Again, I am attempting to convey what I believe Jesus is saying to you right now:

Come to Me, all you who are overworked beyond exhaustion and can’t move another step. Just one more step is all you need, one that involves kneeling and raising your hands in surrender to My love.

Come to me, all you who woke up in a puddle of your own vomit. Don’t bother to clean yourself up or straighten yourself out. I want you just as you are.

Come to Me, all you who woke up with a strange person in your bed, not knowing how he or she got there. I still have an “Open” sign on my door, no matter what you’ve done.

Come to Me, all you whose first thought upon waking was regret over a rash deed or a harsh word that you can’t ever take back. Come and find rest and forgiveness– forgiveness from Me and forgiveness for yourself from yourself.

Come to Me, all you who have hopelessly lost your way and ended up in some dark, lurid paths to places you never thought you’d ever go. I am Your Way Home. Follow me.

Come to me, all you who feel like you will never be good enough or strong enough or brave enough. I will be your goodness and your strength and your courage.

Come to me, all you continually profess me with your words but deny me with your lifestyle. I still love you and I still can change your heart so that you will long for Me and for My will.

Don’t bring Me your excuses. Don’t bring Me promises to do better. Don’t bring Me justifications or denials or any kind of “Well, at least I’m not as bad as. . .” or “Everyone else is. . .”

Just bring Me you. Come before me and bring Me your broken heart, your wasted life, your shattered dreams, your dashed hopes, and I will give you rest. I will give you a million second chances, a clean heart, a meaningful life, mind-blowing dreams, and renewed hopes. I will give you My heart, My life, My dreams and My hopes for you.

Just come to me. Take that first step. If you can’t, call my name. If you can’t, reach out to me. If you can’t, look to Me and I will give your silence a Voice. All I need is just the beginning of your surrender and I will come running to You, arms open, ready to embrace you and love you back home.

Just come.

I admit it. I am a goober. I do stuff and look back and wonder what the heck I was thinking. I get anxious and overanalytical about things I said and didn’t say and how I really offended someone, when that person wasn’t the least bit offended. I have in the past read way too much into what a girl said or did not say and got my hopes up when I shouldn’t have or gave up too soon when I maybe should have persevered a bit longer.

Particularly, I am not good when I don’t get a response. Ok, I suck at non-responses. I imagine all kinds of things– I really messed up with this person and they are really upset with me, or they are no longer interested in my friendship. Again, my imagination tends to run contrary to the truth. Which is that the person is busy or forgot or actually has a life outside of responding to my posts. Go figure.

But God loves goobers like me. He’s working on me and, believe it or not, I am way less anxious and overanalytical as I used to be. His love is changing me and making me into something new. Not something normal, but something extraordinary.

If you are a goober like me, fret not. There is hope. God still does miracles and He can make your life into something that will amaze and astound you and bring glory to His name. People will look at your life and be captivated by the God who could do something like that.

So relax and breath slowly. You really are going to be OK. Learn to rest in God and His timing and His ways and you will find the perfect peace that passes all understanding ruling your heart and mind. You will find that His perfect love is casting out all your fears, one by one.

So that’s it. I try too hard a lot of the time and I’m passive too much. I am also way blessed to have friends and family that see me not as I am, but as I will be through the grace of God. And Jesus has promised He will be right there with me until the very end when He can show off His finished masterpiece in me to the world.

Amen and amen.

This was inspired by today’s sermon by Lloyd Shadrach at Fellowship Bible Church.

“. . . .I decided to write it all out for you, most honorable Theophilus, so you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt the reliability of what you were taught” (Luke 1:3-4).

Here are some things I know for sure, without any shadow of a doubt:

1) Jesus’ love for me will never fail me or give up on me or quit on me. People may give up on me, but Jesus will never stop wooing and pursuing and captivating my heart until I am just like Him. This I know.

2) The grace of God is always bigger than my sin, no matter how big the sin or how many times I’ve sinned or how many times I’ve repented only to fail again. His grace is greater than ALL my sin, from my very first sin to my last sin. Grace covers ALL of it.

3) I may not know much, but I do know my life is safe in God’s hands. He is totally trustworthy to lead me to places and people I never would have found on my own, but whose legacy is defining me.

4) All dark nights come to an end. No matter how hopeless the situation or how unending it feels, daylight comes streaming in sooner or later. Always.

5) I’ve read the end of the book, so I know that Jesus wins in the end. There is no force on earth, no hate, no violence, no political scheme that can defeat the love of Jesus. That means that nothing or no one can ever ultimately defeat those He has claimed as His own– namely, you and me.

6) God’s promises are true, whether I feel them or not, whether they make sense or not, whether I’ve given up on them or not. Always in His timing, He comes through EVERY single time.

7) I may be a messed up goober, but one day Jesus will complete what He started in me and I will be the way He has always wanted me to be and better than every dream I could ever have for myself. I will be just like Him.

That’s what I know for sure. What do you know for sure?

I don’t know what drives hatred to do what it does. I do know that there’s so much of it these days in every form of media outlet available. The sad thing to me is that most of the angry rhetoric and hatred comes from those who claim Jesus as their Savior and Lord.

