Spirituality and the Dentist Chair

So yesterday I twittered something that I know sounded like I had been given too much novacaine. I twittered that going to the dentist was like coming to church in many ways. Now before you start sending me emails of your dentist horror stories just listen to mine. For one I have the most amazing dentist in the world. (Dr Mike) Shameless plug for my friend and fellow Relevant peep. So be kind with the dentist stories at church he is sensitive. (LOL) Back to the story. So a couple of weeks ago I went in to have some dental work done and at that time Mike told me that I really needed a good cleaning. So that is what I had done yesterday and that is when God spoke to me in the dentist chair. (I admit it is a little weird, but stay with me). As I sat down in the chair the hygienist (Penny) came in to perform the same cleaning that she has done on probably hundreds of patients, but God wanted to speak to me as His patient at the same time.

So the cleaning began. She started by asking me some questions you know the standard "do you have any pain in your mouth?" etc to which I responded, "actually one tooth on the top is kind of hurting." She then said, let's take a closer look at that and she pulled out the x-ray machine and snapped a picture. "We will take a look at that in a moment," she said as she went back to work. She proceeded to scrape off all of the tartar that had built up on my teeth over the past year. As she was scraping the tartar off she was telling me why it was hurting and bleeding a little. She said when you do not brush and floss on a daily basis the bacteria in the food mixes with your own saliva and creates this substance called tartar and then there is no way you can get it off without help. She then asked me the dreaded question, "Do you floss?" to which I responded, "Well sometimes but probably not as much as I should." I told her that I like the new flossing tools on the stick. I said "those make it easier," to which she responded. "They do make it easier but they do not do it properly." I was busted. She then told me she was going to polish my teeth and get them looking good. Then she said, "now I am going to teach you how to brush and floss the right way." I was a bit taken back, I mean I am 40 years old and I have been brushing my teeth and flossing occasionally for years. I did not think I needed a class on brushing and flossing. But she insisted. She then showed me that she had a mirror above the dentist light and she adjusted it so that I could see what she was doing. She said " I want you to watch how I do every step so you can replicate it when you get home." I watched her brush and floss every tooth with precise detail. Her next statement rocked my world. She said, "Paul I can show you how to do all of this, but now I am going to give you all of the tools and you are going to have to go home and do it every day for yourself." It was now my choice to determine the health of my teeth. So I left the office with a bag of tools that could and would help to keep my teeth healthy if I choose to use them.

WOW! that is when it all sunk in and God smacked me in the head with this idea that I had just experienced church. You see we come in each week and hear a message that generally poses a question as to where we are on our spiritual journey. Then we look into the Word of God to see what God has to say about that situation. Upon looking at what God says about it, sometimes we feel Him scraping the tartar off of our life and sometimes this process hurts. Then, we generally ask the question, "How did things get so bad?" This only leads to a response from God in the form of another question, "Have you been spiritually brushing and flossing each day?" After realizing that maybe we have been neglecting the proper form of spiritual maintenance, God tells us, "No problem I am going to polish you up and show you exactly what you need to do to continue the process". There is only one catch, "When you leave here, He says, you will have to do some of this yourself!"

You see, I think we get confused sometimes with two words. Salvation and Sanctification Salvation or the act of becoming a Christ follower is something that only God can do. Salvation comes from God, but sanctification is the process that God uses to make us more like Him and just like flossing and brushing, we are very involved in the success of this process. I think Proverbs is a great book to help us in this process. Keep reading this week and don't skip the process

Super Bowl Excitement Not so Super

Well the big day is just about here and it seems like there has been a buzz in the city for months now. From painting, to cleaning, to planning big parties, many are getting pumped about the big game. However, I am not one of those people. Not that I do not like football or the super bowl for that matter. I do. The fact is though ,this year, I could care less about the two teams involved. Sorry Hal Mayer and Danny Schafner. But there is something else, something is just different this year. There seems to be this cloud over shadowing the big game much like the rain clouds that have been hovering over our city for the past few days.

I guess my heart is just heavy today. This week has been anything but super. On Monday I found out that a church that I love dearly and respect a great deal had to lay off 8 people. One of which is a good friend of mine. Tuesday I got a parking ticket for parking in a lot where I have permission to park. Wednesday I found out that another friend of mine just lost his job and another friend has a brother who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Then yesterday I got word the club wants to talk about raising our rent (are you kidding me!!! I thought we were in a recession?).

