This last week, my family and I took a much needed trip together to spend time with “just us.” That was important, because for the entire month prior there was absolutely no “just us” time. For the entire month of June, I had spent my time in three weeks of camp and a week of VBS immediately following, as well as in time of preparation for our preacher boy club to preach and teach Sunday, July 2nd in front of “Big Church.” I was exhausted. And so, Michaelene (my wife) and I decided we were going to go spend some time as a family, go to an amusement park (not the one run by a mouse), and spend time at the pool of the place we were staying. We began our holiday by going to church together, and it was nice to be fed. The preacher preached on surrendering to the power of Christ, though the message was how to destroy your life and others in several easy steps. Then, we spent the week enjoying one another’s company, being a family, and making memories.
All this time, though, I had some successes, as well as failures in my endeavors as a husband and a dad. I was trying to figure out how to maximize our trip, and so, as I do when I get in my take charge attitude, I did some things that were not enjoyable for my wife and kids. Yet, in His way, the Lord disciplined me and reigned me in, and let me to an understanding: I’m not there to maximize the time my kids have, whether on a holiday, or at home. I’m there to be present with them while I am in God’s presence, and to present His presence to my family.
Are you like me? Do you want to have Jesus and? Are you trying to maximize your time, instead of trying to be in passionately the presence of God and share Him with your family, friends, neighbors, strangers and enemies? And Jesus isn’t asking for perfection. He knows our frame. He knows our struggles and hangups. We strive for Him, and the Holy Spirit in us, by His word and His power will change, shape and transform us. We trust in Him while pursuing Him. That’s it.
I won’t be perfect in this; I will fail, but, as I strain toward the goal of Christ, my role as a husband and father is to lead my family toward Christ, while passionately pursuing Him. That’s it. That’s the simplicity of it. I need to be present in His presence while presenting Him to my family and those around me. I am not there to maximize the time I have, I exist to give glory to God and bring others to His Son, Jesus, so that, by the Holy Spirit, others may have the New Life in Jesus that I have been given. It’s His work, not ours.
Hebrews 12
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
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