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Recently, I have started something. That something is called Tools of Change and it is a non-profit to help low – middle income families with primarily one vehicle with automobile repairs at little to no cost to them. I have been able to help one family so far and would love to help more. But I won’t be able to help anyone without people first helping me. I am looking for donations. This can be money, this can be parts, or time. Right now my biggest need is a service vehicle. I have posted an ad on craigslist. http://raleigh.craigslist.org/wan/2434384968.html.
Please pray that God will provide the donations needed so that I can help as many families as possible.
Thanks for your time.
Erik Jones
Heavenly father,
Your blessings are overwhelming and are more than I can comprehend.Thank you Lord! Help me to be satisfied with the blessings that you have given. Help me to not desire the things that would distract me from you. Guide my heart as I search your word and be ever present in my thoughts. Bring wisdom and understanding to the interactions of each day and I pray your Holy Spirit bring a renewal of joy and praise that I may wholeheartedly worship all day long!
Amen
Galatians 3:26-4:7
26for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. 41I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Grace and Peace,
This weekend has been one of questions for me. After listening to a few pod casts by some predominate pastors at this time I have found myself asking “Who am I in Christ?” Where do I belong in the body of Christ?” But what am I really asking?
My soul is looking for a place to belong. My spirit is crying out, “Father who do you say I am?” I feel confident is saying that we have all asked this question at one point or another. Our lives can feel so uncertain at times, especially when we take our focus off Christ.
Part of this is due to a realization of knowing that I have failed. I thought by playing it safe and not trying the risky or scary and that if I never tried I would not fail was the thing to do that would most honor God. But in reality, by never trying I failed before I ever started.
God calls us to incredible things. For some it may seem mundane or plain, but for us it may seem incredibly terrifying. This is something I experienced when accepting God’s call for my life. One reason I ran from it was that just by thinking about it stopped me in my tracks with fear. I view God’s call with the weight of eternity. As a Pastor, not just a Christian, people will look upon me for the spiritual guidance – for the direction of their lives and decision to accept or reject Christ, their decision for eternal life or eternal damnation and death. Finality. Forever. For the rest of eternity.
I doubted God’s judgment (which was wrong) and it has left me questioning.
You see, I have no false sense of my inability to get it right or how I have messed up in the past. My sin will always keep me from success because it keeps me and separates me from God and his Son Christ Jesus. But when I rely on Christ, when I move out of the way and let God be God my chances of success raise exponentially.
Which brings me to answering my previous question of who does God say that I am. When I try to answer the question on my own I am left with an unanswered question. Because on my own I am nothing. On my own I separate myself from Christ. But God’s word tells us that, “we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength.” This includes finding our place to belong. You see ultimately as a Christian I am his. No if, ands, or buts. Finality. Forever. For the rest of time. Just like our own children, we may fight, disagree, and have to punish them, but they will forever be our children and we love them.
So to answer my question, I am a loved child of God, through Christ Jesus. And His Holy Spirit which resides in my cries out Abba Father and in response the Father responds with, “Yes my son, Erik.”
Please let that sink in for a moment.
God responds by calling us by name and his. Taking ownership of us. Despite what the world would have us to be or what labels we may give ourselves we are his. And at the end of the day when we are left with our thoughts, doubts, and dreams but we can find answers in God and His word.
Dear reader, today my hope is that you find who you are in God if you are seeking this. I want you to come to know the Father just as I have… my Father, Souvenir King, and Dad. In the world we are broken, but in God we are made whole and through his Son we are made His.
There is no doubt or question in that.
Shalom,
Erik
Luke 1:46-56
46 And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
56 And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.
Grace and Peace,
My hope is that as you read this you are renewed. This is because that is what I have found, renewal. The passage above is from Mary, mother of Jesus. It wasn’t long after being told that she would become the mother of Christ, in fact, it is her response to it.
I wish my heart could be in this kind of place when faced with an opportunity of worry. I remember each time my wife told me she was pregnant. Feelings of inadequacy washed over me. I feel like I can barely take care of myself let alone a helpless child. But here is Mary, a pre-teen/young teenager as young as 12 or 13 years old, has just been told that she is going to give birth to Jesus, the sacrifice for all mankind. Don’t forget that she wasn’t married, lived in a rural area, and if her family rejected her could be dragged into the street, stripped down, and beaten to death. She would carry with her the potential shame of being an adulterer and whore. And what do the scriptures show us she is doing… PRAISING GOD!
