Today, I was involved in a discussion at the monthly deacon’s meeting about works-based faith or faith-based works. The question that came up was about how you can tell the two apart.

An answer came to my mind later after the meeting. I remembered something I had heard once in a sermon that said, “As believers, we fight not for victory but from victory.

That’s the key difference. Not FOR but FROM.

The words look and sound a bit similar, but there’s a world of difference in the life of a believer based on which one you live from.

As a believer, you don’t live and work for the approval of God, but from that very approval. You don’t work to earn your salvation and justification, but you live from the justification and salvation that come from the unmerited favor of God’s mercy and grace.

To live FOR is to live a performance-based life where you’re never quite sure if your good is good enough, where you can hopefully make up for your mistakes and failures with enough good deeds.

To live FROM is to live out of gratitude for Jesus’ finished work. It’s to know a peace that comes from realizing that you could never earn God’s favor but that He chose to bestow it on you out of His good pleasure.

I want to live not FOR but FROM God’s love. After all, I can only love because He loved me first.

I’m very thankful that it’s Friday. The week was long, the pollen was everywhere, and I am very tired.

I’m sure my allergies/sinuses/hay fever contributed greatly to the feeling of weariness. I’m also certain that I worked my butt off at my job this week, so that might have something to do with it.

Still, at the end of the day, I have a job for which I’m grateful. While I have The Crud, it is not fatal or catching. Just very, very annoying. I think I will survive.

I already think a nap will be in order for tomorrow.

“Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One, who grants us every spiritual blessing in these heavenly realms where we live in the Anointed—not because of anything we have done, but because of what He has done for us. God chose us to be in a relationship with Him even before He laid out plans for this world; He wanted us to live holy lives characterized by love, free from sin, and blameless before Him. He destined us to be adopted as His children through the covenant Jesus the Anointed inaugurated in His sacrificial life. This was His pleasure and His will for us. Ultimately God is the one worthy of praise for showing us His grace; He is merciful and marvelous, freely giving us these gifts in His Beloved.  Visualize this: His blood freely flowing down the cross, setting us free! We are forgiven for our sinful ways by the richness of His grace, which He has poured all over us. With all wisdom and insight, He has enlightened us to the great mystery at the center of His will. With immense pleasure, He laid out His intentions through Jesus, a plan that will climax when the time is right as He returns to create order and unity—both in heaven and on earth—when all things are brought together under the Anointed’s royal rule. In Him we stand to inherit even more. As His heirs, we are predestined to play a key role in His unfolding purpose that is energizing everything to conform to His will. As a result, we—the first to place our hope in the Anointed One—will live in a way to bring Him glory and praise. Because you, too, have heard the word of truth—the good news of your salvation—and because you believed in the One who is truth, your lives are marked with His seal. This is none other than the Holy Spirit who was promised ¹as the guarantee toward the inheritance we are to receive when He frees and rescues all who belong to Him. To God be all praise and glory!” (Ephesians 1:3-14, The Voice).

“The answer to idolatry is identity — who you are in Christ” (Chris Brooks, Kairos).

I don’t usually take notes during sermons these days. I think my brain has gotten a little too ADHD for the discipline of actually writing down in real time what the pastor says. The sad result is that I can’t remember too many sermons lately or even give a brief synopsis of most of them.

But sometimes, I hear something that arrests my attention. It’s almost like I HAVE to write it down. I need to take physical pen in hand and inscribe it in a tangible way so that I’ll remember it later.

That happened last night.

Idolatry happens when we look to something other than God to tell us who we are, why we’re here, what our purpose is, etc. We look to relationships, careers, possessions, bank accounts — anything and everything — to find out who we are.

But as Pastor Mike Glenn once said, none of these are strong enough to hold our world together. None of these can truly define us or give us purpose. Eventually, everything we set up as an idol and expect to take the place of God will fall short and fail to live up to impossible expectations.

Even good things like marriage, children, and ministry can become idols if they become the end objective and not the means to glorifying God and His gifts.

I am a recovering idolater. I still slip up all the time and chase after little tin gods instead of God Almighty. I know I’m not alone.

Let Jesus tell you who you are and idols will lose their power over you. Let Jesus look at you and love you, and as you receive that love, you will find that it– and Jesus– are enough.

Chris Brooks made an astute observation in his Kairos sermon tonight. He addressed the question of the rich young ruler: what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Normally, you don’t DO anything to inherit. It’s not based on merit or achievement. There’s no test you pass to gain an inheritance.

There are two conditions for an inheritance– you must be a relative and someone has to die.

In regards to inheriting eternal life, Jesus was saying that salvation isn’t earned. As Billy Graham once said, it’s not a reward for the righteous but a gift for the guilty.

