sin

Counter-intuitive Resolutions for the New Year…

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I’ve thought of two resolutions, although they’re not new.

A couple of weeks ago during a staff meeting at Love INC, we were talking about what 2015 might hold — both for the ministry and personally.

A thought came to me: A just want to be dumber and weaker. These are my resolutions for the coming year (and beyond).

I’m discovering that the older I get, the less I know. Yes, I may have gained more knowledge in the world’s eyes by taking various classes or by learning through “the school of hard knocks,” but in the deep things of life, I know very little. And as I get older, I see that I will never have the answers… at least not on this side of heaven.

Through schooling, experience, and through trial and error (mostly error), I’ve learned a few things, but just enough to be dangerous. I can just as easily stick my foot in my mouth today as I could twenty years ago. I can just as easily rush into a bad situation and make it worse. But worse than anything, I can think that I can get by on my own smarts and cleverness. I easily think that I can figure things out on my own. I can easily fall into the trap of trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps, independent of any help from God (who gave me any smarts or abilities I may have in the first place).

I want to go into every situation I face in the coming year with zero preconceived notions, and with both ears wide open ready to listen to those around me and most importantly, to hear the voice of God. I want to hear God’s still, small voice. I want His wisdom to guide my decision-making this year.

Secondly — and surely entwined with being “dumber” in the coming year — I want to be weaker. I want to be slow and prayerful to react to the chaos around me (sometimes called “life”). I can easily fall into the trap of trying to work things out by myself. I can easily fall prey to thinking that by trying harder, re-doubling my efforts, or “cleaning up my act”, I can earn some sort of special favor with God. I can easily think that I can just “make things happen.”

I don’t want to solve problems by myself. I want to be dependent on God’s strength, His wisdom and His promises. I want to rely on those God has placed in my life and partner with them. I want to hear their wisdom and make use of their talent, if possible. I am inherently flawed. I know this. I am genetically sinful. Again – on this side of heaven – I will never be free of those characteristics. I am weak. That’s why I need Jesus and His grace, His strength, and the power of the Holy Spirit. I need it… desperately.

So, it may be counter-intuitive, but I want to be dumber and weaker in 2015. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll catch a glimpse of God working… and He will get (and deserve!) all the glory.

Three Minutes…

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Take three minutes to read this before going to church. Then worship the One who gives this amazing gift…

From One Way Love by Tullian Tchividjian:

“Jesus came to liberate us from the weight of having to make it on our own, from the demand to measure up. He came to emancipate us from the burden to get it all right, from the obligation to fix ourselves, find ourselves, and free ourselves. Jesus came to release us from the slavish need to be right, rewarded, regarded, and respected. Because Jesus came to set the captives free, life does not have to be a tireless effort to establish ourselves, justify ourselves, and validate ourselves.

“The Gospel of Jesus Christ announces that because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak. Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose. Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one. Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary. Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail. One way to summarize God’s message to the worn out and weary is like this— God’s demand: “be righteous”; God’s diagnosis: “no one is righteous”; God’s deliverance: “Jesus is our righteousness.” Once this good news grips your heart, it changes everything. It frees you from having to be perfect. It frees you from having to hold it all together. In the place of exhaustion, you might even find energy.

“No, the Gospel of grace is not too good to be true. It is true! It’s the truest truth in the entire universe. God loves us independently of what we may or may not bring to the table. There are no strings attached! No ifs, ands, or buts. No qualifiers or conditions. No need for balance. Grace is the most dangerous, expectation-wrecking, smile-creating, counterintuitive reality there is.

“Grace is a bit like a roller coaster; it makes us scream in terror and laugh uncontrollably at the same time. But there aren’t any harnesses on this ride. We are not in the driver’s seat, and we did not design the twists and turns. We just get on board. We laugh as the binding law of gravity is suspended, and we scream because it looks like we’re going to hurtle off into space. Grace brings us back into contact with the children we once were (and still are)— children who loved to ride roller coasters, to smile and yell and throw our hands up in the air. Grace, in other words, is terrifyingly fun, and like any ride worth standing in line for, it is worth coming back to again and again. In fact, God’s one-way love may be the only ride that never gets old, the only ride we thankfully never outgrow. A source of inexhaustible hope and joy for an exhausted world.”

———

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.

I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. (Galatians 5:1-6, The Message)

He’s The One…

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I was prompted to read 2 Kings 6:8-22 yesterday morning. It’s the story of Elisha the prophet predicting the attacks that were happening to the army of Israel. Because of Elisha’s predictions, the Israelites had the upper hand. The enemy was so incensed by this that he sent an army of assassins to kill Elisha. If Elisha was dead, the enemy’s superior forces would then be able to overrun the Israelites.

