attributes of Jesus

#HonestPrayers

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“Lord, Thank You
I am not the mistakes I have made.
I am not the plans I have failed.
I am not the wrongs I have done.
I am not forgotten.
I am not abandoned.
I am not alone.
Because You say to the lost: Come.
You say to the Unlikely: Beloved
You say to the Battle Weary: Rest.
In a hard and beautiful world,
Your grace is the only pillowed relief for my tired soul
to rest in the Your making all things new” #HonestPrayers (Ann Voskamp).

Mondays are still rude. They still have a way of sneaking up on you and sucker punching you in the face just when you’re enjoying your Sunday mode of relaxation.

Mondays seem to be the day when Murphy’s Law applies the most. Anything and everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Or so it seems.

Lord, thank You that I am not the sum of my performance on Monday. Thank You that I am not as good or as bad as I feel at 5 am.

Thank You that even the worst of days still only lasts only 24 hours and that each new morning is a new start with new mercies and never-ending faithfulness. God is still faithful.

Even on Mondays that are middle of the road, not terrible and not great, Your presence and Your peace are always available upon request. All we have to do is ask anew for each new day.

Tomorrow’s Tuesday, so we’ve already managed to live through 1/5 of the week. I count that as a good start. In reality, any morning where you see the sun and feel the breeze and get to be alive is a good day.

As my old boss used to say, any day without a toe tag is a good day. I still agree!

 

Take Your Time

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One of my favorite Kairos moments from back in the day when Mike Glenn used to lead the prayer time.

Put both feet on the floor, he’d say. There’s nothing that will come up in the next few minutes that’s more important than what God’s saying to you right now. Relax and breathe. All those errands will still be there later. Right now, all you need to do is focus on God.

We live in a culture that celebrates busyness. Not necessarily productivity. Just busyness. The mantra of the age is that we don’t have time because we’re so very busy doing God knows what.

The idea is to never have a dull moment or any down time. We have all these time-saving gadgets that create more time to get more done. As a result, we have less leisure and free time than ever.

Maybe the most freeing words anyone will ever tell you– take your time. That was my takeaway from tonight’s Kairos message.

Sometimes, it’s good to focus on your breathing. It’s good to be silent and still. It’s good to rest. Above all, it’s important to be in the moment, not always thinking ahead to the next big event or thinking back to the what if’s and the could have been’s.

“There’s no present like the time.” That may be my new favorite line from a movie. Time is not infinite. You get a precious few years to live, too few to waste in busyness. Life is to be lived and savored and not merely gotten through.

Take your time.  Wherever you are, be all there. Do less but do it with everything you have, offering it as your spiritual act of worship. Enjoy the little things and pay attention to the moments in your life.

Also, take plenty of naps. Those are good.

 

 

 

Keep Your Eyes on Jesus

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“Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!” (Hebrews 12:1-3, The Message).

Keep your eyes on Jesus. That’s the key.

For me, if I look around me and compare myself with others, I either get despondent and envious or I get self-righteous with a false sense of superiority. It doesn’t end well.

If I look at my circumstances, I get overwhelmed. I don’t have a good enough perspective on the big picture to understand my present situation.

I feel like Bilbo from The Hobbit sometimes. In one scene, the dwarves ask him to climb a tree to see how near they are to the edge of the forest. Bilbo obliges, only to see an endless sea of trees. If he had only found a taller tree to climb, he might have found that they were much closer to the end than they imagined.

Keeping your eyes on Jesus is seeing your life from the absolute best vantage point. You realize that it’s not really about you after all but that you get to be a part of what Jesus is doing, and that’s huge. Remember, you may not feel like much of anything, but Jesus still chose you to be not just on His side but to be the very means He uses to turn the upside down world right side up again.

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

 

 

Tonight We’re Gonna Study Like It’s 1995

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I like to use a variety of translations when I read the Bible. For me, it keeps things fresh and keeps me from going into auto-pilot when I get to a familiar passage.

