Thursday, June 26, 2008

We must seek aggressively

Isn’t it interesting that we can see someone who has an amazingly close relationship with God and say, “Wow, I wish I could have that kind of intimacy with Him.” How often are we left wishing we could spend more time in God’s presence, but we think we don’t know how?

It’s like exercising and being in shape. We see the person at the pool who looks like they must spend 4 hours a day at the gym and we say we wish we could look like that; yet we spend our evening on the couch eating pizza and watching television. With God it’s the same way, we don’t have an intimate relationship with Him where we spend much time in his presence if we passively sit on the couch and do not aggressively seek to spend time with Him. It’s easier to sit on the couch and watch television than it is to go to the gym and get in shape. Is it also easier to sit on the couch and watch television than it is to aggressively seek God? Are we willing to do what our mind tells us is hard, so our heart can be blessed?

Just as the ripped body is ours for the taking if we spend time in the gym; true intimacy and time in God’s presence is ours if we aggressively seek Him.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Are we being reprogrammed?

I recently read an article entitled "Is Google Making us Stupid?"

It's interesting to think about how each generation is "reprogrammed" by something and if/how the Internet is reprogramming us today.

What does this mean for us as Christians? How must we change the way we communicate the Truth of Jesus if we only get attention for a couple of paragraphs?

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Father's Day and focusing on the mission

So today was my first Father's Day and it was a great one. If all I had done today was hang out with my family I would have been happy, but today was an even bigger day for the Brueseke's. For my Father's Day gift Megan and Boden got me a framed copy of our newly minted Brueseke Family Mission. It's taken from 2 Peter 1:3-11. I have been meditating on these verses for several weeks now and I believe they provide the baseline for what our walk with God is all about. To be a follower of God we can really only have one mission and we all have to have it, that is the Great Commission, to go into all the world and share the Gospel. To do that and as we do that we grow and learn more about God, gaining understanding to how he wants us to do life.

In 2 Peter, Peter list characteristics: faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. He says if we grow in these qualities we can not be ineffective in our knowledge of God. Further he says if we practice these qualities, we can not fall. And finally, that by living out these qualities, there will be richly provided for us an entrance into heaven!

So we are striving to live out these qualities, growing in them, and gaining understanding of God, knowing that by doing so not only will we keep from falling, but we will be effective for God, effective for the Great Commission.