The enemy found where Elisha was staying, surrounded the city at night, and when Elisha’s servant saw what the predicament was, he panicked. But the man of God, Elisha, told his servant to look to the hills, where, after Elisha prayed, he saw the “hills full of horses and chariots of fire.” Elisha says, “Don’t worry. The army that fights for us is greater than the one against us.” (v.16)

Of course, that brings great comfort when we couple it with New Testament passages like Romans 8:31:

“If God is for us then who can be against us?”

and 1 John 4:4 which says,

“Greater is the one in you than the one who is in the world.”

God fights for us. He’s been fighting for us since the beginning of time and has gone to incredible lengths (understatement!) to fight for us and redeem us.

I was then somehow reminded of the song borne out of the Brownsville Revival of the last 1990s, “Enemy’s Camp.” We used to sing it with great enthusiasm. It was a fun song to sing. It went like this:

Well, I went to the enemy’s camp and
I took back what he stole from me (x3)
I went to the enemy’s camp and
I took back what he stole from me

You know
He’s under my feet (x6)
Satan is under my feet.

However, in thinking about those lyrics, I’m not the one who went to the enemy’s camp. Jesus did. He took back what the enemy, Satan, stole. He’s the One who is the victor! He is the One who has Satan under His feet, foretold in the first prophesy in the Bible, as God curses the serpent in the Garden after the Fall:

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
(Genesis 3:14-15)

I am saved… I am protected… I am redeemed… I am comforted… by the Victor — Jesus — and His army.

God’s Not Fair

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God is not fair. Did you know that?

Wait. What? Surely God is fair! Above all things, God is fair.

Not really. God is just. That is for certain. He is a God of justice. You can bank on that. Everyone will get what they deserve. Well… sort of.

But God is not fair. Jesus tells a parable to illustrate and, you can find it in Matthew 20:1-16.

You may already know it…

A wealthy landowner needs workers and he goes to the marketplace to find some. He hires a group in the morning and puts them to work, hiring them at a standard wage. He evidently discovers he needs more workers, and so he goes back to the marketplace and hires some more at midday. He even goes back near the end of the day and hires more workers. As the day ends and it’s time for everyone to be paid, the landowner pays everyone the same amount. Those hired at the emd of the day get paid the same amount as those hired when the day began. Of course the workers hired at the beginning of the day cry bloody murder at the owner’s unfair treatment. They thought they worked more and should be paid more. Sounds fair, right?

Jesus says this is how the Kingdom of God is! Grace is above all things, unfair. It is radical. It is offensive. It makes people angry.

I remember a friend of mine talking about her alcoholic father who mistreated her mother and was a horrible, absentee dad. She had a deep-seeded, seething anger that worked its way into other aspects of her life. She told me one day that she hoped her dad never got saved. She said it just wouldn’t be fair after all he did to her mom, her brother, and herself. He deserved Hell.

She’s right. He does. We all do.

Thank God we serve a God who is not fair.

“All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.” — Eugene Peterson

Christians Need Good News, Too

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Brennan Manning says in The Ragamuffin Gospel…

“The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness. Thus the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace.”

This really resonates within me. Maybe that’s because I don’t think we – as Christ-followers – truly understand that. I don’t think we’re taught that. I don’t think we’re shown that.

Instead, we are taught or shown the steps to Christian growth. We are given the different stages of Christ-likeness. We are told that we aren’t sinners any longer. We are encouraged to do… to try… to strive… toward acting like Jesus. We even have worn bracelets, reminding us What Would Jesus Do as we go about our day… all in an effort for us to produce something or someone that looks like Jesus.

In the process, we inevitably fail. We don’t live up to the standard that is set before us. We, exhausted with broken hearts and crushed spirits, find we can’t live up to that standard.

Thankfully, that is where a sinner like me finds God with open arms.

Understanding the Gospel of grace helps me to grow in grace. When I truly grasp what has been done for me and understand the Good News that God loves and accepts me, it sets me free from the unspoken requirement by the those around me to get better. As Manning says above, repentance is a natural byproduct of a sinner who truly grasps God’s love for him or her. As Romans 2:4 says, it is His kindness that leads to repentance.

We say that we know that God is love. We’ve read that in the Bible. (1 John 4:8) What I don’t think we truly grasp is that God loves and accepts each of us in such an unconditional, unchanging, and unrelenting way. As Pastor Shane Lilly says, “God loves you and there’s nothin’ you can do about it!”

Truly understanding that love and acceptance has the power to set the captive free, even if the captive is a Christian like me caught up in a world – even a Christian world – of performancism.

Out of a grateful heart pours the Spirit of Jesus into a world straining to find meaning, purpose, and peace.