Lately, I’ve been going old-school. I dug out my 10th Anniversary NIV Study Bible, printed in 1995. It was a Christmas present in 1998 from dear ol’ Mom and Dad. I even have a Bible cover for it. Remember those?

I’d forgotten just how good those notes are. They go beyond the superficial, “what does this mean to you” stuff and really provide a lot of historical and cultural background to the Scriptural passages.

There are a LOT of good study Bibles that have maps, charts, and (usually) very helpful notes. I recommend at least one highly if you are interested in going deeper with your Bible reading (and are not a Hebrew or Greek scholar).

The point is to know the Word for yourself and not rely on teachers or preachers or anyone else. You have direct access to God through the Cross and don’t need anyone else to tell you what His Word says.

I also recommend the Holman Christian Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible, and the John MacArthur Study Bible. Those are all worthy additions to any library.

 

What If

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I’ve had some random “what if” questions running through my mind lately and thought I’d share some with you:

-What if instead of shaming people for voting and thinking differently than you, you actually took the time to listen to why they vote and think the way they do?

-What if enough people decided that the two-party politics-as-usual system doesn’t really work anymore (and when has it ever?) and finally were brave enough to vote for a third party candidate?

-What if people who profess faith in Jesus spent less time boycotting and belittling and more time loving their neighbors and living out the Gospel wherever they live, work, and play?

-What if there really is a Tardis floating out there in the universe and you could possibly be invited to go on adventures in it with the Doctor?

-What if more people decided to stop following the mass media like sheep and starting thinking for themselves?

-What if I went to bed at a decent hour for once instead of typing up these blog posts at the very last minute?

-What if Christianity meant less of a political platform or a morality code and more of a transformed lifestyle that looks like Jesus?

-What if we were grateful for every little thing and took time to express our gratitude to those around us in tangible ways?

-What if cats are really aliens who are studying us and are really reporting back to the mothership when they randomly disappear?

-What if I took seriously Paul’s admonition to do everything to the glory of God and offer all of my life as a spiritual act of worship?

-What if we really listened to the people who are confiding in us instead of waiting for a chance to respond?

-What if you could discipline yourself to be joyful in every circumstance, no matter what?

 

The Book of Revelation (Not Revelations)

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Tonight was the second night of the Wednesday series that Mike Glenn is leading on the Book of Revelation (not Revelations, as I mistakenly called it in a facebook post).

I love the part in Revelation 1 where John turns around to see the voice that speaks to him. Not just any voice. The voice. In John’s mind, Jesus’ voice is the only one that matters.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t listen to your family and friends. I’m saying that ultimately what Jesus says to you and about you trumps what anybody else has said to you.

You may have been called names or put down by others. You may have even called yourself names out of frustration or anger. But the only name that matters is the name Jesus gives you (check Revelation 2). What He calls you is who you really are.

The Book of Revelation isn’t about the mark of the beast and what it will look like or what form it will take. It’s not about who the anti-christ is or how big and scary the dragon will be.

This book is about Jesus. Not about how Jesus will one day ascend the throne and reign as King, but how He’s already on that throne right now. From start to finish, John portrays Jesus as big enough to get you through whatever you’re facing. He’s strong enough to save you. He’s tender enough to pick up the broken pieces of your heart and put them back together into a new regenerated heart.

I read somewhere in a email that the Bible was written by people under persecution to people under persecution and only people who have suffered can really grasp the true meaning. I think that’s true. I think you only really know how strong and mighty Jesus is to save after He has reached down to you in your lowest point and lifted you out of your mess. Only those who have scars can truly worship with hearts overflowing with gratitude.

My prayer for me as I read and study this book is that I will get a much bigger revelation of Jesus than I ever have before. That I will see Him as both merciful and holy, loving and just, closer than my own breath yet high and lifted up and seated on the throne.

That’s my prayer for you, too.