The Way Matt Sees It

“ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27) #INSTAFOLLOW For a while I was pretty obsessed with getting as much “likes” as possible on every one of my Instagram pictures.   That’s the whole reason I wanted people to follow me, is so they can “like” my photos.   Now, I still post about 30 hashtags to get as much “likes” as possible, but I think I can say that I’m not as obsessed as I used to be…but just so you know my most liked photos each have 66 likes. Hipster Jesus: Had followers before Twitter When we talk about following Jesus, what’s the point?   What’s the benefit or endgame?   To get as many “likes” as possible?   To become a better person?   To make it to heaven?   To live a problem-free / pain-free life?   When we read Matthew 10, Jesus seems to make it sound like following Him can end in arrest, to...

GIVE UP EVERYTHING The call to “give up everything” and follow Jesus seems to be a little extreme.   If you’ve been around church any length of time, you might have heard this preached before.   We should be ready to “give up everything” at any moment to follow Jesus!   But how?   What does that even mean?   Should I sell my house and live homeless?   Should I break my Xbox?   Should I drop out of college?   Does God really advocate this type of lifestyle? The answer is no.   Jesus never asked His followers to make hasty, rash, foolish decisions.   Jesus never advocated blind faith.   In Matthew 4:18-20 , we read the call of Peter and Andrew.   It’s literally 3 verses.   Jesus sees them, calls them, and they drop everything.   It’s quite simple.   And at face value, it seems like that’s what it should be.   Perhaps this is why we preach it in this manner. Sea of Galilee, where this story tak...

The weekend I got my wisdom teeth out, I finally had a chance to play The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.   I definitely enjoyed playing it; it was one long game though! THE HERO OF DESTINY In this game, the main character, Link, is on a quest to find Zelda.   Throughout the game, people are constantly telling him that he is the hero who is destined for this specific task.   The goddess chose Link and Zelda, out of everyone else.   Sometimes Link finds items or other things that were specifically left behind for him by the goddess. As I’m playing the game, I remember thinking “It’s so cool!” every time they say that the goddess herself chose Link, or that she left things just for him (or in a way, me haha). HERO IN ALL OF US “I believe there’s a hero in all of us.” -Aunt May, Spiderman 2 (2004) Thinking about it, I realized that this isn’t just a cool thought.   God Himself has chosen each one of us for a specific task.   Th...

Today I was reading John 20.  In this chapter, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene after His resurrection.  She’s so surprised that she clings to Him , so much so that Jesus tells her to get off of Him (John 20:17)! I thought this was awesome.   We see that Mary didn’t just respect Jesus, but she loved Him.   Jesus wasn’t just a good speaker or miracle worker, but her friend whom she loved.   This perfectly illustrates who God is, and who He wants to be to us. “The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command,” (Hebrews 1:3, NLT). This is saying that Jesus perfectly represents who God is .   We see from Jesus’ life that He loved people, and desired to have a relationship with them. It’s clear from the life of Jesus that His friends and disciples had a real love for Him.  Not only was Jesus an incredible teacher, leader, and thinker, but His life wa...

If you haven’t seen the Noah trailer yet, you definitely need to.  I’m super excited for it; it looks so good!  And with Russell Crowe playing Noah, you know it’s going to be awesome.  THE CREATOR SPEAKS At one part in the trailer, Anthony Hopkins (playing a currently unknown character…possibly Methuselah or Cain?) says to Noah that the Creator speaks to Noah, and that he must trust that it’s in a way Noah can understand.   When I heard that, I thought it was really cool.   The “Creator” speaks to Noah?   That’s awesome! Then I realized: The Creator speaks to me .   LIMITED CONTACT Imagine having a long-distance relationship with a girlfriend or boyfriend (or in my case, fiancée!).   Your only communication with them was through texting.   Not only that, but you only texted once a year!   That wouldn’t be much of a relationship, right? This is the entire reason Jesus came down and was born as a man, lived a sinless...