Floating Far from Shore

About a year ago, my wife and I went on a vacation to Florida with my family.  While there, I had a lot of fun body boarding because of exceptionally large waves due to a tropical storm south of where we were.  I decided to buy a quality board while I was there and had dreams of instantly riding the waves at a professional level.  Though I did have fun and even had a few really good rides, ultimately I spent most of my time getting beat up and crushed by the waves.

I ended up in a lot of trouble on the last day we were there.  I had been riding the waves for over an hour and the waves were bigger than I had ever experienced.  I really was worn out and decided to ride one last wave.  In the process of trying to catch the 'last big wave,' I got swept out by a rip tide.  I knew instantly when I could no longer touch the ocean floor, especially since I am 6'4", that I was in trouble! I had no strength left and don't even want to consider what would've happened if I hadn't bought a board that could support my weight.

As I floated up and down on the waves and watched the shore continue to pull away from me, I must admit that I went into a quiet panic.  In my head I knew that I had to do anything I could to get back to a place where I could touch the bottom and make it back to the shore.  In my desperation, I dropped into a wave that was way to large and very dangerous and ultimately ended up getting raked across the bottom and tearing up both my shoulder and face.  I did make it back to the shore but I walked out in broken and in pain.

If I can be honest tonight, I feel like I am back on my board watching the shore pull farther and farther away.  I am doing everything I can to survive and find direction right now.  I am desperate to get back to that place of peace and strength in the Lord.  I would give anything for a week to recuperate, recenter, and recharge both physically, mentally, and spiritually.  Unlike when I threw myself into a wave that broke me, I am hoping that the Lord will throw me a lifesaver and pull me back to center.

Have you ever felt this way?  Have you ever known where you needed to be and yet you felt like everything was against you and that you weren't strong enough to make it on your on?  Well your in good company because I know many brothers and sisters, including myself, who have been and are there.

I write all of this because I have spent the whole day dwelling on how to get back to the shore.  MY heart has been wrestling with what the Lord is asking me to do and what I am willing to do.  Some of these things are so simple and yet our flesh fights so adamantly against us doing them most of the times.  Here are some of the things the Lord has laid on my heart and I hope they will be helpful to you also.  

First, the Lord has convicted my heart of my lack of love for the Bible.  It seems that I put everything else in my life before the Bible.  My heart selfishly desires rest over God, not realizing that true rest is found in God.  I have a million excuses for why I never get to the Bible and yet none of them override my need to firmly place my life within the Bible.

Second, the Lord has been challenging me on my need of mentors in my life.  I have two wonderful brothers in Christ whom I am so thankful for in my life but unfortunately both of them are hours away from me right now.  The Lord has been showing me my need for a man of God from my church to train and challenge me in my walk.  No matter whether you are a man or woman, you need Christian brother and sister's to come beside you and help give you strength and and guidance in Christ.  I would also recommend finding someone close to your age whom you can walk beside with as accountability partners and someone older and stronger in their Christian walk to train and develop you in your own walk.

Third, though I, especially as a new parent, have a great desire for sleep and downtime, I need to be diligent about spending time fellowshipping with the body of Christ at my church.  The church is where you should grow, mature, and center yourself in Christ.  You should be able to find a group of friends to fellowship in Christ with.  You should feel as though your Pastor is pulling you deeper into a walk with Christ through faithful Biblical teaching.  Most important of all, you should find a ministry to actively serve in.  This is because, as Christians, we are to actively serve for Christ.  If all we do is take from the church, then we will the honor of teaching and serving for Christ.

Please pray for me as I struggle to grow closer to Christ through implementing each of these in my life.  Each of us how areas in our life where we can grow in our walk with Jesus.  We will all go through mountain tops and valleys.  I pray that each one of you will grow closer to the Lord in your daily walk.  Know that even if you feel like I do at time, floating far from shore and desperate, the Lord will always be there to pull you to shore.  Just call to Him and know He will be there for you.  I hope this blog will help your heart and walk tonight.

Blessings,

Greg Ivey  

Greater Love Has No One Than This

There are times that it is easier to blame the tragedies of this world on anything and everything than to realize that we are all sinners.  In some ways, I feel shame for blaming media for the shootings in Aurora.  There are so many times that I teeter back and forth on whether certain media is okay to participate in or whether we should run very far from it.  I guess the argument could be made quite succinctly for why indeed we should not participate in many of the forms of media around us.  Many Christian movements in the past have made the argument that we should essentially hide from the world and keep our hearts from encountering any sin.  Ultimately, I believe this is more a cowardly position than biblical position.  

