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Ya Never Know

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Sometimes, ya just never know, do ya? I mean really. You think you have it all figured out, then the job you thought would last forever ends and the people you thought would never leave you leave you.

But it’s not always bad things.

I have had people I never expected would ever want anything to do with me come into my life and speak powerfully into it. I have had people I initially dismissed or brushed off as arrogant or shallow or worldly turn out to be some of the biggest impacters in my life.

I have had people to affirm God’s calling in my life. I have had people help me see that I’m not invisible or unwanted or a reject. I have had people who saw hope and a future for me when I couldn’t see anything but despair and darkness.

Sure, I have had people disappear on me. I’ve had people that I thought would be around for the long haul get married and move off and start new lives. Those aren’t bad things by any means, but it still means those people aren’t as immediately present in my life as they once were.

I have had people come up to me and tell me they love my blogs when I had no clue that they even read them. I even had someone I didn’t know come up to me and tell me how much I glowed with Jesus. That was one of those “out of left field” moments, but it came at the exact moment when I needed encouragement in a big way.

You never know who’s watching. That’s both comforting and challanging.

It’s challenging because it changes how you live. You can’t say one thing and live another and get away with it anymore. People may not call you on it to your face, but they notice and they might well form their opinion of Jesus and faith from your not-so-pristine example.

It’s also comforting. It means that nothing you ever do for Jesus, no matter how small and insignificant it seems, is ever in vain. In the words of the old Margaret Becker song, “It’s never for nothing.”

The words you choose have the power to speak life into someone else. You might just be the person that helps someone through a hard time in his or her life. You might be the person who helps someone keep going for one more day and helps that person to trust Jesus a little bit more.

Whose life will you speak into today? Who will you be Jesus to by your kind words and acts of service and forgiving and compassionate spirit?

Because you never know what even one random small act of love done in the power of a great God will do. Ya just never know.

Back to Your Future

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’ve always been intrigued by time travel. I’ve always been a sucker for movies like The Time Machine (the first one, not the remake) and Back to the Future (all three). Even the remote possibility of going back or forward in time is exciting.

If you could go back, what would you change? What mistakes would you avoid? What brave, courageous thing would you do? What would you tell your younger self?

I have a novel idea. I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one single solitary thing.

Sure, my life isn’t what I thought it would be. I’m not even close to married and my job status sure isn’t what I thought it would be when I was daydreaming back in the olden days. My bank account is missing a few zeros, too.

But I’m rich where it counts. I’m blessed in all the ways that really matter.

I have family who has stuck with me. I have friends who actually like me and have yet to bail on me, despite some extremely dumb and dorky moments on my part.

The reason I still believe that God is real is because I have seen Him lived out in the people around me. I’ve had so many show me Jesus and what He can do in someone’s life if given even the smallest chance to work.

I don’t know what the next few days or weeks look like, but I know God does. I am trusting my unknown future to a known God (to borrow one of Corrie ten Boom’s most famous quotes).

I don’t know where I’ll be, but I know it won’t be alone. I’ll have my brothers and sisters with me. All of them, including the ones who may not share my DNA, but call on the same God as Father.

My future’s looking bright. And I want to do everything in my power to help you realize yours.

May we all find God to be more than faithful, more than able, and more than enough, no matter what comes next. Amen.

An Awesome Definition for Worship

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

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“Worship is extravagant love and extreme submission.”

I love that definition.

Too often, worship is all about singing songs. It’s all too easy to sit back and critique the song choices and musical styles and whether or not those around me are worshiping the “right” way.

In Nashville, it’s easy to let worship become all about the level of musicianship and charasmatic personality. It’s easy to manipulate a crowd into a frenzy if you’re talented enough, but that’s not worship.

Worship is extravagant love. I can’t help but thinking about the woman who poured the expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and then wiped those feet with her hair. That was more than inconvenient. That was extremely costly and humiliating. That’s worship.

It’s also extreme submission. It’s surrendering my own illusion of self-control and admitting that I have a desperate need for God. And it starts long before you enter the sanctuary and the church service and doesn’t end when you pass the exit doors on your way out into the parking lot.

Worship is not an event, but a lifestyle of saying, “Not my will, but Thine.”

