Author: Ragamuffingospelfan

I’m So Proud of My Humility

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Humility is not a character trait to develop, it’s the natural by-product of being with Jesus” (Louie Giglio).

Humility is an odd character trait to me. It seems that inevitable it’s the one thing that once you’re aware of having it, you lose it. At least for me. I almost always become prideful of how humble I am. It never fails.

But true humility is one of those things you don’t notice about yourself. It’s something you notice about others and hopefully they can see it in you. After all, it’s generally never wise to go around bragging about how humble you are.

But what Louie Giglio said makes sense. If you spend time with Jesus, His life starts to flow into you. The next thing, you’re exhibiting Christlike characteristics without even being aware of it. I remember an old married couple who had been together for so long that they even started to look alike. They’d even finish each others’ sentences because they knew the other so well as to know what that person would most likely say next.

Jesus is the only truly humble person ever. The rest of us show humility from time to time, but the vast majority of us still struggle with pride in one form or another. We either think too highly of ourselves or we go around with a false modesty that shames anyone who tries to give us compliments.

But the more I attune my ear to the voice of Jesus and set aside time for Him to speak to me, the more I find that I will live like He lived and be more and more like Him. At the same time, I may or may not be aware of all these changes. Hopefully, I will be too focused on Jesus to notice.

Lord, instead of me asking for humility, I’m asking that you’d draw me nearer to You. Let Your life so seep into mine that Your words flow out of my mouth and Your actions proceed from my hands and feet. As I wander, gently lead me back to my first love and keep my eyes fixed on You so that I can learn Your ways and Your heart. Amen.

The Joy of the Lord

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“The stronghold of the Christian faith is the joy of God, not my joy in God. . . . God reigns and rules and rejoices, and His joy is our strength” (Oswald Chambers, Run Today’s Race).

i think too often we read that and take it to mean our joy in the Lord. Or at least I do. I somehow managed to go through most of my life reading the verse about the joy of the Lord being our strength and came away thinking that I had to conjure up or manufacture joy in the Lord to be strong. Anybody else? Just me? Cool.

I think we forget that the Lord has joy in His children, not for anything we are or anything we bring to the communal table, but simply because we are His. He has joy in what He has made. He has greater joy in what He has bought and paid for and redeemed.

To go through life in my own strength is like pushing my car from place to place instead of driving it. God’s strength is the fuel that helps me to become what He created me to be and to go where He’s called me to go. If I decide I don’t need that strength, I’m getting as far in life as I can push my car — not very far.

If you’re feeling spiritually weak, maybe the best thing for you and I do to is to rediscover God’s joy. I’m thankful that holiness isn’t something I work up in my own power. Sure, I strive for holiness, but not in my own strength. If only we could remember that God’s joy is endless and never runs out, we could always find our strength to live in the center of His will.

Lord, overwhelm us with Your joy today. Help us to lean on Your strength as we seek to please You and to do Your will in every area of our lives. Make us a people who are known for their contagious and overwhelming joy that can only come from You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Every Time

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents” (Luke 15:10, NLT).

The Message says that there’s a party in heaven every time even one sinner gets saved. I get that.

I know lately I find myself overjoyed when I read about any celebrity who comes to faith or someone who is coming out of a Muslim or LGBTQ or pagan background. I love that the gospel is for anyone and everyone, and there is no one who is beyond the reach of God’s grace.

I love hearing testimonies of being delivered by the power of Jesus. That never gets old for me (and I hope it never will). It always brings me ecstatic joy and reminds me of my own early days when I first experience the joy of my own salvation. It reminds me that God is still able to seek and to save the lost.

I do a lot more praying for people’s salvation than I used to. I think maybe it’s because I appreciate the gift of salvation way more than I did when I was younger. I also realize more and more that there are no political answers to what are ultimately spiritual problems.

At the root of every war and of every act of violence and every racial epithet is sin. We are all born into sin and we all need a Savior. We are not good people who need to be better or even bad people who need to be made good but dead people who need to be made alive.

That’s why I do what I do. If even one single person is in heave because of me posting these blogs every day for almost 16 years, then I can say it was worth it.

I hope you will join me in praying for lost people. If you want, you can comment on the people you are praying for or you can always text me at 615-556-5850. I’d love to pray for your loved ones as well. God is still good all the time, and all the time God is still good.

Adoring the Depths

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“When we cannot by searching find the bottom, we must sit down at the brink and adore the depths” (Matthew Arnold).

Sometimes, it’s good to enter into prayer not with praises or petitions but simply silence. Sometimes, we need to sit at the brink of all that God is and adore the bottomless depths that are beyond our understanding. We need to remember that God isn’t just a bigger, stronger, faster version of us. He’s totally other and completely holy.

