Dwelling at the Cross

On Sunday we looked at the Cross, we examined our place before it, I challenged you this season as Easter rolls up on us, and everyone from Discovery Channel to Comedy Channel will be trying to solve the mystery of Jesus, to think deeply on your state before the cross. To pray and seek, to meditate on who you are before the cross, that you may gain a proper perspective on the reality of what is actually happening at the cross and that we can get what this season is about.

I pray that as you dwell here and as you think well this season, that your heart explodes with gratitude, praise, and excitement because of what He purchased for you. The world does not need more good church folk, what this lost and dying world desperately needs to see is men and women that humbly serve others, that have an excitement and a joy for life, and that don't find their meaning and worth in this perishing world. I pray that the cross becomes life and power to you this season, that you behold the glory of God in the cross and you are forever wrecked and changed for Him. I think it is here that the Gospel is not something we do, but it becomes who we are.

LOVE GOD LOVE PEOPLE

The Pathway of God.

Yesterday I was having lunch with a good friend and mentor and I was explaining to him the season of life that I find myself in and he was able encourage me with a scripture out of Jeremiah 10:24-25 and today I hope that I can encourage you wherever you find yourself in this life.

Jer. 10:24-25-says, "I know O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. Correct me, O Lord, but in justice not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing."

This verse is saying that there are three ways to find your path in life, three ways to try and do things.

1. To find it on your own, this is the independent man or woman that blazes their own trail and tries hard to find fulfillment in anything and everything they can.

2. To listen to other people tell you where to go, this is the passive person who usually is so unconfident in himself or herself that they are fearful to make any move, so they just let others tell them where to go.

3. To submit your steps and will to the Lord and allow Him to use the first two in the right Biblical sense. In our lives the Lord will, out of His great mercy, strip away areas where we cling to our wisdom and our way of doing things, so that we may better follow Him. The word says, "there is a way that seems right to man and in the end leads to death." God will take us to the end of ourselves, He will strip our pride away, He will even remove people for a season to allow us to lean not on our own understanding but on Him.

Then He says, "I am the WAY, truth, and the life." He is our way, the only way to finding fulfillment and meaning in this life. He is the one that made the tracks and He is the hand that guides the train. You may be facing a season where everything is going well, or everything seems to just be piling up like a bad car wreck, ask yourself, "how is the Lord asking me to trust Him today, and how can I follow in obedience." That brings Him glory and us ultimate good.

LOVE GOD LOVE PEOPLE

Pursuit Finale!!!

So here I am standing in a make shift coffee shop in LA, thousands of pastors streaming by me, talks of doctrine and grace, theology floods the conversations, and the only thing that I am thinking is pursuit. I see it in these men, I hear it in there voices, I see there desperate desire for their churches to not just be places where people gather once a week, but rather the desire to see a place that transforms men and women and those men and women go forth equip with the Gospel to share and play a part in the spreading of the Gospel.

I hope that this 40 days has been great, and whether you are wrapping up tomorrow or Saturday, I pray that you have been confronted with the Gospel and I pray that it has changed you, I pray that it has taken you to places of depth and love for your Savior, I pray that you are asking how can I use my gifts and play my part well in the church Christ has called me to.

My deepest desire for FCL is that we are a place that is marked by the Gospel, that we are a place that sees our city through the eyes of Christ, and that we love well those who Christ has called us to. What a great task and one that cannot stop after 40 days, but one that must be walked out in our everyday life.

So my encouragement as we leave this time, may this study birthed something in you that cannot be contained, may the lessons you have learned not stop, but may they continue to affect you and the life of those around you. BE in the WOrd, LOVE the WOrd, and then LOve others because of what He has done in you. You have been such an encouragement to me and my life, may we continue to grow into the church Christ intends us to be.

LOVE GOD LOVE PEOPLE

Brandon