In the Bible, Paul says in Romans 12:2, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."  It is very easy to speak that verse and come up with all types of things that it means including isolating ourselves from the sin of the world but I don't think we are doing the Bible as a whole justice by taking that stance.  Paul also said in 1 Corinthians 9:22, "I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some."  When you combine these verses, we begin to see that Paul did not mean for us to isolate ourselves from the world and yet he was adamant that we not conform to it.  

Now let's build on Paul's words with the examples of Jesus.  Jesus loved being around sinners so much that the Pharisees accused him of being one.  His response to them in Matthew 9:12-13 was this saying, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”  Jesus also actively went to Zaccheaus and told him to come down so He could go to Zaccheaus' house.  Jesus did not condemn the adulterous women but rather told her to go and sin no more.  Jesus spoke to the samaritan woman at the well.  Jesus told the parable of the good samaritan, which spoke of religious leaders passing by an injured man due to not wanting to be made unclean and yet a samaritan man, who was considered an outcast in Jewish culture, had enough love and compassion to tend to the man and pay for his hotel stay and cost to be healed.  

Jesus and Paul were not afraid of getting down and dirty in the pursuit of reaching people for the kingdom.  I, all to often, try to avoid being uncomfortable by being around sin.  I do not enjoy spending time with someone who does not listen to the Christian music I listen to or watch the clean shows I watch or speak the clean language I speak or live the clean life I try to live.  Am I greater than the Son of God??  I am not.  In writing my last post, I realized that avoiding everything that could be conceived of as sinful and unwholesome was more for my own comfort than my concern for the souls around me.  

Though I know not all would agree, I believe the new testament makes it clear that reaching people for Christ involves stepping out of our comfort zone and into others sin filled lives to be able to show them Jesus' salvation.  I do not believe that Jesus or Paul sinned as they ministered to people but they were willing to walk beside them in the sinner's world to speak truth to them.  Ultimately, I believe this is what Paul was talking about in Romans 12:2.  It is not necessary to conform to the sinner's world to reach the sinner but it is necessary to walk with the sinner, maintaining the pure walk of Christ, to have the opportunity to speak truth to a sinner.  

Yesterday, I chose to watch the last installment of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises.  At the end of the movie my friend and I spoke about the souls around us.  We spoke about how easy it is to condemn their actions and judge them.  It is much more difficult to see them with the love Jesus has for them.  It is much more difficult to acknowledge that each person around me is a soul worth reaching even if I have to participate in uncomfortable things to be able to share the truth with them.  Everything in the life, as a Christian, should be centered on Christ and sharing the truth of His salvation with as many people as possible.  

As the stories of the victims of the Aurora shootings continues to unfold, we are beginning to see glimpses of Jesus' love in people who may not have know Jesus.  There were many acts of love lived that night by people giving their lives to protect those near them.  There are glimpses of God in each one of us Christian and non-Christian alike.  Are we willing to risk our lives that someone else may come to a saving knowledge of Jesus?  Would we have given our life to save another in that theater?  Would you have given your life for a non-Christian in that theater so they would have another day to know Jesus' love and mercy?  Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."  Do you love the people around you enough to walk beside them and tell them the gospel even if it means being uncomfortable or the possibility of death.  I hope so.

Blessings,

Greg Ivey

Do We Still Seek What is Pure?

**As a note, I wrote this blog last night as a reaction to the Aurora movie theater killings.  This blog is what I believe to be a real and disturbing look into our present world culture and a majority of Christian culture also.  I apologize in advance for anyone I offend.  I decided to post this blog because I feel it is necessary for us to deal with things that are unsavory and against culture to help us develop a more authentic walk in Christ.  Please understand that I am not against watching movies or tv show, listening to music, or playing video games but believe that we have to be careful what media we participate in.  Also I in no way condone the actions of the Aurora killing or anyone who would act in those ways.**

In some ways, I am confounded by our nation's reaction to the Aurora shooting this morning.  Everyone seems so shocked by the ghastly set of events that happened last night.  No one can imagine why in the world someone would want to do such a horrible soulless thing.  "Movies are supposed to be all about fantasy."  "Why in the world would someone actually shoot people during a movie scene where people are being shot?"  "Do you think more or less people will now go because of the shooting?"  These are some of the comments I heard today.

I don't understand why we are surprised by the turn of events at the premiere of Batman: Dark Night Rises.  I don't understand why the world is horrified by these events. Isn't this what our culture wants?  Don't movies, tv shows, and news networks rake in large amounts of money from these very scenarios?  Some may argue that just because we like media about situations like this doesn't mean we want it to happen in real life.  I hope you will take a moment and look at the movies and tv shows that are coming out and have come out recently.  Do you see a trend?  Have you not noticed that the gorier the horror the more money and cult following?  Have you not noticed the more shocking and impressive the action movie is the more money and favorable reviews it receives?  Have you not scene tv shows, especially crime dramas, turn more sadistic and "realistic" to raise ratings?

