“[Jesus] told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’ ‘Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’ Jesus commented, ‘This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.'” (Luke 18:9-14, The Message).

Which one of these am I? Pharisee or Publican? By the way, Publican is just another way of saying tax collector, but it alliterates and it makes me sound smarter. But I digress.

When I listen to a sermon, do I automatically bring up someone else to mind who should be there to hear the convicting message, or do I apply it to my own heart? I think I’m the Pharisee on this one.

When I look at a homeless man who looks like my idea of homeless– filthy, bedraggled and drunk– do I think to myself “Thank God that’s not me or anyone I know!” or “That is someone Jesus died for and that very well could have been me but for the grace of God”? Again, I confess to being a Pharisee.

Do I look back on my week and see all the obvious sins I avoided and religious duties I performed, or do I see within a nature still bent toward sin and as capable of any vile thing as the worst criminal? Pharisee yet again.

The worst thing I can say is, “Thank God I’m not like that Pharisee,” because it just proves that I am exactly like him. At least he’s honest about his hypocrisy. I try to pretend to be a tax collector while strutting around like the biggest Pharisee of them all.

Lord, have mercy on me, a Pharisee.

It’s good to stretch before exercising. So says Captain Obvious.

It’s also good to stretch yourself in other areas. Like for me tonight.

I went over to Brentwood Baptist Church and helped out with Room at the Inn, a program they have that gives food and shelter to homeless people. I didn’t do much, quite honestly. I talked to a few of the men who were there and passed the salt shaker. I felt a bit out of place and awkward and not sure what to do with myself (which is pretty normal for me most of the time, actually).

But I think I stretched myself a little bit. Maybe not even a noticeable amount, but a little. I’ve heard that once you are stretched, you never go back to your original shape. You’re never quite as rigid as you used to be, but a bit more flexible.

Sunday night, I went to an evangelism training class. One point I walked away with was “The one who is listening is the one who’s in control.” Of course, none of us are really in control; God is. But we earn the right to speak into people’s lives by listening to them. Again, I got stretched just a tiny bit.

Go stretch yourself. Do something you’re afraid of. Take risks. The biggest way I’ve found to be stretched is to pray, “Not my will, but Yours,” and actually mean it. God is the best at stretching us into people that look just like His son, Jesus. I think the Bible calls it “being renewed by the transforming of your mind.”

God, stretch me until my arms can reach around the hurting and my heart can wrap around their pain. Stretch my eyes until they can see the people You love who are in need and stretch my ears until I can hear their cries. Stretch me until I become more like you.

Amen.

In his book, The Calvary Road, Roy Hession makes an interesting point about what it means to walk in the light as opposed to walking in darkness.  “When anything reproves us, shows us up as we really are– that is light. ‘Whatsoever doth make manifest is light.’ But whenever we do anything or say anything (or don’t say anything) to hide what we are or what we’ve done– that is darkness.”

Simply put, light reveals and darkness conceals.

If I am walking in the light, I am open and upfront about everything in my life, my struggles and my victories, even my addictions and strongholds. I am honest with myself and with others and especially with God. I am completely transparent. I seek out fellowship with others because I know I can’t walk the faith alone and that every believer needs other believers to speak into their lives, both encouragement and reproof (in love).

If I walk in darkness, I hide what I’m feeling and thinking. I put on my mask that says I have everything under control. I keep my faults and struggles hidden from everyone, especially myself. I am not going to be around people who might try to see beyond my well-practiced and rehearsed speeches and mannerisms. I make excuses for my behavior and focus on wrongs done to me.

I have walked both ways. I’m learning how to walk in the light as He is in the light. I’m learning slowly how to share my life with others and let them share their life with me. I still put on masks and lie sometimes, but I think not as much as I used to.

The beauty of Jesus and what He does is that if I surrender and say, “Not my will but Yours,” He takes those words and changes my heart to want those things, then He changes me. He is my light and His light in me is what anyone sees when they see good in me.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

If I put on a Sunday mask or

I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately and wondering where you are in this great big world. I’m fairly certain that I haven’t met you yet, but I can’t wait until I do. You already inspire me to want to be a better man and more importantly, a man who follows hard after Christ.

