gospel

Hey June

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Admit it. You didn’t just read those words. You sang them. I know I did (at least in my head). But can anyone pinch me because when did June get here and where did April and May go?

In less than three weeks, we’ll hit the day with the most daylight in it (which also happens to be the official first day of summer). After that, the countdown to Christmas is on. Well, at least for me it is. Most of you have other anniversaries and holidays on your radar, but since I am afflicted with Obsessive Christmas Disorder, then that’s where I’m focusing.

I keep thinking a lot about what my boss at my old job used to say: any day without a toe tag is a good day. I like it, but I think it’s not necessarily all good. For those who belong to Jesus, to live is Christ and to die is gain. It’s a win-win. So while not having a toe tag is a good day, maybe the day you and I get our toe tags might be sad for some, but it will be our best day ever.

Also, I want to apologize to any olden people for making fun of you when I was a kid when you said that time flies. I get it now. It does. The older I get, the faster it goes. At the same time, the older I get, the more I realize the less I need to be content. You know the old saying that you can’t take your toys and possessions with you when you die. There are no hearses pulling U-Hauls that I’ve seen lately.

Hello, June! Try not to be too hot and humid right away. I like to dip my foot in the shallow end of summer before I jump in. Send more breezes because it helps me sweat less and everyone around me in the vicinity of my armpits appreciates that. Oh, and less bugs this year would be great. Thanks!

Drown Out the Noise

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“…new week coming and yeah, do I hear you. It’s all coming at you & you can hear this voice that says you can’ t do it & it’s all a bit impossible, just too hard.

And there’s this in the quiet: To silence the other voices in your head all day, You need God’s Word in your heart at the beginning of your day.

His Word that holds you close & whispers:

“I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love & more love! I will strengthen you. I will take you by the hand & guide you.

I’ll never let you down, never walk off & leave you. I am with you, ready to help.

Live fearless — Who or what can get past Me to get to you? I promise, every detail in your life of love for Me, will be worked into something good”

(Jeremiah 31:3MSG, 1Pet2:9, Eph3:14, Jn16:12, Heb.13:5,Ro8:28)

Hear that? God’s got this — *and you.*

*Never* let the noise of the world around you,

drown out *God’s Word* about you — His voice about you & this week is all that matters!

#PreachingGospeltoMyself“

I read recently that we consume the same amount of information in 30 minutes that our grandparents took in over the course of a month. That’s crazy. No wonder we’re overwhelmed. We’re literally living in the middle of a TMI epidemic. At some point, it’s too much information for one brain to process successfully.

Maybe that’s why it’s good to turn off the noise. Shut off the laptop. Turn off the phone. Pick up the Bible. Or sit in silence and make space for God to speak to you. Give your mind a chance to recover the same way you give your muscles a day to recover after an intense workout.

Ultimately, the way to peace is not doom-scrolling for hour. It’s not even taking in good information through social media. It’s learning to shut everything off and be comfortable in the quiet and stillness. After all, God didn’t speak to Elijah in the whirlwind or in the storm or in any of the noisy events but in a small still voice that Elijah would have missed had he been preoccupied with his own thoughts or distracted by noise.

Lord, we yearn for You. We know the best way to find You is to sit quiet and still so that we can learn to hear from You instead of being overwhelmed by the 9,999 other voices that clamor for our attention all day. Give us peace as we give You time to speak to us and over us. Amen.

Smell Those Roses

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“Taking time to smell the roses leaves enduring impressions of a dear glory that, if sufficiently reengaged, can change the quality of our entire life. The rose in a very special way—and more generally the flower, even in its most humble forms—is a fragile but irrepressible witness on earth to a ‘larger’ world where good is somehow safe” (Dallas Willard).

I do take time occasionally to smell roses and other kinds of flowers, but I think in this case the idea is to slow down and savor your life. Don’t be in such a hurry that you wind up at the end of your life and have no memories of precious time spent with the people you love. After all, the only place you get to in a hurry is the grave.

This culture glorifies busyness. We abhor boredom or down time. We need to fill every single moment of the day with some kind of activity, and we think we can sleep when we’re dead. Unfortunately, you’ll end up dead a lot faster that way. Plus, so much of what we remember isn’t all those things we planned, but what happened when we were waiting or when our plans got intteruppted or changed. So much of when God speaks to us isn’t in the middle of our hectic schedule but in those margins when we’re finally able to be silent and still.

The old saying goes that you will never have time unless you make time for what’s important to you. You can let your life be dictated by the tyranny of the urgent, or you can prioritize what matters most to you and decide to put those things first in your life. Then you’re finally living and not merely existing anymore.

