grace

20 Seconds

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

I love that line from the movie We Bought a Zoo. And how very true it is. 20 seconds of courage and bravery could very well change you life (and possibly someone else’s). It could start a chain reaction that could affect way more than just two lives.

Imagine you had 20 seconds of insane, embarrasing courage. What could you do? What could you say to someone? Maybe something like:

“Hey, do you ever think much about spiritual things? You do? Let me tell you about my own spiritual journey to finding peace.”

“I saw you sitting by yourself. Do you mind if I join you?’

“I’m sorry. I was completely in the wrong. Will you forgive me?”

“I know I haven’t had much time for you lately, but I want to make time. How about meeting up for coffee this week?”

“You may think no one sees what you do or cares, but I notice. I see. I believe God has His hand on you and is doing great things in and through you. Take heart.”

You can say these and so many other things in 20 seconds.

Who knows? It may work. It also may blow up in your face. But to me, failure is better than not trying and always wondering what would have happened if you did.

I know. I live with too many “what if”s already.

You may not do something crazy like buying a zoo (like the main character in the above movie did), but you can take one very small step of courage right now.

I really truly believe that if you do, something great will come of it.

 

Choices

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Recently, I was scrolling through the menu guide on DirecTV’s channels. I came across a program that was called (I kid you not) “Brazil Butt Lift– The Sequel.” Riveting and intellectually stimulating, I’m sure.

What was most disturbing to me was the fact that there are two of those programs floating around out there. Was one not enough? Did you not get enough butt lifts the first time around?

We have too many choices. And contrary to what you might think, having more choices isn’t always a good thing. It can lead to paralysis of decision-making.

At Kairos Roots tonight, I learned that if you want to know if you should pursue something that isn’t either prohibited or mandated by Scripture, you ask yourself two simple questions:

1). Ask, “Is it sinful or unwise?”

2) If it’s neither of these, go for it.

You won’t always get a sign from the heavens, especially about what color shirt to wear or where to eat for lunch. Sometimes, you use the passions and desires and mind that God gave you and choose.

When I was looking for the right college, I knew when I stepped foot on the campus of Union University that that’s where I was supposed to go. The same thing happened when I drove up on the campus of Fellowship Bible Church and knew that’s where I was going to attend church services.

I have never had that feeling about Taco Bell (or even Chuy’s). Even in the Bible, sometimes people chose based on “what seemed good to me.” You can’t always wait for the fleece to turn wet or for divine handwriting in the sky on every decision.

I do know that everyday I get to choose to serve the Lord or not. I get to choose to acknowledge Him before others or to deny Him. I choose by my actions to show how much or how little He means to me.

I know that there are days when like Peter, I deny Him by the choices I make and my attitude. I also know that the next day, I get to choose all over again. I can never undo what I did yesterday or the damage it cost, but I can make better choices today.

May you and I choose to love and follow Jesus every day.

Life Together: A Review of Sorts

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I just finished reading Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a short book on Christian community and fellowship. Basically, to sum the book up in one sentence:oh, oh, we need each other (borrowed from Sanctus Real).

I found this observation to be very interesting. We can’t truly be in community and fellowship unless we’re comfortable being alone. If we’re always needy and clingy when it comes to others, we hinder true communion. But if we come out of a healthy self-awareness, we add to the fellowship rather than drain it.

Also, we can’t truly be alone without being in community. Even when in solitutude, we carry our brothers and sisters with us in our hearts and their prayers carry us. The whole Lone Ranger/Marlboro Man/go-it-alone type Christian is a myth that is exposed in the first storm we face.

I thought this quote from Bonhoeffer perfectly describes the freedom from truly being in open and honest community with others:

“The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.”

My Big Honkin’ Bible

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The following was inspired by what I heard at Kairos tonight. In case you’re wondering, Kairos is a worship event and Bible study that meets every Tuesday at 7 pm at the Connection Center at Brentwood Baptist Church off I-65 exit 71 in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Do I have the Word of God on me or do I have it in me?

There’s a really big difference.