I don’t normally do this, but I posted a link to a fantastic blog about the nature of worship that I ran across today.

http://allsonsanddaughters.com/2012/03/26/art-in-worship-join-the-conversation/

I challenge to you read it and let it soak into your very being.

If I’m truly worshipping in Romans 12:1-2 fashion and being transformed by the renewing of my mind and offering my body as a living sacrifice, then it won’t matter whether I’m singing the most current and trendy modern worship songs or the old, old hymns.

It won’t matter if there’s a rockin’ worship band, or a guy with a guitar, or an orchestra and choir, or just a piano and organ.

It will be worship. It will declare the great worth of God to the world.

After all, like the song says, it’s not about me. It’s all about You, Jesus.

My Faux Oscar Acceptance Speech

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

First of all, I really thought Viola Davis should have won the Best Actress Oscar. No, I haven’t seen The Iron Lady, but I can’t imagine any performance being more pitch-perfect and soul-moving than her work in The Help. Even Meryl Streep’s.

On the last day of me being 39, I came up with an acceptance speench on surviving 40 years with all my hair and most of my sanity intact.

Thank you to my family for being awesome. Thanks to my mother, without whom I wouldn’t be here. Literally. And to my dad, who had his share in the blessed event. 50% to be exact. I will never be able in a million years to repay the debt I owe them.

Ditto for my sister and brother-in-law, two nephews and niece. I love you guys and I can’t wait to have you be a part of my birthday celebrations!

Thank you to my friends who have shown me what real grace looks like and have been Jesus to me countless times. You’ve seen my worst and believed the best for me and about me. I am a composite of what I have seen and learned and imitated in you.

Thank you to all the great artists who make up the soundtrack of my life. Life without music would still be worth living, but barely. Ditto for movies and really good books.

Thank you to all the animals I’ve grown up with. All the dogs, cats, and even the parakeet. I still miss you, Sammy. Currently, my cat Lucy has the disctinction of being my best birthday present ever 12 years running.

Thank you, Jesus. You are not just Savior and not just Lord. You are my Life, my Oxygen, my Strength, my Joy, my Salvation and my Song I will sing every day of my life until the day I die (and then I will keep singing it every day after that).

I am still Abba’s child and He is still very fond of me and I will never stop proclaiming to the world that Jesus can take anyone at any point, no matter how far they’ve fallen or how profoundly they’re broken, and make them shine and make them radiant and beautiful trophies of the grace of God.

Thanks in advance for all my birthday wishes. I do read each and every one and they all mean the world to me.

Thanks for reading this little blog by this guy who is way more blessed than he deserves. This Ragamuffin who is still trying to tell other beggars where to find the Bread of Life.

Goodwill Finds

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

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I am fast becoming a Goodwill junkie. I love going in those stores, not knowing what I’ll find, and walking away with a few unexpected treasures. Like today, for instance. I went in looking for music and came out with a little stained glass piece that has Romans 8:31 on it. Well, it looks like stained glass to my untrained eye. I went in with visions of finding Amy Winehouse CDs and found something I didn’t expect to find, but ended up being much more meaningful to me than what I was looking for.

I think life is a lot like that.

Sure, you can live your life in safe mode. That’s where you always hang out with the same people and go to the same places. That’s where you love people who are loveable and and invest in the friendships with people who are popular and know the secret handshake and password. Those in the know and on the go, so to speak.

That’s fine, but you never find any unexpected treasures there.

Sometimes, you have to go out of your way to find that treasure hidden in a field that’s worth more than everything you own put together. Sometimes, you have to get out of your safe life to find the most satisfying and rewarding moments.

Maybe the treasure is found in the friends who are on the outside with the in-crowd, but who have deep wells of wisdom when it comes to walking with Jesus. Maybe it’s in serving those who won’t say thank you, or giving to those who will never pay you back.

Maybe it’s in giving that someone a second chance after they screwed up the first and finding that forgiveness is its own reward.

I think God deliberately puts the most precious things and people and places and moments in the most ordinary disguises so that they will mean that much more to us when we find them and see them for their true worth and value. It’s a fearful thing to step out in faith that way, but the risk is always way more than worth it.

I can think of a few friends who have turned out to be golden. My family is the same way. Those memories I cherish most happened when I was expecting something else (or not expecting anyhing at all).

Sometimes, when you go digging through the trash, when you go to the lowliest places, sometimes you will look into the face of the broken and hopeless and outcast and find Jesus there.

