7 pathway's to intimacy with God

These thoughts came from Gary Thomas' book "Sacred Pathways". It was relayed to me by Bill Hybels at the Leadership Summit.

We are all different. God made us different on purpose. The same things that bring deep connection and intimacy in my relationship with God may make you wither up and die. Throughout history and the Bible different people connected deeply with God in very different ways. We do begin to see patterns of how these men and women have connected deeply with God. Understanding these, "pathways" of connection can help you find a deeper intimacy with God once you identify how you connect best with the Lord.

The 7 Pathways

1) Relational Pathway - People who grow best through relationships and community.
2) Intellectual Pathway - People who grow best through study and intellect.
3) Serving Pathway - People who grow best through serving.
4) Contemplative Pathway - People who grow best through solitude.
5) Activist Pathway - People who grow best through changing the world around them for God's purposes.
6) Creation Pathway - People who grow best through being in nature.
7) Worship Pathway - People who grow best through worship.

You will probably identify with more than one of these pathways. There will be some of these that you know for sure are strong pathways for you. Other pathways will be obviously not a connection for you. For example, I primarily connect with God through relationships, activism, and creation. I connect the least through contemplative, worship, and serving. This does not mean that I cannot connect with God through the last 3, but if I try to connect with him Primarily through these I will wither up spiritually.

So if I am to grow in intimacy with God I must use what I know about how God has hard wired me and leverage it so that I continue to grow in passion for Him. I take what I call "Jesus walks" from time to time. I will go out to a trail in the woods at the local park and just walk and talk with Jesus. For some reason sitting in my office or indoors just starts to wear on me after a while. I need to get out in creation and just take it all in. Simply doing this refreshes me and restores my soul. I make sure that I plan times of just being with people that I love. I go out to my parents house regularly and just sit and talk with them. I will rearrange my schedule when siblings come into town. I give myself ample time for relationships with people who fill my cup up.

One should use all of these pathways to grow with God. You should know who God has made you to be and leverage that for your own spiritual growth. Your spiritual growth in your own responsibility. It is not the fault of the pastor, the small group leader, your spouse or anyone else if you do not develop your relationship with God.

In Jesus Name

Jarrett

No habla espanol

Today I was on the phone with 3 different technical support people to try to move our church website from one host to another. Everyone I talked to and everything I read said that this should be an incredibly easy process. About 3 hours, 4 I'm putting you on hold's, and 3 different technical support people later, the "Easy" process was complete. In the meantime, I got to feel like an idiot while these "supportive" people threw all this technology jargon at me that I couldn't decipher even with a minor in business computer information systems from my wonderful in state college.

The experience caused me to reflect on how we do things at church. While it might be perfectly standard to throw around terms like: IP address, DNS, A Record, MX Record, and CNAMES.

Those who are not in that field feel like another language is being spoken to them. The same can be said for people who did not grow up in church. Intelligence has nothing to do with not understanding specific jargon. I don't speak I. T. but I still am an intelligent person. A person without a church background may not know terms like: Redemption, justification, holy, 12 tribes of judah, messiah, blood of Jesus, grace, or sanctification

I can tell you that my reaction to speaking with the tech savvy support team was to get what I needed done and never talk to them again. I don't want to learn another language; I just want my computer to work!

People who don't have a church background can often feel the same way. We should not assume that people know all the church words. I have found that those who have grown up in church still do not have a full appreciation for the Bible terms that are casually tossed about.

Its been said if you can explain what your talking about to a child then you really understand it. If a child couldn't understand what in the world we are talking, singing or preaching about on Sunday's maybe its a sign that we haven't really dug deep enough to fully understand it ourselves.

Explaining the good news to people who are without it, in a way that they can comprehend, has nothing to do with watering down the good news and everything to do with lifting it up.

Let's try to be more supportive than the technical support I received on the phone this morning. Let's attempt to de Jargonize our Christianease so that someone with no church background can still receive and celebrate the good news.

In Jesus Name

Jarrett Jamieson

Don't Make God Decide ....

Have you ever been around parents who are discipling a toddler in the terrible two's? If you are around them long enough you may hear them say something to this effect, "Johnny, I told you to quit doing that! Now if I have to come over there and make you stop it is going to be a lot worse for you!" I have learned that adults treat God a lot like two year olds treat their parents.

I often see Christ followers who understand that God is telling them not to do something or to start doing something they're not. Instead of just obeying God when they understand that He is directing them they will often say things like, "Well I'm just going to keep doing so and so and if God doesn't want me to do it then He'll put an end to it!"