I don’t know if you’re like me and you’ve come so close to mind-numbing despair so many times and almost given up and quit about a thousand times. But there’s something, no matter how tiny, that won’t let us give up or give in. Maybe the same God that drew us each to Himself is drawing us ever so slowly together.

I am going to start praying for you tonight. I will pray not that God will make your way easier, but that He will walk through the hard roads with you and you will know sweet intimacy with Him. I pray not for prosperity for you, but that you will come to know with your whole being that God is your dwelling place, your shelter and your inheritance.

I may not have a lifetime to love you in when we meet, but I will love you a lifetime’s worth in the time we are given. It won’t be a perfect me and a perfect you in a perfect setting forever, but Christ in me loving Christ in you in the midst of the awesome advancing of God’s kingdom on earth.

So know that I think about you a lot and those thoughts make me glad. You will be so much more than I deserve and I will (I hope and pray) never stop being thankful to God for you.

Don’t run after me (or any other guy), but run after Jesus. I will try to not run after you, but also run after Jesus and maybe when we are both running toward the same Savior, we will run into each other.

You are clothed with strength and dignity; you can laugh at the days to come. “Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades. The woman to be admired and praised is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.” That’s what I pray you are becoming. And I pray that I am becoming a warrior and a mighty man of God who will be worthy of you.

Until we meet, God make His face shine on you and give you His blessed peace.

These are three things I’ve learned in 38 years of learning. This is not an exhaustive list. I know other things than these three, like how to tie my own shoes, that chocolate is very good, etc. But these three pretty much cover where I am right now.

1) I am not nearly as good or strong or wise as I thought I was. This is not an invitation to my pity party. This is true humility, which is just me being honest about me before God and before you. I am weak and prone to temptation, yet at the same time full of pride. I am a walking set of contradictions. But this makes the second truth all the more glorious, and that truth is this:

2) God is way better and stronger and wiser than I could ever have hoped or imagined or dreamed. He is not a bigger, faster, better version of me. He is Totally Other, separate and distinct from me. He is holy, which means that He is perfect, and can only do and be and say perfection. That could be a problem, since I am nowhere near good enough to even be in His presence. But that leads to the best truth of all:

3) God is for me and He will always take care of me. He knows the plans He has for me. And His plans for me are just as perfect as He is. They may not always look like the best, or even look like God’s plans sometimes. God may wound me, but the same God who wounds me can heal my wounds. He is totally and infinitely trustworthy.

So my part in all this is to stay trusting and surrendered. To let God be God in and through me.

I love this quote from Roy Hession from his book The Calvary Road. It sums all this up perfectly.

“The simple truth is that the only beautiful thing about the Christian is Jesus Christ. God wants us to recognize that fact as true in our experience, so that in true brokenness and self-despair we shall allow Jesus Christ to be our righteousness and holiness and all in all– and that is victory.”

This is what happens when you blog at 11:17 pm. Just so you know.

I’m going on record as being a fan of bread pudding. It is good. It is tasty. It is somewhat nutritious. Everyone should try it. End of story.

Every believer needs other believers who will speak truth in to his or her life. All of us need words of encouragement all the time, and sometimes we need words of correction and rebuke, spoken in love of course.

I have flirted with the idea of just giving up on the whole idea of dating and starting the first Baptist/Non-denominational monastary. But not just yet. There’s still a small sliver of hope.

Do cats really take catnaps? My cat takes marathon naps that should only be attempted by professionals. The only short naps she takes are when I come blundering by and wake her up. She then proceeds to give me a look of great annoyance.

Why couldn’t we fall back 8 hours instead of just 1 so I could really catch up on my sleep.

God has a plan for my life and He is working in out in me. I can’t see it right now, but I know God and I also know God is true and faithful and He will always finish what He starts in me.

I am not the best in social settings, but I’m improving. It all depends on how you look at it. I’d like to think my glass is not half-empty or half-full, but all the way full of chololate malt shake.

It really doesn’t matter whether 500 or 50 or even 5 read this blog. I had gotten caught up in the numbers, but the real point is that I get what’s in my head out in blog so my thoughts can settle down a little.

That is all for now. You may go back to Mafia Wars or Farmville now. Good night.

Here’s my testimony in shortened form:

I came to faith in Jesus at an early age. There’s not much to tell about my pre-salvation life, because what kind of shenanigans can you really get into when you’re 7?

