Live for Jesus

So I must say from the beginning that my mind has been going on this idea for a while now. It most likely will come out a little more harshly than hoped as it may seem like it has come from nowhere but here we go...

(Disclaimer: Many who read this truly love Jesus and do their best to live for Him. This is not for you. Its for the rest of you.)

I wonder sometimes how in the world everyone I know calls themselves a Christian yet very few of them care about Jesus, His people (the church), or those who don't know Jesus yet. They show no concern for his laws, feel no remorse for their sins, and have no desire to study God's Word.

They make silly statements like "God forgives but I don't" (Matt. 6:14-15) or "God doesn't look at the bad I do but only the good" (Isaiah 64:6). They party and live like hell and then show up on Sunday at church and believe they have done their "Christian duty".

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I fully believe that in my church that at least half would go to hell if they died today.  And that is the people who go to church! What about those who just claim to be a Christian? "Their parents were Christians or they walked an aisle when they were little. That works doesn't it?" NO.

1 John 3:9 "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been borne of God."

In Luke 6:44 Jesus says that we are judged by the fruit of our lives meaning that if we really loved Jesus we would live like Jesus. But if we really love to sin then we will keep on sinning. That's why Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 that "No one can serve two masters". 

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LOVE JESUS AND LOVE SIN.

I am not talking about perfect... but people who live with a blatant disregard for Jesus and His standards for living CANNOT be saved.  There must be something in them (THE HOLY SPIRIT) that convicts when they sin.

You may ask, "Well how do you know that Scott?" Because when I sin I feel the Holy Spirit beating me up and putting my stomach in knots until I make it right with God and whoever I offended. The same Holy Spirit that lives in me lives in every believer of Jesus Christ.

We claim Christianity as a national religion of some sort. "I was born in America. Of course I am a Christian." Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that has nothing to do with America. Too many people have been fooled with arrogance and pride that Satan has spoonfed them for so long that they don't even recognize their need for a Savior and have no brokenness over their sin. We better wake up! If you call yourself a Christian (follower of Jesus Christ) then live like Him. Quit living like a baby not knowing what is right and wrong. Grow up in your faith and get it together. (Hebrews 5:11-6:3)

I love the Lord. I love His people. I want people to see the most accurate picture of Jesus Christ as they possibly can. That depends on us to be "Christ's ambassadors" (2 Cor. 5:20). I represent Jesus to this world. You represent Jesus to this world. It is our privilege to do that.

Simply put, if you and I are not interested in representing Jesus Christ to this world and to one another then we have no business calling ourselves followers of Jesus.

I am not speaking as one who has figured it out... I just know we (including me) have got to do better.

Philippians 3:12 "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus."

Season of Blessings

I want to first of all admit that I am a terrible blogger. I am inconsistent as can be.  But this is something I committed to so I am going to limp through this. (:

Right now in my life I feel like I am going through a season of incredible blessings.  Before I go too far though please let me define blessing.  It is NOT getting nice clothes, making more money, a better job, a new vehicle, or anything like that.  That is a very superficial way of seeing "blessings" in life. Blessings are not material or earthly possessions that will grow old and rust out.  A blessing is seeing the hand of God at work in the lives of people around you.  That is what a blessing is.  A blessing is eternal, always built around relationships that lift up others, always showing off Jesus.

So now that I have defined what a blessing is let me share some of the blessings I have in life right now (or ways that I am seeing God work in the lives of people all around).  First of all, I have seen the incredible woman that chose to marry me transformed in two major areas of her life... service and discipline.  Amber is an AMAZING woman and has always had great discipline and a desire to help others but she has always shared with me that these are areas of struggle for her.  God has changed that.  This woman is reading her Bible every day, working out 3 times a week, monitoring her diet, and praying for people.  She is showing discipline! She has also been serving others and especially me by taking care of things at home, with finances, and so much more.  It is a blessing to see God work in her life.

