grave

I Wish You Knew

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One of my favorite artists, Keith Green, has a song entitled “Song to My Parent (I Only Want to See You There),” and I think that expresses my sentiments over so many people I know. If there’s anything I’ve learned from 53 years of being alive and over 45 of those as a child of God, is that having Jesus is so much better than not having Him. My worst days with Jesus are better than my best days without Him.

It’s not about avoiding going to hell, although hell is real. After all, God won’t force anyone to be with Him and He will respect the choices that we have made, even if we choose to be separated from Him. The best part isn’t not being in hell but looking forward to an eternity in heaven with the abundance of joy in this life as well.

There are so many stories and testimonies of people who were hopelessly lost and hopelessly addicted, but Jesus found them and now they are brand new creations. They aren’t improved versions of their old selves. They are something completely new that only God could have dreamed of and made into reality.

It’s amazing when God opens your eyes and you really see everything for the first time. Everything makes more sense. Sure, suffering and pain still exist, but now they have meaning. We still lose people we love, but now we grieve as those who have hope. I’m finally starting to get what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, “Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that both you and everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am, except for these chains” (Acts 26:29, NLT).

I’m closing with the song Keith Green wrote for his parents with the hopes of seeing them in heaven one day. He may be gone, but his legacy of music and testimony lives on:

“I need to say these things ’cause I love you so
And I’m sorry you get angry when I say that you just don’t know
That there’s a heaven waiting for you and me
I know it seems every time we talk
I’m only trying to just make you see

But it’s only that I care
I really only want just to see you there

Please try and overlook my, my human side
I know I’m such a bad example, and you know I’m so full of pride
But Jesus isn’t like that, no, He’s perfect all the way
I guess that’s why we need Him
‘Cause by ourselves, there’s just no way

And it’s only that I care
I really, really only just want to see you there
To see you there

Close the doors
They’re just not coming
We sent the invitations out a long, long, long, long time ago
We’re still gonna have a wedding feast
Big enough to beat them all
The greatest people in the world just wouldn’t come
So now we’ll just have to invite the small

And it’s only that I care
I really, really only want just to see you there

Isn’t that Jesus?
Isn’t it Joseph and Mary’s Son?
Well, didn’t He grow up right here?
He played with our children
What? He must be kidding
Thinks He’s a prophet
Well, prophets don’t grow up from little boys
Do they?
From little boys
Do they?”

Trust in an Unchanging God

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“Blessed be your name ever-living God. Our neighbors die; friend after friend departs; few of us have not lost someone dear to us; but you abide the same and there is no end to your years. We come to you. You are as strong to deliver today as you were in our fathers’ time; as true to your promise and as mighty to perform your covenant as when you spoke to Abraham at Mamre (Genesis 18) or worked mightily in the field of Zoan for the children of Israel (Psalm 78:12, 43). You God, are forever strong and mighty. Never can your arm know paralysis, nor can your brow decay. We look up to you with joyful confidence, knowing that you are an inexhaustible fountain of every good thing, and believing that you will supply our need out of the riches of your fullness of glory by Christ Jesus.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

That’s our only hope, folks. Everything else we lean on and depend on will collapse. Every other avenue will lead to a dead end, but God is faithful. Jesus ever lives to intercede for those who belong to Him and God the Father knows how to give good gifts to those who ask. We are secure in the everlasting arms, no matter what.

Remind yourself of that every day, every hour, every minute. Breathe in God’s mercy and breathe out God’s grace because He is as close as your next breath. If all you have are sighs and groans, God knows what they mean. If your only prayer that you can speak in the dead of night is simply to whisper the name Jesus, He will hear and He will come.

My prayer more than ever is for everyone reading these words to know the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding and human wisdom, to find the rest that He promises those who come to Him in faith, and to live in the abundant life that comes to anyone who believes on the name of Jesus. Truly, as I keep hearing lately, He’s where the joy is.

Worship

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“As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing, but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God” (C S Lewis).

Back in the day, the battle was between hymns and praise choruses or traditional versus contemporary worship styles. After much deliberation, I’ve decided that the answer to the question is yes. I like both. Both can lead us to the throne room of God and both can become a hindrance if we focus on them instead of the God we’re supposed to be singing about.

These days, the production value and musicianship in a lot of churches is top notch, rivaling just about anything you’d see in a concert venue. The only problem with that is that if the Holy Spirit is absent, would anyone notice? Would anyone care?

I’m not saying that artistry is bad in worship music. I’m not against fog machines or stage lights or guitar solos. But that’s not what true worship is. Singing songs is a part of worship but not all of it. It begins with a surrendered heart and a captivated mind. Worship is essentially declaring the great worth of God no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Cleaning toilets can be as worshipful as singing about Jesus in a room of thousands.

