If I could be your pastor....

If I could be your pastor, it would only be by the grace of God and nothing of myself.

If I could be your pastor, I would share the struggles of my own life to give you courage to face your own.

If I could be your pastor, I would share with you that though we have real struggles we are never alone, that Jesus is there with us.  Longing for us to trust him, to lean on that cross for comfort that he endured in pain.

If I could be your pastor, I would encourage you through your life's storm, knowing your in it so that he can build something in your character to be more like your Savior. 

If I could be your pastor, I would want you to know the struggles you go through are never for nothing.  They are a beginning of a ministry, a platform for you to reach out to others who are trying to survive the same thing.

If I could be your pastor, I would tell you that you are loved not in spite of your circumstances but because of them.  The circumstances your enduring are entrusted to you for greatness to glorify Him.

If I could be your pastor, I would tell you to fight the good fight, do the hard thing, we are only here for a short time, you were placed here with a purpose and a plan by God himself long before you took your first breath on this earth.

If I could be your pastor, I would tell you move past whatever is paralyzing you... "Get up!  Pick up your mat and walk!"

And I could only be your pastor because of knowing the immensity of my own sin and the awesomeness of his forgiveness, mercy, and grace.  By this only, I can honestly say because I love him, I can love you.
The coffee house pastor 

Oh foolish Galatians!

I find myself at times becoming a Galatian.  It's such a strong tendency to fall back into the law rather than be free under God's grace.  I feel better about myself when I have a list of to do's, striving to fulfill a list makes me feel accomplished and worthy.  That's what the book of Galatians was about.  Paul got word that the Galatians gave up their freedom in Christ to serve the law again.  Paul was ticked.  Go read it out loud, put some cranky attitude into it cause Paul meant for them to receive it that way.

Each January 1, I choose a verse to focus on for the year.  This year I had chosen Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ, I no longer live but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."  Everything I say and do, I run through the filter of this verse.  It helps me to get my focus off of me, which the world tends to push us to focus on ourselves to much.  Trying to live selfless is hard work, it's the opposite of what the world teaches.

Recently, I was reading this verse out of the New Living Translation (my favorite translation to read in chunks) but ended up planted on verse 21, "I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless.  For if keeping the law could make us right with God then there was no need for Christ to die."  No need for Christ to die went over and over in my mind and I felt convicted.  When I fall into striving, I belittle what Christ has done, even more so, I make it senseless.  Jesus laid down his life so that we would be free of striving, of earning.  I am worthy and completely loved just as I am.  Anything I do for Him is out of my love for Him, not that the do's are "have to's" but that they are "want to's".

Anytime you hear from someone that thinks there are "have to's" and "required to do's" from God, they have missed His grace and have fallen into religion and fallen out of relationship.  Jesus said, "I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it."  Fulfill is the Greek word pleroo, it means to fill , to make full, to accomplish.  Jesus accomplished all that the law required, and when He hung on the cross, He said, "It is Finished".  He completed it all, so that we could be free, free to love Him and free to love others.

The next time you feel you HAVE to do something, do it out of your love for Jesus, not out of someone telling or you feeling you have to.  There are no "have to's" but only "want to's"!  Live free, and freely love, it's that simple when you trust Jesus.

The coffee house pastor

Could you love and worship a God who would forgive Hitler?

Now before you decide to burn me at the stake, please hear me out.

It's a disturbing question isn't it?  Is it easy for you to answer? Really think about it for a bit before you allow your mind to tell your belly to vomit out an answer.

When I thought about this question God became bigger then I had ever imagined.  Every single time I ever heard a preacher preach about evil, Hitler was the equivalent to it.
Evil = Hitler.  I get it, and its true.  What Hitler did is beyond comprehension, purest of evil ever imaginable.  Deserving the worst punishment our minds can conceive, death is not punishment enough, there would have to be suffering.  That's when we began to imagine what hell would be like, and we place him right in the middle of it.

God is a God of justice right?  Whew.  God punishes those who are wicked and unrighteous right?  Whew again.   But...

What makes one not wicked but righteous?  What makes one, in our own sin, right with God?  After all, all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, his holiness.  Is it that our good deeds hopefully will out weigh our bad deeds, crossing our fingers that it was enough?  Are we praying that God kept really good tabs and didn't lose count?  Or that God in his infinite wisdom will do a great job judging in comparison, person vs. person (boy, would I hope the margins are HUGE being compared to Mother Teresa)?  But...

