Saturday, July 3, 2010 @ 9:53 pm by Josh Burcham

We don’t do what we do as Christ-followers to help more people become Christians. We do it because God loves those people and we want to help them meet and experience Jesus.

Saturday, October 10, 2009 @ 10:12 am by Josh Burcham

Now that I have your attention. (Sorry, that I went to such length to get that said attention, but this is that important.) Actually, I’m not sorry. The Bible is pointless… if you don’t do what it says.

As I write these next words, know that I write these to those that call themselves Christians. If you don’t believe in Jesus, this post really doesn’t apply to you. What I want you to hear is that Jesus loves you and that He died for you. Isn’t that an amazing sacrifice, that shows His love for us. He died because of the sin in our lives, the sin that keeps us from God, that sin that holds us down and doesn’t allow us to experience true freedom found in Christ. You’re life could have purpose. Forget this Christian-nonsense; just know Jesus. Email me and I’ll answer your questions.

Let me start with telling you a story:

I served as their junior high pastor awhile back and one Sunday I tried a little experiment. I present the Gospel to this group of students and left out one part.

God created us to be with Him. God wanted to be with His creation, but our sin, the things that all of us have done that went against God’s commands, has separated us from God. Those sins can’t be removed by good deeds; no matter how many good deeds we do, they will never be able to forgive us. But God in His grace and mercy gave us a gift of salvation and if we accept His gift and follow Him, we can be forgive of our sins and live with Him in eternity.

After I presented the Gospel, I then had the students yell what they thought I left out. Their guessing went on for about ten minutes; at that point I filled in the blank that was missing. JESUS! I left out JESUS. And I came to this realization: we’ve so gotten comfortable with Jesus that He has no power in our life and the Bible doesn’t either.

Our focus as Christ-followers should be Jesus… nothing more, nothing less…simply Jesus. We live in a day and age where I believe Christians have forgotten about Jesus and it breaks my heart. We worry more about ourselves and how we do things than we do about Truth that is found in the Bible. The crazy thing is we know our Bible. Most believers can quote Scripture to me till their blue in the face and tell me all about the different tribes of Israel or the stories about the first church. But yet we don’t see movements of God in our communities that change hearts. Instead we stretch to find anything that resembles it. Christian listen to me: the Bible is pointless if you forget about Jesus and not do what it says.

John 14:23-24 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

John 15:6-10 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

I write this because I believe the Bible has power, because it is God’s spoken Word to us. Hebrews 4:12-13. I believe that we can see massive movements of God in our daily lives where hearts are changed, because I’ve experience and witnessed them. I believe we have hit a plateau as Christians, because to don’t listen to God’s Word, we just read His book. We read for knowledge, not for heart change. We don’t read as if God is speaking to our souls.

When we seek after Jesus, we allow the Holy Spirit to speak to our souls and see the movements of God. We start to live the life Jesus has called us to live and start to genuinely love God and love people and understand you can’t truly do one without the other. Matthew 25:31-46.

Sunday, May 24, 2009 @ 2:20 am by Josh Burcham

I’m not a bar guy. I have never really thought highly of bars, because they were never a part of my life. But I went to a bar with a friend tonight and I have to say I liked it. If I was honest, I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect or for that matter what to do. But I learned something about bars tonight. First, the bar next to my house is a happening place: dance floor, pool tables, video games and a patio. I think I counted at least 6 bar tenders behind the bar and three or four security guards, but people were friendly. More friendly than other place you would hang out at. Probably has something to do with the alcohol, but it was interesting and I would go back.

Here is the truth I walked away with. I’m called to love God and love people. I was intimiated by the bar scene, but have learned it can be a real place to develop relationship to love His people. A place to show Jesus’ love.

I will be going back.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 @ 10:57 am by Josh Burcham

I meet with a group of guys every week where I’m challenged, held accountable and encouraged all at the same time. This quote from @john_popovich. It isn’t something new to all of us, but it did hit us in a new way.

Forgiveness never makes sense.

Being a Christ-Follower never makes sense. Christ calls us “to be last … to be a servant of all” and to love our enemies. He calls us to humble ourselves to the point of washing peoples feet. The job of the lowest servant on the food chain in the households of Jesus’ day. He expects us to love people. Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment and he reply with this, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-39. Jesus was asked for the GREATEST commandment, not the top two, but yet He felt it to be that important. “Love you neighbor as yourself”! They go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. We can’t truly love God if we don’t love people.  “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” You’ve heard this before: love is an action. To show love to somebody takes action and to not show love, takes action as well:

⁴¹“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴²For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

⁴⁴“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

⁴⁵“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.‘

We were created to love God and love people! Genesis records the creation of the earth and of mankind and Adam’s need for a mate.

“God created the first human, Adam, in His image, and they shared a prefect relationship. But still, God said it was not good. Why? Because Adam was created to love God and love people, yet at this point he was only loving God. The solution to Adam’s problem is Eve. So God created Eve, and Adam went from having a perfect relationship with God to having a perfect relationship with God and Eve. And it was good.” Vince Antonucci in I became a Christian and all I got was a lousy t-shirt.

We are called to love people. We are called to forgive people. And though it doesn’t make sense, we are still called to do so. Even if it feels like we are getting the short end of the stick or justice isn’t being served. We are called to love and forgive. Not an easy lesson I’ve had to learn, but a lesson am glad I learned. It frees me to love God in a way that I’ve never loved Him before.

I don’t care what somebody has done to you. You can’t love God fully if you can’t forgive and know it isn’t going to make sense!

Go into life with that heart and people are going to meet JESUS!

Verses quoted: Mark 9:35, Luke 6:35, Matthew 5:44, John 13:1-17, Matthew 22:34-40, Matthew 25:40.