Forgiveness

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Tonight, Mike Glenn talked about forgiveness at Kairos. He said forgiveness is releasing the other person from the expectation that they can fix the wrong and the hurt they caused you. He said forgiveness is when you are no longer defined by the pain and the hurt and the grudge, but by the love of Jesus.

He added that Jesus said to him once, “You can hold on to the hate for the person who hurt you or you can hold on to My love, but you cannot hold on to both.” When Jesus whispered, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing,” He was praying for those who hurt you. He was also praying for you.”

We are called to forgive. Jesus said the Father would forgive you as you forgave others. When you don’t give forgiveness, you can’t receive it and you stunt the work of the Spirit in your life. Every single one of us needs to forgive and be forgiven.

But what if the person you most need to forgive is yourself? What if the person you need to learn to live with is you? What if you’re scared to death that if someone else ever knew you like you knew yourself and knew all the dirty, petty, angry thoughts you keep hidden, they would walk out on you for good?

I have been way too hard on myself in the past and projected on to other people my own self-rejection. I thought that no one could ever really know me and still like me. But the love of Jesus broke through and changed me and changed how I saw myself. It transformed how I saw others, no longer through my own insecurities, but through the grace of God.

The key is to believe what God says about you. It’s to believe that God loves you and chose you and calls you BELOVED. The key is to receive God’s forgiveness. If God chose to forgive you of something you never in a million years could have paid for, then it’s time to forgive yourself.

You have a choice. You can choose pain and holding grudges or you can choose forgiveness and freedom and love. I think Anne Lamott said refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. You only hurt yourself. Forgiveness is freedom to love and be loved and mostly, to be wrapped up by the love of Jesus.

I choose forgiveness every time. Lord, grant me and all those reading this forgiving hearts and fill us up with your love so there’s no more room to carry the hurts anymore.

Amen.

Back to the Basics

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Some days, I wake up and I do good to remember my own name, much less any one else’s. For me in the early morning, I have to remember whem I’m getting dressed that pants go on first, then shoes. I know most of you take that for granted, but for me at 5:30 am, it’s not a given.

Some times you have to remind yourself of the basics. Sometimes when life gets hard or confusing or just plain weird. Most of these are not original with me, but I’ve picked them up over the years.

1) God is for you. God’s not up there, wherever “there” is, waiting to smite you or cast a lightning bolt at you or give you acne. He’s not. He’s on your side.

2) Don’t sweat the small stuff, and most of life is small stuff. Most of what you get so hung up on and stressed out over is small stuff. You probably won’t even remember most of those things that got you so worried today.

3) God never said He wouldn’t give you more than you yourself can handle, but He also said He Himself would take care of you. Quit trying to figure everything out and handle it all yourself. Be the child Jesus talks about and let God be your Father and get you through your trials and tests and other stuff.

4) Life is short. Choose family and friends and relationships over work and getting things done, because no one on his death bed ever laments about not having spent enough time at the office.

5) The only opinion of you that matters is what God thinks of you. The people you spend so much time wondering what they think of you are just as paranoid over what you think of them. Only God knows you completely. He made you. And He likes you.

6) You can’t do whatever you want or be whoever you want. I will never dunk a basketball on a regulation goal, no matter how much I really want to. You and I can’t be whatever we want to be, but we can be who God made us and meant for us to be.

That’s all I have. Other than maybe pants go first, then shoes. But like the song says, there are two things I know: 1) that God is good and 2) that He loves me.

No matter what else will happen to you, those two things will always be true. Always.

Something Beautiful

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

First of all, I love Needtobreathe and I totally stole this blog title from one of their songs (which I love, by the way). Just so you know. Not that it has anything to do with the rest of the blog.

One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen lately is a group of believer who are fully coming alive to who they are in Christ, who are learning that they have all the authority and power of Christ in them, and they can do what everyone else says is impossible, because for God who lives in them, all things are possible. They have a God who lives in them who relishes making impossilbilities into possibilities. It’s His speciality.

I love seeing my brothers and sisters in Christ waking up to their sonship and daughtership (if that’s a word) in Christ, watching as the chains of past failures and hurts fall away, as strongholds and addictions are broken, and as the love of Christ cleanses and heals and restores and makes them whole. I love seeing fear turn into joy, mourning into dancing, ashes into beauty, despair into confidence, and defeat into victory.

