Jesus

Multitasking God

Posted on by Shameless Plug

It’s all the craze these days: How many programs can you run at once? Does your current internet browser support tons of open tabs? Can your smart phone split screens between apps? Multitasking is second nature to us, isn’t it? We might even (dare I say it) multitask God.

I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase “too busy for God” before. But I think Psalm 34:1-10 says it well: “I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips.” If we are to extol/praise the Lord at all times, I think it’s pretty clear: we ought to praise the Lord… always!

The other day at our church I challenged people to reflect upon their life and how God fits into it. Now, obviously, God is bigger than that time slot. Yet, we even limit that amount of time when we’re “busy”, trying to negotiate & bargain our time with Him. So I want to ask you the same question today: How does God fit into your life?

A popular verse in the Bible that’s written all over the gospels is probably familiar to you, either from reading it or even as a song: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.” How can this be if we only offer up some of our heart, some of our soul, some of our strength, and some of our mind? This leads me back to this idea of our band name, Shameless Plug.

Not too long ago someone asked me about the meaning, the purpose, the origin of our band’s name. If you’re unfamiliar with it, you can read about our story here. But when we multitask to the point where even we don’t know what we’re exactly juggling day-to-day, then we’ve lost sight of the important things – like the most important One of all, Jesus Christ. When we live life making Him known and famous, He becomes our shameless plug and we get to (not have to) praise Him at all times! Doesn’t that sound better than stressing out about your 15 errands today?

God is bigger than we let Him be. And maybe that’s especially true for you today. God, who is the ultimate multitasker (being the God of over 7.25 billion people in the world today), is our one True and Living God who sent His One and only Son, Jesus Christ, to show us His love and mercy. That’s actually one… huge… task. I think we’d all say that He’s worth all of our attention and being at the top of our list of priorities.

Let’s not cheap out on God by giving Him a discount of our time. Let’s give Him our all like we were intended to do. You can multitask your iPhone apps or your shopping lists, but let’s not turn our faith into a statistic. God is the One who deserves the praise, deserves the extollment, deserves the magnification and attention. Reflect upon your life again and what role God plays. Know that even in the hectic schedule you may have, God is in the midst of it. But don’t juggle him like one of your tasks. Give Him your best and give Him your all.

Reflection Song: All To You

Back To School (Keep God’s Commands)

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Back to school. Three words you wish you didn’t have to hear every September… yet it’s that time of year again! What are you aiming for this year? Ambitions? Hopes? Goals? With a new year comes new challenges and new ways to grow in your relationship with the Lord.

The other day I gave a sermon at our youth group on keeping God’s commands. I illustrated that “keep” is such a funny word in the English language. We can “keep” His commands in our pocket (a travel Bible, Bible app, etc.) or we can “keep” His commands just like how we “keep” promises. We would stay true to them, remain in them, and carry them out. In John 14:15-21 Jesus says that whoever loves Him will keep His commands. In Greek, the word “keep” can also translate to “watch over”, “take care of”, or “guard”.

It’s funny though because we don’t really see ourselves as much of a guardian (or maybe you do?). But if anything, I feel like God’s Word is guarding me!

I know schools have their own lists of rules & guidelines, but following what God says is a whole other story. If we love the Lord and follow His commands, it is said that we will be given the Holy Spirit! That’s a nice bonus for being obedient, isn’t it? As we live in accordance with God’s will, we ought to do so with love and obedience.

There’s a popular video circulating around the internet these days involving Victoria Osteen and Bill Cosby. In this particular clip she says things along the lines of, “When we obey God, we’re not doing it for God… we’re doing it for ourselves.” …Unfortunately when we do things for ourselves, I think we’ve lost the big picture – like when the world once believed that the cosmos was geocentric instead of heliocentric. We aren’t the center of attention; God is!

When we love God… keep His commands… obey Him… we don’t do it for our own benefit or pleasure. This is part of our worship of Him, our God who is the center of all attention, the center of our lives! So this year as we seek to grow in our walk with Him, remember that we aren’t following after Him because we’re going to get an “A” on an exam or because it’ll look good on our heaven “transcript”… It’s because if we love Him then we keep His commands.