For me there is no better example of what to do in the face of adversity than this. When financial troubles arise, instead of freaking out or worrying, I will in turn praise God. When work stress, family stress, illness, or anything presents I will not say… Erik, we can handle this, instead I will praise God and trust in him for he IS a God who is attentive, who is personal, and who is with me with each and everyday.
Dear reader, my prayer is that your lives intersect with God and you never deviate from that path. My hope is that you will see that the script of your life is rewritten when you accept Christ as your savior, and my longing is that you seek the Holy Spirit to keep you in a song of praise as life throws its little challenges at you.
Shalom,
Erik
Heavenly Father, Gracious God, Dad; today I cried at your goodness and rejoiced in your love! Thank you.
Amen
Grace and Peace,
It is not very often that I am so alert at 3:30am. Typically, if I am awake at this time usually it is because I have not fallen asleep. But today, I have been awake since before 4am. As I laid in bed and listened to the storms rolling in I took in the sounds. The sound of the wind, the sound of the house creaking, the dog as she gets up, shakes, and lays back down all audible when most are in slumber now become a chorus of life to take in. This pre-dawn symphony reminds me of a story about Jesus. He lay sleeping on a boat while he and the disciples were traveling across a sea. A raging storm blew in and started to rock the boat as the waves, with all the power of nature, crashed in the hull. Keep something in mind. A few of these guys have spent most of their time on boats as fisherman. A profession that if you did not work, you did not eat (both monetarily and literally). So they had seen and weathered their fair share of meteorological disturbances. But this storm, this storm had them terrified. Worried they were going to lose the boat the awaken Jesus. I love that part, Jesus is sleeping while everyone is running about frantically trying to keep from drowning! But this next part, helps to identify with Jesus as a man for me. I like most people, when vigorously or violently awakened am not Mr. Sunshine or Mr. Compassionate. I am Mr. There-better-be-a-good-reason-you-woke-me-up-or-you-may-lose-something-you’ve-grown-attached-to… And Jesus, to me in this moment, is grouchy… What does he do… He rebukes the wind, tells the seas to be calm and then once everything is back to the way it should be he ask, “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:22-25) I half expect that if you were to translate the original text the were be a sidebar or not saying that his question to them was in a sarcastic voice.
Something I find interesting here is the use of the word rebuke. I looked over a couple different translations of the bible and a couple of different accounts in the gospels and they all used the word rebuke. Look up the word rebuke and you will probably find the same thing I did: to criticize sharply or reprimand. I would have loved to be in that moment. What were the words of Christ that he reprimanded the wind. I know as a dad that when I correct or reprimand my children the words are sharp, the tone stern almost harsh, but love is still found. I am laughing to myself because I have this imagine in my head of Jesus scolding the wind. “How dare you blow against this ship as I am trying to sleep! Can’t you see that you have scared these men!”
I also wonder if Jesus had this planned. I am NOT saying that Jesus was deceitful, but when you possess all the wisdom of God… because you are such, then your methods of teaching may not always be direct. I don’t know of any proof to back this up, but what if Jesus was sleeping so soundly, not because he knew that everything was going to be OK, but because he had it planned. What if it were a test of faith on the disciples. If they could weather this storm could they make it through what was to come? As said previously, most of these men grew up on the water. They had seen all manner of storms, but what was so different about this one? What would have caused them to freak out like this?
