“Lombada”

Last night in youth group we talked about how Jesus has authority over everything and how his authority compels us to go. The question was raised how does Jesus’ authority impact you and me as we follow him on a daily basis?

Does it?

When we came across that question it really made me stop and think, how does this effect me? Am I living like Jesus truly has all authority over my life?

Megan and I are nearing our first full year of marriage and I can honestly say this year wasn’t without some bumpy spots in the road. When I lived in Brazil I quickly learned the word for speed bump in portuguese, “Lombada”. They seemed to be everywhere, even in the middle of the highway. Every time we were about to go over one the driver of the car would yell “Lombada” to warn us it was coming, unfortunately sometimes the warning came late and I hit my head on the roof of the car a few times.

Sometimes we need those lombadas to slow us down or have someone yell out a warning for the bumps coming up. Through all the bumps of this first year of marriage Megan and i had to slow down, refocus, and rub the bumps we got on our heads from hitting the roof. Recently, I would say in the last three months Megan and I have been working on reestablishing the fact that Jesus has authority in our marriage. But even that has not been easy, we discovered our need to spend quality time together each morning and inviting Jesus into that time.

In a way our reestablishing the fact that Jesus has that authority in our lives helps us warn each other about the “Lombadas” up ahead, communication has improved and joy has started to unfold it’s peddles in full flowering blooms.

Sometimes we need to ask hard questions like “Does jesus really have all authority over my life and if so how is that effecting my daily life?” We need those questions to slow us down, to help us think and grow. Because once we see that Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth we should be compelled to go. As followers of jesus we should be relentless to love.

I have been reading a book about David Livingstone, who was a missionary and explorer in Africa back when much of Africa was unknown and dangerous. One of the things that really stood out to me from the book is how relentless Livingstone was, he often didn’t wait for others to give him the approval to go and seek out other tribes and peoples. He went when others would not. God gave him the courage to face lions and dangers unknown.

When we come to grasp the knowledge of God’s authority we will began to live fearlessly because if God is for us who can be against us. We as spirit-filled followers of Jesus need to be more like Livingstone and the early Christians who were relentless to love.

Let our lives be relentless acts of worship to our God. I believe the words in Psalms 150 verse 6, “Let everything that has breath  praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”

 

-Caleb Hunter

Pass it on to the Next Generation

Yesterday I had the opportunity to preach while our senior pastor was any on vacation. Yesterday was also mothers day so I thought it would be appropriate to talk about passing on what we have learned and experienced to the Next Generation. The following is my notes from yesterday’s sermon, I hope that they help you be inspired to pass it on.

 

Pass it on to the Next Generation

“1 My people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a parable;
I will utter hidden things, things from of old—
3 things we have heard and known,
things our ancestors have told us.

4 We will not hide them from their descendants;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
his power, and the wonders he has done.
5 He decreed statutes for Jacob
and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach their children,
6 so the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.

7 Then they would put their trust in God
and would not forget his deeds
but would keep his commands.
8 They would not be like their ancestors—
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
whose hearts were not loyal to God,
whose spirits were not faithful to him.”

-Psalm 78:1-8

 

To sorta set the table for the main points of the message today I wanted to tell you a little of my story, as a Son. I was born May 18^th, 1989 in a small hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana. I was the second child of my beautiful red haired Mother. Before I was born my parents had been married four years, my mom was a pharmacist assistant, but not long after I was born she made the choice to stay home and raise us kids. She made the choice early on that she wanted to teach us and I don’t know that she knew at the time but she was going to be the greatest influence any of us kids would have.

 

My mom told me those early years were scary, raising a boy was harder than raising my older sister. There was a lot of fear when I didn’t walk when I was suppose to, and when I got tested positive for ADHD, and when I had a hard time reading and writing, but mom never gave up. I remember struggling through each word of the easy reader book and how nothing sounded right yet her voice assured me I would get it, eventually. When I wanted to give up mom was always right there to encourage, even when it was obvious that my struggles were frustrating her.

My mom championed homeschooling, designing our lessons around how we learned as kids, with hands on science experiments in the kitchen right before lunch, to our individual reading and math lessons, to taking us to historical places all across the country so we didn’t just read about history but we got to experience it ourselves. Sometimes when my mom didn’t know something she would study long enough to be confident to teach us. She was dedicated to telling, teaching, showing and ultimately passing on what she had learned and experienced.

Over the past couple of years I have realized just how much my mom influenced everything about my life and if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be here today. Really I wouldn’t be here.

See when I was four years old I remember sitting on my mom’s lap in the floor of our playroom while she read to me from my picture Bible that my parents had got me for my first birthday. She read to me about Jesus and after a few of my curious four year old questions, she explained how he died for me so that we could be friends with him. At four I didn’t have many friends other than my older sister and my imaginary friend johnny so I asked God to forgive me and I started a relationship, a journey with him. My mom was the one that really introduced me to Jesus, her confidence and willingness to share her experience with Jesus was passed on to me.

I wish I could say everything was a smooth ride from there but thats not really how life works. In middle school, through a lot of things that happened I started to doubt my faith and ran from God. But also during that time I was surprised how my mom didn’t give up on me even though I thought it was obvious she knew I was running. When I was sixteen I recommitted my life to following Jesus. My mom had always encouraged us kids to find ways to live out our faith and experience new things. That same year I had the opportunity to go to Brazil for the first time. That trip literally changed my life.

After the trip there was one night that I remember God clearly giving me a vision of people, their faces were hard to make out, many of them I did not know, but in that moment God told me “tell and lead the next generation”. For a long time I’ve wondered what that really means, why me?, but the last eight years I’ve noticed that moment has affected a lot of my life.

God used my mom to tell me about Jesus, her steady encouragement moved me to following Jesus.

Today I want to talk about passing it on to the Next Generation. There are a couple of things I want to talk about from the Psalms 78 passage. First, “How can we pass it on if we have not experienced?”. I think this is an honest and sometimes hard question. How can we really tell anyone about Jesus and what it means to follow him if we aren’t doing it ourselves?

Psalms 78:1-3 “Oh people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter hidden things, things from old- What we have heard and known, what our fathers told us.”

Just this last week we started a new series in youth group titled “Follow Me”. The first weeks lesson dealt with when Jesus called the disciples. He didn’t just say believe that I will save you and go on fishing. Jesus said “Come follow me”, come experience life with me, eat what I eat, go where I go, see what I see, be where I am and I will teach you from showing you and not just telling. Jesus wanted his disciples to experience. They left everything to follow him.

