“Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care or nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world– all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God” (N.T. Wright).

At the end of my life, what will be my legacy? What will I have produced that lasts? Will it be my 401K? Probably not at this rate. Will it be books I have written or lectures I have given? Not yet (at least not in the non-dream world). Will it be risks taken, adventures had, boundaries crossed? Maybe and maybe not. What will it be?

I’d like to think it will be a legacy of love. Not a legacy of how much Greg so loved the world, but how God so loved the world and made Greg a vessel to pour that love into until it spilled over in joy and great gladness to the world around him.

It will be cups of cold water given out of compassion. It will be acts of kindness done to the least of these who never were able to repay me in my lifetime. It will be those moments when I was not caught up in my own drama and gave selflessly of myself.

Basically, it will be every time I died. Whether it was to my rights or to my plans or to my goals or to my posessions, every death I die will hopefully mean life for someone else. And ultimately real eternal life for me. Not that I’m earning it, but that I am able to experience it more fully as I die to my old, mortal way of living to die.

I think the best way to describe my first moments of heaven will be the ones spoken by Jewel the Unicorn in The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis:  “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”

I think the feeling I will have will be the one expressed by Aslan, the Christ-figure (think Lion of Judah): “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

Then I will know beyond any shadow of a doubt that no good thing is ever lost, whether it be places, people or possessions we truly and deeply loved. And yes, I think even pets. But the best part will be the presence of a tangible Love. The best part of Heaven is that Jesus will be there.

So, I want everything I do to be an act of love, kindness, and compassion that will leave for me a treasure in Heaven which will neither rust nor fade. That means that I must die, so that Christ can live through me. So right here and now, God, I surrender all of me to You to do with as You see fit. Make my life a legacy of love.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

“The mind, by admitting the truth of Christ in the light and power, is vastly enlarged, and has scope and compass given it, is greatly elevated and raised above things of sense, and never acts with so true a liberty as when it acts under a divine command (2 Cor. 3:17). The enemies of Christianity pretend to be free-thinking, whereas really those are the freest reasonings that are guided by faith, and those are men of free thought, whose thoughts are captivated and brought into obedience to Christ” (Matthew Henry).

Jesus said, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31-32).

Liberty is not freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want. Liberty is freedom to live out your destiny to its fullest potential. Liberty is to be who God made you to be and to finally and truly find your truest self.

What many people call liberty are really addictions or acting out of hurt or anger or trying to fill a void. That doesn’t sound free to me. Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong manual, but I read that knowing the truth will make you free. Not knowing about truth, or being familiar with truth, but knowing the Truth. And as Jesus said in another verse in John, the Truth is not a concept or an idea, but a person whose name is Jesus. He is the Truth.

So knowing Him is to be set free. Again, it’s not knowing about Jesus or even really loving the idea of Jesus. It’s knowing and loving Jesus and reading His love letters to us, collected together in the Bible.

I heard something worth passing along today. Sin always enslaves us, but the Truth always sets us free. My way leads to bondage and darkness, but the Way that is Jesus always leads to liberty and light.

So choose liberty and life and light and freedom. Choose whom you will serve today. As for me, I choose Jesus.

One of these days, I will learn not to trust my emotions, especially when I’m tired. It’s easy to let what I’m feeling filter what I’m seeing until I get a very skewed version of events in my head. Generally, I tend to be more judgmental and harsh when I am sleep-deprived. Surely, I’m not the only one who does this.

It’s also very easy for me to be me-centered. As in everyone should cater to me and meet my needs and make me feel affirmed and valued. Plus, giving me chocolate never hurts. I want to be noticed and liked and approved and thought of as cool. My desire to fit in often overwhelms my calling to be set apart. I want to blend in when I should stand out.

So I need to confess that my idol is me. Among other things. Me and my desire to be thought of as super-cool. Why should I desire popularity when my Lord was despised and His early followers were persecuted (and rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for His name)? Why do I want to make my name great, but not live to make the name of Jesus look great? I am nobody’s savior. I can’t even save myself. But Jesus, whose name is above every name– including mine– can save anyone anywhere at any time.

