When we hear the words “personal purity” we almost instantly get bombarded with thoughts that are anything but from God. We think, “I’m a loser”, “I better get busy being good” or “I’ll never be able to do it”. None of the these are true and yet we are called to “be holy in all you do” (I Peter 1:15). What gives?

Here’s a few thoughts that I’m preparing for our 180 OneDay events:

• If God asks us to be holy it must be possible
• Purity and perfection are not the same thing
• Personal purity is only possible in Christ alone

I’ll be unpacking this even more at our first event…

]]> http://lifelane180.com/2010/06/30/personal-purity/feed/ 0 http://lifelane180.com/2010/06/30/personal-purity/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Lifelane180/~3/9oO6Nh_eQDE/ http://lifelane180.com/2010/06/29/big-3/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:37:20 +0000 karl http://lifelane180.com/?p=1343 “You say you want a revolution…well, you know…we’d all want to change the world”

Beatles – Revolution

Yes, we do want a revolution…a spiritual revolution! In prep for our first 180 OneDay I’ve been doing some praying, thinking and digging. I’ve found three over-arching themes that, when added together, create an unstoppable positive spiritual force. I’ll be breaking these out over the next few days but here they are for your initial cogitation:

PERSONAL PURITY
+
INDIVIDUAL CLARITY
+
RELATIONAL UNITY
=
SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION

(we will soon have the ability for you to response – monologue is bad…dialogue is good)

Below is a blog that should be read by every Christ follower. Why? Because if any group of people should be freed from the need for validation it is those who are loved and cared for by the God of the universe. God is for us, not against us…(Romans 8).

(Click the link below)

Validation is overrated

June 23, 2010

Hello Friends,

This letter is longer than past communication but long overdue…

Enclosed is our ministry Manifesto. It’s a document that clarifies what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and how we’ll get it done. Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Let me begin by sharing a couple of meeting times and locations for our friends in Alaska. We’ll be there soon and would love to see you all. There are two meetings to choose from:

• Sam and Carolyn Markel’s home … Saturday July 10^th @ 10am
  • 11150 Cange Street in Anchorage 99516
• Mark and Sandy Larson’s home … Sunday July 11^th @ 7pm
  • 9741 Carlson Rd. in Anchorage 99507

Since we launched Lifelane180 God has led our board, my bride and me to keep our “head down and mouth shut”….to truly trust God for provision. So unlike any other ministry, we haven’t sent out financial updates or requests for financial support except to a handful of people. We’ve lived on relatively little but we’ve never felt richer. I am confident that God wanted to teach us many things and keep us close to Him through the toughest two years we could have ever imagined. Yes, I’m inviting you to pray about partnering financially in this spiritual revolution.
Our board feels the time has now come to start communicating with people, wherever they may be, about our vision and needs as a ministry. I’m also a big believer that good information causes passionate intercession. All of you deserve a shot at coming on board with something that is impacting many lives in tangible ways. The story we have to tell in the near-term is encouraging. Here’s just a small peek at what God is up to:

• Between mid-July and mid-August I will be presenting spiritually revolutionary truth to over 15,000 people.
• We launch our first 180 OneDay August 7^th in Irvine, California.
• Junanne and I fly to Chicago in the morning to discuss partnership with a dynamic national ministry.
• Our second 180 OneDay will be in Scottsdale, Arizona on October 30^th.
• In the middle of all of this my first book, “Thrill – When Normal Is Not Enough” will be available near the end of July.

Here are the immediate financial needs we have to meet. We want to be up front about what your financial support will do…please consider how you can help.

• We just purchased the site Thrillonline.net. We need $10,000 for web-site and e-resource development that serves as a portal for Amazon, Barnes and Noble and bulk fulfillment of orders.
• We would be wise to leverage $15,000 to help promote and establish this book in multiple venues and get it into key blogs and ministry leaders hands.
• Other goals include getting our support levels increased for Junanne and I over the next six months. The board believes God wants to expand our team. We just brought on Jason Pugh to organize the conferences and many other things God has uniquely gifted him to do. Now we just need to have some partners that will help support him and his family. Will still hope to bring Marvin Smith on in the near future as well and are just trusting God for timing.

Please prayerfully consider jumping on board. Whatever you can do is deeply appreciated. You mean much to me, my family and many faces you’ll only know about in eternity. Thanks to those of you who are consistently investing already. You’re a huge encouragement…enjoy the fruit of your prayers and treasure.

If you have any questions at all or just want to say “hey”, my contact info is below.