David Platt Writes, “Sadly today we have subtly and deceptively minimized what it means to follow Jesus. We have replaced challenging words like, “Leave everything and follow me” with trite phrases like:

-Ask Jesus into your heart.

-Invite Christ into your life.

-Pray this prayer after me, and you will be saved.

Should it alarm us that the Bible nowhere mentions such a prayer? Should it concern us that nowhere in scripture is anyone ever told to ask Jesus into their heart or invite Christ into their life?”

I think the reason that it is never minimized to that in scripture is because what Jesus calls us to is to “Follow Him”, to follow him means there is going to be risk, it can’t be minimized or boiled down to one simple pray and thats it. That may be the beginning but there is so much more to following Jesus.

If we aren’t really following Jesus how can we invite others to, and if we haven’t experienced him how can we pass it on?

 

Second, What is there to fear? Often times I think what holds us back from sharing our experience with Jesus is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of saying the wrong thing, or fear of what others might think if they knew I was a Jesus freak.

Ps 78:4 “We will not hide them from their children, we will tell the next generation”

Growing up I was far to familiar with fear. It controlled my life. The first time my parents took me to the ocean I was almost two year old. They took me down toward the water and set me toward the waves. The water never really even got close to me but each time a wave crashed onto the beach I thought it was coming for me and the sound scared me to death. My parents told me I cried until they turned me around. If I couldn’t see it then it didn’t effect me… they hide the ocean from me!

 

I had a lot of fears like fear of flying, fear of Simi-trucks, fear of the dark, even fireworks on the forth of July scared me. But slowly as I grew older I realized fears didn’t have control over me. A lot of the time when I was running from God was out of fear of both the unknown and fear that God wouldn’t love me anymore. I believe when we really chose to follow Jesus he can release us from the prison of fear. We underestimate the power of the holy spirit in our lives and forget that he is with us.

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:6-9 “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus.”

We all have times we fear but when that fear holds us back from following Jesus and sharing him with the rest of the world maybe it’s time to leave it behind. We have to surrender our fears, our excuses and trust that the things that we lack God has in control. Don’t let fear hold you back. We have to be committed to not hiding God from the Next generation we have to pass it on.

Third, We are all Called to pass it on. I believe whole heartedly that we are all called to pass on and share in our experiences with others. I believe following Jesus though it is an individual choice we each make it isn’t a singular or selfish thing. We who truly choose to follow Jesus, we who say we want to be his disciple, our experience with Jesus it should transform our lives into being about other people.

Passing it on to the next generation starts with our commitment to follow Jesus no matter the cost and in everything learning to love. It troubles me sometimes when we boil Christianity down to being about “me getting to heaven and me being saved”. Life is not about me.

The greatest lesson that I ever learned from my mom was that “life is best spent serving other people”

I believe the greatest way that we can introduce people to Jesus is by loving them wholeheartedly. People are watching us because they want to see Jesus. The next Generation is watching because they want an example to show them what it means to truly follow Jesus.

People will know that we follow Jesus by our love, not by our building, not our programs, not our VBS, not by the name on our sign, or how we use to do things. People will know we follow Jesus by the way we love them in the present, in each moment of this life that we have. They will know that we follow Jesus when we can share our experience with Jesus with them.

Our fresh new purpose statement here at Cedar Square Friends Meeting is “Loving God by Serving all People”… this is what we want people to see and know us by. We we are all in, loving God with all we have it means we are passing on that love to everyone we me. You and I are the Next Generation of Christians and we are all called to pass it on.

I had a professor in college tell me “Caleb, the next generation is the generation before, the generation after and the generation you are in. They all were a next generation at one point or another and they need sometime to pass the gospel to them.”

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

 

 

Where Are You?

If you were to ask me if I would consider myself a morning person I would have to say no but I use to be. Somewhere along the way to twenty-four I lost my appreciation of the morning, and to be honest I am not sure why? Perhaps it might have been from the fact that in college I had to get up early for class some mornings and so those mornings that I did not have to wake up for class I rebelled by staying in bed as long as I could. I guess I need to force a revolution of my thinking. “Viva la révolution de ma pensée”, I know very little french but long live the revolution of my thinking is something I do, sorta. Sometimes I just need to rethink how I’m thinking, to stop making excuses and redefine why I do what I do.

This morning I started my day with coffee, a doughnut and some more coffee in my warm office sitting back in my much to large chair reading a book by Henri J.M. Nouwen. Henri was a former catholic priest and theology professor who spent his final years working with the mentally and physically disabled. I have read a few of this books and find his insites to be thought provoking and challenging to my spiritual growth.

As I was reading I came to this quote, “To live a disciplined life is to live in such a way that you want only to be where God is with you” (The Inner Voice of Love, pg 23). Sometimes in the morning when I wake up I ask myself “Where am I?” as I come to in the reality of the day. But perhaps there is a deeper question of “Do I find that where I am, God is there also?”. Thats a hard question that doesn’t come with a quick answer. Do I find myself in a place where God is?

Henri began this page in the book by writing, “When we experience a great need for human affection, you have to ask yourself whether the circumstances surrounding you and the people you are with are truly where God wants you to be” (pg 23). We all long for love, it’s a part of what makes us human but where we find that love is critical to how our lives are shaped and lived. We long for deep human affection and I believe God uses people to show us his love but are we really where God wants us to be?

I know from some of my experiences that I have been in places of great emptiness and there I just find a void of what my heart really needed. It’s hard to be in those places but we don’t have to stay there, there are times we fear change and fear being challenged to think differently. However, if we don’t ask the hard question of is this really where God wants me we may never move on.

This reminds me of Peter and how jesus called him to follow him. Peter had the choice to stay where he was and keep fishing all his life. He probably had a well established market for his fish, he had friends, family, and all the comforts

he could afford in the first century A.D. , but he had to stop and ask the question “Is this where God wants me to be, is this the place, are these the people, is this what I am suppose to do? I am sure Jesus saying come follow me threw him off his routine but Peter’s response was without hesitation, he moved to where God was and lived in a such a way that he wanted to be with Jesus.

