I’ve been thinking about what the key factor is in me staying the course and finishing the good fight and running the good race, like the apostle Paul talks about. What will it be?

Will it be my willpower? Not hardly, I find out time and time again that my will is weak and I am easily prone to temptations and indifference.

Will it be all my activities and Bible studies and Christian events? No. More knowledge is not the answer unless that knowledge goes from my head to my heart and transforms the way I live.

Will it be having all the correct doctrines and beliefs? Again, I doubt it. Those who knew the most about religion in Jesus’ day were the ones who most vehemently opposed Jesus and had Him killed.

Well, then. What will get me home? What will get you home? I suspect that you are like me and you have fallen and sinned way too many times to keep count. All your activities and all your knowledge haven’t gotten you where you need to be. What then?

The answer is Jesus. Jesus and Jesus alone will get us home. It’s not going to be because we had such admirable and overwhelming faith in Him, but because He kept His promise that He gave when He said He would never leave us or forsake us, that He wouldn’t lose even one of those the Father gave Him.

The older I get, the more I realize how much I need Jesus. Not just for when I was lost and needed a Savior, but now when I’m weak and need Him to be my Strength, when I am speechless and need Him to be my Voice, when I am blind and need Him to be my Sight. He’s everything I need to get me Home and He Himself is the Way I will get there.

Jesus, be everything that I can’t be in me to all those you have called me to love. I confess if you’re not holding me up every second, I will fall. I know you won’t ever let me go. Let the rest of my life be a gigantic “THANK YOU!” back to You for all You are to me. You are my Life.

Thank You!

Were you always picked last for teams in school?

Were you the one who always sat ignored in a corner during a party while seemingly everyone else in the room was having a great time?

Were you left wondering what you did after a friend decided you weren’t worth the effort anymore and dropped (or defriended) you?

Were you the one left holding the pieces of your heart after your spouse or significant other gave up on you and walked out on you?

Were you ever the one wondering if you would ever matter to anyone and if the world wouldn’t just be better off without you in it?

Every single one of us (including me) has said yes to one or more of these questions. And the ultimate question: Did you ever wonder if God was ready to throw in the towel on you, too?

The answer as plainly as I can put it is HELL NO.

God’s not even close to quitting on you. In fact, he’s still pursuing you. The fact that He’s running after you is not because He’s angry, but because He can’t wait to get to you.

God chose YOU because He wanted YOU. He loved YOU enough to give up everything, leave heaven, and die a criminal’s death on a cross for YOU. YOU are His beloved.

I will never get tired of saying that you are God’s beloved. It will never ever grow old to think that I am His beloved. If I am sounding a one-note symphony, it is this: God is madly in love with you and wants you. Not because ones He really wanted were taken. Not because there weren’t any good choices out there. He wanted you.

And He still does. He wants to take you and transform you into something beautiful and give you a story to tell that will astonish the world. Your and my part is simply to believe what God says about us and receive it and live out of it. Then be God’s love to someone else. It’s really that simple.

Henri Nouwen summarized the whole entire gospel in one word: Beloved. That’s what you are.

Ain’t it grand?

I think the mentality of most Americans is that if you just try hard enough, you can do anything and you can be anything. Not so. As a pastor once said, no matter what expensive Air Jordans he wears, he will still be a fat slow white guy on the basketball court. As much as I want and will it, I will never dunk on a regulation-sized goal. At least not in this reality. You and I can’t do and be anything, but we can be exactly who God made us and do what He made us and called us for.

We’ve mixed up a sort of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” type mentality with the gospel. The result is that if I try harder, read my Bible more, pray more, witness more, and do more, I can please God. If I jump through these holy hoops and say the right words, God will like me more.

That begs the question. How good is good enough? Will my best ever be enough? The answer is a fatal blow to our pride. We can’t be good enough, because the best of what we have to offer is what the apostle Paul referred to as “filthy rags.” In other words, disgusting. We will never be good enough.

