god

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!

How much do I love Jesus?

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The topic at tonight’s Kairos Roots was fasting and how we are commanded to fast from food, media, etc. Basically anything that creeps in and starts taking priority over God in our lives. We fast for God’s direction and guidance, when we are mourning, when we are embarking on a new venture, and when we want to hear from God more clearly.

I remember something I read from John Piper that says in essence that fasting says, “This much, O God, I desire You.” More than the food I’m not eating. More than the facebook that I am not logging into. More than the TV or radio I am leaving turned off.

But how much do I really love Jesus if all these things take priority over him? I will confess that I have days that I have very good intentions to read my Bible. . . . . after this episode of Friends. After I’m done checking everything out on Facebook. After I post this blog. The funny thing is that I never actually get around to reading my Bible. Sadly, some days I forget I even intended to read it.

That says that Jesus is not my first love. All these other things rank ahead of Him in my life.

Maybe fasting is a way of saying: I love you Jesus more than these things I am giving up. I am making an effort to love You, because love is ultimately not a feeling, but an act of the will. Through Your grace, I am demonstrating love put into practice and praying that this will increase my love for You.

I do know this. Jesus is worthy of my fasting and so much more. He is worthy of everything I have to give and a million times more. When I see things right, I am so very grateful that what really counts is not how much I love Jesus, but how much He loves me and how that Love is changing me to be like Jesus.

Amen and amen.

Learning to wait

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I am learning to wait well. And notice I didn’t say I am learning well. I am slowly and haltingly learning how to wait expectantly and confidently. To wait well is to make yourself ready for what your waiting for while you’re waiting for it. That’s what I mean.

I am learning to be still. I am learning to quiet my mind and take those anxious thoughts captive. I am learning that most of the mistakes I am so worried about aren’t nearly as big as I had played them up to be in my mind. Most of the people I had convinced myself were so very pissed at me weren’t even mad at me at all or even close to offended. That facebook friend is still my facebook friend, despite all my imaginary scenarios of doom and gloom and defriending.

I am learning to rest. I don’t mean taking naps, but I mean to take deep breaths and focus on Jesus, who promised that if I only come to Him, He will give me rest. I want rest like in Psalm 131:2: “I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.” If I call the Prince of Peace Lord, you’d think I’d be better at letting His peace rule my heart. But I’m learning.

I’m learning to keep hoping when hope seems so very past tense. Like the movie Miracle on 34th Street says, “Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.” I’m learning to believe even when every single voice in my head is telling me to do anything– post something, fix something, pray something– but believe.

I am learning that every set back is a step up, every failure moves me forward, and every disaster has the hidden designs of the plan of God hidden underneath. Being willing to look and sound foolish is the best way to grow up and to grow in faith. In that case, I should be a mensa-like expert and growing up and growing in faith!

Let God take you through the School of Learning to Wait Well and Be Still and Rest. You will find once your ceaseless activities and programs stop, God can really start using you.

That’s what I’m learning.

Amen and amen.

A prayer for my future wife

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Here I am, thinking about you again and wondering if you’re thinking about me. I have come to the point where I am finally starting to give up striving and trying to make my own plans and my own timing work. I am starting to learn to rest my mind and my heart in God’s plan and His timing. As the name of the book I just got in the mail says, I Gave God Time. That’s all He needs to pull off the biggest miracles– time.

So I pray that your heart is at rest. That you are comfortable where you are and not striving like I have been most of my life. I pray your heart is captured and captivated by Jesus and that you are so enamored and enraptured by His love for you that He becomes everything to you and every other thing in your life falls back into its proper place.

I pray that you are fully coming alive to all that God made you to be. That you know where your beauty comes from and that you treasure your femininity as a gift from God. I pray that your loveliness comes from a Christ-filled countenance and a heart full of compassion and kindness.

I pray that your heart is being set free to love. That all your fears and insecurites are driven away in the face of the Prince of peace, and that peace will rule your heart and mind. I pray you look at every heartache and heartbreak as a means of molding you into the woman who will completely dazzle me.

Waiting is hard, but the longer the wait, the more we will treasure finding each other. I can’t wait to be your husband and do all I can to be a part of  unveiling your true beauty for the world to see. I am waiting for that day, letting God transform me into the man you deserve.

Until then, take courage, dear heart. The night seems long but dawn is just around the corner. Hold on.

