life

What I Really, Really Want for Christmas

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I thought about calling this my grown-up Christmas list, but for that to work, I’d have to feel grown-up. Most of the time, I still feel like a 10-year old stuck in a 30-something year old body, a la Tom Hanks in the movie Big. So that bit of nonsense is to lead in to the fact that I do have a Christmas list for 2011.

Instead of tolerance, I want love. I want all people to know that they are loved. God loves all those He made and His love makes you loveable, even if nothing you do or say does. That love makes you valuable, even if you don’t have worth or value according to the current standards that weigh everything by money and power.

I want more forgiveness and second chances. Not just for the ones who are in the wrong. The ones forgiving find such freedom in the act that they will wonder why they didn’t do it sooner. Forgiveness is hard, but I think not forgiving and holding onto the bitterness that eats you alive is harder. It certainly takes more out of you.

I want people to look past the surface more and see real beauty. God is the master of wrapping the best presents in homely packages. True beauty is seen with the heart and not with the eyes.

I want people to get out of their comfort zones and cliques and go to those who are lonely and hurting this Christmas season. If God has a special place in His heart for the outcast, broken, needy, poor, and destitute, then why shouldn’t we. If we want to be like Christ, we will have that same heart He has. After all, we all were once broken and needy and poor and destitute.

I want it to be that if there is to be any finger-pointing, it should be into a mirror. We all are to blame for the mess the world is in and the sooner we say, “I am responsible,” the better. Then we can say truthfully, “I am only one person. I can’t undo all the wrong that’s been done, but I can do one right thing. I can’t change the world, but I can change one person’s world, and, by the grace of God, I will.”

Most of all, I really want people to see themselves as God sees them. I want to see that God loves them. I want them to understand that God likes them. I want them to know that God offers healing and freedom and ultimate forgiveness for sins. I want them to see that it’s never too late to turn around and be all that God made you to be.

That’s really all I want for Christmas.

That, and maybe a set of Ginzu knifes, ’cause they can cut through tin cans and still slice a tomato. That’s just sheer awesomeness!

Of All the Gifts You Get This Christmas . . . . .

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Out of all the many Christmas presents you receive this year, I pray that most of all you get Jesus. I pray you get as much of Jesus as you can possibly stand — and then some — until He’s running out your ears and eyes and pouring out of your conversations and eminating from your actions.

I pray you get His peace that can’t be understood, but only experienced. I pray this peace will guard your hearts and minds tonight so that fear and doubt can’t creep in.

I pray you get His love that is wider than your imagination, deeper than your experience, longer than your history, and wilder than any love you have ever known before. I pray this love fills you up and spills out on to every single person you meet.

I pray you get the Everlasting Arms underneath and above and all around you. I pray you know that there is never a moment where you are outside of the Father’s watchful providential care. Not one sparrow lands without Him knowing it, so you can rest assured He knows where you are, even when you don’t.

I pray you get the same joy you first had on the first Christmas you can remember. I pray for the joy that overwhelmed you in those first moments of your salvation. I pray that uncontainable, unexplainable, unlimited joy will be yours.

I pray you can love yourself as your Abba loves you and love others the same. I pray you love God most of all, with every cell you have in your body. Mostly, I pray you can receive the Love that won’t let you go and let that Love flow through you to those who need it most.

I pray you cherish each moment as the gift it really is and the people in your life. Never take anything or anyone for granted and may your life be one big THANK YOU back to Jesus for all He’s done for you, not only this Christmas, but every single day of your life.

Amen.

An Advent Plea Day 5

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Oh, come, O Key of David, come,
And open wide our heav’nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!”

For us who often lose our way in a world that is pulling us in every direction except the one You call us to walk in, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who are so easily distracted by any and every little thing and so often forget You and Your promise to guide and keep us safe, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who are so prone to giving up and sitting on the side of the road in self-pity and despair, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who need one more reminder of Your goodness, one more sign of Your faithfulness, and one more rememberance of Your saving deeds of the past, come to us, Emmanuel.

Come to us who are weary and heavy-laden and be our Rest. Come to us who grow weary and faint and renew us to rise up as eagles. Come to us who lose the way and lose our true selves amid the cacophony of voices telling us who we should be and what we should do and where we should go and be our Way Home.

