blessings

Advent Thoughts

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I love Advent. Even though I grew up in a Baptist tradition that didn’t include Advent, I am so glad I have found the joy and anticipation that Advent brings. Christmas isn’t a day on a calendar or even a season; it’s an event that changed absolutely everything.

I love the fact that God Almighty became a fetus inside the womb of Mary. I love that He was born to Mr. and Mrs. Nobody in a barn trough and grew up in Nowhere and chose other nobodies and nowheres to be His disciples and first missionaries. I, too, once was a nobody and an outsider who didn’t fit in. In some ways, I still am.

I love the fact that Jesus walked in my shoes and felt all my feelings and saw the same kinds of troubles and pain that I see. I love the fact that He walked my road perfectly and offered up to God for me the kind of obedience I could never even dream of, much less carry out.

I love the fact that God still has a heart for the orphan and the widow, the homeless and the outcast, the broken and the ignored, and all those who don’t fit in anywhere. I love the fact that God has His affections set on me and an loved me with an unquenchable love that I can’t lose or destroy or run off.

I love the fact that while people are human and will eventually fail me and I will fail them, my Jesus never will. While everyone I know, including me, is fickle and changeable as the wind, Jesus is the same in all my yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows, and forevers.

I love the idea that we are celebrating this Christmas season the impossible becoming possible, the unthinkable becoming reality, and all lost causes finding hope again. I love to think that God did this to show that yes, Love would go that far.

I love most of all that today after I forgot again the reason for this Season, You reminded me. You always do. I’m always running away and You’re always waiting for me with open arms. I’m always breaking promises and being weak and denying You, but You are always ready and more than willing to forgive and to finish this great work You’ve started in me.

These and so many other reasons are why I love Advent.

Unclean

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

For the better part of two days, something that Mike Glenn said at Kairos has been running around in my brain.

He related the story of how God showed Peter a vision in which a whole assortment of food came down from heaven and God said, “Eat.” Peter said, “But that’s unclean and against my religion (I’m paraphrasing a bit here).

God said, “What I have made, don’t you dare call unclean.”

Did you catch that? Let me put it this way. “God said, “I made you, and what I have made, don’t you ever call unclean or ugly or second-rate or worthless or no good. Don’t you dare put down the one I made, because when you do, you’re insulting Me.”

God made you. That gives you great worth. After you fell into sin and brokenness, He redeemed you. That makes you priceless.

Hear this. You are not what you own. You are not what you do. You are not what you drive or where you live or what you wear.

You are not the names people call you or the names you call yourself. You are not your past or your failures or your shortcomings.

You are not your usefulness or your abilities or your net worth or your talent level. None of these things.

You are who God says you are. You are His child, Ransomed, Redeemed, Living Temple, Saint, Saved One, and, my favorite, Beloved.

I love what Henri Nouwen says. Prayer is listening to the One who says good things about you. The One who calls you Beloved and invites you to His lap time and time again.

The Creator God who made all that is knows your name. He knows every deep, dark secret you keep and every promise broken and every lie told and every intention unfulfilled.

And He loves you anyway.

Because of what He did sending Jesus to the cross for you in your place, you are holy, righteous, blameless, innocent, perfect, and His forever.

You are unclean no more. You are the BELOVED!

Going Deeper

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I’m not one to call myself a prophet or to claim I receive prophetic words from God. I think He speaks to me, like He did today, but I’m not the one to judge whether what He said to me was prophecy. The word was “Go deeper.”

That’s what I believe the Spirit of God is telling the people of God: “Go deeper.”

You can stay in the shallow end of your faith and stay comfortable and have one foot in the kingdom of God and one foot in the flashy, multimedia world. You can stay where the water is only ankle-deep and where what you say doesn’t have to match up with how you live.

But You will always live defeated. You will always be a victim and never a victor. Your worship will always be dead, your prayers cold, your Bible just words on a page. You will always be ruled by fear and doubt. You will always give in to temptation and never see deep healing in the deepest , darkest places of your heart.

Going deeper means that maybe you have to sacrifice the hip and trendy crowd for the homeless and the broken crowd. You may stop hanging out with the oh-so-cool artsy crowd and go to the outcasts and the hurting and the shamed.

Going deeper means trading in a feel-good sentimental kind of love for a selfless sacrificial kind of love. It means that you give without any expectations of ever getting back. It means you are willing to lay down your life in a million tiny deaths each day.

Going deeper means that you say YES to Jesus, no matter what. You go where He says go, you give what He says give, you love who He say to love, and you do what He calls you to do.

I will be the first to admit that I have been a casual fan of Christ far more than I have been a follower. But that’s what going deeper means– to stop being a sideline fan who roots for the Home Team and be a follower who gets your hands and feet dirty and messy, but find out that those are the very hands and feet of Jesus touching, reaching, and healing a broken world through you.

This isn’t my normal positive, encouraging blog. This is my blog that says that if you want to know more of this love that is deeper than your sin, wider than your understanding, and higher than your imagination, you have to surrender.

