Feelin’ the Love

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I know Facebook can at times be a complete waste of time. I myself have spent too much time in the past growing virtual crops and selling virtual pigs and cows for (unfortunately) virtual profit. But on my birthday, Facebook shows its usefulness. I love each and every time I get a post wishing me a happy birthday. Every one makes me smile and makes my day.

Tonight, at Chick-fil-A, my birthday cake was a brownie with a lit match stuck in it. I loved it. I was feeling the love.

But what about all those facebook friends who didn’t send me birthday greetings? What about all those people out there who aren’t as easy to love? Those who are too broken to love back at all?

If you only are friends with those who friend you back, that’s expected. If you only love those who love you back, there’s nothing special about that. Even those who believe in nothing do that.

But when you love the unloveable, the unloved, and the loveless, you show yourself to be a true follower of Jesus. When you are friends with those people who are outcasts and uncool and misfits, you are loving with the love of Jesus.

When a husband loves his wife because she loves him back or when a friend loves another friend because of what the second friend does for the first, that’s not really love. That’s a contract. You do for me, I do for you. Love is a covenant.

Jesus loved us when we were outcasts, strangers from the Promise, without hope, alienated from God, and broken beyond repair. He didn’t wait until we loved him to love us; He loved us first. He showed us that His love was strong enough to take the most broken parts and make even those whole again.

We really and truly love not when we love out of a need to be loved or recognized. but when we are complete in Christ and filled with His love and that love spills out onto those around us. We really and truly love when our love isn’t feeling or wishing, but acting for the better of the other. When we do everything in our power, regardless of cost, to help the other person be all that Jesus meant for them to be.

I want to love like that. I hope and pray you do, too. I hope we move beyond love as a feeling and choose to love every day, whether we feel like it or not.

By the way, thanks for all the birthday love. If I knew it would be like this, I’d turn 40 every day.

My Faux Oscar Acceptance Speech

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First of all, I really thought Viola Davis should have won the Best Actress Oscar. No, I haven’t seen The Iron Lady, but I can’t imagine any performance being more pitch-perfect and soul-moving than her work in The Help. Even Meryl Streep’s.

On the last day of me being 39, I came up with an acceptance speench on surviving 40 years with all my hair and most of my sanity intact.

Thank you to my family for being awesome. Thanks to my mother, without whom I wouldn’t be here. Literally. And to my dad, who had his share in the blessed event. 50% to be exact. I will never be able in a million years to repay the debt I owe them.

Ditto for my sister and brother-in-law, two nephews and niece. I love you guys and I can’t wait to have you be a part of my birthday celebrations!

Thank you to my friends who have shown me what real grace looks like and have been Jesus to me countless times. You’ve seen my worst and believed the best for me and about me. I am a composite of what I have seen and learned and imitated in you.

Thank you to all the great artists who make up the soundtrack of my life. Life without music would still be worth living, but barely. Ditto for movies and really good books.

Thank you to all the animals I’ve grown up with. All the dogs, cats, and even the parakeet. I still miss you, Sammy. Currently, my cat Lucy has the disctinction of being my best birthday present ever 12 years running.

Thank you, Jesus. You are not just Savior and not just Lord. You are my Life, my Oxygen, my Strength, my Joy, my Salvation and my Song I will sing every day of my life until the day I die (and then I will keep singing it every day after that).

I am still Abba’s child and He is still very fond of me and I will never stop proclaiming to the world that Jesus can take anyone at any point, no matter how far they’ve fallen or how profoundly they’re broken, and make them shine and make them radiant and beautiful trophies of the grace of God.

Thanks in advance for all my birthday wishes. I do read each and every one and they all mean the world to me.

Thanks for reading this little blog by this guy who is way more blessed than he deserves. This Ragamuffin who is still trying to tell other beggars where to find the Bread of Life.

Wisdom Gained from My Gaming Days

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Yeah, I’ve done my share of PC gaming in my time. Not recently, but I have spent time in front of the old PC in the non-productive world of playing video games.

My favorite is still Wolfenstein. It’s an old-school first-person shooter where you have to escape by killing a bunch of Nazis. It was a great stress reliever and a great way to take my mind off real life for a while.

I confess that I figured out a way to cheat the game and give me unlimited life and ammo. I made it through the entire game, but somehow the thrill was lessened by the knowledge that I was guaranteed not to lose or be killed by Nazis.

Life is that way, too.

Many times, we play only when we know we will win. We only place safe bets. In a world where winning is everything and failure is anathema, we want to be assured of guaranteed success before we even start.

But, as I have come to learn, true success can only come when failure is a very real possibility. You can’t ever really win if you were never in danger of losing.

Some of life’s greatest lessons come through losing and spiritual growth and change come many times through failure and the refusal to let that failure be final in your life.

I have played it safe for too long. I haven’t taken risks and I have had chances I didn’t take because my fear of failure was bigger than my faith.

Success isn’t the best thing. I think stepping out in faith is, even if you fall. The real victory is taking that first step into the unknown without any assurances that the ground will hold you up. It’s the willingness to keep taking that first step after so many times of falling down and failing.

