You are not your past. Whatever you’ve done or has been done to you is not you anymore.

You are not your failures, fiascos, and mistakes. You are not the screw-up that some people have said you were right before they threw up their hands and walked out on you for good.

You are not what your fears speak into your mind on the darkest nights when you’re at your weakest.

You are not what you imagine people think of you. You don’t have to run after their approval anymore.

You are who God says you are. You are what He has declared you to be. You are as deeply loved and accepted as you will ever be in Christ.

Jesus saw you at your very worst during your very lowest point when you were as far away from God as you could possibly be and set His love on you. He fell in love with you then, so don’t you think He loves you at least that much now?

You are not inferior to anybody. You don’t have to apologize to anyone for who God made you to be. You are equal with anybody in God’s sight.

You are good enough and you are pleasing to God right now because when He sees you, He sees Jesus and is pleased. He is overjoyed with you and dances with delight over you. If you’ve repented of sin and come to place your faith in Christ, these things are true.

You are just as righteous as Jesus. You have EVERYTHING you need right now in Christ. It is His good desire to give you the Kingdom and to see you walk in the victory He won for you.

As you see more and more the lies of the devil for what they are and more and more the love of Jesus for as deep and wide and high and long as it is, your addictions and sins fall away. You are a new creation. The old self has already passed away.

Believe it. Live it. Savor it with every breath God gives you. You are the BELOVED and nothing will ever change that. EVER!

Amen and amen!

I get caught up in my rights as a believer and in trying to fit God into my plans and get Him to bless what I’m doing. I want God’s stamp of approval on my goals and aspirations. I have the mentality that most other American Christians have that if I am faithful, God owes me a good marriage and family, success, good health, long life, etc.

Then again, that goes against Biblical Christianity. I am not entitled to anything. In fact, it’s not even about me giving up my rights and choosing to go where God leads. It’s about recognizing that I have no rights in the first place to give up and understanding that if I call myself by the name Christian, I have no say in where God tells me to go or what He tells me to do.

I am God’s slave.

I know most translations will say servant, but that doesn’t quite capture the radical nature of who I am in Christ. It’s too soft. I am a slave, completely owned by God and completely at His mercy to do with me what He will, whenever He will. My job is to obey. Period.

The good news is that in slavery I have freedom. The good news is that when God calls, He enables me to do His bidding. I’ve always liked the old saying that God doesn’t call the eqipped, but He equips the called. And if Jesus is in me, then I have everything I need to be all that God has called me to be, according to 2 Peter.

We will either be slaves to sin and addictions or we will be slaves to Christ and His love for us. Anything else is a myth. So I choose this day to be Christ’s slave and to serve Him only.

What (or Whom) do you choose? And if you don’t decide, you’ve made your choice anyway. Choosing not to serve Christ, even if you’re not overtly choosing the other way, is still choosing sin. That’s just the way it works. So I urge you in view of all God in Christ has done for you and how much He loves you, to choose Him every single day.

Amen and amen.

”My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everyone you know. Everyone you see. Everyone you talk to.  He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement” (Patricia, a character from Joe Versus the Volcano).

Too many times I have sleepwaked through my life and been on autopilot. I have not really been awake or alive and have missed out, wondering why my life is so dull and why nothing ever seems to happen. God is calling me, along with the rest of His children to wake up to what He is doing in the world He made.

When we are awake, truly awake, we will be astonished and amazed on a daily basis. To borrow a favorite acronym from my church, our response will be one of W.O.W. as we are left With Out Words. We will see God in everything and see that everything really is a direct result of His power holding it all together and His grace keeping it from falling apart.

We need to be a people saturated in God and in His word. We need to be a people who are recognized for having been with Jesus. We need to be known as a people who live and love radically, whose lifestyle matches what comes from our lips. We need to be a people who have learned to see ourselves through the Word of God.

I heard a great definition of obedience. Obedience is when the Word that is implanted and dwelling in you comes out and manifests itself through acts of love, compassion, and kindness. Obedience shouldn’t be a have to done out of fear or duty, but a get to done out of joy and love. The fact that we get to be a part of the amazing work God is doing should amaze us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful.” Lord, let your light so shine on us that we are transformed into something beautiful that will leave those around us WithOut Words. Fill all of us with all of You until we can be You to the world and be the change that the world needs to see.

Amen and amen.

My grandmother, Iris, grew up in an orphanage. I knew that part. What I didn’t know was the reason she was there– her mother had her out of wedlock and neither her real father or her father who was married to her mother wanted her. In fact, she spent the first 12 years of her life in that orphanage not even knowing she had brothers and sisters. She often said she grew close to the Lord when she would go into the bathroom and pray for someone to come get her and take her out of that place.

