Joe Fontenot's Blog, page 5
January 28, 2019
Thank God I’m not the leader
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know my process. Each morning, I begin with praise, then I move to thanksgiving.
(If you haven’t, you can download this guide where I walk through how to get started on a morning prayer time.)
I do this because it gets my mind in the right place to take in God’s Word.
One of things I’m regularly thankful for is God’s leadership. Like a loving father, planning, caring, and watching.
This morning I had a new thought: I’m so glad that’s not me.
I’m so glad I’m not essentially praying to myself, relying on myself.
That would be stressful.
To that end, Peter writes, “cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6).
God is a good father. And life is good being his child.
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January 25, 2019
2 Rules for Life
When asked, Jesus laid out two simple rules for life.
These were less of rules (they didn’t change or exclude the law God had already given), and were instead principles—a way to group everything we do.
The first: “Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence” (Matthew 22:37).
This is about prioritizing. It means we shape our lives so that we are actively seeking him.
And the second: “Love others as well as you love yourself” (22:39).
While the first may lean toward the theoretical, the second is practical. It shows us how to apply the first.
When we look around, the strife, crime, violence, and hate we see—I can’t help but wonder, if we were following these two rules, would any of it exist?
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January 24, 2019
“However that works”
It’s okay to not know.
When I pray my kids to come to know and follow Jesus, I’m not sure how that works. Am I praying that they’ll be restored? Or just come to find him fresh? Not sure. So I ask God, “however that works.”
Or when we pray that all the lines in our month, like money or time or promises we’ve made, will meet up in the end–it’s not always clear how that’s going to work. So we can just ask God, “however that works.”
The point is, God knows how it works.
And really, that’s all that matters.
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January 23, 2019
“The kingdom will be taken away from you”
“The kingdom of heaven will be taken away from you and given to a people producing fruits”
– Jesus (Matthew 21:43)
It’s hard to consider this, that God would actually revoke his blessing.
We live in a world where God is either good (for those who follow him) or bad (to those who don’t).
But conditional–that’s a different thing entirely.
Up front disclaimer: “taken away” in this verse is not a reference to losing one’s salvation, but of losing the offer.
What Jesus is describing here is a group of people who continually reject the truth. What happens to them? After a while, they begin to believe the lie…and then God lets them.
They have rejected God’s blessings so often that they’ve found themselves living completely without them.
To those of us that have slipped into using grace as a substitute for justice or accountability (it happens), this is sobering.
And to the rest, to the ones who aren’t, this isn’t a victory. God “desires all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4).
The lesson we take away from this is: life is short, let’s not waste it.
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January 22, 2019
Protection vs provision
As a parent, I can’t always be with my kids to protect them. And even if I was with them, I still couldn’t protect them.
God, of course can.
But he doesn’t always.
Bad things still happen.
So what gives?
Or, more accurately, what is he giving? Assuming he’s a loving father–which I do–what is his response to the bad?
The answer is provision.
God tells us he will never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).
It’s hard to understand what that means in difficult times.
And it certainly doesn’t mean easy.
But it does mean he’s provided a solution, regardless of the problems today. It means that no matter what ‘protection’ looks like from our point of view, God is still providing a way forward and a future.
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January 21, 2019
How to start right
The things that cause me anxiety are rarely the things I end up praying about.
Not because I forget, or get distracted, but because by the time I get to the asking, they don’t matter.
Some years back I started something new. Instead of sitting down to pray about what was on my mind, I’d intentionally focus on God first.
I’d focus on God who is the creator, and all that he’s created—including me. I’d focus on God who is my father, and all the ways he’s provided for me. And I’d focus on God who is the king, where all of life is about him.
What I found, without fail, was three thing:
1/ I immediately felt good. And not just good, but great.
2/ My anxiety left. The thing that had its hold me no longer did because it was clear that God was bigger.
3/ The things I’d ask for soon began to change. Because my perspective changed. I was seeing differently.
As time went on, I kept doing this because it had become such a valuable part of my morning routine.
And then I expanded it.
I added 4 other elements.
Over the years I’ve reflected on this, practiced it, and walked others through how to start doing it.
So much that I just wrote it down. It’s my “5 step guide to a daily prayer time.” You can download it (free) here.
What makes me especially happy is it’s something that can scale. Whether I have only 5 minutes or a full hour, I use the same process.
And immediately it helps my brain put its focus right where it needs to be.
If you haven’t tried it, check out the guide.
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January 18, 2019
How to navigate hypocrisy
I recently had the chance to talk to Lisa Fields who runs the Jude 3 Project.
She said the number one reason why people turn away from the Christian faith is because the actions of Christians don’t line up with their words.
Jesus stressed this same point when he told the story of the two sons (Matthew 21:28-32).
One tells his father he won’t obey (but eventually does), while the other claims obedience and then never does.
“Which,” Jesus said, “did the will of his father?”
Both, after all, had actions that didn’t lineup with their behavior.
But Jesus said it was the second that was worse.
Words are important, no doubt. But it is our actions, not our words, that make the ultimate difference.
In an imperfect world where actions and words often don’t line up, this is an important distinction.
We won’t get everything right. So it pays to know what’s most important.
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January 17, 2019
On answering difficult questions
I have a master’s degree in apologetics. I feel pretty good about answering difficult questions about Christianity.
But even if that weren’t true, I could google it. The information’s all there.
But if we think only of difficult questions as a problem to solve, then I think we miss the bigger opportunity.
Jesus had critics. And they asked him difficult questions. And, of course, being God, he knew the answers.
But he also knew something else.
He also knew that many times those difficult questions were really a ruse. Bate. Like the time in Matthew 21:23-27, when he asked a harder question in return and then never gave an answer at all.
What Jesus knew is that chasing down his critics would have distracted those listening from hearing the real message. The gospel, that God loves them.
The better option for deciding whether to answer difficult questions is to use this filter: Will this help them better understand God’s love?
And if the answer is no, then it’s better to move on.
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January 16, 2019
From ignorant disciples
My kids are three and five.
The three-year-old, Hadley, without fail copies her older brother, Graham.
But here’s the funny thing: she does it even when she knows he’s wrong.
Because it’s not about being right or wrong. It’s about influence. She relates better to him, as another kid, than she does to us, her parents.
And this isn’t limited to kids. We see the same thing repeated at all ages.
Influence is a matter of trust, not accuracy.
In discipleship, “I don’t know” is only a valid excuse if it finishes with “him.”
For all of us that do know him, we are well equipped to make disciples. We are equipped simply by virtue of knowing Jesus, because it’s the relationship that’s so valuable.
So the real question is, what are we going to do with that value?
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January 15, 2019
In a sea of people, why does God care about me?
(This is a continuation from “On praying ‘in faith’“)
Another form of this is: “Why am I valuable at all?”
There are tons of axes (or red herrings) to this question:
Do I obey God?Do I tell others about God?Do I give money to the church?Even things like: Am I a contributing member of society?
Good questions, no doubt. But they’re all beside the point.
Because each of these are things I can control.
And if I can control the lever which determines if/how God loves me, then his love is dependent on me.
That last part is really important.
As I think about all the things I’ve screwed up in my life, ‘God’s love being dependent on me’ is not a comforting thought.
But instead, in the Bible, we see the exact opposite picture.
God’s love isn’t at all dependent on me (or you).
Why, for instance, does the Bible have page after page about the Israelites? Because it shows us what God’s love looks like.
Or why did God come as one of us (and during a particularly difficult time)? Because it shows us what God’s love looks like.
These will always be confusing questions until we understand who God is at his core.
As John wrote, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).
Here are a few lines from a psalm (139) I come back to often:
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
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