Later when Jesus is walking on the water Peter ask’s jesus to call him out on the water, he wants to Go with jesus even if it’s scary and challenging. Peter was willing to Question whether being in the boat was where God wanted him to be or not? He was willing to trust that God was going to provide a way to walk on water. Each day we wake up and ask God is this where I am suppose to be today, if you want me out on the water call me there and I trust you will provide a way. We long deeply for love, we long even deeper to be where God is. Ask the hard questions, challenge your thinking and find out where God wants you to be. He is already there going before us we just have to get out of the boat.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

 

Memory, Mind and Moving Forward

 

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”- Colossians 3:2

 

Memory: (noun) “the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms”

 

Over the past few years I have acquired a growing fascination with the human brain. The thought that we think sometimes blows my mind. There is such complexity and mystery to the brain that anytime that I spend any amount of time at all contemplating it, I am blown away and in awe of how it all works, of course this leads me back to the very creator and engineer of this complexity.

As a group of friends and I were sitting in a house in Mebane, NC last night discussing some of the things that we were going through someone made the comment that “the fact that we can remember, or have the capacity for memory is an awesome blessing that God has given us.” In the context of our conversation we were discussing experiencing God and how often times, that is what our heart desires but we get discouraged because we go through times where we don’t feel him. And that is where memory comes in, in those times where we can’t seem to feel him, God has given us the memory of when we did.

Just yesterday I was looking back through some of my earlier blog posts and I found one that I wrote while still in college out in Kansas. In that blog I quoted Donnie Hinshaw who was the pastor of the church that I attended out there,

 

“To hope in something means the state of life you are in is a state of discontent”

 

In that sermon I remember him talking about living with a Holy Discontent. A discontent that says where I am is not where I always want to be, a “holy” discontent is when that discontent is focused on experiencing God and being in a relationship with him. Right now I would have to say I have a pretty holy discontent. Not because where I am at is a horrible place but for the fact that I want to know, experience and feel God more, then what I do right now. I can remember those time where God really moved in my life. Those times where what I was doing and how I was living was intentionally geared toward pursuing a relationship with him. Those moments moved me forward, allowed me to take risk and strengthened my trust in God.

I think sometimes we get these ideas that the life of a christian should be full of these mountain top experiences and everyday is going to be full of miracles. However, that is not how it works, granted we may have those mountain top moments where God blows our minds, but in reality God wants to be with us in every moment. God takes the mundane and fills it with meaning. Just look at the life of Jesus, the majority of his life was spent living with twelve men. He traveled around taking the daily things of life and teaching them with those things. He did miracles but there were days where he didn’t. He blew the disciples minds but there where times where they were confused because he wasn’t the Messiah that everyone was expecting. Jesus spent three years helping the disciples experience him and fill their minds with memories of his life with them, so that when he was gone they could share those memories with the rest of the world.

One of the things that really stands out to me about the early church is that they were in each others homes, they were building community, they were eating together so that they could share together in the memory of Jesus. At the last supper Jesus said “Remember me when you take this cup and eat this bread.” He didn’t just say this because he was going to the cross the next day he said this so that this moment would be written in the minds of his disciples, that they would remember all the moments they had with him and that memory would move them forward.

Moving forward. What I mean by this is that our minds have the capacity for an endless amount of memories. Jesus doesn’t just tell them to remember, but rather to go and make new memories, to go and make disciples. To go and live life with people just like he had lived life with them. The disciples could have just settled into the mundane. They could have just kept the memories to themselves and let those three years be the only memories they had with Christ. The apostle Peter even tried this by going back to being a fisherman after Jesus died, but Jesus showed up and reminded Peter of what he had taught him and asked him to do (John 21:15-25).

So what does this have to do with us. I think sometimes we settle for simply living off the memories of old rather then making new ones. In the context of the church I think this is why so many churches around america are on the verge of dying. They have stopped living, they have settled for the mundane, they say this is what we use to do and this is what we will always do and we can’t change. Those churches like to talk about the glory days, they like to talk about when all the pews were full and about all the things they use to do. They speak of these experiences like war stories, there is this feeling of it being a long, long time ago in totally different situation. What breaks my heart about this is that it leaves a feeling that there is no future, there is no hope, and any discontent there may be is a discontent for what once was rather then what could be.

We as human’s have this ability to get overwhelmed with what the world around us is doing. We focus so much on the crazy messed up world that we forget God, we forget we have experienced him, we forget he loved us, we forget he saved us, we forget how to be in relationship with him, we forget that church isn’t about the program, numbers or methods but about the people being in relationship with God and each other. We forget that we have the opportunity to experience him everyday. We forget we have hope. I believe churches will close their doors and they will figuratively dye because they refuse to move forward. A whole generation may wonder in the desert like the Israelites because they have a great fear of moving forward, a fear that experiencing God in a new way may challenge everything they know, a fear that everything might change, a fear that the new memory may be painful, hard and risky.

The memory of Jesus will moved forward not by the organized established church but by the people that are willing to say “the memories I have with God are not enough, I want more”. The people that are willing to move forward, pick up the cross and move toward Christ with the holy discontent, that where they are isn’t where God wants them to stay. I can say that is is a challenge for myself as well, I realized recently that I had been riding off of my memories of past experiences with Jesus and others rather then making new ones. I realized that I had settled with just being content with who I was and what I was doing, but when my wife pointed out something to me the other day that I need to change it challenged me to really look deep into my own heart and ask myself what I’m doing.

As I have thought about this I have tried to put this into a context of where I am at in life right now. Just this year I got married to a beautiful young woman that I love very much, it took a lot of risk on both of our parts to trust that this what we wanted for our lives. It forced us to change, it daily challenges us in the way that we live and how we see the world. I can’t live the same way I was living before I had a wife, I had been living alone, eating frozen pizzas and hamburgers, watching what I wanted to watch and doing whatever I wanted to do. Having a wife has made me realize how selfish that way of life is and providing for her and myself isn’t ever going to be easy but it’s totally worth it.

Another thing that I have realized recently is I can’t continue the relationship simply off of old memories. Where we are living is a whole new place from where we started dating, in almost every way. To strengthen our marriage we have to be intentional about creating new memories and doing the same things that we were doing while dating doesn’t always mean that much. We have to do new things, take new risks and say “what I know about you isn’t enough, I want to know you more.” Sometimes that is scary because that means we have to open up, be honest and move forward.

I have a holy discontent for life because I want to make new memories with God and those around me that I love. It starts with setting my mind on Christ. Setting my mind intentionally on pursuing a relationship and being willing to move forward. Right before the Colossians 3:2 passage Paul reminds the church at Colosse that they had been raised with Christ and Christ was seated at the right hand of God. In this he is reminding them that Jesus had already concurred death, he had already forgiven them, he had already saved them, and that setting their minds on things above was to set their minds on Jesus.

