In the soil…

I was cleaning up some old notes and came across the following and thought it was worth sharing. 

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Do you have those days where you struggle to grasp God’s word?

Do you have those days where you just aren’t seeing clearly what God wants you to learn?

It is not like you are sick and dealing with suffering, or you are dealing with a job loss. No, it is just a day of not clearly seeing what God wants you to learn.A day that seems to have no lesson to be learned.

You try, you really do try. You dig in to His word to learn, nothing. You bow to pray, nothing. You raise your voice in worship, Nothing.

It is not that you don’t feel His presence, or know His name. You just have a hard time, seeing His way…

Well on those days, hold fast to your faith. Those are the days that the evil one loves. The days when you can not be sure….

Those are the days, when you push through the mundane. Those are the days(well everyday) we should trust God for who he is  with more earnest. The devil wants us to have more and more of the days when we aren’t sure of the Hope, and uncertian God is there.

The days when it is hard to hear are the days God is preparing the soil of the heart for His word. Fertile soil is tilled and tuy rned over, and prepared with the nutrients, so it is ready to accept the seed.

Satan wants our heart any where but in the soil.

Path…I hear you and do no care.
Rock…I hear you but do not dare.
Weeds…I hear you but do not share.
Soil…I care to dare so I can share my Hope everywhere.

Path…Heart hardened unyeilding.
Rock…Heart eager not-rooted
Weeds…Heart Learning yet unwilling
Soil… Yielding of self eager to learn willing to spread Hope everywhere.

Matthew 13:18-23

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by ckroboth on July 30, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on July 30, 2011

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It is easy to be dangerous…

What does it mean to know enough to be dangerous?

When I think about knowing something, it implies that I had to learn what it is I know. Things like breathing and eating for the most part, your body does on it’s own. Everything else we have to learn to do. This means we have the ability to learn complicated and even the simplest of tasks.

Lets take walking for instance. When you are little someone could just explain to you how to walk, and you may understand that it takes standing on two legs, balance and then placing one foot infront of the other. But until you stand up, until you put one foot infront of the other, you only know enough to be dangerous.

On a larger scale. Thank about the lieutenant in the Army just out of West Point in his first combat duty. He may know battlefield and war tactics. He may understand weaponry. But until he is in command of the battlefield and fires or directs the weapons, he only knows enough to be dangerous. His choice when it comes to action is only limited to the knowledge he has. He has not been battle tested, and quickly learns he has to rely on those with more experience.

Have you ever been in a situation where you think you know how you should react, because you have spent years studying for that very moment, only to not know exactly what needs to be done. The knowledge is there but the actions just don’t happen. Like the situations described above most everything we do, even actions that become automatic, have to be put together with action. That action and learning how our knowledge translates when in action becomes wisdom. Wisdom doesn’t always mean having the right affect or outcome.

As we experience more and more, wisdom is the understanding of how our knowledge when applied will affect the outcome of a situation or activity. And with that wisdom our choices for action become more refined, and the affect on the outcome becomes more certain. We understand that link between balance and motion when walking, and the Lieutenant learns when to advance, flank, hold the battlefield, and even retreat.

Well when it comes to doing God’s will, when it comes to doing his work… I don’t want to be dangerous anymore. I want to be effective. Dangerous is easy, effective is hard.

Ecclesiastes 2:12-14

12 Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,

and also madness and folly.

What more can the king’s successor do

than what has already been done?

13 I saw that wisdom is better than folly,

just as light is better than darkness.

14 The wise have eyes in their heads,

while the fool walks in the darkness;

but I came to realize

that the same fate overtakes them both.

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by ckroboth on July 18, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on July 18, 2011

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Who do you sentence in the Moment…

I haven’t written about my one word lately… Moment.  This weekend though I had a moment that needs to be shared.    This is a wide net being caste, I get that…but knowing what I do now after this moment.  If I am am doing this many others are as well…

A while back I wrote about condemnation, and this weekend I was brought face to face with how condemnation was alive in my own life.

To set the stage.  Sitting at a table of with 9 Men this weekend,  5 white men, 4 Black men.  The topic we were discussing:  What keeps us from interacting with people who are not like us?  We were talking about the general concept of this, but because of the mix of the group we focused on racial issues.  And honestly what was said and shared could be said about any two groups of people.   The idea of projection of lifestyle came up.  We talked about how our experiences, and perception of reality project a certain expectation of  life style on a person or group of people.  We expect them to act a certain way.

One of the men offered this:  I am a black man, well educated, and been in the Military.  You would not know this unless you asked or I told you.  Just like I would not know about you until I asked or you told me.  To this day, I walk down the street and if I am approaching a white woman she will switch her purse to the opposite shoulder.  I have learned to expect that.

Immediately the teaching of Jesus and the plank in the eye came to my head.  Quickly I turned to Matthew 7 and read through the passage.

   3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

I looked up at this man and said:  The word is not projection, it is condemnation.  The word condemnation means to sentence someone to a punishment. The woman switching her purse is using her reality to judge and condemn you to a certain lifestyle or action.  Heck even I have had/have those thoughts, and I have condemned you and others to that lifestyle.  So much so that you now expect a certain reaction from a white person when you meet them…  GULP!!!!

