A little encouragement

You might feel alone right now. You might feel trapped in your marriage, in your home, in your career, in your life. You might think that you are failing at the one thing you wanted to do well. You might be grieving. You might be left behind by the one who promised to always be with you. You might be wondering what you are supposed to do next.

I want you to know that no matter what you have done, said, or where you have been. No matter how badly you have screwed up something here on earth. No matter how many times you have been told you are not enough.

You ARE loved.
You are FORGIVEN
You can start again.

Maybe not with the people around you, but always with God.

Chesney Szaniszlo

I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. Romans 8:39

Read more...

Blessings and curses - short and sweet

We've looked at a lot of ways over the past month that we can choose blessings over curses, life over death; ways we can bless our community, our children, and our spouses. I think this passage from Colossians sums up the entire series:

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. (Colossians 3:12-14 MSG)

That's what it's all about - making choices that will honor God because it is those choices which lead lead us into life.

Chesney Szaniszlo 

Read more...

Blessings and curses: Being parents who bless

There's a  lot of pressure on our kids these days. We want them to over-perform and out-perform  other people's kids in every category possible. I think it is this desire that has given rise to the phenomenon of helicopter parenting - the parenting philosophy that encourages us to be over-involved in all the aspects of our kid's life that has to do with outward performance.

We tend to get wrapped up in how our children are being seen by the world instead of how our children are developing on the inside. This tendency has caused us to make excuses, ignore bad behavior, and justify almost everything our children do or become. We have begun to think that if we are not constantly praising our children and helping them to "feel good" about who they are, then we are not being good parents. Instead of helping our children deal with disappointment and failure, we are not allowing them to be disappointed or fail. We are constantly giving them a false sense of reality; causing them to have unrealistic expectations of themselves, the world and those around them.

By pushing and prodding and helping our children all the way to the top, we are not helping them to succeed we are making ourselves succeed. The entire process really ends up not being about our children, it ends up being about us. Don't think for a minute that our children don't know this.

I believe this new way of parenting which my generation has grabbed onto with both hands will be the curse of the rising generations. Very few people ever succeed without having failed.  Children can't learn to overcome if they never face adversity. Our kids are not going to follow their conscience and make good moral choices if we constantly make excuses for them and don't hold them accountable for their bad choices.

Grace covers a multitude of sins but it doesn't erase the consequences of those sins.


If we truly want to bless our children, then we need to teach them about responsibility, consequences, and self-control, along with a large measure of love and grace. We need to give them opportunities to fail, pick themselves up, move on and still feel good about who they are because of who God created them to be not because of who the world (or we as their parents) think they should be.

In this life there are many more important things than academic, material, or social success. We need to teach our children to measure themselves and others by who they are (children of God), rather than by what they have accomplished. If you want to see your child have true self-esteem, then help them to focus on the One who created them rather than on the things that they create.

 As parents, if we can give our children this one, true gift, then we will truly have blessed them.

-Chesney Szaniszlo


Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!

Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.

-Deuteronomy 6:5-9

Read more...

Blessings and Curses 2

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
- Deuteronomy 30:19-20


It seems to me that most of us find it easier to modulate our tempers and have more patience with people who are not part of our families.

I think this is because we invest less of ourselves with strangers and acquaintances. Our expectations are much higher for those people we live with day in and day out than those we merely work with or see occasionally.

We want to come home and relax and not have to filter everything we say and do.

We tend to have a blind spot for our behavior in regards to our families. The people who are closest to us are able to disappoint, frustrate, and hurt us more than anyone else and so we act and react more intensely with them.

All of this can lead to situations in our homes that range from not great to very bad.

The remedy for these situations are hard work. Our parents were right when they said nothing worth having, comes easily. Many of us have fallen for the storybook portrayal of married life and believe that if we are with the 'right' person marriage is easy and our children are perfect.

This is a LIE! Relationships, no matter how old or new they are, take effort. Think of relationships with your family as trying to garden in Texas. You have to start with the soil - amending it so it will support your plants. You have to make sure it's the right season for what you are trying to cultivate. You have to protect your plants from bugs and scavengers, floods and drought. At some point, you have to prune to ensure healthy, future growth. Maybe, if you do all of this well, you will collect a harvest.

It takes a lot of TLC, time, and patience to get a harvest and some years are pretty lean.

Our families are our own personal gardens where we have to build a strong foundation of love and trust. No matter how long you've been married or how old your kids get, you have to take the time to nurture those relationships through kind words, affirmations, time and affection. Our relationships will stagnate and break down if we don't make the effort to do these things.

You sometimes might feel like you are the only member of your family doing the hard work. But I guarantee your spouse and kids also feel the same way (hopefully at different times!)

As people who have been offered forgiveness and grace countless times by our Savior, how can we not turn and give the same forgiveness and grace to those we love most in this world.

As we work to pass on God's grace to our families, we will find that we need it from them just as much (if not more) as they need it from us.

Coming to realize that we are not only 'putting up' with them, but that they are 'putting up' with us is an important realization. It gives us the ability to bend and soften our positions so that we can be less reactive and more interactive. As we acknowledge our own need for grace in the intimate relationships we have, we are also better able to give it.

Chesney Szaniszlo

Read more...

Blessings and Curses 1

We started a new sermon series yesterday on "Blessings and Curses". We'll be looking at how, as Christians, we have opportunities everyday to bless (or curse) our community, our spouses, and our kids.

It's been making me think about how I can more consciously choose to bless rather than curse the people around me. As usual, this highlights my shortcomings!

I want to bless people rather than curse them. I would love to believe that I am allowing God to work through me to change this world for the better. I would hope that as I continue to grow in Christ (and yes, even pastors are on a discipleship journey) that I will be able to more freely offer myself as a conduit for God's work in the world. That takes a lot of letting go, though - something those of us who are self-acknowledged control freaks and worriers have a hard time doing.