Holy means set apart. It means not like everything else and definitely not like us. If God hadn’t chosen to reveal Himself to us through creation and ultimately through Jesus, we never could have known Him at all. That’s something to keep in mind when ever I’m tempted to feel oh so clever for my faith and for figuring God out.

To think that God is infinitely bigger than anything we can conceive of in our minds and yet He became an infant is staggering. To think that the same God who orders billions of stars and planets and galaxies and knows each and every one of their names yet is mindful of me is more than I can comprehend sometimes.

The ACTS model of prayer is always helpful. It stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. All those are important and necessary parts of prayer. But remember that it all starts with adoration.

Prayer of the Day

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“I cannot know the future and my view of the past is biased—so thanks that, by your Spirit, I can know you right now, Beginning and End.”

It’s easy to get caught up in fantasizing about the future or obsessing about the past. Either way causes you to miss your life right now in the moment. I agree to a point about my past being biased, but my past is also where I can count the ways God has shown up in my life. I can trust for the future and live in the present based on God’s past faithfulness.

I do believe that where God is speaking to me is where I am — not where I want to be or where I wish I could be or where I should have been by this point. God has each and every person in a specific place for a specific purpose in His plan for the world. It does no good to waste your present waiting for the next breakthrough or blessing when you might have an opportunity for obedience right now. You might be missing a word from God right in this moment.

Thank You, God, that You still speak to Your people. Help me to be still and silent long enough to hear Your voice and to discern that it’s You speaking. Help me not only to hear You but to obey what I hear. If there is anything that’s not pleasing to You in me, help me to see it and confess it so that my channel to You will be wide open. Help Your children to love You well by how they love others and strive to be holy as You are holy. Amen.

Things You Learn from Social Media

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’m not advocating for increased social media usage. Is it addictive? Probably. Is it mostly a waste of time? Most of the time. Can you learn useful and edifying things from social media? Absolutely.

The medium itself isn’t good or bad. It all depends on the person using it and the people who are creating the content. One such person fairly blew my mind with this little nugget of truth.

He was speaking about how a tree grows. Honestly, I don’t give much thought to it since I am not an arborist (or whatever you call people who make a living studying trees).

He said that trees grow in two directions: upward and downward.

The tree grows downward into the deep richness of dark soil, developing a system of roots that can sustain the tree. The tree also grows upward toward the sky. That part wasn’t the mind blowing part.

The part I’d never thought about is the tree has to have the roots first before it can bear the fruit. If a tree has no root system, it won’t last. It will topple over at the first gust of wind or hard rain. A bit like those who hear the gospel but never go deeper with it to combine it with faith.

So many of us want instant success. We want immediate gratification. We don’t understand that for successful vertical growth we often need to go deep into the dark and the damp and the dirt to develop a foundation of roots that can sustain upward growth. We need to be grounded in the truth of God through His Word and His work in our lives to make us more like Him.

So much of what God does in us is something that is in secret. Not even we can see all that God does in us. I seem to remember posting about how God can do 10,000 things in us and we are sometimes only aware of 3 or 4 of them at any given time.

So much of what seems like God’s silences or inactivity might just be working underneath to nurture those roots and give us the foundation we need for upward spiritual growth. We are becoming the kind of people God can then use to bless multitudes when we in our own power could bless no one because we have nothing of worth to offer.

Remember God is always at work whether you can see it or feel it or not. God is always keeping His promises to finish what He started in you and in me. Trust the process even when you can’t see it or see the results right away. Know that He will be faithful to do what he says because He is a promise keeper.

Prepared for the Rains

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

This is yet another post that I borrowed from a friend on Facebook. I will of course give credit and also include a link to the original post:

“The Ark was built before the rain.

That is the part men skip.

Noah did not wait until the sky turned black.

He did not wait until water came through the door.

He did not wait until his wife was scared, his sons were frantic, and the neighbors finally believed him.

He built while the world looked normal.

That is faith.

Not vibes.
Not panic.
Not last-minute religion.

Obedience before proof.

“By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark…”

Hebrews 11:7 KJV

Most men wait until the flood is already in the house.

The marriage is already cold.

The son is already distant.

The daughter already stopped talking.

The body already broke down.

The money is already gone.

Then they want God to help them build.

But the ark is not a panic project.

It is what a man builds because he believes God before the weather changes.

Build before the rain.” ~The Biblical Man, X

I’m reminded of what my pastor said on more than one occasion. Sometimes, when God’s call comes, you won’t have time to get ready. You’ll have to be ready. That means that you learn the disciplines that allow you to be mature enough to handle the call of God or else it will destroy you and hurt many others in the process.

