Wanting to Do Something Great

I've always had high aspirations, high goals for myself, sometimes ones that are nearly impossible, or highly unattainable. Everything I do, I strive to be the best at. Now this can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing.

Obviously, being the best at everything you do can be a great thing! Especially as Christians, one of the ways we can be great witnesses is through serving by example. The way that we live our lives should have people questioning what makes us so different. Whether it's being the best employee an employer could ask for, the best employer an employee could ask for, the best friend anyone could ask for, the best teammate, the most determined, the most humble, e.t.c., when we utilize our gifts to their maximum potential, people begin to take notice. When they take notice of the success of Christians (and not necessarily success in worldly terms, but that does definitely take a part of the equation), they begin to question what they don't have. That opens up the perfect door of opportunity to evangelize.

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However, we can get caught up in being the best too much. I think there are two ways this can happen. First, in striving to be the best, or the most successful, we could begin to judge ourselves on worldly terms, such as what accomplishments we have, what trophies, medals, awards we have accumulated. That is not successful in God's eyes. Secondly, we can get sidetracked by our mission to become the best. In fact, when we are so occupied at being the best, it can almost become a religion. It occupies our every thought, it's the reason we are living, it becomes our everything.

One of my favourite autobiographies is Me, Myself and Bob, the story of Phil Vischer's life (creator of VeggieTales). Not only is this an amazing story of perseverance, dedication, and extreme vision, but also of extreme devotion to God. Perhaps one of the most insightful statements that Phil Vischer makes is "I am growing increasingly convinced that if every one of these kids burning with passion to write that hit Christian song or make that hit Christian movie or start that hit Christian ministry to change the world would instead focus their passion on walking with God on a daily basis, then the world would change. What is 'walking with God?' Simple. Doing what He asks you to do each and every day. Living in active relationship with Him. Filling your mind with His word, and letting that word penetrate every waking moment. Because the world learns about God not by watching Christian movies, but by watching Christians." 

I'm not sure what I can add to that; it sums up everything perfectly. Are we focused on our own dreams, or on God's dream? Sure, God's dream might be that one day we do happen to have a hit something, or win a gold medal, or achieve our wildest ambitions, but first and foremost His dream is that we are working on our relationship with Him. His biggest desire is that we are walking with Him. Everything else doesn't matter.

As a sidenote, Me, Myself and Bob is an incredible book. I strongly encourage everyone to read it. Phil Vischer is blessed with vision, and a piercing clarity. His knack for putting that down into clear, concise words is also perfect. His amazing testimony has been a true blessing to my life.

Reading Isaiah

Isaiah is perhaps the most profound book of the Old Testament when it comes to revelation about Christ. Actually, much of the Old Testament contains prophecy or typology (types of people, institutions, sacrifices, e.t.c. that symbolized Jesus) regarding Christ, as the Messiah. The New Testament prophecy after Christ's ascension moves to revelation regarding Christ as a King, but that's a topic for a different post.

Isaiah is mainly a prophetic book that focuses on Christ's coming as the Messiah, but also the deliverance of Israel from slavery. The main idea is that the Messiah would release Israel from the bonds of sin, through salvation. In fact, the name Isaiah means Yahweh is Salvation. The book contains the word salvation 26 times, compared to 6 times in all the other prophetic books combined.

The book is also used to support the Substitutionary Atonement theory of salvation. Substitutionary Atonement states that Christ died as a substitute for others, instead of the people dying themselves. With the penalty of sin being death, Christ acted as our substitute and bore all of our sins, so that we wouldn't have to be punished. Isaiah tends to focus on the suffering of Christ in this act. His symbolism and imagery is piercing, and is commonly used in many Christology studies.

Interestingly, the book of Isaiah is structured much like the whole Bible is. The first 39 chapters can be compared with the first 39 books of the Bible, more commonly referred to as the Old Testament. Just like the Old Testament focused on judgement, so do these first 39 chapters, with judgement on immoral men the chosen focus. The next 27 chapters can be connected with the 27 books of the New Testament, which focus on a message of hope. Of course, that hope is Christ, our Messiah and King.

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Reading Song of Solomon

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For some reason, this book of the Bible is commonly tossed under the rug by Christians. The topic and descriptions included seem to embarrass or even shame many believers. Of course, considering the so called taboo topic of relationships, it seems like Christians want to entirely avoid discussing love. To be honest, it almost seems like we act like school kids when it comes to the topic, running away so we don't have to deal with it.

However, if we accept that the Bible is the Word of God, that means everything included comes from God. Anything that comes from God is important, including the book, and talk about relationships.

Our world today heavily relies upon relationships, especially of the romantic variety. It seems likes our lives are based on finding that perfect someone. Even if it isn't finding that one special relationship, we all seem to find fulfillment in who we are connected with. Society has picked up on that, and it seems like every major movie, book, TV Show, and even advertisements describe who the perfect person is, what they look like and how they act. Popular culture has also defined what the perfect relationship is, what is involved, including roles, emotions, actions, e.t.c. But popular culture has ruined what God designed relationships for.

If anything, we should be looking to the Bible to find out how God designed relationships to be like. Throughout His word, He lists ways we should interact with the opposite sex. Song of Solomon is just like the tip of the iceberg. In God's perfect world, He had one man and one woman together. Throughout history, men were either built up or destroyed in regards to how they participated in their relationships. Many of Paul's letters also contained helpful information regarding relationships.

Clearly, it is important to God that we have biblically defined relationships. In fact, that's the only way to have a successful relationship in Christian terms.