So with the new school year, with your new friends, even with your new life challenges, remember to stay in God’s Word and to guard it just as He guards you, promising us His Spirit of truth to be with us and to be within us. Let’s continue to give God all the glory because He alone deserves the attention and the honor.

“Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” – John 14:21

Reflection Song: Only You

The Father Heart Of God

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You and I have probably read or heard of “The Parable Of The Prodigal Son” more times than we can count. You may even know it as “The Parable Of The Lost Son”. For some reason, every time I hear a pastor preach on this story, it shines a new light on it every single time. If this is your first time hearing about it, please feel free to first read Luke 15:11-32 for some context.

You might think that “prodigal” could mean “lost” because in the parable the younger son loses his way, demands for his share of the inheritance before his father’s death, squanders it, and finally realizes his wrongs & comes home. But “prodigal” is actually defined as wasteful, extravagant, recklessly spending…

Recently we led worship at the Cornerstone Church Retreat, where YWAM speaker Rev. Joe Ferrante spoke on “The Father Heart Of God”. A couple of questions he asked that weekend were: How do you view God’s heart for your life? Do you believe that He really is good and that you are good enough for His love?

From time to time, we might feel like the younger son – thinking “I’ve got this”, ignoring God the Father, and wasting it all away on things we think we’ve got a handle on. Maybe you’ve actually done this in real life with your own parent(s). But as you know, life isn’t perfect… we aren’t perfect. Even Jesus said that in this world we’ll have trouble (John 16:33)! So why do we run away from God our Father and think that we don’t need His love and support?

Lately I’ve come to re-realize that the Father heart of God is as extravagant, as extreme, as prodigal as the younger son… but in the best sense possible! But to draw an even better picture, Jesus continues the story: the younger son comes home to beg for his father’s forgiveness. Yet the father, who was waiting for his son to return, sees him from a distance and runs to embrace him. I’m sure the son was surprised – I know I would be! But he says, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

The father’s response? “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Not only does the father take him back… he throws a feast! If you were the older son at this point you’d probably be thinking as he does, “Hey… what’s this? Where’s my feast?”… But Rev. Joe Ferrante puts it very nicely here: The party may not necessarily have been for the younger son, but for the father. That’s how extravagant God’s love is for us. That’s how much and how long He’s been waiting for us to come to our senses and come home too. That’s how lavishly He wants to waste it all on you and me.

To even throw a party for the one who’s messed up so badly in life… wow. But you know, He gets it. Life’s tough and stuff happens. He gets it. Just as the father killed the fattened calf for the returned son, our Father sacrificed the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, so that those who see this sign of God’s perfect love would come home and realize the true heart of the Father.

No matter how badly or carelessly you’ve handled things, God is waiting for you to return… maybe even for the first time. You might not think you’re worth it, but He does! God searches our hearts and knows us (Psalm 139). He is good all the time, even when you don’t feel like you’re good enough for His love. Wherever you’re at today, I pray that you would experience an extravagant love from the Father like no other.

Reflection Song: Here Today

New Songs In Church

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“Of course he’s doing his songs…” is what some may be suggesting when you use your own songs in church. But more on that in a little bit.

We’ve heard it many times before from Psalm 96: “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth”, which could refer to spontaneous times of worship or, for the purpose of this post, a new song you and your team have planned. For example, you’ve heard the new Passion or Hillsong album and you want to try the title track on a Sunday… what do you do?

