hope

Invited

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(This was largely inspired by a sermon I heard today at Fellowship Bible Church. I highly recommend checking out the podcast on their website, fellowshipnashville.org.)

“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat” (Matthew 5:6).

Imagine the most lavish, ornate dinner party ever thrown. Call it a banquet or a gala if that helps.

Or if that’s not your cup of tea, imagine the biggest, wildest rave ever thrown with a top-notch dj and a lineup of great bands.

Imagine the guest list. You would think it would be full of celebrities and moguls and people who are listed in places like People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People or Time magazine’s 50 Most Powerful People or Forbe’s 50 Most Wealthiest People in the World.

It’s not. If you look at the list closely enough, you see the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, the outcast, and the orphan. You see people that ordinarily wouldn’t even be let in the door.

Look closer. You see your name and my name there. We’ve been invited.

That’s the idea behind Jesus’ parable. The original guest list accepted but then backed out at the very last minute. So the King authorized the servants to go find the least of these and bring them in. Then he told them to go into the highways and byways and find people and compel them to come.

That’s our job as believers. Invite people to the best feast with the best food they’ll ever eat. We’re to compel them to come. Not in the sense of holding them at gun point, but to do all that is in our power to get them to come.

Jesus Himself told us what was on the menu. He said things like “I am the Bread of Life” and “Whoever drinks of me will never be thirsty again.” He’s not only the one inviting us, He’s the feast. He is the party.

We say, “You can come as you are. You don’t have to get cleaned up first. You don’t have to bring anything other than just your appetite”

That’s the Kingdom of God– a party like you’ve never seen offered to people like you and me who can’t seem to ever get their acts together and always seem to make stupid choices and dumb mistakes.

The sad part is that the most religious people and the most holier-than-thou types won’t be there. Jesus said matter of factly to the Pharisees that they wouldn’t even get a taste of the banquest because they rejected the offer a second time.

The best part is that for people like you and me, the offer still stands.

Will you come? Will you invite someone else?

Thanksgiving and Gratitude

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One thing I need to improve (out of many, many things) is to learn to cultivate a grateful spirit. I am far too often consumed by thoughts of what I don’t have, what I lack, and what I didn’t get.

Lately, I have found myself anything but grateful. I have found seeds of anger and bitterness and impatience welling up in me. I have had fears of what-ifs, such as what if I never get married, what if I never get that dream job, etc.

Tonight, I was invited to a cookout with good friends. I realized then and there just how very blessed I am. I am more blessed than I deserve to know the people I know, and more so that they actually like me back.

I am blessed by good health and a job and family who loves and encourages me and friends who stick around and say nice things about me and live out Christ in a way that challenges and inspires me.

Most of all, I am blessed by the relentless love of a God who continues to passionately pursue my heart and makes me more like Jesus every single day. Even when He allows circumstances I would not have chosen and answers prayers but not in the way I would have answered them, He is still good to me.

Even if I found out tonight that I used up all my allotted blessings and had no more left, I would be good. If I never got one more prayer answered and had all the rest of my dreams evaporate and all my hopes dashed, I’d be okay. Why?

Because I am still Abba’s child and He is still very fond of me. I know that He’s on my side and He fights for me and sings over me in the night.

And that’s enough for me right now.

The Kingdom of God Is Like . . .

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The Kingdom of God is throwing a birthday party for a prostitute who has never had one in her life and giving her a birthday cake with candles and the gift of unconditional love.

The Kingdom of God is leaving the safety and comfort of the suburbs and going to the unsafe part of town to share a meal with homeless people.

The Kingdom of God is forgiving the person who took a part of you that you can never get back, whose wounds still have scars, and whose words still cut.

The Kingdom of God is hate turning into love, enemies turning into friends, the lost becoming found, the dead coming alive, and the hopeless rising up with new hope.

The Kingdom of God is a feast where the guests are the blind, the lame, the poor, the outcast, the forgotten, and the nobodies and where the least of these have the best seats in the house.

The Kingdom of God is wherever the people of God choose to be malajusted (to borrow a phrase from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)  to a world that prizes sex over love, greed over compassion, votes over justice, war and weapons over peace, religion over Christ, and where life is regarded as cheap.

The Kingdom of God is more than taking back our country; it’s about taking back the world and turning it right-side up again and filling it with justice that runs like a river and mercy that flows like a neverending stream.