But how can you claim Jesus and not do what He did? He chose to love the people who disagreed with Him. He chose to forgive those who put Him to death. He chose to willingly bear those nails and the agony of cruxifiction for those who would turn around and blaspheme Him with an empty faith that has no basis in their lives. He died for me and I take that for granted so much.

But one thing I’ve learned about hate and love is this: love wins over hate any day of the week. Hate may win you battles, but love wins the war. Love conquers everything. Love can break the hardest hearts and turn back the most stubborn prodigal. Love wins.

And grace trumps sin every time. No matter what you’ve done. No matter how many times you keep falling into a sin and repenting of it, only to fall again the next time. No matter how far you’ve strayed. Grace trumps sin.

Best of all, when all your props have fallen, all your security has come unraveled, when your dreams have died, and when all you hoped would fulfill you turns to dust in your mouth, Jesus will still be Lord and King. When you have lost everything that you thought would last forever and when all you can do is cry out with a broken voice, Jesus will still be Jesus. He will come to your rescue even if you can’t find a voice to call out His name.

So. love wins every time. Grace always trumps sin. Jesus will be Jesus after everything else fails and fades and falls away. When every form of media is forever silenced, the one message will still resound across the universe: “Jesus died to save sinners, of which I am the worst.” Let that love of Jesus be your heartbeat.

Amen and amen.

I’m sick and tired of my Christianity being a Facebook status that doesn’t affect the way I live most of the time. I want my faith to define me and be all over every single part of my life and my identity. If people have to ask if I am a Christian, then I have failed to live out what I believe. They should know by how I act and speak.

I’m sick and tired of being an incognito believer in Christ. I want my true God-colors to shine wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, whoever I’m with. I want to stand out, even if that means standing alone.

I’m sick and tired of being like everyone else and settling for status quo. I want to be so radically different that people notice that there’s something different in me and that something (or Someone) is Jesus. I want my actions, my words, my status updates and posts, to reflect and compliment my faith and not be a contradiction of that faith.

I’m sick and tired of being moved so many  times, but not doing anything with it. I want to be more than moved, as the song by Michael Boggs says. I want to be motivated to act out my love for Christ and show it to the world by my deeds of kindness and compassion.

I am never sick and tired of grace. Grace works every time. Grace wins every time. Grace is changing me, making me more whole and alive and radiant in Christ day by day. Even on those days when I can’t see it.

Thank You, Jesus, that You never have or ever will give up on me or stop making me more like You. Your love for me is too powerful to leave me unaffected and unmoved and uninspired. I want more of that. I want more of You.

Please come.

Let 2011 be the year that Love breaks through in you. I’m thinking of an old Keith Green song that goes, “I was lost in a fantasy that blinded me until Your love broke through.” That’s what I hope you want.

Let love break through in your world to show that there is a different and better way to live. That it’s not all about fame or money or sex or thrills or late-night partying. That love (as in the love of Christ poured into your heart and overflowing to the world) can conquer hate, fear, shame, or doubt. Love will convince people that you are for real, not correct doctrine or proper procedures and practices.

Let love break through in your life. Let your life be so radically different from the norm that people are forced to notice. Let your life be a compliment to your profession of faith and not a detriment to it. Love not just people who are like you or who are easy to love. Don’t just love the picture-perfect pretty people. Love the broken, the hopeless, the outcast, and the weak. Love those who can’t love you back. That kind of love always draws attention to Jesus, because who could love like that apart from Him?

Let love break through your heart. May you be captured and captivated by a Love that never gave up and will never quit. May Jesus become everything to you and everything else fall away. Let your heart be broken by what breaks God’s heart. When love breaks through, you change from selfishly fulfilling your own lusts and desires to learning to give your life away.

So, say YES to the love of Jesus every single day (and every single moment the thought comes into your mind). Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. Get rid of anything that distracts or detracts or takes away from the love of God being able to invade you and those around you through you.

Jesus, we will be Your feet to go to the ends of the earth, Your hands to reach out to the poor and needy, Your eyes to see the need and weep over those who suffer, and Your heart to love these people so radically that they don’t see us anymore, but You.

Amen and amen.

My child, where you see failure and disaster, I see a second chance.

Where you see yourself as inept and helpless, I see a chance for My strength to be made perfect in your weakness.

Where you see hopelessness and despair and no way out, I see that just beyond your line of sight, I am preparing something for you that will blow your mind.

Where you see yourself as unloveable, I see the person I made loveable when I set my affection on you. I thought you were worth dying for and I would do it again.

When you feel loneliness and desertion, I am silently in  your corner, on your side, singing softly over you as you sleep. Listen to my songs with ears of faith and you will hear Me.

When you feel worthless and useless and think you are not worth the effort, I show you my nail-scarred hands and feet and my spear-pierced side to declare to you, “YOU WERE TOTALLY WORTH IT!”

Whatever you are feeling or thinking, remember that those feelings and thoughts will often lie to you, but I never will. Trust in what you know. Trust in Who you know. Me.