confession

Reflections from Radnor Lake

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A friend and I met at Radnor Lake today and took one of its more scenic and challenging trails. Apparently, it was the road less traveled.

We met no living souls along the way, aside from a few curious deer and a couple of cardinals. After a day filled with city noises, it was nice to hear the quiet solitude of the forest and finally be able to hear my own thoughts.

It started raining halfway through the walk, and hearing the sound of the rain falling on the leaves of the trees above was hypnotic and meditative.

It was a steep climb, but it felt more than worth it. I almost felt like I was entering the inner sanctuary, close to the holy of holies, where you can hear God more clearly and see Him all around you.

Sometimes, you need to get away from it all. Most of what seems frantically urgent will still be there when you get back, but you will be better prepared to handle it.

Jesus had as much of a busy schedule as anyone who has ever lived, but He always took time to get away and be with His Father. Sometimes, it was early in the morning, sometimes at night. But He made getting alone with God a very high priority.

You will never have time to get to a quiet place with God. You will always have to make time, because you always choose to do what matters to you.

I’ll be the first to confess that I don’t make time nearly enough to really get to know God’s heart. I put so many other things before finding time to be silent before God in a quiet place.

May you and I be transformed by this living God into a people who hunger and thirst after knowing God more than anything else in this world.

Dumb Mistakes

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I remember vividly when I was a kid waiting for my sister. She took ballet and I would wait outside the building until her practice was over. One time, I had the genius idea and thought, “When she comes out, I’m racing her to the car.”

Lo and behold, she came out and I took off running. I didn’t stop until I sat down in the car. Then I looked up. I thought, “Hey, you’re not my sister. Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t our car.” It was probably one of the most awkward situations I’ve ever been in.

Maybe your mistake wan’t as funny. Maybe it was devastating or tragic. Maybe it ruined a friendship or even a marriage. Maybe you feel like you’re still paying for that mistake made so many years ago.

You’re not alone. Moses messed up royally. He got angry with God’s people and spoke as if he and not God were responsible for giving the Israelites water and helping them out of jams time and time again.

Then there’s David, who committed adultery with Bathsheeba, lied to and tried to deceive her husband, then finally had him killed. I think that qualifies as an epic fail.

The good news is that your story doesn’t have to end with failure. God offers forgiveness and a fresh start if you own up to what you did and are willing to change and go in a different direction.

I love what David wrote in Psalm 51 after he confessed to his own sin and repented of it:

“Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.

Scrub away my guilt,

soak out my sins in your laundry.

I know how bad I’ve been;

my sins are staring me down.

You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen

it all, seen the full extent of my evil.

You have all the facts before you;

whatever you decide about me is fair.

I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,

in the wrong since before I was born.

What you’re after is truth from the inside out.

Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,

scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.

Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,

set these once-broken bones to dancing.

Don’t look too close for blemishes,

give me a clean bill of health.

God, make a fresh start in me,

shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.

Don’t throw me out with the trash,

or fail to breathe holiness in me.

Bring me back from gray exile,

put a fresh wind in my sails!

Give me a job teaching rebels your ways

so the lost can find their way home.

Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,

and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.

Unbutton my lips, dear God;

I’ll let loose with your praise.”

All I can add to that is

Amen.

Fearing God

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 4 Comments

In the Bible, we’re told to fear God. Proverbs tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But just what does that look like?

I heard a beautiful illustration on what fearing God looks like from John Piper. He says it’s like being caught in the middle of a powerful storm, but watching it from a safe and protected place. You can still see the majesty and power of the storm and respect it, but not be in danger from it.

For those of us who have trusted Christ and chosen to follow Him with our lives, fearing God looks a lot lie that. We know God is still all-powerful, but yet He is all-loving at the same time.

Tonight at Kairos Roots, I heard it put this way. Fearing God means being in awe and even somewhat afraid of the God of almighty power, yet still trusting His heart and believing what He has promised toward us.

It means that God is not one of your priorities. He is your only priority and everything else gets rearranged around Him. It means that He impacts and influences every decision you make, everything you do, and everywhere you go.