I think my big fear is that if I give and give and give and give to those around me, my well is going to run dry. So instead of pouring out blessings on the people in my life, I pick and choose when to dole them out. Here's an imaginary conversation between me and my family:

"What are you fussing about! I blessed you twice yesterday! You can only get a half one today because there's a weekly quota!"

Ridiculous when you read it but I actually have similar thoughts that run through  my head - particularly when it's 'tucking in time' and I've pushed back bedtime, read an extra chapter, given extra hugs and kisses and still have more demanded of me. I have this thought that goes through my head -  "If I don't get out now, I'll be here until midnight!" (picture me in Edvard Munch's "The Scream").

It's not that I don't want to be selfless - it's that I am still sinfully selfish. We are all works in progress - the more progress we make, the more clearly we can see where we need to continue to remodel!

I know there is no limit to God's love and if I allow God's love to flow through me to others, there is an never ending supply of it waiting to refill that which I give away. I just need to be more mindful of that well and take advantage of it so that I share God's blessings rather than the world's curses.
 
God - give me the courage to be filled with YOUR love, the generosity to give it away freely, and the mindfulness to do this in all situations.

- Chesney Szaniszlo

The soothing tongue is a tree of life,
    but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. - Proverbs 15:4

Read more...

He is Risen!

When I was growing up, the first thing I heard on Easter morning every year was, 'He is risen!' (To which my sister and I were to respond, 'He is risen, indeed.') This was how my mother would greet us and everyone she saw that day.

In our family, Christmas was fun but Easter was holy.

When I was a seminary student in New Jersey, there was a small group of us who needed a break from the constant study of the Presbyterian Church and responsibilities we had on Sunday mornings. We needed a way to actually be able to worship - something that is hard to do when you are leading or assisting in worship every Sunday.

We started attending a nearby Greek Orthodox mission church on Saturday nights for vespers as a way to worship before we led worship the next day. It was foreign and yet so beautiful and moving to be worshipping the same God in a very different way; surrounded by the scent of incense, the sound of a different language, and icons that portrayed Jesus in ways I had not previously experienced. It was an incredibly visceral way to experience and worship God.

Holy Week had always been a special time for me because of my mother's affinity for it, but it wasn't until I participated in the Greek Orthodox church's celebrations of Holy Week and Easter did I really experience the full emotional depth of this Christian celebration.

The entire week was filled not just with worship services, but with vigils, in which the congregants stood for hours. The reality of our sin and Jesus' need to die for and because of us was a physical weight in those days. When Good Friday came and Christ was crucified, it was dreadful. "Great and Holy" Saturday night's vigil ended at midnight as the priest led the entire congregation out of a darkened and stripped sanctuary in a procession around the outside of the church three times that was filled with an energy of expectation. At the end of the procession, the priest led the congregation back to the door of the church where this was said :

Christ is risen from the dead,

Trampling down death by death,

And upon those in the tombs

Bestowing life!

Then the priest knocked at the door and it was opened. We re-entered into a sanctuary that had been restored of its 'decorations' and re-lit. Everyone was kissing and hugging and so incredibly joyous that Easter and the resurrection of the Lord had come. A literal feast followed in the actual sanctuary until about 2am with people saying to each other  'Christos Anesti' (Christ is risen) and  'Alithos Anesti' (truly, He is risen).

Easter is not just a date on the calendar or an excuse to buy chocolate bunnies and hold egg hunts. It is not just a day to put on your new clothes and look shiny and happy for the other Christians. It is a day to be reminded of how shocking it was for the women and disciples to find the empty tomb and realize that Jesus was so much more than just a teacher and leader.

It is a day to remember that God loves us so much He allowed himself to become human and accept a painful death on the cross as payment for our sin.

It is a day to be crazy with joy and thankfulness to the God who came and dwelt among us and loved us anyway.

I hope that your Easter has been more than a chocolate fest. I pray that your Easter has reminded you of the joy of your salvation!

Christos Anesti!

- Chesney Szaniszlo

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,  and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. - 1 Corinthians 15: 1-8

Read more...

Live Oak Lenten Blog - Holy Week

This is my favorite week of the Christian calendar. I love it more than Pentecost, Advent, or Christmas day, itself. I love it so much because it's a roller coaster ride that doesn't make me nauseous and terrified. I go from the depths of sin to the heights of grace in one short week and it represents for me the entirety of the Christian life:

*We are sinners and doomed to death because of our depravity.

*God loved us so much that He sent Jesus (God incarnated) to save us.

*We hated His attempt to save us from ourselves and refused to accept his grace.

*But Jesus died a painful, earthly death for us in spite of us and willingly became an atonement for
  us so that our sin debt could be paid by his sacrifice.

*Jesus rose bodily from the dead on the third day (Easter Sunday) and through his death and
  resurrection we are given access to free grace and forgiveness of sins when we turn to Him...even
  if we turn and return to Him infinite times.

How awesome a week is that! I can hold the knowledge of my sin and depravity, knowing I am responsible for Jesus' death and yet at the same time hold the hope of grace, salvation, and eternal life for myself because I have seen my sin and confessed my need for Jesus.

It is not an easy week if you take it seriously but what you put into Holy Week you will get out tenfold in your walk with Christ.

I encourage you all to take at least a few minutes this week to think about why Jesus had to die for you. It will make you incredibly grateful for the dawning of this coming Sunday and I guarantee Easter will mean more you than just chocolate bunnies and egg hunts.

- Chesney Szaniszlo

Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?

The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,  that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.

                                                                                                   - Isaiah 53:1-6

Read more...