I Am Thankful For...

During this holiday season most people are seeing family, eating way too much food, and catching up some sleep. I doubt that many people will even read this due to the busyness of the season, but I thought I would reflect on ten things that I have been thankful for in 2014. Obviously, this is the most cliche thing to do, but cliche is sometimes good for the heart.

10. Legacy Conference

Ali and I attended a conference in late July that focused on Christians living and ministering to diverse people groups in diverse neighborhoods. I was mostly encouraged to see God’s people come together and worship Him.

9. Free Prayer

My friend, Scott, and I have been walking around the neighborhood on Friday afternoons and praying with our neighbors. Asking to pray for people reveals what they value and what God wants to speak into. There have been many amazing stories of God working in the hearts of others, but God has been working on my heart just as much as anyone else.

8. Saturday Morning Prayer

A group of people gather each morning to pray for the needs of the people present, their spheres of influence, Karis Church, churches in Columbia, and the city of Columbia. Ali and I have been meeting on Saturday morning and God has been revealing our need to depend on His strength in all areas of our lives.

7. Douglass Park

The Douglass Park neighborhood has been a warm and welcoming place for my wife and I. I have met so many people that it would take months to write down the names and stories we have heard. Not only have we gotten to know the history of the neighborhood itself, but we have gotten to know the people of the neighborhood as well - which we value very highly. Such a grace from God to know and love so many people.

6. Douglass Park Missional Community

Going along with the last one, I am very thankful for the community of people that have committed to be on mission in the Douglass Park neighborhood. We call ourselves Douglass Park Missional Community (#DPMC), but we believe that God has called us together to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ as a community of believers who love each other and go out on mission in all areas of our lives.

5. New Friendships

This year God has led so many men and women into my life. He has called people like… Scott, Angela, Vincent, Jessica, Chris, Triston, Christina, John, Angie, Ron, Mark, Mike, Brian, and Nate. This is not an exhaustive list, but it gives a picture of all the people God has placed in my life. Thank you to each of you for being great friends this year!

4. Internship

The Karis Church internship has been very challenging this year, but I have grown to see a clearer picture of the gospel. Growing in this has not always come in some miraculously beautiful way - most of it was difficult and challenging. I am thankful that they have not given up on me and that they are being to faithful to discipling me.

3. IMSD

The Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity is the grant program that I work at in the Office of Undergraduate Research at the University of Missouri. My boss, Brian, has been amazingly gracious and encouraging during my first couple of months. I have made genuine friends there and I am thankful that God has blessed me with a job that is flexible and expects a lot out of me.

2. My Wife

Ali is my best friend, my wife, and my sister in Christ. She is making me a better man of God, and she pushes me to seek after Jesus more and more each day of my life. God has been good to me by giving me a woman of God who is also pursuing a deeper relationship with our Lord and Savior. I am going to grow in my thankfulness for her over the course of our marriage, which I am looking forward to each and every day.

1. God

God has given me the best thing in the entire universe: Himself. I have been made alive in Jesus Christ due to His works, not mine. Over the course of my walk as a Christian I have found that I am much more sinful than I originally thought, but He is much more loving, gracious, and forgiving than I could ever imagine. I am thankful for the life that He has given me, but I am most thankful for Him.

God is good and gracious.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

Saturday Morning Prayer and the Grace of God

I woke up today at 5:30am.

Now, that might seem a little too early for a Saturday morning for most people, but this has become a normal waking time for Ali and I. We had a hard time initially waking up this early on “our only day off.” Over time though, this waking time has become something we look forward to.

We wake up to go to a small group gathering called Morning Prayer. Karis Church, the church that we have been members at for some time now, started a morning prayer time for each day of the week. Each morning, at 6am, there is an organized time to pray for God to work in our lives, our friends and family, the city of Columbia, and for the church.

As the elders introduced this to the church I immediately felt a conviction. I didn’t understand what the conviction was at first, but I knew I desired to be involved with a Morning Prayer time. I remember hearing that there were still two morning slots that needed leaders - Tuesdays and Saturdays. 

I can’t remember much of the sermon that morning because all I was thinking about was if I should step up and lead one of the open dates. I immediately crossed off Tuesdays because I have Staff Meeting for the church on those mornings, so I knew that it would conflict with that time. So… Saturday was all that was left.