And that Spirit is love and grace.

Every. Single. Day.

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Guilt trips. That’s what we all are on. Guilt trips.

There are thousands – no millions – of Christ-followers who are walking with their heads down, ashamed of what they did last night, last week, or last year. They live their lives defeated, with guilt and shame hanging around their necks like a millstone, or worse yet, a grave stone.

What millions haven’t discovered is the freedom found in Christ. It’s freedom from our guilt and shame because of God’s forgiveness through Christ Jesus. It’s forgiveness from what you and I did last night, last week, and last year. As Christians, we know that. However, we don’t live like we do. Why? And why haven’t we grabbed hold of the freedom found in Christ?

Part of the reason is that we hear, week after week, what we must DO to live the Christian life. We are taught to DO this or DO that. Live like this; avoid that. 12 easy steps. 6 keys to Christian living. Try harder. Do more. Is there any wonder why we haven’t found freedom?

Plain and simple, it is not about what we do or don’t do; it’s about what Christ has done.

We are not only forgiven, but we are accepted. Exactly as we are. Exactly where we are. We sing, “Come As You Are” and revel in the thought that God accepted us exactly as we were when we initially accepted the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins. But I don’t think we grasp that He CONTINUALLY accepts us, no matter the pig pen we find ourselves in. We realize we can’t live the perfect life (which God requires, by the way) and we never will. And we end up defeated.

Because God gave the perfect sacrifice, His Son, His requirement for perfection was fulfilled once and for all. Not only for all of us, but for ALL our sin as well: past, present and future.

What about obedience? What about repentance? Won’t this unbridled, radical grace lead to spiritual laziness? Isn’t it a license to sin?

Hardly. Once this thoroughly curative grace is fully known and internalized, it leads to an ever-changing life. Once this unbelievable, unconditional love is realized… really comprehended… the inner life is changed and it is truly reborn. Once this come-as-you-are acceptance is discovered, the result is freedom. It is not the whip of an overbearing master that will change our hearts to follow Him. No, it is His kindness that leads to repentance. (Romans 2:4) It is His love that draws us to follow Him. It is His unconditional acceptance that leads us to stop looking for it elsewhere.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1a)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1a)

The Gospel is not just Good News for new followers of Jesus. It is Good News for you and me.

Every. Single. Day.

Think again…

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Do you think that God loves you more because of your devotions, prayer time, or obedience? Do you think He favors you more because of your “quiet time” or good deeds?

Think again.

He loves you because He is God. Love is who He is.

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. (Isaiah 64:6)

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. (Isaiah 49:15-16a)

And our response?

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Bathe yourself in God’s love for you today and worship Him.

Because He loves you.

(Despite what you did or thought last night, last week, last month, or last year)

#GoodNews

Scandalous

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I’ve often thought, “What is it like to be ‘a man after God’s own heart’, as King David was called by God? What qualities do you have to possess? Why was David called that by God?” (See 1 Samuel 13)

I ask those questions because, frankly, I want the same God-moniker. I want God to say that about me as well. But what’s it gonna take?

There are a number of wonderful qualities and characteristics about David, both before and after he became king of Israel: He is humble, brave, loyal, and zealous. He is an unrestrained worshipper of Elohim Yahweh, our transcendent, yet intimate God of the Universe. David is self-effacing, courageous, faithful, and faith-filled. He has an unrelenting passion to see God’s great name upheld at all costs.

And he is addicted to sin.

Wait. What?!?

Yep, just like you and me, David is addicted to sin. As Preston Sprinkle puts it in Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace For Us, “Within seconds, the man after God’s own heart turns into a man after the woman next door.” He, literally, can’t help himself. Like you and me, he heads down the slippery slope. (See 2 Samuel 11)

And yet, God declares him to be a man after His own heart BEFORE this scandalous episode (which continues by having her husband killed in war on Israel’s front lines). How could God make such a mistake!?! Or was David STILL a man after God’s own heart?

David was, throughout his life — through the victories and defeats… through the good, bad, AND ugly — desperate for God. He was desperate for God’s presence and power to show through his life. He was desperate for God to produce that humility, bravery, loyalty, and zeal in him. He was desperate for God to be preeminent in his life. He desperately wanted God to take center-stage, to be renowned, to be known in “all the earth.” (1 Samuel 17:45-47)

And God accomplishes all of this throughout David’s life, including this heinous episode of sin, adultery, murder, and deception. God didn’t turn His head during this time in David’s life, thinking, “He IS a man after my own heart… well… um… except for this time.”