So I know that you are saying Paul stop it with all the great news!! LOL! Well it is hard to find joy and excitement in the middle of difficult situations and yet that is what God asks us to do. I am not sure if you are feeling the same way that I am this week. If your week has been anything but super. However, I know this, all of the circumstances around me may be saying things are horrible and things are bad and things are going to get worse, and they may. But I refuse to give up, I refuse to roll over, and I refuse to quit.

I think that is the essence of the super bowl. In this game you have two teams one that everyone is calling one of the best teams in the league and another team that people are saying well they did what they had to do to get here and they made it. Think about it Arizona is a 9--7 team, they lost 4 of their last 6 regular season games and yet here they are 2 days from the pinnacle game in football. Why? Some would say luck, some would say determination, some would say heart, but no matter what it is they are here and history will tell their story of how they got here and what they accomplished. Win or lose they made it to the Super Bowl and I promise you when Sundays game is over each player will want said of them. "They left it all on the field"

My question for you today is, what super bowl are you facing? Or what has made this week or this month less than super? You see Jesus went to a Super Bowl type event back in his day with a cloud over his head. Everyone else was celebrating the Passover and yet He knew He was about to become the the person who would eliminate the need for a Passover. The cool thing about Jesus is that He refuses to give up, He refused to roll over, and He refused to quit. His Super Bowl was not played out in a huge arena but on a hill outside of Jerusalem and yet His victory there has sealed our victory forever.

So with that said I would like to have you join us this Sunday as we Celebrate Jesus' victory some 2000 years ago. I am going to be talking about the super bowl type event Jesus was a part of "the passover" and we will be having communion. I can tell you that I am pumped about the party that we are going to have Sunday morning. It is going to rock all other parties going on for the Super Bowl. Be here and invite someone to come with you, you will be glad that you did.

BTW- After some caffine and some time with God this AM I am feeling much better. ALMOST SUPER!!!! Look Out Sunday!!

Fire alarms maybe they are telling me something?

I hope that all of you are enjoying the nice brisk weather we have been having the past week. It seem the cold has kept me inside for my workouts most of the week. That is until today. You see my first triathlon of the season is on February 14 and I really need to get some time in the pool so that I am ready. Well all week I have been going from YMCA to YMCA looking for a pool that was open. It seemed like every one that I went to was closed for the season. Well today I finally found out that the Campo YMCA in Brandon had their pool open, so I decided to check it out. Now mind you I am a pretty good swimmer, I was never on the swim team or anything but I felt I was ok. Keep in mind that it was like 38 degrees out this morning at 7:30am when I arrived and you could see the steam coming off of the pool. I have to admit it looked pretty cool. So I dawned my triathlon spandex shorts, grabbed my goggles and headed outside. I jumped in the nice warm pool all by myself and began to swim. 1 lap, 2 laps, 3 laps, "are we finished yet" I began to think. I was only at 150 meters and my body was telling me "you should have started working on this part of you training a whole lot sooner than now". Well I continued swimming for about a half an hour and I can tell you I was dead tired when I finished. But the story does not end there, you see as I was finishing my last lap the lifeguard came over to me and told me that I needed to get out because the fire alarm was going off. I said "but I only have my spandex on what about my clothes. They told me I could run in and get them and then change outside. So that is what I did. lucky for me (or maybe everyone outside) they had an outdoor restroom. That was my morning how was yours?

So I know you are all saying Paul what does this have to do with anything at Relevant. Well the fire alarm story was just for fun but the swimming story is the key. You see I have been telling myself for 2 months now "the swimming part of the triathlon is no big deal, just wait till a few weeks before the race and you will be fine" Well I am a few weeks before the race and my running and cycling are great and my swimming sucks. Do you know why? Because I have neglected that portion of training. I tried to skip a step in the process and now I am paying the price. Sure I will be ready and finish the race, but things could have been so much easier if I would have just been working on every part of the training a little bit at a time.

