doubts

Real and Lasting Change

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I was reading in John 19 and a particular phrase caught my attention. I’d read it before and thought nothing of it, but for some reason, these particular words lept off the page at me: “Nicholas, who had first come to Jesus at night, now came in broad daylight”.

That may not mean much to you, but it meant the world to me. It was a reminder to me of the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to actually and truly change lives. It was a reminder that even old crusty theologians can be taught new tricks and come to see like a little child again.

This Gospel is the same that transformed 12 men from cowards who hid behind locked doors after Jesus’ death to courageous followers who each were willing to give up everything to follow Jesus and who paid heavy prices for their commitments.

This Gospel took a man who lied and betrayed Jesus to save his own skin to a man willing to die by cruxifiction upside down for the same Jesus.

This Gospel took a man who persecuted and killed in the name of religion and had much to boast about in his law-keeping abilities to a man who called himself “chief of sinners” and was willing to go through stoning, beatings, humiliations, prison and so much more for the cause of making the name of Christ known to the world.

The Gospel took me, someone who thought nobody could love and who didn’t think God could use or do anything with, and made me someone who is finding out that I am the beloved. I am the child of my Abba, who is very fond of me and can take my mustard seed of faith and move mountains with it.

When someone says they can’t change, don’t believe it. When someone says, you won’t ever change or you can’t change or it’s too late for you to change, don’t believe them.

I still believe and will always believe that with God, all things are possible. With God, you can change, or better yet, God can take the broken pieces of your heart and life and put them back together better than new. You won’t be a fixed or even a better person. You will be  a completely new creation.

Just ask the disciples. Just ask Peter. Just ask Paul. And just ask the dying thief on the cross moments before he died. It’s never too late to change. It’s never to late to start becoming who God meant for you to be. All you need to start is your YES to Jesus.

The rest will be history.

 

Who Believes In You?

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Maybe you’ve had the kind of day where all your mistakes pile up and come crashing down on you like an avalanche. Maybe you feel buried underneath all the weight of your mistakes and bad decisions and failures. Maybe you believe in your heart that you’ve screwed up one too many times and exhausted all your grace cards.

Maybe some of the people in your life have quit believing in you or that you will ever amount to anything. Maybe your friends have quit believing in you and moved on. Maybe your family quit believing in you that there is any hope left that you will ever amount to anything. Maybe you quit believing in yourself.

I am here with some very good news.

God still believes in you. God hasn’t quit believing in you nor will He ever. He believes in what He’s doing in you, in the work He started so very long ago, before you were even born or were even a glimmer in your parent’s eye.

When you’ve given up hoping and believing that you will ever amount to anything, God knows that when He’s done with you, you will look just like Jesus. When you’ve just about thrown in the towel on all your hopes and dreams for a better future, God still has dreams for you that are so much bigger than the wildest, craziest dreams you ever dared to dream for yourself

When you’ve lost all hope, remember that God invented hope. As long as God is alive and on your side, you always have hope. Not a wishful thinking, “I hope my team wins on Sunday” kind of hope, either. This hope is as sure as the promises God made to you, and as certain as the God who made them.

God believes in you. God loves you more than your mind will ever be able to comprehend. No matter what anyone else tells you, no matter what you have told yourself in the darkness of your room when you’re alone, God speaks a better word. His word trumps any other word ever spoken to or about you.

And this is His word to you now: I believe in you and I am very fond of you and when I’m done, you will be everything I meant for you to be. You will be just like Jesus.

Takeaways from Kairos Tonight

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I feel like I blew it the last few days. I said and texted and posted some stuff that I now wish I could take back. In fact, there are whole sections of the last day or two that I wish I could have a do-over on. Today, I let fear and worry take over and I listened to them instead of the voice of the One who calls me Beloved and says good things about me.

In Kairos, I was reminded that the Gospel is about God’s YES rather than God’s NO. While the world and those around you may be telling you all the things you are not: not skinny enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough, not talented enough, etc. Sometimes, even you feel that you don’t measure up or have what it takes.

The Gospel doesn’t start with how bad off you are. The Gospel isn’t about how much of a sinner you are and how wide you’re going to bust hell open. The Gospel starts, “For God so loved the world.” For God so loved YOU that He gave His only, unique, one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-another Son, so that if YOU believe in Him, YOU will not perish but YOU will have eternal life.

On those days when what you want to say sounds right in your head but comes out totally wrong out of your mouth or through your text, God loves you. When you completely give in to the anger and frustration and completely lose your religion, God still loves you. When you forget who you are in Christ and start trying to find someone or something to define you and make you complete, God still loves you. And He always will.