See how this gets all twisted?  99% of the time when you meet someone for the first time you know nothing of substance about them and you form and opinion even before the first words of introduction are spoken.

I am not suggesting these people are our enemies, but Jesus in Luke uses that context of enemies to tell us how we should love those different than us:

Luke 6:32-26   32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

In no certain order as I/you type/read this list:

The unchurched,the unbeliever, the dope dealer, the man on the street asking for money, the alcoholic, the TV preacher, the side walk prophet, the emotional wreck, the angery, the prideful, the lustful, the homesexual, the black, the rich, the white, the poor, the Asian, the Hispanic,  the Muslim, the Hindu, the the adulter, the prostitute, the greedy, the people that live next door, the person who sits alone at lunch at the office, the person in the BMW, the person buying the 64 inch 3d TV…. Heck just even typing this list I can think of the ways I have condemned each one in my own thoughts.

And this is where Christ comes in.  It is only  with him and through him and because of Him that we can over come that condemnation.  That in the moment we meet someone we see them for how Christ sees them, and accept them for who they  are love them,.  Then let Christ do the real work in their hearts.

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by ckroboth on July 12, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on July 12, 2011

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Who’s do you sentence…

Condemnation

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by ckroboth on July 11, 2011  •  Permalink
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Our Identity as worthy…

NOTE:  As you read this, I am not saying:  There is no punishment for Sin.  Clearly there is.   II Cor 5:21 tells us who took the punishment.    I am also not saying that people who don’t accept and believe in Christ will end up spending Eternity with the Father, quite the contrary.  There will be eternity with out God for  those who do not believe.  Debates about what Hell will be like aside, the Hell of it will be knowing fully what they could have had.

For us to have eternal life with the Father, in view of the mercy from the Cross, we must accept the forgiveness He see us as worthy of.   We are so worthy that he sent His Son… We must believe Christ, and the power of his forgiveness.

(Hmmm.. Believe Christ -vs- Believe in Christ…Sounds like another post)….

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II Cor 5:21… I keep coming back to this verse as one of(At least to me) the most pivotal in Scripture.   Growing up Catholic the understanding of Sin was very different.   I was taught that forgiveness for sin to be an on going process (I just don’t believe that to be so anymore), but I never understood how us being worthy of forgiveness lead to repentance.

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

(and yes for one of my readers, I know this can be rapped… )

It speaks directly to why Jesus had to come to earth, die, and rise again.  For God to view us as worthy and righteous there had to be a perfect sacrifice.  That sacrifice had to be for the forgiveness of our sin.    Our forgiveness for sin had to happen once, when Christ took all the sin of the world, past and present, onto his shoulders.  Sin was forgiven… Our part becomes to recognize and accept that forgiveness, and repent.

I could be way off base here, but to continue to ask for forgiveness puts Christ back on the cross, which just doesn’t need to be done.   God already sees us as worthy of that Grace… Putting Christ back on the cross for something already forgiven, is because of our own view of not being worthy of his Grace.   The guilt of hanging Christ there with our sin keeps us from truly releasing the bonds that chain us to sin, accepting the forgiveness,  and the guilt keeps us from repenting.

However, because we are worthy and accept the forgiveness, we draw closer and closer  to God, we will recognize more and more of the sin in our life that is already forgiven.  We then accept the forgiveness already afforded  by God’s grace and turn to Him for strength to leave it behind.   We enter a new life lived by the Spirit

This has fundamentally changed how I approach others that may not know Christ and his forgiveness.

My real question to those who follow Christ… Can you look at the other person, and see them in the same light?  Can you look at the other sinner, and see that they to are forgiven?   Regardless of if they believe in Christ or not?   Christ took their sin to the cross just as He took ours.   Can you look past their sin, and do the work Christ commanded?   Can you love them…

Can you love?….  Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.   (1 Cor 6: 8-10)

Can you love?……   lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine  (1 Timothy 1: 9-10)

My message to all reading… You are worthy of God’s Grace regardless of where you fall in the list of sin, and Christ is who proves you as worthy….

 

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by ckroboth on July 5, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on July 5, 2011

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Time to do people work…

It doesn’t matter where you go to church, or what bible studies you are in.  It doesn’t matter if you are wearing the latest “christian” fad, or proclaim your faith by action.   We can talk eschatology, theology,  and doctrine.   Really we can, but…Not sure any of that matters to much these days…

What matters is are you working as Christ Commanded us to work?

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Works = ergon:  business, employment, that which any one is occupied

                    a) that which one undertakes to do, enterprise, undertaking

Christ is in the business of building the church, and by signing on as a disciple we have work to do also.

Matthew 28:18- 20 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Christ employees his disciples to do as he did and make other disciples.   Our work becomes his work, and our work is the people that God put’s in our path everyday. Either by action or words, every person you encounter is an opportunity to work for Christ.  Every person is an opportunity to build into Christ the Church.

