Hey guys,
Just some late-night thoughts here.  What is your life pointing towards?  Does it point to you and how cool you may be?  Does it point to living one way and talking another?  Does it point to living like hell until Sunday or when you're around other Christians?  OR  Does your life point towards Jesus?

What do I mean?

I mean, our lives can point to many things. Whatever it is pointing towards is what stands out, is glorified, or held high in our lives.  If we live to party, that's what people will see our life pointing towards.  If we live for ourselves, that's what people will see glorified in our lives.  If we live to get the best of others, people will see that.  If we live for money, that's what our lives will glorify.

As Christians, we are called for our lives to point to Jesus.  What does that look like in a life?  The Bible says, that the only thing that counts is "faith expressing itself through love".  In other words, we have faith in Jesus and express that through our love, compassion, sacrifice, and giving towards others and our love towards God.

So, do you express your faith through love?  Are you loving others as you want to be loved?  Are you lifitng God high in your relationships, Myspace, personal life etc.?

Also, are you loving towards God?  The Bible says that we know we love God when we do what He says.  Where are you at with this?  Is there something you know that's not right that God is calling you away from?  Or is there something you know you've needed to start that God is calling you towards?  That nagging in your conscience...well...that's the Holy Spirit pushing you one way or another.  Are you responding to that conviction from God?

I want you to think on this.  No one is perfect, and each of you are growing and changing (especially as teens).  But we can't claim to know Christ and be satisfied to live like people who don't.

We need to not just play church, but be His church.  We do that by love towards God and others.  The Bible says that all of the commandments hang on those two things: Love God and Love people.  And people will see our lives pointing toward Jesus.

They won't know us by our coolness, craziness, money, popularity, beauty, ugliness...
but by our love.

It is such a rare thing for people to live this out. Seriously.  But, are you up to the challenge? 


big love,
Patrick

So you're coming to Meltdown.  You know what to expect; you've been there before.  You'll have fun with your friends, meet new people, hear some music and some speaking, and just have a good time.  But I challenge you to expect more than that.  God works in our hearts when they are open to His move.  So I want you to develop in your heart a sense of expectancy.  Be open to and expect God to speak to you this weekend.  Be open to and expect God to rearrange some things in your life.  Be open to and expect God to call you away from sin and into a life of passion and holiness.  Are you ready for it?  Are you ready for your life to change?  Expect it.  Open your heart to the Lord. You will get out of this weekend as much as your willing to open your heart to.  God is calling you.  He will meet you where you are at. Are you listening?  Are you willing to respond to His voice?  Expect Him.  See you on Friday.
Patrick
Jeremiah 29:13- "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." 

This message is for all you believers on myspace and anyone else who professes to be a Christian. I say these things with the utmost sincerity and love to all you people.

So take a look at everything you have on your profile, and ask yourself that question. What if He did? What if Jesus were to look at your profile? What would He find? Would He be shocked? Outraged? Pleased? Would He be glorified through it?

The truth is, Jesus Christ would be utterly appalled at the worldliness and carnality of the pages of so many people here in myspace that claim to know and love Him. And you know what? He is. He has already seen your profile; in fact, He knows everything you've ever done since you were born, and everything you will do until you die. He's seen every sin done in secret, and knows exactly where you stand with Him.

Again, I say these things not to condemn you, but because I love you and know God loves you and wants you to get right with Him. He wants you to love, serve, and obey Him, and give Him all the glory.

So take a moment to let the light of Christ shine on your myspace to expose every evil thing.

1. FILTHY LANGUAGE
Ephesians 4:29: "Let not any filthy word go out of your mouth, but if any is good to building up in respect of need, that it may give grace to the ones hearing."

Does any filthy language come out of your mouth (or your keyboard for that matter)?

The 3rd commandment is, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."
Do you disregard God or Jesus Christ's name so much that you would bring it down to the level of a filth word to express disgust? The Bible makes it clear this is a SERIOUS sin. Every time you do this you show your lack of respect and fear to the very God who gave you life.

2. CLOTHING
Romans 12:2 says that you shouldn't be conformed to this world. Do you try to be like the world or like Christ? Look at all the pictures you post, especially you, ladies. 1 Timothy 2:9 says that women should dress MODESTLY. Just because every other girl dresses with short skirts and skimpy outfits showing a lot of cleavage doesn't mean you should too. As Christians we are called to be different, set apart, HOLY. And in Romans 14 it says that if we cause someone else to stumble, we have sinned. Think of all the people you have caused to fall into sin. And not just non-believers, I'm talking about CHRISTIANS as well. Do you get picture comments like "Youre hot!" or worse? Well, congratulations--you've caused someone to lust after you. Jesus said that if you look with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart, and the Bible makes it clear that no adulterers will enter heaven. Does it concern you that you might have caused someone to slide further into hell because of your lack of discretion?
Furthermore, the Bible makes it clear we should be giving God ALONE all the glory. People should be able to look at us and see Jesus. When you show a lot of skin, or when you adorn yourself with much jewelry, or flashy and fancy clothing, who are you showing off, Christ or yourself? Something to think about.