This kind of attitude is dangerous! The toddler who has to have mommy or daddy step in and stop them even after they have been told and warned ends up getting harsher punishment. The Christ follower should expect no different from God; who is a much better Father than any of us.

Delayed obedience is disobedience, partial obedience is disobedience, and acting like you didn't hear God when He knows you did is disobedience! I can tell you from personal experience that waiting to let God come and take care of a matter when He has clearly given you instruction to obey is something you will regret.

When I first repented and began to follow Jesus with all my heart at age 18 I began a dating relationship with a Christian young lady shortly thereafter. The dating relationship went fine through the summer and then we both went to separate schools. One evening as I was driving to meet her at school God clearly communicated to me that He did not intend this relationship to go on any longer and that I should end it. I prayed and begged God not to end it because I loved this girl. Finally, when God wouldn't leave me alone about it I finally told Him that He would have to end it because I couldn't. God left me alone about it for a long time after that. God continued to work in my life and I grew as a Christ follower. The matter never really came up again. Three and a half years later when I was saving for a ring to ask this girl to marry me God intervened as I had asked Him to do all those years before. The girl broke up with me. She said that God told her to do it. I had forgotten about the conversation with God all the years before. He brought it back to my memory quite clearly in the days following the break up.

When God tells us do do or not to do something it is as the most pure lover of our souls we have ever had. We may not understand it and it may be difficult, but we will always be glad we obeyed God. Likewise we will always be heartbroken that we disobeyed Him. Obey God quickly, humbly, and completely when He directs you. You will never regret that you did in the long term.

In Jesus Name

Jarrett Jamieson

www.journeybaptistchurch.com

Journey Summer Missions Offering

Each summer Journey receives a missions offering to further the work of carrying the good news about Jesus to the world. This summer the offering will go to impact the world through 4 major ways. Part of the money (35%) will go to support foreign missionaries through the cooperative program of Southern Baptist churches. Over 5,000 missionaries in over 100 countries takes an incredible amount of money to sustain. The cooperative program of the SBC is the largest missionary sending organization in the world. Twenty percent of the offering will go to support the work of Mississippi Baptist. This portion of the offering goes to support many incredible works for the Lord in Mississippi and beyond. Money from this offering was used to help Journey start! This part of the offering is used for disaster relief aid, new church starts, Christian colleges and a host of other great works for the Lord. Twenty percent of the offering will go to support the ministry to youth through Journey. Tully and Michele have 20 teenagers coming on Wednesday nights to youth group. Some of these youth attend Journey with their parents; many of them don't attend anywhere. The ministry that Tully and Michele are doing with these kids is truly a missions endeavor. Twenty - five percent of the offering will go to the aid of Steven and Tisha Chavers. Steven and Tisha's daughter Hailey is a child with special needs. She has a rare genetic disorder. She has been in a fight for her life since she was born. Hailey is 5 this year. Steven and Tisha lost another child, Makayla, to the same problem. Despite the challenges laid before them this young couple has a positive attitude and do not blame God for their pain. Tisha says there are some things we will not be able to understand this side of heaven. Through all of their medical issues Steven and Tisha have incurred a great deal of medical debt. Hailey's continual need for medical care makes working difficult, but both Steven and Tisha are hard workers. Steven does survey work and Tisha is a waitress at O'Charilie's in Olive Branch. When Hailey is sick Tisha cannot work because she is at her side. Journey would like to bless this young couple so that their load can be lighter in some small way. If you would like to give to the Journey missions offering every dollar will be used to do good in the name of Jesus and extend His good news on the earth. You can send a gift to 8931 Hwy 305 suite 101 Olive Branch, MS 38654. Please indicate in the memo section of your check that this is for the missions offering. You can always give to the offering at our Sunday services as well! Below are some links to more information about these important mission endeavors.

