Author: Ragamuffingospelfan

The Love of God

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I once read a book called The Autobiography of God. Basically, it’s a treatment of the parables as told by Jesus that each tell one truth about God.

One chapter was called The Prodigal God. Some of the definitions of prodigal that I’ve found are “having or giving something on a lavish scale” or “spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant.”

That’s how God loves me. That’s how God loves you. Not in a tidy and contained manner. It’s like trying to contain Niagara Falls in a thimble. It’s like trying to capture the ocean in a shot glass.

It’s way more than we can contain or hold. That kind of love can’t help but overflow and touch what’s around it. That kind of love can’t help but touch those around us as we receive it and let it pass unhindered through us.

I myself can’t love anyone on my own. I don’t have it in me. But if I am a conduit of God’s love, then people will know love through me. Not just any love, but true agape love that can only come from God that is unconditional and everlasting.

I want as much of that kind of love as I can handle, and then some. I want it to overflow onto everyone I meet and everyone I see until they know it, too.

Even so, let it be, Lord.

God’s Hall of Fame

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“Your name may not appear down here in this world’s hall of fame
In fact you may be so unknown that no one knows your name
The Oscars and the praise of men may never come your way
But don’t forget God has rewards that he’ll hand out some day
This crowd on earth will soon forget when you’re not at the top
They’ll cheer like mad until you fall and then the praise will stop
Not God, He never does forget and in his hall of fame
Just by believing on His Son, forever there’s your name
I tell you friend, I wouldn’t trade my name however small
That’s written there beyond the stars in that celestial hall
For all famous names on earth or the glory that they share
I’d rather be an unknown here and have my name up there” (Jim Caviezel)

That’s the goal — to have my name up there and to have other names up there as well because I wasn’t ashamed to speak the name of Jesus. Hopefully, that’s the goal of every believer because any fame down here is fleeting and and remembrance of your name will soon fade and you will be forgotten.

I remember a pastor saying once that at best this earthly life is like an airport terminal. It can be warm and inviting. It can have all sorts of amenities and comforts. It may be the best airport terminal you’ve ever seen, but that doesn’t mean you want to live there forever. It’s just a stopping off place.

Heaven’s our real home. We’re just pilgrims and strangers here. It’s easy to forget when 99 out of 100 voices tell you that this life is all there is. But the one that speaks a different word is the one who goes to prepare a place for you that will be your forever home.

Blessings > Difficult Times

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Perspective is everything. I remember reading somewhere that some people out there would just about kill to have one of your bad days. They’d love to have your bad job or your small house or your simple blessings.

It’s easy to forget that a vast portion of the world’s population doesn’t have access to clean water. Many people have food insecurities. If you have a roof over your head and more than one change of clothes, you are considered wealthy compared to many around the globe.

My old boss used to say that any day without a toe tag is a good day. I agree to a point. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord for those who are in Christ Jesus. That’s not a bad day. The Apostle Paul said it’s good for Him to go away and be in heaven, but it’s also good to stay for the sake of those who need mentoring and discipling.

But I get the gist. To be alive is a gift. We do God a disservice when we take our daily breath for granted or don’t give thanks for waking up every day. We forget that to be still living means that we still have a purpose and our lives still have a meaning.

To be alive means that we’re still called to be disciples who make disciples. We’re still students in the school of Jesus. We still have much to learn and much pruning and chiseling before we look like Jesus.

Times are hard, but don’t let them make you forget your blessings. You can still count them one by one. You can still give thanks for each of them by name.

To Love Is to Tell the Truth in Love

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“Anyone who sets himself up as ‘religious’ by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world” (James 1:26-27, The Message).

I’ve been watching videos on Youtube from a guy named Becket Cook. He’s a former homosexual who is now a kind of apologist for orthodox biblical Christianity. One of his tenets is that it is not truly loving to affirm anyone in their sin, whether it be in the LGBTQ camp or pre-marital cohabitation or any other sinful lifestyle. He say that the most loving thing you can do is to tell someone the truth in love.

If I believe that the Bible is true, then I must live by it and I must also be willing to abide by what it teaches when it comes to alternate lifestyles and behaviors. I must come from the place where I view my sin just as seriously as I do anybody else’s. Homosexuality or adultery is no more sinful than my pride or my judgmentalism. It’s all sin to God and we are all called to repent.

To love is to be compassionate as Jesus was. He reached out to those who were marginalized and excluded from society. He never turned away anyone who sought Him out in faith. But He also always told them the truth. He never compromised for the sake of acceptance and peace. In fact, many people quite following Him because He spoke the truths that made them uncomfortable and convicted.