The Kingdom of God is those who aren’t satisfied with climbing corporate ladders or making more money, but instead want to make a difference by embracing a lifestyle of downward mobility where they choose to lead through serving and counting others as better than themselves.

The Kingdom of God is an unstoppable force, because it’s main power is stronger than all the bombs and armies and weapons and strategies that have ever come against it– and that power is love.

The Kingdom of God is the faith of a little child who believes unquestioningly and trusts Abba unswervingly.

The Kingdom of God is you and me.

The Kingdom of God is now.

Random Favorites and Desert Island Picks

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This might seem like a filler blog (and it is, because I’m all out of profound ideas that I “borrowed” from other people). Hopefully, it will bring a bit of levity in your life after a hard week of work. FYI: TGIF!

If I were stranded on a desert island and could only have one kind of food, I think I’d go with the Chick-fil-A nuggets. Those just never get old for me. Plus, I’m taking it for granted that they come with all the usual dipping sauces.

If I had only one album I could take with me to the desert island (which just so happens to have electricity and a good sound system), I would take Miles Davis’ A Kind of Blue. It is rightfully considered one of the best jazz albums ever.

I don’t know if it’s still hip or trendy to admit celebrity crushes, but my all-time celebrity crush is still Audrey Hepburn. If we’re going with only living people, it’s Zooey Deschanel.

I miss that chantico drink from Starbucks that I probably spelled wrong. It was like a chocolate bar melted into a drink, or what I like to call a little foretaste of heaven. I also miss the Snapple drink, Ralph’s Cantalope Cocktail, that tasted just like real cantelopes.

I don’t know if you ever get the urge to watch a movie you’ve seen before, but lately I’ve been feeling the need to watch Juno again. Then after that, I’ll go buy some orange tic-tacs.

At the end of the day, regardless of how I think my day was a success or a total fiasco, I still need God. I need to know that He’s still got the whole world in His hands (to borrow from a great song by All Sons & Daughters).

That’s all for tonight. Told you it would be random.

A Prayer for Those Who Grieve

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I found a beautiful prayer for those who have lost loved ones and still feel the void where that person used to be. It doesn’t matter whether the loved one was a few minutes old or 100 years old. The loss still hurts. So hopefully this will being you comfort:

“We seem to give her back to thee, dear God, who gavest her to us.

Yet, as thou didst not lose her in giving

So we have not lost her by her return.

Not as the world giveth, gavest thou, O lover of souls

What thou givest, thou takest not away.

For what is thine is our always, if we are thine

And life is eternal

And love is immortal

And death is only a horizon

And a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

Lift us up, O God, that we may see further,

Cleanse our eyes so that we may see more clearly,

Draw us closer to thyself that we may know ourselves nearer to our beloved who art with thee.

And while thy Son prepareth a place for us

Prepare us for that happy place,

That where they are and thou are we too may be,

Through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. “

Amen.

Lessons From the Not Yet

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Maybe you remember back in high school and college when you wondered if that special someone who caught your eye reciprocated your interest. It would have been so much easier to have one of those grade school forms that went something like “Do you like me? Check Yes or No.”

Some of us are still there, in a perpetual state of singleness, wondering if the one we want to like us really does. It’s frustrating not knowing. Even a rejection would be easier to handle than the not knowing.

So many times, we want answers. Even answers we don’t like are better than no answers at all.

I really think that maybe being in a place where we’re waiting for answers is a good place. I think that’s where we learn the most precious and valuable lessons from God. That’s where we learn to really trust and rely on and cling to God.

I’ve heard it said that faith may not always know where it is being led, but it trusts the One leading. You may not know the outcome of what you long for and pray for, but you know that God still works all things together for good for those who love Him.

I think when we only want answers, we short-change ourselves. God is offering the opportunity for us to have all of Him and and to know Him and fellowship with Him. That’s so much better than the answers to a few questions.

Learning to trust in the absence of answers is hard. Learning to be still when every instinct in you is screaming to take the matter into your own hands is difficult.

Growing is painful and slow. Maturity doesn’t come microwave-style in a matter of minutes, but over months and years.

You will know your faith is mature when you realize that you will never get answers to some of your questions and you still choose to follow anyway.

Oswald Chambers once said, “Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading.  It is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing Who makes us “go.”  The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success.”

The endgame is not answers to your questions or even getting what you desire. It’s character. It’s becoming like Christ. It’s becoming every single part of who God made you to be– your deepest, truest self.

That, my friends, is worth waiting for.

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.

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.”

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.