Walk in Love

Hey Jonathan, I recently did a short devotion for our church family on love for a 15-day devotional series we produced as a church staff. Our head pastor had the idea back in January to couple a devotional series with our church families 15 days of fasting. It went so well we did again as a follow up to Easter. Here is my Easter devotional on WALKING IN LOVE.



WALK IN LOVE
Nathan Headley
Pastor of Student Ministries

I John 4:9-10 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Love is a choice. Not a feeling, or an emotion, or a mystical entity that we can move in and out of as if it were a fog that comes and goes. It is choice. We learn this principle whenever we go through pre-marital counseling. The idea that love is not a feeling that can go away, but it is a life-long decision we make to prefer our spouse above ourselves, for the rest of our lives. To put the well-being, dreams, and desires of another person before our own. This is love. In I John 4:10 above we see here that God, (who is the creator, author and fulfillment of love) sent his son to die for our sins, not when we chose to love him, but when he loved us.

A lot of us have the same view of love as we have of respect. “You respect me and I will respect you in return.” “You show love towards me, and I will show it back to you.” We often expect someone else to take the first step, or we desire to mutually step together. This is not what happened when love came and died for us. Jesus took the first step. He loved us, whether we choose to give it back to him or not. He still took our punishment because of the love he had for us.

So to say “walk in love”, we must make the choice to take the first step and love others. Whether they choose to return it or not, we will love others. This means when we are eating dinner with our family, buying groceries, shopping for shoes, eating at a restaurant, working at the office, in the midst of a confrontation or picking our kids up from school, we show love to others. Instead of us just telling others about the love of Christ, I believe it is time for us to SHOW the love of Christ to others. Not because they love us, because we love them.

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My Hero just Died

I just left the hospital room of Paul Hanson, one of my life heroes. I am still in shock.

Mr. Hanson wasn't your typical hero, he wasn't famous, he didn't have super powers. He didn't save anyone from burning building. He became my hero slowly, over time.

It started when I was a kid. Mr. Hanson led the boys program at our church. I remember he would start each class out by leading us in the pledge to the Christian Flag and the U.S. flag. Then we would sing from hymn books and we would usually end with, "Onward Christian Soldier". He was old-school. We would spend the rest of class working on our achievements (medals, patches) and sometimes he would take us outside and teach us to march (left, right, about face). To this day that does not sound very exciting but I loved it, he made it fun.

Then in High School I attended Valley Christian High School and he was my principal. He and his wife (Mrs. Hanson) were actually the founders of the school (Two ex-hippies who moved to Brownsville to do missionary work, founded a small Christian HS that was affordable to everyone). In addition to being the principal he was the Science Teacher, Bible Teacher, History Teacher, P.E. Coach, and Janitor. The last one is one of the reasons he's one of my heroes. You see Mr. Hanson had a Masters Degree and he was one of the best teachers I have ever had. He could have taught anywhere and he would have made a very good living. Instead he took a salary below poverty level to serve teens, some of whom could care less. I remember the first time I saw him cleaning the restroom and taking out the garbage. I already respected him so much but to see him serve us like that it really affected me. (It's probably the closest I will ever be to understanding how the disciples felt when Jesus washed their feet)

I remember the chapel that he shaved off half his mustache to show us how God wanted to make us a new person. Mrs. Hanson had never seen him without a mustache. I remember the day we had crazy hat day and he wore a cage on his head with his cat in it. I just remember how calm he always was, and his dry sense of humor. He had this sly smile, laugh combination thing. My cousin told me about a time in class where one of the sarcastic kids in class gave yet another sarcastic wrong answer, instead of getting mad he just stood up, started clapping softly (think golf clap), and said, "He tried, He tried". Everyone just cracked up, including the kid. (Classic Mr. Hanson)

Mr. Hanson will always be one of my heroes because he gave his all to what God called him to do. For more than 30 years he taught teens but more than that he lived his life as an example to us. Without ever saying it his life said, "This is what it looks like to live for God".

There is so much I could say about this great man...
Mr. Hanson I love you, respect you, and I am so thankful for all you gave. I just spoke to you last night and I don't understand why this happened. I will continue to follow your example and serve kids in your honor.

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Count it all Joy

Hey Jonathan, in small group we watched this nooma video by this guy named Rob Bell. I have put a short clip of it on here for you to check out:


As I watched this video I really began to look at my own life. Now, I have been really stressed out lately with our new student center remodel and getting ready to preach this weekend in the adult services and launching the new middle school and high school services, and their websites etc... and it has been stinkin taking a toll on my life. I have been staying up late, getting up early and I feel like I am running so fast...faster than I want to. I have been running so fast that I haven't had time to really ENJOY my relationship with God. I have been spending time praying and reading but not just sitting and BEING with Him and enjoying His presence. So, we are watching this video in small groups and it hit me. My life is a breath. And the breath that I have has been given to me by my Creator! and it was time for me to slow down... to spend time ENJOYING the most important things in my life. I feel like we get so often get consumed with the day to day work and school and entertainment that when it comes time to be with the most important people we have in life (i.e. GOD and family) that we are either too tired or too stressed to spend that quality time. See there is a big difference between spending time, and spending quality time.