Going on from there Paul says in verse 3-4, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life, appears, then you will appear with him in glory”…

 

And in Verse 5… “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature”…

 

Then he lists all these things that aren’t what we need as followers of Christ for we wont find him in those things and in contrast he writes in Verse 12-17… “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievance you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

 

Paul reminds the church that Jesus is their life and then he reminds them of what that looks like to live as if Christ really was their life. He encouraged them to continue in the future to live this way, to continue to experience what it means to be God’s chosen people. The memories we have with God should move us forward toward more. We have to ask the question is Jesus just a memory or a story I read about or is he alive, seated on the throne and is he my life?

 

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the Life.

 

I am discontent with anything short of Jesus being my life.

 

-Caleb Hunter

Who Do You Say I Am?

Our understanding of who God is and who we are drastically affects our understanding of who Christ is and why we need him”– David Platt (Radical pg 34)

Over the course of the past year as a youth pastor I have been trying to help my students get a better understand of Jesus by leading them through the life of Jesus. I think sometimes we focus so much on “the manger” and “the cross” that we miss out on how Jesus really lived his life. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus birth and death are important but we have to see the story as a whole to really grasp how significant both of those events are. I think many times as Christians we treat Jesus death and resurrection as really the only important things that happened, it’s like we open a novel and read only the part about the hero dying. That is important, but thats not everything.

I believe that the more that we read and study the life of Jesus, the day in and day out doings of Jesus, we will start to experience him in really and intimate way. It’s like when you read a well written novel you get emotional attached to the characters and you start to feel the pains, joys, struggles and change that they go through. You choose to be invested in the story, you choose to let yourself be swept away in what is going on.

Last year I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I didn’t necessarily want to read it. The idea of kids killing each other honestly still makes me feel sick to my stomach, but my little sister convenience me to read it. As I started reading I went from having no interest to feeling emotionally invested in the story. Collins evoked emotions through the book that I didn’t want to feel. I found myself crying and cheering at times. I could have just avoided all this if I had just put off reading it. It’s easier to not read it then put myself through that, however, thinking about it now that is the same reason sometimes we put off reading the Bible. We put off reading the story of God’s relationship with humanity because we might be affected. We might change and feel things we didn’t want to, BUT isn’t that the point.

The Bible is the story of God’s relationship with humanity, a story that is full of conflict, struggle, and pain but it is also a story full of grace, love and redemption. Jesus life is part of that story, arguably the most vital part, so what is holding us back from opening the book and being invested in the story. I think maybe what holds us back is how we view Jesus. Let me explain by looking at Mark 8:11-30.

In the first eleven verses of Mark 8 Jesus fed four-thousand people with seven loaves of bread, there are a couple of things we can learn from that but the important one is that Jesus had compassion on the people. His motive for feeding the four-thousand was not to do a miracle or show off, it was simply to feed the hungry because he knew what it meant to be hungry. If we pick up the story in verse eleven it reads:

“11 Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. 12 He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.” 13 Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.” Mark 8:11-13 (NIV)

Why would they come ask for a sign? It amazes me that the Pharisees would come to Jesus at this point in his life and ask for a sign, some miracle so that they might believe. When I read this I think Jesus was frustrated with them (He sighed deeply). He had just fed four-thousand people, before that he had healed a deaf and mute man, even before that he had fed five-thousand people with five loaves and two fish, he had walked on water, he had cast out evil spirits. Weren’t these things a sign enough for the pharisees. Of all people they should know right? The pharisees prided themselves in their study of the law and of Moses. They would have read the prophecies about the Messiah but they had their own ideas. Reading on…

“14 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. 15 “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.” 16 They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”

17 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” “Twelve,” they replied. 20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” They answered, “Seven.” 21 He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”” -Mark 8:14-21 (NIV)

In this passage we find Jesus with his disciples, they have very little bread which makes me think the disciples were worrying about how they were going to get more and in that moment Jesus warned them. I use to read this and not really care to understand what Jesus meant by this but now it’s starting to make sense after reading N.T. Wrights commentary about this passage. Wright writes “Now Jesus speaks of ‘leaven’, not to warn the disciples about the wrong sort of bread, but to put them on their guard against the wrong sort of kingdom-vision (Mark for Everyone, pg 104).” As I thought of that I realize why Jesus used the word yeast to describe this to the disciples. See yeast is very small but very powerful, when it’s mixed in with flour and water it’s nearly impossible to get it out and it affects the whole loaf.

Jesus warns the disciples of the yeast of the pharisees and Herod. The reason for this is because the pharisees were looking for a Messiah that would come restore Israel politically and spiritually. To them this meant that the Messiah would come and overthrow the Roman’s and take the throne of David here on earth. Secondly, they thought the Messiah would restore the temple to it’s original glory like in the days of Solomon. The temple was central to their spirituality because it was the place God dwelled. That was their focus and it affected everything they thought and did. Thats why when Jesus came they weren’t convinced he was the Messiah because he wasn’t doing what they thought he was suppose to do.

Herod was concerned about his throne. He was a puppet king for the Romans and anyone he thought was a threat to Roman was a threat to him and his “kingdom”. Herod had already put John the baptist to death for speaking against him and I am sure that the stories of Jesus had made it to his ears. Herod wasn’t interested in knowing if Jesus was the Messiah, he was simply concerned about himself and making sure Jesus wasn’t a threat to him. I am sure the crowds that followed Jesus worried Herod, but he didn’t really want to know Jesus.

Jesus warns the disciples and then reminds them that they don’t have to worry about having enough bread. Jesus is almost sarcastically saying “Remember when… I fed five-thousand and four-thousand people with very little.” Right after this Jesus encounters a crowd that brings Jesus a blind man to be healed.

“22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” 24 He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” 25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into[a] the village.”

-Mark 8:22-26 (NIV)

This experience that Jesus has with the blind man has a few things that could be missed if we just read it as another healing. First, a crowd gathers bringing Jesus someone to heal, like many of the crowds before they might have had different motives, but Jesus actions speaks of his heart for people. Jesus didn’t just heal him right there in front of the crowd. He wasn’t about putting on a show or simply doing miracles because he could. Jesus took the man away, outside the village, away from the crowd. He didn’t say any magical words or forgive the guys sins, he simply took a little spit and rubbed the man’s eye. Then like an eye doctor would he asked him what he could see, finding that he didn’t have 20/20 vision Jesus touched him again giving him permanent contacts. He then just sends the man away.

