love

Beauty

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Last night in men’s group, we were talking about what a serving community looks like. After talking about servanthood and working our way around the topic, just before we finished, I asked a guy if he had any thoughts. He had been quiet the entire evening. When he spoke, I was hanging on every word.

He said that it all boils down to seeing the value in whom you serve. It is about assigning more value in those you serve than in yourself. That does not mean self-debasement, because I am valuable, he said. It’s just about valuing others more than yourself.

He went on and spoke about Jesus. Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the One who made all things, and for whom all things exist, considered His creation more valuable than Himself, and humbled Himself as a servant, even unto death on the Cross.

James Bryan Smith, author of The Good and Beautiful Community writes, “It is a matter of seeing the beauty and worth of a person that increases our desire to serve.” He goes on to say, “The core narrative we choose to live by will determine our behavior — my needs first or your needs first.”

We are ALL His creation and are ALL beautiful treasures… the apple of His eye and those worth dying for. James Bryan Smith re-crafted a prayer by Macrina Wiederkehl to say:

“O God, help me see the truth about those I meet today — no matter how beautiful they are.”

Amen.

Worth It

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I can still remember where I was on September 11th, 2001, as I’m sure you can. I remember a lot of things about that day: the stunningly beautiful, clear blue cloudless skies, how I discovered it happened, prayer at church at noon, being glued to the radio at work listening, and then, later, the TV watching in horror and disbelief. It was a day that changed the world, to be sure… and that’s an understatement.

I also can still remember my reaction. Folks were debating how the United States should respond. Strike back immediately, carpet-bombing, plan a war, institute sanctions, etc. There were voices coming from everywhere, and I’m sure the choices that then-President George W. Bush made were excruciatingly tough. We know the decisions that were made and events that ensued. But I wasn’t so sure that was right course.

Don’t get me wrong: I am so thankful for our military men and women who serve selflessly to protect our freedom and way of life around the world. Thousands have paid the ultimate price. Thousands more are still paying the price from the wounds they suffered. “Thank you” is not enough.

It is a hard thing to love. It is especially hard to love those who don’t love me back, or who, in fact, hate me back. It is hard to love those who don’t even say, “Thank you.” It is hard to love those who don’t even pay attention to me. I tend to love only those who love me in return, or at least pay attention to me. Maybe it all boils down to the fact that I tend to love only those who think I’m worth something.

That is how loving others begins: by assigning worth to them. The sobering thought is that they (whoever “they” are) are worth as much as I am. That includes the guy standing by the offramp, looking for a handout. That includes the homeless guy up in Washington D.C. asleep on a park bench with a newspaper over his face. That includes the pedophile I heard about on the 6 o’clock news. And that includes those that inflict damage and horror in my life and in others’ lives, either by the words they say, the things they do, or even the bombs they set off.

Jesus thinks they are worth dying for. Jesus thinks I am worth dying for. Jesus thinks you are worth dying for. They are, I am, and you are treasures to Jesus. That is how love and service begins for me: by trying to develop the eyesight of Jesus and seeing the beauty and worth of the lives around me, and then putting that love into action by serving them. Love isn’t love unless it is accompanied by service.

But I can’t do this. I simply can’t. Without God’s help, that is. And I fail at this. Every. Day. I fail. I need more of Jesus.

The world needs more of Jesus.

FaceTime with God

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My friend Cindy is a deep thinker and I mean that in the most complimentary way. She always is pondering something meaningful and wonderful about life. She loves God and it shows.

Yesterday she got my wheels turning. In the morning, on Facebook she asked, “If you had five minutes to FaceTime with God, what would you ask Him?” In the early evening, she then posted:

“If I could FaceTime God to ask Him one question, my question to Him would be: What do you see, God, when you look at me?

“If the purpose of Christianity is to transform us into the likeness of His Son, I would want to know how much of Jesus does God see in me.

“I doubt I would like the answer, but I would still ask.”

How much of Jesus does God see in me? What a great question!

But I think she would like the answer. If you have given your life over to Jesus and have accepted His sacrifice for your sins, then I think you would like God’s answer, too.

God loves us so much. He loves us in spite of… us. There’s nothing we can do to change that. You and I are the apple of His eye. (Psalm 17:8) He delights over us with SINGING! (Zephaniah 3:17) I can’t even wrap my head around that! And since we have been clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27), I believe that when God looks at me and you, Cindy, He sees Jesus. In fact, God’s Word says our life is now hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

How much of Jesus does God see in me? All of Jesus. Hallelujah!

Good News indeed.