Those who believe in God in an academic way will have different priorites than someone who knows and fears and loves God. The one will turn to God only as a last resort when every other measure has failed, but the one will always have a teachable spirit, ready to change even if it means pain or loss of pride or reputation.

Once again, I admit that I don’t have this fully figured out. I learn so much every day and have to unlearn so much at the same time. I see different aspects of faith and what God looks like when I’m around different kinds of people, so my view of faith and God is always getting bigger and deeper.

I do know that I for one choose to fear God, to have proper awe and respect for the Author and Creator of Everything, because that leads to wisdom that leads to a life that has purpose and meaning. I don’t know about you, but these days, I need all the wisdom I can get.

 

That Watershed Moment

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I will give you a scenario and then you can find out if you’re anything like me or if I really do need more pills. Here goes.

Tonight, I was debating internally whether or not I wanted to make the long trek downtown to work with the homeless at Set Free Nashville. Part of me wanted to go, but part of me wanted to not be bothered and stay home and veg.

The lazy part almost won. I had almost talked myself into not going, but then I went.

Guess what? The pastor was preaching to me. It was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. If I hadn’t gone, I would have missed out on a big blessing.

Maybe you’re in a place where you’re debating on whether or not to give up a Saturday to go serve meals to the homeless. Maybe you’re deciding whether or not to go to a Bible study even though you’re feeling wiped from a long day of work.

You will find every excuse not to go. You will have no trouble rationalizing staying and thinking of all the other chores you could be doing and/or all that rest you could be getting.

You might have a strange resistance to going and it will almost feel like you’re walking into the wind if you step out in faith.

I think that what you’re experiencing is spiritual warfare. The devil does not want you to go and receive that blessing, so he is trying his best to get you from going. Though sometimes you and I do just fine on our own for finding reasons not to step out.

One word: go. Get up off the couch, put down whatever suddenly seems so urgent and pressing, get in the car, and go.

I promise you will receive a blessing. You will receive a very precious word from God that you would have missed if you had not gone. You will serve, but find yourself receiving so much more than you give. You will find that you saw Jesus in the eyes of the least of these that you spoke to and served.

You will have the joy of knowing that God called you and you chose to obey and got to be where He was moving in power.

Go.

 

 

An Awesome Definition for Worship

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“Worship is extravagant love and extreme submission.”

I love that definition.

Too often, worship is all about singing songs. It’s all too easy to sit back and critique the song choices and musical styles and whether or not those around me are worshiping the “right” way.

In Nashville, it’s easy to let worship become all about the level of musicianship and charasmatic personality. It’s easy to manipulate a crowd into a frenzy if you’re talented enough, but that’s not worship.

Worship is extravagant love. I can’t help but thinking about the woman who poured the expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and then wiped those feet with her hair. That was more than inconvenient. That was extremely costly and humiliating. That’s worship.

It’s also extreme submission. It’s surrendering my own illusion of self-control and admitting that I have a desperate need for God. And it starts long before you enter the sanctuary and the church service and doesn’t end when you pass the exit doors on your way out into the parking lot.

Worship is not an event, but a lifestyle of saying, “Not my will, but Thine.”

I don’t normally do this, but I posted a link to a fantastic blog about the nature of worship that I ran across today.

http://allsonsanddaughters.com/2012/03/26/art-in-worship-join-the-conversation/

I challenge to you read it and let it soak into your very being.

If I’m truly worshipping in Romans 12:1-2 fashion and being transformed by the renewing of my mind and offering my body as a living sacrifice, then it won’t matter whether I’m singing the most current and trendy modern worship songs or the old, old hymns.

It won’t matter if there’s a rockin’ worship band, or a guy with a guitar, or an orchestra and choir, or just a piano and organ.

It will be worship. It will declare the great worth of God to the world.

After all, like the song says, it’s not about me. It’s all about You, Jesus.

My Confession Booth (Stolen from Blue Like Jazz)

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image

I love the fact that they kept the confession booth from the book entitled Blue Like Jazz for the movie of the same name. I also love the fact that it is a very non-religious Christian movie.

The idea behind the confession booth is not receiving confession, but in giving one. Sorta like this.

