cross

Broken Things

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“God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever” (Vance Havner).

I think if you’re feeling broken beyond compare, you might just be at the point where God is about to do something incredible in you and through you. I don’t mean that you should beat yourself up and think you’re worthless. I think it’s about recognizing that each one of us has been profoundly affected by the original fall and are broken to one degree or another.

The beautiful part of the Gospel is that it’s for broken people. Not only that, God uses broken people to reach other broken people. What the world wants to throw away, God repurposes for His glory. What the world sees as worthless, God sees as priceless.

I love the verse in the Bible that talks about how God uses nobodies to shame those who think that they’re somebodies. 1 Corinthians 1:27 in the New Living Translation says “ Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.”

That’s me. At times, I have been foolish and powerless. We all have. Face it, we’re nothing apart from the sustaining grace of God. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing (at least nothing of eternal significance and value). Even our next heartbeat is a gift from God.

I need to remember that every time I start to think that I am anything on my own apart from God and what He has done in me. Anytime I start thinking that I’m better than anyone else, I need to remember that it took as much of Jesus’ blood to save me as it did anyone else. Who knows what I could have been apart from the saving grace of God?

“You can have my heart, though it isn’t new
It’s been used and broken, and only comes in blue
It’s been down a long road, and it got dirty along the way
If I give it to you, will you make it clean and wash the shame away?

You can have my heart, if you don’t mind broken things
You can have my life; you don’t mind these tears
Well, I heard that you make old things new, so I give these pieces all to you
If you want it, you can have my heart

So beyond repair, nothing I could do
I tried to fix it myself, but it was only worse when I got through
Then you walk right into my darkness and you speak words so sweet
And you hold me like a child, ’til my frozen tears fall at your feet

You can have my heart, if you don’t mind broken things
You can have my life if you don’t mind these tears
Well, I heard that you make old things new
So I give these pieces up to you
If you want it, you can have my heart” (Julie Miller).

The Tick of God’s timing

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I know I’ve said it before, but the voice of fear and anxiety says that everything has to happen right away or it won’t happen at all. Sometimes, anxiety sounds like maybe you’ve already missed it and blown your chance. Or maybe something like God won’t really keep His promises after all.

But as the old song says, the voice of truth tells me a different story. If you can breathe deep and take a moment, you might remember all those times when God came through at the exact perfect time. You might recall how His provision wasn’t a moment too soon or a moment too late.

But sometimes fear speaks so loudly, it’s hard to hear the still small voice over all the shouting. Over all the earthquakes and whirlwinds and fires that try to imitate God’s voice. But there is a Prince of Peace that can tell those winds and waves to be still. There is one whose perfect love still casts out all fear.

The more we live surrendered, the more we get in sync with God’s rhythms and learn His ways and learn to trust His timing. The less we are to give in to anxiety and fear over each new circumstance and setback.

“I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous abandoned or his children begging for bread” (Psalm 37:25, HCSB).

That’s a promise. God won’t forsake the ones He declared righteous by the work of Christ on the cross. When He sees you, He doesn’t see a past littered with failure and mistakes. He sees the perfect blood of His Son shed for you and covering you.

You can trust in God’s timing because you can trust in God’s heart for you. Neither will ever let you down. Both are faithful and true.

The Great Paradox

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“The great paradox of life is that those who lose their lives will gain them. This paradox becomes visible in very ordinary situations. If we cling to our friends, we may lose them, but when we are nonpossessive in our relationships, we will make many friends. When fame is what we seek and desire, it often vanishes as soon as we acquire it, but when we have no need to be known, we might be remembered long after our deaths. When we want to be in the center, we easily end up on the margins, but when we are free enough to be wherever we must be, we find ourselves often in the center.

Giving away our lives for others is the greatest of all human arts. This will gain us our lives” (Henri Nouwen).

“If you refuse to take up your cross and follow Me on the narrow road, then you are not worthy of Me. To find your life, you must lose your life—and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:38-39, The Voice).

That’s the paradox. You find your life by losing it. You gain love by giving it away. People notice you when you deflect the praise to the King of the universe instead of yourself. You’re blessed when you’re poor in spirit, meek, mourning, and pure in heart.

Instead of following the world’s path to success, Jesus went down the road of downward mobility. He gave up clinging to His rights of equality with God. He took on human form. He took the form of a servant. He was obedient to the point of death. His death was that of a common criminal’s crucifixion. Then God gave Him a name that is above every other name.

That’s our goal. To be unknown on earth but famous in heaven. Heavenly fame looks like faithfulness. Heavenly fame looks like denying yourself, taking up your cross daily, and following Jesus, no matter the cost.

That’s where you find your life. That’s where you find life.

The Last Week

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Today is Palm Sunday and marks the beginning of the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the week leading up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I’ve been here before, but I feel like so many times I’ve rushed to get through it to what’s next.

