Pete Wilson's Blog, page 13

Unconditionally

Some of us have a difficult time accepting the reality that God loves us unconditionally. Often, because of traumatic experiences in our childhoods or our more recent pasts, we have a hard time imagining that anyone—God included— could possibly value us. We ask ourselves, Why should God want to be with me? Just look at how messed up I am. Or we may think, I haven’t been able to rely on anyone in my life. At one time or another, they’ve all let me down. Why would God be any different?

The sad truth is that when we say these types of things to ourselves, we’re right. We are messed up. And at one time or another, every human relationship we’ve ever had has let us down. I love my wife more than I love any other human being currently on the planet. I am committed to her welfare with every fiber of my being. She is part of me, and I can’t imagine my life without her. But despite all of that, she has let me down. And guess what? I’ve done the same to her. At times I’ve brought her great joy, but I’ve also been the one to bring her great pain.

I love my boys. I would lie down in front of a moving train to keep them safe. I have no greater joy than to see them doing well, but they don’t always do what I want them to. Sometimes, they even do and say things that hurt me. And as hard as I try to avoid it, sometimes I’m not a perfect dad. I don’t always act in their best interest.

The fact is every relationship you have with a human being, no matter how committed and well-intentioned, is flawed. Sometimes you let them down; sometimes they let you down. And what that means is that, over time, we learn to hold back in our relationships, out of self-defense. We know that, at some point, we’re going to hurt or be hurt, so we try to protect ourselves by keeping a little something in reserve, by not committing 100 percent at every moment. And then we project that same behavior onto our relationship with God.

Our human experience makes it exceedingly difficult to believe that God is 100 percent faithful, that He will never let us down. We cannot ever wrap our minds completely around His unconditional, everlasting, indestructible love for us. God is forever standing with open arms, waiting to receive us, but we find it hard to fully embrace Him. And yet that is exactly what we must do.

A Light In The Darkness

Last Friday, like most of you, I was watching as the news of the attacks on the city of Paris began to unfold. When these things happen, I end up with a lot more questions than I do answers – why does this happen? Who would do this? Why does God allow this? In these moments, it’s easy to dwell on my questions and on all the evil in the world, but I must choose to lean in and remember: we serve a God who still shines light in the darkest of places.

What I’m learning and am trying to instill in my kids is that more important than trying to figure out why things like this happen, is that it matters how we are living our life while we still have it.

We don’t get to choose how we die, but we do get to choose how we live, so choose well. 

 

The Bigger The Dream, The Bigger The Fight

“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’” Genesis 28:16

God has always used dreamers to do the really big stuff. Take Jacob, in the Old Testament, for example. God first revealed himself to Jacob in a dream of angels going up and down a ladder to heaven. And you have to understand that at that time, Jacob was on the run from his older brother, Esau, whom he had just swindled out of his rightful inheritance as oldest son. Things were pretty hot at home, so Jacob’s mother had sent her favorite son to her brother’s house in Harran until Esau’s rage cooled down. The Bible records what Jacob thought about the dream:

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven. . . .”

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.” (Genesis 28:16–22)

Indeed, God had big plans for Jacob, despite what his angry older brother thought. Jacob would go on to become the father of twelve sons—who would in turn become the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel. And—spoiler alert—he and Esau were eventually reconciled.

For a New Testament example, take a look at the apostle Paul. Throughout his career as a missionary, Paul received guidance, warning, and encouragement from his dreams. On one occasion, he was even permitted a peek into heaven itself (2 Corinthians 12:2–4). And trust me, if anyone could have used a glance past the pearly gates, it would be Paul. After all, this is the same guy who was falsely accused, beaten, shipwrecked, whipped, imprisoned—even bitten by a snake!

The point is, there is overwhelming evidence that pursuing a God-given dream—whatever the dream may be—is guaranteed to bring you up against opposition. That opposition can come from many sources: naysayers and critics, well-meaning friends and family members, negative circumstances, and, most of all, from the fear in your own mind.

When we start facing disappointments, setbacks, bad news, or what have you, one of our first reactions is usually to say to ourselves something like this: Hey, I thought I was doing God’s will! What’s the deal with all these trials and tribulations? God, how about a little support here? Whaddya say?

Our confidence in pursuing our passion is all too often overwhelmed by a riptide of fear and doubt.

Let me share this truth with you: the bigger the dream, the bigger the fight you’ll face. In fact, the people throughout history who have been the most directly in the center of God’s will for their lives are the same people who have gone through the toughest trials.

So, it seems we can safely conclude that if we are expecting the universe to lavish approval on us for following our dreams, we are destined to disillusionment. Chasing a dream is no job for an approval junkie.

The dreams in your heart are no accident; they were put there by God. Fight fear and take one step (even if it’s a small one) closer to them today.