If anyone had to DO anything for our eternal life, it was Jesus. Through his perfect life and death on the cross, He made us who have believed in His name to be heirs and children of God.

“The payoff for a life of sin is death, but God is offering us a free gift—eternal life through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King” (Romans 6:23, The Voice).

Way back in 1991, I discovered Dark Shadows. More accurately, I found the 90’s revival that basically retold the same stories with a different cast and better production values.

It didn’t take long for me to get hooked. It also didn’t take long for the series to fade, lasting all of 13 glorious episodes and ending on one of those dastardly cliffhangers. I think the cancellation had something to do with the Iraq Gulf War coverage.

Here I am, 28 years later, finally discovering for myself the original series in all its black-and-white (so far) glory. Apparently, the show was shot essentially live, so there are flubbed lines and prop fails aplenty. But there is also campy goodness.

So far, no Barnabas Collins. I believe it took a while for him to finally show up at Collinwood. But there’s enough gothic atmosphere and weird family members to make it interesting.

It is definitely a product of its time — 1966. But for me that only adds to the retro appeal. It’s also the opposite of the fast-moving, quick-cut fare of modern television. It moves slowly and deliberately, giving the viewer time to take in all the surroundings of the old manor.

I just hope Amazon Prime doesn’t take it off the Prime list any time soon.

For anyone out there who wants to know, all my NCAA tournament brackets are now fodder for the shredder. ALL of them. In other words, all the teams I had pegged to win it all in each of my various brackets have lost.

Duke was the last to fall, making it official that I officially suck at picking winners at NCAA basketball. Next year, all my brackets may just be randomly selected by computers rather than by me.

But on the good news front, I picked up a pair of vintage Dan Post cowboy boots from Pre to Post Modern today. I wasn’t planning on buying any boots. In fact, boot buying wasn’t even a blip on my radar.

But I saw them. I remembered that my granddad had several pairs of Dan Posts back in the day. They were his favorite brand. So I broke down and made the purchase.

It’s nice to have something that ties you back to someone you loved like a grandparent or a parent. I can wear these and think of dear ol’ granddad.

Plus, they’re super comfortable and fit perfectly.

“The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was ourpains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him” (Isaiah 53:3-4, The Message).

I realize that we’re still a few weeks away from Passion Week leading up to Easter Sunday, but these were fitting words that turned up on Bible Gateway’s Verse of the Day.

The next time you walk into any Target or Wal-Mart or any other store and see all the displays of Easter candy and fuzzy rabbits, remember that Isaiah 53 encapsulates what this holiday is really all about.

I can almost imagine cartoon Charlie Brown yelling out, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Easter is really all about?”

“Sure, I can tell you that,” Linus replies. Then he proceeds to recite Isaiah 53. Jesus did it all for the love of you and me. He bore the penalty of the sins we had earned and died the death we deserved.

But Easter Sunday is more than just death. Jesus didn’t stay in that tomb. As the popular worship song goes, the tomb was borrowed for three days. Just a rental.

“The resurrection completes the inauguration of God’s kingdom. . . . It is the decisive event demonstrating thet God’s kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven. The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it” (N.T. Wright).

I had one of my less thrilling homeward commutes today. In all, this little road trip took just less than 90 minutes.

It was slightly faster than being stuck in a parking lot, but only just. And there weren’t even any wrecks as far as I know to account for the unbearable creeping traffic.

But thankfully, I had good music to help me keep my sanity and all the slowgoings on the interstate.

I had the fantastic box set, Down Every Road, featuring all the great songs by one Mr. Merle Haggard, who sadly passed away in 2016 on the day of his 79th birthday.

To me, he’s the genuine article. His music is real, bonafide country music and holds up very well. He may be gone, but he left us with an incredible legacy of music that will last for generations to come.

It’s been a great week here in Middle Tennessee. Almost picture perfect. The weather’s just about perfect, and it feels like spring has finally arrived after many false starts and hints and allegations.

I say almost picture perfect because with all the warmer weather came all the ragweed and pollen that have invaded my sinuses and taken up residence in my nasal cavities.

Right at the moment, I feel like I could sleep for 3 days straight. Or at least a good solid 8 hours. Last night I feel like I woke up every five minutes. It was indeed annoying.

But as a friend and co-worker of mine always says, if that’s the worst thing that happens to me this week, I’m doing pretty good. I won’t moan and groan too much over some hay fever issues when people I know are dealing with illness and suffering, some of it beyond my ability to comprehend.

After all, I did wake up this morning. So that’s a win right there.

This pollen too shall pass. Soon, I hope.