belief

F-E-A-R

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

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“God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love” (1 John 4:17-18, The Message).

Everyone has fears. Everyone.

Maybe yours is a fear that you will end up alone in the end.

Maybe you’re afraid that people will see the real behind the well-rehearsed act and the painted-on smiles and not want to have anything further to do with you.

Maybe you’re anxious over the future, wondering where the money is going to come from to pay the bills.

Maybe you’re scared that you’ll never find out what your purpose in life is.

Ann Voskamp put it best: “All fear is but the notion that God’s love will end.”

As a black pastor put it so well, fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.

Fear only shows you half the picture. Fear envisions a scenario where God either isn’t present or is unwilling to help. Fear leads you to think that the way things are now is how it will always be.

But God’s love is stronger than fear. As the song says, “Every fear has no place at the sound of Your great Name.”

When you focus on fear, you live defeated. When you focus on the love of God and choose gratitude and thanksgiving and joy, you’re showing fear the door.

Choose joy. Choose gratitude. Choose life.

I’m not saying I have fear and anxiety mastered. Some days, it can feel overwhelming. But I know that the future Jesus has promised me is more real than the present fear that I’m feeling.

Perfect love casts out all fear. Just remember that.

 

 

Summer Nights in Franklin

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“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19, The Message).

I love those summer nights, partly because of that song from the movie Grease and partly because that’s when the humidity becomes slightly more bearable. Plus, there’s something about the nocturnal breezes that stirs up a multitude of memories for me.

I visited all my usual Franklin places– McCreary’s Irish Pub, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and the Frothy Monkey. I walked up and down Main Street and noted that there were three houses for sale, though one has a contract pending.

It was about being in the moment, not anxiously obsessing over an unknown future and possible scenarios that may or may not come to pass. I remembered that God’s love, while it is omnipresent, can only be experienced in the present. I can’t plumb its depths or rise to its heights if I am dwelling on the past or focused on the future. Especially not if my head is buried nonstop in my smart phone.

God knows the future, because He’s already there. It’s not like anything that happens to me is going to take Him by surprise. Jeremiah 29:11 says that God knows the plans He has for me, and that they are good plans. I can trust not only those plans but also the Planner with full confidence.

I still prefer autumn. With the way I sweat in all this humidity, I’m sure everybody around me prefers it, too.

 

Be Encouraged. B-E Encouraged.

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

“God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it” (1 Thessalonians 5:11, The Message).

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read this verse aloud at least once a day for the next five days. Unless you feel really weird reading it aloud, in which case you may read it in your “inside-your-head” voice. You have my permission.

Remember, Jesus didn’t die to give us a get out of hell free card. It isn’t about something that’s waiting in the bye and bye.

It’s here and now. It’s life– abundant and full and overflowing life– right now.

Some of us are having a hard time remembering that right now. Some feel so weighed down by grief or stress or despair that it’s hard to feel alive. It’s hard to live abundantly when you feel as if all you’ve been doing is treading water to stay afloat in the flood.

That’s why Paul tells us to encourage each other. He didn’t say think good thoughts toward each other and have the best intentions to let them know that their in your prayers. No. He said to actively encourage them through any and all means at your disposal, whether that be pen and paper, face-to-face affirmation, smoke signals, social media, or morse code.

Who needs your encouragement most? Who is God putting on your heart? Your real mission is to encourage that person in a real and tangible way in the next 24 hours. Go!

 

The Cut-Out Bin

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“Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies’? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31, The Message).

As I mentioned a few posts ago, one of my favorite things to do back in the day, i.e. the 80’s, was to browse the cutout bins at the local record store. For me, that primarily was Camelot Music in the Hickory Ridge Mall in Memphis, Tennessee.

You could always pick out those CDs earmarked for discount by the telltale slash on near the CD label. My understanding is that record labels designated albums that didn’t sell very well to be moved to the cutout bin. Usually, you’d find a lot of unknown artists or the “sophomore slump” albums by those one-hit wonder bands or a failed comeback attempt. Every now and then, you might find a diamond in the rough that deserved better than being relegated to the cutout bin.

I discovered a section in McKay’s today that I will probably need to investigate further. It’s the “very scratched” section. It’s a good deal because 1) you can fix most CD scratches with 70% or stronger rubbing alcohol and/or toothpaste, 2) most of the CDs in that section are barely scratched, and 3) even if you wind up with a dud, you still haven’t lost much more than $1.

To paraphrase 1 Corinthians 1:26, God didn’t choose the top 40s of the world. He chose those of us stuck in the cutout bin. He selected those overlooked by everybody else, those whose best days seemed behind them, those who don’t look like much or don’t seem to possess anything special. He chose you and me.

That’s something worth celebrating. That’s something worth remembering on those days when you don’t feel like your life means much or that you don’t matter.

