relationships

The Art of Blogging at 12:28 am

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 6 Comments

I’m letting you in on a little secret. Most of the time when I sit down to blog, I have only a shadowy, vague idea of what I’m writing about. Usually, I sit down and start typing with my two trusty keyboard fingers and the words just come out. It’s uusally a first draft with little or no editing. Like a stream of consciousness thing.

I’m as surprised as anyone at what comes out in these blogs. I really do think sometimes God takes over and speaks through me. Usually, it’s me writing to myself reminders of what I already knew but needed to hear (or to read) again. I figure if I need it, then maybe someone else does, too.

I don’t write with expectations of having a multitude of readers. Numbers are nice, but also deceiving at times. I write for me, I write for God, and I write for that one person who needs encouragement that day. I try to write every day, whether I “feel” it or not.

Tonight on my way home from a friend’s house, I had Tori Amos playing in the car and felt the warm night air from the vents blowing over me. It was a good moment. I’d say it was even a spiritual moment where I was again reminded that life is the little things that we don’t ever plan for or expect, that just happen randomly, and we miss them if we’re too preoccupied with the past or the future.

I’d say the past is past. You can’t ever go back to fix or change it. The future is not yet, and my worrying and fretting over it won’t change what is to come. So live in the now. Be in the moment. Wherever you are, be all there and enjoy all of it.

Wow. I didn’t expect to go all spiritual life coach on you, but like I said, I never know what to expect when I blog. Except for catharsis and healing and the hopes that one person will be touched and blessed. If 9,999 others are touched and blessed as well, I am fine with that. But I am happy with just the one.

Even if that one is me.

This Blog Has No Nutritional Value Whatsoever

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It’s 12:53 and I have a nagging headache, yet here I am, faithfully blogging for my loyal readers. Both of you.

Ok, just kidding about that last part. I am extremely grateful for anyone who reads this. But it is now 12:54 and I still have a headache and my typing skills are worse than usual. Not that they were ever really any good.

Life is kinda like going to the Goodwill store. You go in looking for something specific, but end up with something else. In this case, I was looking for old Caedmon’s Call CDs, but ended up with three t-shirts, one Tori Amos CD, a portable CD player, and three books. All for just over $20. Plus, one of the books was half price, thanks to the orange price sticker.

God is like that, too. You go to Him in prayer with something specific in mind and you sometimes get something completely different. But definitely what you get is always better.

If I’m so stuck on getting that one specific thing I’m asking for, I fail to appreciate the value of what I’m getting instead. Usually, what I think I need that I can’t live without (or who I think I can’t live without) turns out to be something I just wanted that I can live without. The more I look back later on that thing or that person, the more I’m glad I didn’t get what I prayed for.

Wow. I just got deep for 1:02 in the morning. I guess this blog did end up with something nutritional in it after all. And the headache’s a little better.

So, thank you, God, for Excedrin Migrane, Goodwill, Tori Amos, orange price stickers, and (best of all) for giving me what is good for me instead of what looks good to me.

Here endeth the blog. Good night. At 1:06 am.

Ruminations from the Garden

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It’s easy for me to look back having read the ending of the story and miss the huge implications of what went down at the Garden of Even when Adam and Eve fell. Yes, I know that Jesus came and redeemed us from all that, but they didn’t know that. Yet.

Eve saw that the forbidden tree was delightful and the fruit was desirable and took and ate of it. Which goes to show that what looks good to you isn’t always good for you. That applies to relationships or careers or anything else. Another way of putting it, borrowed from Tolkien, is “All that glitters is not gold.” I’m sure the Tolkien fanatics reading this (including me)  can finish the rest of that poem.

Here’s something interesting I never thought of before today. Adam and Eve ate the fruit, saw they were naked, tried to cover themselves out of shame, and hid from God because of what they had done. The result has been relational strife ever since. Marriages are hard. Families are hard. Jobs are tough. Creation groans. All because of that one sin.

But Jesus came. He was stripped naked and put on a cross, he was covered by all our sins, and God hid His face from Jesus because He couldn’t look at all that sin. The Bible talks about Jesus as the Second Adam because He succeedes where Adam failed and obeyed God perfectly in every way possible.