This time, I want to slow down a bit and sit under the cross. I want to be still long enough to hear God speak a word over me about what this week means for me and for all those who call on the Messiah out of a genuine faith. I want to be moved to tears and fully take in the price that Jesus paid for me.

I finished an incredible devotional by one of my favorite writers, Charles Martin. It’s called It Is Finished and spends 40 days walking the path that led from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, sparing no details and leaving no stone unturned. It was one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, and I hope to read it again some day.

I want Easter to mean more than the Easter Bunny or Cadbury chocolate eggs (though I am very much a fan of both). I don’t want to look at the date on the calendar and miss the point of the day — Jesus who knew no sin became sin for me that I might become the righteousness of God in Christ.

I don’t want to be the same person in seven days as the person who is now writing these words. I want to be more like Jesus, more aware of the sacrifice He made, and more willing to count the cost and take up my own cross. I want to be more of a disciple and less of an admirer. I want to be more of a follower and less of a fan. I want to be a truly biblical Christian and not a watered-down, American Christian.

I’m thankful that God is far more patient with me than I am with Him and takes far more time with me than I ever have with Him. At this point, I say, “Lord, do whatever it takes to make me Yours, Your disciple, Your own. Have Your way in me. Amen.”

Face Like Flint

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“The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross is the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God” (Oswald Chambers).

I was blessed to be able to watch episodes 1 and 2 of The Chosen Season 5 in theaters. So far, it’s set during the Lord’s Supper with flashbacks to events earlier in the last week of Jesus’ ministry and life. I was able to more fully appreciate the totality of the weight that was on Jesus during these last days. In fact, you might even say that the weight of the world was on His shoulders.

He saw lost and hurting people. He saw misguided and corrupt religious leaders not only not helping people find salvation, but at times actively hindering people from doing so. He saw a temple that had become a market where money mattered over worship and where the house of prayer had become a den of thieves.

Jonathan Roumie portrayed all the inner turmoil that Jesus went through. Sometimes in movies about the Christ, I feel like the divine part gets played up at the expense of the humanity, and Jesus can come across as divinely disinterested and maybe a little bored. But this series has brought Jesus down to earth by emphasizing His humanness but not at the expense of his divine nature.

I remembered as I witness the emotions of Jesus during these first two episodes that Jesus was not called the Man of Sorrows for no reason. It wasn’t a catchy title. Jesus’ heart really did break over the lostness of the world He encountered — first, metaphorically during three years of ministry then literally on the cross when the spear pierced His side.

I can’t wait for the next episodes. And also, I’m dreading these next few scenes a bit. I know where this is heading. It’s not the rom-com portion of the program. In the next few days, we have betrayal, arrest, false trial, execution and death. All leading up to Good Friday. All leading up to Easter Sunday. But the good news is that as the old sermon said, it may be Friday, but Sunday’s comin’.

More than ever, I really can’t wait for that Sunday to get here.

Driven to Tears

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Tonight at Room in the Inn, we had our annual Q & A instead of the usual Bible study for the homeless guests. There were four of us who each took one theological question and gave a roughly five-minute answer. The one that stays with me is when Tommy Woods did the question on what is the gospel and why does it matter.

It wasn’t so much in what he said but how even talking about the gospel got him emotional. Talking about the magnitude of what Jesus did for us on the cross brought him to tears. I was moved by the passion behind the emotion.

I sometimes wonder if we really understood what Christ went through on the cross, how much he really suffered, and how great the pain of bearing a whole world of sin felt, wouldn’t it bring us to tears every single time? How could I not be moved by the One who moved heaven and earth to get to me in my lostness and rescue me from my own rebellion?

I think if we knew how much God really paid for the free gift of our salvation, we’d sing a lot louder. We’d worship more boldly. We’d live more sacrificially. We’d never stop being a thankful people instead of a grumbling and complaining people.

Jesus once told the story of two debtors: one owed $50 and the other owed $500. He said this to defend the woman who broke a jar of expensive perfume to bathe Jesus’ feet while using her hair as a towel. He said the one forgiven much is the one who loves much.

If we think we’re basically good people with a few minor hangups and faults, we might feel a little entitled about our salvation. If we think we’re bad people who needed to be made good, we might offer up a token prayer of gratitude. But if we know that we were dead in sin and God in Jesus made us alive, we’d spend all eternity in thankful praise. And one day, we will.