With others also it has been one blessing after another.  My sister Jo Lynn is going to be a missionary to NYC this year! 6 of our graduated seniors from CBC are going to Ghana in three weeks to share the love of Jesus! The students in the ministry at CBC are going crazy for Jesus.  In fact, God is using them to push my limits of serving Him.  We had 17 people who just went and served the ETBE staff without any push from me at all and they worked hard.  We have 30 people going to the Mission Centers of Houston Sunday with almost HALF of them being BOYS!  I saw one of our senior guys last week at junior high camp teaching 5 junior high boys late at night in his bunk with his Bible open what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  I saw an incoming 9th grade girl willingly step away from her closest friends for a week to be Jesus to some girls in our group she didn't know that well.  I saw my brother-in-law stand before 300 people praying over them before they entered a worship service.  I don't even know this guy anymore.  I saw a good friend last night at a worship service with hands raised high like he didn't care if anyone else was in the building worshipping God.  I don't think I have even scratched the surface of some of the blessings in my life but this at least gets the point across.  GOD IS ALIVE! GOD IS WORKING!

So here I stand in the midst of ALL of these blessings.  I am completely underserving of God showing himself to me.  I am unworthy of being around so many incredible people (especially my Amber).  Yet because God is a good God he sees fit to show himself to me.  God has lavished his grace and love on me (Ephesians 1:7-8).

Why don't more people see what this life is all about?  Why is it that so many people can only see themselves in the midst of all of these needs and opportunities to show people Jesus?  Why is it that so many "Christians" do not live for Jesus? Maybe they don't know the Word or even worse, maybe they don't care?  Maybe they are afraid to trust Him?  Maybe they have never seen a clear picture of who Jesus really is?  I am fully convinced that this life is not about me.  I am willing to lay down my life, pick up the life Jesus has for me and follow Him. (Luke 9:23)

"In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not say good-bye to all his possessions cannot be My disciple." Luke 14:33

Don't serve American Jesus.  Serve the Jesus of the Bible!

What God has taught me thus far

Today marks more or less the halfway point of my summer. Because I absolutely cram my summer full of awesome stuff God seems to use this season each year to teach me some great truths about Him. This year has been really neat because I feel like their have been two things that really stick out so far. The first is this (I shared this in detail a while back on a Wednesday night if you want to hear my podcast... Centralbaptistbuna.org). As I was saying, the first is this: When I chose to submit my life to Jesus I chose to always say yes. For 16 years of my life as a follower of Jesus I have been so arrogant as to believe that I actually have the choice of whether or not I am going to follow what He wants me to do or not. Now ultimately I do have the choice but really??? Let's review Genesis 1. God spoke and the world was created. God spoke and water was formed. God spoke and land shot up from the ground to form mountains. God spoke and trees were formed. God spoke and each animal was made. God spoke and Adam was given life. In case you are a little slow (like I was for 16 years) God spoke and what was nothing obeyed and became something! Let's continue our review with some Old Testament heroes. God told Abraham to take his family and start walking without knowing where he would end up... And Abraham obeyed. God told Abraham to kill his son and he obeyed. Again God told Abraham to stop before he killed his son and he obeyed. Noah: Noah built the biggest boat the world may have ever seen in the middle of a desert! Why? Because God told him to. Let's continue with Jesus, God in human form. Jesus spoke and Lazerus, who was dead, came back to life. Jesus spoke and the wind and waves (hurricane style) stopped immediately. Jesus spoke and a demon possessed girl was given her life. Jesus spoke and nature, sickness, and even death obeys! (teaching point coming next) And I, the great and mighty Scott Hawk, really think that I have the choice to obey if I want to. I do have a choice but in comparison with who I am answering to do I really have a choice? After all, I said yes to following Jesus. God didn't make me. Let me clarify... I am not talking about this "God will strike me dead if I don't do what he says" fear induced followship of Jesus Christ. I am talking about a right understanding of the holiness and shear awesomeness of God in comparison to me. It's not a "have to" followship but a "want to". So that's kind of a big deal for me because that means I am always (admittedly imperfect) going to say yes to Jesus. I have always said yes when it fit my plan and my comfort zone. But now it's ALWAYS. ALWAYS. Always forgive. Always love. Always be patient. Always speak the truth in love. Say yes when Jesus tells me to give. Yes when He tells me to witness. Yes when He tells me to shut up. Yes when he tells me to pray. Yes when he tells me to stop. Yes when I feel like it and when I don't. I say yes to following Jesus. After all, isn't that what Luke 9:23 is all about? "If anyone wants to follow me he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." The second truth that God is teaching me will have to come tomorrow due to the length of this post.