What I look for in a future wife

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

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Hello. It’s 2:49 on January 1, 2011, and I can’t sleep, so I blog. I was thinking about what I would want in a mate. Here are some things I want.

She has to have a great smile. Physical beauty would be nice, but the best kind of beauty is that which radiates from the inside and shows itself in acts of compassion and kindness. I want who I marry to be caring and generous and kind and compassionate.

I hope she would be totally in love with me as I will be with her. Someone who looked at me and saw something that every other girl didn’t see. Maybe even something I didn’t see. She will see me through eyes of grace.

I want a woman whose heart is totally enthralled and captivated by Jesus. Not someone who professes Christianity but whose lifestyle is no different than anybody else who doesn’t profess anything. She has to love Jesus way more than she loves me.

I want a woman who is at rest in who she is and where she is, not eternally stuck on being and acting like she’s forever 21. Someone who loves quiet nights and good conversation over hitting night clubs and staying out all night. Someone who loves people and going places, but isn’t constantly seeking the next rush or thrill.

In short, I want a woman whose heart beats with the heartbeat of God. Who is laying down her life everyday for the cause of Christ.

If I want that, I have to be that. I have to be a man of God with character who seeks after Jesus instead of striving after success and popularity. I have to learn to give my life away daily for Christ.

One of the best parts of 2010 was that my hopes for a wife have revived again and I think there really is someone out there for me who will love me for me not who I will become. Someone to whom I won’t be a substitute for someone else or way down on their list, but first on their list.

I know God is faithful and He can do way better than anything I could ever have hoped or dreamed.

Amen and amen!

An ordinary guy’s thoughts on pretty vs. beautiful

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I am pretty much going  way outside my areas of expertise on this one. I am not a fashion person. I have spent a long time watching and observing, and have come up with my own theories. Here’s one.

There’s a big difference to me between pretty and beautiful.

Pretty is common. I see a lot of pretty girls. Beauty is much rarer and harder to define, but you know it when you see it.

Pretty is what you put on, but beauty is what comes out of you. It’s not what you wear, but who you are. Pretty is cosmetics and beauty is character.

Pretty is something you see with your eyes, but beauty is something you find when you look with your heart. You have to have your eyes open to notice. To really be aware not just of how she looks, but how she acts and how she treats others.

Pretty fades. Gravity wins and time takes its toll. Beauty grows over time as the character inside blossoms and grows toward maturity and Christlikeness.

I decided again tonight that I want beauty, even if it means waiting longer and looking with a different set of eyes. To me, kindness and compassion in a woman are beautiful. Loving the unloveable and giving to those who can’t give back and socializing with those who are not like you is beautiful.

It means I have to be a man of character if I want a woman of character. That I continue to train my eyes to see women as princesses and not objects, as society tells us they are.

There you have it. I am no expert, but I know what I feel. I hope I’m not the only one who feels this way, but I am ok with it if I am.

Bedtime thoughts

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).

That’s it. Love God and love others.

But for you to love God, you have to know the reality that God already loves you. For you to love others as yourself, you have to love yourself. Ultimately, you can’t do it. Well, I will only speak for myself here and say that I can’t love God or anybody else, even me, on my own strength. I need Jesus in me, pouring out His agape love, or else I am empty and cold and love-less.

Sometimes, God calls you to love yourself as you love your neighbor. Sometimes, it’s easier to love someone else than to love that person you hang around with every minute of every day. That person who looks back at you in the mirror with accusing eyes that speak of all the impure thoughts, mixed motives, and selfish ambition.

That’s when you and I have to believe what God says about who we are over what we see and think and feel. As a friend of mine told me once, “What you think and feel will lie to you.” But God never will.

God is true. God is love. And God loves you.

And you have all the power of Christ that overcame the grave in you. You have His perfect righteousness that covers your own wretched self-righteous rags of filth.

So be free to love. Love God, love others and love you.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

My bucket list

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

First of all, I’d like to know who came up with the expression “kick the bucket” and who first associated it with dying. I’m not losing any sleep over it, but it would be nice to know just in case I’m ever on Jeopardy or a caller on a morning radio show with a chance to win a fabulous prize. I’m just sayin’.

But for real, I do have a bucket list of sorts. It’s not written down, but I have one item on my bucket list. Only one. My one bucket list wish is to hear Jesus say to me at the end of my road, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s all. To please Jesus is not only on my bucket list, it is my bucket list. That being said, I pretty much suck at it. Most of the time, I try to please just about anyone and everyone else before I even attempt to please Jesus.