The good news is that Jesus is good enough for both Himself and for you. His whole life was one of perfect obedience and pleasing God. He did what we couldn’t. He came to us when we couldn’t get to Him. He took the punishment for every wrong we’d ever done, every good intention gone bad, every attempt to please God that failed miserably.

Now God looks at us and sees all the goodness of Jesus. There is no need in trying over and over to do what Jesus already did. All we do is surrender and receive and say thanks. That’s a pretty good description of growing in grace– surrender, receive and say thanks.

The good news is that we don’t have to find a way up the mountain to God, but that God has come down the mountain to meet us where we are in the valley and live with us and laugh and cry with us. We couldn’t be like Him, so He became like us. Only He did it perfectly. The best news is that we get credit for His perfection and God has declared it as ours.

The gospel says that thanks to what Jesus did when He died on the cross and rose again, we are now good enough. You are pleasing to God. So surrender your own efforts to be good enough, receive what Jesus did, and live a life that shouts “THANK YOU!” in everything you do and say.

That’s all.

This is just me using my sanctified imagination and wondering what it would have been like to hear one of the discples on the road to Emmaus tell his own story.

“What’s my story? You really want to know? You may not believe it, because it will seem ridiculous and far-fetched. Even I sometimes have a hard time believing it myself, even though I was there. But here it is.

Me and my friend were walking back to a little backwater town called Emmaus. It’s one of those places you go to when you want to get lost and don’t want people to know where you are. We both were disillusioned, having seen yet another Messiah turn out to be yet another hoax. At least this one was honest. Too bad all he got for his troubles was a cross.

All I knew was that I wanted to forget that the last three years had ever happened. I didn’t want to see any of the other disciples, especially not the twelve. I was going back to my old life with a vengeance and didn’t care anymore what happened to me or anyone else.

Suddenly, this man shows up out of nowhere beside us and starts asking all these questions, like “Who are you?” and “Where are you going?” We told him all about our belief in the lastest failed messiah. He honestly acted like he hadn’t heard anything about this Jesus, like he’d been hiding out under a rock or living in a cave for three years. So we set him straight and told him everything.

Then for some odd reason that I still can’t fully explain, I invited him to stay with us a little longer. We were going to have a meal, since we hadn’t eaten all day and we had been walking since sunrise. He agreed and not only that, said he had some leftover bread and wine we could eat.

Something about the way he broke the bread triggered something in my mind. The way His eyes shone. The sound of His voice. It was like fireworks went off in my head and I truly saw him for the first time. It was Jesus, alive. Not bloody and beaten, but alive. More alive than I’ve ever seen anyone before.

He took us through the entire Torah and the Prophets, opening our eyes to what was written in them about Him. I finally understood what the true purpose of the Messiah was. I think my friend did too, by the tears gleaming in his eyes.

But suddenly, Jesus was gone. I never saw him get up and leave, but he wasn’t there, like he vanished. I felt my heart breaking, but in an oddly good way, and tears filling my eyes. Every part of me felt completely alive and I felt like I was going to burn up if I didn’t tell someone what just happened.

So here we are on our way back to Jerusalem with a story to tell. After all, that’s what a disciple is, isn’t it? Someone who’s seen Jesus and has his or her own story to tell about how Jesus changed everything?

What’s your story? Have you told anyone? I know stories like that are always worth telling (and hearing) again and again. I know I will never get tired of telling mine.

He is risen! Yes, He is risen indeed!”

It’s 11:33 pm on the night before Easter and I am looking back on some of the conversations I’ve had and thinking about what I should have said but didn’t and what I said when I should have kept my mouth shut. It seems like I can never please myself in that regard. I sense in these times that something in me just isn’t right. That I’m broken and crooked.

The answer to my brokenness and crookedness, or what the apostle Paul would call my flesh, my sin nature that dwells in me, is three little words: He is risen.

If Jesus died for my sins and stayed dead, I am still guilty. I am still condemned. I will still have to pay for all my sins some day. Even if Jesus was the best moral example and a great teacher, it doesn’t help me in the least if the stone in front of His tomb stayed put and never moved. I am still lost and without hope.