Day 6 of SL Staff

Day 3 of camp has been another amazing day. It has been a day of personal challenge filled with opportunities to serve others in Jesus' name. The day began with our staffers having the opportunity to be Jesus' hands and feet by waking up extra early and setting up the rec field so the Rec staff of Student Life would not have to. We were out on the rec field at 6:15 am and had the entire two fields set up in 30 minutes! Basically, our kids did work! Our verse of encouragement this morning was found in Colossians 1:29, "I work hard, striving with God's power working powerfully in me." It was definitely the power of God that gave us such great attitudes of service and love this morning. Every one of our students were working hard and clearly wanted to be there. That was amazing. We then had breakfast and staff devo pretending like nothing happened only to surprise them later. They were so excited. Showing God's love is always rewarding. The staff devo this morning personally challenged me. We have been walking through the story of Joseph. He has taught the heck out of Genesis 37! It is amazing how much I overlook when I read scripture. I have been reading to complete and not reading for change. That must change. My heart must change. God spoke to me through this and taught me that I have become content with certain sins in my life so much so that it doesn't even bother me. That bothers me (: But God is growing me and teaching me what it means to submit ALL of me to Him each day. We had a great day and then we went into our church's own Bible study that we decided to do with our free time and studied 3 verses in Colossians 2 that lasted an hour and a half. Now that was some great Bible study! I cannot say how impressed I am with our students. I would love to share their stories of faith, service, and fellowship right now but I am worn out. That will have to wait until Friday. What I can say is that I have never seen Jesus more visibly displayed in a collective group than our group of 14. There is no pride in that statement... Only gratitude.  I said that I would share my lack of faith story tonight. I will share that tomorrow or in a post later tonight. Just know that God has shown me a lack of faith this summer in what I believed was possible in two specific situations. God is huge and cannot be boxed in by me. Obey God. It's worth it!

Day 5 of SL Staff

We have just completed Day 2 of Student Life Camp and day 5 of our Staffing trip and I am absolutely exhausted! (: But I must admit that I have unexplainable energy and desire to keep growing, serving, and loving. I miss my wife dearly but her constant words of encouragement and affirmation along with her prayers remind me of my purpose and calling. I miss my church home and the regular schedule I have but also have been reminded that I am called to go and serve others and therefore am truly exactly where God wants me. Overall, I am a worn-out and tired, 100% committed, running on Jesus energy guy right now and I love it. This week we have been reminding one another to step out of our comfort zones and see what else God has for us. I am included in that challenge and it has been tough but rewarding. I believe that God did not allow Amber to come on this trip so he could grow me up. In the past I have deferred responsibility to others (especially Amber) in making major decisions. I am learning to make choices this week. I am praying that they are the right ones. I also feel like the camp pastor has been watching my personal life and then wrote a sermon for me on what God wants differently. The first that is obvious to me is PRIDE. Yes I have an unhealthy amount of pride. Pride is the enemy of God being able to work in my life. He wants total submission. That's a tough word for us tough Texans. The second thing I am learning is the art of REST. I honestly never stop. Everyone that I trust tells me constantly that I need to slow down. My problem is thank justify my pace by the importance of what I am doing... Making disciples is pretty important right? Mark 4 and 6 both speak of Jesus dragging his disciples away to rest. If Jesus, in his short time on earth, found time to rest then I do not have a choice. Our students: WOW. I can honestly say that I have never been more impressed with a total group than this week. They have truly shown that Jesus is real in their lives. Colossians 1:7 speaks about the life of a follower of Jesus bearing good fruit. They are living this verse out. Continue to pray for strength (Colossians 1:29) and determination along with patience and love. I am looking forward to sharing more about a personal battle of a lack of faith battle that I have experienced soon on my blog. It's pretty awesome how God works. Thanks for reading and sharing life with me.