The second thing I see in this is the kingdom-vision of the crowd and possibly the blind man. The crowd had come to see a show. They weren’t all concerned that Jesus might be the Messiah, they thought he was the greatest show on earth long before the Barnum and Bailey Circus. They wanted to see miracles. We see that also with the crowd of the four-thousand who followed Jesus for three days. After reading the stories of Jesus healing I always wonder what happened to the people he healed. How were their lives changed and what did they do after that experience. We don’t really know, some may have followed Jesus and others may not. For this reason I think for those that were healed they really might not have cared if Jesus was the Messiah. They might have seen Jesus as the healer, the best thing that ever happened to them, or the only doctor who really knew what he was doing.

Finally we come to Mark 8:27-30…

“27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” 28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him” (NIV)

Here all those other things make sense, as if Mark is building everything to this climax, a question that Jesus asks “Who do you say I am?”. We just looked at the pharisees and how they thought Jesus might have just been a prophet or really good teacher or just a radical guy, because he didn’t fit their view of the Messiah and their Kingdom-vision. Then we looked at Herod and how he thought Jesus might just be another John the baptist, a crazy man who could draw a crowd, which was okay as long as he wasn’t a threat. Then the crowds and the blind man, who might have saw Jesus simply as Elijah come back from the dead because he could heal and do miracles.

But, who do you say I am? is Jesus question, not to them but to his disciples. Peter makes a really bold statement with his response “You are the Messiah”(vs.29). This was a bold statement because not even the pharisees who knew the law and the prophecies would say this. Herod wouldn’t believe it because Jesus would then be a threat. The crowd was to caught up in the show to care. However, Peter knew, he knew because he had been with Jesus he had experienced Jesus.

Peter and the disciples had something that none of the other people in these passages had. They had three years with Jesus. They had invested in being with him, they had given up a lot along the way but they had experienced life with Jesus. They hadn’t settled for waiting on the outside to see if Jesus was going to redeem Israel. Even though at times they got caught up in thinking like the pharisees and being wowed like the crowds the whole of their experiences with Jesus lead them to understand that he was the Messiah.

So what does that have to do with us? Well the first thing I think we have to ask ourselves is who do we say Jesus is? Do we know him well enough to even give a good answer? I believe that being a christian isn’t so much about when and where we prayed for Jesus to save us from our sins as it is about the process that we go through when we surrender our kingdom-vision and begin investing in knowing him. This means the relationship is important. Those three years Jesus had with his disciples were very important! Every moment we have with Jesus is important. Because the experiences we have with Jesus will help us answer that question.

Who do I say Jesus is? God started a relationship with humanity in the beginning, you and I are part of that humanity. When I realize that I am a part of humanity that God has created to have a relationship with I have a better understand of who I am. That this life isn’t about me it’s about my God and the relationship I have with him. Jesus is the only one that can restore that relationship, he is the redeemer, the Messiah. “Our understanding of who God is and who we are drastically affects our understanding of who Christ is and why we need him”– David Platt (Radical pg 34).

Think about this. I dare you to ask the question, “Who do I say Jesus is? Do I really believe he is who I say he is?

-Caleb Ross Hunter

10/8/2013

Three Simple Words… Come Follow Me

Over the past few months I have been processing through the simple words that Jesus said to his disciples and the many people he encountered on a daily basis. The words “Come Follow Me”, three simple words that changed everything for a lot of people. Those same words I believe he is still saying to you and I today.

 

Last month I was down in Alabama on a short missions trip with some of the students from my youth group. We went to host a sports camp at the MOWA Choctaw Friends Center which is about 45 min from Mobile in an area that is at or below the poverty level. We taught a different sports everyday and got to know kids of all ages from the community. Many of these kids come from rough family situations and a couple of the kids I found out that their parents would send them out of the house in the morning and not let them back in until the end of the day, so they were on their own.

 

It’s hard to believe this is how people live here in America, but it’s real. I’ve seen and experienced poverty in Brazil, South America, but this was a lot closer to home. Seeing those kids and getting to teach them sports reminded me of how God broke my heart a few years ago to lead and love “The Next Generation”.

 

Despite their situations and circumstances these kids enjoyed life. If anything we gave them a week out of the summer where they can have a positive memory and a glimmer of hope through the gospel that was shared everyday. Those kids are the future of that community and just as the kids that I work with here in North Carolina are the future of this community.

 

While we were down there I was asked to speak to the students that had come and to the staff during our worship sessions every evening. The staff had called me and asked me to speak two weeks before we were to leave and even though I was really busy with vacation Bible school, I felt like God telling me to do it. I felt like at first that I was not going to be prepared to speak because I didn’t have the time I thought I needed to prepare, however, the closer it got to the trip God kept saying just speak from the heart, trust me.

 

So our theme for the week was “You before Me, Last before First, Jesus before Everything”. I tied that into the talks by looking at different encounters that Jesus had with people and how they lived out that theme. We first looked at the rich young ruler and how he thought he had it all together and was wondering if in the new heaven and earth he would be as rich as he was here. Jesus listed of the commandments as his response purposely leaving out the first two. The rich young ruler respond to Jesus by saying all of these I have kept since I was a child. Then those simple three words followed from Jesus mouth, “Come Follow Me”.

 

Yet, the rich young ruler walked away sad. He wanted to go to heaven, he wanted to keep all the rules, but he couldn’t follow Jesus.

 

Why? I think one of the main reasons why was because he would have to put Jesus first, he would have to stop worshiping himself, his riches and the power thought he had. The rich young ruler walked away because he did not want his life to change, he just wanted to guarantee a spot in heaven. He had put himself before God, I think thats why Jesus left out the first two commandments. The commandments of love the lord your God and have no other God’s before me.

 

I think sometimes as christians we can focus more on trying to guarantee heaven then we are about following Jesus. We lose track on putting Jesus first and we put ourselves and our possessions before God. Life was never meant to be lived for Heaven, life was meant to be lived for God.

One of the main points I made in my talks while in Alabama was that “I don’t want you to think that Jesus just came to save you from your sins, but that he came that you might live and show you how to live.”

 

When Jesus says “Come follow me”, he is saying come see how I live so that you might live, because Jesus lived out, you before me, last before first.