My Lent Readings

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So I may have gone a tad overboard with my readings for Lent. I suppose technically, some of them are specifically for Lent and some are devotionals for the entire year. Here’s what I’m reading. Hopefully it will inspire you to add these books (or others like them) to your to-read list at some point:

  1. God’s Message for Each Day – Eugene Peterson. This one is a daily devotional book from the author of the Message, more of a paraphrase than a translation of the Bible but still worth using. This little devotional has short readings for each day and has been very helpful.
  2. 365 Pocket Prayers – Ronald A. Beets. I don’t know if Ronald wrote these or compiled them, but there are 365 prayers, each with a different theme. There’s also a handy index listing the prayers by category in case you want to find a prayer for guilt or shame or anxiety or such.
  3. A Barclay Prayer Book – William Barclay. This is a prayer book that follows the Christian Year and Holy Days in the Book of Common Prayer and also has prayers for all seasons. There were a couple of phrasings in there that gave me a bit of pause, but overall, I’ve liked it enough to recommend it.
  4. It Is Finished: A 40-Day Pilgrimmage Back to the Cross – Charles Martin. This one is blowing my mind with new insights about Jesus’ journey to the cross. It’s very reverent and biblical in its retelling of the scenes of Jesus’ last week before the crucifixion. Another book I highly recommend.
  5. The Book of Common Prayer (1928 edition) – This book helps get me in the proper frame of mind for both Christmas and Easter with all the Advent and Lent readings leading up to Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. Plus, there are so many beautiful collects and other readings for all the Holy Days and other important days in the Christian calendar. It makes me want to be liturgical.

All that plus reading through the Bible in a year is a lot. So proceed with caution if you dare. Or you can recommend your own Advent and/or Lent readings that have encouraged and inspired you and maybe I’ll read them next year.

He Suffered for Us

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“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the Cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us” (John Stott).

Every other religion is about working our way to God and somehow managing to be good enough or obey enough rules or simply to be lucky enough to get to heaven or nirvana or whatever they believe exists after death. But Christianity is the story about how God in Jesus has come to us (and I hear Mike Glenn’s voice as I type these words). Jesus knew that man could never climb high enough to get to heaven, so He came from heaven to live among us and die for us.

It’s still a few weeks away from Lent Season and Easter, but I still think it’s good to remember that God doesn’t watch us suffering from a distance. He’s with us in our suffering. Best of all, He became one of us and suffered for us more than anyone before or since to provide redemption and salvation and freedom to all who would receive Him.

That’s a good thought for Easter, but it’s also good for any time of the year. It’s good especially for times like these when pain and suffering are the norm rather than the exception. Your King knows all about suffering and He is still here and He still reigns. One day, He will make all things right. This is our God, and Jesus is His name.

The Greater Light of the Ancient Flame

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“Give Santa Claus a place at Christmas, so long as it is not the highest place. Sing songs about flying reindeer, but let them fly lower than the angels. Set cookies and milk out on Christmas Eve, but remember that flour and sugar and cream are of lesser value than gold and frankincense and myrrh. String colored lights on every house, hang them from every tree, so long as they are lesser lights, and the greater light of the ancient flame burns brighter still” (Winter Fire: Christmas with G. K. Chesterton, Ryan Whitaker Smith).

As I’m learning, it doesn’t have to be either/or when it comes to Santa Clause or Jesus Christ, the North Pole or Bethlehem. Just as long as you keep the star of Bethlehem that shone over the place where Jesus lay in the manger over the star on your tree, you can celebrate both. At least, that’s my understanding.

What Santa represents is the spirit of giving and generosity which finds its ultimate fulfillment in the gift of Emmanuel, God with us. What the lights and decorations represent is joy, which stands on the final victory of Jesus at the cross. Every Christmas tradition points to the original Christmas story, which always points to Jesus.

And I still think the best way to celebrate Christmas is over 12 days instead of just one. But I won’t hold my breath. I won’t get upset when everybody takes down all the reminders of Christmas by the first of the new year, because I know that the real Christmas is what lives in my heart, and nothing can ever take that away.

My Christmas Miracle

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“Hey Soul? Slow down and breathe. Let the goodness and mercy that follows you every. single. day. of. your. life. — no. matter. what. — why not slow down and see how the goodness catches up to you? Let’s remember this gentle hope today:

“I don’t have to work
for the coming of the Lord –
I don’t have to work for Christmas.
The miracle is always that
God is gracious.
I always get my Christmas miracle.
I get God with me.
That’s really all I have to get for Christmas –
my heart.
So I will just come to Him just as I am.
God gives Himself as the greatest Gift this Christmas,
and He doesn’t keep any truly good thing from me.
Because the greatest things aren’t things!
Jesus is all good, and He is all mine,
and this is always my miracle –
my greatest Gift!”
*God longs to be with you today* —

~ excerpt from #TheGreatestGift -> bit.ly/GreatestGiftforyou
#Day20www.TheGreatestChristmas.com” (Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift).

I’m thankful that even while the world is rushing about during this season, I can be still and know that God is God. I can be still and know that when we couldn’t get to God, God in Jesus has come to us in the form of a baby. I can rest in the fact that the shadow of the cross that looms over the manger because the work that started in Bethlehem wouldn’t stop until Golgotha.

I can rest.