Winston Churchill said once in a speech, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever, ever, ever give up.” I think that may have been his whole speech, or close to it. And there’s a whole lot of wisdom there.

It’s never too late to stop trying to live up to everyone else’s idea of who you should be and start being yourself.

It’s never too late to have a dream and go and make that dream come true.

It’s never too late to forgive someone or to seek forgiveness from someone (there’s no expiration date on God’s forgiveness that He pours out on and through us).

It’s never too late to find love or to rekindle lost love or to just say, “I love you.”

It’s never too late to restore broken relationships and to remember that even when you’ve burned your bridges to ash, Jesus is the Great Bridge Rebuilder.

It’s never too late to stop playing religion and start finding and cherishing the heart of God for the world.

It’s never too late to take off the Sunday mask and be real.

It’s never too late to overcome an addiction or a stronhold or a sin habit, to turn around and put on godly habits as you walk away from sin and toward Jesus.

It’s never too late to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and to make other disciples as you go into all the world.

It’s never too late to say “Yes” to Jesus, even if you don’t always know the question.

Until you die, it’s never too late for any of these things. It’s never too late to find out that Jesus is all you’ll ever need and that He is the fulfillment of all your deepest longings and secret wishes and fondest dreams.

When you die, it will be too late. So live today while you still can and do what you can while you can. Make loving God and loving people your highest priority and you will get everything else right.

“So turn around you’re not too far
To back away be who you are
To change your path go another way
It’s not too late, you can be saved
If you feel depressed with past regrets
The shameful nights hope to forget
Can disappear, they can all be washed away” (Jonny Diaz).

I’m not God and I don’t pretend to be. Well, ok. Sometimes I do, but those are never good moments. I’m so very glad I’m not in charge of the world. So don’t look for Greg Almighty to hit theaters anytime soon (or ever). But I do have some things I would like to see if we lived in an ideal world:

Every animal would have a good home and no pet would ever be abused or neglected. If I could, I would adopt every pet from the shelter, even if it’s only so they could die with dignity in a loving environment and not in some cold, sterile building.

Starbucks would have a free drink night one night a week. And pumpkin spice lattes would be a permanent, year-round fixture on the menu. And people named Greg would always get a discount.

There would be no Sarah Palins or Nancy Pelosis, because quite frankly, they both get on my last nerve.

There would be no political parties and everyone who ran for office would have to have an actual plan and not hide behind their party’s platform and lip-sync the Democratic or Republican line.

There would be no politics. Or politicians.

No child would ever go to bed hungry or sick or alone. Every child would belong to a loving family that loved and nourished and rooted for him or her.

Every person who had more than they needed would give to those who have less than they need. Poverty would be history.

Every person would have access to clean drinking water and good medical care and opportunities to get an education.

McDonalds would always have the McRib on the menu.

All that talk about the ground at the foot of the cross being level wouldn’t just be talk. We would live it out and not play favorites or cliques. No one would feel excluded or left out or alone. No one would feel like they didn’t belong or matter.

Chocolate would be a health food. And by chocolate, I mean milk chocolate, the nectar of the gods.

I would have millions flocking to my blog and lavishing praise on my awesomeness. Ok, that part is a joke. I’d settle for hundreds of thousands.

I would believe what God says about me and live like I believed it.

It’s not enough to want things to change. We have to act. We have to be channels through which God pours out Himself to the world. Ghandi put it best. He said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”

I like the Sanctus Real song “We Need Each Other.” It’s a really good song with a catchy tune that gets stuck in your head. Plus, it’s true. We do need each other.

There’s a whole individuality vibe going on in this culture. It says things like, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” We’re supposed to be lone ranger-types and look out for number one.

While that’s bad in and of itself, what’s worse is that that type of thinking has invaded the American church. I can do the whole Christian life by myself if I just try harder and have a bigger to-do list. Of all the lies the devil has come up with, this is one of the biggest.

We do need each other. Every day. I need you to hold me accountable, to keep me focused on Jesus, to keep me kingdom-driven, and to keep me honest. After all, like Mike Glenn says, the first person you will lie to is yourself. To walk away from fellowship with other believers is to walk away from all that accountability. It’s foolish. You are setting yourself up for trouble.