I hope that many of you reading this blog tonight have been sickened by the current media selections and content way before today.  I hope most of you would concede that what we feed our heart and brain with does affect us.  "Garbage in.  Garbage out."  is not a new phrase.  It is not some new realization that we are just now stumbling on.  We have known this for millennia.

Let's take a walk down history lane of entertainment gone awry.  The roman coliseum, which we are all very familiar with from the movie Gladiator.  Public corporal punishment and tortures of the middle ages.  The witch trials.  The spanish bull fights.  Cage Fighting.  Public hangings in our not to distant history.  The western duals.  Many of the events I just mentioned are looked on with contemptibility and horror and yet we call them entertainment if shown in a movie or tv show.

I don't know about you but I can't stand people who claim to be one thing and yet live lives completely contradictory to what they claim.  Isn't that what we are doing though?  How can we, who with bated breath wait for the next ever darkening installment of a movie series such as the new Batman and Hunger Games, be anything but untouched by events like the such of this morning.  We crave this violence on the movie screen.  We crave to be entertained by death, darkness, depravity, anti-heroes, profanity, sex, shock, and horror.  How can we expect that everyone who watches these things will not be effected by them?  How can we be shocked by someone doing exactly what they see on the tv and movie screen?  We can't.

One of the people who was in the theater in Aurora last night said, "I don't ever want to see anything like that again."  Do you think this incident will stop him from seeing the final installment of the Batman trilogy?  Maybe for a while but probably not.

We are immersed in a culture of depravity and half truths.  We are inundated with media convincing us that evil is not completely evil.  We have been brainwashed to believe that being exposed to artificial murder and sociopaths does not perpetuate murder and sociopathic behaviors.  Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is time to wake up to the reality that what we put into our heart will color what we think, how we live, and how we act.


We must guard our hearts.  I am not just speaking to movies and tv shows but also music that is not soul affirming, news programs that constantly show dead people just to prove they are dead, games, and so much more.  We must move past the naivety that we are unaffected by these things.  We must begin to stand up for things that are right and true.  Philippians 4:8 say, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
If we used this verse as a standard for all the things we want to listen to, watch, or participate in, I suspect we would spend a lot less time in the world and a lot more time in the Word.

Wake up beloved!  We have to stand up for Christ.  We have to live boldly and passionately for Jesus and that can not look like the world.  Jesus is completely counter culture.  In fact if you find yourself fitting in a little to snugly to culture, I hope you would step back and reevaluate your walk with Christ.  We are to live differently.  We are to live in a bold quest for complete truth.  We are to live a life sold out and completely focused on Christ.  If your really honest, could you say that this describes you?

I hope you will take the time to examine your heart, especially what you have been putting into it.  I hope you will pray for the many peoples lives who were instantly changed by last night's events, including the gunman and his family.  I hope you will pray for a revival of hearts and minds in this world.  I pray we would send a message to hollywood, the tv networks, music artists, gaming companies, and internet media that we will no longer stand for the media that is damaging and destroying our nation.  I pray that our lives would reflect Jesus' love, grace, forgiveness, and compassion.  I pray that we, Jesus' beloved, will stand tall and strong in Him and will begin to live an authentic reflection of Philippians 4:8.

Cool Waters on a Hot Day

Birth Miracle

It would be impossible to do birth justice by trying to explain how incredible it is.  I must admit that the idea of the birth process scared me half to death.  I did a great job of focusing on work, chores, and my wife instead of what would happen in the birth room.  I was afraid of the pain my wife would experience, whether I would be strong enough to stand beside her, and whether my boy would be okay or not.  The unknown is what I feared most and there was plenty of it.  The unknown is what I have always feared.

Well Tuesday night began my walk into the unknown.  She began light contractions Tuesday night and I tried my best to get some decent sleep, knowing that he could come at any time.  Naturally, I struggled with sleep for those first few hours.  At about three in the morning, I laid all my fears down at Jesus' feet.  I talked to Him about my need for sleep and my desire for Him to take away my fears.  I believe Wednesday morning was the first time I had truly laid all my fears down in my life.  For the rest of the night, I slept in peace till my wife woke me up at 7:30 and said it seemed like it was time to go.

When we arrived at the hospital, Mel and I were taken to a testing room to see if she would be admitted or not.  The nurse and doctor was sufficiently pleased with her contractions and progress and she was admitted.  Once in the room, we began what I can best describe as a 15 hour marathon.  Though the husband does not experience the physical pain the mom experiences, I would testify that the husband does go through a marathon of emotional struggle.  It is not easy to see your wife in such pain, especially when she chooses to go natural.