I think it comes down to dependence. I think the best way to prepare for worship is to show up hungry for God. Musical worship is the overflow of a life of continual praying without ceasing and giving thanks in all circumstances. It comes from a Romans 12:1 mentality of presenting our very bodies and selves as living sacrifices for God to do whatever He wants with.

The best worship services aren’t the ones where all the songs are first rate or where every singer and musician sings and plays flawlessly. It’s one where God shows up in a way where we couldn’t focus on anything else but seeing Him and hearing from Him and committing to obey Him no matter what. That’s true worship.

Learning Something New Every Day

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I’ve been listening to The Bible Podcast by Tara-Leigh Cobble on Audible lately. It’s really supposed to supplement a daily reading Bible plan, but since I’ve been reading the Bible on a different plan, I’m basically listening to the segments straight through. It’s been like getting a crash course on the entire Bible in five-minute segments.

One thing I learned blew my mind a bit. It was after Jesus rose from the grave and met the disciples while they were fishing unsuccessfully. He told them to cast the net on the other side, and when they did they caught 153 fish, nearly breaking their net.

Apparently, there are 153 different kinds of fish in the Sea of Galilee, so they caught one of every kind. That harkened back to Jesus telling these disciples that soon they would be fishing for people instead of fish. This was a visual way of telling them that the gospel they preached was to be for everyone.

That means that in heaven there will be people from every single people group, language, skin color, ethnicity, country, and race. When Jesus returns, there will be no more unreached people groups left. Every one will have heard the good news. That means that this mission Jesus gave to us, His church, will not fail.

That should give us greater joy and hope. We can share the good news knowing that it’s never in vain. While not everyone will believe our message every time, we can know that what we preach and teach never returns void. We can labor with the confidence that God is at work mightily through what we do in the strength and power of His Holy Spirit in us.

I love the scene in Revelation when the heavenly throne room is crowded with people from every tongue, tribe, and race. I don’t know if we’ll each be singing in our heart languages and understand each other or if we’ll have a new heavenly vocabulary that we all share. But I do know the song will be the same and the God we sing to will be the same and the eternal praise that comes from joyful lips and hearts will be the same.

“I looked again. I heard a company of Angels around the Throne, the Animals, and the Elders—ten thousand times ten thousand their number, thousand after thousand after thousand in full song:

The slain Lamb is worthy!
Take the power, the wealth, the wisdom, the strength!
Take the honor, the glory, the blessing!

Then I heard every creature in Heaven and earth, in underworld and sea, join in, all voices in all places, singing:

To the One on the Throne! To the Lamb!
The blessing, the honor, the glory, the strength,
For age after age after age.

The Four Animals called out, “Oh, Yes!” The Elders fell to their knees and worshiped” (Revelation 5:11-14, The Message).

Gaining Contentment

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“If we wished to gain contentment, we might try such rules as these:

1. Allow thyself to complain of nothing, not even of the weather.

2. Never picture thyself to thyself under any circumstances in which thou art not.

3. Never compare thine own lot with that of another.

4. Never allow thyself to dwell on the wish that this or that had been, or were, otherwise than it was, or is. God Almighty loves thee better and more wisely than thou dost thyself.

5. Never dwell on the morrow. Remember that it is God’s, not thine. The heaviest part of sorrow often is to look forward to it. ‘The Lord will provide’ (Edward Bouverie Pusey).

You could almost do away with all of this except for the last four words: the Lord will provide. Everything else is leading to that point and it summarizes the whole thing perfectly in a nutshell. I confess I get a little annoyed with the King James-style wording, but the gist is don’t complain and don’t compare. Don’t spend all your time fantasizing about how you wish your life could be or how it could have been or should have been. Definitely don’t focus on what might happen, which 99 out of 100 times never actually happens.

If you can keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and not on you or your circumstances, you’re a lot better off. Those crashing waves can make us forget that there’s Someone walking out to us on the water, ready to rescue us when we go under. The remedy was in place before we asked for it. Our provision was provided before we had a need. The same God who was with you through a multitude of trials and is with you in your need is also ahead of you in a future that you can’t see yet with His answer that you can’t even fathom or grasp just yet.

Once you let go of your preconceived notions about how life should go and how God should act, there’s peace. Once you stop trying to figure it all out and finally surrender to God and His Kingdom, then there’s perfect peace. The worst that can happen is that you die and go to heaven to be with Jesus. The best that can happen is that Jesus is with you in the midst of whatever good or bad befalls you. Either way, you win because God wins.

Still Rolls the Stone

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As you know, I am currently collecting old CCM vinyl. One of my favorite parts is discovering artists that I missed back in the day because they weren’t my style of music at the time. One of those is Bob Bennett, a singer-songwriter in the vein of James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg.