 

The second night in Alabama we looked at a little different encounter that Jesus had with some, this time it was with Levi the tax collector. He was rich but not a ruler, he might not have kept all the rules and wasn’t really liked by people. Tax collectors were some of the most hated people in Jesus time because Hared would appoint Jews to take taxes from the Jew for the Romans. The reasons they did this is because being a Jew, Levi would have known who had the money and what he could charge people. Tax collectors were not liked by their own people and were not to be trusted. The religious leaders would have considered them sinners and outcasts.

 

Yet, Jesus comes along to Levi’s tax collectors booth and says those simple three words “Come follow me”. The guy nobody liked, the guy the leaders cant stand, the guy that takes peoples money and cheats them to get rich, yeah that guy is the guy Jesus reaches out to and says come follow me. That guy is the guy that gets it right, then and there. He leaves he tax collectors booth and follows.

 

He could have ignored Jesus. He could have stayed there. Comfortable, rich and disliked, yet he didn’t, he knew that following Jesus would mean things would change and he followed. To me the tax collectors booth represents the selfishness that Levi was living out. He didn’t care really about his Jewish friends and neighbors, we worked for the enemy of the Jews and in all likelihood he cheated them all to get rich. His choosing to follow Jesus in that moment was the start of a long process of growth and learning about life from Jesus.

 

Jesus didn’t come along and ask him if he wanted to be saved, he didn’t point out all his sins, he just said come and follow. Jesus later went and partied with Levi and his friends. Jesus hung out with the sinners and the outcasts. Jesus did what the religious leaders would not. Jesus called Levi even when Levi was in a place where he was living for himself.

 

Levi got it, he put aside the one real thing that was keeping him from following Jesus. I challenged the students and staff down in Alabama to try to identify those things that are keeping us personally from following Jesus. To find those things that we are putting between us and God. Putting those things aside or leaving them behind may be hard, it may be uncomfortable, it may mean everything about us will change but with Jesus he will show us how to live and what life is really all about.

 

When I recommitted my life to Jesus six plus years ago now, I chose to start following, to leave behind my selfish tax collectors booth and learn how to follow. It hasn’t been easy and I haven’t always been the best follower, but it has changed me for the better, Jesus has changed me from the inside. Who I am is not who I was and following Jesus is a process of growth and renewal. Heaven will be nice but my life is not about heaven it’s about Jesus, living with and for him.

 

Jesus is still telling us those simple three words today “Come follow me”.

 

Recently I have been writing a song or poem of sorts about this idea. As you read this let it soak in that Jesus saved you so that he might show you how to live.

 

Come follow me he said

As we stood in disbelief,

Who is this man

Why would he want me

I have no place to lay my head

This is not my home,

These are not my mother and brothers

but I will call you my own

This is what he means

when he said “Come follow me”

 Sell all you have and

Give it to the poor

Trust me for I will

meet your needs

 

Can’t you see

Healing all around you

It’s doing something amazing

Inside of you

 

This is what he means

When he said “Come Follow me”

 

Simple words from a carpenters mouth

That turn the world upside down

Simple words that will change

the heart inside of me.

 

When Jesus says “Come follow me” think about what is holding you back? You don’t have to walk away sad. When we trust him he will lead us into life, life 

is waiting to be lived to the fullest. I will echo the words of my savor not because he has guaranteed heaven but because he has given me life

“Come Follow Jesus”.

 

May God bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

We Are Not Of Those Who Shrink Back…

“But we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved”

– Hebrews 10:39

In Jerusalem the crowds had gathered from all around the Roman Empire to celebrate passover, some had traveled for days or weeks before reaching the city walls. Some had come for religious reasons, some simply out of tradition and others just to see and partake in the excitement of being in such a place with so many other people or because they were told “Jews like to party”.

On Easter sunday the crowds will gather again much like they did two thousand years ago. There will be those who have traveled across the states, those who took extra vacation time just so they can be with family. They will file into church wearing the best of whatever they own, some come for what they consider religious reasons, others will come for the sake of an age old family tradition and still others come confused with how chocolate, baskets and bunnies have to do with the once a year church visit that is awkward, boring and often feels meaningless.

Back two thousand years ago, to those outside of the Jewish faith the passover was just a time when everyone ate nasty yeast-less bread and rehashed the story of how Moses led them out of Egypt. It carried little meaning to those who did not understand the significance of how God had led his people out of slavery and toward the promise land. I imagine the routine of the passover became mundane and faded to just something families did every year. It lost it’s meaning even though the story was told. Even in my own life I have been guilty of showing up on Easter morning bored and uninterested. There are times I’ve felt offended by the fact that people are more fake about their faith on Easter and Christmas than any other time of the year. It’s as if they do not choose to believe any other time.

Following Jesus is not a once a year thing.

In the crowds of people that had gathered in Jerusalem for the passover there were those who had come because they believed this was the time that Jesus was going to rise up as their fearless leader and over throw the Romans. There were those who had followed him simply because he healed them or satisfied their hunger. There were those who followed just for the excitement of the crowds that seemed to be amazed by him. But there were a few who really believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the savior of his people. Not a savior over Roman oppression but a savior over sin, guilt, shame and separation from God.

For those few who really truly believed they were going to quickly learn that following Jesus was not going to be a once a year thing, it was not going to be an easy thing and it was not always going to be that exciting either. When Jesus was arrested the people that were following Jesus seemed to shrink. There were those who had shouted “Hosanna in the highest” when he had entered the city but found themselves screaming “Crucify Him” by the end of the week. There were those who wanted to follow Jesus when it seemed safe, comfortable and the popular thing to do, but when things changed they were quick to shrink back and run away.

People are no different today as they were two thousand years ago. There are still those who only follow Jesus because he healed them or satisfied their hunger, there are those who think the crowds that gather on Christmas and Easter are exciting, and those who come once a year because they respect anyone who does something to cause a holiday.

But who are we.

Who are we in this story. I love how the writer of Hebrews speaks of the supremacy of Christ and assures his reader that Jesus is the son of God. He reminds them of why Jesus came to live and died and rose again. Then he goes on to speak of those few that continued to believe in Jesus after many had given up…

“Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised… But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”

• Hebrews 10:32-36,39

After Jesus death and resurrection it was still not easy to follow Jesus. There was no once a year follower of Jesus. It was either all in or all out. The risk was high and the cost was at times your own life, yet there were those who did not shrink back. When Jesus was crucified there were many who just gave up, they shrunk back, he did not do what they thought he was going to do so they gave up on him. I believe there are those who think they are following Jesus, but know nothing about him and there are those who as they get to know him and everything he did they choose to leave him, but we do not have to be those people.