I think that the same is true in our spiritual journey. Maybe we have alarms going off all the time telling us something is wrong but we just ignore them. Many of us make a decision to become a follower of Christ much like I decided to become a triathlete but we leave certain steps out of the process that will help us maximize our experience with Jesus. We like the thought of being a Christ Follower but hate the training that goes long with it. Then we have an alarm that goes off and it reveals the problem that we have been ignoring. Well this week at Relevant we are going to be discussing the Spiritual Bailout that we receive from Jesus and also what process of spiritual fitness goes along with this Bailout.

Mental Toughness Recap

So this past Sunday we looked at the idea of "McGyvering It". Do you remember the show McGyver he was amazing!! I have never seen anyone in a bomer jacket with a mullet as sweet as his do so many cool things, and all in the middle of stressful situations. So this begs the question, how do you respond in the middle of crisis or stress? From athletes, to zoo keepers we all deal with situations that cause us to scratch our heads sometimes and wonder how in the world that we are going to make it through. I think that the key to all of this is mental toughness. I know for me every morning I am faced with the reality that there is a treadmill and weight bench calling my name and I have a choice to make when my body says no to have my mind say yes. And I can honestly say that for the past 30 days I have worked out 5 days per week and the amazing thing is that my body is responding to my mind telling it what it is supposed to do. To date I have lost 15lbs and have lost a whole pants size. I am stoked and am really loving the way that I am feeling because of it. So I just wanted to encourage everyone where ever you are on this journey of fitness to just not quit keep going and the results will follow. I think that this is true physically, spiritually, and mentally. So here are the key points from this past weekend in case you missed them.

Tools for Mental Toughness:

1. Listen to the experts. PRAY ABOUT EVERYTHING Check out success stories in magazines and the Internet - fitness, money, or otherwise - you'll find they are people JUST LIKE YOU. So if they can do it, WHY CAN'T YOU?

Philippians 4:13 (NLT)
13For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.


2. No pain, no gain vs. Patience, pacing, and persistence. PUT INTO PRACTICE WHAT YOU LEARNED. When you realize that failure and handicaps have NOT prevented winners in any area of life, you gain more confidence and courage to pursue your own dreams.

Phil 4:9
9Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.

3. "What next?" thinking. "KEEP MOVING FORWARD" -"Walt Disney" Give yourself solution-oriented feedback when solving your problems. Don't dwell on what went wrong. What are you going to do about it? Spend your energy on moving forward, finding an answer.

Phil 4:12
12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be.

4. Get comfortable with the unfamiliar. Make it a part of your daily routine to do something totally different than what you normally do. You'll be better prepared to handle diverse environments with greater calm and confidence.

Matthew 5:43-48 (The Message)
43“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ 44I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, 45for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selve

5. THINK AND SPEAK WELL OF YOUR HEALTH. THINK ABOUT WHAT IS TRUE AND RIGHT. We tend to make real what is the "main feature" of ourselves. What's YOUR "main feature"?

Phil 4:8
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right.


6. Don't be a victim of ads and fads. DON'T COPY THE BEHAVIORS AND CUSTOMS OF THIS WORLD. Yes, the world is full of greedy people looking for a fast and easy way to put your money in their pockets. Make sure the thing that impresses you meets your criteria, and satisfies your concerns.

Romans 12:2
2Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

7. Hang out with people who have already achieved their goals or who are dedicated to goals similar to yours. Avoid associating with people who have the same unresolved problems or who are frustrated by their lack of achievement. You know, the pity parties. "Oh, woe is me. My life is in an upheaval. How about you?" "You poor thing. Woe is me, too. I feel terrible about myself. How about you?"

Proverbs 27:17
17As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend.

8. Focus on desired results. Pure and simple: winners dwell on the rewards of success. Losers focus on mistakes and failure. Do what's necessary NOW. Be in the present. Then you don't have to worry about what happened yesterday or what's going to happen tomorrow.

Philippians 4:12-14 (NLT)
12I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. 13No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heave

9. Expect the unexpected. You can't control what happens and what others do. You can anticipate what MAY happen, and prepare for them as best you can. You can also control your response to what happens.

Philippians 4:6-8
6Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Hope this helps you guys on your journey.