No, God shows his unrelenting, scandalous grace to King David and to the rest of the world for the ages to come. It’s a grace shown in the bloodline of the Savior. Deceivers. Liars. Murderers. Whores. Prostitutes. Adulterers. These are the kind of descendents we would hide away! But in order to show to “all the earth” the grace and mercy of Jesus, God uses these ragamuffins to bring Good News time and time again, throughout the Old Testament, and ultimately, in the culmination of this checkered ancestry: Jesus the Christ.

As Sprinkle puts it:

“This is why your divorce, your addiction, your enslavement to porn, or years of sticking your finger down your throat to match up to some arbitrary standard of beauty can all be woven into the fabric of God’s plan of redemption. God doesn’t cause sin. He mourns it. He despises it. But through His gracious power, He’s able to use it. No one and no sin can outrun God’s grace. Charis (grace) has no leash.”

If you are continually desperate for Jesus and His grace, then you no longer have the label of adulterer, harlot, convict, failure, loser, or even murderer. You are a man or woman after God’s own heart.

And He is after yours.

The Only Hope…

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While reading my Bible and Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace for Us by Preston Sprinkle, I was thinking, and actually became overwhelmed. I am distraught and dismayed because I am becoming more and more aware of how sinful I really am. Seriously. I am SO selfish. I don’t naturally think of others first. I think about what I have to do. I think about my agenda first.

I am depraved. My mind wanders. I have trouble “setting my heart on things above”, as Colossians 3:1 says I should. My heart constantly wanders off course, settling on earthly, temporary things.

I find this somewhat astounding because I purposely try to surround myself with the things of God. I wake up each day and think about God. I ponder and study His Word. I memorize Scripture from time to time. I journal occasionally. I listen to Christian music (for the most part). And, of course, I faithfully go to church.

My little Christian checklist doesn’t seem to work.

I even work for a Christian non-profit organization and am surrounded by wonderful, godly people, also passionate for the things of God. We, along with the Body of Christ, serve the needy and as needs are met, God transforms lives. I witness that first-hand.

And yet, here I am, amazed at my depravity.

This is not false humility. I genuinely echo Isaiah in the temple of God, “Woe to me! For I am a man of unclean lips!” (See Isaiah 6:5) And like the apostle Paul, I cry out:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:24)

If I had to venture a guess, I’d say you’re not much different.

Thankfully, this question doesn’t have to hang in the air hopelessly, because Paul answers it immediately:

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (v.25a)

Do you hear the relief in those words? Do you see the exclamation point at the end of the sentence!?! It’s also Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 12 that give me more hope when he, with the Lord’s help, gets a revelation (the lightbulb comes on) about his “thorn in the flesh”.

Many scholars have spent considerable time theorizing on Paul’s thorn and what it might have been. Some have even supposed that it was his poor eyesight or that he was somewhat meek in stature. Somehow, I don’t think that was his “thorn.” Paul was possibly the most mature Christ-follower this planet has ever seen, so I don’t think he would have referred to a God-given malady, like poor eyesight, as “a messenger of Satan.” (2 Cor 12:7)

Although we’ll never know this side of heaven, I believe Paul’s struggle was more of his “inner life.” He, like all of us, struggled. He was faced with his sinfulness, but most of all, with his weakness. But because he knew he couldn’t handle “it” alone — whatever “it” was — he knew it was an opportunity for Jesus to shine and show Himself.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Corinthians 12:9b)

For me, that gives me hope.

It’s not about who I am nor what I am becoming.

It’s about who Jesus is and who (or what) He became for me and you.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1)

And finally:

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)

Love Bends Down

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“Grace always runs downhill. It always meets us at the bottom.” — Tullian Tchividjian

I was listening online to a sermon from Pastor Tullian when I heard that. It reminded me of a sermon series preached at my old church entitled, “Love Bends Down.”

I remember a lot of things about that series, one of the most memorable being a mini-drama with young woman in the congregation portraying the woman caught in adultery and so beautifully showing the joy and freedom that woman must’ve felt after she encountered Jesus and the forgiveness she received that day. (See John 8:1-11)

I’ll always remember that sermon series. Maybe it’s because, as the series title conveys, God’s love always bends down… down to where we are… down to the pit we find ourself in… when we find ourself at rock-bottom.

It’s a beautiful picture of Jesus bending over to the woman, bending down to spit in the dirt to heal the blind beggar (John 9:1-12), and bending down to touch each of us and make us whole.

Pastor Tullian also said, “God is promiscuous in distributing His love and grace.” So true. He lavishes His love and grace on all of us, not caring about the pretenses of rank, status, income, education, position, race, gender, or any other way we might determine who is deserving and who isn’t.

We all don’t deserve this grace and love. None of us.

Yet Love bends down…

… Down to where you and I are today.

 

(Incidentally, the series was based on a wonderful, enlightening book by Michael Lodahl, When Love Bends Down)