Peculiar (adj.) – Strange or odd. Unusual.

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It’s the morning after.

I’ve had a few of those in my unsavory, wasteful, selfish days B.C. – before Christ. And those evenings that I had before I gave my life to God are a topic for another day. But what I’m talking about here is that this is the morning after… Easter Sunday.

There are millions of people who came to church, heard the Gospel message, realized that they were living selfishly, and made a commitment to accept the sacrifice Jesus paid at the Cross. They accepted the fact that Jesus is raised from the dead and because of this, they now have eternal life– everlasting life for the world to come and eternal living in the here and now.

But this is Day #1 of this new way of life. They will be looking for examples of what a Christ-follower looks like. They will be looking at you and me. Do I look like the rest of the world or is there something peculiar about me? That’s the question I’m asking myself this morning: Am I different? Do the people around me at home, at work, in traffic, and yes, even in Wal-Mart, see something different? Am I attractively peculiar?

In our men’s group last week, we talked about this and Pastor Brandon repeated something I had read somewhere. He said, “Christians are known more for what they’re against than what they’re for.” They’re known more by the things they won’t do than by the behaviors, attitudes, and words which actually characterize Christ and His early followers.

The behavior, attitudes, and words that a hurting world wants to see in the followers of Jesus is the same behavior, attitude, and words that they heard all about yesterday: a life filled with selfless love and service for others. That’s the kind of life they heard about yesterday. That’s the life of Jesus Christ while He walked this earth in flesh. And that kind of life is very different from the kind of life they see every day in the workplace, on the streets, in stores, and in traffic. That kind of life is peculiar.

It’s the morning after. I want to be peculiar today.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:12-13)

Today Changes Everything

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Today is Good Friday. To me, this is the most meaningful day of the year. Although I really love the reborn exuberance of Easter Sunday and the peace of the Christmas season, this day is where everything changes for me.

This morning as I re-read the account of what happened on this day about 2000 years ago, I was struck at the sacrificial love of Jesus. I recalled the images of “The Passion of the Christ” as I read again about Gethsemane, Jesus’ arrest, and the Crucifixion. What could possibly drive a man to do that?!?

Simply said, LOVE. A new kind of love. A sacrificial love. A love that gave up all His rights and privileges. A love that laid down His life for the sake of others.

That is how we are called to love. That’s how we’re called to live.

Today is the day where the slate is wiped clean, where everything is forgiven, and a fresh start begins. Today is the day when you love those around you with the same, lay-it-all-down kind of love.

Separated? Never!

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I recently betrayed the confidence of a friend. I may be doing it again by posting this. My friend told me something… and then I repeated it. I screwed up. I apologized but now I feel that what I did has separated us. I can just feel it. I’m sure you know what I mean.

Although we say God’s love is unconditional, we don’t really live like we believe it.

If I screw up and sin against God, I feel separated from Him. I feel like I need to run and hide. I don’t want to approach Him. In a more practical sense, I don’t feel like going to church. I don’t feel like listening to Christian music. I don’t feel like hanging out with folks that seem to have their Christian life all-together.

Does sin really separate us from God? Most would say “Yes, absolutely.” And they’d point to a Bible passage like this in the Old Testament:

But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things. (Isaiah 59:2-3)

But I’m not so sure that sin separates us from God AT ALL. Let me try to explain.

First, a few caveats: God is holy. He cannot and does not tolerate sinfulness in His Presence. And those who haven’t been cleansed of their sins are not, cannot, and will not be able to stand, kneel, or sit in His Presence. (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9) Secondly, God is just. He has demanded justice for sinfulness. (See the same verses) I get that. I understand that. I’m not diminishing His holiness or His requirement of justice.

But in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, those requirements have been fulfilled. By the blood of Jesus, our sins have been cleansed once and for all. All our past sins, all our present sins, and all our future sins have been cleansed and paid for by the crucifixion which we remember this Friday.

Yet when we sin… when we rebel… when we “do our own thing”… we think God turns His back on us… we think He frowns on us… we feel as if our actions and behavior has affected the way God feels about us. And instead of running toward God, we run away from Him. We run and hide (like Adam and Eve in the garden – see Genesis 3:8). We think God will punish us if we come clean. So we continue to stay away. We act as if God’s love is conditional instead of unconditional. We behave as if He loves us differently based on what we do or don’t do.