We have a choice to follow Jesus everyday, learn more about him not for the sake of knowing facts, but for a relationship with him.

The early followers of Jesus did not always know what they were going to be getting into or what God was calling them to do, however, they made a choice to follow any way. Following Jesus is a learning process. It takes time, we have no need to shrink back or throw away our confidence. For those who believe we have ten thousand reasons to tell the world about Jesus. There will always be those who only come to church on Easter or Christmas, but there is no reason that that should be the only time all year that they hear or see Jesus.

 

We are not of those who shrink back from carrying the good news to the world. The good news of love and hope. The world two thousand years ago was in desperate need of hope and an example of love. Jesus calls us to carry that same message to our world that is longing for some hope and is often confused about love. We need to remind those who believe that we are not of those who shrink back.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Healing is like Gutting a Pumpkin

“Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.  Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. ⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”- Mark 2:3-5

 

There are times that I wonder what it would have been like to be one of those people that Jesus healed. To be one of the lepers or the blind man who got mud smeared on his eyes, or the man with the shriveled hand or the deaf and mute man who had never uttered a single word. I can close my eyes and try to imagine I’m blind but I’m sure that it’s not the same, because I have seen so much of the world that I can imagine things I have seen and can’t really comprehend not even knowing what light is. I am sure that it would have been mind blowing for some of the people that Jesus healed. One day your whole concept of life changed simply because what use to be a black mass or blur became clear and beautiful. From reading about the brain and neurological system that runs most of your body there could have been major brain trauma if Jesus had healed just the eyes themselves, but Jesus went deeper than just mud on the eyes, he healed the whole person and left them far better than he found them. It wouldn’t make sense if Jesus just healed the man’s eye balls yet left him with no real grasp of the world he could now see. He would have been confused and just as lost in the world of light as he was in his former world of darkness. Perhaps there are times that we only want Jesus to heal part of us, just enough to take away our sins but not alter our way of life or concept of the world.

In youth group yesterday we studied Mark chapter 2:1-12 which is the story of Jesus healing the paralyzed man. In order to try to grasp what it would be like to be paralyzed I had all the students lay down on the floor and close there eyes and not move for 2 min while trying to think about not being able to do their favorite thing or not being able to feed themselves. They said it was challenging and left them feeling a little sad yet hard to comprehend what that really would be like.  As we discussed and read the story one of the main points that I was trying to get across to them is how Jesus didn’t just simply heal the paralyzed man but he went deeper. The fact that Jesus first words to the man wasn’t “why did your friends rip a hole through the roof?” or “just get up and walk cause your interrupting the flow of my talking” or “can’t you see it’s already packed in here”, might have really surprised people what were there and should surprise us a little today. Jesus does the unexpected all the time and this time he just says “Son, your sins are forgiven”. After Jesus says that the man is still laying there paralyzed. Nothing changed that we could see.

People weren’t happy that Jesus was forgiving the man. In that time people who were disabled were thought to be that way because of their sin or their parents sin. They were outcasts and thought of as worthless. When Jesus forgives the man’s sin he isn’t just forgiving the man but he is also speaking to the crowd that has gathered around him. He is saying ” I have the power to forgive sins and I don’t believe this man’s life is worthless, just look at those four friends who were so driven and determined to find healing for their friend that they ripped through the roof. Why don’t you have faith like them?”. People knew that Jesus could heal the paralytic if he wanted to, they had faith because they had seen him heal others and that could be why so many had come, but they lacked the faith that jesus could heal the whole person from the inside out.

When we were discussing this fact that Jesus has the power to heal from the inside out Eighth grader Lindsey Davis said “It’s like carving a pumpkin, you have to clean out all the guts and seeds from the inside so his light can shine through us.” Thats exactly what Jesus is doing in this story and wants to do in us. He is cleaning the gunk from the inside of the man so that his light can shine to the rest of the crowd. That they might experience his true and real forgiveness. That they might be fully healed. Thats why when Jesus healed people their lives were changed forever, not just physically but spiritually. They were in the streets telling of all he had done for them, shinning the light from the inside out. They had reasons to shout it from the mountain tops and let the whole world know.

Jesus didn’t just forgive the mans sins that day but he also gave him his life back. He went home walking, skipping, running and jumping, carrying his own mat with no need for anyones help. Do we go home jumping and shouting about what Jesus has done for us? or do we just settle for having a little faith that he just might forgive me but he really cant change me. We paralyze ourselves with excuses like I am to old, I am to stubborn, I don’t have passion, I don’t care enough, or I have fear that I’ll just keep on sinning, or what i say won’t come out right, or no one would really think anything has changed. We are like the paralytic laying there on the mat, we have been forgiven yet we don’t move, we don’t act like we are forgiven, we don’t celebrate the fact that we have life and that we have the opportunity every moment to shine that light. To tell others our story. To show the world we are different and God loves them.

When we get up and take our mats we have the opportunity to be like the paralytics friends. We have a choice to make, to be determined and driven enough to tell the world and love those around us. I challenge anyone to read that story in Mark and find yourself in one of the many people in that story. Who are you? Where are you at? Are you allowing Jesus to fully heal you and give you life, life to the fullest.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

Mind Renewal and Butterflies

“Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will”- 12: 2 

I read this verse a few weeks ago in a devotional that I am going through and have continued to come across it in a few books that I am reading. Also a week ago I saw a short video about the brain that mentioned this verse. Finally it kinda hit me this morning as I was starting my day that maybe God was trying to get through to me to stop and think about it for a minute.

Romans 12:2 is one of those verses I could just easily just pass by without thought. Its a obvious verse that is often over quoted and I have read a million times. STOP for a second if I have read it a million times and heard sermons preach about it why then have I given it so little thought. Maybe because When we stop and really think about our lives, the way we think, the way we act, and the way we do anything for that matter we might just have to rethink thing because our patterns are just like the world.

While reading yesterday in the book “Plan B” by Pete Wilson I came across the verse again but this time the following paragraph from the actually made me stop and think about it.