She always said, “I’m a child of the King.” Whenever anyone would point out a group of livestock grazing on a hill, she would say, “My Father owns all those cattle.” Her strong faith came out of an identity that was securely rooted in what God said about her, not what her earthly father or anyone else said about her. Her confidence in her final destination of heaven came from trusting the ultimate Promise Keeper. Even when alzheimers took away everything else from her, it never could touch her faith.

If you’ve trusted Christ for salvation, you are equally a child of the King. No one has the right to tell you who you are or to define you by your past or your mistakes, because your Father has spoken the final Word on the matter, and that Word trumps anything and everything else. No one can change that or ever take that away from you.

When you’re all alone in your bathroom, crying out for God for deliverance, He’s there with you. He’s holding you in an embrace so secure that nothing can break it and whispering words in your ear that not the devil, not the world, not even you, can refute. He’s telling you that He’s your Abba and that He’s very fond of you in that moment, in the middle of the mess you’ve made or the mess you’ve found yourself in. Know that you are never beyond His reach and no situation is ever too hopeless.

He specializes in healing broken hearts, mending broken lives, and turning catatrophies into miracles. He sees not who you are, but what you will become. In fact, His promises are so sure, that you can already begin to thank Him for them now. He’s promised that you will be more than you ever dreamed possible and that He can make your life such a testimony of His grace and power that the world will be left without words.

Rest in His love for you and let His love transform your ashes into beauty, your pain into rejoicing, and your sorrow into dancing. Let that love spill out onto those around you and you walk with His feet and reach out with His hands and be His face to them. That’s what a child of the King is.

Amen and amen.

As one astute observer once said, “You can pick your nose and you can pick your friends, but you can’t wipe your friends underneath the seat.” How true. How very true. Except maybe in the case of true friends, you don’t pick them. God does. In my case, I’ve always been surprised to see who God places in my life and what that person has to teach me.

True friendship is about believing the absolute best about people, even when they have stopped believing it themselves. It’s about believing in them when they can’t believe in themselves anymore.

True friendship is about hoping the best for your friends, even when they’ve lost hope. It’s about you being their strength and sometimes carrying them when they can no longer walk.

True friendship is about doing everything in your power to see them moved toward healing and wholeness and freedom. It’s your job to see them looking more like Christ and to be open to them doing the same for you. Because you need just as much healing, wholeness, freedom and Christlikeness as they do.

True fiendship is about never, never, never, never, never, never giving up on your friends. Even after they’ve blown that 10,000th chance, you still offer the 10,001st, because God has offered way more fresh starts to us than that. Way more than we can count, in fact.

Ultimately, being a friend is about being Jesus to that person. For as long as he or she is in your life, you are to be Jesus to him or her. I’ve always loved the saying that goes, “A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.” I truly believe that the song you sing to that person is one that reminds them of who they are in Jesus and how He sees them.

So that’s what I am striving toward in my friendships. I pray you do the same. Because ultimately we need each other and the world needs to see us loving each other with the love of Christ. That’s the kind of radical living that will change the world.

Amen and amen!

I think two little words can change your whole outlook. Those two little words are this: thank you.

I’m learning that there are two ways to look at my life. One is to see all the things I don’t have and how I am still single and dateless and to be bitter and discouraged. The other way is to see what I do have in my family and friends. In other words, the perfect antidote to all my bitterness and discouragement and despair is an attitude of gratitude.

Learning to say, “Thank you” reminds me that I am not owed or entitled to anything, but that everything that I have and everything that comes my way is a gift. Even the air I breathe and my ability to breathe it is a gift. Every single heartbeat God gives me is a gift. The fact that I am not in hell right now is because of grace, and grace is the ultimate gift. I am utterly and completely dependent on God, so when anything good happens to me, all I can say is “Thank you.”

Learning to say, “Thank you” helps me to see God in my world. Everytime I choose to focus on the gifts, I can’t help but notice the Giver. Ultimately, I see that the greatest gift God gives me is Himself– all of Him dwelling inside me and transforming me from the inside out.

Finally, learning to say “Thank you” keeps me looking past the immediate present and the tyranny of the urgent to what is eternal and what really matters. I can even look at my suffering and setbacks and losses with the view that God only takes something away from me to give me something way better, either in this life or in Heaven. God works everything in my life and uses everything and everyone in my life for the good purpose of making me more like Jesus.

God has promised me that one day I will be finally and fully conformed into the image of Jesus. So thank you, God in advance!