We need both. Compassion and conviction aren’t mutually exclusive. We need to hold to our convictions in the midst of compassion toward those in need but we also need to be compassionate when we’re sharing our convictions about what we believe and why.

The point is not to change an aspect of the person. It’s not to get a liberal to vote conservative or to get a gay person into a straight marriage. It’s about redeeming the whole person with the whole gospel. That means that every part of the person needs to be transformed and renewed. The gospel isn’t about making bad people good or making good people better but about making dead people alive.

We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard. We all need to repent and to be forgiven. We all need a Savior who will pay the debt for those sins that we could never hope to pay. We all need a righteousness that we can’t produce on our own but has to come from somewhere else. We need Jesus.

Broken and Spilled Out

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I think every single believer will at some point go through a breaking process. It will feel like our lives have been irreparably shattered into a million little pieces that can never be put back together in any semblance of order. It will feel like the end, but for God it will only just be the beginning.

To be broken means that God can use our lives, our very selves, to minister to many more than we could have dreamed of had we remained whole. Most likely, we would have remained self-reliant, self-seeking, self-focused, never really acknowledging our deep need for God.

To be broken is to come to the place where the only way you can look is up. And that’s where you find God and realize He’s the one who was looking for you first. He’s the one who made the first move to make you right with Him. You only chose God because He chose you first.

The beautiful part with God’s blessings in terms of baskets of bread and fish is that there is always more than enough. There will always be an overabundance. Not only did all the 5,000 (and with the addition of women and children closer to 15,000 or more) get fully satisfied with food, but there were twelve baskets left over, one for each disciple. One tangible reminder of God’s more-than-enough favor for each of those disciples to carry with him.

Remember your life is being broken for a purpose beyond yourself and anything you could dream or imagine. God is up to something good.

Two(Ish) Year Anniversary

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Today, I got an email from CarMax congratulating me on my one year anniversary. On this day in 2024, I purchased Clifford the Big Red Jeep, my 2018 Jeep Wrangler with a little over 29,000 miles on it. That was a good day.

Sometimes, you need little reminders of God’s blessings to tide you over. Honestly, if I were to really pay attention and take note of each blessings, I’d be too busy thanking God to have any need for anything to tide me over. I’m literally overrun and overwhelmed by blessings, most of which I routinely take for granted.

But Clifford is a visible, tangible reminder of God’s goodness to me. Many times, I’ll be anxious over God’s ability to meet a need or to help me in a certain area and then I’ll see that red Wrangler and recall how faithful God was in that moment and how He will be faithful again.

Also, I am reminded of God’s faithfulness through family and friends who genuinely love me and want God’s best for me. Sometimes there are days when they will believe for me when I can’t believe for myself. Hopefully, I will return the favor when they’re in times of weakness.

The best reminder of all for me is the promise that every single morning God’s mercies are new. Just like that hot now sign at Krispy Kreme means there are new donuts, every new sunrise is a billboard for God’s new mercies. Every new day filled with birds chirping and flowers growing is a gift. I’m sure God’s mercies are abundant enough so that one dose could last me a lifetime, but still I get fresh new mercies right out of the oven every single day.

That Lamentations 3:22-23 promise is one that I’ve read countless times, yet the more I let it sink in and soak in the more I am blown away by the magnitude and the generosity of the promise. I pray that everyone who reads these words will be just as blown away by this one of many promises by God to us. And may we all claim this verse every single day.

Walking in His Strength

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That’s what I’m learning. It’s not about gritting my teeth and living the live of faith in my own strength and willpower. That never lasts. Eventually, I give up or burn out. It’s not a sustainable way to live.

But if I could call on the life of Christ inside of me, then I could live the way Christ lived. The Bible says that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the indwelling Christ.

Also, if we could tap into the life of Christ within us, then it would be possible to forgive the unforgivable and love the unlovable. We could demonstrate a lifestyle and character totally opposite to what the world considers normal and would certainly grab their attention.

I’m reading a little book by Watchman Nee called Sit. Walk. Stand, based on Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. It starts from sitting and resting in the finished work of Christ, then walking in the power of the resurrected Christ within us, and finally standing firm in the victory He has won for us.

I think if we read the Bible less as a how-to manual for behavioral modification and more as a love letter from our heavenly home and a guide for tapping into the heavenly resources God has placed within us through His Spirit, we could see radical transformation not only in our lives but in the lives of those around us.