Lord, help us to focus on living well instead of merely living a long time. Give us eyes to see where You’re working around us and give us ears to hear what You’re saying to us. Slow us down so that we don’t miss what You want to do in us and through us. Amen.

Letting Love Grow

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“‘Do you remember, Grace and Glory, when you looked into your heart beside the pool, and found that my kind of love was not there at all– only the plant of Longing-to-be-loved?’

She nodded wonderingly.

‘That was the natural human love which I tore out from your heart when the time was ripe and it was loose enough to be uprooted so that the real Love could grow there alone and fill your whole heart'” (Hinds Feet on High Places, Hannah Hurnard).

“You see, true love germinates in the soil of sacrifice, sprouts in the garden of surrender and matures in a matrimony of servanthood.  Love isn’t love until it has cost you something to give it away” (Josh Hopwood).

Sometimes, it takes a long time for true love to germinate and grow in someone’s heart. We call a lot of things love that are closer to lust or to selfish longing, but God’s kind of love always involves sacrifice. That is, the love God wants for us isn’t known for taking but for giving. And forgiving, as well.

God in Jesus doesn’t love us for what we can do for us. He knows we bring nothing to the table and have no gifts or talents apart from Him that we can give. Everything we give to God is something God gave us in the first place. When we love others in that way, it’s not about expecting something in return but giving sacrificially because that’s the way God has loved us.

Lord, give us the love for others that never seeks to profit but only seeks to be like David who said that He would not offer to the Lord that which cost him nothing. May we always seek to give and not expect anything in return because we know that our reward is ultimately and only from You in the end. Amen.

Not My Will

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“Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all, utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Send me where Thou wilt. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever. Amen” (Betty Scott Stam).

This is another good prayer to pray. I mean, I have nothing against prayers about God blessing us and giving us the desires of our hearts, but the prayer that God will always honor is one that says, “God, Your will be done.”

I’ve learned over the years that I’m not the best at choosing what’s good for me. Sometimes, I feel what’s best instead of thinking it. Sometimes, I want something because I see that someone else has it. My motives are a mixed bag at best.

But when I leave the choice with God, I can rest assured that God will always choose the best. He will pick what brings Him the most glory, which in turn is what is always for my greatest good.

If God gives me something other than what I asked for, He is still good. If God doesn’t give me what I ask for, He is still good. If God gave me nothing else from this point on, He would still be good. No matter what, through feast or famine, through garden or desert, He is still good.

Lord, have Your way in me. I lay down every one of my desires at Your feet to do with as You will. Whether or not You ever give me any of them or not, You are and will always be good. Amen.

A New Take on Isaiah 40

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“Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.
And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out,
young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don’t get tired,
they walk and don’t lag behind” (Isaiah 40:27-31, The Message)

Again, I don’t always love The Message. Sometimes it gets a little loose with the paraphrase. But sometimes, it really gets the nuances of the text in a way that traditional translations don’t.

If you’ve read the same verses in the same way, it can almost lose its meaning. It’s like with a familiar song. Your brain goes into autopilot and you’re singing the words without really thinking about them or what they mean. Sometimes, you need to read a familiar passage in an unfamiliar rendering to see it with new eyes, like when an old hymn gets a new arrangement and suddenly the lyrics stand out in a way they didn’t before.

If you trust in God, He will be your strength. He will be the fuel to get you where you’re going. He isn’t like anybody else because we’re hit or miss on most days. Some days, we’re trustworthy. Some days, not so much. But God is the same every day. He’s always good, always gracious, always ready to help. always strong to save, and always a safe place to land.

I Have Decided to Follow Jesus

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I recently heard the story of how the hymn I Have Decided to Follow Jesus originated. I don’t think I’ll ever hear those words the same way again. I know so many hymns have amazing backstories, but this one might just be my new favorite.

A man from the Garo tribe in Assam, India (modern day Meghalaya) during the 19th century converted to Christianity. He then led his family to follow Jesus as well. Eventually, he was confronted by the tribal leader along with the rest of the community. They wanted him not only to stop evangelizing but to recant his faith. He refused.

He said in essence, “I have decide to follow Jesus. No turning back.”

Then they proceeded to murder his children in front of him and his wife, followed by killing his wife. He still refused to recant.

He said, “Though none go with me, still I will follow.”

Even after they threatened him with his own death, he would not and could not deny the Christ who had miraculously delivered him and saved him.

He said, “The world behind me, the cross before me. No turning back, no turning back.”

After witnessing how the man was able to endure the loss of his own family and even his own life for the sake of the gospel, the tribal leader eventually placed his faith in Christ, along with many others from the village. That village became a sending place for missionaries.

