Building Intimacy with God

Originally posted on www.crosswalkchurch.com

Ever have those moments of stagnancy in a relationship?  They are the moments which seem like the relationship is not what it could be, or used to be.  You become guarded and seek a comfortable position and the intimacy just isn’t there.  I can have those moments in my relationship with God and it is a challenge to get it back.

 A while back I was really struggling in my relationship with God.  I wasn’t out breaking the law or doing anything bad per se, it was just a lack of intimacy in my relationship.  I was in a stagnant place and could not figure out how to get closer.  One of the passages I came across in my daily reading was the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:1-23.  Part of what makes a parable so powerful is that the listeners know they are represented in the story. 

I had heard this parable hundreds of times since childhood so it did not feel like a particularly interesting read.  This time however, instead of just reading it, I imagined myself as a part of the audience actually looking at Jesus and listening to Him.  Which soil would I relate to when hearing the story?  When looking Jesus in the eyes?  And those eyes, looking at me: I know he would not look upon me with conviction or to provoke guilt, but in knowing the truth and forcing me to be honest with myself. 

 Examining my life can be tough sometimes because I don’t always want to be honest with myself.  If I had not imagined myself looking into the eyes of Jesus I probably would have said I was the good soil because it is who I wanted to be.  But being honest with myself, which of the soils was I?  I was stuck in the weeds.  My life was centered on long hours at a stressful job and paying the bills so we could own a house.  Those were my weeds.  This wasn’t a case of desiring the biggest car or the newest gadget; it was simply an intense focus on “this job is stressing me out, how can we change?”  I was more focused on how to get away from my job than how to strengthen my relationship with God.  This was my challenge. 

 Once again I thought about being in that crowd, listening to Jesus speak.  Emotionally, how would people in the audience have felt knowing their relationship with Christ was not reflected in good soil?  How would Christ have felt about those people as He looked upon them? 

 Here comes the disclaimer: I am in no way saying anyone out there is a soil which does not produce fruit.  In fact, the parable itself is not even the point of my story.  The point is that your relationship with Jesus is not going to be everything it can be unless you are challenged sometimes: challenged to be more authentic, more vulnerable, and more truthful to both Jesus and yourself.  To have an intimate relationship with Jesus, you have to go deeper and deeper.  Think about the best moments you have had in relationship with your parents, your spouse, your best friend.  Were those moments when you were simply engaged in small talk?  Or were they moments when you had those deep, intimate conversations?  I bet they were the deep conversations where you felt like the other person really understood you.  It is a wonderful thing that you can have intimacy with God as well.  How do we grow intimacy in our relationship with Christ?  In service with brothers and sisters, in worship and fellowship, in prayer and in reading Scripture – God reveals himself to us in action.  It is our choice of whether or not to be truthful and vulnerable to Him.  It is our choice to be intimate with God, to take action and seek a relationship with him or to be one of those other soils in which the seed dies.

I pray we all grow through this challenge.

Mark Juanes

Pastor of Administration

Transformed Through This Church

Big life changes - we have moved back to Northern California and I have a job at a church now. One of the things I do in my new job is to post on the church blog - so I have less of a need (and time) to post on this blog as well. So I will be copying the posts over from the church website - mainly so I can keep a record of my own writings and thoughts and see how they evolve over time. This was originally posted on www.crosswalkchurch.com

God first brought me to Crosswalk back in 1999.  I was a quiet young man who was bad at holding a conversation and angry at a world which didn't seem to accept me.  Worse, I had no purpose in life.  But I was also aware of those traits, and acknowledged them as barriers to a fulfilled life so I wanted to change.  Religion seemed to be the best way to affect change.  I was interested in Christianity (though not yet a Christian) and had been church shopping for a bit.  I visited a few other churches but was generally unimpressed by what I had found.  When I visited Crosswalk there was one thing which set it apart for me: the people.  A quick scan of the crowd revealed a diversity I hadn't seen at other churches.  People from different races and age groups accepted each other and actually spent time together (which seemed like a rarity at the time.)  I also noticed as I watched people interact, that they actually wanted to be there.  I was brought up in a church which felt like people were there out of obligation rather than choice (it was a Catholic church).  Crosswalk was a group of people who wanted to be with God and with each other - they were engaged.  By the end of the first service I was hooked, this was not just a church, this was a community.  A community of people with a genuine heart for God and each other where people were connected.

I spent about seven years as a member of Crosswalk and went through a lot of life changes and growth during that time.  I received Christ into my heart and did the other things people do when they connect with a church community: serve on a ministry team or two, attend church events, go on a missions trip, and join a small group.  I made a lot of close friends, I even met my wife at Crosswalk. I connected with people whom I never would have even spoken to had it not been for Crosswalk.  Over that period of seven years I was transformed by God through Crosswalk.  God blessed me with a real purpose to my life and allowed me to drop my poor attitude.

In 2006 we moved away to Southern California for a job opportunity.  "Church Shopping" was even more complicated for my wife and I after Crosswalk.  Other churches just did not feel like they matched up.  Sure there were several churches with more style and better music, some churches with more programs and better resources.  The people though, the people are what made Crosswalk special and it was so tough to find that again, especially in Southern California.  Eventually, we did find a church we could get excited about and again it transformed us.  

