chris unscripted

What’s your agenda?

chris — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:08:37 +0000

There will always be someone telling you that you’re not hip enough, famous enough, edgy enough or whatever enough. That’s their agenda. What’s yours?

Shun the non-believers.

—Seth Godin

“You can’t wrestle from a distance…”

chris — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 02:48:30 +0000

You can’t wrestle from a distance. It is a full-contact sport that places you in uncomfortably close proximity to another. Wrestling with God allows us to see Him more clearly and more correctly. And perhaps, more completely.

—Glenn Packiam, Second Hand Jesus

…but if I have not love, I am nothing

chris — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:59:16 +0000

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:36-40 ESV

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:1-7 ESV

If I’ve ever done anything less than love any one of you, I have wronged you and I am so sorry.

Father, forgive me for falling into sin and falling short of who You want me to be. Teach me to love others the way that You first loved me.

Deeper Walk | Offering

chris — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:12:06 +0000

By Laura Willis

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”
Philippians 2:5-7 NIV

A WISE PERSON once said that selfishness is at the root of most (if not all) discontent and self-centered seeking. In other words, the more you isolate yourself, the more you focus on what you don’t have. (continue reading…)

adapted from an article on RELEVANTmagazine.com

Deeper Walk | A Love That Chases

chris — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 14:12:05 +0000

We wonder what Love is, but there He stands. His love does not change, His love does not stop. In our most unworthy times, He is there—with His undying, unconditional acceptance—reckless, even.

Think about love. What is it? What is it not?

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8 NIV

By Karissa Sechrist (adapted from an article in RELEVANT Magazine)

Deeper Walk | A True Gospel

chris — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 23:29:06 +0000

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”
1 Corinthians 2:4-5 NIV

We are not called to make the Gospel anything other than what it already is. It is meant to be offensive. It is meant to separate father and son or mother and daughter. The road has already been labeled narrow, and any attempts of ours to widen it, reconstruct it and pave it are in vain. As messengers of this Gospel, our job is simply to carry it as it is, to allow it to be what it already is,and to leave the results up to God.

What aspects of the Gospel have you glossed over or reinterpreted? How can you present the message with joy and authenticity?

By Matt Conner (adapted from an article in RELEVANT Magazine)

nogomo

chris — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 02:14:40 +0000

Contribute.
Be patient.
Be kind.
Be honest.
Encourage people.
Apologize.
Forgive.
Thank people.

NOGOMO | no going through the motions

Deeper Walk | Transformative Power

chris — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:56:05 +0000

We are neither creators or originators of the gospel, but we do serve as its mouthpiece as we are changed by the “renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:1-2), and “the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

How has the gospel changed you? How can you use it to change others?

(RELEVANT Magazine)

…it just gives.

chris — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 02:48:47 +0000

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

John 3:16-21, NIV 2010

Intense love does not measure, it just gives.

Mother Teresa

…what you believe absolutely determines how you act.

chris — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:38:49 +0000

Without action and fruit, all the theology in the world has little meaning. But theology is still important—what you believe absolutely determines how you act.

[Francis Chan, Forgotten God]