As always, I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody who can save anybody. I’m just one beggar telling other beggars where to find the Bread of Life. I’m a ragamuffin who has joy because my Abba Father calls me His beloved.

A Prayer for My Friends Tonight

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God, I bring my friends before you tonight. I know that You know what they need better than I do and even better than they do.

God, they are burdened and heavy-laden with work and with school, with spouses and with romantic relationships, with family and friends.

Grant them Your perfect peace tonight and enfold them in Your arms so that they can feel You near to know that You are just as near when they can’t feel You.

Grant them the joy than transcends circumstances and events, good or bad. Joy that can only come from You and that other people can only attribute to You.

Give them wisdom in their friendships. Bring people into their lives who will draw out the God-colors in them and inspire them to hunger and thirst after righteousness and to above all yearn for Jesus more than life itself.

Remove the people who hinder them being who You called them to be. Lord, even me, if I am a hindrance to Your work in their lives. Give them the grace to let the people go who You take out of their existance.

Above all, give them a single passion and vision: to follow hard after You, regardless of what it costs or what anyone else around them thinks. May they see only You and love only You. May their love for others be Your love flowing through them.

Lord, cause Your face to shine on them and be gracious to them. Take them to the lowliest people and let them be Your hands and feet to those who will never be able to repay what You do to them through my friends.

I pray for success and prosperity and good fortune for my friends. More than that, I pray intimacy and a deeper, wilder love for You, even if it comes at the expense of success and prosperity and good fortune.

Thank You for my friends. May they know how grateful I am. Much more than that, may they know each and every day and all through the night how You love them and how fond You are of them and how You call them beloved and how You are their Abba Father. May they each hear the sweet sound of You singing with joy over them in the deep waches of the night.

That’s my prayer for them tonight. Amen.

In Everything Give Thanks

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“Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

In everything give thanks.

In sunshine or in storms, give thanks.

In good times and in bad times, give thanks.

In joy or in sorrow, give thanks.

When you’re surrounded by friends and family, give thanks; when you’re alone even in the midst of a crowd, give thanks.

When you’re welcoming new life into the world, give thanks; when you’re saying your final tear-stained goodbyes, give thanks.

When everything is going your way, give thanks; when everything you do turns into a fiasco of epic proportions, give thanks.

When God brings people into your life who bless and encourage you, give thanks; when people give up on you and turn their backs on you, give thanks.

When you’re walking in faith and believing strong, give thanks; when you can’t find the words to pray or even the faith to believe, give thanks.

Give thanks, not for everything, but in everything. Give thanks not for the circumstances you’re dealing with, but in them.

Give thanks that God is working in all these things for the good of those who love Him. Give thanks that there is not one single trial that He can’t turn into gold.

Give thanks if only for the fact that you woke up this morning and drew the next breath. Give thanks if only for the fact that God saw you on your worst day and thought you were worth dying for. Give thanks that He send Jesus to die for you and take your place for the punishment all your sins and failures deserved.

In everything give thanks.

Let thanksgiving be your lifestyle and gratitude be your attitude.

In everyhing give thanks.

 

More About Blessings and Such

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For the record, I thought about calling this blog “Mo Better Mo Blessings,” but decided against it. Be thankful for that.

I had some more thoughts about blessings earlier today when I should have been paying more attention to the sermon. That’s actually where some of my best ideas for blogs come from. Shhh, don’t tell anyone, okay?

Some blessings are only found through suffering and trial and can’t be found any other way.

Some treasures are only found along the road through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but they turn out to be some of the dearest treasures you will ever find.

Sometimes, the words God speaks to your heart in the midst of great pain are the words that turn out to be life and light and healing. Those are the words you remember most and hold most deeply in your heart of hearts, for those are the ones that go deep and speak to the most hidden, secret parts of you.

Some joys born out of sorrow are the ones that last with you the longest. Long after the storms cease and the suffering ends, these joys remind you like the rainbow of God’s goodness and His faithfulness.

Sometimes worship means the most to you when it costs you something. David once said, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord that which cost me nothing.” Sometimes, the cost is tears. Sometimes, the cost is your time, your talents and your treasures. In some places, the cost of worship may very well be your life.

Hold dearly to these lessons learned in the dark. Treasure the blessings found in storms. Never let go of the words God speaks to you in the midst of your suffering. Those are what will carry you through to the end.

And may you always hear in the night the voice of your Abba singing and rejoicing over you in the night as He does every night.

 

Blessings for 2011 (So Far)

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“‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?” (Laura Story)

Sometimes, blessings from God don’t look like I think they should. Sometimes they don’t come wrapped in prosperity or popularity. Sometimes they come wrapped up in heartache and hardships. Sometimes they look like anything but blessings on the outside.

I had a friend pass away recently after battling brain cancer for 2 years. That doesn’t seem like a blessing on the surface.

My grandmother fell and broke her hip a little over a week ago and has a long road of recovery ahead of her. That certainly doesn’t look like a blessing.

I’m not saying that death and hardships are blessings, but that blessings are wrapped up in them for those with eyes of faith to see them.

