I Need, I Need, I Need. Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.

May 11, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Today at church, the pastor spoke from Matthew 6:25-34 about not worrying because God will supply your need. I’ve heard that before many, many times, but for some reason it hit me in a fresh new way.

Many times, we as Americans get our needs and wants confused. I know I do.

For instance, one of my needs is reliable transportation to get me to and from work. My want is a red Mini-Cooper,preferably one that has a British flag emblem on the roof and/or on the side-view mirrors. I currently drive a red’ 97 Jeep Cherokee with nearly 275,000 miles on it that still looks and runs great.

I have an iPad 3. I love it. Still, sometimes I find myself coveting one of the new iPad Airs, especially the ones with 128 GB. But I’m content with what I have. I’d also have to be seriously delusional to call either one of those a need.

There’s a house in downtown Franklin that I’d love to live in. It’s like a storybook cottage and it’s right in the middle of one of my favorite areas of Middle Tennessee. I do have a roof over my head, so I think I’m covered when it comes to my need in that area.

I’m not saying wants are wrong. I am saying sometimes we all need a little bit of perspective about what our needs are and what our wants are. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but if you have more than one set of clothes, a roof over your head, access to clean water, more than one meal a day, and transportation, you are wealthy. So many around the world don’t have these things.

Oh, I’d still like one of those MacBook Pro laptops. Or even a MacBook Air. I’d settle for one of those, too. But I’m not going to say either of those are needs. Still, if someone wants to donate one to me out of the goodness of their heart, I wouldn’t complain too much.

All that to say that I know God will take care of my needs. Sometimes, He has to remind me of what those needs REALLY are, but He’s never failed to take care of me and my true needs. The same God who looks after those lilies in the field and those sparrows will look after me.

Leave It to Mr. Lewis

May 8, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Tonight in my Life Group, we were discussing how to explain to a nonbeliever why a Christian would want to be obedient to Jesus. Ok, that’s simplifying it a bit. It was a 30 minute discussion.

Basically, the question was this: if we’re truly free in Christ, why do we still feel compelled to do what He tells us to do instead of what we want to do. In all the discussion, I had a lightbulb moment. Why not google C. S. Lewis and find out what he had to say on the subject of obedience? After all, he was a smaht man (said in my best Forrest Gump voice).

Here’s what I found:

“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”

Yep. There’s a reason why I’ve liked this guy all these years. It turns out he said some fairly astute things during his time. Who knew?

For real, if I had to pick the most influential believers of the 20th century, I’d start with Billy Graham and C. S. Lewis. If for nothing more than those Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis deserves the honor. But he wrote so many classics. I’d go so far as to say that I don’t know of a book of his that I don’t consider a classic.

What was my point? I think it was obedience. To me, obedience is not a “have to” but a “get to”. It’s not like we’re burdened with all these heavy burdens and restrictions and commandments that strangle and restrict. No. Love fulfills the law. These burdens of Jesus are light and a joy to bear. And the obedience is the fruit of a life spent close to Jesus.

Just as you and I become most like the people we spend the most time with, so believers become more like Jesus when they spend time with Him and end up doing what He did and living like He lived. They end up looking and sounding and acting just like Jesus. That to me is obedience.

Prayer Time Just Like They Do it At Kairos (In the Style of Uncle Mike)

May 7, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I had ideas about what to write about tonight until I was on my way home from church and got this epiphany. Why not do a prayer time like they do at Kairos?

It’s completely unoriginal and every part of it is from Kairos, but it’s helped me more than once to get calm and get to a place where I could finally hear God speaking to me. Here goes:

Find a quiet spot and get comfortable, with both feet on the floor. That way you don’t get distracted by your foot falling asleep.

Take a deep breath. Exhale. Take another deep breath. Let it out slowly and as you do that, repeat the phrase, “Abba Father, I belong to you.”

Let go of everything you’re supposed to be doing. Everything you were supposed to have done but didn’t get to. It will all still be there. It’s not going anywhere. Remember this is a safe place. Remember that your Abba Father is here.

Turn off your phones and tablets. There’s no one more important than God who will be wanting to speak with you for the next few moments.

Begin by thanking God for who He is. Not for what He’s done for you. At least not yet. Just let your mind settle on one attribute of God’s character that means the most to you and thank Him for that.

Now it’s time for confession. As Uncle Mike (or Mike Glenn for the non-Kairos folk) always says, it’s not a time to beat yourself up. It’s a time to confess that you knew what to do and didn’t do it. That you knew it was wrong but chose to do it anyway. Just agree with God and don’t be afraid to tell Him. He’s not running after you to scold you or punish you, but to wrap His arms around you and pull you back into His Embrace.

Now thank Him. Pick one instance of where God clearly came through for you. Choose one moment where you know God was with you. Thank Him for that.

Now ask Him for what you need. Don’t tone it down or try to make it doable. Remember that what seems impossible to us isn’t even remotely difficult for God, so ask boldly. And not just for yourself. Ask for your family and friends.