Usually, a good night’s sleep puts things back into perspective for me. That and chocolate. I need to be reminded again and again that it’s not about me and my happiness, but about God coming into a broken world and redeeming it, while allowing me to be in on it.

God loves me when I am wide awake and tuned in to His heart and when I am tired and out of sync with His voice. He’s ever so patient (or, to use the old King James word I like so much, He’s longsuffering toward me). That He can use me in spite of me amazes me. And when it doesn’t, it should.

God is good, all the time.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a quick topic for a blog. Kind of a microwave-ready burst of inspiration. Honestly, I got nothin’. The thoughts in my head aren’t going much deeper than “Fire bad. Tree pretty.” I feel like a fog has moved in off the west coast into my brain and settled there.

Ok, I do have this. You don’t have to feel good all the time to be doing good. It’s okay to have moments of discouragement and despair. It’s okay to not be at your best every single minute of every single day. You can be flawed and ordinary sometimes.

In fact, feeling good (or feeling bad) can be misleading. Feelings lie. Even what you think can be misinformed or wrong. What do you trust? Or better yet, Who do you trust?

My hope is in the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth (and me). He knows who I am and what I am thinking. He knows every single blunder, mistake and sin I’ve committed. Ever. And he still loves me.

If there’s a takewaway from this (other than the fact that I seriously need sleep and medication), it’s that God loves you. Not only that, He likes you. He is very, very fond of you.

May that be the last thought before you drift off to sleep and the first remembrance when you awake. May you be filled up completely with the knowledge of God’s love for you. No, wait. May you be filled up completely with God’s love so that it shoots out your eyes and ears and comes out of your mouth as praise and thanksgiving. May you be so filled up that it spills out to those around you in the form of cups of cold water and words of hope and peace.

That’s all I got tonight. Maybe that’s all I need.

The buzzword for the Church these days is for us to be relevant. We have to fit in and assimilate to have inroads with our community. The problem is that believers have done such a good job at being relevant that those outside the church can no longer tell us apart from them. Or worse, they hear us talking one way and living a diametrically different lifestyle.

The lesson I take away from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is that the better way is faithfulness. Or to use a very non-PC word, obedience. All they did was to be obedient to God by refusing to bow down to the golden image of the king. They were willing to die rather than compromise; too many times we are just dying to compromise. They went through the fire– literally– for their beliefs. The result was that their obedience touched the heart of a king, as well as touching the heart of God. That obedience gave their witness credibility.

We as believers don’t have to be heroes, just faithful. And to me, a hero isn’t someone who goes out and tries to do heroic things. A hero is someone who is faithful in the little things and the details. When the world is bowing down to the lastest idol and you don’t, you stand out. You don’t have to condemn them for bowing down; your standing firm will draw attention. I always like Dwight Moody’s comment that lighthouses don’t have to fire cannons to draw attention to themselves; they just shine.

And the way I see it, we’re not supposed to fit in. We’re supposed to stand out and be set apart. And to shine. The world around us won’t take us seriously as long as we’re just like them. But when they see a difference, it makes a difference.

The one part of the story that troubles me is this. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren’t the only Jews who were captives in Babylon. They were just the only ones noted for not compromising. It makes me think that several of the ones taken into captivity did. It must have been hard to stand up against the Babylonians when they saw people they had grown up with and played with and worked with compromising. To see the same people they went to synagogue with bowing down to idols and not bow down must have been really hard.

We’re not called to judge the sins of those around us. That’s God’s job. We’re not even called to judge those who profess faith but don’t live it. We are only called to be obedient, and it will be our obedience that will convict those around us (and possibly bring persecution and suffering). If I’m not living what I profess, the last thing I want to see is someone who is.

Obedience to God in its essence is loving God and loving others. If we do those two things well, everything else will fall into place. Oh yeah, and it’s impossible apart from the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in you. I almost left that part out.

God, I want to be faithful and obedient right now, where I am, for the next 24 hours. Help me and forgive me when I fail, which will be often. I surrender to Your plan and place myself into Your hands to do whatever You want with me. Here I am. Send me.