We confess that we’ve done a poor job of representing God and Who He is. We’ve made Him in our image and had Him hate all the same people we do, people whose sins we magnify and villify because those aren’t the sins we struggle with.

We confess that we’ve made our faith a means to a political platform and getting our man elected. We’ve made our faith a means to more effectively climbing the corporate ladder and making even more money.

We confess that while we look down our noses at unbelievers, we don’t look much different. Our vocabulary and our lifestyles are too much like theirs for them to take our message seriously.

We confess that we’ve replaced the holier-than-thous with hipper-and-trendier-than thous, and made faith an exclusive club that you have to dress the right way and know the right words and the right people to be able to join.

We confess that we’re so proud of knowing God and have forgotten that the only reason we know Him is because He first loved us and revealed Himself to us. We confess that without His revelation, we’d be completely in the dark, the blind leading the blind, banging our heads against the same stone walls.

We confess that for too long too many of us have been ashamed of this Jesus who saved us and wasn’t above being made a spectacle in front of the crowds so that we could have life better than we thought was possible.

We confess that we have tried to give bumper-sticker answers to complex questions and given people Bible band-aids for deep soul wounds.

We confess that we’re not perfect people. We’re not better than anyone else or more holy or more likeable. We confess that we are the worst of sinners who have found out what it means to be forgiven and free. We want you to know what that looks and feels like, too.

I confess that I need to re-read Blue Like Jazz sometime in the near future because the movie reminded me how much I didn’t remember from the book.

I confess that it is way past my bedtime and I will turn into a flesh-craving zombie if I don’t get to bed in five minutes, so GOOD NIGHT AND GOD BLESS!

Forgetful

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

I am quite forgetful sometimes.

Sometimes, I will walk into a room and forget why I went there. Sometimes, I forget I even had a reason for going to that particular room.

I’ve even intended to write myself a note to remind myself of something, only to forget what it was that I was supposed to write down.

I can go to a rousing worship event and be challenged and blessed and motivated and the next day forget when I get bogged down by the everyday details of life.

I can forget how blessed I am and become bitter and resentful of others who have what I think I need right now.

Most of all, I forget who I am and Whose I am.

I listen to the voices that tell me that I’m just not good enough and I’ve only been faking it and it’s only a matter of time before the people around me catch on and expose me.

I  forget that I am Abba’s child and that He is very fond of me. I sometimes feel like I am flunking the school of life and forget that in Jesus I have already overcome and I am more than a conqueror.

I need to be reminded of a Love stronger than death, stronger than my failures and my frustrations and my forgetfulness. I need to be reminded that even when I don’t feel God, I am still held in His everlasting arms.

I need to be reminded that God still works all things together for my good and that He will finish what He started in me.

I bet you do, too.

That’s why we gather together. To remind each other of how blessed we really are. To encourage each other and speak blessing and truth into each other’s lives. So that when my faith is small, you can believe for me, and when your faith is small, I can believe for you.

We need the reminder that we can’t do this life alone. That the enemy’s goal is to get me separated from the community of faith where I am alone and vulnerable.

The best part is that as prone as we are to forget, God is as gracious to remind us of just how big and strong and good He is.

Jesus Is Lord

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 7 Comments

I saw two sisters get baptized today. Both had waited a while after their salvation experiences to be baptized. I can relate to that. It took from the time I got saved at age 7 until I was 18 to get baptized.

Both had a similar testimony when asked to share their story. Both said, “Jesus is Lord.”

Those three little words say so much more than most 5-minute testimonies do.

It says that my life is not my own, for I have been bought with a price. I’m not the one in charge of my life anymore. Jesus is.

It says that if Jesus is my Lord, I take Him with me wherever I go and in whatever I do. Hopefully, that will make me think about some of the places I go and what I do, whether in public or private.

It means it’s not up to me anymore to make my life make sense and to get my messes cleaned up and my future all figured out. Jesus promised He would give us a hope and a future and never leave or forsake us and finish what He started in us.

It means that I won’t be ashamed of Him when it comes my time to speak up for Him. It means that I realize that those who ridicule and blaspheme Him need Him every bit as much as I do and are just as hopeless without Him as I once was.

It means that my question to whatever Jesus asks of me from here on out will always be a resounding YES.