That also begs a question. If that’s who God chose, who am I to treat people any differently? Who am I to be elitist and snobbish when God condescended Himself and met the lowest of us at our most desperate point of need? Who am I to ever denigrate anybody else (or even me) when God proved His love by sending Jesus to die for all of us?

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

 

A Moment of Nostalgia

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Recently, I went to Memphis for the funeral of a friend’s father. On the way, I stopped off with my mom at the Wolfchase Galleria and walked around while she looked for a wedding gift for a friend of the family.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a FYE Music and Movies store. I thought those were all but extinct. Needless to say, it made my heart happy.

Best Buy and Barnes and Noble are all good and well, but I miss record stores, especially those in the mall. I can’t tell you how many Saturdays I spent looking through the cutout bins for a great deal. I got my first taste of bluegrass music in a record store.

I’m old school. I like for my books and music to be tangible. Nothing beats the musty smell of a book that’s been well used and well loved. Nothing beats the feel of a compact disc or a vinyl record in your hand.

Don’t get me wrong. I have my fair share of digital music that I listen to on my iPhone. But sometimes at night when I can’t sleep, I’ll hunt down the perfect CD for my mood, find my headphones and portable CD player, and drift off to music that was created by real people playing real instruments.

The Bible is replete with music. It’s a way of remembering your heritage. Just look at the Psalms and see how King David marked every kind of occasion, happy or sad, with a song.

Even now, a song on the radio can conjure up an old memory like nothing else can. It’s like a time machine to a defining moment in my past.

I hope that music store in Memphis can survive. Maybe one day soon I can go back when I have more time to kill.

 

 

Hymns in the Dark

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“Along about midnight, Paul and Silas were at prayer and singing a robust hymn to God. The other prisoners couldn’t believe their ears. Then, without warning, a huge earthquake! The jailhouse tottered, every door flew open, all the prisoners were loose.

 Startled from sleep, the jailer saw all the doors swinging loose on their hinges. Assuming that all the prisoners had escaped, he pulled out his sword and was about to do himself in, figuring he was as good as dead anyway, when Paul stopped him: “Don’t do that! We’re all still here! Nobody’s run away!”

The jailer got a torch and ran inside. Badly shaken, he collapsed in front of Paul and Silas. He led them out of the jail and asked, ‘Sirs, what do I have to do to be saved, to really live?’ They said, ‘Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus. Then you’ll live as you were meant to live—and everyone in your house included!'” (Acts 16:25-35).

Today at The Church at Avenue South, Matthew Page preached on the passage where Paul and Silas sang hymns in prison. I wonder if I could do that, especially if I were behind bars for something I didn’t do.

Matthew spoke about how they lived a questionable life, as in a life that led people to ask questions about what kind of men they were and why they lived the way they did.

The most powerful part of their witness was being able to sing praise songs in a prison cell. That more than anything captured the attention of not only the fellow prisoners but of the prison guard as well.

I wonder if the earthquake would have happened if Paul and Silas has remained silent. Or if they had chosen instead to make a laundry list of all the wrongs and injustices inflicted upon them. Maybe. Maybe not.

The result was that a prison guard and his entire family came to faith in the Jesus that Paul and Silas sang about. Some scholars think that the other prisoners converted to Christianity as well.

Matthew went on to talk about being in the ER with a family whose daughter was near death. The prognosis was grim but some of those there with the family broke out singing hymns.

Do you sing as loud during the dark as well as during daylight? Do you praise God during the hard times when life doesn’t make sense? Does your speech reflect gratitude and thanksgiving in the midst of extreme trials and tribulations?

There was a doctor in that ER that eventually chose to follow Jesus because he saw what he couldn’t understand. He had probably seen people rage and curse at God but he had most likely never seen people worshipping through tears in the midst of tragedy.

By the way, the girl miraculously survived.

I won’t say that every time you praise Jesus, everything will automatically turn out the way you want it to, but I will say worship will change the way you see your circumstances.

It was convicting. Maybe I need a little more praise and a little less anxious analysing.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

 

God’s Yes: Tonight’s Takeaway from Kairos

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“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20).

Most people see Christians as people who are against stuff. Kinda like the old saying: “I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls that do.”

Pastor Mike talked about how the church he attended growing up would get together and celebrate not having done anything bad. They didn’t drink or smoke or cuss or gamble. In fact, they celebrated having not done anything at all.

I believe God speaks a far louder YES than most people realize. When He says No, it’s only because He has a far greater Yes in mind for you. Or maybe it’s something you’re not quite ready for.

My mom wouldn’t let me stuff myself with candy before dinner. Why? Because she wanted to be a killjoy? More likely it was because a) I’d make myself sick from all the candy, b) I’d be a fat kid with cavities, and most importantly, c) I’d be missing out on something far more satisfying and beneficial.