That is simply not true. That is not the God who loved us so much that sent His one and only Son to die for us… to fulfill His requirements of holiness and justice. Out of the love He has for us, He has fulfilled the passage in Isaiah above. He has fulfilled the requirements of the Old Testament. We can draw near to God and be assurred that He will draw near to us. This is the Father who looks longingly, waiting for the prodigal son to come home — not to punish him but to have a party and celebrate!

Lastly, this does not give us a license to sin. Those who truly get a revelation of the love God has for them are filled with such gratitude and have such amazing liberty that the old way of life is not given a second thought. It is a wonderful life of freedom — not a freedom to live as they please, but to live as God pleases. It is a (super)natural outflow of an inward transformation.

Unlike our fragile human relationships, the relationship we have with God is unchanging, steadfast, and unconditional. Just read these beautiful words:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Separated? Never!

It Should Happen. It Really Ought To.

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The apostle John has a unique writing style. You can see it in his Gospel, but really feel its beautiful rhythm in his epistles. It has a repetitive, circular pattern to it that helps drive his point home. Look at this passage in 1 John:

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. (1 John 4:7-12 NLT)

The point is simple: We ought to be like God.

No, we shouldn’t be little gods, but our characteristics ought to be the same characteristics that God possesses. For instance, we ought to love the seemingly unloveable. We ought to forgive the seemingly unforgivable. We ought to be willing to reach out and touch the seemingly untouchable, and more.

I write “seemingly” because we were seemingly that way once, too. As Christ-followers, we ought to exhibit the same traits and characteristics as our God and His Son, Jesus. After all, Ephesians 5:1 says, “Be imitators of God…”.

But look at the passage from 1 John again. He says a five-letter word that I also repeat five times after John’s passage. It’s the word, “ought.”

If you look up the word “ought” in the dictionary, here’s what you find as the first definition:

1 – used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when viewing one’s actions or behavior.

It would be easy to use “ought” in this manner in John’s passage. After all, God loved us before we even knew Him. Jesus died for us while we were sinners. It is now our duty to repay Him with our love and devotion, right? Well… hang on. Let’s look at the next definition:

2 – indicating what is probable, desirable, or to be expected.

This, I believe, is what John is getting at. If we have been truly impacted by God’s love… by His sacrifice at The Cross for us… by Him loving us before we had any clue… then our lives OUGHT to exhibit His love to a world which so desperately needs it. If my heart has been changed by His love, then love coming from me is “probable, desirable, or to be expected.”

It is not out of duty or obligation that you or I express love – for God Himself or for others. It is a natural out-flowing of our inward condition and transformation.

It was John who said in his Gospel:

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you SHOULD love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”(John 13:34-35, NLT, my emphasis)

(If you look up the word “should”, it has the same definition as “ought.”)

It SHOULD just happen. It really ought to.

The Power of Accountability

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Thank you.

“For what?”, you ask.

For holding me accountable.

“How in the heck am I doing that? What are you talking about!?!”

Let me explain.

At some point, over a year ago, I promised Donna and her daughter, Amanda, that I would pray for Donna as she began her journey through cancer treatments. We all promise to pray for folks, and if you’re like me, you’ve said the words, “I’ll be praying for you.” This time I wanted to assure her that I’d be praying every day.

So I began praying each morning and then I’d post an encouraging message borne out of my prayer time, tagging Donna and Mandy so they’d know I’m committed to pray each day. As I did this daily, God seemed to draw closer and closer. And I wanted Him more and more.

Then, to help my prayer time, I began a Bible-reading plan to read the Bible in a year. That sounds daunting, but was much easier than expected. I played an audio version and read along each day. It took about 15 minutes a day. 15 minutes. Seriously. I would then post a prayer on Facebook, birthed from my reading, tagging and encouraging Donna, Mandy, and their family. God continued to whisper encouragement into my heart and for the family, I believe, all the while, drawing me closer and closer to Him. He has been so faithful.

I finished that reading plan in January, and then I began journalling as a way to help the healing after leaving my longtime church. I would post my thoughts, prayers, and readings on Facebook as an encouragement to Donna, Mandy, and the family, tagging them each day. Journalling certainly has helped my healing, and, somehow, others like you have found some encouragement in them, too. Many have told me that I need to continue to do it daily, and so I do. I began this b
Og as a way to that.

Through writing, God has brought His love, acceptance, and healing into my life. He has shown me a new facet of His grace that I never knew before. He has filled me with a zeal for others to know His healing and wholeness. I am amazed by Him. To be frank, when I finish writing, I sometimes don’t really remember what I write. I have to look back and re-read it to remember. It’s almost as if I didn’t write it. Hmmm.