These days, it’s becoming more and more dangerous to follow Jesus, especially in certain parts of Africa and the Middle East. In places, professing Christ can be tantamount to a death sentence. Even in America, we’re frowned upon for holding to our biblical convictions and for preaching Jesus as the only way to salvation. Perhaps one day soon we’ll see Christians forced to deny Christ or lose their lives even in this country.

So I think we have to decide if following Christ is worth it. My prayer is that everyone reading these words will be able to sing the old hymn with complete conviction and sincerity: “I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back.”

More About Humility

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“Humility is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing done to us, to feel nothing against us. It is to be at rest when nobody praises us and when we are blamed and despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord where we can go in and shut the door and kneel to our Father in secret, and be at peace when all around is trouble” (Andrew Murray).

I still think a lot about a book I read a couple of years ago called Unoffendable by Brant Hansen. It completely blew me away and forever changed my perspective on believers and anger. Basically, we should be the least offendable people on the planet because we know what grace looks like and what we were without it. We know that apart from grace, there is nothing too base for us to fall into.

Again, humility isn’t thinking less of yourself but thinking about yourself less. It’s to take all the frustration and anger to the Lord in secet and leave it there, knowing that ultimate vengeance is in God’s hands not mine. It’s to be at peace and not get caught up in the perpetual turmoil and anxiety that marks the waking life of most of the world’s population.

Humility is to see ourselves the way God sees us through the lens of seeing God as He is. Once we understand that the world does not in fact revolve around us, we see that God’s plans are so much bigger than us as individuals. We can then gladly serve wherever God calls us out of the overflow of His love to the multitudes on stages or to the few in secret. Either way, the joy of the Lord will be our strength.

Lord, I know this is a dangerous prayer, but make us humble. Keep us from the pride of thinking we can achieve Your will and Your ways through our own means instead of us relying 100% on You for everything at every moment of every single day. Amen.

A Perfect Track Record

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Yes, I do. I worry way too much for someone whose God has a perfect track record. He has never failed once. He has never done less than the very best for any of His children even once. He has never not kept a promise.

So why do I worry? Why do I find myself in a state of anxiety over and over again, living like all the answers are up to me to figure out. Why do I try to carry the weight of the world’s problems on my shoulders?

It’s almost as if worry is my default setting. I don’t have to try to worry when life gets hard. I just automatically switch to worry mode the way my radio tunes to the last station I was listening to the day before. Anxiety comes way too natural for me.

But I find the more I spend time with Jesus, the more I sit at the feet of the Prince of Peace, the more I find myself at peace instead of overwrought with anxiety. The more I find that there’s a calmness at the center of my inner storms and turmoil.

I can’t remember if it was Dwight Moody or Charles Spurgeon who first said it, but I’m casting my anchor on the Prince of Peace tonight. I am deliberately and intentionally choosing trust over fear, hope over anxiety by the power of the indwelling Spirit within me.

Lord, give peace to Your children in the midst of a chaotic and ever-changing world that seems to drift from storm to storm. You alone are the port of peace, and I’d rather be dashed up against the Rock of Ages and know the peace that passes understanding than remain afraid in the harbor because I’m too afraid to risk anything or venture out of my comfort zone. Lord, give Your people joy to do Your will, boldness to set out on the journey You have laid out for us, and the steady assurance that You will be with us every step of the way until we reach our final destination of peace. Amen.

Every Time

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“In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents” (Luke 15:10, NLT).

The Message says that there’s a party in heaven every time even one sinner gets saved. I get that.

I know lately I find myself overjoyed when I read about any celebrity who comes to faith or someone who is coming out of a Muslim or LGBTQ or pagan background. I love that the gospel is for anyone and everyone, and there is no one who is beyond the reach of God’s grace.

I love hearing testimonies of being delivered by the power of Jesus. That never gets old for me (and I hope it never will). It always brings me ecstatic joy and reminds me of my own early days when I first experience the joy of my own salvation. It reminds me that God is still able to seek and to save the lost.

I do a lot more praying for people’s salvation than I used to. I think maybe it’s because I appreciate the gift of salvation way more than I did when I was younger. I also realize more and more that there are no political answers to what are ultimately spiritual problems.

At the root of every war and of every act of violence and every racial epithet is sin. We are all born into sin and we all need a Savior. We are not good people who need to be better or even bad people who need to be made good but dead people who need to be made alive.

That’s why I do what I do. If even one single person is in heave because of me posting these blogs every day for almost 16 years, then I can say it was worth it.

I hope you will join me in praying for lost people. If you want, you can comment on the people you are praying for or you can always text me at 615-556-5850. I’d love to pray for your loved ones as well. God is still good all the time, and all the time God is still good.