I sat in the pew that morning thinking about why I would want to do this. Did I want to do it because “real” leaders step up? Did I want to do it because I wanted to conquer a challenge? Did I want to do it because I could tell people I am choosing “the hardest morning?” (By the way, waking up at 5:30am is hard any day of the week!)

Those are all twisted reasons to get involved in leading others in prayer, but the one reason that came out from all of it was this:

I struggle with prayer.

I remember sitting there being struck with this healthy conviction that I am robbing myself of God’s intimacy by not spending time in prayer. This reality struck me because I knew it affected my relationship with God.

Why do I say that? Well, I say that because I see how easy it is to fall into believing lies that influence my heart and thoughts about God and His grace. I, like most people, stray into focusing too much on my sin and not our Savior.

"Dear Father, teach us to give our greater efforts to reveling in Your grace rather than groveling in our sin.” Art Azurdia

My lack of prayer reveals that I am more focused on my sin than the grace of God, and I know that the more I focus on my sin the more that I feel guilt and shame for falling short. Sinning in the first place is not “reveling in [God’s] grace,” but refusing to come to God in prayer is also not reveling in His grace. 

There are plenty of reasons why most of us don’t pray: guilt, shame, pride, self-sufficient lies, unbelief, anger, etc. I think of the reasons that I struggle with prayer because I feel extreme guilt and God won’t forgive me for something so offensive to His holiness. While it is true that my sin does affect my relationship with God, the truth is that my sin does not change my standing in Christ. I have placed my life in the grace of God for my salvation and not my works, so when I fall short - and I certainly will - His grace is sufficient to forgive me.

The same thing is true for you if you have trusted in Christ: His grace is sufficient to forgive you and His love for you is the motivation to come before Him for forgiveness and thank Him for His glorious grace.

We have the freedom to come before God, humble ourselves, and ask Him to give us eyes to see Him as He truly is. God is faithful and forgiving to those who are humbled before His holiness and His glory.  

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:9-10 ESV)

Saturday mornings have now become a blessing from God. It started off with just my wife and I, but now we have three others joining us. I wake up groggy each time, but I wake up knowing that God is faithful to hear our prayers. 

If you are interested in joining me pray, please let me know and I would love to connect with you. 

God is good and gracious.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

My Wife and Friends

Today has been a very interesting day so far. There has been so much random happenings throughout this short day that it forces me to think about how good God has been to my wife and I. All of this started from my beautiful best friend.

If that doesn't make too much sense, give me a chance to explain:

Scenario:
Ali is spending her only day off this month with our friends to help them prepare for their wedding this Saturday. These two individuals we have only known for a little over a year, but I would consider them such great friends.

Why God's Grace?

There are two reasons:

1. My Wife
Ali is my best friend. She makes me laugh everyday, and most people understand how hard that is to do. She challenges me to become a more godly man, and she makes me desire to search Jesus every single day. She makes me seek ways to serve those around me on a daily basis. She is certainly flawed in many ways, but God is growing her on a daily basis and her transformation in Jesus has been amazing to see. God's grace is shown to me by giving me such a loving and generous friend and wife to spend my life with. God has shown His grace by transforming her heart from reject Him to seeking after Him and pursing to proclaim His goodness and gospel to the world.

When we met for the first time I knew that she would challenge me in many ways. I remember the first conversation we had. It was centered on how God saved us both from ourselves, our sinful nature, and the sin that sought after for so many years. She made me feel challenged and encouraged at the very same time, and at that moment I knew I wanted to get to know her more. To this very day she challenges and encourages me to be a better man, friend, husband, future father, and follower of Jesus.

God is gracious.

[I will be writing a new series called #Marriage that will be coming out in October.]

2. Community
These two individuals have been such great friends over the past fifteen months. Over this short amount of time we have seen them go through so many hard situations that I sincerely respect them for their commitment and dedication to one another and their Savior. They have persevered through it all and they are pursuing Jesus through it all. I am sure that they have struggled - I know this to be true because they openly talk about - but they have remained strong in Christ and confident in His grace. I can't wait to see them get married on Saturday!