So I am going to try to live more in community. I’ll try to seek accountability and to be authentic and genuine with fellow believers. I know that if I am to grow and mature in the faith, it won’t ever be on my own. It will be in the context of koinonia. I heard a good definition of that. It’s where the Jesus in me connects with the Jesus in you. It’s togetherness.

Oh, yeah. We all need God. To keep us going, to keep us sane, and to keep us alive. Jesus literally holds all our atoms together and keeps us from flying apart (read Colossians 1). We are dependent on God for everything all the time.

This is my declaration of dependence: I need God and I need you to walk worthy of Christ.

Oh by the way, if it is to be, it’s not up to me. I like this version better: “If it is to be, He is up to it.”

I have to confess something. I’ve always been envious of popular people. You know, those people who can talk to anyone at anytime about anything with perfect ease. The ones people seek out to talk to in a crowd.

I myself have never been popular. I was always the one at a party standing off in a corner looking awkward. I was the one hardly anyone talked to, and if they talked to me, the conversation ususally lasted until someone higher up in the social pecking order came along.

I’m not bashing popular people. What I am saying is that as Christians, shoudn’t we stand out rather than fit in? I am beginnning to understand that what really matters in life is not how many friends you have or who you know, but how well you love, especially when it comes to loving the unloveable and giving to those who can’t give back.

Jesus hung out with outcasts, whores, lepers, tax collectors and sinners. What society would call losers. If I claim to be a follower, shoudn’t I be seeking out the same crowd? I really don’t have answers this time. Just questions.

I’m actually okay with not being popular. I don’t have to be the life of the party. I just want to be faithful to Jesus, follow Him wherever He leads, and to be Jesus to every person I meet. Ususally, in this culture, if you take what Jesus said seriously and actually try to live it out, you will most likely not be popular.

I have a lot of unlearning to do. I have sought to curry favor with the in-crowd for so long that I have to learn to rethink in a new way. I have to put on the mind of Christ to be like Christ. It’s not easy, but following Jesus never is (and anyone who says differently is either lying or selling something).

So what’s it going to be? Popularity or faithfulness? But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

As you might remember, there was a fad a few years back with bracelets imprinted with WWJD– What Would Jesus Do? It seemed like just about everyone who called themselves a Christian had at least one (I had two!) It became another fashion accesory. In some ways, it was only that. I don’t mean to say that nothing good came out of it. I’m sure some did.

I now think that’s the wrong question to ask. It’s not “What would Jesus do?” but “What did Jesus do?”. Even better than that, “What does Jesus want to do through me?” I think that Jesus is calling us to reach out to the hopeless and hurting and broken and lonely and show them the love He showed us. He wants us as we go, wherever we go, to make disciples of all the people groups in every nation.

The criteria that Jesus uses to separate the sheep from the goats is how they treated Him in the guise of the poor and needy, the orphan and the widow. The least of these.

“Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:37-40).

What we did or did not do for the least of these is what we did or did not do to Jesus. That’s a sobering thought. I know I’m probably not prepared to face that assessment. I do really well for people who are just like me, who like me back. But loving the unloveable? Giving to those who can’t give back? Not so good.

The question of the night probably won’t fit on a braclet, but it’s this: : “In light of all that Jesus has done for you, what are you prepared to do for Him?” Anything less that all than I can do, all that I have, and all that I am is not enough.

I like this quote from former President Jimmy Carter. “My faith demands– this is not optional– my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Here’s a thought I had on Halloween. Yes, I am calling it Halloween and not Harvest Day. But that’s not really the point. Neither is the candy, but it really comes in a close second. Especially chocolate.

The point is this. There are Christians who are bashing Halloween and the people who celebrate it. How about instead of saying how horrible and wrong and evil Halloween is, we give people a good alternative instead. We show them a better way. A lot of churches are doing this and it really is a great opportunity to love people and point them to the truth.

Christianity in this culture has come to be synonymous with boycotting and condeming and bashing whatever we don’t agree with. We’re known for what we’re against. Here’s a no-brainer. How about showing the world what we’re for? Isn’t that way better than what we’re against?

