Christ

The Birthdays Keep Coming

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

At some point, I wish the birthdays would just stop.

I don’t mean I don’t want any more birthdays. I definitely don’t mean that I don’t want to live any longer.

What I do mean is that I wish that I could get to a comfortable age number and stop there. I think 35 would have been a good age to remain for a while. Maybe now I can stay 52 for a few years.

But then I remember people like my friend Nathan or my cousin Timothy who won’t get to see 52. They never got the opportunity to grow old because they left so young.

So I’m thankful for another birthday. It means I got to live. It means I got to experience God’s world and especially God in the world for another 365 days. I got to take for granted that I would wake up every morning.

As much as I enjoy opening birthday gifts, the biggest gift I get every single year is the gift of being alive and being loved. I’m reminded that I have a physical birthday on February 28, but I also have a spiritual birthday on which I prayed the sinner’s prayer and invited Jesus into my heart.

That was the day that I went from being lost to found, from being dead in sin to being alive to God. It was the day that I became a new creation and a follower of Jesus, not because I was especially deserving or good. It was because God is good and full of grace.

I think my friend Nathan or my cousin Timothy could have the chance to say some final words, they’d say that the most important gift anyone could ever receive is the gift of knowing Jesus and receiving what He did by taking our punishment on the cross, dying, and then being raised from the dead.

If anyone reading this wants to know more about following Jesus, I’ve included this link that shares the plan of salvation:

Have You Heard the Good News of Salvation?

Chariots of Fire

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

One of my favorite movies of all time, Chariots of Fire, is based on an actual true story. The film is an account of the life of Eric Liddell, or at least the part of his life where he chooses between going to China to be a missionary and training for the Olympic games.

The movie hit theaters back in 1981. I can’t say with 100% confidence that everything portrayed in the movie is the way it actually happened. Hollywood does tend to take liberties for the sake of dramatic tension and for those feel-good moments.

I can say that the real Eric Liddell was willing to live and die for the sake of the gospel. He ended up going to China after the 1924 Olympics (spoiler alert), where he remained until his death in 1945. He literally sacrificed his life at age 43 for Christ because he felt that to lose your life is to gain it and to die for Christ is gain.

These are his actual words that reflect the heart of a true missionary and follower of Jesus Christ:

“I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Creator, infinitely holy and loving, who has a plan for the world, a plan for my life, and some daily work for me to do. I believe in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, as Example, Lord, and Savior. I believe in the Holy Spirit who is able to guide my life so that I may know God’s will; and I am prepared to allow him to guide and control my life. I believe in God’s law that I should love the Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my soul, and with all my mind, and with all my strength; and my neighbor as myself. I believe it is God’s will that the whole world should be without any barriers of race, color, class, or anything else that breaks the spirit of fellowship. To believe means to believe with the mind and heart, to accept, and to act accordingly on that basis” (Eric Liddell).

No More Fear

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ The psalm does not pretend that evil and death do not exist. Terrible things happen, and they happen to good people as well as to bad people. Even the paths of righteousness lead through the valley of the shadow. Death lies ahead for all of us, saints and sinners alike, and for all the ones we love. The psalmist doesn’t try to explain evil. He doesn’t try to minimize evil. He simply says he will not fear evil. For all the power that evil has, it doesn’t have the power to make him afraid” (Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark).

I used to be terrified of the dark. I had to have a night light or some other kind of light so I wouldn’t be completely in the dark, because that’s where the monsters lived. At least that’s what I told myself. More truthfully, it’s the unknown that I was afraid of.

But the older I get and the more I know of God, the less reason I have to be afraid of the dark. I still get the heebie jeebies when I’m in the dark sometimes, but I know there’s no real reason to be afraid. I know that with one click on a flashlight or one tap on my flashlight app, all that darkness goes away without a fight.

The Bible say not to fear the one who can kill the body, but the one who can destroy the soul. I take that to mean that anything other than God is no longer a threat or a reason to be fearful. I know that God is for me and has promised to never leave me nor forsake me, much less destroy my very soul. So I have no reason to fear.

Of course, the default setting for most of us is fear. It’s not like we make the conscious decision to be afraid. It’s our bodies’ reaction to certain stimuli like a perceived threat. Sometimes, especially when we’re tired, it’s easy to let anxiety get a foothold.

But that’s when all those promises of God come in handy. That’s when it’s helpful to have a storehouse of memorized Scripture to draw from when those fearful moments come. That’s when you need people around you to speak life and peace over you.

A good attitude to take when scary things happen is that the worst that can happen to me is that I die and go to be with Jesus. Anything less than that is doable. And nothing can separate me from God’s love or cause Him to stop loving me, so I know God is with me no matter what. And God is with those I love.

That’s when evil and the dark lose their power to make me afraid.

Be At Rest

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“God is at work. He does not slumber.
Christ intercedes. He does not fail.
The Spirit comforts. He does not forsake.
Be at rest. Be at peace.
Your name at the end of the day is Beloved” (Ann Voskamp).

You and I can be at rest and have peace, even on those Mondays when our devices aren’t working, when our circumstances don’t cooperate with our plans, and when fear and anxiety seem to have the upper hand in our thoughts.

We can rest because we know that our identity is not what we do but who we are. Or whose we are.

All the diplomas and titles and honors and rewards in the world count for nothing apart from Christ, and nothing is lost if you lose everything and still have Jesus.

That is peace. That is rest.

 

It’s Monday Eve Again

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

My cat Lucy is purring, so I’m thinking she’s unaware that tomorrow is Monday. Either that or she’s in complete denial.

