The Way Matt Sees It

THE BOOK OF EZRA I’m reading through the Book of Ezra and I came across an interesting passage.   The nation of Israel had been living in exile away from their home country for 50+ years, but a guy named Zerubbabel got special permission from Cyrus the King of Persia to go back to their country to rebuild the Temple (Ezra 1:1-4; 3:8).   As Zerubbabel is leading the Temple construction, we come to this passage: The enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were rebuilding a Temple to the Lord, the God of Israel. So they approached Zerubbabel and the other leaders and said, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God just as you do. We have sacrificed to him ever since King Esarhaddon of Assyria brought us here.” But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other leaders of Israel replied, “You may have no part in this work. We alone will build the Temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, just as King Cyrus of Persia commanded us.”   (Ezra 4:1-3) The peop...

I’m not much of a camper.   In fact I don’t like camping at all.   Putting up a tent?   I would have absolutely no idea how to do that.   It’s just not my “cup of tea,” if you will (or coffee, because I like that more). Yet this is what the Apostle Paul did for a living.   While he traveled as a missionary, apostle, and evangelist, Paul would float back and forth between full-time ministry and part-time ministry; his other part-time job being tent-making [Acts 18:3].   I’m sure that Paul wasn’t upset whenever he had to make tents though; it opened new doors for him to talk about Jesus! He never lost sight of the mission. I’ve been thinking more and more about what it means to live “on mission.”   This is a term we have at Searchlight Church, and I love it, because it gives me a sense of why I do what I do, and helps me to prioritize in my life.   Our mission is to reach and teach people to live and love like Jesus. Being new...

I work at Starbucks, and for real they call me, “Batman” and “Mattman.”   The best part is that I’ve never even told anyone to do that.   They just know what’s up ;-)   We actually had a new hire come on and joke that he was Batman, and everyone immediately corrected him, “No dude, Matt is Batman.   Get that right.”   I thought it was hilarious (and amazing, and appropriate). I was telling this to a friend, saying how proud I was that everyone at work calls me Batman and I’ve never even told anyone to do that.   But I wondered why.   If I’ve never told anyone to do that, how do people know that I love being called “Batman” (this has happened at two different places I work at)?    My friend responded like it was obvious: “Matt, you just ooze Batman.   It’s like it just comes out of you.” SECRET IDENTITY I thought his response was kind of funny, and to him it was pretty obvious.   But it had me thinking.   What if ...

Pope Francis has recently declared that The Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution are true, and that God is not “a magician with a magic wand.”   Read the article here and here . A few thoughts: GOD, THE GREAT MAGICIAN The Pope says that we shouldn’t view God as “a magician with a magic wand.”   This is quite silly.   How would the Pope (or scientists, or anyone else for that matter) know concretely how God created the world?   There is in fact no way of knowing for sure.   We can try our best to research and discover, but postulating how God actually created the universe is mere speculation.   The Pope may be rejecting one view of creation, but this doesn’t mean that God couldn’t have created the world that way.   God’s power is not restricted by our limited understanding of it.   Science is best understood in the words of Johannes Kepler: “Science is thinking God’s thoughts after him.”   It isn’t religion vs. sc...

J esus replied, “ The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The  Lord  our God is the one and only  Lord .   And you must love the  Lord  your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’   The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’   No other commandment is greater than these .” –Jesus (Mark 12:29-31, NLT) Jesus says the Greatest Commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:29-30).  This is the core of Christianity.  This is what defines us.  If we were to strip everything away, all the traditions, all the denominations, all the dissensions…this is what we would have.  So how do we do it? ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ HEART | Compassion Loving God with our heart means loving Him with all of who we are.   It means asking...