Reading Ecclesiates

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I think Ecclesiastes is perhaps the most relatable book in the Bible. No matter if you are a Christian or not, you can find something within this book that directly applies to your life.

It is believed that King Solomon wrote this wisdom book, and with him being one of the smartest people on Earth, clearly something important is included here. I believe that the key message of the book is something important that everyone will come to realize at some point in their life. Simply put, that is; everything is meaningless without God in the picture.

King Solomon, with all of his wealth, all of his wisdom, all of the freedom laid out before him, he found it all pointless. That begs the question why? Especially in a society today, when we are driven by getting more and more possessions, travelling farther and farther, monopolizing everything we can, we have to ask why? Why do we feel and act in such a way, especially if in the pinnacle of it all, we'll only wake up and find that everything is pointless.

Some people may disagree, but I think everyone sets their lives up in a certain way. They try to dull their senses, dull the nagging feeling within themselves that there is indeed something more to life in general, by surrounding themselves with emotions, and possessions. Everyone at some point in their life enters a critical stage, a stage of realization. They realize that there has to be something else to this life. They realize that they are missing something; the classically termed "hole in the heart".

And no matter what you have bought into, whatever the world invents to try to satisfy that questioning, it won't be enough. Solomon at the point where he could not get anymore of everything, he realized that his whole life had been a waste. Ultimately, when it is all said and done, everything that the world has to offer ends up coming close, but not close enough, falling short of its supposed result. Possessions can easily be broken or lost, power stripped away, everything levelled to the ground. The only thing that will constantly remain is God, and His amazing, patient, almighty, perfect love.

Start your moment of realization now. Begin your journey for answers. Is everything meaningless in your life? Or are you actually living for something worthwhile?

Reading Proverbs

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Proverbs is a book all about wisdom. Written by many wise men of history, the book is a collection of knowledge that can easily be applied to anyone's life. Drawing from the wisdom of Solomon (the smartest man in history), Agur (unknown historically), Lemuel (unknown historically), and a few other authors labelled as "the wise", these proverbs, or quotes of useful information, apply to past, present and future.

In my opinion you can never achieve enough wisdom. The search for more and more knowledge never ends. However, much like our faith, we can have as much as knowledge as we want, but without action, that knowledge is meaningless. In the same way as our relationship with Christ, we can know all about Him, know all that He has done, and will do, but without acting on that knowledge, without putting that information to use, it just wastes away! Ultimately, the smartest person in the world isn't the person who knows the most, its the person who with the greatest efficiency puts their knowledge to use.

Reading Psalms

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Psalms is definitely one of my favourite books of the Bible, mainly because of its focus on worshipping God. Over and over again, through the use of multiple authors, the poems and songs included in the book remind us that there are multiple ways to worship God, and multiple reasons as to why we should worship God.

It is true that Psalms is composed of mainly songs, but there are multiple poems also in the book that focus on worship. The poems and songs themselves also reference ways to worship God. The main one would be through song, or music, with Psalms alluding to tambourines, using voices, lyres, and other instruments to make joyful noises for the Lord. A huge aspect of our Sunday morning services is this form of worship, yet the music presented can also be used for personal worship time. That's one of the joys of the expanding worship industry, with artists such as Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, and many more providing instant worship through the terms of music.

Worship can also come in other forms. The multitude of poems shows that spoken and written word is on the same level as music. In fact, any form of art can be an amazing way to worship God. Whether it be painting, poetry, photography, drawing, or music, anything that is used to glorify God can be classified as worship.

Expanding this even farther, worship doesn't have to be about art. Worship is a way of living your life, a certain perspective, a way of defining each action. Every decision you make, every step you take, when you make it for God, that's worship! Psalms is filled with words, beautiful words, about almost every situation in life possible, and it always ends with coming back to worship.

Worship is the willful choice to put your hope IN & fix your eyes ON Jesus - Chris Tomlin
Worship isn't a chore or a duty; it's the natural response of a devoted heart. - Chris Tomlin
Worship isn't a feeling you wait for, it's a choice you make. - Chris Tomlin

Reading Job

This book is perhaps the most puzzling for me. In fact, I find all the prophecy books hard to get through, or hard to understand. The reason is you can't pick up the meaning of the book simply by reading it; you have to really research the content as well. Without that research, gleaning a complete understanding of the book is nearly impossible.

The biggest area that I focused my research on this time around was what each friend of Job was trying to say, or what the purposes of their speeches were. Bad things do happen to people, even to the best of people, and I think it is interesting to read what reasons these three gave for Job's situation. When bad things do happen, we do tend to search for answers. These three provide some common answers, but as we see from a fourth bystander and the Lord Himself, they are false.

The first friend Eliphaz states that Job brought this upon himself. He believes that Job knowingly committed some evil. Eliphaz states that Job's sin equals instant punishment. Essentially God gets mad with the person's sin and right away acts.

The second friend Bildad backs that theory up. He also states that Job must be punished because of his sin. Bildad assumes that everything bad that happens is a direct result of sin. The difference with Bildad is that he doesn't claim Job had to intentionally commit evil.

The third friend Zophar correctly states that people can repent, and they need to repent. However, he makes a mistake in assuming that Job needed to repent. He denies that Job could possibly be innocent.

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What the three friends should have done is mourn with Job. We are to mourn with those that mourn, be sad with those who are sad, and be merry with those who are merry. As friends, these three should have recognized what Job needed most in that situation, which was support and not criticism. Job needed love, understanding, and teaching, not rebuking, questioning, and harsh words.