The absolute most beautiful thing to me right now is believers who share life together, who break bread together, who bear each others burdens and laugh and cry together. That kind of love is what turned the 1st century world upside down, and is what will turn this 21st century world on its head if we ever can come together in Christ as one.

Now is the time to come together in unity and love with crazy radical love. Now is the time to be all in for Christ and to embrace His vision of who you are and accept what He has already said about you. Revival comes to hearts that are not just a little hungry and thirsty and needy, but to starving, parched, desparate people who will wrestle with God and not let go until true revival fire falls.

Let those things be our desire and our prayer. Don’t wish for something beautiful to make the world fall in love with Jesus; let your transformation be that something beautiful that will draw them to the God who can change anyone and to Whom no one is ever past hope or a lost cause.

Amen and amen! Come, Holy Spirit. We need you now!

Just Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

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A friend of mine told me about how God had recently impressed upon her heart lately the words, “JUST LOVE!” I think that’s God’s word to me, too.

What is the power that conquered death in all its forms and made the fear of death something that the believer no longer has over him or her? Just love.

What is the force that will still be around when all the dictators and kings and presidents have gone to their graves and kingdoms and empires have fallen? Just love.

What will be the power that outlasts hate, overcomes fear, overwhelms ignorance, and will be the last one standing? Just love.

What can’t be stopped by any army or weapon or group that has ever been and ever will be? What has survived centuries of attempts to snuff it out only to grow stronger with time? Just love.

What is God’s ultimate force He has used to end the dominion of sin and overthrow darkness and usher in a new Kingdom with new values where anyone is welcome, nobody is perfect and nothing is impossible? Just love.

What are we as believers called to do to see this Kingdom of God come and see multitudes coming to faith in the Messiah and King, Jesus? Just love.

What will overcome every obstacle and barrier and what will draw people to the God we serve and make them want to know Him? Just love.

What can mend your broken heart, refresh your weary spirit, renew your mind, and heal your sin-scarred body? Just love.

Just love and only love is what will win. God is love and His love for us is so powerful that nothing, not death or the grave or anything else, can keep Him from getting to us and taking us back. Nothing can separate us from Him. Nothing will cause His love for us to stop. Nothing will diminish His love for us in the slightest.

God’s love in us and through us WILL change the world. That one thing I believe with all that is in me!

Amen and amen!

I Love the Way God Works

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

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I am goofy. I admit that. I don’t think normally and I don’t act normally when I’m nervous (or even when I’m not nervous, for that matter). I am wearing a t-shirt right now that has a clown on it and says, “Normal people scare me.”

While I say all that in jest (mostly), I have to confess that I love the way God works in my life. I love the way He meets me where I am, loves me just as I am, and takes what I have in my hands, no matter how small and paltry and uses it in ways that astound me. I am always amazed at what God can do in and through me when I am surrendered and available. When I am prayed up, confessed up, spiritually armored up. Even when I’m not sometimes.

I love God’s grace because I need it. I love God’s forgiveness because I would be screwed without it. I love His spirit within me, because I know deep down that I couldn’t love anything at all without Him in me. And the more I know of God, the more I love Him. The more I learn about Him, the more I sense my need for Him. All I can do is open up my hands and receive. Even my so-called giving and ministry is simply what spills out of my open hands when I am receiving.

My goal in writing this blog is for you to love God and the way He works as much or more than I do. I want you to know how He sees you and that He is not mad or disappointed in you, but how He cheers for you and is for you and is always with you. How He can take the smallest beginning of surrender and transform your life into something amazing and miraculous. A life that will reflect the glory of God and that will make it impossible for anyone to remain neutral about the God in you. Hopefully, they will be drawn to a God who can make a broken mess into a beautiful masterpiece. Even if not, they won’t be able to see your life changed and remain the same themselves.

I love that God chooses people like me to work in and with. I love that God never gives up on those He chooses. I love that God’s in love with me (and He’s also crazy about you, too). I love that God can take this blog and send it places I would never have dreamed possible and have people read it that I never would have imagined would. I love that God can take anyone at any place at any time and do anything He wants with them.

God amazes me and blows my mind every single day. And I love that about Him!

Amen and amen!