I’m leaning toward the latter.

Of course, her schedule for tomorrow is a little less complicated than mine. Her to-do list goes something like 1) eat, 2) take a nap, 3) poop 4) take a nap, 5) dash crazily around the house for 45 seconds, 6) take a nap, etc.

Monday’s not my favorite way to start off the week.

Then again, Monday means I’m alive and made it to another day.

I can choose to complain or I can choose to give thanks. Gratitude is a much better way to live than grumbling. You can see every day as a burden or as a miracle. It’s your  choice.

So to that end, I say that God is great, life is good, and I am still very much blessed.

The end.

This Blood’s for You: An Easter Toast for 2017

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song” (Pope John Paul II).

Once again, I raise my glass and drink to all of you outcasts and loners out there.

Here’s to all of you with perpetually plastered smiles on your faces whose cheery dispositions hide a world of pain that few know about. You may project eternal optimism, but inwardly you feel you’re in the middle of the deepest darkest valley.

Here’s to you who know all too well the meaning of being alone in a crowd. You’re always the one feeling left out in all the conversations and the one who never gets invited to group activities.

Here’s to you who never quite fit in anywhere and who always feel unwanted. Maybe you feel closer than ever to simply giving up on everything.

Here’s to you who feel invisible, rejected, undesirable, outcast, and alone. Jesus died for you. Jesus saw you in your darkest and at your worst and loved you enough to die for you, then and there.

You are no longer unworthy because Jesus considered you worth not a little or even a lot but all of His precious blood shed on that cross.

Here’s to all those nobodies whom God has called to turn the world upside down. You who were once far off and strangers to hope and desperately awkward and ashamed are now sons and daughters of the King and joint-heirs with Jesus to the Kingdom and– best of all– the beloved of your Abba.

Here’s to those who finally belong and who finally fit in and who finally are learning how to embrace all of who God made them to be and to find that in comforting to the image of Christ they become their very best and truest selves.

Here’s to you.

At the Right Time

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“When the right time arrived, God sent His Son into this world (born of a woman, subject to the law) to free those who, just like Him, were subject to the law. Ultimately He wanted us all to be adopted as sons and daughters” (Galatians 4:4-5 VOICE).

For some reason, the image that immediately popped into my mind upon reading this verse was that line from The Lord of the Rings when Gandalf announces, “A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.”

I don’t by any means intend to suggest that God is Gandalf, but I do think that Gandalf is many ways is a picture of the Christ. More importantly, this speak a very important truth about God.

God is never early. God is never late. God’s timing is always perfect. Always.

Often in my own life, I’ve found that what seemed like delays weren’t because God wasn’t ready to give but because I wasn’t ready to receive. I had some growing up and maturing to do before I could fully appreciate what God had in store for me.

I do think that often when God doesn’t work according to my timetable, it isn’t because God is thwarting my plans but because God is seeing a much bigger picture and His vision for my life is so much grander than mine.

I heard a very good definition of anxiety as a state of feeling like everything has to happen immediately. The fear sets in when delays begin to seem like denials.

Fear, as I heard it put once, is False Evidence Appearing Real. In this case, faith calls me to trust the heart of God for me in the face of overwhelming yet ultimately false evidence that He will not work out all things together for my good.

Tonight I trust God’s heart as true and God’s timing as perfect. This season of Advent proves to me yet again that God always fulfills His promises to His people.

That’s good enough for me.

 

Only One Thing Matters

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Jesus continued from there toward Jerusalem and came to another village. Martha, a resident of that village, welcomed Jesus into her home. Her sister, Mary, went and sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him teach. Meanwhile Martha was anxious about all the hospitality arrangements.

Martha (interrupting Jesus): Lord, why don’t You care that my sister is leaving me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to get over here and help me.

Jesus: Oh Martha, Martha, you are so anxious and concerned about a million details, but really, only one thing matters. Mary has chosen that one thing, and I won’t take it away from her” (Luke 10:38-42, The Voice).

This Advent season may find you stretched too thin. You might feel like you’re being pulled in a hundred different directions toward a hundred different destinations, each one seemingly as important as the rest.

I believe the word from God for this season is this: the best place to be is at the feet of Jesus. Only one thing matters as we approach Christmas– creating margins and spaces in your life and heart to be able to hear the voice of your Good Shepherd.

Only one thing matters– seeing the Christ in Christmas an adoring the infant King, wrapped snugly and laying in a manger. As the worship song says, everything else can wait. Some of those to-do list tasks can even be left undone.

If you achieve all your holiday goals and purchase every last present and miss Jesus, you’ve missed Advent.

The best witness you can give this Advent season is to say no to the excess spending and the tyranny of the urgent while being still before the presence of God, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

You don’t have to be idle to be still. You can go about your daily life with a sense of urgent expectancy and waiting with hope. You can adore the Christ by your Christlike attitude in the midst of all the hustle and bustle, by your kindness and patience toward others, remembering that the one thing that matters most is not in your wallet or in your shopping bags or in your day planner but rather in the middle of your Nativity scene, laying in that manger.

More Quotes I Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“But God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand” (C. S. Lewis).

“What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing” (C. S. Lewis).

“Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has—by what I call ‘good infection’. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else” (C. S. Lewis).

I started out to write something original, but I decided I didn’t like what I had written so I borrowed a little from some writing I did like. You can’t go far wrong with Mr. Lewis.

I promise tomorrow that I will be back with my own words.