The point I’m trying to make is that what started as a commitment to pray and then progressed into a promise to not only pray daily, but also to post daily encouragement has served to draw me closer to God like never before. It is the power of accountabiltiy and commitment. It is the power of faithfulness… not mine, but God’s. He is so faithful.

I encourage you to be accountable to someone or to hold someone accountable. We all need it. We have been blessed to be a blessing. And the blessings from our faithful Father are immense.

Come near to God and he will come near to you. (James 4:8a)

Thanks for being my accountability partners on this journey of life and faith.

A Clever Deception

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I don’t want to review movies, but Sharon and watched the movie “Noah” Friday night and it’s taken a couple of days to compose my thoughts on the movie. It bothered me.

My emotion leaving the movie was filled with dismay and anger. I’m not bothered by the movie not being biblically sound. That seemed to bother many, but it didn’t really bother me, in a way.

What bothered me most was a clever, subtle reversal. It’s a reversal the enemy, Satan, delights in. It’s one he is very good at. It is something similar to his original deception.

What became astoundingly clear by the end of the movie was the depiction of good as evil and evil as good. It seemed (to me) that the following was portrayed:

1) The fallen angels were depicted as once betrayed by humans (ha!) and in the end, helpers of Noah. They were the good guys, even shown as heroic.

[As opposed to Isaiah 14:12-15; Revelation 12:7-9; John 8:44]

2) Noah was depicted as evil, hell-bent on destroying – literally – his family in order to be obedient to God.

[As opposed to: “This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” (Genesis 6:9 NIV)]

3) God was depicted as a vengeful, hateful Creator, bent on destroying the ENTIRE human race, including Noah and his family. He was depicted as a God who would kill babies, and only Noah’s supposed disobedience saved his family, and, of course, the human race.

[As opposed to Genesis 6:17-20; Romans 5:8; John 3:16; 1 John 4:8-10]

4) Humans were portrayed as solely to blame for the Fall, the original sin of Adam and Eve, and there was no blame cast on Satan, and later, his minions. Some watching the movie may have thought that even the Creator was to blame.

[As opposed to Genesis 3:14; James 1:13-15]

5) Humanity was only saved by the will and disobedience of a man.

[As opposed to the fact that humanity is saved only by God’s redeeming Son. See Romans 5:16-19; Hebrews 5:8-9; Romans 5:6-9]

Good was evil. Evil was good. The classic deception of the father of lies.

However, truth brings freedom, and the truth will always be that as Christ-followers, we are children of God, by the love the Father has lavished on us (1 John 3:1). We have the Spirit of Jesus living inside us (John 7:39-39), and we live in the unshakeable Kingdom of God. (Hebrews 12:28; Matthew 16:18; Revelation 20:7-10)

Always victorious!

What lies beneath…

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There’s a guy in a group I’m a part of who’s very quiet. He’s very thoughtful; that is, he’s a thinker. But he is seemingly unfriendly and aloof. When he talks, he speaks articulately and he makes you want to listen. He speaks with passion, but almost with anger. He seems sad. Angry and sad. Or just plain sad.

If you were to meet him on the street or in the store, you might be offended by his gruff attitude. You might just write him off. He wouldn’t be the ideal person to try to befriend, or even have coffee with. He just sort of rubs you the wrong way.

Everything I’ve described is about a real person and yet it may describe someone you’ve encountered. I think we all have. But the thought process I’ve just gone through is something that Jesus warns against: judging others.

Jesus replied, “I did one miracle on the Sabbath, and you were amazed. But you work on the Sabbath, too, when you obey Moses’ law of circumcision. (Actually, this tradition of circumcision began with the patriarchs, long before the law of Moses.) For if the correct time for circumcising your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it so as not to break the law of Moses. So why should you be angry with me for healing a man on the Sabbath? Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.” (John 7:21-24, NLT)

There are other verses in which Jesus warns against judging, but in this passage, he says that sometimes we have to dig deeper. We have to use some discernment. There’s probably more happening than first meets the eye.

So it is with the folks we encounter each and every day. The grumpy cashier behind the counter. The waitress that seems frazzled. The guy in men’s group that seems aloof. They all have stories and some of those stories involve tragedies. Some of their stories involve divorce. Some of their stories include getting a bad test result or the sudden passing of a loved one.

As James Bryan Smith says in The Good and Beautiful Life, “Philo of Alexandria is quoted as saying, ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.’ ”

Sometimes, I simply have no clue. Lord, give me eyes to see what you see, ears to hear what you hear, and a heart to feel what you feel. And then, the obedience to respond to your leading.