What is it that satisfies you? As Mick Jagger says, "I can't get no satisfaction."

What is it that satisfies you? 

It could be food--something like a Maine lobster, or maybe receiving recognition for all your hard work. It could be the purchase of a new car, or getting that 60-inch flat screen TV that you've been wanting.

The other night we saw the new James Bond film, "Skyfall." That was very satisfying. I left the theater thinking that this was the best James Bond film ever made. But here's the problem: As satisfied as I may be over receiving a big-screen TV or purchasing a new car or seeing the latest and greatest James Bond film, it doesn't last. After awhile, it leaves me empty and wanting something else to give me instant gratification or fulfillment. We're always looking for the next big thing--be it a video game, movie, car, sports event, party, sexual conquest, etc. We're never satisfied. I mean, do you really think Tom Brady is satisfied with his 3 Superbowl rings? Don't you think he'd like to add a 4th to his collection? As Mick Jagger says, "I can't get no satisfaction."

Pascal's God-shaped vacuum

Pascal's "God-shaped vacuum"

Maybe that's why Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher observed that "there is a god-shaped vacuum in the heart of man that can only be filled by God, made known through his son, Jesus Christ."

One of the names for Jesus is "Bread of Life." He declared in John 6:35, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."

For most of the world, bread is a big deal. In Europe and elsewhere, bread is a main course at many meals. Jesus called himself the bread of life because he knew that he is the ONLY one who can satisfy our spiritual hunger and our quest for identify and worth. 

In John 6 where Jesus reveals himself as the "bread of life", Passover is near, and he is conveying the truth that he is the Passover lamb, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It's with his shed blood on the cross that we have been restored to a relationship with God the Father. 

Earlier in John 6, we see Jesus feeding five thousand with just two loaves of bread and five fish. Jesus is not disabled by circumstances-they pose no obstacle to him. No matter how insignificant a resource may seem, he can multiply it to fully meet our needs. As the Bread of Life, He is the source and supply  of our daily needs. Whatever we bring to him, He can multiply it so that it meets our present need.  

Bread must be consumed to be beneficial:

Bread is beneficial only if it is eaten, consumed. We eat or partake of Jesus as the Bread of Life when we read His Words in the Bible--not just the words printed in red, but ALL the Bible. The entire Bible is His book. After his resurrection, Jesus appears to two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, and he (Jesus) took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:47). All the scripture is about Him. From Genesis to Revelation, it's all about Jesus.

Christ said it thus, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4). In other words, if you don't eat Jesus' words (read the Bible and putting it into practice daily), there will be no satisfaction, no nourishment, no growth in your life. You will continue to look for the next big thing, the next thrill, the next party, the next big smash film, or new car. But whatever it is, it won't satisfy for very long.

Our prayer to God this day can be:

Dear Lord,

Thank-you for being to me the Bread of Life. Only You Lord can satisfy and nourish and meet my every need. You sustain me and supply all that I have need of. 

Forgive me for looking to other people or things to satisfy my life when only You can fill that god-shaped vacuum in my life. 

Lord, I want to feed on your Word daily. Teach me and shape my life according to Your Word. Give me a hunger for your Word even as I hunger for my favorite food or desert. Even as you feed me and nourish me, help me to bring nourishment to others and point them towards You and your Kingdom. 

In Jesus' name, who is the Bread of Life, Amen.

The Names of Jesus: A Great Light

In the midst of my political rants, it's good to get some perspective. Regardless of who wins the election, we will still be in darkness to a large extent as a nation. That is why I want to focus today on one of the names for God.

He is......A GREAT LIGHT (Isaiah 9:2)

 "There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle."  --Robert Alden

I am amazed that even in the darkest spots on earth, places like North Korea, evil dictators have not been able to stop the spread of the Good News of the Messiah Jesus. (North Korea is not just dark spiritually, but also physically immersed in darkness. I've included a satellite photo taken of both North & South Korea at night. Notice the contrast between the two nations. South Korea is lit up because of abundance of electricity. North Korea is total darkness because of very little electricity.)

North Korea has earned the distinction as the world's top persecutor of Christians. North Korean Christians aren't simply killed for their faith in Christ. They are pulverized with steamrollers, used to test biological weapons, shipped off to death camps or shot in front of children, while newborn babies have their brains pithed with forceps in front of their mothers. Crimes against humanity reminiscent of Auschwitz and Treblinka to which the world declared "Never Again!" more than 60 years ago are being perpetrated today against the North Korean Christians.

In North Korea, Christians meet secretly in small groups and read handwritten scriptures. Some use Bibles that their elders have secretly passed down to them. One man was jailed for a year because a Bible was found in his house. 