My story involves being set free from lies I had believed almost all my life. Lies like, “No one likes you or wants to get to know you” or “You are not welcome or wanted”. I could be in a crowded place and feel very much alone and be smiling but on the inside be screaming for someone to notice me and tell me I wasn’t a total dork. I have since made peace with my dorkiness.

I finally got very sick and tired of feeling like my well-being was depended on how I perceived others thought about me. I believe Jesus told me, “What are you afraid or or will you ever be afraid of that I haven’t already overcome and conquered through the Cross?”

My story is that I am a broken man being made whole, learning to love and be loved, and learning to give my life away for the cause of Christ and not care what others think. I have been blessed with mentors, family and friends who have lived out Christ to me. Especially being a part of the Kairos Greeter team, I have been blessed and encouraged in so many ways.

So the gist is that my life story is not what I would have written for myself, but one that I hope can be an example of God’s grace to others. I’m not even close to where I thought I’d be at 38, but I am where God wants me. And that is an inifitely better place. God is good. All the time, every day. His goodness more than makes up for my lack of it. In fact, His goodness through the cross is now my goodness.

Amen to that!

How will the outside world know we are disciples of Jesus? In a culture where being a Christian means so many different things to so many different people, how can they know if we’re for real? What did Jesus say? Was it:

They will know you are my disciples if you carry picket signs and yell at people you disagree with and call them names and say God hates them? If you proclaim your hatred for homosexuals and liberals and anyone else who thinks differently than you? If you join the Tea Party and have no problems voting pro-life and pro-death penalty on the same ballot? Is it when you have a fish symbol or a bumper sticker on the back of your car and drive like everyone else? Is it when you carry an extra-large Bible and pull out obscure verses in it to bash people who don’t share your personal preferences?

How will they know? What will set us apart in the eyes of a world that has seen way too much people who claim to follow Jesus, but practice opposite of what He preached and live no differently than the culture around them?

Jesus said, “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”

How you love each other makes you stand out. Not even how you love lost people, but how you love your brothers and sisters in Christ. And not just the ones who love you back and are easy to love, but even the messed-up, broken ones who are difficult and hard to love.

If you don’t love His followers, you are not a disciple of Jesus. If you really want to love His people and are desparately seeking His help and His strength to love them, then I think He will honor that.

And love is not emotion, but sacrifice. Love means doing all you can at whatever cost to you to help the beloved be all that they can be in Jesus.

I am not so good at loving. But Jesus is, and He can love through me if I simply make myself an available and surrendered vessel.

Lord, that’s what I want. That’s what I need. Love people through me. Forgive me when I fail at love daily. Keep working on and in and through me.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Winston Churchill said once in a speech, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever, ever, ever give up.” I think that may have been his whole speech, or close to it. And there’s a whole lot of wisdom there.

It’s never too late to stop trying to live up to everyone else’s idea of who you should be and start being yourself.

It’s never too late to have a dream and go and make that dream come true.

It’s never too late to forgive someone or to seek forgiveness from someone (there’s no expiration date on God’s forgiveness that He pours out on and through us).

It’s never too late to find love or to rekindle lost love or to just say, “I love you.”

It’s never too late to restore broken relationships and to remember that even when you’ve burned your bridges to ash, Jesus is the Great Bridge Rebuilder.

It’s never too late to stop playing religion and start finding and cherishing the heart of God for the world.

It’s never too late to take off the Sunday mask and be real.

It’s never too late to overcome an addiction or a stronhold or a sin habit, to turn around and put on godly habits as you walk away from sin and toward Jesus.

It’s never too late to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and to make other disciples as you go into all the world.

It’s never too late to say “Yes” to Jesus, even if you don’t always know the question.

Until you die, it’s never too late for any of these things. It’s never too late to find out that Jesus is all you’ll ever need and that He is the fulfillment of all your deepest longings and secret wishes and fondest dreams.

When you die, it will be too late. So live today while you still can and do what you can while you can. Make loving God and loving people your highest priority and you will get everything else right.

“So turn around you’re not too far
To back away be who you are
To change your path go another way
It’s not too late, you can be saved
If you feel depressed with past regrets
The shameful nights hope to forget
Can disappear, they can all be washed away” (Jonny Diaz).