the quest for holiness

As a Christ follower, especially one who spent much of his early adult life "wasting away my inheritance with prodigal living", (luke 15:13) it has been my hearts cry to "Imitate God" as a child of His.( ephesians 5:1). I believe our response to the holiness of God is to reflect his character in our lives. I no longer want to conform to this world, but be transformed by renewing my mind to think and act like God (Is. 55:8-9)
I felt like in prayer last year God spoke to me and said "don't be so busy cleaning your net, (pursuing personal holiness) that you forget how to go fishing. I think what we would call personal holiness---change in the inward man---only becomes an actuality when is is translated into our inter-personal relationships. In other words, the alone time I spend with God has to ultimately enable me to relate to others in the world around me.
I am asking God to reveal another dimension of holiness to me that looks like a community of people in a right relationship with each other. Its one thing to spend an hour alone in a room with God and come out feeling "holy", and quite another to deal all day with people who may have different opinions, motives, desires and agendas. Too often we see the broken world around us and are moved with self-righteousness instead of compassion. (matt.9:36) I don't ever want to forget where I was before God rescued me, and I pray the day will never come when God's grace is no longer "amazing". As a pastor who works with people daily, I want more than just inner holiness, I want it to flow to others. I am asking God to give me new eyes to see people who are hurting like he does. Tenderness to have my heart broken by what breaks his. Holy Spirit power to "do nothing out of selfish ambition, but in lowliness of mind, put others and their needs before mine." (phil. 2:3-4)
True holiness doesn't come easy, and it isn't cheap. It happens when each of us commits our lives not only to God, but to His body, the church, and like Jesus, we live our lives not to be served, but to serve, and we give our all to advance the kingdom. (mark 10:45) I have in no way attained this, but like Paul, I forget those things which are behind, and I press on toward the prize, I reach for the goal, which is the upward call of God in christ Jesus. (phil.3:13)

"we are ONE in the spirit,
we are ONE in the Lord,
we are ONE in the spirit,
we are ONE in the Lord,
and we pray that all UNITY will one day be restored,
and they'll know we are christians by our Love, by our love,
Yes they'll know we are christians, by our love.

Father, make us One as You are-

the belated party

yesterday my mother in law linda came over with kendra's brother Ian and we had the official birthday party for Addy (Ava let us know that the birthday could not be official without presents and cake) Linda came over with the usual over the top amount of gifts, many of which were outfits for Ava which can then be passed down to Addy. Of course there was also the endless supply of toy and doll gifts. it doesn't matter that our entire basement is filled with them, they had to fight tooth and nail over the 2 dollar etch-a-sketch and cry uncontrollably when the other had it.

we then attempted to go to Chucky Cheese (still known as showbiz to my generation) but apparently much has changed since my showbiz days. It uses to be you just showed up and got a little stamp on your hand and you were good. Now the line was out the door (and i mean that quite literally) to "register" your child. I didn't know they needed hair and dna samples to let you into an establishment. I guess its in case they need to issue an amber alert if you lose your kid among the other 22,000 that were there passing on their germs. Against my Mother in laws wishes, i made an executive decision that there was no way we were staying there. It was WAY too packed and my girls are too little to even enjoy it. There isn't enough hand sanitizer in the western world for me to allow my girls into that big bin of plastic balls.(i admit i am a bit of a germ freek, just ask the students who went to south africa with me) After promising Ava we would come back on a less busy weekday, we were off to the mall to eat pizza and ride the carousel. We then proceeded to return home and gorge on cake and ice cream.

A good time was had by all and i'll see you at chucky cheeses never.

Addy turns 2 (and dad's at a conference)

Today marked two years since my beautiful daughter Adalyn was birthed into our lives. She is such a precious child and a complete opposite of her sister. Ava is a tenderheart like her mom, and Addy is a crazy troublemaker like her mom, oops i mean like me:)
Anyways, to top it off, I have been at a leadership conference in Grand Rapids since Monday morning so I wasn't even home at all today!! I didn't see my daughter once on her birthday and I'm feeling like a terrible dad. My fears were somewhat relieved when Ava informed Kendra that it couldn't be Addy's birthday because there were no presents and no cake. When Kendra insisted, Ava replied, Mommy, if there is no cake, its all a lie!!! I guess this weekend we can get a cake with candles, take pictures, and pretend like its really the big day, but for now i figured I better at least blog about it.



Every time I put Ava to bed, I ask her how does daddy love you?. I say with all my heart? and she says yes. No matter what? and she says yes. And then she finishes the last part for me.......and forever and ever.

I thank God for my children as well as the unreasonable love of my heavenly Father who loves me with all His heart, no matter what, and forever and ever and I pray that God would show me how to love like He loves.

Happy Birthday Addy, Your dad Loves you more than you can know.

DATE NIGHT

Kendra and I have started a new tradition in the Zondervan household. With two little ones and both of us so busy, it seems sometimes that even though we may be in the same house, we don't have the connection we want. Often by the time the girls go to bed, we both kind of collapse on the couch, exhale, and begin the process of vegging out in front of the hellevision until we fall asleep. (mispelling was intentional)

To remedy this, we have decided that on thursdays, we will put the girls to bed early (by faith) and then take turns cooking dinner and having a real "date night" at home. This way we don't have to pay a babysitter or tons of money on eating out and it can be even more romantic. Last night I made a fresh salad with poppy seed dressing and a filet mignon wrapped in feta cheese. It was a wonderful night that enables us to talk, connect and have specific time just for us.