The birth went great and my wife was truly a champion!  She did wonderfully and handled every part of the birth process so well.  My respect and love for my wife was increased so much by the way she handled such a grueling and painful process.  Much of the last part of the birthing process was spent praying that the Lord would end it soon.  The Lord's grace washed completely over my wife as she was able to focus on each contraction while allowing time to become a blur.  I, on the other hand, was acutely aware of how long the process was taking and wanted her pain to end soon and wanted so much to meet this little boy who had been squirming in my wife's belly for the last 9 months.

When it came to the end and the final pushing, I was in awe.  I felt no fear.  I felt no timidity.  I felt nothing but love for my wife, great expectation at my son's entrance, and desire for my wife to experience relief.  On that final push when he made his entrance into the world, I felt nothing but wonderment, peace, and praise.  The birth of a baby is a miracle.  Anyone who can question the existence of God at the moment of birth is beyond my comprehension.


For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. Psalm 139:13 

Blessings,

Greg

Blessings While Living for Christ

I am so thankful for the many things God is doing right now in my life.  It has been so incredible to see Him grow the following to the blog.  I am looking forward to seeing the miracle of my son being born soon!  We have finally taken the first steps towards career missions.  We have found a church that is faithful to teach the Bible, who love on us like family, and in whom we find so much joy to attend and be a part of.  God's blessings are so immeasurable!

As I think about all God has been doing in the life of my family, I have realized that God moves so much more when we move also.  In Matthew chapter 24-25, Jesus talks about the end times and then continues to talk about how we are to act till those times come.  The main themes Jesus brings out in these chapters are: being prepared, being steadfast even when it feels like you can't go on, and to beware of false prophets and teachers who come in His name.  We are to live this life dependent on Jesus.  We cannot forget who we are living for and that this life is only a vapor.  We must live for the eternal.  We must seek the truth of the eternal in the Bible.  We must walk towards the day we are face to face with our Savior and Lord.

I know I have said this many times but we cannot get wrapped up in the things, ideas, and pleasures of this world.  We must walk everyday like it is our last.  We must live our lives like Jesus could come in the next moment.  We can't keep wasting our lives on silly things.  We can't keep wasting our lives living for ourselves not when there are so many people who have never even heard about Jesus Christ.

Now I know how completely counter culture these words are but I hope anyone who has read the gospels would understand that following Jesus isn't exactly swimming in the mainstream.  You are following a Savior who was crucified for His words and actions.  The people of His time couldn't even wrap their heads around what He was saying.  Jesus was completely counter cultural.  If you find yourself like everyone else around you, it is time to take a serious look at who you are in Christ!

I grew up during the time of DC Talk and the song Jesus Freak.  I have to say that I love there song especially the part talking about John the baptist.  Jesus, the disciples, John the Baptist, and Paul, were all counter cultural for their time and almost every single one of them died for their passionate faith.  They LIVED for Christ.  They BOLDLY shared Him with others.  They WILLINGLY died for Him.  When you examine those last three sentences, can you see yourself in any of them?


Many have said, "It has been 2000 years.  Jesus must have been lying because He isn't back yet."  The thing that is most interesting about that statement in that in the chapters Jesus speaks directly to it being a long time before He returns (24:13, 36-44, 48; 25:5, 19).  He spoke specifically to enduring till the end.  2 Peter 3:8 says, "But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."  Just because Jesus has not come yet does not mean we can be lax about following Him.  Jesus said that not even He knows the day or time when He will come back.  How can we live our lives so selfishly when He could literally descend upon this earth before you even finishing reading this blog.


I do not write these words to shame anyone or make an argument for works reliant salvation.  You are saved by the grace of Jesus alone.  Beloved, I must tell you this though.  If you can read both Matthew 24 and 25 and not be moved, then you need to check your heart.  If you read these chapters and cannot see yourself in any part of them, you need to check your heart.  Jesus made it clear in both these chapters and other parts of the Gospel that He will turn away the "Christians" He does not know.  


Here are a few questions you might think about in qualifying where your heart is in relation to your love of Jesus.  When I speak about Jesus coming in soon, does your heart leap for joy at the prospect or instantly rebel against the idea and hope I am wrong?  Are you more worried about being prepared for your Saviors arrival or fulfilling your bucket list?  Does your heart break for the non-Christians around you or are you satisfied with ministers, missionaries, and the extra talented laity to reach them?  Do you help your brother or sister in Christ when they are struggling or are you to worried about your own woes?  Jesus speaks to each one of these questions in these chapters and the rest of the Gospels.  


I hope you will take the time to check your heart and your relationship with Jesus.  Do you know truly Him?  More importantly, does He know you?  I hope you will take these next few weeks to freshen up your reading on Jesus by looking through the Gospels.  I pray you will not look for the easy verses and words of Christ but will also take the time to work out his difficult words, like the ones in Matthew chapter 24 and 25.


Blessings,


Greg