mercy

Living Sermons: Thoughts from Tonight’s Kairos Roots

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Something Aaron Bryant said really hit home with me today in a way few things have lately.

He said that we as believers could be the only sermons some people will ever hear.

Many people who will never step foot inside a chuch building are watching you and me. They are listening as we talk about our faith and how much we love the worship services and sermons we participate in each week.

But what speaks loudest of all is how we live. How we respond to bad days and failure and criticism. How we react when people yell at us or berate us or make fun of us and our beliefs.

When they see us not chasing after the next new big fad or product, they notice. They might think something like, “This is a person just like me who’s not captive to making the same bad choices I always seem to make. There’s something different about her (or him).”

When you exhibit contentment in Christ, it’s hard to miss. When you can be at peace in the middle of the chaos of a hectic day, it’s hard to miss. When you forgive after being hurt, they see Jesus in the flesh, your flesh, as He really is, full of love and grace and mercy.

You are preaching something every single day. How you live either glorifies you or God. How you treat others around you will influence how they see the God you profess to serve.

It’s not about being perfect and always acting out of love and never slipping up and giving in to anger. It’s about being able to ‘fess up when you mess up. It’s about being able to say the words, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. What I said (or did) didn’t reflect what I believe. Will you forgive me?”

So preach love. Not the touchy-feely sentimental much that passes for love these days, but the “get your hands and feet dirty” kind of love. The unconditional agape love that only can come from God, not from us.

Preach grace. Preach forgiveness. Preach not rules and regulations, but a better way to live.

St. Francis said it best (or at least this quote is always attributed to him, so that’s close enough for me): “Preach the Gospel at all times and, if necessary, use words.”

If you live Jesus on a daily basis, when the time comes, you will have an open door to share Jesus to a willing audience.

Something “Borrowed”

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Like the title says, I am “borrowing” this one from tonight’s Kairos, featuring guest speaker Thom Wolf. He spoke about how God has provided the answer to how we are to live in the 21st century. The syllabus for life is found in Micah 6:8: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

The three parts are justice, mercy, and faithfulness (see Matthew 23:23-24).

We must seek justice. Justice means that where you live never determines whether you should live or not. Justice means that no child should ever go hungry or die of preventible diseases or be sold into slavery or sex trafficking. Justice means that Jesus has come not to turn the world upside-down, but to turn an upside-down world the rightside up again.

We seek mercy. Not just to those who deserve it, for by its very definition mercy is always for those who don’t deserve it. By the love of Christ, we love our enemies into friends and then into brothers and sisters in Christ. We turn the other cheek and lay down our rights, looking to God to defend us. When someone close to us falls, we don’t extend a pointing finger, but a helping hand.

We seek faithfulness. I love the illustration of unfaithfulness as a step that looks outwardly sound, but is eaten away and has no real substance. You can’t depend on it or put any weight on it. Faithfulness means we don’t talk humbly before our God, we walk humbly. We live out what we profess and our actions and attitudes line up with our confessions.

If we live these things, we won’t ever have to con anyone into the Kingdom of God. We won’t have to ever trick someone into praying a prayer or manipulate anyone into a decision. If we do justly and lover mercy and walk humbly before God, we will show Jesus to the people around us and they will want to know Him.

I for one have been challenged to broaden my thinking and seek God’s heart for the world. If God has a special place in His heart for the poor and needy, outcast and forsaken, then why don’t I?

 

The Reminders of the Not Yet

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Today was one of those days that contained elements of the good, the bad, and the ugly. To be sure, there was about 75% good, 20% bad, and only 5% ugly, give or take 5%.

The good: I finally found the laptop of my dreams. I think this will work and this time it will really last. Desktop, you were fun, but I think we both know it’s over and it’s time to move on.

The bad: For some reason, the drive to Chuy’s became much more of an adventure than it should have  been. I’ve been there many times before, but for some reason today, I was compelled to turn the wrong way off I-65 and to have to perform a semi-U turn to get back on the right track. It was a lovely and awkward driving moment that I will be doing my best to repress in the days to come.

The ugly: I seem to have screwed up a friendship before it really even got going. My social skills were AWOL for part of the night, and that was the part that I chose ever-so-wisely to have a conversation with the friend in question. Needless to say, I stuck my foot in my mouth up to my kneecap. It was awkward.

It’s okay that I’m not there yet. It’s okay that I don’t have it all together and have it all figured out yet. God does.

I can’t mess up so badly that He can’t turn my mistake into something beautiful and good. I can’t screw up something beyond God’s ability to fix it and make it right again.

God, I’m leaning on your promises tonight. I’m counting on You to work your purposes in my mistakes and take even the bad and the ugly of my day and work it for Your good.

Amen and amen. Pass the tylenol.

Teachability, Vulnerability, and Constructive Criticism

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I hate public speaking. Whenever I had to do any kind of a presentation in class, I got the sweaty palms, mysterious flu-like symptoms (so I could get out of having to speak in public), and a strong desire to be a desert monk who has taken a vow of silence.