SL Staff Travel/Team building days

What a wonderful two days we have had traveling to Tennessee and enjoying the fellowship of other Followers of Jesus! Thursday a group of 14 people from Central Baptist Church headed out at 3 am to Cleveland, Tennessee for 9 days of a leadership mission trip. We traveled through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and even a small part of Georgia to arrive at our destination. It took us 15 hours plus the loss of an hour due to a change in time zones before we arrived at our destination at 7:00 p.m. After getting some dinner we sat down and talked about expectations for the trip. One thing I told the kids that I expected from them was to grow in their faith and skills by stepping out of their comfort zone. I would boldly say that God has done his greatest work in my life when I get away from comfort and step into a world of discomfort. It requires me to depend on God and others which in turn shapes me to be more like Jesus. Please pray this for me. Today we woke up and the guys had the privilege of cooking breakfast for the girls to start our day (another thing we talked about in our expectations talk was outdoing one another in showing honor (Romans 12:10 on you)). After a great meal we enjoyed a morning devotion and then started our day. We went whitewater rafting first. This was AMAZING! It began our team building day on the right foot which was all about building relationships that fostered love and kindness with one another. I believe that is best done through accomplishing difficult things together. Whitewater rafting fit the bill perfectly. After dividing up into two teams we were able to enjoy rafting. I was in the boat with Jaeci and Casey, who both sat up front, Chris, Sara, Katelyn, and Aaren. We had a blast and will laugh for a long time about what we got to do. We then got cleaned up and headed to our next activity which was the "Zipline Aerial Adventure". This was great! We got to go to new heights together as a group (cheesy, I know). We really did enjoy it though. We then drove to the top of Lookout Mountain and enjoyed a Starbucks drink and a beautiful view of God's creation before heading back for the night to our cabins. I am enjoying building relationships with many leaders in our student ministry. My hope and prayer is that God uses these moments to positively effect the lives of our church and community. I pray they learn how to live for Jesus more and to lead others to do the same. God is good.

Terrific Tuesday!

I admit that blogging is something I thoroughly enjoy doing because I gain do much encouragement from the messages sent, conversations had, etc that seem to always be exactly what I need. But I am still a guy and we don't always enjoy reflecting on our feelings and the ups an downs of our day. This is why there is some inconsistency in my blogging. Nevertheless I shall continue forward. Yesterday may be one of my favorite days of the entire summer (although that's totally impossible to really judge but it does make the point that yesterday was awesome). I had the privilege of going to Newton to ETBE with another guy named Scott and Austin, our youth intern. We planned to help with a special needs camp coming in and to love on our 7 students working there. We did get to spend some time with our students but it wa absolutely nothing like we had planned. I hoped to work side by side all day with them and encourage them. God had other plans. I don't know if you have ever felt like God specifically put you in a place to meet a specific need in someone's life but that is exactly what happened. The camp for special needs kids officially starts Wednesday and they were in great need of having a handicapped ramp built. I fully believe that God sent us to the camp to build a ramp. I know God uses us each day but it just was so clear to me yesterday. Awesome! We built a 16 foot ramp four feet wide so now our handicapped students can access the gift shop! I will say that I have very few building skills but God provided Scott and Austin and between the three of us (mainly with Scott's skills) we were able to lay out a plan, set posts, build a frame, cut deck boards, nail deck boards, and build the handrails. I really felt proud of the way things went. We were also able to encourage our students there. We gave them all big hugs upon arrival and enjoyed time with them an then were privileged to have lunch with each of them. When we were ready to leave we visited and laughed with several also. As always, they bring me so much joy, encouragement, laughter, and remind me that ministry makes a difference. Each of them have been shaped by spiritual influences in their lives (family, close friends, Sunday school teachers, etc.) which have brought them to a point where they love Jesus so much that they would choose to sacrifice a whole summer growing in faith and service to share Jesus with people on another continent. If you didn't know, this is one proud (good pride) youth minister! That evening we had a small group play ultimate frisbee. All of the students except Katie were junior high age. This was a great blessing because I don't know them as well and it gave me opportunity to build relationships that will last for years to come. To end our time Tabi shared the story of how she came to know Jesus with the entire group. She shared that God uses the Micah Tyler Band leading worship to lead her to Jesus. Wow! I had no idea that was her story. I believe that God uses our stories to impact the lives of others. To top off the entire day I got to sit down with my beautiful wife and her little brother, Kolby, only to hear one of the coolest stories of faith and trust in God I have ever heard. God is really working in Kolby's life. I won't ruin his story... It's not mine to tell. Catch him one day and ask him what God has done in his life this summer. Just be ready for God to change you when you listen. Terrific Tuesday!