Here’s a link to the book in case you want to pick it up. It’s a quick read at 77 pages but it is packed full of wisdom and godly insight:

Everything’s Going to be OK

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I’ve been thinking a lot about a video I saw recently of Tim Keller shortly before he passed away from cancer. Basically, he said that because of the resurrection, everything is going to be OK.

Obviously, he didn’t mean that he was instantly going to be healed from cancer and live the rest of his life in luxury and comfort. He meant that even if the cancer took him (which it did) that the resurrection means that death would not have the final word.

I love that. Because of the resurrection not only of humanity but also of creation, we know that the story doesn’t end with pain and suffering. It doesn’t end with joblessness and financial hardships. It doesn’t end with broken families and broken marriages.

It’s not a pie-in-the-sky fantasy that avoids the reality of the real world. It is a promise from Jesus Himself that He is preparing a place for us to live with Him forever that’s more amazing than anything we could ever dream of or conceive in our wildest imaginations.

That’s the hope we cling to when nothing seems to get better or to change. That’s our song that we sing as we walk through death’s darkest valley. That’s the joy that won’t let go of us when we’d rather give up than keep getting up every morning and fighting a seemingly losing battle.

It’s that amazing grace that had led us safely thus far and the same grace that will lead us home one day. Everything really is going to be OK.

Suffering and Speaking Out

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“If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:13-18, The Message).

The old adage says that we should preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary use words. According to 1 Peter 3, you will need to use words. It won’t be enough that people see you living differently. They need to know why you’re different. Why it is you don’t live like almost everybody else, and especially why you don’t react like the rest when bad things happen.

Suffering is the school where God prepares us to be ready. How we handle hard times is what gets people’s attention, but the logical next step is for them to want to know more. If all you have are your actions, then the message is unclear. If all you have are your words, you’re hypocritical. You need both.

As I was watching a podcast video earlier today, it struck me that there are no throwaway parts to your story or your life. God uses all of it. God works all of it for good. The mess becomes the message. The test becomes the testimony. God’s redemption of you becomes the billboard of God’s grace to get people’s attention and make them curious about what is unique about how you choose to respond rather than to react.

There’s always a reaction and a response. We react to a diagnosis of cancer or to losing a job or to going through financial hardships. People see how we react and ask how and why we acted that way. That’s where the response comes in. That’s where the Holy Spirit gives us words to tell people about the hope we have that makes us joyful rather than bitter.

Lord, You promised that suffering is not an if but a when. It will happen. As we walk through trials, strengthen us and enable us to endure with grace. May others see You at work in us, so that they’ll be drawn to want to know more not about us but about You. Give us the words to say that will glorify You and point others to You as their ultimate hope and salvation. Amen.

Another Song Stuck in My Head

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I have a virtual jukebox playing in my head just about all of the time. There are rare moments when a song of some kind is not playing in the background of my brain. Even when I’m praying or trying to be silent and still, a song will sneak in and refuse to go away.

Last night, I had trouble getting to sleep. This time, the song in my head was an old worship song from back in my Fellowship Bible Church days. It was written by Jason Ingram and Reuben Timothy Morgan and was one of my favorites back in 2009 or so.

I suppose if I have to have music playing in my head, it might as well be worship music. At least I don’t have to worry about being inappropriate when I blurt it out randomly somewhere in public. I’m posting the lyrics so you can be edified and hopefully have something better to have stuck in your head when you can’t sleep some night:

“You are good, You are good
When there′s nothing good in me
You are love, You are love
On display for all to see
You are light, You are light
When the darkness closes in
You are hope, You are hope
You have covered all my sin

You are peace, You are peace
When my fear in crippling
You are true, You are true
Ever in my wandering
You are joy, You are joy
You’re the reason that I sing
You are life, You are life
In You, death has lost its sting

Oh, I′m running to Your arms, I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

You are more, You are more
Than my words will ever say
You are Lord, You are Lord
All creation will proclaim
You are here, You are here
In Your presence, I’m made whole
You are God, You are God
Of all else, I′m letting go

Oh, I′m running to Your arms, I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign
I′m running to Your arms, I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

My heart will sing no other name
Jesus, Jesus
My heart will sing no other name
Jesus, Jesus
My heart will sing no other name
Jesus, Jesus
My heart will sing no other name
Jesus, Jesus

Oh, I′m running to Your arms, I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign
I′m running to Your arms, I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

My heart will sing no other name
Jesus, Jesus
My heart will sing no other name
Jesus, Jesus”