One man known as "Interviewee 14" told of his interrogation in the Onsong Gugkabowibu jail in 2001. The interrogators told the 68 persons being held in this small jail that all “followers of Jesus” were to stand up. Six did and were immediately taken away. The guards said that the six had been executed. However, the detainees later learned that the six had been taken to a gwalliso political penal labor colony at Jongsung. Interviewee 14 himself, after being deprived of food and sleep through seven long interrogations, finally gave up and confessed to belief. He was offered the opportunity to renounce his faith, pledge his loyalty to the Party, and be sent to a nodong danryeon dae labor training camp or mobile labor brigade."

We need to pray for those in North Korea, for Christians who are tortured and persecuted for their faith. But the good news is that no man, not even the leaders of North Korea can stamp out Christianity because the Spirit of God does not recognize nations' borders. The Spirit of Jesus goes wherever He wants all over the world and cannot be stopped by the feeble attempts of border guards at checkpoints. Even in the midst of the darkness in North Korea, there is the light of Jesus. He is the Great Light that is transforming lives in the darkest nation on earth.
 

What you need to know about this name, "A Great Light"

Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet captured the vision of the coming Messiah and gave us numerous titles. He said that the Messiah would be:

• God's anointed servant (Isaiah 42:1)
• The Redeemer (Isaiah 59:20)
• Wonderful Counselor (Isaiah 7:14)
• The Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) 

But he gives us an important aspect of the Messiah when he prophesies in Isaiah 9:2 that he would be a Great Light.

We are all born with a spiritual birth defect... 
Jesus told those around him that he was the Light of the world. In John 12:46, Jesus says to the crowds, ⁴⁶ I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark. 

In John 9:5, Jesus said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." 

We need to consider the setting where Jesus spoke these words. Jesus and his disciples are leaving the temple area where they encounter a man who had been blind from birth. To be blind from birth meant that you lived in hopeless poverty begging for your next meal. Also, it was thought that this man was blind either because he had sinned while in the womb or because of his parents' sin. Jack Hayford writes  that "We are all born with a spiritual "birth defect'—we cannot see dearly the will and way of God for our lives. And it is only by an encounter with Jesus Christ that dear vision becomes ours." It is only in the light of Christ--His presence in our lives that we receive the knowledge of God. The Psalmist said, "In your light, we see light." (Psalm 36:9).

Right there on the spot, Jesus heals this blind man. His eyes were opened for the first time. This is similar to what happens when we are "born-again" and have our spiritual eyesight and understanding opened. We see people and the world around us differently, and we begin to see and understand God's purpose and plan for our lives. The Bible takes on a whole new meaning because it now speaks to us. The Bible is no longer a compilation of dead, dry, dusty, ancient and irrelevant thoughts of a bunch of dead men, but it is NOW living and active, addressing our every need and revealing the thoughts and wisdom of Almighty God!

It is noteworthy that light always intrudes on darkness, and darkness never intrudes on light. If a door opens between a lighted room and a dark room, the light always flows into the dark room, never visa-versa.  John 1:5, and John 8:12 tell us that we can overcome evil, darkness, with the light of Christ. 

Jesus is the Great Light who can pierce the darkness that envelopes our lives on a daily basis. He can shatter the chains of discouragement, disappointment, disgrace, defeat, and hopelessness that seeks to smother us on a daily basis. The Evil One wants to convince us that we are worthless or unworthy of any good thing that God would want to give us. He would have us consider ourselves to be like rotten fruit fallen from a tree. The Evil One would have you encrusted with a despondency devoid of any life-giving purpose.

But into that void of darkness and despair, the testimony of Jesus, our Great Light shines forth. His brilliance, his radiance, His divine love, His truth and wisdom can transform any circumstance and restore our lives to one of new purpose, direction and joy!
 

It is our privilege as followers of Messiah Jesus to live in this Great Light daily.

PRAYING THIS NAME

Praying in Jesus' name, a Great Light, means focusing the radi­ance of His person on the aspects of my day for which I desire divine guidance. 

We can pray that God would reveal His will to us as we read His Word (the Bible). We pray that Jesus, our Great Light, would light the path for us this day so that we would not walk in darkness. We pray that we would do what He wills for us this very day. We also recognize that Jesus as our Great Light wants to expose the darkness in our lives, those things that need to be cleaned up or the rubbish that needs to be swept from our hearts and lives. We pray for His revelation, that His Light would purify our lives and cleanse us so that we are truly walking in new found freedom and living lives that glorify Our Lord and Savior.

We can pray in Jesus' name like the African child who prayed: 

O Great Chief, light a candle within my heart that I may see what is therein, and sweep the rubbish from Your dwelling place.

