I’ve been in the process of going through my vast music collection and designating some of my CDs for either donation to Goodwill or trading at McKay’s. Among those I picked to go was an old Rhett Miller CD.

I had convinced myself that I only liked one song on the whole album and to keep a CD for one song wasn’t worth it. Then I had the brilliant idea of giving the CD a go in my car CD player.

I was surprised in a good way. I really liked what I heard, and not just the one song. Rhett has been saved from the musical trash heap.

I’ve done that with other things, too. I’ve done that with people. There have been people who at first rubbed me the wrong way. My first impression was not a favorable one. Thankfully, it was also a false one.

Some of the best people I know were those who I didn’t like at first. Maybe they changed. Maybe I did. Or maybe I finally had a chance to really see the person for who they were and not who I needed or wanted them to be.

The point of all this pontification is that we shouldn’t give up so easily on people. For me, I think I should be as willing to give up on someone as God was to give up on me.

I’ve had some people write me off in the past. I’m sure you have, too. I may have given up on some people too soon. So many of us have written ourselves off. I’ve even come perilously close to giving up on God.

The good news is that God’s not about to give up on me or you. God won’t write us off. In fact, God has us written on His heart. God has a white tablet with our new names written on it. That sounds pretty permanent to me.

As for that Goodwill collection, one day it will acutally make it to Goodwill. Maybe before CDs go obsolete. But you and I will never lose our value or worth because God won’t change His mind about how He feels about us.

That’s a good thing.

Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. So goes the old saying. Like tonight when I was deep in thought and wasn’t paying attention and walked into a wall. I like to think I was providing unintentional comedic relief.

But truly, the best moments are ususally the ones you don’t plan or expect. Like when I went tonight expecting a Bible Study on Romans, but got good conversation instead about life. Or the moments when you just decide spontaneously to take a walk at night.

I think the great theologian Ferris Bueller was right. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop every once in a while and look around, you could miss it. If you are so busy “getting things done” and “keeping your schedule,” you could wind up looking back on your life and wondering where it went.

I am more and more conviced that life is about people and relationships and conversations and walking though joy and sorrow together. I have  yet to hear of someone on their deathbed say anything close to “I wish I could have spent more time at the office” or “I really wish I could have gotten more things done.” The regret is always not spending enough time with those you love.

Why wait until you’re dying to get perspective? Why not live each day like it could be your last and do what you would do then? Why not make your focus on people and creating memories instead of a checklist that will never ever be done. No matter how much you do or how much you work, you can always do more. But you miss so much that way.

Maybe you’ll say I’m not motivated enough. Maybe you’re right. But I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find out that I was so busy trying to do God’s work that I missed God’s heart. I don’t want to get to the end only to wish I could go back for a do-over when it’s too late.

It’s good and wise to make plans and have goals. It’s also a good thing to keep your eyes and ears open and be willing to leave some things undone every now and then. Leave room in your life for living. And naps and concerts and sunsets. And always when the opportunity presents, take the chocolate.

“Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims” (1 Cor. 6:12).

I am the first to admit that I am a recovering Pharisee. Even now, I get a certain perverse thrill when a pastor speaks on a vice that doesn’t apply to me. I can visualize people I think that really need to hear the message and oftentimes miss out on the real point entirely. That almost happened tonight.

As a Christian freed from the law, I have liberty to do certain things. I even have rights. I could partake of the occasional glass of wine or beer if I wanted. I don’t, but only because I don’t prefer the taste and because alcoholism is on both sides of my family.

I could probably do a lot of things and say a lot of things and be perfectly within my rights. But would I be within the parameters of true love? The kind that Jesus showed? Here’s a few things I’ve figured out.

If I really have the love of Jesus, I won’t demand my rights all the time. If fact, true love shows itself best when I lay down my rights for another. My insistance on always having my rights shows that I am not loving like Jesus did.

Jesus, according to Phillipians 2:5-11, had all the rights and privileges of being equal with God. If anyone could have insisted on rights, He could. Instead, He emptied Himself of those rights and privilges and took on the form of a slave. And not just a slave, but a slave who was willing to die in the most humiliating and excrutiating way possible on a Roman cross.

Love doesn’t say, “What are my rights and what can I get away with?” but “What can I give up to make the other person better?” Ultimately, love asks, “How can I show Jesus to people in such a way that they will be drawn to His love the way I was?” and “How can I make the name of Jesus look as great and glorious as possible?”

So, love trumps my rights. Love trumps my own ego. Love trumps hate and evil and everything else that stands up against it. Look at that cross and see the ultimate triumph of Love.