Be our Wisdom, our Courage, our Purpose, our Direction, our Promise, our Strength, our Joy, and our Salvation Song.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

An Advent Plea Day 4

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“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.

An Advent Plea Day 3

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“Oh, come, oh, come, our Lord of might,
Who to your tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times gave holy law,
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!”

For us who are weak and frail, come to us, Emmanuel, in Your power and might.

For us who keep making promises that we fail to keep and vows that we never fulfill, come to us, Emmanuel, who fulfilled both Your end and our end of the Law.

For us who struggle through bad days where everything goes wrong and nothing goes as planned, where it is all we can do to survive through the next moment, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who have come to realize that we will never change or break old habits or start new godly ones without Your indwelling Life lived inside us, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who have a path littered with little golden calves and homemade idols of power, success, fame, popularity and all the other gods we’ve tried to replace you with, come to us, Emmanuel.

We who stumble in the dark need Your Light. We who are drowning in a sea of voices all around us that confuse us and cause us to lose our own identity need to hear Your still small voice that can silence all the other voices and remind us of our true selves, who we are in You. Only You can bid the chaotic waves in our hearts and minds be still and bring peace to our inner world.

Come, Lord Jesus, come to us.

An Advent Plea Day 2

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!”

For us who have lost our way again and again and need once more to be taught the way in which we should walk, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who feel crowded and bombarded by all the voices telling us a myriad of different things, telling us who they think we are and who they think we should be, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who lack wisdom and understanding, who often feel more like victims than victors, come to us, Emmanuel.

For us who just need to hear once more the Voice that says good things about us and calls us Beloved and can drown out all the other voices with a whisper, come to us, Emmanuel.

Come be our Wisdom. Come be our Strength. Come be our Confidence and Security. Come show us the way to go and guide us in it, for You Yourself are the way. Come reveal truth to us, for You Yourself are the truth. Come and make our lives full and abundant and overflowing, for You Yourself are the life. Our life.

Come, Jesus, Come.

Nothing is Impossible

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

Do you really believe that nothing is impossible with God? I for one pay lip-service to the idea, but usually in my day-to-day life, I don’t believe it. In fact, many times my life says exactly the opposite.

 But this is the same God who caused Elizabeth to be pregnant in the geriatric ward. The same God who brought forth the Savior of the World from a penniless 13-year old virgin.

Don’t you realize that you yourself are living proof that nothing is impossible with this God?

Weren’t you once dead in sin and shame but are now alive to God and everything good in this life?

Weren’t you a stranger to God, to everyone else, and especially to yourself, but now you belong in a forever family with God as your Abba Father and Beloved as your new name?

Weren’t you without a hope in the world and headed for a dead-end destination but now you’re future is secure and the promises of God toward you as true as the God who made them?

Didn’t you at one point have nothing to offer anyone but now you are a living testimony of God’s grace and His very hands and feet to the world?

You are more than your net worth. You are more than your social status or your marital status or your assets.

You are proof that absolutely nothing is too hard for God. That what seems impossible to us is ridiculously easy for God.

You are living proof that no one is beyond hope of redemption, that no one is too broken to be made whole or too used to be made a new creation or too unloveable to be made beautiful.

Just remember that when someone else tells you you’re a nobody. Remember that when you are far down on someone else’s list of priorities.

Jesus thought you were worth dying for. And you are the evidence that the impossible became reality and the unthinkable happened.

Because nothing– not one thing– has ever, is, or will ever be impossible for this God who saved you. Period.

Thoughts from a Good Conversation with a Friend Tonight

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

I can’t remember who said it, but I love where I read that true friendship (or any other relationship born out of mutual love of Jesus) is where the Jesus in me recognizes and responds to the Jesus in you.

That’s what happened tonight. I met with a friend and we had really good conversation. It was not just information that got passed along. I think somewhere in the midst of all the spoken words, I found healing and I felt burdens slip away that I wasn’t even aware I had been carrying all this time.

There really is something beautiful about fellowship where we mutually encourage each other, pray for each other, carry each other’s burdens, and be strong where the other is weak. We pray for the other when the other can’t find words of their own.

