He is enough!

Matt.17:14-21) And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him." Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me." And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?" So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."

The other day while I was reading that really stuck out to me for some reason! I believe in my heart it was for a couple of reasons.

1. We are here to deliver the message and have faith that our God is who he says he is and he can all things that is in his will.
2. We see that Jesus' disciples are human...they are not like.....THERE GOES JESUS AGAIN! NO, they are like...why can't we do this?
3. Jesus answers honestly and he makes it simple.

What I love the most is how Jesus in his love, faith, and passion he not only heals but he teaches. The point of God is the display of his glory, love, and compassion. I believe we can have so many good things outside of Christ. Look around the world and see the the rich men...I love how we quote "Money can't by you happiness" but wait a second don't we always feel a little better when we have allot? I must admit it...I do! We can have good relationships outside of Christ and they be enjoyable. Some how we believe where their is happiness that is where we can find Christ. Then in secret we suffer because we struggle with questions and we feel we can't ask them.

John 3:3-15

"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."⁴"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" ⁵Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. ⁶Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' ⁸The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."⁹"How can this be?" Nicodemus asked.¹⁰"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand these things? ¹¹I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹²I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

I love this because it's a guy who is asking what seems to be basic questions to the savior and the savior answers him. I must admit a struggle that I have and a struggle that I am begging Jesus to really help me with. The struggle is getting really frustrated with Christian people. You put me in the room full of a bunch of lost people and I feel right at home, you place me in a room full of good christian folks and I feel weird. It has always been that way for me....I was 12 and my aunt begging me to go to church and I didn't want to go because I felt that I didn't know enough and if I asked questions then I would look like I was good enoguh. BUT I WAS LOST! At the age of 15 I picked up a Bible and thought I could read it from front to back....I didn't. My grandmother prayed for me and the pastor from the old country church would speak to me.

My struggle was simple I simply didn't fit in. I didn't know all the words. By the age of 19 I knew something had to change and I was missing something big and that was my savior. I was missing heaven and for the first time I got something. Fast forward now 27 years old...youth pastor and working in the school. I ask myself all the time now, why would Jesus save me and give me a chance to make something new? It's simple...it's for his glory. What I am begging God to do is to help me know that he is enough and what other people might think or do has no impact on my salvation.

The other day...Thursday to be exact I went to see a school kids baby at the hospital. Another one of my student's was there. He said something awesome that really just hit me hard.... Mr. Bradshaw, I haven't smoked pot in two weeks. I am like...that's cool. Then he says I started reading the Bible the other day...but it's the King James with all the thy and thou. That moment I felt right at home in that hospital room, because when I looked into this youth that is At-Risk I saw Jesus. This kid struggles more then I will understand, his dad passed away when he was two from Drugs. At the age of 14 he found himself getting involved as well with drugs. Then I asked God Why? This could have been me and why would you save me but allow him to go down this path. The answer was simple.... For his Glory!

It is because of the Glory of Jesus Christ that a kid that smokes pot and never picks up a school book will pick up a Bible for hope and direction. It is for the glory of God that the rich man will give up everything to follow Christ. I believe the reason I feel more at home with those who are lost, because I feel that way at times. But you see the difference is that down deep inside I know I am in the arms of Christ. No matter what season I am in my goal is to show him that I am real.

I choose to not talk allot about my past, because I am not happy about it. Even as I write this I want to be careful because I never want to hurt my family or loved ones. I was okay with allot of it until two years ago. For some reason out of the blue I started struggling. I will never blame my parents because down deep inside I believe they did their best and I also believe their is no room for blame. This is what I will say though! My home was violent at times and I can remember being in the other room hearing my parents fight. My dad has an issue with drinking, but I knew he loved me. The day he died I remember thinking "All of this pain is over" I thought since he was gone things would get better. But they didn't....but through this time I was searching and asking God questions all the time!

Even though some of those things haunt me today, I look back and say that God gets all the glory. It has prepared me for today and in the future. To this day I have struggles with pain and feeling like maybe I am doing the wrong thing...but I know I am in his hands. I believe if we were all honest then we would all have to admit that we feel that way. What the devil meant for evil God made into good. But I believe that God is most glorified when everything is gone and he is enough. It's not like when we get the bad news or something happens to our family that we just say "God is enough" I mean that when it come to that time in the middle of the pain I can scream out that he is enough!

That is my prayer for that 14 year old. That is prayer that I have for all man kind.....I must be honest, I don't always listen to Christian music.... infact I find my self on days listening less and less. Now I love worship music and if I was to make a choice between mainstream christian and worship....I would go with worship. When I first became saved I would only listen to Christian and thought you were evil if you didn't listen to it. This is my point, we do not serve an American God. We serve a powerful God and he deeply in love with his children. He is a God that allows us to question things, he is a God that allows us to go through some pain, and he is a God that will pick us up and dust us off say I LOVE YOU! This is only done through the power of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is the reason that I had the chance to break the chain of alcohol addiction in my family. I don't mind people who drink and I believe it is okay with in limits and if you are of age. But you see because of his Glory he has been able to show me he is enough.

I will close with this....I am not sure why God made the choice to use me, but I do know this he loved my dad and he loves my mother just as much as he loves me. He loves that 14 year old smoking dope just as much as he love you. I feel there are times in my life to where I get off track and I am not sure why. But I believe that Christ has come to save and also teach. But I also believe we all must be open to what he has to say!