“So what is the pattern of this world? If we look closely, we can probably discern several distinct patterns. There is the pattern of hurry -now, now, now, faster, faster, faster. There is the pattern of debt- enjoy now, pay later (if at all). But one of the patterns I see every single day in the lives of people I rub elbows with is fear and anxiety. I truly believe there is a pattern of fear in our culture, probably made worse by our constant media presence. We’re constantly alerted to the possible sources of danger, conditioned to see threats all around us. We’re instructed to cover our tails, to trust no one, to avoid failure at any cost”- Pg 56-57

Hurry, hurry, hurry… this seems to often the one we ignore and I believe like Pete it is out of fear of many things that keeps us from slowing down long enough to listen to what God has to say. I can say all the times that I read through this verse in the past few weeks were more than likely out of hurry, hurry because well often times for no other reason than to feel like I accomplished something which in turn is fed by a fear that comes from being told you better not fail and better do everything right. I can say I am in the process of letting my fears go and trusting God but I have to slow down to do it.

It’s interesting to me that the word transformation is in this verse. Transformation is one of those buzz words for me that makes me excited and thoughtful (most of the time when I slow down). Transformation is simple put the Process of Change. The word is closely tied with the greek word for metamorphosis, which as most boys who have ever been fascinated by bugs understand is the process of going through the stages of a caterpillar to a butterfly. I use to be obsessed with bugs, but thats another story, however, understanding that transformation is a process helps when connecting transformation to the renewing of our minds.

We often point to the caterpillar and the butterfly when we think of metamorphosis yet we don’t ever really think about the cocoon stage. We like the beginning and the end. Doesn’t that sound familiar, as humans we love birth and celebrate or morn death but rarely do we focus on how we have changed through those times. We hurry from birth to death so we can be in heaven, sadly we miss out on so much of the life that Christ already offers us here when we hurry through everything. Jesus wants to blow our minds here, make us STOP and really think through life. To be renewed in mind through the slow process of thinking through what patterns we are living and how we can allow God to change us if we let him.

A caterpillar will eat and eat and often die before it get to be a cocoon because it over eats or gets squashed by some little kid, hurry and eat, hurry and eat, but for the caterpillar to reach the cocoon stage it has to stop and allow the shell to form around it.

It has to stop hurrying, it has to change every pattern of life that is has ever known. 

That statement alone can define what a christian life should be like, it changes everything we know. It change us to the core and shapes us into something we never dreamed of, yet, often times when we hear that being a christian, following christ or simply

renewing our minds means we might have to change we simple respond in fear. We continue our patterns of worry, hurry, and fear because flowing jesus might mean changing everything.

If you want examples of what what looks like just look at the disciples, look at paul, or any one in the early church. When we truly

encounter Jesus Everything changes.

The caterpillar has to trust God that he will make it out of the cocoon someday. I’ve seen caterpillars that never made it out but Idon’t think that the fear of not making it ever kept them from not trying. We have to stop fearing failure and start trusting that God knows what he is doing even if we don’t make it out, even if following Christ is an experience that is painful, hard, and often full of times that we fail by the worlds standards.

It’s your choice. Your life and your mind. You can choose to stop and examine life and seek change and allow God to truly transform you through the renewing of your mind. The promise is there that we are better able to discern the life God has for us when we stop and allow him to change us.

As for me. I’m setting out to continue this process, to follow Jesus no matter what even if it does mean I have to change everything about everything that I ever knew. Its a challenge and though in my humanity it comes with fear I hope that through the renewing of my mind daily that fear will become so small that I will walk with confidence through the valley of the shadow of death.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Watch this: http://vimeo.com/54866496

Hope Interrupts…

“This may be a dark world but you don’t have to live in the dark. Hope interrupts.. Jesus Interrupts”

– Pastor Pete Hise

This morning I was listening to a message by Pete Hise, lead pastor at quest community church, in the current series titled “…Then hope interrupts”.  To be completely honest this message is what I needed to hear. I needed to be reminded that though the world around me may be dark, depressed and look rather hopeless we do not have to live in that darkness. Jesus is not just a promise to us he is the promise, the gift, the hope and the incarnation.

I have always heard that word incarnation or incarnational ministry, all through high school and almost every day at Bible college however, I always felt puzzled by it and confused, yet when Pastor Pete was talking about incarnation as in the context of jesus not just promising to bring us hope but being the hope it made a lot more sense. Not that I haven’t heard that before I am sure, but this time it sunk in. It actually means a lot more when I begin to understand the magnitude of Jesus being human, present and the Hope.

Pete mentioned in his sermon that for the people of Jesus time God felt distant, far off and for the greek and roman gods unthinkable that god would make himself known in a tangible way to humanity. The jews knew of the prophesies in Isaiah yet had trouble seeing Jesus because he Interrupted their picture of God and what the savior was going to come and do for them.

God is not distant, he is not far off and he is not simply a promise for the future. Jesus came incarnate. Human as the rest of us. He came as hope. He interrupted the disciples lives and forever changed their world. he wants to interrupt our lives if we will let him.

Trying to grasp Jesus as the incarnation, the hope, shatters part of my false picture of Jesus. I am no longer holding tightly to what I imagine Jesus to be in far of heaven but allowing God to renew my mind and thoughts about who jesus really is. Even after years of studying the Bible I need God to renew my ideas of who he is and restore my hope.

To often we focus on everything that we think will bring us worldly hope. When I was without a job this summer I was guilty of just making my hope come from the prospects of getting a job, or even now I have been guilty of putting my hope in my desire to be engaged or getting a new car or all these other things that the world screams I need, YET they leave me without any real tangible living hope.

Jesus is the hope. Jesus is the hope that needs to interrupt our lives on a daily basis.

Jesus Doesn’t ever say he is going to save us from our troubles and hardships, the storms are still going to come but Jesus does say that he will walk with us through the storm.

Open your Bible.

Allow Jesus to interrupt your day, your week, your life.

Do you need some Hope?

You will find it with Jesus.

Just today I was watching a youtube video about an interview with N.T. Wright who as my theology professor would always remind us is the modern day leading Scholar of the New Testament. In the interview Wright was asked if he had any tips on how we might read the Bible. He said “The Bible should be read Frequently and Throughly is the best answer… Allow the thing to wash over you “. 

That is a challenge to us. To frequently allow Jesus to interrupt our lives and throughly be reminded that He is our hope.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

P.s. Extra Stuff.

I would encourage everyone to listen to Pete’s message that can be found at

http://questcommunity.com/watch-listen/series-archive  under the “and then hope Interrupts icon.

Also the interview with N.T. Wright can be found here at