Here’s the link:

The Great Paradox

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“The great paradox of life is that those who lose their lives will gain them. This paradox becomes visible in very ordinary situations. If we cling to our friends, we may lose them, but when we are nonpossessive in our relationships, we will make many friends. When fame is what we seek and desire, it often vanishes as soon as we acquire it, but when we have no need to be known, we might be remembered long after our deaths. When we want to be in the center, we easily end up on the margins, but when we are free enough to be wherever we must be, we find ourselves often in the center.

Giving away our lives for others is the greatest of all human arts. This will gain us our lives” (Henri Nouwen).

I think Jesus said something similar. He said those who seek to save their lives will lose them but those who lose their lives for His sake will find them. I do believe that when we die, we can only take with us that which we’ve given away. Primarily, we give away our faith when we share it with others so that they can also know Jesus and have eternal life.

It does seem like a paradox that if you seek after fame and fortune and wealth, you end up missing out on so much and not even getting what you were after. Or worse yet, you get all the fame and fortune and wealth and find out that it didn’t satisfy you like you thought it would.

But if you seek after God’s kingdom first, then everything you need is added in. When you deny yourself and take up your cross and put others first, you find utmost fulfillment and you discover your true self in the process. It’s almost the complete opposite of the way the world works.

It seems to me that life is more enjoyable when you’re less focused on yourself. The old saying goes that humility isn’t thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. I have found in those moments when I was absorbed completely in something other than me I made my best memories.

Lord, help us to live for You first, live for others second, and trust You to take care of our needs at every moment of our lives. Teach us that it’s better to give than to receive and that we are never more like You than when we are giving ourselves away for Your sake. Amen.

Oh Gaze of Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

It’s a fairly recent song but in many ways it has the feel of an ancient hymn. Fun fact: one of the co-writers was in the folk group Peter Paul and Mary. I was today years old when I found that out:

“Oh refuge of my hardened heart 
Oh fast pursuing lover come 
As angels dance around Your throne 
My life by captured fare You own 

Mot silhouette of trodden faith 
Nor death shall not my step be guide 
I’ll pirouette upon my grave 
For in Your path I’ll run and hide 

Oh gaze of love so melt my pride 
That I may in Your house but kneel 
And in my brokenness to cry 
Spring worship unto Thee 

When beauty breaks the spell of pain 
The bludgeoned heart shall burst in vain 
But not when love be pointed king 
And truth shall Thee forever reign 

Oh gaze of love so melt my pride 
That I may in Your house but kneel 
And in my brokenness to cry 
Spring worship unto Thee 

Sweet Jesus carry me away 
Form cold of night and dust of day 
In ragged hour or salt worn eye 
Be my desire, my well spring lye 

Oh gaze of love so melt my pride 
That I may in Your house but kneel 
And in my brokenness to cry 
Spring worship unto Thee 

Oh gaze of love so melt my pride 
That I may in Your house but kneel 
And in my brokenness to cry 
Spring worship unto Thee 

Spring worship unto Thee 
Spring worship unto Thee” (James Mason / Karen Gold / Noel Paul Stookey)

Reading through the Bible in 2026

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’ve loved reading through the Bible every year for a while. I love how the story of redemption is woven throughout the entire story of the Bible. Right now, I’ve finished 2 Kings and seen God’s people completely mess up their inheritance and get deported from their promised land. I’m seeing Jesus set His face like flint toward Jerusalem to pay for the sins of His people.

As much as I want to dismiss these children of God who keep sinning and rebelling against God, I have to admit that they remind me a lot of me a lot of the time. I confess that I am drawn away by lesser loves instead of pursuing God wholeheartedly. I have worshipped at the altars of the gods of culture instead of at the throne of the one true God.

I love how God has always preserved a remnant of faithfulness throughout history. God kept the family line alive that led to Jesus. God has preserved His true Church throughout the ages despite all the efforts to destroy or corrupt it. When any of us makes it to heaven, we can’t say that we made it because of our faithfulness to God but because of His faithfulness to us.

I’m using the Bible in a Year reading plan through the Bible app, but there are many other ways to read through the Bible. You can even start in Genesis 1 and read straight through, as I have done in years past.

The Bible is the only book I’ve ever read where I see different applications and implications from the text, not because the Bible has changed but because I have. The meaning is still the same, but it hits me different now than it did 20 or 30 years ago because I’m hopefully more mature in my faith.

I love how more and more people are discovering the Bible and finding saving faith within its pages. Any time I read about anyone who has decided to follow Jesus, I celebrate with all the angels in heaven because it’s still a miracle every single time it happens to anyone, whether that person is famous or not.

Thank You, Lord, for Your perfect Word. Help us to love it like You do. Help us not only to read it for information but to be renewed and transformed by it. Help us to not only be readers and hearers but doers and to live out and obey what we read. Amen.