Do you live to giving away a carrot or a horse? Charles Spurgeon gets to the heart of the matter when he asks how do I live using a beautiful illustration about a carrot, a horse and a king:

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) understood the difference between Religion and the Gospel when he told the Tale of the King, the Carrot, and the Horse:
Once upon a time there was a gardener who grew an enormous carrot. He took it to his king and said, “My lord, this is the greatest carrot I’ve ever grown or ever will grow; therefore, I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you.” The king was touched and discerned the man’s heart, so as he turned to go, the king said, “Wait! You are clearly a good steward of the earth. I own a plot of land right next to yours. I want to give it to you freely as a gift, so you can garden it all.” The gardener was amazed and delighted and went home rejoicing.
But there was a nobleman at the king’s court who overheard all this, and he said, “My! If that is what you get for a carrot, what if you gave the king something better?” The next day the nobleman came before the king, and he was leading a handsome black stallion. He bowed low and said, “My lord, I breed horses, and this is the greatest horse I’ve ever bred or ever will; therefore, I want to present it to you as a token of my love and respect for you.” But the king discerned his heart and said, “Thank you,” and took the horse and simply dismissed him. The nobleman was perplexed, so the king said, “Let me explain. That gardener was giving me the carrot, but you were giving yourself the horse.

What does the story mean? I first came across this story it reminded me of a Bug’s Bunny episode when the King asked for rabbit and the cook couldn’t deliver and by the end of the episode Bugs was bringing a carrot to the King. However, it’s Spurgeon’s illustration concerning us right now. The illustration tells us not to be in ministry, any calling, lifestyle, business if we think it is our way of paying back God to be saved or to receive blessing. You are to do what you do because you are saved, because you are loved, because you are forgiven. You don’t do it to save someone or save yourself. Imagine what the King will provide to you if you have a Carrot perspective.

When you live this you won’t worry about how you preached, how you lived your day, whether you lived up to the image others want you to live up to. You live in the image of Christ and allow the gospel to calibrate the way you live, serve, love, give, work and play.

We are a gospel centered church body with the priority of changing lives to change a city to glorify God.

Acts 29 church

70+ young Don Dudgeon who is our pastor to families who has served with Dennis Rainey and Bill Bright who wants to love and mentor families. He and Sue have a passion to build up and restore relationships and marriages. You don’t find such experience and passion at just any church.

Pastor/ Planter with over 20 years of church planting and pastoring who isn’t green trying to guess his way through this process and wants more than anything to see people won with the gospel and to mentor and sow into future pastors and planters.

Kaleomark is committed to teaching through messages that have application for you life and study primarily through books of the Bible.

We offer two 50 minute services. with time to gather and build friendships before and after.

All of us are bi-vocational so all of us understand the strains on our families and so we are constantly refining church to that you will grow deeper as a church body, in your relationship with Christ and in your relationship with your family.

You can bring your swim suit because we have the biggest pool of any church in town.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I89kUL5z2Ew]

I’m nearly 41 now with over 20 years of pastoring and our Pastor to families is let’s say a few decades older than I am and has far more years of wisdom and experience than I. What Kaleomark has as a young church is experience and wisdom with a passion to sow that into young families. Don helped launch ministries with Campus Crusade and Family life working with those incredible evangelical leaders- Bill Bright and Dennis Rainey . I too have had the privilege to work with and under some incredible leaders, pastors, professors, and friends like Thom Rainer, Chuck Lawless, Al Mohler, Steve Sjogren, David Gushee, Mark Batterson and so many others.

What Don and I both recognize is Desiring ministry is a good thing, but you have to first live it where you are. If you have a job at a grocery store or construction job your future vocation should be revealed in your present day service. You aren’t simply a mail man one day then go to a local church and say give me a job and start ministry.

Don and I both, over the years volunteered in positions, and places because we had a hunger to do it to glorify our God first and foremost. We took steps that revealed God’s kaleo, his call and His mark on our life. The pastors and planters, and interns and future churches will all bare such marks so we will be faithful to our vision of changing lives to change cities to glorify God.

God gave Paul the strength, wisdom, and endurance to carry out the mission Jesus entrusted Paul with. Much of the Protestant Reformation was based on Paul’s teaching that people are saved by grace, not works: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-” (Ephesians 2:8, NIV) This truth frees us to stop striving to be good enough and to instead rejoice in our salvation, gained by the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And then I asked myself a question. What if Paul had a teen age son? What would the conversation have sounded like? Would it have gone like this? Dad You’ve been beat up again. Last week you were stoned nearly to death. everytime you’re thrown in jail you never write me because you are always writing letters to another church. Dad, we are moving again? Another church plant? Another town? People are beginning to talk.