God is just.  He will punish the unrighteous, he will look at every deed good or bad, AND he will judge by comparison and the comparison is perfection.  The bar is perfection.  Living perfect everyday, every hour, every minute, so how you doing on the bar?  Yeah, me too.  But...

There is one who tops that bar, who lived totally and completely perfect and His name is Jesus.  And because God loved us so much and knew not a single person would measure up, he sent to earth his son, Jesus.  And Jesus being perfect, God offered him to take all the punishment for every single person, for every single one of us.  God who judges and who is completely just did this for all mankind.  The only thing he asks is that we believe that he did it for us.  That by his son taking punishment, his blood covered us completely.  He no longer sees our sin, but God sees his son.

Now here's my point regarding Hitler, one of the most, if not the most evil person that walked the earth...if God in all that He is and all that He can do has the capacity to forgive someone like that, how big and awesome is our God!!

Hear what I'm saying don't get lost in forgiving such a heinous person.  BUT in the capacity in which God can and does forgive!  I couldn't, I wouldn't. And I'm not saying God did.  But what I am saying is that because of Jesus, God could, that God even would!  That. Blows. My. Mind.  He is that awesome, and I am that small.  We love and worship a GOD so much bigger than what our minds can come close to really comprehending but I love trying to!

The coffee house pastor

For I am confident in this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Phil. 1:6

Can I just be honest and say, moving forward on something you feel God is calling you to is scary and takes a lot of prayer, courage, wisdom, humility and encouragement.  

God has given each of us a gift.  We are to use them well to serve one another.  (1 Peter 4:10)  This has been a process of discovery for me, I suppose for most it is, but I know of others that just seem to know there gifting and it grew easily for them.  Not so with me, it took experimenting, it took testing and trying, a process of elimination.  I don't think God was hiding it from me, or making it difficult to discover, it's just coming to know and when you do to trust and most importantly believe.   

Now that I know what I am passionate about, and it operates through the gift He has given me.  It takes courage to move forward in your gift and trust God will handle what needs the courage.  The courage for me is fighting the fear of rejection.  Rejection will happen but then having the humility to continue to move forward regardless, because you know that you know what God has entrusted to you.  What I have found that I am truly thankful for in this process journey, is encouragement received from a handful of friends and family.   I know there is the handful of cynics and skeptics lurking to, Jesus did say to expect it, no prophet is accepted in his own town.  I get it, we are human and with that comes some messy and that's ok.  Transformation is a process, we all are being transformed into his image from one degree of glory to another.  Patients and prayer for one another.  Just. keep. moving. forward.

We only have one life on earth, and it's a mist, here today gone tomorrow, so do life big, God big!  I move forward with great expectation and with a sense of invitation, not to spare them, cause there is that one....look. for. that. one. and sip together.

The coffee house pastor

I am student of Scripture.  One who loves to dig in and study it.  I don't think one can "arrive" when it comes to knowing the Scriptures.  There is layer upon layer of greatness to discover.  There is no other book like the bible.  It's living and active, the very breath of God on man made pages.  Oh I know, there are skeptics that would disagree, that it was flawed by the human mind and hand.  Though, if the skeptic would truly study it wholeheartedly setting aside preconceived notions and opinions, I'm willing to bet (if I were a betting woman) the skeptic would turn believer, faster than their knees could hit the ground in prayer.

I love seeing eyes opening in the "Aha" moments as someone studies.   With each "Aha" their heart grows closer to Jesus.  That's what studying the Bible does.  It turns the innards of the heart out, loving Jesus more as it exposes and redeems humanity in a mere breath.  When inhaled it transforms.  This is my passion, my calling, to be a student of Scripture walking along side other students. 

A SOS is a Student of Scripture also serving as answer to a distress call for guidance in study.  We meet together in coffee shops, one on one or as a group.  My joy would be that as we sip coffee together outside church walls built by human hands, passionately studying the Scriptures, that relationships with Jesus and one another would flourish as we be The Church.

Jesus captured my heart and gave me a love for His Word that has been untamed for almost a decade now.  I pray it stays a wild love, because tame love is just...well it's just lame.  Loving wildly, doesn't get any better.

Whether you are a SOS or dipping your toe in the river of possibility, let's sip coffee and Scripture at the local coffee house together!

The coffee house pastor.