Most people are with me on this. I think people are more afraid of speaking in public than they are of dying. I know this to be true, because I found it on the internet, which is the bastion of all things credible and trustworthy. Especially Wikipedia.

I also hate giving criticism. I am a people-pleaser, so I hate to do or say anything at all that might cause tension in the relationship. In the past, my way of giving criticism was easy– avoid it like the bubonic plague.

But I’ve been thinking lately. If there was a way I could be better at something, I would want someone to show me. If I could improve in an area of my life, I would love for someone to tell me.

Criticism isn’t telling someone how bad they are. It’s telling them how they could be better. It’s not “Hey, your feet smell and you are a lousy, no-good blah blah blah,” but “Hey, I notice that you are really making an effort and doing a good job. Here’s a better way you could do this one particular thing. . . . ”

The Bible tells us to speak the truth in love. If it’s not truth, we’re enabling their mistakes and bad behavior. If it’s not spoken in love, then it’s condemnation and more likely to do more harm than good.

The best way to address a problem I see in someone else is to fix it in me. After all, we tend to project our faults onto other people and notice more readily in them the same weaknesses we struggle with (that’s my Union University degree paying off).

Actions speak louder than words, so the best way to change someone else is to tell that person how they are wrong, but to live out the right way. That person may not listen to you and may cut you off in mid-sentence, but you can show them the better way by listening to what they have to say.

The best way of all is to strive to be more like Jesus. If the people in our lives see us living out our beliefs in humility, authenticity, and transparency, they are more likely to listen to what we have to say. As I heard it put, preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.

A Letter to Kim Kardashian

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Kim,

I don’t know if you will read this or not. Realistically speaking, I’m pretty sure you won’t, since you probably don’t have time to read blogs by people you don’t know who aren’t famous. But if by some extremely remote chance, you happen to stumble on this quaint little blog, I hope you know I’m rooting for you.

I know a lot of people will look at your decision to start a Bible study and question your motives. They will say you just want to hook up with Tim Tebow or give some other reason why you can’t legitimately want to read God’s Word for its own sake.

I am not one of those.

I hope you read the Bible and find all that God has for you in there. I hope you find God’s love letter to His people, including you, and how much He loved His people and what great lengths He undertook to win back His people lost to sin and death.

I hope you will find that true beauty is in what God says about you, not what some magazine or television producer says about you. God says, “I made you and that makes you beautiful, because I made you in My image.”

I hope you will know that Jesus loves you just for you, not because of what you do or what you wear or who you know. I hope you can find joy in the fact that Jesus looked at you in your worst moments and thought you were still to die for.

I hope you fall in love with God’s Word and want it more than anything else. I hope you are transformed by what you read and that every time you read the Bible, you put it down a different person than when you picked it up. More than that, I pray you will take what you read and live it out in compassion for the needy and love for those whom God loves.

I hope you understand that no matter what you’ve done in the past, God has a purpose for you. He can work in and through you to do some pretty amazing things that will blow you away.

Like I said before, I’m rooting for you and hoping you find the peace you’re looking for.

Signed,

A Ragamuffin who is just trying to tell others about the grace of God that he’s found

PS It’s still not too late, no matter how messed up your life seems right now. Jesus can still turn your mess into something beautiful.

Revisiting Forgiveness

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“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasinly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family” (Henri J.M. Nouwen).

When you don’t forgive and hold on to bitterness and anger, it’s like you’re drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. Whoever hurt you may be completely unaware that they did anything and living in blissful ignorance while you’re still stuck in the moment of your hurt.

When you forgive, you open wide the doors to the prison cell only to discover that you were the one being held prisoner all that time by the past and by the pain you held on to for so long. The shackles you unlock were your own, the chain you forged in life while you nursed the anger and bitterness and were held captive by your hurt.

Forgiveness is where you realize that the wrong done to you pales in comparison to the wrongs you did to God, and the debt owed to you is like pennies in comparison to the millions you owed. You could never have hoped to even begin to pay for the debts your sin incurred, yet God freely and completely forgave you. How can you not forgive someone else who has wronged you?

Forgiveness is not easy. In fact, it’s humanly impossible. Only a heart regenerated and transformed by Jesus can forgive. Only those who have experienced the amazing unmerited grace of Jesus can extend it to those who don’t deserve it. Only those who have been forgiven can forgive.

But if you call Jesus not only Savior, but Lord, forgiveness isn’t an option. Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” In the parable of the ungrateful slave, Jesus points out that we get forgiveness only as much as we are willing to give it.

Learning to forgive is a lifelong process that we never really master. Some things and some people take longer to forgive because the hurt runs deeper and the scars are more fresh. But if you have been truly forgiven, then you will seek to forgive others. Sometimes, the hardest person you will have to learn to forgive is yourself.

Lord, give us each day more and more of Your heart that loves the unloveable and extends grace to those who need it most but deserve it least. Help us to forgive.

Still Thankful for Grace

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On the days when I’m feeling spiritually strong and I am seeking God with all my being, I need grace.

On the days when I barely make it out of bed before I fall into temptation and the rest of the day is spent digging out of one trap after the next, I need grace.