So all this stuff is going through my head and I sit down on Monday night to do my daily devotional and I read this scripture that jumped off the page:

Phillippians 4
4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again rejoice! 5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do...

6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Holy CRAP! It was this divine moment that God was clearly speaking to me through His word. I have read this scripture many times but on Monday night when I sat down I had no idea the impact it was going to have on my life. I have been doing exactly opposite of what this verse was telling me to do. I had been worrying about everything and viewing everything as a task instead of taking joy in those tasks and I had no peace. So that night everything changed and believe it or not the past two days have been some of the best days I have had. FULL of JOY and AT PEACE.

So I am saying all this to tell you: SLOW DOWN...Count it all Joy...Stop Worrying so much about the future and enjoy God today and He will take care of it.

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Making a difference.

Hey Jonathan, all the time we talk about making a difference. It got me thinking, what does that really mean. To MAKE A DIFFERENCE? So I looked up the word difference on google and I got many definitions that kind of boggled my mind. What I normally use the word difference to define is not what I came across. The first two definitions listed were these: 1. the quality of being unlike or dissimilar and 2. a variation that deviates from the standard or norm.

So, what I gathered from these two definitions is in order to MAKE a difference. We have to BE THE DIFFERENCE first. We must be unlike everything else. We must deviate from the nom. We cannot make a difference unless we are the difference. So making a difference isn't something we DO it is something we ARE. It is a quality to we possess. We are the DIFFERENCE.

Romans 12:2 says:
²Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will.

We must first be transformed, before we can see transformation take place around us. Therefore, let us seek to become the difference and by doing so the difference we are will be transferred into those around us.

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Character Traits of a Leader volume 1

Hey Jonathan, today I want to write about a few character traits I believe each leader should possess:

1. Courage – It doesn’t take fear to be a leader. It takes courage. Leaders are at the forefront blazing the trail that is to be followed. How can we as leaders cut down the branches and shrubs that protrude into the path we are creating, if we do not have the courage to move forward? It is fear that keeps us in our current position, fear of the unknown. Yet, I say why be afraid of the unknown. It is in the unknown where we are fashioned into something better. We don’t learn the lessons and make the mistakes that produce something better inside of us unless we courageously face the unknown.

2. Teachability – How can we learn if we are not teachable? We must be willing to learn from anyone at any time. We must understand that we can learn from individuals who are less knowledgeable and less experienced than we are. Each one of us has our own talents and gifts given to us by our creator and we can learn from each other if we are willing.

I had a professor in college that told us he listened to a Christian talk radio host every morning with whom my professor disagreed with on 50% of the hosts’ doctrine. Yet, he learned something almost every morning inside the 50% he did agree with. He used this illustration to teach us that we can learn from anyone, even if we don’t agree with them.

3. Relational – Leadership is about people. No matter what organization we are a part of, what product we are trying to sell, what agenda we are trying to accomplish, we will be successful and fulfilled if we learn that leadership is about people. It is not about money, resources, or results even though these things are necessary for us to survive. It is about people. It is about how people feel when they are around us. Do they feel inadequate, beaten down, and stressed? OR Do they feel encouraged? Do they feel empowered to grow and become better? Do they feel taken care of? Do they feel like we care about them or just the task?

4. Confident/Humble – I grouped confident and humble together as one character quality because true humility comes from confidence. I believe true humility is the most misunderstood character quality. Most of us equate humility with diffidence, insecurity and weakness when in reality humility is none of those things and actually the opposite. Humility comes from security and confidence; therefore, producing boldness and strength. Most of us equate confidence with thinking we can do it on our own, or having complete independence which is actually Pride. Confidence is knowing we are completely dependent, but having unhindered trust in who our dependence is on.

We see the perfect picture of confident humility in John 13:3-15. This is where Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. We all know the story how Jesus does the job that was usually reserved for servants. In verse 3 -5 it says, “3 Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. 4 So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, 5 and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.”

First, Jesus knew he had all authority given to him by the Father…Confidence in who He is and where his authority comes from. Second, it says, “…SO he got up…” It was because he had all the authority and power on earth and above that he performed the act of a servant. He humbled himself not because he was weak, but instead, because he was strong. In order to be humble we must be confident in who we are and the strength we posses in Christ. Not confidence in our own abilities, for that is pride. Yet, confident in the strength of our God and the way he desires to use that strength through us.

Pride is thinking we are can do it on our own. Insecurity is believing we can’t do it at all. Humility is knowing we can do it, but only with the help of our God.

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