Spending two weeks at camp with 6th graders one week and 7th & 8th graders the next, and I sit here today missing the relationships I built with those kids.   I miss the work of building into them the Kingdom of God,  and His work to build the body of His Son the Church.

When  interacting with someone, with Christ as the goal, the relationship however brief takes on a deeper level of connection.  The person is able to see Christ through you.  If you let him, Christ will use you not only as part of the church, but as a worker also.

How are you working to build into Christ?

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by ckroboth on June 30, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on June 30, 2011

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At Gods table or your trough…

What I am going to write about was taught last week by John Maynard of Okalona Christian Church, to the 7th and 8th grade camp last week.   The message was directed to the youth, but when the spirit works anyone can be convicted of their presence or absence at God’s table.   The key is God has a place for you at the table…

So…

Luke 15: 11-32

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’

Stop:  Did  you catch that… “give me my share of the estate”:  In the Jewish culture the estate was a man’s life.  It showed his worth and value.  The estate was to be divided upon the death of the owner.   For the son to ask for his share was  to declare his father dead.   The other Jews would recognize the seriousness of this, but the Son wanted the easy way out.  At God’s table this would be like asking for desert first.  However,  the  Father loves him enough to give what he asks,  let him walk away, even at the cost of part of his life.

12 cont: So he divided his property between them.

Stop: Divided?  This was a wealthy man.  My bet is this wasn’t a simple with draw from the ATM for a bag of gold and silver.   The wealth was in the land, cattle and crops, and the portion for the son had to be sold off.  This letting go for the Father was not without sacrifice.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.

We are unsure how long the Son was in this other country.  Could have been a month could have been years.  This is the part though where he has to be wondering why he demanded his share.  “Could I have not waited?”

15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.

Once where he used to tend great fields and cattle, now he feeds the lowest and dirtiest of animals.  Animals Jews would not even touch based on them being unclean.

16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

Do you know what was in that trough the pigs ate out of?  Garbage…  But the Garbage in this story does not represent food.  It represents our sin.  And just like receiving the inheritance early, it is easy to turn to sin.  Our sin drives us to the trough. The further we get from God, the hungrier we get.  We long for our desires to be filled, and we turn and look at the trough of sin… Lust, Porn, Alcohol, Pride, Selfishness, Anger, Lying, Contempt… You name it the  sin is in that trough.

But there is hope at God’s table and Christ will take your troft upon his shoulders for you if you let him.  All the nasty yucky stuff that hides deep inside.  Can be dumped on him…

II Cor 5:21  21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We may walk away, and we may come face to face with our trough, but through Christ we can become the Heirs to God’s throne again.

Romans 8: 14-17 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.t And by him we cry, “Abba, t Father.”16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

God’s table: To be continued….

 

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by ckroboth on June 28, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on June 28, 2011

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Now continued…

And I am back… Whew what a couple of weeks that was.   Physically drained spiritually filled.

Our work from God is the people he puts in our life.  We are created to do that work through Christ Jesus…

Some up coming posts to be written (Titles subject to change as post are written):

My most intimate…

Where are you at God’s table (Lessons learned listening to John Maynard talk about Luke 15:11-32)….

Who feeds my desires…

Our Identity as worthy…

Stories Told…

Where are the Dad’s….

So real quick, before I attack work again today.

My heart is broken for this generation, and the crap they are dealing with at such a young age.  Satan doing his best to win them to the world. But, when the Holy Spirit moves, He moves.   We experienced that movement this past two weeks, and we are blessed beyond measure to have experienced it first hand…

To be continued…

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by ckroboth on June 27, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on June 27, 2011

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In the eyes of a child…

I come to these camps with my heart open wide and to love on these kids.

Tonight my heart is heavy…this has been the hardest day of camp ever. If ever I wondered why God has me on the path He does, I have seen it in the hearts of 3 children today.

I looked in the eyes of a three children who are scared. I looked into the eyes of a boy trying to be a man. I looked into the eyes of a boy trying to decide. I looked into the tear filled eyes of a girl missing home.

God’s love is endless and today His love poured out through me. I do not contain enough love on my own to achieve what he did through me.

How does God do it? Why does God do it?

Oh Father the answers to those questions are not important. What matters is the love you give. Deserved or not. You call us worthy. I thank you for the power of your Spirit in my life, and the faith I have is driven by Him. Father love on these Children through me. Guide my words and my action. Hold me accountable to the life of Your Son. In His name Jesus. Amen

To be continued…

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by ckroboth on June 15, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on June 15, 2011

http://cpkiii.com/2011/06/15/710950098/

Two week notice…

I look forward to this every year.  For the next two weeks I will be amongst 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Church Camp…I have done 3rd & 5th grade camp the past 2 years, so this will be a different experience.  6th grade camp is next week, then 7th & 8th the following week.

With that … I will be back to blogging somewhere around the 27th, that is if I have caught up on my sleep…

Maybe I will do my best Bill Murray…Meatballs impersonation while at camp.

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by ckroboth on June 10, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by ckroboth on June 10, 2011

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