On the days when I hear God speaking to me though His word and I feel my purpose more clearly, I need grace.

On the days when I read a bunch of words that I forget the moment I put my Bible down, when I feel like my existance is pointless and futile, I need grace.

When I’m asking for forgiveness for something I’ve already done, or worse yet, something I’m about to do, I need grace.

No matter how faithful or faithless I’ve been in the last 24 hours, I still need grace.

I will need grace to sustain me and save me every single day for the rest of my life.

The more I see my need for grace, the more thankful I am for it and the more willing I am to extend it to others around me who need it as much as I do. The more I see that I just can’t do it alone and that I need brothers and sisters who will walk beside me and encourage, challenged, rebuke, and spur me on to continue in the faith.

May you see your need of grace all the more each day and come to be thankful that where you are weak, His grace is still very much sufficient. May you see that at the end of the day, all that you can say that got you through will have been grace and only grace. May you not only reach out to take it, but also to extend it to those around you who certainly don’t deserve it, but need it just the same.

Kinda like you and me.

Some Things I Wish You Could See

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The media and the culture of the day tell you all the things you are not. They remind you constantly of all that you don’t have, all that you lack, all that you should be, etc. If you listen to the television and the radio and read the internet and magazines, you feel like you aren’t worth very much and that you’re not pretty enough or rich enough or suave enough. In short, you’re not enough.

But I am telling you a different story. I want you to hear it here, even if you’ve never heard it anywhere else. It’s not really my story, but the one God told me that I am telling you now.

God says you are enough. God says, “I made you and when I was done, I didn’t say, ‘Close Enough’ or ‘That’ll have to do,’ but ‘It is very good.’

Paul talks about how you are God’s masterpiece, created to do the great things He planned for you to do long ago. He made you perfect and He made you with a purpose. That means you are exactly who God wanted you to look like. That means you are not a waste of space or meaningless, but priceless.

I wish you could see yourself through God’s eyes. I wish you could see that Jesus thought you were to die for and worth all His precious blood. I wish you could see not all your shorcomings and failures and inadequacies, but the image of God in you. I wish you could hear not all the names you’ve ever been called in anger or frustration, but the name God calls you in love: BELOVED.

The media will lie to you. What you read and hear and see all around you will lie to you. Sometimes, even what you think and feel will lie to you. But God never will. What He says is true and trumps whatever anybody has ever or will ever say about you.

That’s what I wish you could see and believe and hold on to in the hard times. Because that’s the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Lessons from Joseph

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I’ve been reading in Genesis about the story of Joseph. If you’ve been around Sunday School when you were little, you probably know the story. Joseph is one of 12 brothers who was thrown in a pit, then sold into slavery. He ended up in a high-ranking officer’s home, until that officer’s wife tried to seduce him and then when her efforts failed, accused him of rape and had him thrown in prison.

The story concludes with Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams landing him in a very high position in the Egyptian government, second in command only to the Pharoah himself. His brothers come to him in the midst of a famine, hats in hand and begging for a handout. When they learn who he is, they’re sure he will have them enslaved. But then some of the most beautiful words in the Bible:

What you meant for evil, God meant for good.

The very worst the brothers could do to Joseph ended up being the means God used to bring about a chain of events that led to the saving of an entire nation. Joseph could have been bitter and vengeful– he had every right to be– but instead chose to be thankful and grateful and to forgive because He was able to see God’s hand at work in his life.

No matter what’s been done to you or what you’ve done to yourself, God can turn it into something beautiful. No matter how much of a wreck your life has become, it is never at any point past redeeming or saving.

Paul later stated that God works all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Even the very worst that people could dream of or inflict on you.

I love what one pastor said: “God can take the worst moment of your life and make it the first line of your testimony.”

That’s true. God took the very worst that humanity could do to His Son Jesus and turned it into the salvation of man. In fact, that was God’s plan all along to have His Son tried unjustly, beaten, mocked, and crucified so that those enemies could become sons and daughters of God.

Let Joseph remind you of the power of forgiveness and love to change anything. Let it remind you that with God, all things are possible.

More Random Things I’m Thankful For

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I mentioned some of the things I’m thankful for a couple of blogs back and I decided to add these to the list:

1. Getting to sleep in on certain Saturdays. It’s nice to be able to look at 5:30 am on the alarm clock and roll over and go back to sleep.

2. Good stories that make me lose track of time, whether they be in books or movies or TV shows.

3. That who I am is who God tells me I am, not who I or anyone else tells me I am. Not what I’ve done. Not my mistakes or failures or even my good deeds. I am God’s beloved.

4. That this is not one of those essays that has to be 500 words or else I get counted off on my grade.

5. The peace that transcends all understanding and comes when I least expect it and need it most.

6. Grace.

7. That I know so many awesome people who have inspired me and challenged me and loved me and made me want to be more like Jesus.

8. That the best things in life are still free.

9. That when I press “publish” some little men inside my computer box will make this go out over that great and mysterious internet to people I may never meet but who may be inspired to find something of their own to be thankful for and find the God from whom all these blessings flow.