And we are off… Yes that is correct.. I am back and will be blogging again. Mostly speaking about my journeys which I will be going through. Looking back I wish I would have kept up within the past couple years since the last time I wrote. I will try my best to bring up to speed. Until then.. Farewell..
Author Archive
Have you ever had those friendships that were just the best friendships ever? You knew everything about the other person and you were just like “two peas in a pod.” Then your friendship started growing apart, you had different interests and did spend any time together anymore. Then, one day you saw each other and try to hang out again and it feels like you have to start all over again…
Have you ever had your relationship with God you just felt like it couldn’t be broken? Then you start slipping up with spending time with Him and eventually you hardly ever are even in His word?
Recently, I’ve been reading “The Prodigal God” by Tim Keller. His recent focus isn’t on the younger son who ran away but the elder son who resents his father for giving his portion to his brother. The father throws the feast for the younger since for coming back and the elder brother is furious because of this. He refuses to attend the feast and then continues to insult his father by addressing him in a disrespectful manner. He basically says “look you!” Tim Keller says “ a modern day equivalent might be a son writing a humiliating tell-all memoir that destroys his father’s reputation and career.
After all this his father still says “my son, despite how you’ve insulted me publicly, I still want you in the feast. I am not going to disown your brother, but I don’t want to disown you, either. I challenge you to SWALLOW YOUR PRIDE and come into the feast. THE CHOICE IS YOURS. WILL YOU OR WILL YOU NOT?
We every day go against His commandments and disobey Him and even sometimes put shame to His name but His love is so great He is going to be right where we left off. Anything we do isn’t going to hurt our relationship with Him like it does with other humans.
You see, our relationship with God is far different than it is with any human. John Mark McMillan’s song “how he loves” gives us a glimpse of His love for us. He also writes in his song “I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us.”
Bottom line: stop looking at your past regrets and focus on how He loves you and His love for you. Go back to spending time with Him like you had before. You don’t need to build it back He’s right where you left off.
Love what you read? The best compliment you can give is by telling your friends…
Get the first update on new posts by following me on twitter! @joeyjoback
Have you ever thought about what exactly is God in control of? You may think to yourself… EVERYTHING!! Is He? Is He so in control that He is controlling every move you make? Do we not have any control that we can’t even make a simple decision to say a simple word? If God is control of everything did he create illnesses? Does he make us make wrong decisions? Why is it so important to know this? Why is it so important to deal with basic theological and biblical truths?
Steve Brown says in a scandalous freedom “when we fail to deal with basic theological and biblical truths-when we know only that ‘Jesus loves me, this I know’- we won’t truly know that Jesus loves us, and we will continue to worship an unreal god.”
First we need to look at the definition of control. What does control actually mean? Control can mean we are literally being controlled like robots or even puppets. Or we can think to be controlled or “governed over.” Dictionary.com states “to exercise restraint or direction over; dominant; command.”
You can also look at the word Sovereign. Which means “someone who is a supreme ruler or has authority.” The word “sovereignty” though it is not found in the Bible; it does explain it.
Isaiah 46:10: 10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.”
Daniel 4:35: 35 all the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”
Job 23:13-14: 13 but he stands alone, and who can oppose him? He does whatever he pleases. 14 He carries out his decree against me, and many such plans he still has in store.
Psalm 115:3: 3 Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.
Sometimes I think of God as an amazing chess player. The strategy is to outmaneuver your opponent and get 3-5 steps ahead of them and have a counteraction according to their action; except God is 100-200 steps ahead. Greg Boys says, “God decrees whatever he wishes to decree. He controls whatever he chooses to control. He is never caught off guard or at a loss of options. He anticipates and ingeniously outmaneuvers his opponents. Hence, all who align themselves with Him can have total confidence that He will ultimately achieve his objectives for creation.” He also states “God can and does predetermine and foreknow whatever he wants to about the future. Indeed, God is so confident in his sovereignty that he does not need to micromanage everything. He could if he wanted to, but this would demean his sovereignty. So he chooses to leave some of the future open for possibilities allowing them to be resolved by free agents. It takes a greater God to steer a world populated with free agents than it does to steer a world of preprogrammed automatons… A God who knows all possibilities, experiences novelty, and is willing to engage in an appropriate element of risk is more exalted than a God who faces an eternally settled future.” I think of it with two separate football coaches. The first coach knows every single offense the opponent is going to run and just builds the defense around that team and dominates them. The second coach KNOWS the team so well that he builds the defense around their plays and has something for every decision they make.
We can see throughout the Bible where God will control whatever He chooses to control. Ezekiel 29:4 says, “I will put hooks in your jaws and drop you out on the land with fish sticking to your scales.” Psalms 148:8 and Jonah 1:4 both speak about controlling the weather. Job 1:21 says, “the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.” Then even looking at Genesis 6:5-9:19 with the earth being destroyed by the flood.”
Sometimes God will use certain trials in our life to even get our attention. Amos 4 says 6 “I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD. 7 “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up. 8 People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD. 9 “Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD. 10 “I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD.11 “I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD.
We can look into our history where you can see God was present. 1776 we see the great painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware to defeat the enemy. The weather played a great role through out the revolutionary war. In WWII in Dunkirk the British and French soldiers were trapped on the north coast of France and the Nazi forces were 10 miles away. There was a thick fog and clouds, which came over the beaches, and the English Channel became calm for the ferry to cross… Winston Churchill called this “a miracle of deliverance.”