It has been a while

I know it has been a while but quite frankly I had to take a break with all of the stuff going on with the 30 day sex challenge. That was some crazy stuff let me tell you. I was thrilled at the opportunity God gave us but I really am glad it has slowed down. I have been spending some time with the family recently. Susie and I went to Costa Rica for 4 days and then we took the kids to Disney for spring break. It was an awesome time of refreshing. We just launched a new series called "TXT" it seems to be going great and we are working on our next two series after that "sweatin with the 80's" and our summer movie series. Both of these should be great. Well I have a leadership thing I am going to share tomorrow. Just thought I would say God has been great here and Relevant is still the best place in the world to serve.

Birthday Week

I know many of you have had those weeks where someone in your family is having birthday and so you are running around all week making preparations for the big day. Well that is happening for me this week except instead of one birthday in our house this week there are 3 yes that is right three. Ashlyn's (12) was yesterday, Susie's (I am not supposed to say 40) is Friday, and Anthony's (9) is Saturday, so need less to say there is some stress in our house this week. It is kind of cool to have them all so close together because I never forget them but the special day sort of thing is lost a bit because everything is so close together. You know we go from princess stuff. to over the hill stuff, to power rangers, I thought an Old Princess Ranger would be a cool twist but I did not receive any takers on the idea.
So we celebrated our little princess's birthday party on Sunday after church and Ashlyn was thrilled. You know sometimes her being special needs teaches me a ton of things. She received several presents but they were not huge dollar items, however, she just loved the fact that someone got her something and she was able to open gifts. After Susie wrapped one of her gifts Saturday night Ashlyn looked at it she said OH a new puzzle!! How did she know? But she kept it wrapped all night and even took it to church the next day clutching it in her arms because it was her present.
This got me thinking God has given us His son as our gift and many times I decide not to take him anywhere with me. I wonder why that is? Could it be that we do not view Him as being as special as He once was? Could we be treating Him like kids do with many toys "they are great for a while but then we want something different? I am reminded of a verse that maybe we all need to commit to memory.

Heb 4:12 (NLT)
12For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are.

The word of God is Living Power that means it should continually satisfy us. Just like in this series we are daily focusing on the intimacy with our spouses we need to be focusing our attention on our relationship with Christ as well.

OK so I have to go now I still have two parties to plan. BTW if anyone has any ideas about what to do for Susie's 40 please leave me some comments. I need some help.

Paul

Things I am learning

Well we are 9 days into the 30 day sex challenge and the media buzz is still very alive. So today I wanted to write out what I have learned over the last 13 days from all of this:

• The media is not our enemy. I say this because for the most part every main stream media outlet that I have spoken with has been more respectful to me and our our church than many religious people.

• People believe what they want to believe even if the facts are right in front of them.

• You really know who your true friends are when your are in the spotlight.
  

• TD Jakes is amazing. I heard his message at C3 the other night and I wept. I cannot find it online yet but it was amazing. Thanks for bringing the word TD, God used you like you will never know.

• New friend pop up that just bless your socks off like Mike Glenn from First Baptist of Brentwood. Thanks for the encouragement dude.

• You pray like crazy. My wife and I have had a couple of all night prayer meeting over the last week that have been more amazing than any church service I have ever been to.

• God is so much bigger than me. I am amazed and humbled that God would use me to share His plan for marriage and relationships to the masses. He really does have the best plan for singles and married people alike.
  

• I love our people at Relevant. As I watched some interviews of couples taking the challenge everything that we prayed is beginning to happen. Couples are beginning to talk to each other and read the Bible together, they are turning the TV off and actually communicating with each other all the while meeting each other deepest emotional needs. Yeah God

• I have the most amazing prayer team. They have been praying for me and Susie and our family nonstop since before we even launched this series. Thank you prayer warriors Susie and I have really felt your prayers.

Well I am off to a creative meeting with our team to pray and plan our next series "TXT" Trust me this one is going to stretch each of us spiritually like never before.

Paul

It is Finally Fall

Well Fall has finally arrived here in Tampa and it is awesome. I know some of you live in the north and fall has already come and gone and now you are staring down 3 to 4 months of winter. Well I just want to say here in Florida we have summer and fall and that is just fine with me. With Fall comes the anticipation of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. And this year is no different my kids are already getting out the Toys r Us catalog and picking out the toys that they want for Christmas. It is funny Anthony has a total of $3000 worth of toys picked out. I quickly told him he may need to scale it back by about 95%.
There is something else that I notice during this time of year. I seem to slow down a bit. You know when the weather is nice outside I do not find myself walking so fast from one place to another I just seem to stroll and enjoy the day. Which is quite unusal for me. This got me to thinking is this what it meant that Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day. I wonder if in the garden the weather was like fall where it is cool enough for a jacket but so nice you wanted to stay as long as possible. I can honestly say that my time with God is not often like this where I just want to hang with him as long as possible. Often time mine is more like "drive-thru Jesus" where I order my spiritual life to go and try to make that work.
I guess all I am saying is that during this season I am going to try to take more strolls with God and just enjoy his company. Maybe you will join me.

