grave

Who Is This Jesus?

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

That’s the question of the night from speaker Tyler McKenzie.

Who else’s birthday do we still celebrate nearly 2,000 years later? Who else do we gather together– some risking their lives to do so–to honor, to celebrate, to sing songs about, to worship?

Who else has changed the way we look at history? Literally, there is a before and after centered around this Man.

Some want Jesus to be a nice guy, a great teacher, a grand example. But Jesus’ own words don’t allow that. The best explanation of Jesus comes from the pen of one Mr. C. S. Lewis, who said that Jesus was either crazy enough to be committed to an asylum, a pathological liar on a grand scale, or He was who He said He was. In other words, Jesus was either a lunatic, a liar, or He’s Lord.

I bet I got a chorus of “Amen”s on that, but how many of us actually live like Jesus is Lord? Like what He did and Who He was (and still is) matters more than anything or anyone else in history?

Jesus is not a board member in your life whose advice you take under consideration. He’s boss of your life. He’s in control. To use a very non-pc term, He’s your Master.

I heard it somewhere and thought it was worth sharing– if someone rejects Christianity, the question to ask is “What version of Jesus was presented to you?”

Was it meek-and-mild Jesus who seemed bored most of the time? Was it the Jesus who just wanted us to all get along and was completely passive? Was it the Jesus who was a white, middle-class Republican who lived in the suburbs and drove a minivan?

Or was it the Ultimate God-Man who beat death on its own terms and emerged from the grave victorious? Was it that Jesus who went through it all for love of you and me?

It’s not about sin management. It’s not about having your doctrines line up like ducks in a row. It’s not about being a good Christian who fastidiously keeps the list of things not to do. It’s about once being dead in sin and now being alive because Jesus died for me and gave me His life so that I could really and truly and finally live.

That’s it.

 

Just Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

just-love

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!

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.

Some thoughts about worship

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Jesus didn’t die for our good works or good intentions. He didn’t die to make good people better. Or for that matter to make bad people good. He died to make dead people come alive. He died for our dark places, our wicked deeds. He came to take our blame and our shame and give us His perfection. Jesus died to make us worshippers.

John Piper says in effect, Worship, not missions, is the purpose of His people. The reason that missions exists is because for so many peoples, worship does not. People can’t worship a God they don’t know. People can’t worship a god made in their image that is too small to save or love or rescue anybody. Redeemed people worship a real God. Really when you look at it, missions and evangelism are both forms of worship– declaring the great worth and works of God to all peoples.

Worship is Romans 12:1-2, offering our bodies as living sacrifices. In the Old Testament, part of worship was offering sacrifices like bulls and goats. Since Jesus did away with the old sacrificial system, what we bring as our offering of worship is ourselves. Worship is giving to God our bodies, our souls, our true selves. Worship is giving back to God what was already His and acknowledging that He owns it all, including us.

Worship is James 1:27. When we give to the widow and the orphan, we give to Jesus. Whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Jesus. Jesus didn’t choose the popular or strong or wise; He chose the throwaways of the world, the lepers, the outcasts and the abandoned to be His worshippers. Worship also means keeping yourself unstained by the world, to be set apart and different. Worship is either a 24/7 lifestyle or it’s nothing at all.

Worship is taking your two loaves and five fishes and watching Jesus turn it into a meal for thousands. When we give what little we call our own to Jesus, He takes it and not only blesses the multitudes, but gives back to us more than we can contain.

Worship means to kiss, to adore and to sacrifice. It is saying that God is supremely worthy of all of me. It means I will give my life away on a daily basis for the Kingdom of God. It means that every breath is a praise and every thought a prayer.

Honestly, after all this, I still don’t really know what worship is. I’m not very good at it. Or I should say I am not very good at worshipping the right thing, i.e. Jesus of Nazareth who died on the cross and rose triumphantly from the grave and has all authority in heaven and on earth, including authority over my life.

In the New Testament, when people worshipped, they fell on their faces. In the book of Revelation, the apostle John fell on his face before Jesus as a dead man. That’s what I pray for: to die to everything else, to fall on Jesus, and live to Him, with Him and for Him only.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Blessed are those who are persecuted

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).

Persecution is a dirty word these days in American Christian circles. In fact, any word associated with discomfort or pain is frowned upon. We are all supposed to be happily pursuing the American dream and finding fulfillment in Christ as He grants our every wish and never puts us through anything that would remotely resemble suffering. Right?

I think not.

Jesus said that if we follow Him, truly follow Him, and do what He said, we will be persecuted. Not maybe. Not possibly. We will. Maybe the fact that we aren’t facing persecution is that we look more like the world than we do Christ. Satan doesn’t spend effort attacking something or someone who is not a threat. The world won’t either. If we are too busy trying to fit in with the world rather than showing the world how it can be saved, we won’t be persecuted. But we won’t really know what the kingdom of Heaven is like or how sweet knowing Jesus can be.

The Message says, “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.”

The key word here is commitment. Are we really committed enough to follow Jesus even if it actually costs us something? Like our popularity, success, reputations, health, and, God forbid, our lives. Too many of those who profess to believe will follow when following is easy and when it is comfortable, but not when it gets tough or when it becomes unpopular. The only ones who can see it through are those who have been redeemed, forgiven and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Only those who have the power of the resurrection inside can face death, because they know that that power that raised Jesus from the grave will also raise us up to eternal life.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to us when we are persecuted and persevere. What is the kingdom of God? God Himself. God’s rule and authority and power and majesty and glory. In the book of Revelation, John writes that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and by the fact that they did not love their lives even unto death. Only love could motivate anyone to do these things. Only God’s love in us.

God, captivate my heart so that I will be willing to follow You and commit myself to You, regardless of where You send me, regardless of who responds, and regardless of what it costs me. I want to give my life away so that Your kingdom can advance upon the earth and You can reign. Make me your fuel, so Your glory can burn all the more brightly.

As always, I believe. Or I should say in this case I want to believe. Help my unbelief.