But He is risen! That means that everything He said is true. That means that He is everything He said He was (and still is!). That means that nothing will ever be the same again.

It means that you and I have hope. It means that goodbyes are not forever and failure is not final and death does not have the last word. It means that one day all that is wrong with you and me and the world will be put right and all the lies will come untrue.

He is risen! Those three words are why we celebrate Easter. Those three words trump whatever the enemy is whispering in my head right now. Because of those three words, the devil is a defeated foe and He has no more authority or right to speak into my (or your) life anymore. He may remind me of my past or my shortcomings, but all I have to do in response is remind him of his future.

He is risen! We have hope. Anything is possible. Love wins in the end. You are not hopeless and you are definitely not too far gone or past redeeming. If Jesus could defeat death on its own terms, what makes you think He can’t defeat anything you’re facing right now? He can and He will.

Celebrate that as His child, that very same power that brought Jesus out of the tomb on Easter Sunday is in you. The love that was more powerful than hate and the grave and hell was His love for you. Yes, He is risen. He is risen indeed!

I heard Tony Campolo preach this sermon at Union University. It was the last chapel service before we went on our spring break mission trips. I still think that was the best sermon I have ever heard and I distinctly remember walking away from that ready to go conquer the world for Christ.

It’s really a simple message. It’s Friday and Jesus has been crucified and hope seems lost, but Sunday is coming and that means resurrection of hopes and dreams and, best of all, of Jesus. I love that! So I think I will preach my own little sermon based on this idea borrowed from Dr. Campolo.

It’s Friday. Your sin seems so heavy and you can’t cast it off, no matter how you try. No matter how many good deeds or religious activities you do, the guilt remains. But Sunday’s comin’!

It’s Friday. You’re standing at the grave of a father or mother, brother or sister, or even a son or daughter, wondering how this could have happened. It seems so senseless and pointless and you feel like you’ve buried part of your heart with the loved one whose body lies in the grave. But Sunday’s comin’!

It’s Friday. You’re whole life is marked by your past, whether it be abuse or neglect or abandonment. You can’t move forward and you can’t forgive the person who wronged you. You know that unless something changes, you will most likely continue the same cycle. But Sunday’s comin’!

Friday means death and loss and unendurable pain. Friday means you’ve come to the end of yourself and given up hope of anything ever changing. It’s going to take all that’s within you just to make it through the night. You know your mind won’t stop racing enough for you to sleep so you lay awake and stare at the clock as the second hand slowly ticks away.

Sunday’s comin’. That means life and restoration and the end of pain. That means everything will soon be put right. That means you will be made new and you get a second chance and a clean start. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead on Sunday can be in you if you belong to Jesus. The same promise is for you and those you love that death no longer has the final word.

Sunday means that nothing could stop Jesus from finding you and rescuing you. Not torture. Not death. Not hell. Not the grave. Nothing. It means that nothing will undo what He has done. It means that nothing will ever separate you from Jesus ever again. Not even you.

Yes, it’s Friday, but the best news in the world is that SUNDAY’S COMIN’!

I learned a lot in kindergarten. Apparently, I liked it so much I went twice. That, and I was sick a lot with strep throat, which lead to tonsil removal and loads of ice cream (which is never a bad thing). There are a few things I wish I had known then that I know now:

1) It’s really OK to mess up. Failing does not mean the end of the world, whether it’s in school or the workplace or relationships or anything else. Failing doesn’t make you a failure. In fact, some of the best lessons you’ll ever learn and the most beautiful moments of intimacy with God come through failure, not success.

2) It’s really OK to be you. Warts, cooties, and all. You don’t ever have to feel second-rate or inferior to anybody. You are unique, handcrafted in God’s image by God Himself and loved by that same God more than you will ever be able to understand or get to the bottom of.