When I select songs, I’m very intentional. What I mean by that is I make sure I’m not slapping together any 4 songs together as an “emergency setlist”. In fact, I often prepare setlists weeks in advance. This may come as a surprise to some of you, while for others it may be the norm already. But introducing new songs is the same deal: we don’t want to impulsively throw a new song at our congregation or even our team. It takes planning! In addition to our older post What Kind Of Songs Do You Pick?, here are a few thoughts when it comes to new songs:

  1. Listen to the song carefully. How easy is it for your average congregation to learn the melody? How many times would you need to “introduce” it before it’s more naturally sung? When we introduce a new song at our church, we use it about 3-4 times within 2 months (which may even involve back-to-back Sundays) before including it in our regular rotation of songs.
  2. In a given year, I only allow a handful of new songs. That means I may not even get to the latest single by “So-and-so Worship Artist” because I don’t want to overwhelm the church with too many new songs at once.
  3. If you plan on introducing a new song, always take a closer look at the lyrics and even ask your worship pastor (if you have one, or another one of your pastors) if it is scripturally sound.
  4. What other songs are you including when you lead this new song? Make sure that you are surrounding it with more recognizable songs to balance the familiarity of songs and flow of worship.
  5. Lastly, and possibly most importantly, notify your team in advance! The only thing that makes teaching a new song harder is a band that doesn’t completely know the song either. Imagine if you were out in the pews trying to learn the song but the lead vocalist is unsure of the melody… or the words on the screen don’t match… These factors make your job that much more difficult.
  6. Added bonus: if the song in question is played frequently on the radio and your church has some avid Star 99.1 / KLOVE / etc. listeners, then half the battle is won!

Once the new song is in place, feel out how the congregation is responding to this song to determine if it works (or will continue to work) in your church.

Now onto originals…

If you write your own songs, like we do, you may feel led to introduce some of them in church. This is where you really need to get objective and answer the same questions as unbiased as possible! With the songs that you write, do they fit in Sunday worship context? And feel free to check out other factors in What Kind Of Songs Do You Pick?.

We want to be careful that we don’t come across as “self-promoting” because that shouldn’t be the reason why we’re writing these worship songs in the first place. We’re not worship leaders to promote ourselves, but to promote Christ. And if we’re called to be worship leaders, we ought to be leading both on and off the stage. If we’re leading both on and off the stage, then your fellow brothers & sisters in Christ will probably be eager to learn something new with you!

For us, we generally use our songs if: A) it fits a sermon topic or theme for that particular day/event or B) if the song was birthed out of something we experienced together as a church. If you can relate to B, then that’s great! That means it’s not so much “my song” (you, the writer) but “our song” (us, the church)!

It’s easier said than done, for sure. You’ll find that you like these new songs, while your drummer will like those new songs, etc. But it goes back to what we wrote in our previous post: it’s important that as leaders we lead intentionally – this stems from the very beginning when we select the songs to how we decide to actually lead and connect these songs. Let’s be intentional and humble in all these processes. We’re merely the vessel for these songs to be led & sung in worship by the church to our Lord Jesus Christ!

Honesty Is The Best Policy

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If we are to follow Christ then truth, honesty, and integrity are essential. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Honesty is a necessary component in following after Jesus. Conversely, dishonesty will pull us away from Him.

This past weekend we led praise at the New Life Summer Retreat, which had the theme Honesty. It was a really authentic time of worship and growth. Unlike your “conventional” retreat, there was no guest pastor to preach amazing sermons. Instead, testimonies were shared within small groups, and several were shared during the main session. We were really encouraged by these powerful stories and it was apparent how relationships were beginning to grow because of them.

Being honest with others isn’t easy in a time where we hide behind communicating through text messages, Facebook statuses, and Instagram comments. It’s so easy to mask your true self. But the testimonies shared were powerful and displayed how God has worked and is working through each and every one of us, molding us into the son or daughter He intended for us to become. What I was reminded was that honesty not only shows your character, but it also shows your faith. Throughout the Bible we are assured that it is impossible for God to lie. That’s a lot harder to say for ourselves… but with God setting the example, we ought to strive to be more true to others and to ourselves.

Proverbs 11:3 says “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.”

In fact, we heard many stories of struggles, difficulties, and straying from God. A lot of it was covered up by deception, lies, and even trying to fool oneself. But as soon as they shared about how the truth was discovered (or re-discovered), that because of Jesus Christ we are a new creation, the stories took a turn where lives began turning back towards God the Father!