I mean none of the things we’re against will last, but what we’re for (and that’s Jesus and the Kingdom of God and the love that showed itself on Calvary) is what is everlasting. I haven’t come close to figuring it all out, but I think I’m siding with Jesus on this one. How did he act? He loved people, especially if they were the outcast and downtrodden. He dined with sinners and whores and even those tax-collectors. He didn’t bash them, but loved them and showed them a better way. Actually, He showed them that He is The way.

If we’re going to be extremist and radical, why not show extreme grace and radical love. Not by condoning sin and sinners, but by hating the sin for what it does to people and loving the sinner. After all, love covers over a multitude of sins.

I’m not sure how this works in everyday life, but I do know that you don’t fight hate with hate. You fight hate with love. Hopefully, you can see God turn your enemies into friends and lost people into saved people and sinners into sons and daughters of God. Love does that, not hate.

So go grab some of that candy. While your eating your Mr. Goobar, remember that God told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. He told us to expose darkness, but we do that not by cursing the darkness, but being lights in that darkness.

So go out there and shine!

This is too good not to share.

God, thank You for being You. Thank You that You are in charge and I am not. Thank you for having every single molecule in the universe under Your control and every single moment under your Lordship. You are better than any words that I could possibly come up with to praise You.

Forgive me for hating on judgmental people when I can be very legalistic and pharasee-like (pharasaical? pharaseeistic? You know what I mean). Forgive me for condemning the spirit of greed in this generation while being envious of their possessions at the same time. Forgive me for reading books and always thinking that this person or that person really should read this part, when all along You meant it for me.

I am weak, but You are strong. So many times, I will listen to every other voice before I listen to Yours. I will go through stretches of my life where I barely give You a thought at all. Anything and everything in my life takes priority over You. But you love me still.

I have an amazing capacity to justify my own behavior and to elevate myself over others. Yet you gently remind me that I am still a work in progress and that while You love me, I stand at the cross on level ground with all Your children.

Bless You that tomorrow is a new day full of new mercies that never fail. Bless You that You have declared me sinless and righteous and one day You will make me just that. I am nothing, have nothing, and can give nothing but what You’ve given me.

Take my life as an offering and use it wherever, whenever, and however You want. All I have is Yours. All I am is Yours.

Thank You. Thank You! THANK YOU!

Amen.

I like grace. I mean I really, really like grace. I like the idea of it. I especially like being the recipient of it from other people and from God. I love it when I am able to see past my own pettiness and show grace to others as well, though it’s not as often as I would like.

My favorite definition of grace is this: “God’s riches at Christ’s expense.” It has been definited as “God’s unmerited favor.” I have also heard that grace is getting what you don’t deserve, while mercy is not getting what you do deserve.

Brennan Manning writes, “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” He also states, “To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

I think he is better than just about anybody outside the Bible at really grasping and defining and explaining grace. I know that there are consequences to my sin, but to think that grace covers the penalty and the punishment from God is sometimes overwhelming. Why should I be given grace? I can’t think of one good reason.

I do think we are given grace to show it to others. We can say, “This is what God is really like. He’s not out to get you. If He really wanted, He could strike every single human on the planet dead with a single thought. He woudn’t even have to say a word. He would be totally justified, because we are all sinners with desparately wicked hearts who fall short on a daily basis. But He doesn’t, and that’s grace.”

Honestly, most Christians suck at showing grace. We can give you a law and point to a verse that backs it up (whether that verse is used in its historical and cultural context is beside the point). If you don’t measure up, we are good at labelling you and condemning you and turning our backs on you. Not many people are really good at demonstrating the grace of God.

Lord, make me an instrument of your grace. You have shown grace to me too many times to count, starting at the moment of my birth to the point where You made me alive in salvation to even just this moment. Help me to love the unlovely and to be patient with those everyone else has given up on and to reach out to the lonely and the outcast in their plight. Help me to see Jesus in the face of the orphan and the widow, the poor and the leper. Help them to see Jesus in me as I reach out in compassion with a cup of cold water and my testimony of Your faithfulness.

Left to myself, I am cold and callous and unloving. Only You can love them through me. So thank you for your grace by which I stand and take the next breath.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.