Or would it have went something like this given the fact Paul would be teaching in his home what he was teaching the churches. I think His teen age son or daughter may have very well recognized that the one thing their dad could do the best would never be able to be done in heaven. It may have very well been why would be able to see God’s hand in it. One more life to heaven. That’s it. Whether people understood such a calling was not a thing they could worry about. It brings Philippians 1:18 to life for me.

But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,

When you are consumed with the mission of Christ it is not your comfort or status or security you worry about. You don’t worry about what people think or say. Yours is to do as God has made you. Whether it takes you to being stoned, run out of town, to be misunderstood, or jailed, Christ’s cross must be preached and whatever the state of being you rejoice. This was the one track Paul traveled on. His was to do but what the mind of Christ had him to do. Do you have such a one track mind?

Skillet does put on a crazy good show

Met up with some friends from kaleomark at winter jam.

Thanks to joy FM for hooking up kaleomark up with tix to winter jam.

My 2 cents on Tim Tebow. Luke 16:19-31 tells a story about the Rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus had died as did the Rich man. Rich man had refused God’s Redemptive work and had been separated for eternity from God’s grace and mercy. From his perspective, somehow, he could see Lazarus, who was crippled and poor in his earthly life, but now was glorious and lazarus had received God’s mercy and redemption. Lazarus did not have to languish in torment as the Rich man. The Rich man asks Abraham to be allowed to go back to tell his friends and family of his wrong choices so they could be saved from his ill fate. However he’s told this by Abraham:

³⁰ “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ ³¹ “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

So now I come to my Tebow point. Abraham was saying no matter what the rich man did to prove God’s reality and to inform the world about the redemptive work of God, no matter how miraculous the act may be to try to prove it, no matter how many John 3:16′s appear in the rich man’s stats, people are still going to say what the want to say. People without the Christ’s redemptive work in their heart, without God opening their heart to see cannot open their eyes on their own. Luke 11 says our eyes are the light to the rest of our body. When our eyes are closed to the work and light of Christ we can’t see the miraculous. We can’t see God for the man and well too often that man is ourselves. We can’t see the spiritual. No matter the way Tebow responds or doesn’t respond, no matter the words he uses or doesn’t use, people are still going to say what they want to say.

Recent blogs have conducted rants, rages, and bizarre conversations asking if Tebow is gay, if he has a girlfriend, if God is saving the Broncos, Bill Maher mocked him, SNL mocked him and Jesus. He can have a great game or a bad game, people will say what they want. His total yards can equal John 3:16. The final quarter television rating can be 3.16, he can throw 31.6 yards per pass and people will say what the want to say.

No God isn’t giving preferential treatment, but I do believe we get to be the witness to something the Rich man learned from afar before our own death. The righteous inherit the kingdom of God. We can see that inheritance before we die because God’s kingdom has already come. It is here, but never the less Tebow could die and be resurrected before he plays on Saturday and people would still say what they want to say. My hope is that you will live each day and every day more like Christ to be able to exemplify him more and more in all you do on what ever field of play you play on knowing people will say what they want. More often than not, the more you live for Christ the more they will talk. Believe it or not, some of the biggest talkers are churched people who like the pharisees feel threatened or jealous when they see someone like Tebow surrendered in Truth living the gospel in a humble, but bold way. Amazing, amazing things happen that only can be explained by God when we surrender all ourselves to Him. Everything we do and everything we live for is to point to Christ. It is about living by what Christ said not for what others want to say.

When Tebow steps out onto the field at night you can see him because of the lights on the field shining down. Until someone points out the fact that you can only see him because of those lights, you would have never even noticed the lights at the top of the stadium. We are to be that light in the back ground displaying more and more of Christ.  Lecrae’s song’s  Play the background comes to mind when I watch Tebow. Tebow is simply playing the background and most commentators and most of the public don’t know what to do with that.

Many commentators have said that Tebow’s world is not all about football. When he started with the Bronco’s he was willing to play the background for the team if it meant they would win. He is simply playing the back ground and letting Christ take the lead. Because Tebow lives in the background when people tweet about him He sees people Tweeting the one he is reflecting. He sees they are blogging of the one he is living in the back ground for. Say what they want, live in the background and you may not always like what you hear people say, but you will be amazed at what you will be able to do.