Do I carry around a big honkin’ Bible that looks impressive or do I live it out through my words and deeds?

Do I have God’s Word snugly under my arm or hidden in my heart?

Jesus didn’t overcome the devil’s temptations by braining him with a big Bible. He used the words, “It is written” and used the Scripture he had memorized and ingrained into His life. He used Deuteronomy, to be specific.

I have to be honest. I have a LOT of Bibles. Some are big and leather and good for knocking people upside the head (theologically, not literally). Some are small and portable. I have just about every major translation.

But what I don’t have is God’s Word in my heart. Sure, I have a few verses here and there memorized, but nowhere near enough to say that I KNOW God’s word.

Something that stuck with me was that sometimes you have to BE ready because you won’t have time to GET ready.

In other words, you don’t want to wait until you’re in the middle of a battle to get your sword out. You don’t want to wait until you’re in the midst of spiritual warfare and face with temptation to decide to start committing Scripture to memory.

Hopefully, this won’t be something else I blog about then forget about. I really want to hide God’s Word in my heart.

I remember something a pastor wrote in the first Bible I ever received. “This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.”

I have found that to be very true in the years since.

May you and I start a love affair with the Word of God that lasts both our lifetimes and where we are not conformed to our culture and the world around us, but transformed into people who can help change our culture and the world.

 

Dollhouse: The TV Show and My Thoughts From It

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Dollhouse was a fantastic show with a very unique concept that ended way too soon.

The concept was that people “volunteered” to have their own memories and personalities erased and became blank slates that could be fitted with other personality imprints to be lovers, assassins, companions, or whatever else the very, very rich and well-conntected clientele wanted.

The concept is technologically far-fetched, but in some ways it happens on a daily basis.

People spend so much time trying to be what other people want them to be, to fit the image that parents or spouses or significant others put on them, that they too often forget who they really are.

Maybe you became someone else to please a boyfriend or girlfriend and gave away something precious to you. Maybe you became someone you used to dislike to gain the approval of so-called “friends” who wouldn’t have liked you for you.

Maybe you have a whole collection of masks that you wear during the week: the pious one for Sunday, the ambitious one for Monday through Friday, the anything-goes one for Saturday night . . . . until you feel completely fragmented.

1 John 1:12 says regarding Jesus, ” But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves,       their child-of-God selves.”

The way to get rid of the masks and the role-playing is to let Jesus tell you who you really are. After all, He’s the one who saw you in your mother’s womb and knows you intimately, more than you know yourself.

In Him, you find your true identity as a child of God and find your true purpose and meaning in being a part of what He is doing in turning the upside-down world right side up again.

I’ve said it before, but no matter what names anyone else has called you or even what you’ve called yourself in anger and frustration, the only name that ultimately matters is the name God in Jesus has given you and calls you now– BELOVED.

May you and I live in that reality and show our world the way out of the dollhouse.

 

The Kingdom of God

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The Kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard, so very small in the hand, yet when planted, it becomes a tree that fills the heavens and where all the birds come to find rest amidst its branches.

The Kingdom of God is like a small pinch of leaven in a vast amount of dough that eventually penetrates every part as it causes the dough to rise.

The Kingdom of God is men and women leaving positions of importance and luxury to go live among the outcast as missionaries and bring hope to the once hopeless.

The Kingdom of God is those who leave father and mother and family and go to a strange land with only the promise of God to guide them.

The Kingdom of God is those who overcome because their testimony, the blood of the Lamb, and the fact that they were willing to give up everything, including their own lives, to gain a thousand times more in the Life to come.

The Kingdom of God is Jesus inviting all the Peters of the world, those ashamed of their betrayal and moral failures and wreckage their lives have become, and says to them, “I am entrusting My work in your hands  and giving you a new story to tell, the most  fantastic and the truest story you will ever hear.”

The Kingdom of God is the lame and the beggars and the outcasts and the nobodies of the world being chosen to the best party ever thrown, one that will never end and will only keep getting better.