I hope you and I will. Daily.

I am admittedly a movie geek. That’s why when I got a chance to see To Kill a Mockingbird at a restored old movie theatre in historic downtown Franklin, I jumped at the chance. I probably slobbered all over myself, too. I love old movies like that.

I love the character of Atticus Finch. He’s the father everyone wishes they had, even those with good fathers. In the movie, he defends a black man accused of raping a white woman. The outcome of the case is a foregone conclusion in this small southern town, but Atticus Finch presents a solid defence anyway.

I love that because I love the idea of someone being a champion for the lost causes. I love the idea of people who will speak out for those who have no voice, whether it’s the unborn in America or children of Muslim women in Afghanistan. Whether it’s the dying lepers in India who just want to die with dignity or the AIDS patients here who need to know that someone really loves them.

Jesus was that kind of champion. He spoke for the widow and the orphan, He defended the defenseless, and He chose the outcasts and nobodies to be His followers. He said those who were spiritually poor, those who hungered and thirsted for God, those who mourned, those were the blessed ones, because they got God and the Kingdom.

I think the world needs more of those kind of heroes. It needs those who will stand up for the orphans and the widows and the forsaken and the outcast. It needs someone who will fight for the rights of the enemy and love those who hate them, as Jesus did. The Jesus who laid down His life for us when we were God’s enemies and opposed to everything He stands for.

In God’s perspective, there are no lost causes and no one beyond hope of salvation. Maybe when we start seeing through His eyes, we will learn to cherish and love what God loves and have His heart for those who have no one else who loves and looks after them.

That’s what I want. I hope you want it, too.

I learned about Thomas Jefferson in school. I know he’s on the nickel, which is better than old Abraham Lincoln, who had the misfortune to get stuck on the penny. I also know Jefferson had some crazy weird theology.

Jefferson was a deist. He took his Bible and if he found any passage about the supernatural or the miraculous, he’d cut it out. Literally, he’d take scissors and snip that section out. The result was a very hole-y Bible. And yep, I just went there with that terrible pun.

But before we cast stones (or nickels) at the man, let’s examine how you or I might do the same.

Those Old Testament passages on the wrath of God? You know, the ones where He orders the Israelites to wipe out their enemy completely, including women and children? Nope, don’t like that. It doesn’t fit my image of a loving God. Snip, snip.

The passages that talk about how God is completely sovereign over His creation, including salvation? Definitely don’t like the way that messes with my free will. Snip, snip.

The verses that talk about how Jesus will say to the ones with the impressive religious resume, “Depart from me. I never knew you”? Nope. Snip, snip.

All the verses that speak to how Jesus is not after religion or performance or a better morality? The ones where we find out that we get to God only through grace and not through doing the right things and saying all the right words? Those are much too scandalous. Rules are safe, freedom is not. Snip, snip.

Personally, if I had written the Bible, I would have left out several parts, particularly the one about how Lot’s daughters got him drunk and seduced him. That’s just creepy. And the one about putting out your eye or cutting off your han rather than your whole body going to hell. I would not have put that in there.

Those and many other parts of the Bible would not have been in my version of the Bible (which would have been called the GJV). My Bible would have been much shorter and had better pictures in it. And lots more maps, ’cause who doesn’t like lots of maps?

In the end, the Bible is above what I or you or anybody else thinks about it. Every word of it is inspired, even the words that aren’t as comforting and cuddly as the ones that begin with words like “Come to me, all who labor . . .” Our job isn’t to decide what we will read and believe and apply and obey. We don’t get to choose which parts were only kinda inspired and which parts were really, really inspired (like those words in red).

God has given us Letters from Home and we get to see His heart in those Letters. We see that He is not like us, only bigger, better, faster, and stronger. He is totally Other and His thoughts and ways are completely beyond and above our thoughts and ways.

Still He has chosen to reveal Himself to us and make Himself known through Scripture. All of it. Next time you read a passage that doesn’t seem to gel with your idea of God, keep it in context and keep the big picture in mind. God is good and His promises are sure and in the end, we win.

I should know. I’ve read the ending. I hope you have, too.

Hi, my name is Greg, and I’m addicted to Facebook. Sometimes, I spend time reading other people’s status updates. The really sad part is that sometimes I sit in front of my computer waiting for responses and likes to my posts and blogs. That’s me, the social wonder of the world.