God’s best,
Karl Clauson \ karl@lifelane180.com \ 907.903.2646

PS- Watch closely…in the next week or two you’ll get the first look at the cover and the first chapter titled Thrill Seekers. I think you’ll be encouraged by what you read.
PSS- Some of you haven’t received the awesome devotional book, “Streams in the Desert” from Junanne yet. If you have not, just send us a reply with your address and we’ll shoot it out to you.

• They complement you
• They don’t compete with you
• They speak the truth
• They can hear the truth
• They want God to be glorified

Be on the lookout today for rich partnerships that God is putting in your path!

I will run in the way of your commandments
when you enlarge my heart!

Many of us may think that God just wants us to gut it out no matter how we feel. Scripture teaches differently. The heart is the central hub of all actions and behavior. Our focus should be on our heart—knowing that all actions, constructive or destructive, flow from it.

Don’t ask God to help you grind out the keeping of commands…ask God to give you a BIG HEART so you can run after His commands!

From the belly of a sizable fish Jonah spoke a breakthrough prayer:

Jonah 2:8-9

Those who pay regard to vain idols
forsake their hope of steadfast love.
But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

Breakthrough…

• Confess to God any idols that have become your focus.
• Admit to God that love is never found in idolatry.
• Thank God for the grace of life.
• Agree with God to go His way.

This will not work as a magic formula…but it has been the way of escape for millions who felt this at a soul level.

The church is relatively impotent to stem the tide of culture and that has to do with the DNA of the church. The church is full of people who have yet to be transformed by the power of Jesus. But here’s the kicker: The reason the church is littered with lost people is because we have lowered the bar of authentic faith. In hopes of being relevant, we have lowered the standard of faith and thereby raised the importance of “ME” in the gospel—we have constructed a man centered gospel. We have led people to believe that salvation is all about them—it’s their choice. Wrong! It’s all about Him and if it’s not all about Him we’re not experiencing Him. When we lower the bar we have done the very opposite of what Jesus did.

Listen to the radical, high bar, standard of faith Jesus sets in Matthew 5:17-20…

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The real gospel does something counter-intuitive and incredibly life giving. Here’s some things to consider:

• Jesus spoke the standard, not to make people work harder at looking righteous, but to show us how utterly incapable we are of walking in righteousness.
• The higher the standard of faith…the more people realize, “I can’t do this”!
• Jesus raised the standard so there would be no mistaking that it’s God alone who can truly change a life.
• If we raise the standard of authentic faith to its rightful place we will see people more desperate for God and less confident in themselves.
• Can’t the raised standard of faith cause people to work harder for salvation? Yes, it probably could, but the raised standard will more quickly reveal their depth of depravity and desperateness for the Savior.

A raised standard of faith will ultimately reveal our utter dependence on God. A church full of people who are desperate and dependent on God is a church that is contagious and a life-saving force in our culture!

One night in a gym I broke our students into two teams. To win, they had to have one team member run from one end of the gym to the other and get there first. The tough part was two-fold: The team member had a sleeping bag over their body so they couldn’t see or run. Everyone else could either yell directions to their team member or yell confusing directions (lies) to the opponent.

That day I almost lost a kid when he ran into a brick wall. The sleeping bag and everything in it crumbled to the floor. The father of the kid was upset but he forgave me. Just another successful night as a “youth guy”…

Too many of us have a bag over our lives. We’re confused about our direction, listening to the wrong voices and often getting hurt in the end.

I ran into a great text while reading this morning that is very liberating…

Mark 4:21-25

And he said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

Quick Observations:

• God never intended for you to be hidden or stumbling through life.
• God transformed you and gifted you so you could impact the lives of others in positive ways.
• There will always be negative voices telling you, “you’re useless—keep a bag over your life”.
• Listen to the voice of God—He’s the one who’s affirming and encouraging you to use your unique gifts.
• Get ready! God loves to give more to those who use what they’ve already received!

Step out in faith today…but be sure to get the bag off your life…the world needs what you have to offer!

I head down the road in our very dirty but very nice ’03 Toyota Highlander. Up next to me pulls a gorgeous Maserati—brand new with the top down. My window is down. There’s a bit of awkwardness as the couple in the Maserati is in a huge fight. I feel like I’m in their living room with them. Finally the light turns green and they’re gone. License plate reads…OILBNKR.

Quick thoughts:

• He may well know God because all couples fight…even those of us who know God personally. Most of us just don’t fight in Maserati’s with the top down.
• There’s a good chance he doesn’t know God, because generally only self-worshipers would have a license like that.
• If I have contempt for this man…it’s a thin veil of my on idolatrous heart that has wandered away from the love and security of God.
• The only healthy response is compassion. Our heart should be drawn toward his longing to fill the void that only God can fill.
• Keep going to Starbucks early in the morning. Crazy things happen!!

Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matt. 9:13