Still, that’s what I want. More than anything else. Sure, I’d like to see Scotland or meet Bono. And for the record, I would try skydiving, but I have a burning desire to NOT DIE! Plus, I’m not really keen on heights, which is pretty much a prerequisite for jumping out of a plane at 1 gazillion feet in the air.

I want to make Jesus proud of  me. I want to be His hands and feet and serve Him every chance I get, whether He be the person at the cash register at Publix or the homeless man on the corner looking for spare change. I want my whole life to be one big THANK YOU note to Him.

I think I’ll get there. In fact, I know I will, because Jesus told me that He would never leave me or forsake me. He said He would finish the good work He started in me. When He sees a heart that yearns to please Him, He honors that.

So I probably have the shortest bucket list on the planet. Just hopefully not the shortest bucket.

My two cents on spiritual warfare

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A group of guys and I have been watching a DVD series on spiritual warfare by Chip Ingram called The Invisible War (and yes, that was a shameless plug). It got me thinking about the mindset of so many American believers (including me) regarding the whole topic of spiritual warfare. Plainly put, either most of us don’t believe there is an war going on with an enemy that is constantly seeking our destruction. If we believe, we sure don’t live like it much of the time. Again, me included.

The war is real. The enemy is real. In this world, we are not tourists on vacation, or passengers on some kind of luxury cruise, but soldiers engaged in battle. Our ignorance of the battle and our enemy can only do us harm. We need to wake up to realize that we are under attack. But here’s the best part.

The battle is already won. Chip Ingram said, “As believers in Christ, we don’t fight FOR victory. We fight FROM victory.” That’s the good news (which is why it’s called the gospel!). But there is still a battle.

We fight back by putting on the armor of God as described in Ephesians 6: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. We should pray these on every morning and pray these for each other on a daily basis. We should pray with eyes wide open to the spiritual realm, asking God to give us eyes to see the battle around us like the Elijah prayed for his servant when they were surrounded by the Syrian army. We should pray for discernment and wisdom. Most of all, we should pray at all times to be Spirit-filled and Spirit-controlled, taking every thought captive and submitting them to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We must fight together. If you are fighting the enemy on your own, apart from other believers, you may succeed for a season, but you will ultimately grow weary and faint. You will stumble and fall. You need other believers praying God’s protection over you, encouraging you and keeping you honest.

We fight ultimately with one weapon– LOVE. Not as a feeling, but as a decisive act of the will. We fight by showing that Calvary’s love is stronger than hate and that love overcomes anything. Chip Ingram said, “Love is giving to another person what they need the most when they deserve it least.” Love is doing whatever you can, even to your own detriment, for the good of the beloved. It means dying to yourself and your rights and own ideas about how the world should work.

So live with eyes wide open, hands raised, side by side with your brothers and sisters in Christ. And remember that the battle is already won and that we have overcome!

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Another prayer from Henri Nouwen (with my own commentary added)

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“I pray tonight for all who witness for you in this world: ministers, priests, and bishops, men and women who have dedicated their lives to you, and all those who try to bring the light of the Gospel into the darkness of this age. Give them courage, strength, perseverance, and hope; fill their hearts and minds with the knowledge of your presence, and let them experience your name as their refuge from all dangers. Most of all, give them the joy of your Spirit, so that wherever they go and whomever they meet they will remove the veil of depression, fatalism, and defeatism and will bring new life to the many who live in constant fear of death. Lord, be with all who bring the Good News. Amen.” (Henri Nouwen)

As the old saying goes (or maybe a new one that I just made up), when you can’t think of anything original, borrow and steal from smarter people than you. Actually, this prayer of Henri Nouwen’s is my prayer, said better than I could ever say it on my own, for my friends who are going out and making disciples of all nations, starting in Nashville and ending up in the uttermost parts of the earth. You inspire me to want to do a lot more than I’m doing right now.

Who knows what God has in store for me or you or anyone? I’ve learned that whatever it is, it’s usually way different than what we thought it would be, and way better. So go with it. Jesus calls us to die every day to our rights and desires and dreams and hopes, so that we can live in God’s greater dream for us. As Oswald Chambers wrote, “Trust God and do the next thing.”

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.