That’s a little taste of the prayer time at Kairos. Only Uncle Mike does it about 10,000 times better.

Throwing Rocks 2

April 30, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

It almost always happens when I write one of these blogs that I will remember something I left out. In this case, it was when I woke up in the middle of the night around 2 am that I remembered what specifically I left out.

Maybe the person who needs your forgiveness the most is you.

Even if someone else did the wounding, it’s easy to blame yourself for letting it happen. Especially if the abuse went on for some time. You stayed and made excuses and didn’t run when you had the chance. So a part of you feels that you deserve what you got.

First of all, you don’t.

And second, you survived. You’re still here, which counts as a win in my book.

Sometimes, you just need to forgive yourself for not living up to your own unrealistic expectations. Or to the expectations that the culture and society has hoodwinked you into believing were essential to your success.

You need to know that God’s plan for you is your own and no one else’s. Maybe you’re not where everyone else seems to be at this point in your life. But you are where God put you. Where God wants you to be. Where God is using you and molding you and making you more like Jesus. And that is by far the best place to be.

I know I’d rather have Jesus and nothing else than to have everything else and not have Jesus.

So everything I said about laying those rocks down and building that altar still applies, even the person who you’re aiming at is your own reflection in the mirror. Let the altar be as a reminder of the time when you stopped letting your failures or unmet expectations or your shame define you. When you started to let your Creator define you.

I think that pretty much covers it.

A Small Sign

April 26, 2014April 27, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

I went to downtown Franklin for the Main Street Festival. I visited all my usual haunts: McCreary’s Irish Pub, Frothy Monkey, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

While in my favorite church, I prayed that God would lead me to the person or people I needed to see that night. Or something like that. I don’t remember exactly. I prayed I would see at least one familiar face that night.

I did. Toward the end, I ran into a friend I haven’t seen in a while. It was a short conversation, but it was a good reminder: God hasn’t forgotten me yet.

It’s funny how God sends little signs like that all the time. I confess that most of the time I miss these little signs in my quest to find the ultimate sign from God.

But God is always patient with me, more so than I deserve. There’s a verse in 1 Timothy, I think, that says that if we are faithless, God will remain faithful, for He cannot disown Himself.

I’ve claimed that verse many times for myself when I felt faithless or just full of doubts and fear. And never once has God proved to be anything less than 100% faithful to His promises to me. Oh, and to me, too.

Peter and Paul

April 25, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I remember watching a mini-series when I was a kid, probably 8 or 9. It was about the lives of the apostles Peter and Paul. It was titled, creatively enough, Peter and Paul.

I remember ever since then that whenever I read the words of Paul in one of his letters, I always hear Anthony Hopkins’ voice. I guess that means that the series had an impact on me.

I watched it again 30something years later. It’s not 100% accurate to the account of the Acts of the Apostles, as penned by Luke, but it gets the important stuff right. I’m reminded that the early believers paid a dear price for proclaiming their faith.

They were persecuted and belittled. Some were even tortured and killed. All for the name of Jesus. All for saying that Jesus, and not Caesar, is Lord.

I don’t have any reference to compare that to. I’ve never faced any real persecution for my beliefs. I’ve never face the choice of recanting or dying. I’ve never lost anything for professing what I believe.

I do think that at some foreseeable point in the future, we as American believers will have to sacrifice for our beliefs. It may cost us our jobs, our homes, our relationships. Even our lives and the lives of those we love.

I honestly hope I’d be brave enough to still profess Jesus as Lord, but I know me too well. Only by the grace of God given in that moment would I be able to hold fast to my faith in that hour. And no, I don’t think God gives me that strength to bear until the time when it is needed. Grace for the moment.

I do think that God asks us to be faithful in smaller matters so that when the big tests do come, we will be ready. If we’re faithful in the little things, God can entrust us with the larger matters.

Ultimately, it’s not about how strong my grip is to hold onto Jesus, but how strong His grip is to hold onto me. That’s what will get me though.

Good Times, Bad Times

April 24, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I had a really good day. In fact, nearly all my days are good days. It helps when you’re an optimist like me and choose to focus on the good instead of the bad. That helps.

But what about when you have bad days?

What about when you have those days when you don’t feel confident? When you feel like all those old fears and insecurities have crept right back into your mind and taken up residence again? When you feel like you’ve regressed back into the you that wasn’t very fun to be around?

Even as much as I, the eternal optimist, would like to say differently, you will have bad days. You will even have crappy days. You will have those terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days (just like that Alexander kid).

Bad days do more than just take up the necessary 24 hour allotment of space. They give perspective. They help you see how good the good days are in comparison.

The good news that I need to remember (and I’m sure you do, too) is that God is just as faithful and present on the bad days as He is on the good. He may not seem as tangibly present, but trust me, He’s there. You just have to trust what you know of God and His promises rather than what you feel. After all, feelings lie. Feelings can be misleading. Feelings can be such fickle things. But God never lies.