Hailey Chavers CaringBridge website

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/haileychavers

Lottie Moon Offering for Foreign Missions

http://www.imb.org/main/give/pagelm.asp?StoryID=8078&LanguageID=1709


Margaret Lackey Offering for State Missions

http://www.mbcb.org/mission_strategy/missions.aspx

Journey Summer Missions Offering

Each summer Journey receives a missions offering to further the work of carrying the good news about Jesus to the world. This summer the offering will go to impact the world through 4 major ways. Part of the money (35%) will go to support foreign missionaries through the cooperative program of Southern Baptist churches. Over 5,000 missionaries in over 100 countries takes an incredible amount of money to sustain. The cooperative program of the SBC is the largest missionary sending organization in the world. Twenty percent of the offering will go to support the work of Mississippi Baptist. This portion of the offering goes to support many incredible works for the Lord in Mississippi and beyond. Money from this offering was used to help Journey start! This part of the offering is used for disaster relief aid, new church starts, Christian colleges and a host of other great works for the Lord. Twenty percent of the offering will go to support the ministry to youth through Journey. Tully and Michele have 20 teenagers coming on Wednesday nights to youth group. Some of these youth attend Journey with their parents; many of them don't attend anywhere. The ministry that Tully and Michele are doing with these kids is truly a missions endeavor. Twenty - five percent of the offering will go to the aid of Steven and Tisha Chavers. Steven and Tisha's daughter Hailey is a child with special needs. She has a rare genetic disorder. She has been in a fight for her life since she was born. Hailey is 5 this year. Steven and Tisha lost another child, Makayla, to the same problem. Despite the challenges laid before them this young couple has a positive attitude and do not blame God for their pain. Tisha says there are some things we will not be able to understand this side of heaven. Through all of their medical issues Steven and Tisha have incurred a great deal of medical debt. Hailey's continual need for medical care makes working difficult, but both Steven and Tisha are hard workers. Steven does survey work and Tisha is a waitress at O'Charilie's in Olive Branch. When Hailey is sick Tisha cannot work because she is at her side. Journey would like to bless this young couple so that their load can be lighter in some small way. If you would like to give to the Journey missions offering every dollar will be used to do good in the name of Jesus and extend His good news on the earth. You can send a gift to 8931 Hwy 305 suite 101 Olive Branch, MS 38654. Please indicate in the memo section of your check that this is for the missions offering. You can always give to the offering at our Sunday services as well! Below are some links to more information about these important mission endeavors.

Hailey Chavers CaringBridge website



Lottie Moon Offering for Foreign Missions



Margaret Lackey Offering for State Missions

God won't give us a happy little life ....

A few days ago I got in a funk. That is what Kari and I call it when you don't have real good reasons but you just feel blah and there is no sign in the near future of not feeling blah. I prayed and asked God to help but I was out to eat with the fam and I couldn't really get any quiet time to focus and pray. The whisper prayers that I was praying weren't lifting the cloud either.

When we got home I told Kari that I needed to take a walk and she had already discerned that I was in a funk (cause women are awesome and pick up on that kind of thing). So I went walking and just talked with God and listened to Him and tried to get unfunky.

Basically the funk boiled down to a few things that had been going on. I was feeling like the harder I was trying to work the less I was getting done. My inclination was to work even harder and see what happened. I had been doing that and it wasn't working by the way, but that is exactly what I was wanting to do. So I am out with my family and I should be enjoying a meal with them and just really be in the moment with them. Instead I am thinking about how to cram more work into spare moments and what I need to do.

So I begin asking myself and the Lord the question "Why am I doing this?" "Why can't I just be content?" God began to show me that even when I couldn't work my natural inclination was to be busy. I wasn't okay just sitting still. I wanted to be calling, on the computer, doing something even if it wasn't work related. I wasn't content to just be still.

So I find this new place to walk on the golf course behind our house and it is beautiful. It was as if God was showing me all this beauty and had planned the time just for me. There were no golfers and the sun was setting and radiating off the water. There was a flowing creek just to my left. I could hear birds singing. I mean I know all this sounds pretty sound of music like but I really feel like God prepared it for me.

So as I am spending time with God I start realizing that I am becoming more content just being with Him. I asked, "How can I stop this? What can I do so I don't get like this again?" God says to me, "You can't stop it!" Then I'm like, "Well what am I supposed to do just be discontent?" God says, "You will just have to follow me!" There will be times in this life when I need to just take a walk with Him. Maybe I'll need to just go into another room and pray. No program, no structure, no Bible studies, no thing besides following God in all the moments of my life will work against this desire we have that keeps us discontent.

That night I tried to find my Bible and I couldn't. Not only could I not find my Bible but I couldn't find any Bibles really. I didn't even bring the computer home so I couldn't get online and go to an online Bible (which is usually how I study and read devotionally these days). So I find this New American Standard Bible finally because I wanted to do some study on a particular subject. The next day I went back to that Bible to read my devotion for the morning. I was in Psalm 17. I have been reading through the Psalms lately. This is what I read:

"Deliver my soul from the wicked with Your sword, 14From men with Your hand, O LORD, From men of the world, whose portion is in this life, And whose belly You fill with Your treasure; They are satisfied with children, And leave their abundance to their babes. 15As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake."

