So what is it? Are you holding on to a dream and hoping God will deliver on it, and then you will give Him glory? Or are you glorifying God in the process, so that whether or not you realize the dream, God will be glorified? Which will it be?

In His grip,

Pastor Pat

The BODY

When you hear the word "body," we think of the "physicalness" every person possesses, right? This is because, by definition, that is what a body is: the wholeness of our parts. We also use the term to describe the wholeness of things: like the sum of an author’s works as the "body" of his work. For the sake of this discussion, I want to talk about the collection of believers known as the church (ecclesia), and described in Scripture as the Body of Christ.

The term "Body of Christ" (1 Cor.12-13) is Paul describing how we all fit-together as His church. Just as Jesus' physical body performed His ministerial tasks while He was here on earth, we as His church, are to be the ones doing the physical parts of His ministry until He returns again. This is a critical thing to get our heads around: "we" are supposed to be His "body" - the physical representation of Christ on earth. That is some responsibility.

I believe being Jesus' body is more than some responsibility, I believe it is the most awesome responsibility a person can take on. But just as movement is evidence of life in a person's body, the absence of it is evidence there is no life. When a body stops moving for extended periods of time it is either asleep or deceased. This means that until Jesus comes back, His body should be moving, right? There is no argument here.

If we all can agree that as His body we should be moving, then why do we spend so much time in groups, sitting around talking about Him? If we are not using our time gathering together to encourage each other to keep moving as His body, then what are we doing? This is not a chastisement about meeting together, it is a pointing out, asking if we as His church - each individual - is moving as well.

The church as the Body of Christ was not designed to either be moving or gathering for one or the other, but both. We should be gathering together as often as possible, to celebrate who Jesus is and what He has done. In addition, we should use that time to encourage one another to keep moving.

So church, let's move already, gathering and go, gather and go!

In His grip,

Pastor Pat