Once upon a time, I thought faith was about having all the answers. I thought that maturing in my beliefs meant that I would get to a point where I was always strong and always would do the right thing and would have obtained the new super power of being temptation-proof (like whenever temptations lurked nearby, my spidey-senses would go all tingly). I thought that as a grown-up Christian, I would have my life mapped out in my head and always know what choice to make and what path to take. I think I know better now.

I’ve been a believer for a while. I’m not saying I’ve arrived or even reached maturity, but I’ve learned a lot. And one of those lessons I’ve learned is that I really don’t have all the answers– or even 1% of all the answers. Heck, I don’t even know the questions most of the time.

I’ve figured out that I can have faith without having every answer to every question. In fact, if I knew all the answers, I wouldn’t really need faith, would I? Faith is not that I know everything, but that I know and trust the One who knows.

I can have an active and growing faith without having a complete roadmap for my life. Or, that I have my spiritual GPS planned out for every single step from start to finish. Maybe just knowing the next step is enough. After all, faith means not knowing where you are being led, but knowing and trusting the One who leads and knowing that He has never and will never steer me wrong.

I’ve learned that you really can’t judge yourself in comparison with anyone else. For one, you (or I) tend to have selective vision when it comes to how you see others. I find that I project my own fears, faults and foibles onto others. But the main reason that comparison never works is that there is no cookie-cutter plan. God made me unique with a specific plan for my life that’s different than anyone else’s. And it is a good plan.

So faith for me means trusting without knowing the answers, following without knowing the way, and yielding without understanding the plan. All that sounds a whole lot like surrendering. Faith means not pretending that I know all the answers or that I know the plans I have for me or that I have it all figured out. Faith is honestly admitting that I am weak, but that He is strong, that I am lost, but He is the Way and that I am clay in the hands of a Master Potter.

So I will be the best me I can be. I will be authentic and transparent and honest to God. And you can’t get more honest than this:

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

I find myself praying a lot lately for change. Not the shiny kind that shows up under the couch cushions, although that is a nice bonus. I mean the kind where I pray for God to change my work environment, my marital status, etc.

The dangerous part of that prayer is that most of the time, God responds with something to the effect of: “You want change? Let’s start with you.”

God’s idea of change is usually not that He magically transforms my circumstances to my liking, but that He changes me. God wants not to change my circumstances, but for me to be the change in my circumstances.

Did I mention how I really don’t like that idea? I mean, change is hard, takes time, messes with my head. . . and so on and so forth, yada yada yada.

God’s will for me is not so much where I am or what I’m doing, but who I am. And Whose I am defines who I am. I am God’s child, and here in this life I am His hands and feet and voice. His will is not my comfort, but for me to be Christ to my world.

Thankfully, He is more than patient with me. He knows what He’s doing, although I always tend to forget and doubt and complain. A lot.

God, change me. Make me the person who will be the change in my workplace. Make me the kind of godly man who will draw a godly woman to me by my character and my actions. Make me like Jesus.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

We speak againt the devil not by our own power and authority, but under the blood of Jesus and by His own resurrection power and the authority that God gave Him over everything in the universe. I personally never say, “I rebuke you,” but “The Lord rebuke you.” And remember that our fight is not against people but against the demonic forces behind the scenes.

That said, I have some reminders for the devil.

1) When he reminds me of my weakness, I remind him that Christ’s power is made perfect through my weakness.

2) When he reminds me of my failures, I remind him that God works all things (especially failures) together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

3) When he reminds me of the filthy rags that I pass for my own righteousness, I remind him that I have Christ’s robes of righteousness and that God sees not my pitiful excuse for righteousness, but Christ’s perfect and complete obedience in fulilling the law for me.

4) When he reminds me of things left undone or unsaid, I remind him that in Christ every morning is a chance to start over. It’s not how you began will matter, but how you finished.

5) When he reminds me of the fact that he is stronger than I am (in my own strength), I remind him that as a child of the King, I have all power and authority from God over him and the world and my own flesh. Christ is in me, the hope of glory!