Today Sucks!

Have you ever had one of those days where you came into the office and things were great then about 3 minutes into the day the wheels started coming off of your train? Well that has been my day today. Now I know that the spiritual answer would be to say "God is in Control" but I never really liked that song and it sounds really cliche anyway. So for me today just sucks. We are negotiating with the people in charge of this huge community event that we are partnering with for the end of the month and just yesterday everything looked like it was rolling perfectly but today we got a call from someone else that said one of the local TV stations is sharing the stage with us and our schedule was going to need to be changed. I know maybe I just hate it when things do not go according to my plans but as everyone know the WIRTH plans are the best plans. You know the verse. "For Wirth know the plans he has for you" ok that was pretty bad but I know things will work out I just feel a little stressed right now.
Also, just FYI we are extending our "Confessions" series one more week. Check out the video podcast from last week for a laugh. Then we will be launching our "Marked" series so all of you cool peeps out there with TATOOS get ready to show them off at www.showyourmarks.com this site will go live some time next week I will let you know. Have a great weekend.

Mid week Mind Dump

Well it's Wednesday. And I am finishing up my thought for this weekends message for Live Free Die Hard. No I have not seen the movie I am going to do that at noon today but I have seen enough of it to know what I am going to talk about. Our new series "EPIC" has been just that epic. We have had so many people getting connected to other people just by catching a movie together every weekend. This truly has been an amazing summer. We have been averaging over 250 in attendance over the summer thus far which is over 100 people more than last year. God has been so faithful over the last year. I can tell you that last year at this time I was wondering if God had called me to the right thing. WOW am I amazed now. Thanks God for showing me that it never was about me and never will be about me. So This morning I could not sleep and got up around 5:30am. Now I know some of you do that everyday and to you I would say "good for you Just don't think you get extra credit with God just because your an early riser cause your not" HA HA. So when I decided that sleep was no longer an option for me I remembered some items on my "honey do" list so I went out into the garage in my underwear (I don't know why it matters that I was in my underwear" however, I digress I went looking for the touch up paint for the front door of the house because I decided to paint it at 6am. Susie came out into the garage and said what in the world are you doing out here in you underwear with a can of paint. So I explained to her that I could not sleep and thought it was a good time to paint, to which she said whatever and went back to bed. Now I know may of you are saying Paul what is the point. Well there is no point this is my Wednesday mind dump and I am wondering why I painted my front door, then mowed and weeded and edged my grass today all before 8am. Which is usually when I wake up. I don't know I just have a little more energy today so that is pretty cool. I am also going on vacation next Friday so maybe I am getting pumped for that. Whatever it is I am having an awesome day so far and I trust that you are to. I have another post for today on Creative teams that I will post in a bit have an awesome day.