Brennan Manning said, “Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.” God sees not what we are not and all we lack, but who we are, His sons and daughters whom He loves and died for. He sees who we will be and He reminds of our future selves who are fully complete and mature and just like Jesus. That’s what we’re becoming.

All that from a sermon I heard tonight at Kairos. I’d say I needed to hear it. I hope you did, too. If nothing else, remember what I always say: Your Abba is very fond of you and is not even close to giving up on you, even if others are or even if you are. That’s the truth. Live out of that.

 

An Advent Plea Day 4

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“Oh, come O Rod of Jesse’s stem,
From ev’ry foe deliver them
That trust your mighty pow’r to save;
Bring them in vict’ry through the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!”

For us who have listened to our fears and doubts yet again when we should have listened to You, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who trusted in friends and family who are just as frail and human and we are when we should have trusted in You and You alone, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who have felt abandoned and alone in our greatest hour of need, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who failed to see You in the person who spoke encouragement to us or gave us a helping hand or comfort, come to us, Emmauel.

For us who fear too much the grave and do not fear the One who overcame the grave (for a reverent fear of You is the beginning of wisdom), come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who too easily forget that You have already won the victory and overcome any foe we will ever face and that Your victory is our victory, come to us, Emmanuel.

Come to our fears and transform them into faith by your perfect love. Come to our doubts and transform them into wonder and awe by Your steadfast love and faithfulness. Come to our needs and be the God who is enough.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

When the Lights Go Out

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lucynarnia

I was en route from Memphis recently, listening to a book on CD, as all well-seasoned travellers do. It was The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, book 5 of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. It was read by Derek Jacobi, by the way, in case you were dying to know.

In the book, the Dawn Treader sails into an island of darkness. It’s a place where fear rules and all nightmares come to life. Lucy is at the top of the ship, watching as the crew tries vainly to escape. In her desperation, she says, “Aslan, if you ever loved us, help us now.” The answer to her prayer is an albatross who, as he flies by her, whispers, “Courage, dear heart,” in Aslan’s voice. He then leads them out into the sunlight.

I bet you’ve been in some dark places in your life. You’ve felt trapped in the valley of the shadow of death, where no light or hope can get through. You’ve been searching for a way out, but all you find is more darkness, more despair, more hopelessness.

You feel your circumstances will never get better. You fear that nothing will ever change. You come to believe that your worst-case scenario is due to come true any day now. Your faith is at a low ebb and your fears are cresting and crashing waves that swamp you.

There’s a voice, if you are still enough to hear it, that whispers the same words what it whispered to Lucy. “Courage, dear heart.” It says, “Hold on. Trust in Me in the darkness even when you can’t find Me there. I am with you, with My everlasting arms underneath you. I will never ever let go.”

Don’t believe that you feel or what you think, but what you know. Believe the same God who has proved Himself over and over and Whose word is true. Know that He is with you and for you in your darkness. Darkness may prevail right now, but joy is coming with the morning.

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.

My bucket list

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First of all, I’d like to know who came up with the expression “kick the bucket” and who first associated it with dying. I’m not losing any sleep over it, but it would be nice to know just in case I’m ever on Jeopardy or a caller on a morning radio show with a chance to win a fabulous prize. I’m just sayin’.

But for real, I do have a bucket list of sorts. It’s not written down, but I have one item on my bucket list. Only one. My one bucket list wish is to hear Jesus say to me at the end of my road, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s all. To please Jesus is not only on my bucket list, it is my bucket list. That being said, I pretty much suck at it. Most of the time, I try to please just about anyone and everyone else before I even attempt to please Jesus.

Still, that’s what I want. More than anything else. Sure, I’d like to see Scotland or meet Bono. And for the record, I would try skydiving, but I have a burning desire to NOT DIE! Plus, I’m not really keen on heights, which is pretty much a prerequisite for jumping out of a plane at 1 gazillion feet in the air.

I want to make Jesus proud of  me. I want to be His hands and feet and serve Him every chance I get, whether He be the person at the cash register at Publix or the homeless man on the corner looking for spare change. I want my whole life to be one big THANK YOU note to Him.

I think I’ll get there. In fact, I know I will, because Jesus told me that He would never leave me or forsake me. He said He would finish the good work He started in me. When He sees a heart that yearns to please Him, He honors that.

So I probably have the shortest bucket list on the planet. Just hopefully not the shortest bucket.

My two cents on spiritual warfare

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A group of guys and I have been watching a DVD series on spiritual warfare by Chip Ingram called The Invisible War (and yes, that was a shameless plug). It got me thinking about the mindset of so many American believers (including me) regarding the whole topic of spiritual warfare. Plainly put, either most of us don’t believe there is an war going on with an enemy that is constantly seeking our destruction. If we believe, we sure don’t live like it much of the time. Again, me included.