I do think Facebook is good for some things. You can reconnect with old friends and keep in touch with them and catch up. You can reminisce about old times. Facebook is a great way to find out about what’s going on around you and to find out how to pray for each other.

Then again, Facebook can be a place to hide. You get to select what you want people to see of you, whether it be your privacy settings or what you post and comment on. You choose how people will see you, whether it be someone who’s into the party scene and the night life or someone who’s into books and movies.

You can be as fake as you want on facebook and no one will know. Well, God will know, but that’s kind of a given. You can present a self who’s got it all together and has life figured out and knows where they’re going. You can be that poster child for the American dream.

Or you can be real. You can admit that you’re far from having anything figured out. You can confess that most of the time you really don’t know what you’re doing. You can belong to the fellowship of the broken, the outcast, the needy, the ashamed, and the lost.

It’s really okay to share your weaknesses, because when you do, there are probably ten others out there who will be able to let go of the lie that they are the only one who struggles with that issue. You tell them that no one is perfect, no one has life under control, no one can say they have arrived. We are all fallen and messed up and we all need God.

It’s also okay to be goofy. It’s okay to post random stupid, silly stuff on facebook. Just remember that among those who read your post could be a potential future employer or even a potential future spouse. You never know.

I for one am going to keep being real and keep being goofy. It may not be popular, but it’s who I am. I am going to be a part of the chain on facebook that passes along love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness whenever possible.

I hope you will, too.

Recently, I read Francis Chan’s newest book, Erasing Hell. It took me all of one day to read the whole thing, because I could not put the book down. Except for when I was working, of course.

The book is a refutation of sorts to Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins. Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle do an effective job of presenting what the Bible really says about hell, not what we want it to say. It may not be popular to believe in hell, but it is biblical, and that’s what matters in the end.

I had two takeaways from this book (other than hell is real, of course). One is that I need to approach any doctrine or Bible passage with deep humility. I need to realize that unless the Spirit of God illuminates my mind, I can’t understand the things of God. Furthermore, these are not abstract doctrines written down for the sole purpose of debate and knowledge.

These truths, especially the ones about hell, concern real people made in the image of God and their eternal destiny. To be arrogant in my beliefs and to gloat over those who will spend a Christ-less eternity in hell is not only blatantly unloving, it is far removed from what God is like.

Also, God is God. His ways are much higher and better than my ways. He’s the potter and I am the clay. How could I scrutinize God’s words and actions as revealed in Scripture and subject them to my own standard? Does the clay tell the Potter whether or not He does well?

As Francis Chan states in the book, there are several parts of the Bible (especially in the Old Testament), where God does and says things I would never do or say. To say in my heart that a loving God could never do what I wouldn’t do is to put myself above God. God is loving not by our standards, but by His own standard, which is perfect.

I strongly urge you to read this book. But I also urge you to consider how you have possibly judged God by your own ideas of what is right and wrong and fair. Maybe you and I will need to repent and to acknowledge that God doesn’t ask for us to figure out if what He is doing is right in our eyes, but to submit to Him and trust that whatever He does is good and right by Heaven’s standards.

Last of all, any doctrine or belief or conviction shouldn’t be used to condemn or beat up other people. It should lead us to a place of deep humility. It should cause us to thank the God Who made it possible for us to know Truth. After all, what matters isn’t how you’ve got every doctrine systemized and categorized and everything and everyone figured out, but that you know that you are a broken sinner whom God so loved that He gave everything to win your heart.

The reality of hell shouldn’t make you or me want to gloat. It should make us weep that so many we know and love are headed there. It should make us want to do everything in our power to ensure that those we love won’t have to go there. And most of all, it should make us thankful above all things for the Cross where the mercy and the justice of God melded perfectly and God’s wrath was perfectly satisfied and we were saved, not just from hell but to an eternity with Him.

Amen.

Secondly,

For me, comfort comes from things like chocolate and fleece and old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That may not be comforting for everyone, but it works for me.

I also had a comforting thought about God. It doesn’t start out comforting, but keep reading and you will (hopefully) see the comforting part.

God has the power to wipe me off the face of the earth. He has the power to condemn me. He even has the right, if you look at my history of broken promises and failed attempts at obedience, not to mention a long list of sins great and small.

The part I like is while God has the power and the right to destroy me, He won’t. He has made an oath and sworn by Himself that He won’t. If you’re in Christ, the same goes for you.

And if He won’t, who’s left that can? Is there anything or anyone even close to having that kind of authority in our lives? Can anything or anyone else do what God said He wouldn’t. Simply, no.