But aren’t these questions relevant to our lives today? We’ve been through tough times. Money is short, stress at work or home, kids are acting up, car is broken, family members are sick… general life inconveniences. But we all have those times when it seems like that one situation feels worse than it really is. That one windstorm feels like a typhoon. And we have weathered stuff before. None of this is new. For most of you reading this the only thing different about the stress in your life are the details. Different people involved, different bills, different circumstances that make this situation feel worse than the last, but the main plot in your tale of woe is the same. And there sleeping in the back of the boat is Jesus, on a pillow. We all have that one friend who comes along and at that moment it feels smug, but they genuinely mean well when they say, everything is going to be alright. But in that moment you are soaked by the rain and the waves, exhausted from fighting the wind and throwing bucket after bucket of water over the side just to have it come crashing back in 10 fold and they come along calmly and saying you know this is going to work out… makes you want to just kick them in the leg…
But they are right. Because of faith it will be alright. Just like Jesus getting up, rebuking the wind and calming the storm, life too will settle. Jesus has got this. And I pose the question to you and myself, “Where is your faith?” Do you have it tucked away for when times are good and it’s easy to be faithful or maybe you save your faith for when times are bad and you cry out to God trusting that all will be ok. But what we are supposed to be doing is both of these. Acting in faith at each moment of our lives.
My you be able to weather your storms. May you be able to one day rebuke the wind and calm the seas, but until then, while in the middle of your storm awaken Christ in your life and find peace. And when you are asked where is your faith, be willing to admit that it is little and you need help growing it so that you can face the next challenge that life will present.
Shalom,
Erik
Dear Reader,
My hope and prayer is that you can excuse my absence. I could probably come up with something explaining, but it would merely feel like an excuse and I don’t care for excuses. My posting today is based on reading some of my previous posts. I have had a rough week so far and to stay topical, my fight is gone. I have existed to to fight, not bare-knuckled bashing my fist into the face of another, but a determination and drive for more. More education, more training, and more out of life fall into this drive for more. But here I am, at the middle of my week, feeling like my fight is gone. I have been in prayer more the past three days than I think I have the past three months combined. I have found myself in open communication with God. Pouring out my heart, expressing my fears, my doubts, my disbelief, my longings, my…. you get the picture. And that brings me to now. I am sitting in my make-shift office above my garage and I am working on some, let’s call it “homework”. I filled my page with what I feel are my best suggestions, but somehow feel they will not be received that way. When I put my pen down from writing I starred at my computer screen which is glowing and providing me a pleasant little scene from one of the OS manufacturers stock images. And this is when I felt it… the desire to look at my own blog.
The whole purpose and desire of this blog was to encourage others and provide them with hope through my own experiences. Well time to take my own medicine. I figured it was going to either be the little miracle drug like aspirin or snake oil. I found the former. I was reading over some of my posts when I came across the bible verse for Aug 24, 2010:
Isaiah 41:10:
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
Even now I am choked up and a bit teary eyed. God’s word has brought me the comfort my soul has sought. One little passage. One ancient writing penned to renew and restore and help its reader find a bit of hope to face the next challenge and even day.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I have felt very alone this week. Even at work I haven’t spoken nearly as much as I have written at this point.
Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. My doubt, disbelief, and sheer desire to give up wiped away.
I will strengthen you. I will help you. Feeling weak, meek, and plain old not good enough has been where I am so far this week. Now I find solace and refuge.
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. My fight may be gone, but God’s fight is won. The battle I wage is lost when I expected a certain outcome, but God’s resolve to be there for us and hold us up is never lost.
Shalom,
Erik
Grace and Peace
Since I was about 15 I could feel a desire and ability to teach others. I have always had a desire to help others with problems they may be facing and with God’s provision to give wisdom and words of encouragement when they are needed. I am not sure if I have written about this before, but I have this rule of three for my life that I use as a confirmation. Three unrelated sources at three unrelated times saying the same thing… that can’t be coincidence. I’ll pray over a long period of time and ask God to confirm his will for my life and his plans so that there will be no question or doubt.
In this particular instance I have been praying about what has felt like God’s call for me to be a pastor. And my rule of three came into finalization last Friday. The first instance was when a friend of mine’s wife said to her husband, “when is Erik going to realized that he is called to preach?” That was at least 3.5 years ago. The second one that comes to mind was from about 2 – 3months ago when someone who has left my church came up to me on their last Sunday with us and said, “Erik, God has put it on my heart to tell you and encourage you that you should be pastoring.” And the final came this past Friday when the churches worship leader called and while we were speaking said, “Erik, have you ever thought about preaching or becoming a pastor?”