Waiting sucks

Sorry if that title offended you but that is the way I feel right now. Waiting is one of those things that God allows us to go through during several times in our life and each of those times are not fun. Now I know the outcome many times is great but the waiting game is not a game I like to play. From the time I was a little kid and opened all of my Christmas Presents early and then re-wrapped them so my parents could not tell I have hated waiting. Well the problem magnifies when you are a church planter because it seems like this gig is full of waiting. Waiting for the people to come, waiting for the finances to grow, waiting for a building to materialize. We are always waiting.
Now please do not get me wrong you cannot say that you want to start a church and have the whole "Field of Dreams" mentality If you build it they will come. Because that is absolutely stupid, you have to work at it and make sure that you have something that people will want to come to. Now I know the first response to this notion is that we must be watering down the gospel if people like what we do. Well I would ask those critiques to look at the life of Jesus He always drew a crowd where ever He went because the message He was teaching was compelling.
OK I will get off o my hobby horse and get back to waiting. During this process of moving into a new building I am learning that waiting can be very liberating and when I wait and do not kick down doors that I want to be opened God starts doing what only HE can do and the doors just start to open. Now I am not saying that everything is a done deal with any of the building that we are looking at but some cool things are happening in on waiting period. I would just ask that if you attend Relevant or are a person who prays for Relevant that you would continue to do so because the leadership team really needs it right now.
The best days of Relevant are still to come. In fact at our elders meeting yesterday we discussed just how much we have grown over the past year and here is what we found out. We are averaging 100 people more per week right now that we were last year at this time. Yeah God that is awesome. So maybe we are not waiting maybe we are riding a wave of God that is amazing.
Our current series "Exposed" has generated more emails that virtually any other series we have done. I think that this is because we are dealing with stuff that we all have problems with. And let me tell you the next two weeks are going to be no different. We are tackling Fear this week and Addiction the week after and let me tell you it is going to be tense but good so make sure you are here both weeks.
Sorry if you have been waiting on the blog on the cussing courtesy driver but after my own message last week I decided not to write about it. But I will have a new post tomorrow on Sharing your faith.

Peace

GATOR NATION

Some of you who may be new to my blog probably do not know that I am a Gator fan. Well that would be an understatement I am a Gator Fanatic. That is to say Susie and I usually do not watch many games with people who do not have the same persuasion because quite frankly it is a Gator thing and if you are not a Gator fan you would not understand. But I would like to do some recapping of this season of the UF basketball team. First, I think we could all learn a lot from what Billy Donavan said last night in his pre-game speech. HE said it is not about you out there it is about the person beside you. WOW that was a pearl of wisdom. It was awesome to see the team truly play like team and kick Ohio States butt twice in one year. Boy I would really hate to be a Buckeye. Oh well just wanted to give a shout out to the Gator Nation.

hell Week

Sorry that I have not blogged in a while I have been a real slacker. So this one may seem a bit long. I will be writing more again this week. Happy reading.

Well, hell week as I like to call it is finally coming to an end here at the Wirth house. You may be asking Paul "why such harsh words about a week at you house?) It is not that bad I guess we just have 3 birthdays that fall within 7 days of each other. Ashlyns' is the 3rd, Susies' is the 7th and Anthony rounds out the week on the 8th. Now mind you this is a plus when it comes to my birthday (Sept 29 for those of you wondering) because I have the day, week and frankly the month all to myself except for the 1st which is my moms birthday. So last weekend Susie and I decided that we would do a complete makeover on the kids rooms for their birthday. Now mind you we decided this on Wednesday night and the project was to commence and be completed between the time the kids left for school on Friday and returned home Friday afternoon. As most projects go at the Wirth house we had great intentions but could not follow through in the time that we alloted ourselves. It is now a week later and I just finished placing the final touched in the kids rooms before the big birthday bash tonight.

You know this whole thing reminds me of our faith journey. Many of us when we first come to Christ see all of the things that need to be renovated and we are excited about it and want it to be done overnight. However, we all to often find that our journey with Christ is a life long journey through which He will make us into the person He wants us to be. Yet there are others on the journey with Christ who are in need of a major spiritual makeover because of spiritual arragance and apathy for those far from Christ. They are the ones who make statements that I find most offensive like "I just don't feel like I am being feed" or "I just need some deeper teaching" to those people I would like to leave a few scriptures for their consumption for the mouth of Jesus:

Matthew 9:9-13

9 Passing along, Jesus saw a man at his work collecting taxes. His name was Matthew. Jesus said, “Come along with me.” Matthew stood up and followed him.10 Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew’s house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. 11When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. “What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riff-raff?” 12 Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? 13 Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”

WOW did you catch His words here. They are awesome. And here is some of that good deep teaching from Jesus as well. Check this out.

Matthew 22:34-40

34 When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. 35 One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: 36 “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?” 37 Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ 38 This is the most important, the first on any list. 39 But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ 40 These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

Well I think I could stand to work on these few principles for a while. How about you? I am learning that a spiritual makeover is not so much what I think it should be but what God thinks it should be. We have done a great job in religious culture at manufacturing spiritual facades that look good for those who want to look spiritual but to God He see that they are just plastic. Maybe it is time to lay down the plastic and start being real.

peace