3. DRINKING
Or what about drinking? The Bible says that all things (that are not sin) are lawful, but not all things are helpful (1 Cor. 6:12). The Bible doesn't condemn drinking, just drunkardness. But again, if you use the liberty you have in Christ to cause someone to stumble, you have sinned. Think about how pictures with you holding beer cans have DAMAGED your testimony as a Christian, and have caused others to sin. You claim to be a Christian. People are looking at you, looking up to you, examining your every move. You're giving non-believers an excuse to keep living the way they do. They're going to look at you and say, "Christians act like that?" Drunkards are going to use you as an excuse to remain drunkards, and others will be turned off from Jesus because of your attitude. Dont give them a cause to blaspheme the name of Christ, or to use your poor choices to try to justify their own sinfulness.

4. LOVE OF MONEY
Matthew 6:24 says that you can't serve both God and money. You will either "hate the one and love the other," or "hold to the one and despise the other." Do you love money? Do you desire riches? Jesus told us not to lay up for ourselves treasures on earth, but in heaven (Matt 6:19-20).


James 4:4: "Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever desires to be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."

Anything else that is against the Bible or trying to imitate the world is wrong, and you need to get rid of it from your profile. Violence, vanity, theft, pride, selfishness, arrogance, sexual depravity, filthiness, etc. If you care enough about God and others, you will heed to His words.

Now please take what you just learned and apply it not only to your myspace, but to your personal life as well. If you have truly been saved, born again, redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus on the cross, you know that God is always there, beholding all the good and evil you do. Were not perfect, and we sometimes fall to sin, but we do have to aim for perfection. We have the Holy Spirit guiding us, and every day making us more holy. So we are left without an excuse.

So whenever youre tempted to act like the world, remember that Jesus is there watching you. Whenever you're watching a TV show or movie that contains violence, blood and gore, nudity, sex, homosexuality, witchcraft, horror, or any other form of wickedness, remember that Jesus is right there with you. Whenever you want to listen to secular music that doesnt bring Him any glory, Hes there listening to it with you. Think about it--you love to watch and listen to these things because they're entertaining. But they're not glorifying God, and they are actually harming you. Theyre not bringing you closer to your Creator, theyre taking your mind away from Him, and they inject demonic filth into your mind. It's like eating poison.

Psalm 101:3 says, "I will set no wicked thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me."

And Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, my brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are right, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue and if there is any praise, think on these things."

There you have it, clear commands from the Lord. Do not waste your time with this nonsense; fill your mind with what is good, and pure, and holy. The closer you get to the Lord--the more you fall in love with Him, the more joy you have in Him--the less entertainment you will need. And the only way to do this is by reading the Word, obeying Him, and seeking Him in prayer. We need to live radical, holy lives for Christ.

"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light."
Ephesians 5:11-13

You have been called to be like Christ. If everything I said just sounded completely whack to you and you have no intention of changing, you have to examine your own salvation, because it is VERY likely that you are not saved. Please go to www.examineyourself.com. This is so important, your eternal salvation is at stake. God doesn't want you to go to hell, and neither do I.

"If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth."
1 John 1:6

"Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."
1 John 2:15-16

Luke 23:34
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

I pray to the high heavens that Christ arrives in your life this very moment.

Amen

Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish peasant in northern Palestine who lived in the early years of the first century.   His friends and kinfolk were scattered across the Galilean hills.  He worked as a carpenter, but could often be found hanging out with his fisherman friends a few miles east of his village, along the shore of Lake Tiberius.  Around his 30th year, Jesus ceased working in his carpenter shop and started working full-time as an itinerant story-telling Jewish rabbi, crisscrossing his homeland with a motley band of disciples.  Rumors of miracles swirled around him; and with the miracles, crowds of desperate people came, looking for hope and for healing.  Jesus was executed by the Romans in the early first century - and yet within days of his death, a whole series of persons and groups experienced him alive again.  Had it not been for this bizarre event that we call Jesus' Resurrection, his movement surely would have crumbled after the crushing defeat of his execution.  Yet as Jesus' followers discovered him alive beyond death, they each discovered new courage and tenacity sufficient to energize a world-changing movement.

Once the generation of friends and followers of Jesus began to die, people sensed a need for writing down the varied memorable actions and parables of Jesus.  The four most widely-accepted written summaries of his life and work became the four Gospels of the Christian Scriptures (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).  Yet there were other written accounts of Jesus' life in the late first and early second centuries, widely circulated but not accepted into the Bible.  Some of these accounts were a bit over the top in terms of supernatural details.  The Muslim Qur'an mentions Jesus 93 times, recognizing him as one of the great spiritual teachers of all time.