The Kingdom of God is two or more, gathered in the name of Jesus, whether in a multi-million dollar church campus or in a tin hut with a dirt floor.

The Kingdom of God is here and it is advancing. No power in hell or on earth will ever be able to stop it, because nothing is more powerful than love. And Love has come and His name is Jesus.

The Kingdom of God is God ruling in the hearts of His people, taking broken lives and making them whole, taking stained souls and making them clean, taking shame and turning it to praise, taking mourning and turning it to dancing, taking ashes and turning them into beauty.

The Kingdom of God on its way and at the same time, the Kingdom of God is already here.

The Kingdom of God is NOW.

A Borrowed Easter Prayer

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

“It is truly right and good, always and everywhere, with our whole heart and mind and voice, to praise you, the invisible, almighty, and eternal God, and your only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who at the feast of the Passover paid for us the debt of Adam’s sin, and by his blood delivered your faithful people.

This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

How wonderful and beyond our knowing, O God, is your mercy and loving-kindness to us, that to redeem a slave, you gave a Son.

How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord.

How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and men and women are reconciled to God.

Holy Father, accept our evening sacrifice, the offering of this candle in your honor. May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning—he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

This is from The Great Vigil of Easter in The Common Book of Prayer, one of my favorite devotional/prayer books. It expresses my thoughts about Easter perfectly and I hope it becomes the prayer of your heart this Easter Sunday and every day after.

An Easter Toast Revisited

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“We raise our glasses and drink to love that never gave up.”

Easter isn’t about defeat. Probably you’ve heard that the Cross is where the devil had his way and won and the Resurrection is where Jesus came from behind and won the victory once and for all.

Ok, maybe not in those words, but something to that effect. Let me set the record straight.

The cross was a victory. Why do you think the devil tried so hard to tempt Jesus into deviating from His mission, first in the desert in the beginning and then in the garden at the end?

But instead we get to share in the spoils of the victory Jesus won. We get a share in His inheritance. When God looks at us, He sees Jesus perfection because that perfection is now ours.

I’m not perfect and I sure don’t claim to know all the answers or have every fine point of theology figured out. But I do know that once I was without hope and now I have hope, thanks to the cross.

Once I was lost and now I’m found, thanks to the cross.

Once I was a stranger and an outcast and an outsider, but now I’m family and a child of God, thanks to the cross.

Just as God raised Jesus from the dead and defeated death, I know that God will one day raise me up to eternal life, just as surely as I know the sun will rise in the morning.

I like what I read in The Book of Common Prayer today. It says what I want to say better than I could:

“O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever Amen.”

That’s worth raising your glass and toasting.

 

Best Day Ever

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I saw a guy today wearing a t-shirt that simply said, “BEST DAY EVER.”

That got my mind working, probably more than it should, and I’ve come up with a theory to share with you.

You may have had great days in the past. You may have days you wish you could bring back or relive or take a trip in a time machine to. But no matter how good those days were, they are over.

Today is your best day ever because it is still alive with possibility. You can still choose to radically step out in faith, to make that phone call to a parent or child or friend, to seek forgiveness over a hurt you’ve harbored for a long time.

The Bible says, “Now is the day of salvation.”

That means that today, right where you are, no matter what you’ve done, it’s never too late to say YES to Jesus and have a new start and be a new person.

People will say that times where better back when they were children because there was less worry and stress. Maybe. But maybe they had good parents who kept the stresses and worries of life away from them until they were ready to handle it.

The best days are now, because that’s where God is moving and acting. That’s where people all over the world are calling Jesus Lord for the first time and finding the true and real life they’ve been searching for through many dead ends and false hopes over the years.

Even if today seems like a train-wreck of bad decisions and bad timing and bad outcomes, tomorrow holds all the promise of a new day with new possibilities.

No matter what happens, I choose to trust my God and wait in expectation for Him to do something amazing. I keep my eyes wide open to what He’s up to.

And that makes today the best day ever.

PS These opinions expressed do not represent the opinions of the good people at wordpress.com or anyone else. They’re just my own thoughts.

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.