Success is knowing that God is on your side, knowing that He won’t ever leave or forsake you, knowing that He who began a good work in you will complete it in Jesus.

I think it’s high time I took that first step . . .

Sacred Places

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I have one of those sacred places I love to go every once in a while.

Whenever I’m in downtown Franklin. there’s an old church I love to step inside and just walk the creaky floorboards and take in the history of the place.

It feels more sacred to me than a lot of places because so many people have expressed devotions of faith and worship there over the years. You can almost feel the ghosts of old saints still lingering about the place.

I think everyone needs that special place where they can commune with God. Some place private where only God and they can go, where the world must stay outside until you both are done.

I have a quiet corner of the couch in the mornings where I sleep. . . I mean, pray very intently and where my cat crawls up in my lap and prays, too. Probably for me to include more tuna in her diet.

The sacred places are the places you can’t wat to get to, the ones where you long for after a long, hard day. Sometimes, before the day you know will be long and hard is about to start.

Obviously, the most sacred place of all is the human heart where the Spirit of God dwells. If you are in Christ, then wherever you are is where God is and that place you are standing is holy ground. Kinda makes you think twice about where you go and what you do, doesn’t it?

If you only get one thing out of this little blog, it’s this. Your Heavenly Father desires to spend time with you. Your spending time with Him is not a have-to, something you do and check off your list, but a get-to, a privilege, and a blessing.

Your desire to be more like Jesus and to be fully mature in the faith will only ever be as strong as your desire to spend time daily with Jesus, getting to know Him and His heart for the world.

As my blogger friend always says at the end of hs blogs, “You think about that.”

A Vacation From My Problems

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

I’ve come up with a revolutionary new way to take a vacation. It goes like this:

1) You don’t show up for work. If you’re working, it’s not a vacation.

2) You stay home. You don’t spend insane amounts of money on plane tickets or gas or hotel rooms or any of that rubbish. You stay home, sleep late, go wherever you want, whenever you want.

I’m thinking of calling it a stay-cation. Catchy, eh? It’ll be the next big catch-phrase that all the hip young kids will be dropping in their sentences from now on.

The best kind of vacations are the free ones anyway.

The best kind of vacations are the ones where you get a break from everything that wears you out and holds you down. Like fear or doubt or worry. Like concerns about the future or haunting memories of the past.

I have a fantastic vacation package deal for you.

Tomorrow is the start of your vacation. Whatever is in your past is past. Whatever fears controlled you yesterday can’t touch you today. Whatever doubts you had are losing their hold on you.

Jesus promised that for those who believed that perfect love would cast out fear. He promised that to those who love Him He would work everything out for the good. He promised that every morning His mercies are new and His faithfulness is still great.

Your vacation is a clean slate. It’s freedom from the burden of trying to undo all you did wrong yesterday. It’s liberty to live today with no baggage.

Your vacation is a chance to be whatever Jesus wants to you be, to go wherever He leads, and to serve Him in the faces of every one you meet. It’s an opportunity to be blessed in giving yourself away, to find that you are now a conduit of blessing to others.

Your vacation starts at 12:01 am.

P.S. You still have consequences from past decisions and troubles to come, but you’re not held captive to them anymore. You’re free to face them as a blood-bought redeemed child of the King. You’re free in the knowledge that ultimate victory is yours. Just thought I’d add that in there for clarification.

As always, thanks for your  comments, especially the ones that point out to me my blind spots. It’s always good to get a new and fresh perspective on things every now and then.

Needtobreath and Other Nonsensical Matters

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If you get the chance to see Needtobreathe in concert, go. They are amazing live.

If you get the chance to see anything at the Ryman, even if it’s your Aunt Judy playng the tub bass, go. It is a stunning venue, both visually and acoustically.

Put them both together and you have the makings of a very fine night.

On the heels of such a glorious night, I find myself easily irritated by little things and short-tempered. The danger of any mountaintop experience is always that we’re more prone to temptation afterward.

I’m so beyond glad that tomorrow is Friday. As tired as I am, I’d hate to think I still had a whole week to trudge through.

The truth of the matter remains that I am always in need of the grace of God. Whether I’m in the middle of an awesome concert and riding a high or coming down to earth afterward, I need grace.

I need grace when I am the life of the party (which is rare, but always fun to see) and when I feel like a social leper.

I need grace when I had the best quiet time with God and when I didn’t even have one.

Simply put, I need Jesus. Every morning I pray something like, “Jesus, I need you. Without you, I will fail at my job and in my relationships and especially in my walk with You. Come inhabit every moment of my day and come fill me up with You. Anoint and empower me to live this life Your way.”

So at 11:18 pm, I close the day and this blog with this: I have never leaned on Jesus and not gotten the support I need. Not ever. Jesus is completely and totally reliable, trustworthy, and dependable.

By the way, I’m hoping for one of those “life of the party” moments any day now . . . .