May you learn the power of two little words to radically change the way you see your world. Start saying “Thank you” and see how your outlook is improved. If only for the fact that God is with you and for you and on your side, you have all the reason in the world to be thankful.

Amen and amen!

I’ve never like it when some one starts by saying, “Well, we’ve got some bad news and some good news. Which do you want first?” I’d say no to the bad news and “Yes, please” to the good. But I’ve discovered some of both about me.

First, the bad news is that I am not nearly as cured as I thought I was. I still fall back into old ways of thinking, those fears and doubts that are always nearby, waiting for a weakness in my defence to come in. I still have worst case senarios running through my mind and I still have fears that a particular friend is going to see me as I am and give up on me. The good news is that I am in the most capable Hands possible. I’m in the Hands of the Healer (to use the title of one of my favorite worship songs).

The bad news is that I can still think and say some rotten things. I can be completely selfish at times and hardly give a thought to God or His kingdom. I can put on a show and raise my hands in worship, all the while feeling numb inside. The good news is that Jesus has promised me that He will finish what He started in me and that I will one day look just like Him. And even on my worst days, I still catch glimpses of Jesus’ character being formed in me.

The bad news is that I am a sinner capable of anything you can imagine. I am no better than any rapist or murderer and it took as much of Jesus’ blood to cover me as it did them. The good news is that Jesus came to me. That He chose me and called me by my name and saved me. And that is the ultimate gospel, or good news, that trumps and bad news any day of the week.

Your bad news may look grim, but the good news is that God walks with you through your bad news and sees you come out on the other side more whole, more healed, and more like Jesus. He is not about to abandon you or give up on you. And that’s the best possible news you could have.

Amen and amen.

Yeah, I’ve pretty much decided that I will never be hip or trendy. By the time I catch on to what people are wearing, they are wearing something else. It’s much easier to be comfortable and nerdy, I think. Also, way less expensive.

I also was reminded of something. Every time I face disappointment or disilusionment, I can be frustrated or I can see in it a chance to die to myself and my own desires, plans, and ways of doing things. Not that those are bad, but they often stand in the way of God’s desires, plans and ways of doing things. Learning to die reminds me that I’m not in control, but God is. It also reminds me that this world is not home, but at best like a clean bus station.

So I’m learning to die.

When that someone I’m interested in is not interested back in the same way, it’s a chance to die.

When God’s promises for me seem delayed yet again, it’s a chance to die.

When my timetable is once again frustrated, it’s a chance to die.

I can look at so many setbacks and failures and challenges as obstacles in my way or as chances to die. It all depends on whether I factor God into my situation or not. I can see life as being all about me and get really bitter really fast, or see life as about God and His kingdom and be excited that I get to be a part of it.

Maybe it’s not about how I can fit God into my life and into my own story, but how God will fit me into His story (His story=history. Get it? See how clever I am? Ok, that was lame) It’s about God setting all things right again and how I get to be in on that.

So look at each of your problems and frustrations as a chance to die. See them as God’s way of growing you up a little. See them as a way you can look a little more like Jesus every single day.

Amen and amen.

I’ve always heard that diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Seems to me like that  makes for some pretty one-sided conversations. . . “So, Diamond, how’ve you been? Still sparkly, I see. . . .”

I was thinking about diamonds in a different way during my homeward trek today. My thoughts were all about how we are called to be like Jesus, but then my thoughts took a random detour (as they are wont to do at times). Perhaps, we each as individual believers reflect a different aspect of the character of Christ.

Each of us reflects an aspect or facet of Christ. Someone I know who feels led toward being a counselor reflects Christ as Wonderful Counselor. Someone else might reflect Christ as loving Shepherd. We each show a different angle of Who Christ is.

Even better, different people who look at us pick up different traits of Christ in us, depending on where they are in life and what they are going through. Like a diamond reflects light in a variety of ways, depending on how and where the light strikes, we reflect the glory and image of Christ in a variety of ways, depending on where we are in life or what we are doing.

Ideally, we collectively as  a body of believers give a complete picture of Christ. Unfortunately, due to to infighting and factions and shallow faith, we show off a very fractured picture of Christ and wonder why not that many people are drawn to Him. As we learn to live in a community of shared burdens, transparency, and vulnerability, the image of Christ we collectively display becomes more clear and the more people will want to be a part of what we have in Him.

I think weird thoughts sometimes, I know. But in this case, I truly think this was a picture from God to help me understand my part both as an individual believer and as a part of the body of Christ to show forth His glory and be His hands and feet and face to the world.

We are like diamonds. And what do diamonds do best? They shine and they sparkle and they dazzle. So may it be with us.

Amen and amen!