Here’s the best part. Through Jesus, we are free to be naked and unashamed in the sense that we can be real and transparent with no fear of condemnation from God, we are covered by His blood and Galatians says that we who have trusted in Jesus have put on Jesus, like putting on new clothes. And we have free access to God and can come boldly to the throne and not have to worry that God will hide from us or hinder us from getting to Him.

The Cross means that everything we’ve ever lost will be restored even better than it was before. All the toil and sweat and tears will not even compare to the reward waiting for us. Best of all, Jesus’ death means that we are innocent again, like we never sinned.

I like to think that the Cross and the Resurrection means that the end will be better than any fairy tale or folktale. The end will truly be, “And we lived happily ever after, and each day after that was better than the last and the adventures, far from ending, had only just begun.”

Grace and Faith and Other Ponderings

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First of all, let me just state again for the 1.000th time how much I love grace in all its forms. I love the fact that faith is what saved me, not my own works. But that leaves me with some questions:

1) Why are we so quick to default to rules instead of grace for living out our faith? It seems we’re a lot better at looking at a biblical text and coming up with all sorts of applications and practical steps than seeing what that passage reveals about the heart of God, especially toward His people.

2) Why is it that I in particular am really good when it comes to receiving and sometimes even expecting grace from others, but not nearly as good at extending grace to others? I judge others by their actions, while at the same time expecting them to judge me for my good intentions.

3) Why aren’t we putting down our picket signs and boycott plans and forming more confession booths. Not the kind where people confess to us, but where we confess to others how we have failed as believers to show them what Christ is really all about. Oh yeah, and Read Blue Like Jazz to find out more about confession booths.

4) Why are so many of us so quick to condemn sins we don’t struggle with, such as homosexuality or addictions, while minimizing the our own sins of pride and gluttony and lust? Why are we so quick to be like that Pharisee that thanked God that he wasn’t like all the sinners around him? Why aren’t we more like the tax collector who truly saw his own desparate need for grace and took the blame instead?

5) Where is the love that we are called to show each other? Not just a once a week kind of love, but an everyday, burden-sharing, transparent, completely honest love that seeks the best of the beloved, no matter what the cost. The kind of love that will draw people in droves to seek what we have in Christ.

If I am honest, I have to look in the mirror to find the problem with the Church. I am way too judgmental and condemning and quick to blame or cast doubt, slow to show grace and mercy. Each one of us could stand to look in the mirror for the culprit of what’s wrong with America. Not those liberals out there, but this hypocrite right here.

If I am true to the gospel, I see that that’s not who I am. That’s the sin in me, but not me. I am who God has declared me to be. So are you. We are already blameless. Already justified. Already righteous. Already victorious. All we have to do is claim these things and live in them. To so be enraptured by Christ’s love and let it envelop us until it shines through every pore and transforms us into the likeness of the One who loves us so much.

If I want grace, if I need it, then I should want it just as badly for my fellow believers. If I am forgiven for so much, then I should strive to aks God to put forgiveness in my heart for those who wronged me far less than I ever wronged my Jesus. Help me to want those things, Jesus.

Amen and amen.

A Daily Prayer of Mother Teresa

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mother teresa

I found this in the booklet that came with a Natalie Grant CD I bought today.

“Dear Lord, help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go.

Flood my soul with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with my feel your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only you, O Lord!

Stay with me, then I shall begin to shine as you do; so to shine as to be light to others. The light, O Lord, will be all from you; none of it will be mine; it will be you shining on others through me. Let me thus praise you in every way you love best, by shining on those around me.

Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you.

Amen.”

I would only add that while it is great to show God’s love by example, it will always be necessary at some point to use words, for how can anyone believe who has not heard? I think the point that Mother Teresa and Saint Francis of Assisi made was that you need both. Not just words without a loving example and not just a loving example without words. Lord, help me to be both today!

Amen and amen.

My Obligatory Charlie Sheen Blog

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

image

Honestly, this is not another blog about how crazy Charlie Sheen is these days or how he needs help or any of that. If I were in his shoes, I might be acting twice as crazy. Plus, I’d probably be walking funny ’cause His feet are probably at least 2 sizes bigger than mine.