The war is real. The enemy is real. In this world, we are not tourists on vacation, or passengers on some kind of luxury cruise, but soldiers engaged in battle. Our ignorance of the battle and our enemy can only do us harm. We need to wake up to realize that we are under attack. But here’s the best part.

The battle is already won. Chip Ingram said, “As believers in Christ, we don’t fight FOR victory. We fight FROM victory.” That’s the good news (which is why it’s called the gospel!). But there is still a battle.

We fight back by putting on the armor of God as described in Ephesians 6: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. We should pray these on every morning and pray these for each other on a daily basis. We should pray with eyes wide open to the spiritual realm, asking God to give us eyes to see the battle around us like the Elijah prayed for his servant when they were surrounded by the Syrian army. We should pray for discernment and wisdom. Most of all, we should pray at all times to be Spirit-filled and Spirit-controlled, taking every thought captive and submitting them to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We must fight together. If you are fighting the enemy on your own, apart from other believers, you may succeed for a season, but you will ultimately grow weary and faint. You will stumble and fall. You need other believers praying God’s protection over you, encouraging you and keeping you honest.

We fight ultimately with one weapon– LOVE. Not as a feeling, but as a decisive act of the will. We fight by showing that Calvary’s love is stronger than hate and that love overcomes anything. Chip Ingram said, “Love is giving to another person what they need the most when they deserve it least.” Love is doing whatever you can, even to your own detriment, for the good of the beloved. It means dying to yourself and your rights and own ideas about how the world should work.

So live with eyes wide open, hands raised, side by side with your brothers and sisters in Christ. And remember that the battle is already won and that we have overcome!

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Another prayer from Henri Nouwen (with my own commentary added)

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“I pray tonight for all who witness for you in this world: ministers, priests, and bishops, men and women who have dedicated their lives to you, and all those who try to bring the light of the Gospel into the darkness of this age. Give them courage, strength, perseverance, and hope; fill their hearts and minds with the knowledge of your presence, and let them experience your name as their refuge from all dangers. Most of all, give them the joy of your Spirit, so that wherever they go and whomever they meet they will remove the veil of depression, fatalism, and defeatism and will bring new life to the many who live in constant fear of death. Lord, be with all who bring the Good News. Amen.” (Henri Nouwen)

As the old saying goes (or maybe a new one that I just made up), when you can’t think of anything original, borrow and steal from smarter people than you. Actually, this prayer of Henri Nouwen’s is my prayer, said better than I could ever say it on my own, for my friends who are going out and making disciples of all nations, starting in Nashville and ending up in the uttermost parts of the earth. You inspire me to want to do a lot more than I’m doing right now.

Who knows what God has in store for me or you or anyone? I’ve learned that whatever it is, it’s usually way different than what we thought it would be, and way better. So go with it. Jesus calls us to die every day to our rights and desires and dreams and hopes, so that we can live in God’s greater dream for us. As Oswald Chambers wrote, “Trust God and do the next thing.”

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Some not-so-original thoughts on prayer

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“To pray, I think, does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God. As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove God from our daily life and put him into a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings. … Although it is important and even indispensable for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can only become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts — beautiful or ugly, high or low, proud or shameful, sorrowful or joyful — can be thought in the presence of God. … Thus, converting our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer moves us from a self-centred monologue to a God-centred dialogue” (Henri Nouwen).

Prayer is not about me letting God in on information He was unaware of, or getting Him to do or change things for me. Prayer is about getting to know the heart and mind of God. It’s about seeing my problems and issues with His eyes. It’s about me being conformed into His image, which is ultimately God’s will for all of us.

Prayer is not just about me alone with God. It’s about me and other believers coming together in one accord before God, praying as one. It’s about seeing and seeking God in every waking moment.

All that to say that I am not really that good at prayer. I can pray in emergencies or crisis, but I forget to pray when I feel I am in status quo normal mode. Sometimes, I even forget about God and all He’s done for me. But I’m learning not to come at God all the time asking for things and not sticking around for His responses. I’m learning to come to God and be open to whatever He has for me. I’m learning to be still and listen. I’m learning to quiet my mind and be still. I’m learning to pray not my will, but Thine.

I am a student in the school of prayer who has a very patient Master who won’t ever flunk me or get frustrated with me or give up on me. He is pleased with my weak efforts and my directionless monologues out of a mind that is so easily distracted by anything and everything else. I have an Interpreter who will take the groans and sighs of mine that can’t find words and turn them into perfect prayers.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.