6) Finally, when he reminds me of my past, I can (under the blood of Jesus) remind him of HIS FUTURE!

The most important reminder is for myself. I am not fighting a battle in which the outcome is undecided and hangs in the balance. I fight a battle that’s already won. Christ has overwhelmingly conquered. As Chip Ingram says, I fight not for victory, but from victory!

As always, I believe. Or I want to believe most days. Help me to believe every day and then live it out.

I thought about calling this taxicab confessions, because this is risque stuff. Ok, not really. They’re just confessions. But this time it’s not people confessing sins to the Church. This is what it would sound like if the Church (or a spokesperson for the Church) could confess to the people she has been trying to reach. Here goes:

We confess to you that we have missed the mark. We have obscured grace and the gospel and made a big deal about following a lot of rules and regulations. Most of the time, We’re more concerned with rules than with justice, with giving more than compassion. We’re really good at making much of ourselves and our programs and strategies, but not so good at making much of Jesus and the Cross.

We confess that we’ve been obsessed with “taking back our country” and not about trying to advance the Kingdom of God. We’re all about the American Dream, but less so about God’s vision for the world. We need less of tea parties and more of the “cup of cold water” parties, as in “if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42).

We acknowledge that God created us in His image, but we confess that we have returned the favor by creating a god in our own image who just happens to hate who we hate and endorses our polilitical platforms and sends liberals to hell just because they are liberals. Our god judges only those whose sins are sins we don’t happen to struggle with. Our god would condemn homosexuality and promiscuity, but never gluttony or sloth. And especially not pride.

We confess that we have been silent when we should have spoken out about injustice and poverty. We confess our hearts do not break nearly enough over the thousands of children who die daily of hunger and malnutrition or of babies born with AIDS or of the thousands of children, men and women trapped in sex-trafficking.

We confess we have put up too many barriers between you and the Gospel. We preach God and conservitism, God and democracy, God and ecology, etc., but rarely just God (in the since that He and He alone is sufficient). We have talked like we were holier than thou, but we have lived just like you. You cry to us that the issue is not that we’re too different than you, but that we’re not different enough.

Here’s the gospel that we have so many times gotten complicated and confused. No matter how badly you’ve messed up or how far you’ve fallen, no matter what addiction you have that you just can’t break, no matter how dirty you feel in all your sin and secret shame, Jesus can still save you. He can change you. He can make you the person you always wanted to be in your best moments.

We’re trying. We just get it wrong a lot. We’re not perfect people, just forgiven people. We’re sorry we’ve made it seem like we’re perfect saints while we wear our masks that hide our scars. We’re sorry we haven’t been more authentic and genuine with you. We’re sorry we haven’t just loved you instead of judging and condemning you.

God’s working on us. And He always finishes what He starts. That’s a promise.

I admit it. I love Christmas.

Every year, I pull out my astounding collection of old Christmas movies on DVD and find the cheezy decorations and tune in to the station that plays Christmas music ad nauseum (until you want to toss your Christmas cookies). And every year I feel cheated that the celebration of the birth of Christ and all the good things that came with it gets only one day a year.

Not this year. Well, ok. Maybe this year, but definitely not the next. Not if I can help it.

I want to celebrate the whole Advent season. According to Wikipedia, advent is “a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas.” It starts the fourth Sunday before December 25, which I think puts it right after the Thursday of Thanksgiving.

No, I’m not Catholic or Episcpalian. Actually, I’m not sure what I am or what to call myself, other than a follower of Christ. I am a follower of the child born in a manger who grew into a man who lived a sinless life and perfectly fulfilled the law in my place. God came near and became one of us. To me, that deserves more than one day.

I don’t exactly know how the whole Advent thing works. I have a Common Prayer Book, which I will use this year, but other than that I am pretty much clueless. I’m also clueless about dating and directions, but that is a whole other blog that I will write some other time.

So help me out. If you celebrate the whole Advent season, I would love to know what you do. By the way, there’s only 70 more shopping days left until Christmas, so you better get crackin’ and ‘wrappin’!

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.