The God Who Saturates

One of the titles for Jesus is: "The God who fills all in all" from Ephesians 1:23, (NLT)
 ²³ And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself."

What this verse says to me is that Jesus is the God who SATURATES every aspect of our lives and every situation.

• To saturate something is to soak, impregnate, or imbue thoroughly or completely as in saturating a sponge with water.

• Jesus fills up what is lacking in my life as well as in the church. He fills up what is lacking in my righteousness, my goodness, my spirituality. 
• He also saturates my life with His presence and His wisdom and His mercy and grace.
• He makes me complete; apart from Him there is an emptiness and vacuum in my life that can only be filled by Jesus Christ and Him alone. 
• He covers my weaknesses and my sins with His sacrifice on Calvary, His shed blood for my sins and the sins of the world.
• He is the God who saturates our solar system, our galaxy and our universe (billions of galaxies). No matter where you go, He is there.                                                                    

     As the Psalmist says in Psalm 139:7-10 (GW)

7 Where can I go {to get away} from your Spirit? Where can I run {to get away} from you?
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, you are there.
9 If I climb upward on the rays of the morning sun {or} land on the most distant shore of the sea where the sun sets,
10 even there your hand would guide me and your right hand would hold on to me.   

Whatever I am going through today or this week or this year, He is there to saturate that situation with His presence and comfort and strength. 

So my prayer for today is that I will be filled and saturated with Jesus, kind of like a sponge...and if the pressures and stresses of life begin to squeeze me, like a sponge, I want to ooze Jesus and His grace and mercy into every situation, because He has so saturated my life!!

The Essence of Following Jesus is this.....

Hope Chapel Hermosa Beach, CA.

I was talking with a friend about church recently. He and I had been on staff at the same church (only at different times). Both of us are a bit worn-out with the church scene--and don't take this the wrong way because I KNOW there are AWESOME churches out there. Really, I do. Often, I think back to some of the churches that Renee and I started in So. California as well as NH, where we engaged in loving God and loving one another. We had real life-transforming fellowship.

I am also reminded of my time spent at Hope Chapel in Hermosa Beach where my wife and I experienced healthy, vibrant Christianity. It made me want to spend my life serving as a Pastor because I saw what a functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) church really looked like. It was and still is an amazing community of people under the leadership of Zac Nazarian that has made an impact on the South Bay in Los Angeles as well as around the world!

But it's hard to find a church like a Hope Chapel in Paducah, Kentucky. Churches here are mostly Baptist and often worship is nothing more than 3 hymns with announcements sandwiched in the middle somewhere.

So my friend told me that he had boiled the essence of Christianity down to the answer Jesus gave to a lawyer who was trying to justify himself:

Matthew 22:35-40 (NIV)
³⁵ One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
³⁶ "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
³⁷ Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment.
³⁹ And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Jesus boils all of Christianity down to 2 simple requirements:

1. Love God which includes worshiping the Lord with our words and actions (from the heart).
2. Love your neighbor which includes fellowship, servant evangelism, loving those who are strangers in our midst, etc. (Acts 2:42, 46). How much real fellowship do we have on a Sunday morning? IMHO, real fellowship happens around a meal that is shared together as we see Our Lord doing so often in the New Testament. Hospitality was part of the Jewish life (Romans 12:13)

As far as loving God, I believe that first and foremost, we are to be worshipers. In the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray which was basically giving them them the order for what should be included in our prayers, he starts off with "Our Father in heaven, Holy is Your Name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Today, I leave you with this: If we want to worship the Lord, we have to KNOW the Lord. The sad truth is that too many Christians know very little about Yeshua, the Messiah, Our Lord, the King of kings. The only names that most Christians know for Jesus is Savior or Lord. But as Jesus tells us in John 17:3,  

³ Now this is eternal life: that they may KNOW you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

How well do you KNOW the One True God? When it comes to worshiping the Lord, what names do you call Him? For example, in Hebrews 1:2-4, here are the 7 titles given to Jesus. Meditate on these titles and incorporate them into your worship. I don't know as much about the Lord as I should--but my desire is to get to know Him better and to know the names and titles that have been given to Him. I'm convinced that those who are truly saved will spend time "getting to KNOW HIM." Here in just 3 verses of Hebrews 1, we are told that Jesus is:

1) heir of all things
2) creator
3) reflection of God's glory
4) exact representation of the Father (stamped with God's nature)
5) sustainer of all things by His Word
6) redeemer: cleansed us from our sins
7) superior to the angels in rank and rule

I'll continue this with one last post on worship this Thursday....stay tuned and have a great week!