One of his songs that resonated deeply with me is the song Still Rolls the Stone, which speaks to Easter but also speaks to God’s ability to make any dead thing come alive and to turn those of us who were dead in our trespasses and sins into living sons and daughters of God.

Basically, the gist of the song is that because of an empty tomb on a Sunday morning, we can trust God to keep His promises and to finish what He started in each of us:

“Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone from the grave

I tore off my grave clothes
And cried a pool of tears
For the voice of the Living One
Who spoke the stars and spheres
Has called me from my darkness
And led me to this place
Where the dead leap
And the blind see His face

Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone from the grave

Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone from the grave

Hearts aflame with mercy
Like the sun in midnight sky
While the doubter shrugs his shoulders
And the cynic wonders why
But as it is in Heaven
So now we proclaim
The Lord tells us here to do the same

Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone
(Rolls the stone away)
Still rolls the stone from the grave, oh…

Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone
(Rolls the stone away)
Still rolls the stone from the grave

In the still of a Sunday morning
A grave stands open wide
And a promise kept
While the world slept
Means that no one is inside

Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone from the grave, oh…

Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone
(Rolls the stone away)
Still rolls the stone from the grave

Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone from the grave” (Bob Bennett)

Being the Easter People

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Easter is over, according to all the stores and calendars. There are no more cute little bunny displays at your local Hallmark or Cadbury eggs or wicker baskets at the grocery store. Seemingly just about everybody has moved on to the next big holiday, which I believe is Mother’s Day in May.

But for those who celebrate Easter as Resurrection Day, the celebration goes on. We know that Jesus is still risen and alive. Plus, if you follow the Book of Common Prayer you know there is still Ascension Day and Pentecost to come.

I’m not against all the Easter bunnies and baskets and Easter egg hunts and all the candy. I’m especially not against the candy. But when you reduce Easter to these symbols and turn it into just one day, it cheapens the meaning.

Just as the birth of Jesus ushered in a new way of counting the years (as we moved from B.C. to A.D.), so Easter is equally a marker in history where everything changed. Many Old and New Testament prophecies came to pass on that day.

I hope that we won’t go back to business as usual next Sunday. I hope we will retain the message of Resurrection Day through all the weeks and months to come. The worst moment, the worst day, the worst part of your life is never the final defining moment in your life because Jesus is alive and the tomb is empty. Your hope is never in vain because Jesus conquered sin, death, hell, and everything else that will ever come against you to defeat you.

Easter isn’t just a day but a mindset. As Pope John Paul II said, “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”

It’s Friday But Sunday’s Comin’!

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I can’t remember a lot of what I’ve done in the last week or so, but I can still remember a sermon from Tony Campolo that I heard when I was a student at Union University way back in the early 90s. It was close to Easter that year, and I seem to remember we were getting ready to go on our spring break.

I remember the sermon was based on the text by an old black preacher named S. M. Lockridge with the refrain of “It’s Friday . . . but Sunday’s comin’!”

The gist is that Friday was when everything looked hopeless. Jesus was dead and buried. The Pharisees and other religious leaders were celebrating. The disciples were crushed and defeated. But Sunday and the empty tomb were just ahead, unbeknownst to those who were witnesses to the events on Friday.

Here’s the text from the original sermon that set my world on fire:

“It’s Friday. Jesus is arrested in the garden where He was praying. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. The disciples are hiding and Peter’s denying that he knows the Lord. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Jesus is standing before the high priest of Israel, silent as a lamb before the slaughter. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Jesus is beaten, mocked, and spit upon. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Those Roman soldiers are flogging our Lord with a leather scourge that has bits of bones and glass and metal, tearing at his flesh. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. The Son of man stands firm as they press the crown of thorns down into his brow. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. See Him walking to Calvary, the blood dripping from His body. See the cross crashing down on His back as He stumbles beneath the load. It’s Friday; but Sunday’s a coming.

It’s Friday. See those Roman soldiers driving the nails into the feet and hands of my Lord. Hear my Jesus cry, “Father, forgive them.” It’s Friday; but Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Jesus is hanging on the cross, bloody and dying. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. The sky grows dark, the earth begins to tremble, and He who knew no sin became sin for us. Holy God, who will not abide with sin, pours out His wrath on that perfect sacrificial lamb who cries out, “My God, My God. Why hast thou forsaken me?” What a horrible cry. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. And at the moment of Jesus’ death, the veil of the Temple that separates sinful man from Holy God was torn from the top to the bottom because Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Jesus is hanging on the cross, heaven is weeping and hell is partying. But that’s because it’s Friday, and they don’t know it, but Sunday’s a coming.