I think even the No’s of God are a way of directing us to His Yes. To borrow from a C. S. Lewis metaphor, he takes us out of the slum where we’re making mud pies to offer us a holiday at sea.

God doesn’t want to repress you or depersonalize you. He wants you to become everything He created you to be. For you to be most fully alive and most fully you. And Who would know better how to do that than the One who made you?

I want God’s YES for me even if that means I have to say NO occasionally to my appetites and desires. Even if that means I chose the delayed reward over immediate gratification. Well, at least I do most of the time.

Just Some Of My Own Thoughts

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I’ve been thinking a lot about some things and I thought I’d share some of these with you:

1) Loving someone doesn’t mean you automatically agree with all of their decisions and lifestyle choices. It doesn’t mean you endorse 100% of all that they say and do. In fact, love means wanting the very best for the other and that means you don’t want that person to make bad and/or unwise choices.

2) Disagreeing with someone isn’t  synonymous with disliking that person. Just because I don’t agree with a choice you make or your lifestyle does NOT mean that I disapprove of you as a person.

3) Because a majority of people hold an opinion doesn’t necessarily make it right. I am one of those old fashioned people who still believe  that if the Bible says it, that settles it. God doesn’t need my belief to validate that.

4) I don’t think voicing disapproval automatically constitutes hate speech. There is a way to speak the truth in love.

5) I can’t single out one sin that I don’t struggle with to make a crusade out of. We all struggle with something and we all have screwed up in one arena or another. We all need the grace of God.

You can take that and apply it any way you want. For me, it’s never been about popularity anyway. It’s been about me expressing what I believe and what I love and what irks me.

I hope you will make your decisions based not on emotion but on the truth as revealed in God’s word. I hope you will remember that famous verse about letting the one who is without sin cast the first stone. I hope you will remember most of all that what the Bible calls us to more than anything else is to love people, regardless of whether they choose Jesus or not.

Is that vague enough for you?

My Progress Update

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“Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you’ve never seen” (Hebrews 11:1)

For those who are new to this blog or who haven’t been keeping up, I’ve been reading through the Bible in The Voice translation this year. I really like it so far, especially the way it translates Christ as “the Anointed One.” I also like the modern yet faithful wording.

I’ve made it all the way to 2 Peter, which means I don’t have far to go. Just 6 more books. I suppose I’m a bit ahead of schedule. I figure I’ll be done before July 1, the midway point of the year.

I’ll give you a taste of what I’ve been reading lately:

“Blessed is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! Because He has raised Jesus the Anointed from death, through His great mercy we have been reborn into a living hope— reborn for an eternal inheritance, held in reserve in heaven, that will never fade or fail. Through faith, God’s power is standing watch, protecting you for a salvation that you will see completely at the end of things. You should greatly rejoice in what is waiting for you, even if now for a little while you have to suffer various trials. Suffering tests your faith which is more valuable than gold (remember that gold, although it is perishable, is tested by fire) so that if it is found genuine, you can receive praise, honor, and glory when Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, is revealed at last.

Although you haven’t seen Jesus, you still love Him. Although you don’t yet see Him, you do believe in Him and celebrate with a joy that is glorious and beyond words. You are receiving the salvation of your souls as the result of your faith” (1 Peter 1: 3-9).

I think that says it all.

I

Awaiting the Storm

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According to the weather people, Nashville is due for a storm tonight. There’s a tornado watch in effect until 1 am. Apparently, the bad stuff isn’t supposed to hit until around 10 pm.

Actually, I don’t mind storms as long as I’m not out driving in one. As long as I’m indoors, I’m good. Away from all the crazy people who can’t drive in perfectly good weather, much less inclement weather.

I used to be afraid of thunder. Specifically, I was afraid of the loud noises of thunder. I guess all kids are afraid of things like that. I outgrew my fear, although I really can’t tell you when that was. I just know that thunder doesn’t bother me anymore.

Everybody goes through storms. Everybody has seasons in their lives that don’t make sense, where the goal is just to survive until the storm passes.

God is in the storm. He’s before and after the storm. His is the voice that bids the winds be still. His is the voice you can count on and cling to when your storm comes.

I still love the analogy of storms and the fear of God. John Piper described the fear of God as being in a storm safe from the dangers but witnessing the power and majesty of it.

The truth is that God can be scary. He is a just God who hates sin. He has every right to punish that sin. But seeing God through eyes of mercy, I see what fear of the Lord means.

He could have nuked me, but He chose to save me instead. He could have let me have every bit of what was coming to me. Instead, He let Jesus have it instead.

So storms aren’t so bad. When you’re saved from the very worst, anything else isn’t nearly as bad.