Sometimes the only way you can love yourself and see yourself as you truly exist in God’s eyes is to have someone else see it in you. Sometimes, you never know how the small acts of kindness you do matter, and you may be completely unaware that you did anything at all, until someone else notices.

True friendships require that I am willing to take time I don’t have to spend with you. It means that I sacrifice convenience for the sake of Christlikeness in the other person. I can’t just be on the receiving end all the time. I must be willing to pour my life into someone else, too.

I am thankful for those small moments when I am comfortable with me and content with all that I have in my hands. I am thankful when I really see that I am far more blessed than all I could ever hope to deserve and all those obstacles are just more ways that God can bless me by showing Himself strong in my weakness.

Thank you, friend, for being Jesus to me tonight and showing me Jesus in myself. May everyone else you meet be as encouraged and blessed by your faithfulness to God as I was tonight.

Lights in the Dark

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 6 Comments

“Everything was created through him;
      nothing—not one thing!—
      came into being without him.
   What came into existence was Life,
      and the Life was Light to live by.
   The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
      the darkness couldn’t put it out” (John 1:4-5)

In a sermon I heard today, I was reminded about the difference between light and dark. Darkness is nothing but the absence of light. It has no inherent power of its own.

All the darkness in the world flees away before the power of one single candle. You never heard of darkness putting out a light before, did you?

The only reason the world is in darkness and people can’t find their way and families are adrift is that the lights aren’t shining. Too many people have lit their candles and stuck them under baskets out of fear or conformity or shame.

The only way that people around you can see their way clearly to God is if you shine. That’s what stars do, after all. They don’t fire cannons or raise banners or sing anthems. They just shine.

We are stars in a dark world. When we shine, we reflect the glory of God and show people what He looks like. If we don’t shine, how will anyone be able to know how good this God is or how strong He is to save?

You may not be able to preach a sermon or recite an entire chapter out of the Bible. You may not be able to lead worship or create artistic masterpieces. But there’s one thing you can do as well as anyone else.

You can shine.

No one can tell the story of what God has done in your life better than you can. No one can walk beside someone who’s going through the same tragedies and heartbreaks and obstacles that you went through as well as you can.

Remember that Advent is all about the coming of the Light of the world. All the powers of hell couldn’t overcome Him and the world has never been the same since.

I pray that you will simply reflect the glorious beautiful Love that Jesus shines on you to others. May you be a beacon of hope to those trying to find their way Home.

I pray you shine!

Stopping the Parade

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Some moments are so precious and rare that they stop you in your tracks. Some are so beautiful that they become engrained in your mind the same way an image is burned on to a strip of film.

Today, as I wached the Christmas parade in downtown Franklin, I noticed a man standing with his arms around a little boy who had Down’s syndrome. I watched how loving the man was toward the boy and assumed he was the boy’s father.

At one point, an older man stopped the parade, got out of his car, walked over to the boy, and handed him a stuffed toy dog. I think that image will be forever in my memory.

At one time, we were all in a parade like that. Slowly marching through history, trying anything and everything to fill the deep aching inside. None of the flashing lights or sounds could fil the void or fix the brokenness inside.

Then God stopped the parade. He entered human history in a hidden corner of the world in a lowly barn to a peasant couple in backwoods Bethlehem. God became one of us to find us and rescue us from our sins and ourselves.

That man, Jesus, lived a life we could never hope to live and satisfied the requirements of God that we never could. He climbed up a hill and died a criminal’s death that should have been yours and mine and rose from the grave, leaving all our sin and brokenness and fear of death behind in the grave.

Where were you when God stopped your parade? Where were you when Jesus entered into your history and became something more than a historical figure or religious icon? Where were you when Jesus saved you?

I know at the end there will be a different kind of parade. We will all be in it, along with every saint who ever lived and followed Jesus. It will be a triumphant parade with songs of victory and shouts of joy. Jesus will be the grand marshall and this parade will never end.

I hope during this frantic Christmas season, Jesus will stop your parade and speak peace over you in the few moments of stillness. I pray He will remind you that it’s His birthday we’re celebrating and what He wants more than anything is your heart surrendered and you being a vessel that He can love and reach and heal people through.