Across the centuries, there have come to be many different ways of looking at Jesus.  Different groups focus on different aspects of Jesus.   Brian McLaren, in his book A Generous Orthodoxy, includes a very helpful chapter entitled "The Seven Jesuses I Have Known."   McLaren's list includes the Conservative Protestant Jesus, the Pentecostal/Charismatic Jesus, the Roman Catholic Jesus, the Eastern Orthodox Jesus, the Liberal Protestant Jesus, the Anabaptist Jesus and the Jesus of the Oppressed.  We are up to seven Jesuses and we have not yet even stepped outside the family of Christians!  We could add the Muslim Jesus, the Jewish Jesus and more.   Each Jesus is simply a unique angle on the same person.

(Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy.  Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 2004.  Chapter one: "The Seven Jesuses I Have Known", pp. 43-67.)

The major theme in Jesus' teaching (and actions) was "the Kingdom of God," the idea that we are invited as both individuals and as a new community, to live out values at odds with how most people and most societies live.  Jesus freely used the term kingdom, a word troubling to some folks today due to the political and violent connotations of worldly emperors and lands ruled by autocratic dictators.  But Jesus and his movement turned this word (and several others) upside down!  Jesus' kingdom is almost an anti-kingdom, a reign of God not imposed violently from above, but offered gently.  It is a spiritual place where the law of love epitomizes something utterly opposite of what empire meant in the days of Caesars, and opposite of what it means in today's geo-political chess game of super-powers.

Jesus' message was an invitation to any who would listen: an invitation to radical personal transformation and radical world transformation.  This message ultimately, got him killed by the rulers of this world.   He wasn't running for political office, but his social teachings and values were undeniably subversive!   Los Angeles pastor Erwin McManus calls Jesus a barbarian: a sharp contrast and a threat both to the civilized religion of first century Judaism and to the larger civilization that was the Roman Empire.  One might think of Jesus as the captain of God's spiritual insurgency (again it's an upside-down idea of insurgency, committed to non-violence and love at its core), marching forward with full confidence that nothing in this world (or beyond it) could hold back God's triumphant advance.

(Erwin Raphael McManus, The Barbarian Way.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson Books, 2005.)

When we consider the whole breadth of Jesus' teaching and his many encounters with people, we see a most extraordinary human being.  We see one who reveals the very essence of God's character and intent in the world.  In the Jesus story, we see God at every turn.  We see…

• Compassion for suffering people, regardless of the cause of the suffering.
• Solidarity with poor and socially marginalized people, including a willingness to confront the rich and the powerful about their moral obligations towards persons who are less privileged.
• Mercy to forgive those whose lives had gone off-track morally and spiritually, even to forgive those who attacked him personally.
• Treating all people as precious treasures, regardless of their race, religion or gender.
• Anger at hypocrites and others who saw themselves as better than others, while they were blind to their own short-comings.
• Fortitude to stand up to inward struggles, to the religious establishment, and even to the Roman Empire, to stand up for what was right, never compromising, never backing down an inch.
• Teaching that was based upon two universal principles: the need to love God with our whole hearts and to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40).
• Disregard of various taboos or traditions of his religious heritage when he saw that they were in conflict with larger, universal truths.
• The sense of urgency that we need to respond to God's love and invitation immediately, lest we lose the opportunity of a lifetime.

Insofar as your heart beats in sync with the points just listed, you may discover Jesus to be a far more attractive figure than the pale sectarian guy with the blue eyes and the brown beard playing in the church near you, beneath the shadow of the American flag.  This was no wimpy dude.

With his life, death and resurrection, Jesus broke the spell of prideful fear that conditions the way we human beings look at life.  In the gospel of John, the most artistic of the four gospels, the preacher-author puts these words in Jesus' mouth: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no one comes unto the Father but by me."   It is impossible to determine if Jesus historically said this, but the words remain profoundly true either way.  The way to God is perfectly illustrated in Jesus: in short, the way of compassion, mercy, radical trust, and love for God and others.

© 2006, Paul Nixon, Mother Tongue: Finding the Words to Pray from Your Heart (soon to be published)

Teachings from Dr. Paul Nixon of Epicenter Church in Washington DC

  Change is often feared and many people don't like it. Change happens, it causes you to grow and move and to reevaluate your surroundings. Pray that God will use change for inspiration in your life. Enbrace change as opportunity.

The only constant is change!

We are going to change things at MGUMC youth ministry for good, for better and for best.  Its going to be alot of work and it will take some time we might upset some people and step on toes, we might even stir up other change in our little church. I want you guys to be ready and I want you guys to embrace it for good. DO NOT FEAR!  Be excited!                                                               

                            I leave you with this:                                                             If its broke fix it. If its not, break it and make it better than ever.       

Is it a sin to be Good when we are called to be great!