And on that horrible day 2,000 years ago, Jesus the Christ, the Lord of glory, the only begotten Son of God, the only perfect man, died on the cross of Calvary. Satan thought that he had won the victory. Surely he had destroyed the Son of God. Finally he had disproved the prophecy God had uttered in the Garden and the one who was to crush his head had been destroyed. But that was Friday.

Now it’s Sunday. And just about dawn on that first day of the week, there was a great earthquake. But that wasn’t the only thing that was shaking, because now it’s Sunday.

And the angel of the Lord is coming down out of heaven and rolling the stone away from the door of the tomb.

Yes, it’s Sunday, and the angel of the Lord is sitting on that stone. And the guards posted at the tomb to keep the body from disappearing were shaking in their boots, because it’s Sunday. And the lamb that was silent before the slaughter is now the resurrected lion from the tribe of Judah, for He is not here, the angel says. He is risen indeed.

It’s Sunday, and the crucified and resurrected Christ has defeated death, hell, sin, and the grave. It’s Sunday. And now everything has changed. It’s the age of grace, God’s grace poured out on all who would look to that crucified lamb of Calvary. Grace freely given to all who would believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary was buried and rose again. All because it’s Sunday.

It’s Friiidaaaay!

But Sunday’s coming!” (S. M. Lockridge, With Thanks to Dr. Michael G. Davis for the text version).

Two Weeks Before Easter

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Today is the fifth Sunday in Lent, a week before Palm Sunday, and two weeks before Easter. I found this prayer that reminds me of what Lent and Easter are all about:

“You whose eternal love for our weak and struggling race was most perfectly shown forth in the blessed life and death of Jesus Christ our Lord, enable me now so to meditate upon my Lord’s passion that, having fellowship with Him in His sorrow, I may also learn the secret of His strength and peace.

  • I remember Gethsemane
  • I remember how Judas betrayed Him
  • I remember how Peter denied Him
  • I remember how they all forsook Him and fled
  • I remember the scourging
  • I remember the crown of thorns
  • I remember how they spat upon Him
  • I remember how they smote Him on the head with a reed
  • I remember His pierced hands and feet
  • I remember His agony on the Cross
  • I remember His thirst
  • I remember how He cried, My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains He had to bear;
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.

Grant, O most gracious God, that I who now kneel before You may be embraced in the great company of those to whom life and salvation have come through the Cross of Christ. Let the redeeming power that has flowed from His sufferings through so many generations flow now into my soul. Here let me find forgiveness of sin. Here let me learn to share with Christ the burden of the suffering of the world. Amen” (John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer, Sixteeth Day Evening, updated and revised by Susanna Wright).

I think remembering what Jesus went through on the road to Gethsemane is important. I don’t mean so much dwelling on the gory details, but remembering that He suffered more than anyone has ever or will ever suffer.

The why is important. It’s not that He was the victim of oppression and injustice. Actually, it’s way more than that. It’s that He willingly laid down His life for us, taking all that punishment that we deserved, paying the penalty for sins we committed. He became the ultimate passover lamb, sacrificed for the sins of the world.

When I by my sin tried to take the place of God, God Christ for my salvation took my place. The resurrection from the dead proves that He was no mere victim but a victor over sin, death, the grave, and hell. That’s my Jesus!

An Attitude of Gratitude

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I found out that a friend of the family is currently walking through his own valley of the shadow of death in dealing with incurable cancer. To hear the word “cancer” coming out of the mouth of a doctor is scary enough, but to hear it preceded by “terminal” has to be frightening to an almost paralyzing degree.

Yet this friend of mine has faced this diagnosis with dignity and peace and an unswerving faith in the God who is still in the miracle business. While the odds seem insurmountable, I’m reminded yet again that what seems impossible to us isn’t even remotely difficult for God. Just ask any of the blind or lame men that Jesus healed. Or the lepers. Or Lazarus.

My friend said that it all starts with an attitude of gratitude. I truly believe that. A positive mental outlook is half the battle when dealing with a grim medical diagnosis.

Yet it’s more than that. This attitude of gratitude comes from the same place that allowed the Apostle Paul to pen the words that to live is Christ and to die is gain. It’s literally a win-win with Jesus.

Either my friend gets healed here and becomes a witness of God’s healing power or he is resurrected and finds ultimate healing and stands in front of Jesus to hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

When you think about it, we’re all terminal. After sin entered the world, death followed close behind and that proverbial hourglass started on each one of us. Unless Jesus comes back soon, all of you reading this will come to the place where you breathe your last.

Thanks to Jesus death will not have the final word. The grave is only temporary. The resurrection truly does mean that the worst thing is never the last thing and Jesus will have the final word in your story.

I’m praying for my friend for healing here and now knowing that no matter what happens, God is always good and we are always loved and that grace still wins in the end.