I see blessings. I’m thankful to be reminded that this life isn’t forever and we’re not meant to stay in this imperfect, fallen, broken world. I’m thankful that while God chooses to heal us in this life, that every time He heals completely when someone crosses into eternity.

I’m thankful that I woke up this morning, healthy and happy. I’m thankful that I had access to clean water, shelter, clothing, and transportation, because so many people don’t. In fact, from a global perspective, having all these things make me wealthy. Even though I never considered myself rich, I am.

I’m thankful that God puts people in my life that sometimes I don’t truly appreciate until they are no longer there or until they are unable to give the way they once did. I’m learning to thank God every single day for these family and friends who made me who I am today and who I can never, ever hope to repay.

I’m mostly thankful that I know Jesus is still in control. I’m thankful that one day He will set things right. One day, He will wipe every tear from our eyes. I like to think that God turns all our tears into diamonds that Jesus sets in our crowns that we lay at His feet.

I’m thankful for all these blessings that came through trials and tribulations. I’m thankful that after all the suffering and heartache and troubles end, that the blessings still remain.

Thank You, God.

Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given

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lifeofthebeloved

“During the meal, Jesus took and blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples: Take, eat. This is my body” (Matthew 26:26).

I’m in the middle of another Henri Nouwen book and I am loving it. He more than any other writer (except for maybe Brennan Manning) always seems to speak to where I am right here and now.

He says, “To identify the movements of the Spirit in our lives, I have found it helpful to use four words: ‘taken,’ ‘blessed,’ broken,’ and ‘given.'”

I had never thought about it that way before. I never looked at Jesus breaking the bread at Passover and made an analogy to my own life.

We are taken (or chosen) by God who loved us from the start. We are blessed by Him with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. We are broken by our own sin and the broken and marred world we live in with so much poverty, injustice, and inhumanity. We are given to be God’s hands and feet to bring healing and justice and compassion into the world.

I read somewhere that my life is loaves and fishes. Remember the ones that Jesus used to feed the 5,000? In and of myself, I can’t do much. But if I am blessed and broken and poured out, God can bless so many more through me.

News flash: God takes and uses broken lives, scarred hearts, screwed-up pasts, and promises left unfulfilled. He can use anybody. In fact, He more often than not prefers the outcasts and nobodies and failures to be the ones to turn the world upside down (see the 12 disciples for examples).

Lord, may I be taken by You, Who chose me before I was born and gave me the name Beloved, and blessed with as much of You as I can stand. Break my heart for the things that break Yours and then give me out to those in need.

PS The book I’m reading is Life of the Beloved. Expect more blogs to come out of this. I’m not even halfway through. And, to throw in yet another shameless plug, go buy or download or pilfer or ingest this book as soon as humanly possible. It’s that good.

A Christmas letter to my future wife

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image

I’m still waiting for you. And did I mention the whole “not good at waiting” part? More accurately, how badly I suck at waiting? I’m getting better, but I am still very impatient 95% of the time. But I know that this waiting will not have been in vain when I meet you.

I keep thinking of our firsts– first kiss (obviously), first snow to hold hands and walk together through, first night in front of a roaring fireplace, first time we’re both snuggled under the same blanket. . . . so many firsts that are yet to come. The best part will be that we didn’t give up and settle, but held out and found out that miracles do still come true.

I am leaning to stop looking for you with my eyes, and look for you with my heart. I will look for you not through my own eyes, but more and more through God’s eyes. I want to fall in love with your compassionate heart and your tender spirit. Your beauty will be Jesus inside you shining through for the world to see. Or at least for those who have eyes to see.

Remember no matter what anyone tells you you are, you are a daughter of the King. You are royalty– a princess. Don’t let anyone ever treat you as less. You were worth every drop of Jesus’ blood not because of anything in you, but because Jesus set His heart on you and declared you worthy.

I think I am slowly but surely becoming the man who will capture your heart and be worthy of your love. I have bad days when I strive and fail and I have days full of grace when I am finally weak enough to let Jesus do it all. That’s all I can do.

I am thanking Jesus for you in advance and thanking you in advance for being faithful to Jesus and never giving up on me. I’ll be thinking of you a lot this Christmas.

Bedtime thoughts

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Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).

That’s it. Love God and love others.

But for you to love God, you have to know the reality that God already loves you. For you to love others as yourself, you have to love yourself. Ultimately, you can’t do it. Well, I will only speak for myself here and say that I can’t love God or anybody else, even me, on my own strength. I need Jesus in me, pouring out His agape love, or else I am empty and cold and love-less.

Sometimes, God calls you to love yourself as you love your neighbor. Sometimes, it’s easier to love someone else than to love that person you hang around with every minute of every day. That person who looks back at you in the mirror with accusing eyes that speak of all the impure thoughts, mixed motives, and selfish ambition.

That’s when you and I have to believe what God says about who we are over what we see and think and feel. As a friend of mine told me once, “What you think and feel will lie to you.” But God never will.

God is true. God is love. And God loves you.

And you have all the power of Christ that overcame the grave in you. You have His perfect righteousness that covers your own wretched self-righteous rags of filth.

So be free to love. Love God, love others and love you.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.