The Tension Between God And Money

There is something inside each of us, a trait of our brokenness, that tends to make us want to look to money to give us security, value, and peace. We are constantly experiencing this tension between chasing after God and money, but the Bible says in Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

We think that the more money we have, the more generous we’ll be, but the fact of the matter is if you can’t be generous with what you have now, you’re not going to be generous when you have more. Generosity requires both effort and intentionality.

 

What Matters Most?

Psalm 39:4-5 Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered—how fleeting my life is. 5 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.

We tend to live our lives as if we’re going to live forever, but the reality is our time on this earth is limited. When we know that our days our numbered, and begin to live in that realization, we are able to get serious about our priorities and how we are going to spend our time.

So, how do we add life to our years? However long you have left in your life, how can we make sure that you’re living the life God has called you to, with complete intentionality?

I believe one of the ways we do that is by determining what matters most. In my life, it’s been these four things –

Transformation

Love

Faith

Joy

These may look different for all of you, but whatever you determine your priorities may be at the end of your life, if what matters then doesn’t matter now, your priorities are misaligned.

Now Or Never

This past Sunday we started a new series at Cross Point called Now Or Never, where we’re digging in to how we live our lives with more intentionality. Time is precious, and it’s running out. If you began to live with the knowledge that your time was running out, what would you do, who would you call, how would you do things differently?  Last week we had the opportunity to give people the chance to answer the question “If you only had one week left, what would you choose to do?” and I was blown away by the answers we received. Check out the video below and think about that question for your own life – what would you do if your time was running out?

The Best Investment

To accomplish anything of consequence in our lives, it is essential that we spend time with God. After all, if we don’t know the One who has promised to watch over us, how can we trust in His provision?

Even little babies know this. The first time you are introduced to a baby, you can stand and grin and coo and hold out your hands invitingly as much as you want, but that child is not going to go to you until his or her parent gives assurance, by word or by touch, that it’s okay. Why? Because the child knows and trusts the parent implicitly. The parent and the child have spent time together; the child knows the parent will not willingly bring danger into the environment. It has been proven over and over.

This is true of just about any relationship you can think of. The deepest trust comes as a result of the greatest investment of time together. In a marriage, in parenting, in a work relationship, in church leadership, in friendship, on a team, in a musical group—you name it. You learn to trust people by spending lots of time with them, by getting to know them.

In the same way, in order to develop a deep and lasting trust in God, you have to spend time with Him. You have to spend time reading His word and conversing with Him in prayer.

John 15:1-5

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes   so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

If you want to live a life of confidence and purpose, you have to find ways to stay connected with Jesus, day to day and moment to moment. You need to build into your daily routine times of intimacy with Christ, breathing His spirit deeply into your being.

Will you take a few moments today just to slow down? To acknowledge the fact that there’s a good God who actually wants to be with you? Maybe even right now pray something like this – God I believe you’re a Good God. I want to trust you in greater ways in my life. I want to develop the kind of trust that instills confidence and purpose into my entire life. Help me today to look for new and unique opportunities to just acknowledge your presence.

Maybe it will be in a sunset, or in an incredible meal you share with friends, or in a verse you read, or an unexpected encouraging conversation you have, but keep your eyes open. Look for God’s invitation for you to connect with Him from moment to moment.

You Can’t Hurry And Smile

In the 1960’s, a group of Futurists gave a report to Congress that suggested by 1985, due to advances in technology, people would only be working 27 weeks out of the year. They predicted that the biggest problem we would have, due to technology, was that we would have too much free time.

In our culture today, our idols tend to revolve around performance. We want to do more and go faster. We are always in a hurry.

Hurry doesn’t give you more time, and it certainly doesn’t bring you more joy and happiness.

 

 

Chasing After You

I am so excited to be able to share with you all about the release of our first Cross Point Worship EP, Chasing After You!!

The process of creating this EP has been a few years in the making. Because we serve a perfect God, we always strive to honor him with our best, which is not easily achieved. Cross Point Worship has spent countless hours writing over 100 songs and had the challenging task of narrowing it down to just 4 songs to make sure that they were giving their best back to God. I believe that they have done just that, and I couldn’t be more proud of them. They have poured everything they have into this and I can’t WAIT for you to hear what they’ve done!

The EP, which includes 4 original songs, will be hitting iTunes Friday, October 23rd and I would love for you check it out and support this project!

If you’re in the Nashville area, join us tonight at the Nashville Campus for Worship Night, where the Worship team will be debuting many of their songs!

 

 

Be Still

One of my favorite verses to go to when I’m being overtaken by worry is Psalm 46:1, 10-11

God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. 10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. 11 The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. 

I think it is easy, especially as we get older, to interpret “be still” as being lazy and lethargic, like we’re just supposed to sit there while the world spins out of control around us. However, the word “still” in Hebrew actually means to cease striving. We are constantly striving to control things that we were never designed to control, so all we need to do is be still and lean into the only one who ever had any control in the first place.

Cease striving today. Not because you know that things will all work out, but because you know the God who will work it out.