It means that no matter how many times before that I’ve tried and failed to live right and follow Jesus and not get caught up in every other agenda, that Jesus’ forgiveness is still available to me and I still get another chance to start over.

It means that it won’t be me trying harder to do better, but knowing that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is in me and that my hope is Jesus in me,  transforming me daily into the person He always meant for me to be.

It means that everything else in my life must bow to His authority. My money, my time, my career, my politics, my relationships, and my life belong to Him and are His to do with whatever He wants.

It means civil disobedience if the government asks me to violate what I believe in and to always stand up for those Jesus stood up for– the outcast, the poor, the broken and the needy.

In some parts of the world, saying “Jesus is Lord” is signing your own death warrant. To choose Christ and not Allah or Caesar or Karl Marx is to be cut off from family and jobs and in many cases, to lose your life. But it means finding that the only way to truly save your life is to lose it.

That’s only some of what it means to say those three little words: Jesus is Lord.

 

 

Hugo: Finding the Key to Life

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“Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken” (A quote from the movie Hugo).

I really liked the movie Hugo. It’s about a boy who lives in a train station and who is extremely adept at fixing things, trying to figure out how to fix one particular machine and retrieve his father’s last message to him. It spoke to me on a deep spiritual level, which is rare for anything that comes out of Hollywood.

If you believe the Bible (and I do), then you’ve read the part where we’re called sinners. All of us. It means we’ve missed the mark. We’ve set aside God’s agenda for our own. We’ve lost our purpose and we’re broken.

We each have a hole we’re trying to fill. Almost like the machine man in the movie Hugo that required a heart-shaped key. We need something (or someone) who can fill the hole and turn our hearts right-side up again.

Only the Creator knows His own creation and how best to fix it. Better yet, the Creator became one of His own creation to be the Key that fills the empty space inside all of us. Only the One who made us can truly name our future and call our purpose out of us.

I know I’m still broken and on some days, it shows. I also know my Creator is fixing me and restoring my identity and my purpose. I love that I get to be a part of Him fixing and restoring the broken lives of other people and helping them find purpose and meaning.

I still believe that no one is too broken for God to fix and there is no one that God can’t redeem and use to do amazing things. Look at me. Look at you. Look at any of the works in progress the Bible calls saints.

It’s not too good to be true. It’s too good not to be true. Believe it.

Some Inconvenient Truths

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 5 Comments

This is probably not going to be one of those feel-good blogs that leaves you all warm and fuzzy. This is probably not going to win me any popularity points or make me the next trendy blogger. Then again, the truth has never been popular.

The truth is that there aren’t many ways to heaven. There’s just one. Jesus Himself didn’t say, “I am one of the ways, one of the truths, and one possible life. You can get to Heaven through me if I fit your lifestyle.”

No. He said, “I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life. No one comes to the Father (or gets to Heaven) but through Me.”

The truth is that hell is real. As much as I would love to say it’s not, as much as the reality of it makes me uncomfortable, I can’t deny that Jesus belived it was real and spoke more about hell than heaven.

The truth is that the Bible is God’s Word and it is without error. It may not always say what I want it to say and I in my own human reasoning would have left some parts out. But thankfully, I didn’t have a say in what got into the Bible.

The truth is that God can save anyone at anytime anywhere who truly believes in Jesus. Not just their parents’s belief. Not just intellectual assent. But real faith that translates into a lifestyle of obedience and surrender. After all, as one pastor has said, “If you don’t live it, you don’t believe it.”

I didn’t make it up. I didn’t come to the truth because I was so very smart and wise. God revealed it to me.

To say that I know the truth isn’t arrogant; to say that no one can know the truth is. Has anyone spoken to every single person alive on the planet to know that none of them know the truth?

To know the truth means I am responsible to live it out. It means it will change everything about me. I can’t be glib about speaking the truth. I must speak it with great humility because apart from the grace of God, I woud never have found it.

I may get called a fundamentalist or a Bible-thumper or arrogant or narrow-minded. I may get defriended or unliked. But for me more important than being popular or liked is to be faithful to what I know to be true. I can’t do anything else.

By the way, the truth will still set you free.