So after much prayer over the years and recently I have accepted God’s call for my life to be a Pastor. I don’t yet know what that looks like or what it will take, but I will follow God’s provisions and direction and walk in faith that he will lead. I am excited by this!
I am humbled and honored that God would call me to such a role. It has always blown my mind as to the power of Christ’s words of put down your nets and follow me. You now fish, but I will make you fishers of men. I am honored because plenty of men have been called through the ages and have not heeded the call, but those who have brought change to the lives of those around them. Their lives of faith have shown the love, grace, and mercy of God and His son Jesus and people have been saved.
Please be in prayer for me and my family as God prepares us for what is ahead. I am going to be continuing with school, but the path is a bit different now.
Dear reader, may you know that God does hear and answer prayers. God will use those around you to show you and confirm so that there is no doubt. And may you know that God loves you. His love is purposeful. Just as God sought out Adam in the Garden of Eden, he seeks you out today to show you his love. He wants to shower you with Grace and give you mercy that you cannot understand. He wants you to accept his son Jesus as savior and Lord. We are not meant to live this life thinking we have to do it all on our own. As his children he wants nothing more than to love you more than you can understand and care for you like his child, more so than you love and care for your own children.
Shalom,
Erik
I am very tired of hearing about the mosque/Islam community center near ground zero. Yes, on a personal level I find it hard to see how people do not see this as somewhat distasteful and on the same token how the Imam Rusfi even stated that if he moved the planned center from the proposed site then it would insight radicals all over the world.
Here is a background lesson for those who do not know… each time Radical Islam enters a place and dominates, or destroys and claims victory they set up a mosque at or near that location of victory to show their dominance. I challenge you to, with hard evidence, prove me wrong. Historically, that has been the case with Radical Islam.
My frustration comes from the plain and simple fact that churches… Christian, Jehovah’s Witness, Catholic, Jewish Synagogues every year are told, “No” on thousands of locations each year. I know just in the Fuquay area alone of at least 12 places that will not allow a church to use their “Open or Mixed Use space”. I know of several cities in North Carolina that will not allow any more churches to open their doors inside city limits or the ability to purchase or own large tracts of land within city limits. This does not apply to religious organizations already operating at such sights, but any new programs are out of luck.
You do not hear other organized religious groups stating that radicals will insight violence due to this. No, we, as dictated by the our religious texts, obey the law. As Jesus states in the New Testament, “We are to obey the law of Caesar for this is honoring to God.” Yes we should stand up and work to change unjust laws and not allow the political machine to steam roll over us because we may seem weak.
ALSO!!!! When a group stands up in unwavering obedience to their faith they are seen as zealots by those who do not or are not capable of the same feat. I hear daily how a person is call a religious nut because they do not compromise in a world that so freely does. Each one of us, no matter what the political affiliation, would agree that this country has become weak and has compromised from the ideals that has made us great. And what has made us great was being a country that trusted God. As a country we have moved from having Judeo-Christian principals being the basis for our moral compass to now seeing “good” as subjective.
There are those who speak at deafening tones that would “save the trees, but kill the children”. Our society now a day’s preaches on tolerance and acceptance, but anyone who does not blindly buy into this idea is branded bigot, small minded, and even a hatemonger. Where is the tolerance and acceptance? It isn’t there… there is only tolerance and acceptance when you are “preaching the same tolerance and acceptance”. Try to speak your mind or even say… Hey, isn’t tolerance less than respect. I tolerate my dog barking, because well she is a dog. Should I tolerate my fellow man or simply love and respect their life because I love and respect my own life?
I challenge all of us to move past fear of one group and love each other. I challenge you not to tolerate, but to respect and value the life of your neighbor, not for what you have in common, but for your differences. According to what I believe, I am to love as Christ loves, with is fully, unabashedly, and unashamed. I am to give all of myself as Christ did of his own life. My faith does not call me to lash out with violence, but to turn the other cheek and to pray for my enemy. What do you believe about life and those that do you wrong or seek to stagnate your growth whether it be spiritual, emotional, physical, relational… Do you tolerate or do you stand up and say I chose not to be tolerated as a common dog that may bark at the wind, I desire to be loved for who I am and respected for who I work to care for my family and how I work to be honoring to God.