Even when it seems like you’re having a month of Mondays, remember that all the promises of God still hold just as true for you as they did when you were having a good day.

And remember, you DID wake up this morning. You DID get out of bed. You ARE reading this, so you still have your mind. Even on a bad day, there are still so many things to be thankful for. Good things. Just you remember that.

Expensive Mistakes, Shame, and other Random Tuesday Night Thoughts

April 22, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Have you ever made an expensive mistake?

Immediately, I think of the movie Elizabethtown and the character Drew Baylor. He created a shoe which ended up costing the company he worked for close to $1 billion. It was, in his words, a fiasco.

There’s a great line from the movie:

“As somebody once said, there’s a difference between a failure and a fiasco. A failure is simply the non-present of success. Any fool can accomplish failure. But a fiasco, a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions. A fiasco is a folktale told to others, that makes other people feel more… alive. Because it didn’t happen to them.”

Maybe you’ve been there. Maybe your mistake wasn’t worth $1 billion. Maybe it was worth $10,000. Or maybe it just ruined a relationship. Or a reputation.

Maybe you feel the familiar nagging sensation of shame, never overpowering but always there, lurking nearby.

Tonight’s guest speaker at Kairos spoke of how two different people in the Bible dealt with shame in radically different ways:

Judas betrayed Jesus and ended up hanging himself, while Peter denied knowing Jesus and ended up hanging around. Not only that, the shame turned into an opportunity for God to use him in ways he probably never would have thought possible.

The speaker said something that I’ll never forget. He said something to the effect that Judas hung himself by his shame because he didn’t know that Jesus hung on the cross for his shame.

The cross means that shame has no more power over your (or my) life ever again. Shame has lost the power to speak into our lives because Jesus took those failures, those fiascos, those worst moments upon Himself on the cross. He took them to the grave, but when He arose on Easter morning, He left them behind, utterly defeated and powerless.

You are not defined by your fiascos or those moments of shame any longer. You are defined by what Jesus did for you and by who you are now in the power of His resurrection. You are defined as beloved child of God in whom He is well pleased.

Shame is all about your past. Jesus wants you to go forward and live in the future He has for you, not in that past any longer.

Lessons from Lent

April 21, 2014April 21, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

This may be old hat for you or not. I’m not sure. But stop me if you’ve heard some or all of this before: last year, I gave up only Facebook for Lent. This year, I decided to give up all social media. It turned out to be one of my best decisions ever. Although if I’m honest, I was being obedient to what I felt God was calling me to do. It really wasn’t my decision at all.

I don’t regret for one single second going without social media for those 46 days. I got in more prayer time, I read my Bible more, I read more books in general. Plus, I had a greater sense of peace from not being tied down to Facebook or Twitter.

I think sometimes in order to appreciate something more, you need to step away from it for a while. That was the case for me. I did sometimes feel out of the loop after missing all the news from Facebook. But I can always catch up on that.

Lent is more than just giving up. It’s replacing it with something better. It’s no good to give up social media if you’re going to fill up the time with television. Hopefully, you spend your extra free time in learning to hear God’s voice and hear His heartbeat and feel His love for you. Obviously, the best way to do that is through His Word.

I don’t claim that I was anywhere near perfect in that regard. I wasted too much of the time I had away from social media. But I’m not beating myself up about it. Instead I choose to focus on the fact that I was more discipline in regard to prayer and Bible reading than I’ve been in a long time.

I hope to be able to participate in Lent again next year. I hope that I can be free enough to walk away from anything that enslaves me and takes my eyes off Jesus, whether that be social media or TV or anything else.

Like I said before, it’s really not about giving up stuff or sacrificing what you love. More than that, it’s about prioritizing your life and making sure that Jesus and His Kingdom really and truly are first. Then everything else will line up and fall into proper place.

Easter Sunday 2014

April 20, 2014April 20, 2014 / Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen”

It’s Easter.

I celebrated with about 130 or so others at the future location of The Church at Avenue South. Though the building has been gutted and won’t be ready for official use for another two months, still the real church got together to proclaim to anyone and everyone that this is Resurrection Day.

The resurrection DOES change everything. It means no more fear of death because Jesus overcame that last enemy when he walked out of the tomb with the sunrise on that first Easter Sunday. It means that whatever I’m afraid of has already been defeated and overcome by this same resurrection power that brought Jesus from death to life.

It means that there is no such thing as TOO LATE, that there’s always time for a do-over and a second chance and a fresh start, that as long as we’re alive we have a purpose and a God willing to bring out that purpose in us.

So I revisit an old Easter toast that I blogged about three years ago today: “We lift our glasses and drink to a Love that never gave up.”

https://oneragamuffin.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/an-easter-toast-stolen-from-someone-on-facebook/

I’ve posted a link so you can read the original post if you want.

Regardless, I’m glad that Easter has come. I’m glad that it isn’t just one day a year, but something that I can celebrate all 365 days (and 366 on those leap years). I’m thankful that just because the holiday ends doesn’t mean the power of that resurrection or its effects do.

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