Community is essential and necessary at every level of the Christian church. A healthy and biblical community in a Christian church is unfortunately uncommon. A community that is pursuing the gospel of Jesus Christ while going out on mission to make Jesus known is not common, and I can confidently say that I know that these two friends are seeking after authentic and genuine community at Karis Church. Karis has grown all four of us over this period of friendship and I trust that it will continue. God's grace is evident in saving them, bringing them to this point, and joining them in marriage before brothers and sisters in Christ and ultimately before Himself.

God is gracious.

It has been a great day so far, and I hope that this post challenges and encourages you to pursue Jesus.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

Jesus Is The Better Jonah

On Wednesday July 10, I taught Jonah 1:4-6 to the Center City MC, the Missional Community I am a part of at Karis Church. This post will be a brie look into what I talked about on Wednesday.

This will not be exhaustive, but I hope it reflects the points I tried to make on Wednesday.

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Jonah 1:4-6 :

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, “What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we may not perish.”

We are Jonah.

That is the thing that we need to see over and over again while we read the book of Jonah. Jonah is a sinful man who is running away from what God has called for him to do. As we see in these three verses, Jonah not only is taking a step away from the mission, but Jonah is also taking a step away from community.

When we sin we are like Jonah, we take a step away from community and we take a step away from the mission that God has called for us. But Jesus reveals authentic community and a total willingness and submission to God's mission.

The first thing that we see is that God causes the storm to occur. Why in the world would He do that? Why would God create a storm to potentially tear this ship apart?

We will ultimately see that as we read the book of Jonah that God creates the storm to ultimate bring people to repentance and faith in His steadfast and unfailing love. The entire city of Nineveh repents and places their faith in the One God of the world!

We we move into verse 5, we see mariners - not believers in the God of the Bible - frantically freaking out and pleading with their gods to save them from this huge storm. After they cry out, they begin to throw things overboard to save themselves from their inevitable death.

We act like this all of the time. We cry out and frantically do anything we can to save ourselves from the storm that is coming our way and rocking us back and forth. We sometimes think that our family, friends, our significant other, our sexual desires, lying, power, wealth, or our public image will satisfy us. We think that if we are liked by everyone, if we drink another beer, if we hook up with one more person, or if we get all of the money and power we can, we will be completely satisfied in this life.

It does not work. Trust me. Only God can truly satisfy our desires, needs, and longings.

Take a look at Matthew 8:23-27

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

Do you see all the resemblances? There was a storm, people were freaking out, the main character is asleep during the storm, and they seek for something or Someone to save them!

In both stories the entire point of these stories is that they come to the main character looking for something or Someone to save them.

The men on the boat in Jonah ask him to go to his God to save them from the storm. The disciples of Jesus come to Jesus to save them.

This is a huge difference:

Jonah can not save the men on that boat. Only God can do that.
Jesus can save the men on the boat. He DOES do that.

Some people might be quick to point out that Jesus solely saved them physically on the boat, but if you look deeply into the entire point of Jesus' life it was centered on saving people for eternity. He talks about this over and over again. Read the four gospels and you will see Jesus say that He is the only way to go before the Father (John 14:1-11).

Jesus not only saves the disciples from the destruction of a storm, but He also saved them from their sin and the judgement that comes from the act of rebellion.

Jonah was in rebellion against God's plan. Jesus found joy in God's plan. Jonah could not calm the storm or save anyone on the boat. Jesus calmed the storm to show His saving power and He saved everyone on that boat. Jonah was hard-hearted. Jesus showed compassion. Jonah lacked faith. Jesus is the One we need to place our faith in!

Jesus is the better Jonah. The perfect Jonah. The fufillment of what Jonah should have been.

Jesus saves those who cry out to Him to save them. He did it in that boat and He still does it to this day. He saves people in addiction, in their pride, in their bitterness, in their darkness, and in their rebellion towards God's will and plan. He saves us from ourselves and brings us to see His way is what we were made for. His will and plan are ultimately our joy because we were created to enjoy His goodness, His faithfulness, His love, and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

Iron Sharpens Iron

A quick verse from Proverbs 27 to remind me why the community at Karis Church is so important:

Proverbs 27:17:

"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another."

The men that I have met at Karis Church have made me a stronger, more devoted, more loving, and more humble husband, friend, and leader. God is good and He has used men at Karis to do amazing things in my life.

Jacob Luis Gonzales

Jesus Saves, Not Us