It appears that this text of Scripture is pretty hard to translate from the original. There are tons of footnotes in the NASB and when I read it in the NIV I hardly recognized the text. In fact the NIV attributes the blessings of children to the blessing of the Lord instead of the way it reads here where it is something the Lord makes the wicked content with. It is a tough text to translate but I also think it is a tough concept for us to grapple with.

God won't give us a nice little happy life where we can be content with the stuff of earth! That is what we all want. We want to be happy! We want our kids to be happy! Here is the catch though .... We want to be happy in this life! We may have moments of spirituality where we claim that we are living for the next life but down deep we want to be content in the here and now. God didn't create us for the here and now though; He created us for eternity! He is willing to destroy our comfort so that He can develop our character! Our character goes with us into the next life; our comfort doesn't.

The Psalmist says in the passage I read that the wicked find themselves content with children, their material goods, and leaving a nice inheritance to their kids. He will be content only with looking intently into His makers eyes in eternity and knowing God and being known. God is the satisfier of our souls! Nothing else brings true contentment. We all drift from that. We also must constantly wrestle with the desire to be content with the stuff of earth.

In Jesus Name

Jarrett Jamieson

Prayer

There are 4 types of prayers that the Lord asks us to pray if we would see God move and accomplish those things for which we are asking.

Level 1 We must ask for it ourself

James 4:2 "You do not have, because you do not ask God." This may seem simple, but Scripture is clear that there are many things that God would do if only we would ask Him. We are much more likely to try to accomplish things in our own strength first and only as a last resort pray. Our trust basically lies in ourselves and the resources that we have at our disposal. If we are to see God work we must ask Him ourselves.

Level 2 We must ask others to ask the Lord with us

"If two of you agree on anything on earth it will be done" MT 18:19 There is power in the petitions of people. It only takes you and one other person to invite someone into your burden, but may I say the more the merrier. One of the ways we bare one another's burdens is by carrying them to the Lord in prayer. Very plainly let me tell you there are some things that God won't do for you if you are the only one asking. God wants us to live in community. God wants us to humble ourselves and let others serve us. If we are to see many obstacles removed, doors opened, chains broken, pain healed and so on; then we will need to invite other people into our messy life by getting them to pray for us.

Level 3 We must ask God repeatedly over a period of time

Some answers to prayer will only come as we ask God over and over again across a period of time. The parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18) told by Jesus teaches us that God is not our genie in a bottle. He does not jump when we say so. Our prayers are request; not demands. The name it and claim it prosperity gospel teachers would tell you that if you don't get what you want you must not have faith. The Bible teaches that not getting what you want and continuing to ask God often requires greater faith than getting what you want immediately. Some things that God wants to do for you will only come as you ask Him repeatedly over a period of time.

Level 4 We must ask God along with others over a period of time

Some answers to prayer will only come by the faithful petitions of you and others over a period of time. These are the most difficult answers to prayer to receive because they require you to wait, to keep asking and not give up, and to humble yourself by asking others to ask too. The blows to your pride are almost too many to count with these types of prayers. You must be weak in the worlds eyes by acknowledging your powerlessness to God and to others. You must be faithful to trust that the unseen, unheard God who has remained silent all this time has not forgotten you. Few things in the Christ followers life will test you like waiting, praying, and asking others to pray day after day for the same thing. These prayers are the ones people give up on. Don't give up though! God is using your desire to refine you and purify you in a way that nothing else will. The answers to these prayers are so sweet!

For six years my wife Kari and I tried to have children. We prayed, cried, got others praying, but still we could not conceive. Kari is great with children. She believes one of the main reasons God put her on earth was to raise kids. This made the unanswered prayer even more hurtful. We continued praying, we prayed about going to doctors and we did so. We spent a lot of our money and others money, but still we could not conceive. This year we were advised by doctors that our best chance for conception was to do invetro fertilization. The cost was enormous. After praying and getting others to pray once again we moved forward with the procedure. We took out a loan for a portion of the cost. We believed and prayed back to God that children are a gift from Him. My wife is now almost 5 months pregnant. God did not answer when we wanted. He made us wait and ask others. We had to seek Him and petition Him again and again. I can tell you that the joy of this baby is now shared in a special way not only by us but by all who prayed. God will receive praise for His gifts. Many times the prayerful wait is what brings Him the praise that is due His name. I do not understand all Gods reasons; I do not need to understand. I do know that God has said ask, ask others to ask, ask and wait, and ask, wait, and ask others to do so as well. If we will do that and not give up; we will see God do amazing things. He is God and everything we ask is not good for us, but many things He wants to give us; we just have to have the faith to follow His ways.

In Jesus Name

Jarrett Jamieson