John Piper stated, “One reason this doctrine is so precious to believers is that we know that God’s great desire is to show mercy and kindness to those who trust Him (Ephesians 2:7, Psalms 37:3-7, Proverbs 29:25). God’s sovereignty means that this design for us cannot be frustrated. Nothing, absolutely nothing befalls those who “love God and are called according to His purpose” but what is for our deepest and highest good.”
Bottom line: I can’t tell you who God is. My mind can’t even comprehend how God works. We can get into theological debates all day about the sovereignty of God, election, and free will. We can read books all day to study God (in fact I may not even agree with some of the stuff I’ve written above, where some are direct quotes… This is just some research I’ve done), listen to podcasts, or listen to teachings at church. If we really want to know who God is, look at Jesus.
Hebrews says “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power.” If you want to know how God reacts to people, look at how Jesus reacted, if you want to know what God thinks and the truth about God-go to Jesus.
Love what you read?!?! Don’t tell me… INSTEAD TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND TWEET THIS OUT!!!
Also, to hear about my most current updates follow me on twitter! @joeyjoback
“Don’t Be a Lazy Ass” Proverbs 6 -Justin Snyder
Proverbs 6:9-19
9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— 11 and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man. 12 A troublemaker and a villain, who goes about with a corrupt mouth,
13 who winks maliciously with his eye, signals with his feet and motions with his fingers, 14 who plots evil with deceit in his heart—he always stirs up conflict. 15 Therefore disaster will overtake him in an instant; he will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy. 16 There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
You are awakened by your alarm clock. You roll over and it’s 7am. You don’t have to be at work until 10am.
You have 3 choices of what you can do.
1) get up
2) hit the snooze and sleep for another 5 great minutes(or so you think)
3) turn off your alarm and sleep for the next 2-3 hours
You are faced with these choices every single day of your life and the one you choose is going to effect your entire day.
What do you think Charles Darwin, Toni Morrison, Benjamin Franklin, Emily Post and William Wegman all have in common? They all made a habit of getting up early. These are all very creative minds to which all were early risers and made priorities in their lives. Ernest Hemingway said “You accomplish tons of meaningful work before most people even get started – allowing you to coast through the rest of your day with a sense of achievement and significantly less anxiety.”
Have you ever thought about how your day will be if you actually had a set schedule of sleep? You actually make it a point to be asleep where you know you can get 8 hours of sleep (at a reasonable hour) woke up the next morning and spent time with God while guarding that time. Now you may also come up with the excuse “but I don’t have a set work schedule so it’s tough for me to know when I will be working.” The majority of people don’t work 24 hours a day. In fact, studies have shown only 10 percent of the entire population even work throughout the night and only 30 percent only work 40 hour workweeks.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say I wish I could have _________. Where they could have it’s just the fact they didn’t set their priorities correctly. I once heard a quote “you have time for what you want to have time for.” Meaning, if you really want to do something you will find a way to make it happen. If sleep is going to be a priority in your life then that is what you are going to do. If going to church is a top priority in your life then you will make time for it. If going to a “bible study” is one of your top priorities in your life…. I think you get what I’m saying. Basically, if something is not your top priority it more than likely is well known so please don’t tell people it still is. If you want to do ministry, find a way to do it. Don’t make excuses of why you can’t.
I had a conversation with my community group recently about future and one person wanting to go into ministry full-time. One of the guys gave us a scenario and it opened my eyes a little. If you were a missionary and you go overseas to share the gospel. Let’s say you are going to Russia. What is the first thing you are going to have to do? GET A JOB(doesn’t matter what it is). You need to support yourself so that you can live. Outside of that job and even during your job you are going to do your work of sharing the gospel with everyone you meet. It’s the same thing here we just aren’t over seas. Romans 12:1 says “1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” As Christians we are already called to do full-time service. We choose to be a pastor, lead music, be a missionary and God will give us the gifts to do certain things.
To sum things up, if you want to do something go out and do it. Stop crying and complaining about why you can’t, because you don’t have the time. It obviously is not one of your top priorities in your life.
Like what you read? Follow me on twitter to be the first to hear about the newest updates! @joeyjoback
Romans 1:12 “When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.”
Have you ever had someone just show up your life and interupt your day? You have these plans and you just know this evening is going to be a great evening just hanging out spending some time with friends then someone shows up at your door asking for money…
A few weeks ago, wednesday night, community group was about to begin. It just seemed like an ordinary night where two of the guys began cooking and I was playing music through iTunes just to create a little atmosphere. It was requested for a particular song to be “cranked up” which I did with the windows open. Within 5 minutes Henry shows up at the door, broken down car, asking for help.
Let’s stop here… What would you do in this out of the ordinary situation?
Ill tell you what I would have done… “sorry I have nothing” and shut the door. Instead of even just giving him money and sending him on his way we invited him in for dinner with us and he stayed throughout community group until someone had a chance to give him a ride to the bus station. We had the chance to show him the love of Christ and be an encouragement to him. Not only did we have an impact on his life but HE HAD AN IMPACT ON OURS.
Something I have been really wrestling with lately is not expecting to get from attending things which are “Church” related or “Community Group” related” but to go to give.
You see – when we stop focusing on what we are going to GET and start GIVING your time by coming out of our comfort zones and listening to other people and their concernes you will in turn start to see an awakening spiritually in your own life. Give time to other people… Let Henry into your life.
Like what you read? Follow me on twitter to be the first to hear about new updates! @joeyjoback
Out of the Ordinary 