Actually, this is about a dream I had that starred Charlie Sheen. In my dream, I was about to cut the front yard when ol’ Charlie pulled up and asked if he could do it, because he’d never used a lawnmower before. His dream words, not mine. And that was it. I don’t know if it’s weird that I dreamed this or that I still remember the dream. And yes, I totally pulled a bait-and-switch blog on you.

Dreams always seem normal when you’re dreaming them. You never notice anything bizarre when you’re in the dream. You could be flying naked and be thinking in the dream, “Hey, I always fly on Tuesdays. And where did my clothes go? I’m pretty sure I was dressed when I left the house this morning.” Only when you wake up do you realize that what you dreamed about wasn’t normal. And I mean both the flying and the being naked part.

I think we do that in life, especially as believers. We tend live the same way, thinking that the way we think and act is normal, but only when God’s Spriit moves in and wakes us up, do we realize how abnormal we’ve been. So many live under the belief that it’s normal to feel defeated and discouraged and numb to your faith. It’s normal to not feel anything in worship. It’s normal to think that God must be upset with you and that your fellow believers don’t really want you around.

Only when God opens your eyes do you see that victory is the norm. You see that God sees Jesus when He sees you and He is very pleased with you. And those fellow believers you thought were ready to throw you under the bus? They may need to hear your struggle so they can encourage you or at the least empathize with what you’re going through. And once you start making worship about declaring the great worth of God because He deserves it, whether you feel it or not, the feelings eventually come back. I promise. But at that point, it doesn’t matter whether you’re super-hyped or barely able to sing the words. It’s still worship because it’s centered on a God who is able.

So yeah. I pretty much fooled you into thinking you were going to read a scathing blog about another Hollywood star gone wrong. All I have for Charlie Sheen is prayer and support. But for the grace of God, that could have been me or you. Or much worse. You and I need God’s grace just as much as any of the Charlie Sheens of the world. We needed just as much of the blood of Christ. And God is able to save all the Charlie Sheens. . . and us. . . to the uttermost!

Amen and amen.

What Are You Known For?

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Tonight, Dave Ramsey spoke at Kairos and one thing he said stood out to me. Just as a brand name of a product is known for a certain quality of that product, so we are known for something in our lives. It’s not what we say that we are known for, but what we do. So what are you known for?

I think I know. I want to be known as a man after God’s own heart. I want to be known as someone absolutely drenched in God and drowning in the overflow of His love and grace. I want to be someone who has no glory of his own but reflects the glory of Christ just as the moon has no light of its own but reflects the light of the sun. I want my goal to be that I look a little more like Jesus today than I did yesterday, this month than I did last month, and this year than last year.

I want to be known as someone who lived what I said I believed. Someone whose heart beat with the heartbeat of God, full of compassion and tenderness. Someone broken-hearted over the things that break God’s heart. Someone who was not afraid to love the least of these, even when they least deserved it. Someone who gave himself away for the Kingdom every single day.

I don’t want this to become another legalistic checklist where I fail if I don’t get at least 4 out of 5 of these checked off daily. I want it to be a growing passion in me and a desire that never wavers or wanes. I want this for my brothers and sisters in Christ, that we together reflect as the Church the full beauty and glory of Christ and love each other and the world in such a radical way that it demands their attention.

When we are known as a people not who judge or condemn or make new rules, but as a people who love and forgive and show grace, then we will be known as a people whom God used to dramatically change the world. We will be the change in the world that we want t see. May Christ in you be your only hope and stay and may His love continue to captivate and transform your heart into one like His.

Amen and amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Seeing Through the Lens of Grace

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Lately, I’ve been a big fan of grace. Not that I haven’t always been a fan. I have. But lately I’ve come to love grace even more, mostly because I see my own need of it and because I see how beautiful it looks when believers share grace and opt for it instead of the usual condemnation and shunning.

If I see you through the lens of grace, I don’t see your failures, flaws and shortcomings. I see your potential and possibilities. I see who you could become and who you are becoming in Christ. I see who Christ has already declared you to be and believe that for you when you can’t believe it for yourself.

The only way believers can come together and be unified the way Christ prayed we would be is through grace. And if Jesus prayed above all for our unity, it can no longer be a nice option or a good alternative. It has to be what we long for more than anything. I think that’s because our love for each other is our most powerful witnessing tool. More than Scriptural knowledge (though that is vital) or doctrinal purity (also essential). The early church captivated the ancient world by the way believers loved each other. That’s what will captivate our world and draw people to the Jesus we serve.