Turning the big 4-Uh-Oh

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In less than six days, I turn 40.

Yes, I’ve heard that 40 is the new 30, and 20 is the new 10. I guess that makes 10 the new embryo.

I’m gonna be 40. Right now, I think I’m in denial. I’ve been telling everyone I am celebrating the 15th anniversary of my 25th birthday, which is true and sounds less ominous that the dreaded “turning 40.”

Am I where I thought I would be at 40? Not even close.

I’m not married. Or engaged. Or dating. Or even remotely close to dating (I’ve always heard that for dating to work you need to not only be attracted to someone, but that someone should also be attraced back. Funny how that always seems to be the case.)

Sometimes, if I let myself think about how far off-course I am from where I envisioned myself, it’s enough to make me uber-bummed.

But as I was reminded this week, God’s ways are not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts. As far as the heavens are above the earth, so His thoughts are that much higher than mine.

I see only a tiny part of the picture while He sees the whole thing. He knows where I need to be and He knows how to get me there when I am good and ready, and not one second before then.

Daily, it’s a fight to seek first the Kingdom of God and not my own itinerary. It’s hard to keep trusting in God when He leads me contrary to where everything in me tells me I should go.

Still, I know that even though I don’t know the way or how I will get there, I can trust the One leading me. I can look back at His proven track record and know that He’s got me.

I’m in Good Hands.

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?

 

Choose This Day

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Every single day that I am blessed to wake up is a day that I must choose whom I will serve.

Every day I can choose to serve myself and chase after fame and success and pleasure and money, or I can choose to serve the Lord and find blessings upon blessings, too many to contain.

I can never coast on what I chose yesterday. If I chose the Lord yesterday, that was yesterday. I can stll choose to serve myself today. I have learned that lesson the hard way many times.

Who will you choose to serve today? Who will you choose to glorify?

When people look at the words you speak and post on facebook, who will they be drawn to, you or Jesus?

When people look at the way you live, will they think how cool and great you are or how great and marvelous is this God who saved you?

Most days, I choose to serve me. Most days, I seek after what I want when I want it. God gets my leftovers, if there is anything left.

The beauty of it is that even after those selfish, self-serving days, I can still choose the next day to serve the Lord. I still get new mercies and fresh grace for that new day.

There are a lot of options to choose from these days. You will wake up to a thousand voices telling you to serve them or their cause or their belief system. You will never lack for choices of who to serve.

But for me, if I’m honest, there’s only ever been one choice as to who to serve. Only one voice who has always backed up His claims and made good on His promises.

As for me and my house, today I will serve the Lord. I pray that tomorrow that by the grace of God I can say the same, but for today, my choice is final: I WILL SERVE THE LORD!

Who Looks Out for You? For Whitney: Part II

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I got to thinking more about what Kevin Costner said at Whitney Houston’s funeral. Something else he said resonated with me on more than one level.

He spoke of how he decided to cast her in the leading female role of The Bodyguard. He not only chose her, but he fought for her when the bigwig studio execs wanted another actress with more experience than Whitney (and who was white, although they never explicitly said so).

Kevin was even willing to wait a year until she finished her concert tour. He believed in her for the role to the point that he made her believe in it for herself. The result is history– a mega-blockbuster movie and a soundtrack that sold a gazillion copies.

Do you have someone that fights for you like that? Do you have someone in your corner willing to speak on your behalf with that kind of tenacity? One that won’t quit even when you have?

When the Bible calls Jesus your advocate who goes before the Father on your behalf, that’s exactly what it means. He fights for you– not against God– but as God in human skin.

When the devil claims you because of your past, Jesus points to the cross and says, “That’s taken care of. This one belongs to me now and you have no more claim over my child than you did over Me at the cross or the grave.”

When the world says you’re beyond saving, Jesus says, “I have called you by name and redeemed you. You are never beyond My reach and never, ever gone for Me to be able to save. It’s never too late for Me to step in and transform you into My image.”

When the voices in your head say that you’ll never amount to anything and that you are a waste of space and effort, Jesus says, “I know what plans I have for you and I won’t ever stop until I’ve finished what I started in you.”

When your failures and mistakes tell you it’s hopeless and you are nothing more than all your worst sins, Jesus says, “You are not what those other people says you are. You are not the names you call yourself in your darkest moments. You are who I say you are, and that is Beloved Redeemed Beautiful Transformed Child of the King of Kings.”

I wish someone could have spoken up for Whitney in the last days of her life. When all she was hearing was how the drugs would finally kill her and she was hopelessly spiralling out of control, I wish someone could have told her, “I believe in you. I believe you can beat this. I believe that God in you is stronger than anything you’re facing right now and I will stand by you, no matter what.”

Maybe you can speak for someone right now. Maybe you can be the voice for those who have no voice and take a stand for those the world has forgotten or discarded. Maybe you can believe good things for someome when they can’t believe for themselves.

Remember above all that Jesus speaks for you always. His love trumps your greatest fears and failures. He has already defeated anything you have or will ever face in your life.

That’s Who looks out for you.