What better night to start than valentines day!!! To my beautiful wife, thanks for being the most incredible mother wife and friend, and I look forward to what God has for us in the future.

See you next thursday:)
Love Jon

ENCOUNTER WEEKEND CONTINUED!!

We are all alive!!!!! Not only did the God show up at camp, so did winter with a vengeance!! Despite the bad weather on sunday, Encounter was an incredible time of pressing into God and developing relationships with students. Here is a bullet point recap.....

Friday night--pastor Lee spoke on seeking God with all your heart. He told them that God had "set up" their generation to be light in a world of darkness. Every student came up to the altar and consecrated themselves again to God that night.

Saturday--climbed the icewall, went tubing. played an insanely rough game of igloo capture the flag--ate an enormous amount of french fries and chicken fingers (the camp food was amazing!)

sat pm--I challenge the students out of 1timothy 1:2 and what it means to be a "true" son or daughter. The worship was amazing and the presence of God was undeniable. When we talked about a true son being willing to be sent out, one girl told me she had a vision of people in heaven and people in hell and God showed her how urgent the message of Jesus was for her classmates to hear.

Sunday--recap of God's plan for us as a generation. I talked about how God took Abram out of his tent (gen.15) to see the stars that would be the number of his children. sometimes we can get so focused on our right now and God wants to take us out of our little corner and give us new eyes to see and believe the promise He has for us.

overall, I am amazed at how fervent our youth is for the presence of God. I am humbled and grateful beyond words at being able to be a small part of the spiritual development of these incredible students. I thank God for rescuing me and entrusting me with this message.

Special thanks to all the cabin leaders, worship leaders, and anna the nurse (she took great care of a sick girl:) All of you putting so much energy into this weekend led to its success and I appreciate all of you.

to the parents who had to pick up their kids in the storm, I apologize again but if I could control the weather, I would have made this a summer camp in february!!

God bless and keep livin LOUD!!

ENCOUNTER WEEKEND!

This weekend 65 of our Res life students and I will be off to bair lake bible camp for our winter retreat we call encounter. I am so excited about what God is going to do in our lives as we seek Him and position ourselves to receive. I thank God for the opportunity to be a part of this great church and the awesome students of Pulse and Surge. Please be praying for us as we press into God and I will be sure to post again when we get back on sunday!!!!
If you want to see more of what our youth ministry looks like you can go to myspace.com/pulseyouth or www.ilovesurge.info for our jr high. you can also check out our video site at www.lolfyi.tv
In eager excpectation........

ON MY SOAPBOX AGAIN

I recently ran across a blog someone else wrote about the "southern baptist association of Christian schools" which is a organization that wants to use its considerable influence to create a "new public school system.," I stole some of his thoughts, but I think this is too important to not pass on. While I do think there are some serious flaws in the public school system, i have several issues with the idea of creating a "christian only" school world.

1. parents should not look to ANY school system whether public,private, or christian to raise their children to be godly. Raising children has to happen in the home not at school.

2. no church denomination should be asking for a mass exodus from any school system. I think it goes completely against the concept of christians being salt and light in the world. If it were up to some people, lights would only associate with other lights and too many of us think light should never even come in contact with darkness. What about being in the world but not of it?

3. Where children are educated is a decision that needs to be made by PARENTS and a church denomination should not be advocating much less organizing a way for us to not be around non-christians. If a parent asked me, I would encourage them to do just the opposite. I certainly wouldn't say send your kids to the most dangerous school in town on purpose, but i also wouldn't encourage them to keep them in the house at all costs. We need to know how to interact with others who haven't had their eyes opened to life in Jesus.

4. parents and churches need to accept some responsibility. We can not rely on the government to somehow legislate righteousness. If we would raise our children to follow AND model Jesus,(1 timothy 4:12) we might be able to influence the public schools instead of bail on them. We can't long for the glory days of when we used to be able to pray in school. I don't even want to know what school prayer would look like now because it would take 5 hours to cover every god and be "PC". The students have to take the initiative, not the govt.

I'm not against christian education (most of those kids certainly aren't any "holier" than public school kids. I just have to look in the mirror to prove that one). I am not against homeschooling your children. I am simply stating that I spend enough time in public schools each week to see the incredible need for salt and light and people who will be the light to this generation.


whats next? maybe we start a christian grocery store so that we don't expose ourselves to cosmo in the check out lane. Maybe we can all pool our money together and buy 10,000 acres in new mexico (next to ted turners) and start a christian only town. lets never underestimate our calling and responsibility to shine like bright lights, in a crooked and perverse generation.(phil.2:15)

"you are the light of the world. like a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. no one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead it is placed on a stand so that it give light to everyone"-matt. 5:14-15

FATHER SET ME ON FIRE FOR YOU, SO PEOPLE WILL COME WATCH ME BURN!!!!!!