It’s easy to decide that someone isn’t worth the effort to love or even like. It’s an easy cop-out to say that we can’t like or be friends with everybody, so why try. Jesus commands us to love each other and He doesn’t give us any loopholes or exceptions to the rule. I as a believer am called to love those God places in my life, whoever they are and whether they love me back or not. I am called to love those who carry the name of Christian, whether I think I like them or not.

How do we truly love in this way? Only if we see through the eyes of grace. We can’t believe God’s best for others if we don’t believe it for ourselves. If we don’t believe what God says about us, how can we believe it for others? If we are in bondage to religion and rules, we won’t be able to see others through grace, but only through guilt and condemnation. Only when we are set free in Christ can we really see people as God sees them.

My prayer is that you would see yourself as God sees you and receive it. That you would hear what God says about you and believe it. Then you would see others the same way and believe the same for others. That you would make every effort and do everything in your power to love all your brothers and sisters in Christ and be in unity. Because love is what will win in the end.

Amen and amen.

Something Beautiful

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

First of all, I love Needtobreathe and I totally stole this blog title from one of their songs (which I love, by the way). Just so you know. Not that it has anything to do with the rest of the blog.

One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen lately is a group of believer who are fully coming alive to who they are in Christ, who are learning that they have all the authority and power of Christ in them, and they can do what everyone else says is impossible, because for God who lives in them, all things are possible. They have a God who lives in them who relishes making impossilbilities into possibilities. It’s His speciality.

I love seeing my brothers and sisters in Christ waking up to their sonship and daughtership (if that’s a word) in Christ, watching as the chains of past failures and hurts fall away, as strongholds and addictions are broken, and as the love of Christ cleanses and heals and restores and makes them whole. I love seeing fear turn into joy, mourning into dancing, ashes into beauty, despair into confidence, and defeat into victory.

The absolute most beautiful thing to me right now is believers who share life together, who break bread together, who bear each others burdens and laugh and cry together. That kind of love is what turned the 1st century world upside down, and is what will turn this 21st century world on its head if we ever can come together in Christ as one.

Now is the time to come together in unity and love with crazy radical love. Now is the time to be all in for Christ and to embrace His vision of who you are and accept what He has already said about you. Revival comes to hearts that are not just a little hungry and thirsty and needy, but to starving, parched, desparate people who will wrestle with God and not let go until true revival fire falls.

Let those things be our desire and our prayer. Don’t wish for something beautiful to make the world fall in love with Jesus; let your transformation be that something beautiful that will draw them to the God who can change anyone and to Whom no one is ever past hope or a lost cause.

Amen and amen! Come, Holy Spirit. We need you now!

Just Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

just-love

A friend of mine told me about how God had recently impressed upon her heart lately the words, “JUST LOVE!” I think that’s God’s word to me, too.

What is the power that conquered death in all its forms and made the fear of death something that the believer no longer has over him or her? Just love.

What is the force that will still be around when all the dictators and kings and presidents have gone to their graves and kingdoms and empires have fallen? Just love.

What will be the power that outlasts hate, overcomes fear, overwhelms ignorance, and will be the last one standing? Just love.

What can’t be stopped by any army or weapon or group that has ever been and ever will be? What has survived centuries of attempts to snuff it out only to grow stronger with time? Just love.

What is God’s ultimate force He has used to end the dominion of sin and overthrow darkness and usher in a new Kingdom with new values where anyone is welcome, nobody is perfect and nothing is impossible? Just love.

What are we as believers called to do to see this Kingdom of God come and see multitudes coming to faith in the Messiah and King, Jesus? Just love.

What will overcome every obstacle and barrier and what will draw people to the God we serve and make them want to know Him? Just love.

What can mend your broken heart, refresh your weary spirit, renew your mind, and heal your sin-scarred body? Just love.

Just love and only love is what will win. God is love and His love for us is so powerful that nothing, not death or the grave or anything else, can keep Him from getting to us and taking us back. Nothing can separate us from Him. Nothing will cause His love for us to stop. Nothing will diminish His love for us in the slightest.

God’s love in us and through us WILL change the world. That one thing I believe with all that is in me!

Amen and amen!