There’s a verse that says not to fear the one who can destroy your body. That is, don’t fear someone who can merely kill you. Fear the one who can destroy both body and soul. That’s God.

I heard that fearing something is giving it authority over you. If you fear something, you give it power over you to control you. If you fear God– have a healthy respect and reverential awe– you won’t need to fear anything else.

If you give all your authority to God, you have nothing left to give to anything else. Not the dark, not the boogeyman, not anything that goes bump in the night.

God, the same one who has the power to destroy you completely, is for you. Not only will He relent from condemning you, He will be on your side and in your corner. Forever.

I love the fact that my Abba is for me, with me, and in me. I love the fact that He delights in me and rejoices over me with loud singing. He does the same for you, too.

Think on those things. And while you’re up, would you mind grabbing me something chocolaty? And maybe a fleece blanket, too.

Cows are content. At least I’d like to think they are. Maybe they’re all hiding uzis in their udders and one day they will finally be revenged for all those Big Macs and Whoppers they had to die for. Maybe.

I do know that this society thrives on discontent. Our economy is based on the idea that you’re not content until you have one more gadget or more insurance or a better car or a better home . . . well, you get the idea. Contentment is the most counter-cultural way you can live these days.

Commercials will tell you that you need to lose weight, change your hair color, buy this brand of clothes, drive this car, wear this deoderant, or take these pills to be really happy and content. I’ve yet to see a commercial that says, “You don’t really need this, but if you want it, here’s how to order it.”

I know I have almost been mesmorized by all those sham-wow commercials. I mean you don’t just get one. You get two! And a free set of ginzu knives thrown in. Cause I just have all those tomatoes and empty cans sitting around waiting to be sliced in half.

Really, who do you know that is really content? Who is really satisfied with who they are and what they have and can say, “No thanks. I have enough”? Not many that I know of.

Contentment comes with trusting God and taking Him at His word. It says, “God, You are enough. You really are good and You really are for me and You’ll alway take care of me.”

Contentment not only is counter-cultural, but it’s also counter-intuitive and anti-human nature. Our default setting is to want more than what we have and to compare ourselves with those we perceive to be ahead of us.

But I have been learning that God is enough. I’ve learned that the gadget you buy is good until the improved version comes out. Whatever you buy will bring a fleeting happiness, but then the old craving comes back to buy more.

One writer said  that God made us for Himself and we’re restless trying to fill the God-sized hole in our hearts with anything else, because nothing else will fit.

So I invite you to be a rebel and a radical and do one of the the most counter-cultural things imaginable these days. Just learn to be content with God and His provision and learn to say, “No thanks. I have everything I need.”

Now back to that sham-wow infomercial.

Yes, I am a fan of freedom. That is, whenever I think about it. But honestly, most of the time I take my freedoms for granted and assume that I will always be free as I am now. I think most people do. And that’s dangerous.

If you take something for granted, you begin to be careless with it, and before long, you’ve lost it. I think we as Americans are in danger of losing our freedoms not through any socialist agenda or enemy coercion, but through our own apathy. I mean, have you really paid attention to how few people actually vote anymore? It’s frightening.

But freedom is also recognizing that my truest allegiance is to a far country that is a kingdom rather than a democracy and has a King rather than a President. This Kingdom will last far beyond the administration of Barack Obama and even far beyond the rise and fall of this country.

We’re pilgrims and strangers here, citizens of a Heavenly Kingdom that cannot be shaken. There’s where our true freedom comes from. A Kingdom built on the blood of the God-Man, where we die to live and are blessed if we are poor, meek, mournful, and persecuted, among others.

I’m beginning to see that freedom means putting myself under the authority of Jesus, just as he freely submitted to the authority of the Father during His earthly ministry. Freedom really means bondage to Jesus for the rest of my life. Try putting that on a bumper sticker.

Freedom always costs something. It’s never ever free. Just because I didn’t pay the price doesn’t mean that a price wasn’t paid by someone. My salvation is free to me, but it wasn’t to God, who paid for it with the very lifeblood of His Son, Jesus.

Thank you, God, for my freedom. May I be reminded every single day of the cost involved so I who deserve death, could go free. Help me to celebrate liberty not just one day a year, but 365 days a year.

Help me to live out my freedom in such a way that my life makes Your name look great in all I do and say. May Your liberty and freedom spread over the whole world until there is no more oppression or slavery or bondage anymore.

Thank You again that I will be able to get up tomorrow and read my Bible and go to a worship service with no fear. Help me never again to take my freedom for granted.

Amen!