3) Your life is your own, not anybody else’s. You don’t have to measure up to anyone else’s standard of success or let anyone tell you what and where you should be right now. Married or single, on your own or still living at home, in your dream career or still searching for your place, you only have to please one person. Jesus. And here’s a news flash. If  you’ve accepted His gift of salvation, He’s pleased with you just as you are right now.

4) The best place to be in the entire world is in your Abba’s arms, knowing that your world is safely in His hands. Knowing that no matter what comes or goes, who stays or leaves, and what you gain or lose, you can believe that God will be your Eternal Refuge and Fortress.

5) Sometimes you just have to let the top down on your car or roll the windows down and turn the radio up and let the breeze blow through. Sometimes you just have to be in the moment and receive whatever God is saying to you, whether that be the people He brings you, the places He takes you, the small details you notice on the way, or snatches of songs or verses that randomly come to mind.

There are lots more things I wish I had learned earlier (and lots more blogs I could write about them). But I know that where I am is where God is and that is the absolutely best place to be in the entire universe. That’s where I want to be.

Amen and amen.

I read an Easter toast last year or possibly the year before last that I thought was perfect. “We raise our glasses and drink to a Love that never gave up.” So simple, yet so completely profound. It is in essence a toast to the gospel in its purest form: relentless love.

That’s what we’re celebrating, after all. It’s about a Love that our sin could not quench, that our failures could not drive away, that the grave could not hold down. It’s a love that not even death and hell could overcome. No person or group or religion or cult or movement since has been able to stop it.

The best part of it all is that Love came in the person of Jesus with you and me on His mind. All He went through was to find a way to woo and win your heart back to His. When He saw our need and our helplessness, He determined that nothing would stand in the way of His coming to our rescue. When He saw our sin and failure, He took it upon Himself to make us right. Literally.

He took all our sin and paid for it, and then some. Why are we still trying to pay for something that’s already been paid for? We don’t have to, but we do. It’s called religion. The good news is that Love found a way to do what religion could never and will never be able to do. What our best efforts will never be able to do. Make us right with God and make us clean and pure again.

We are justified, which I heard defined as “just as if we’d never sinned.” I like that. All that because of Love. All that because of Love for you and me.

So raise your glass and drink to that relentless love of Jesus that still pursues your heart and won’t ever give up on you, but will make you, the beloved, into something exactly like the One who loves you– Jesus.

Amen and amen

I talk to myself a lot. Out loud sometimes. Yes, I’m one of those people. And for fun, I talk to myself in a gentrified Bristish accent along the lines of a Colin Firth or Hugh Grant. I may be crazy, but at least I sound cool. And I’m getting loads of practice for my inevitable movie stardom.

Along the way, I’ve started asking myself some questions. Such as these:

Am I really willing to give up everything to follow Jesus? If He asked me to sell everything and go live in a poor African country or in the projects in some major city, would I be obedient?

Do I love Jesus so much that my love for my family and friends seems like hate in comparison?

Am I really trying to know Jesus and follow Him or am I just all about doing as many churchy activities as possible and gaining as much Bible knowledge as my brain can hold?

If I am such a big fan of grace, especially when I need it from others, am I willing to give it to others, especially when they deserve it least (and need it most?)

Do I really expect the people I work with and live with and hang out with to read my mind about what I belive, or will I put a voice to those beliefs and not just live my faith but proclaim it?

When will I stop putting off reading my Bible while I talk about it and actually read it?

I know I’m not the only one asking these questions. And I know I’m not the only one who talks to myself. You do it, too (just maybe not in a Bristish accent). I hope you start asking these and other questions. I also hope that you and I will not beat ourselves up and get discouraged over the answers we seem to find. Jesus isn’t nearly done with us and when the time comes, He will breath courage into us and give us the words to speak.

I know I fall short on a daily basis, but I also know that those failures don’t in any way lessen the love of God for me. I am still His Beloved. So are you. That won’t change, byt thanks to the grace of God and through the power that raised Jesus from the dead, you and I will. For the better!

Amen and amen.