Crosswalk set a high standard in what I have been drawn to in churches.  It took my wife and I over a year to settle on a church in Southern California.  The high standard is why I was a little bit nervous when, a few months back, I was gifted with a job opportunity at Crosswalk.  What if the people don't care anymore?  What if the church I loved so much was different?  After being back for almost a month I can happily report that it has changed in a lot of ways; but that emphasis on diversity and connecting with each other has not.  And as a church we will continue to grow and change, just as God would expect an individual to.  There are some exciting things happening here at Crosswalk and this blog is a part of that.  We are finding new ways for you to learn about Crosswalk; both the staff and the community.  We believe that one way to do that is to express ourselves through writing: about our beliefs, faith, experiences and stories.  We love how God has molded us over the years and we look forward to sharing that with you.  I am truly excited to be back at Crosswalk because I have always considered it my home church, but I am also excited to see how God will continue to mold me, you and the rest of the community here at Crosswalk.

The Top Life Lessons to Teach My Kids

On Father's Day last year, I wrote one of my favorite blog posts which can be read here:  The Difference of  Being a Father to Boys and Girls and it was about my hopes and dreams for my kids.  This year, I have been thinking a lot about my vision and plan for my family; how I am going to lead my family.  My post last month was about the Vision for my Marriage.  Which leads me to thinking about the top things I want to make sure my kids have a firm grasp of as they grow up.  Many of these they will learn on their own or from others, but my goal is that they understand them.  Here are my lessons in no particular order:

(from the Resurgence) Good News vs. Good Advice

Good News vs. Good Advice
I just loved this post at the link above from the Resurgence.  I think everyone should read it.  It explains a piece of my own theology much better than I ever could.  I don't really have much else to add, just wanted to spread the word and really, to save it somewhere I can read it later.

Every Good Team Shares a Vision, Shouldn't Your Marriage Have One?

In any management/leadership training I have attended, in just about every management/leadership book I have read, in every good leader I have seen, one of the most important things they all make clear: a leader needs to have a vision and be able to successfully cast that vision to the team.  

Christmas: Why I Put my Trust in Jesus

This isn't going to be a post on why I believe in Christ or God, that will come another day.  This being the Christmas season, I was watching a football game and thinking of one of the most famous verses of the Bible: John 3:16.  "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 one, think about how much love that is, that the most powerful being in the universe, the creator of all sacrifices his son for us.  There are other religions out there which ask individuals to sacrifice their lives for their god.  I'm not sure who said it but I love this quote "My God doesn't ask us to sacrifice our sons for him, my God sacrificed his son for us."  That is why us Christians celebrate Christmas.  God could have sent Jesus to punish us and show us the evilness of our sin, but he didn't, he sent his son in an act of love so we could have a way to salvation and be closer to him.  How amazing is it to have a God who loves us that much?  The second part of the verse however, is our part in the relationship: "...that whoever believes in him..."  In this context, believing in him is not just believing in his existence, it is a belief in the love of God providing salvation.  In other words, putting our faith in him, trusting that God's love and sacrifice of his son will bring us eternal life with him, covered in his love.  But more, trusting that God knows what he is doing and knows what is best for us.  Trusting that when he gives us instructions (like the Ten Commandments and the two commandments of love given to us by Jesus) he is providing these out of our best interest.  The third piece of this verse is "...shall not perish, but have eternal life."  As Christians we believe that everyone has eternal life, it is just that by putting our trust in Christ on earth, our internal life will be in communion with God.

When I was young, I used to think about life and death often.  But since I started going to church I really don't think about it much anymore.  I had decided which path to follow and the funny thing is, it had nothing to do with eternal life.  Back when I was young and searching for the bigger purpose of life, I reflected on what it must have been like to actually meet Jesus.  What he must have been like to make people drop everything and follow him.  What was it about him which set him apart so that people recognized him and wanted to follow him?  Now there is no biblical backup for this but I think it was something in his eyes.  Something about the way he looked at people which expressed his absolute love for them.  Not a lustful look but a look of genuine love and concern for everyone he looked at.  As I read the Bible with the perspective of God being a loving God I realized that someone who loves us so much knows what he is doing.  There are a lot of things which happen in life which I don't like or enjoy and I may not fully even understand why they happen but, that doesn't mean God loves us any less.  Someone who goes so far as to sacrifice his son for us loves us in ways I cannot fully comprehend.  Love like that from the creator of the universe?  I may not understand or like everything he does but I have to trust that he has a purpose and reason behind it all, he knows what it takes for us to live a fulfilled life here on earth.  I trust that a creator who loves us so much is going to give us good direction in life and I want to follow that.  I'm not going to lie, I struggle with it often.  And I think a lot of people warp his teachings to fit their own agenda.  But overall, it is the path I want to continue down because I have seen a lot of positive change in my life.  Most importantly however, I can feel the love of God in my life.  What I feel is just a fraction of the love that is there, but it is something to experience.  I wish everyone could experience such love.