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

I thought of my own testimony – of who I was and who I’ve become because of Christ. We’re all constantly changing and experiencing changes. So it is important that we never lose sight of what’s ahead so that we stay true to who we ought to be in Christ. Surround yourself with honesty, truthful people, so that you too can be more honest and open with others, yourself, and God.

Today, let’s remember to stay in the truth, speak and live the truth, and you may also be helping others around you to the Truth! Jesus, the author of eternal salvation, is the way, the truth and the life… Let’s motivate and cultivate honesty through the love He’s shown us!

Reflection Song: Only You

Hanging By A Thread

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Getting tired of being disappointed? Are you on the verge of quitting your job? Does your patience get tested? Feel like you’re losing grip of everything? Finances? Relationships?

We’ve all had some moment(s) where we’re hanging by a thread and it’s about to snap. So what do you do?

The Psalms tell of many difficult times, grieving, sorrows, etc… To name a couple, Psalm 88 and Psalm 42 sound particularly distraught. But as we read on, we realize that God is indeed faithful and He provides. Take a look at how He delivers from troubles in Psalm 121 and Psalm 34.

Even Jesus tells His disciples in John 16 (“The Disciples’ Grief Will Turn To Joy”) that they’ll face trouble in this world but to take heart, for He has overcome the world!

So actually, it’s no surprise that we so often feel like we’re hanging by a thread. In fact, it’s just as much not a surprise to know that God will come through and set us back on solid rock! Psalm 40 says exactly this: “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

But back to the original question: So what do you do? We can be sure that God knows what’s going on in our lives, how we’re feeling, what we’re going through… So pray to Him, cry out to Him, trust in Him – the One who is for us. We shouldn’t focus on the bad or the suffering but, just as we saw in the Psalms, remember that God is good, loving, gracious, and on-time. Isaiah 26 says that God will keep those whose minds are faithful in perfect peace because they trust in the Lord.

May Jesus be the peace and the anchor in our troubling times. For just as the life of Jesus was not spared in order to save us from our sins, we trust in our God who is rich in love & mercy who can surely catch us from the thread, pull us out of the pit, bring us ashore… And if God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you… (1 Peter 5:7)

Reflection Song: Christ Is

Jesus Saves

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There’s an old joke where Jesus and Satan have an epic debate and try to settle the matter with an essay, where God would be the judge. Jesus and Satan got on their computers and began typing with all they had in order to finish on time… but just as time was up, there was a power surge. God then decided that Jesus had won. Upset, Satan asked, “How can that be when the power loss erased both our work?”, failing to see that Jesus’ work remained intact. God announced, “Jesus saves!”

Not too long ago, my trusty USB flash drive malfunctioned (which, to this day, I have no idea of how it happened). It’s fine – I bought a replacement and now I know to be careful with the files that I save on it. But it got me thinking… We put so much of our trust in things that fail all the time, no matter what kind warranty or return policy it has. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. This means if we are for sin, then the only outcome is death; death is the end-result of sin. But because of Jesus Christ, God granted us eternal life and our sins were washed white. There’s no need to worry when it comes to the faithfulness of God!

Today is exactly one month following Easter, and still we’re reminded of Jesus and the life He gives. Often times we fall short and lean on something that’s bound to fall, when we ought to be trusting and leaning on Jesus’ name. Let’s not take for granted the precious blood that Jesus spilled for us to display the free gift of grace by God. Whenever you experience something breaking or life feels like it’s collapsing around you, remember that Jesus saves and one day Satan will ultimately be defeated!

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is Yours! (1 Chronicles 29:11)

Reflection Song: Nothing But The Blood

Happy Easter!

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After a Saturday of being still following Good Friday, we rejoice and celebrate today over an empty tomb! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

Our story didn’t end with the cross… Jesus is alive and we are alive in Him! We can’t think of a better 100th post on our website here. Wherever you are today, we hope you are able to worship the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Here are some lyrics to our Easter song “He Has Overcome”.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

Reflection Song: He Has Overcome

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