Making the Most of Our Life! Mistakes and the Miracle of Grace

Two sons. One leaves home, squanders his inheritance on reckless living and nearly starves before he wakes up and takes a chance on coming home. This son is easy for us to identify or to qualify - rebellious, inconsiderate, reckless, wild, foolish, lazy, self absorbed, and LOST. One son stays home, works hard, supports the family, tends the fields, kisses the babies and hugs the grandmothers. This son, too, is easy for us to identify or to qualify - loving, conscientious, considerate, hard working, supportive, caring, FOUND.

One father who loves two sons and sees beyond easy identification and past what glaringly meets one's eye. One father who sees into the heart of the boy and receives the pain the child brings, the mistakes the child has committed and remedies them with the miracle of grace. The Father defies and even challenges our identification of the sons. In fact, the father in essence sees both sons as lost. Both sons who are living mistake ridden lives and trying to do their own thing in their own way. One is committing the all too common mistake of pursuing a 'self focused' recklessness. Yet the other is pursuing a self focus all his own - a 'self focused' righteousness. In the end, they both fall short, because it is all about the self and all about pursuing life in their own way to their own ends. The only hope for them is to respond to the miracle of Grace that the father offers. Now, here is where it gets interesting!

In this story of self focused living, one son obviously sees the error of His ways and understands that he can make no claim on His father. No, he sees that he has caused his own pain and that he is responsible for his own mistakes. In fact, when he comes back home (to a father who by the way RUNS to meed him) he doesn't even expect to be treated like a child - the most he can hope for is a place in the servants quarters. And here is right where we see the miracle - the miracle of grace receives this sinner/child as a child of the king and restores him - forgives him and grants him the authority in the home that only a child of the home could have! He is restored because He came to the father broken and beaten - He came home and was received! After being received He was restored.

The other son however, the one we suspect should know better, comes against the father bearing a claim that is quite frankly impossible to bear and speculating on his brother's life in a way that reveals the sickness of his own heart. The one son has forgotten the grace of the Father in His own life and pursued a righteousness all his own. His father owes Him big time - how could he let this rebel back into the fold? Interestingly enough, Jesus leaves us hanging on how this son responds - we simply do not know. Will he stay focused in on his self righteous life or will he, like his brother, come to terms with grace and celebrate the things that the Father celebrates??

The glue that holds this story together is the miracle of grace! No matter where you and I are on our journey, God can and does make the most of our mistakes through His miracle of grace! Where are you? Are you on the side of self recklessness or self righteousness - both are wrong, both resist and reject grace and self righteousness actually resents grace. So, are you resisting, rejecting or resenting today? If so, join us this weekend and dare God to do for you what He is so good at doing for us all. You may be surprised!

Making the Most of this Life

Pastor Biz

Making the Most of My Money

Money, Money, Money, everywhere you turn these days that seems to be the central issue in life. Either we don't have enough of it, we can't get enough in return for it, it takes too much effort to get it, etc. I am convinced though, that as important as all those issues are, the single greatest issue with us and our money comes down to our refusal to submit how we use our money to the Lordship of Christ. We will give Christ all of our life, except that part - we want to hold on to that (of course if that dominates so much of our lives then our refusal there, really constitutes complete refusal does it not?).

We are much like the character/creature Golum in the last book of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, clinging desperately to the 'gold ring' even as the flames of the fire, which the ring took him to, engulf is body and end his sad existence. Yes, for many of us - no matter how much or how little we make - money controls and manages us rather than us controlling and managing money. I am reminded of the words of Christ when he said, "For where your treasure is (read money) there your heart will be also." In other words our commitmnets, our priorities, our life, our passions our HEART - always follow our treasure. So where is your treasure today? and is there a cure out there to help our heart sickness? Think of our impact in our culture if we could live our lives fully submitted to Christ in this area alone - if Christ were our true treasuer then where would our heart be at this moment right now!?!?!

So, if your struggling with money - if you are concerned about your heart - then this weekend is for you. I am going to lift up several key principles for money management right out of Scripture and then point out how we apply those principles in our own budget at Westside. The principles are Giving with Gratitude, Prioritizing Payouts, Investing in Eternity and Saving Room For God.

As I apply these principles I will highlight our budget proposal for 2010 to help better equip our 'voting' eligible members to vote in our short business meeting following the morning services. I will lift up the parts of our budget that fit the biblical criteria I listed above as we seek to move forward into God's preferble future for Westside Community Church and the lives He is calling us to reach! Our business meeting will be in the portable immediately following the service.

Making the Most of God's Money!

Pastor Biz

Making the Most of My Anger

I checked some statistics this morning. I found out that in 2005 over 16,000.00 Americans were murdered - yes you heard me right, sixteen thousand. After doing some more investigating I found that the number was similar in previous years and that when authorities were able to find out cause or motive they found that nearly 75% of the murder victims new or were acquainted with the person who murdered them and that the problems began with an argument. Yes, the murder was a result of anger that was out of control or rage that went unchecked.

You don't have to check the murder rate to suspect that something is off in this world. In fact, most often we need to look no further than our own hearts and the mistrust, anger, frustration that is breeding there. You wonder yourself sometimes, 'why am I so angry all the time.' Or, 'why did I 'blow' up like that again? Others of us wonder this not about ourselves, but about people we dearly love who are bitter, angry, frustrated and seem to have no end in sight. Well, if you have struggled with anger (as I have!!) or know those who do, then this Sunday is tailor made for you and God is ready to get control in a way that perhaps even today you do not even believe is possible!

The truth of the matter is that anger is a God given emotional response designed to move us forward in life. However, our experience with anger is often very different from God's desire. We often experience anger as an emotion that is either over exploited and acted upon or under used and ignored (tile it 'festers') in most of our lives. Some of us explode at the drop of a hat or can 'go off' often without any justifiable cause. Others of us, however, live in a 'comatose state of oblivion' where nothing bothers us and anger is never identified and or recognized in life. Wherever you or I may be, neither of these move us closer to Christ and His Kingdom or those relationships He has given us in life!

As I continue my Sunday series this weekend entitled, Making the Most of Our Life! I am going to focus in particularly on Anger and seek God's Word for some guidance on How we can make the Most of our Anger in this life! I am going to break our topic down into three main questions that I will try to answer. First, 'What is Anger?' The second question, 'Why am I so angry?' And the third questions is, 'Where will my anger take me?' I truly believe that God has a special word for you this weekend - whether you think you have an anger problem or not, this will be a time for you to come under the authority of God's Word and seek His will for your life. For surely you know people with an anger problem or you are impacted by a world that so often tends to gravitate toward anger rather than one that gravitates toward peace.

If you want to Make the Most of Your Life, then the place to start is by looking at your Anger and whether or not you are expressing it as God intends and then submitting to his control as you move closer toward Him!

Pastor Biz