Kairos

And now for something completely different. . . and random . . .

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Greekfest2013

Here are some thoughts I had on the way home from the Greek Festival.

1) As I was watching the Greek dancing, a little voice in my head said, “You don’t learn to dance by watching other people dance. You learn to dance by dancing.” And every dance starts with taking that dreaded first step. You don’t learn to live by watching other people live; you learn to live by living– taking risks, learning from failure, and laughing at yourself. You don’t learn faith by reading about it or studying the meanings of the various words used for faith in the Bible, you learn by trusting (or “faith”-ing”) God. By a moment by moment declaration of surrender and trust in God.

2) As my favorite philosopher, Ferris Beuller, said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop every once in a while and look around, you could miss it.” If you are all about living life and warp speed, you miss all the little things that make life worth living. Take time to smell a rose or watch a mother play with her newborn or marvel at a sunrise or breath in the night air. Wherever you are, just be in the moment. Just be. Find a quiet secluded spot and listen for that Still Small Voice that spoke worlds into existence.

3) I’m borrowing this from a friend. The next time you are tempted to get aggrevated or irritated at something or someone, ask yourself one question (not “Do ya feel lucky, punk?”). Ask, “Is this something that Jesus died for?” Did Jesus die to make traffic move more smoothly, or to make the office copier operate jam-free, or to make all people nicer? Then why do those things make me angry. No, wait. They don’t make me angry. Nothing can make me do anything, but I choose to be angry. And I can choose not to be. Jesus died not for the deserving, but for the very undeserving, of which I am one. If I want to be like Jesus, I need to show grace toward the people that cut me off in traffic, the copiers that won’t copy, and the meanies of the world.

4) Remember that no matter how hard it is to love someone who has hurt you or let you down, God showed that such love is possible. True love will never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up on anyone at any time, because God never, never, never, never. . . .etc. . . . gave up on us. True love, or agape love, is impossible, but I have learned that God is really good at making the impossibles into possibilities. So love each other like your life depended on it. Love like you want to be love. Love like God has loved you. Let God love you and love through you.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief. Make me a vessel through which You can pour out love to a world desperately in need of it. My life, whether I live one more day, or 100 more years, is in Your hands.

Blessed are the pure in heart

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“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).

Blessed are the pure in heart. You may be like me and think, “Well, that rules me out right there. I am not pure in heart. If you could only see inside my heart and see some of the addictions and lies and crap that I carry around, the last word you would use to describe my heart is ‘pure.'” I have good news for you. If you have trusted Christ for your salvation, He has cleansed your heart. God sees you now as if you had never sinned. You are pure in heart.

The Message puts it this way: “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.” That’s what being made righteous means– your inside world is put right with God. Then, instead of seeing fate and coincidence and random occurances in the outside world, you see God. You see His hand in everything.

Soren Kierkegaard said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” To stay pure in heart, it is important to not have divided priorities. Like loving God and money, or God and popularity, or God and success, or God and (you fill in the blanks). If anything competes with God for my attention, that thing must go, whether it be a possession or a relationship or a cherished dream. God is jealous and will not abide anything put alongside of Him as equal importance.

The good news is that the effort to have one focus is not a “strain and try harder”, but a “be filled with the Spirit and transformed by the renewing of your mind” event. Your and my job is to know God. To know what blesses and breaks His heart, to know what His will is for the world, and to know His Word so well that it becomes a part of you. Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they know the Father and the One He has sent.”

Lord, I long to stay pure in heart and not wear myself out chasing in five different directions things that can only truly come from You. Be my passion, my heart’s overwhelming desire. Be so glorious in my sight that everything else fades away. Show me Your glory, and then I will be satisfied. Thank You that You have promised that one day I will see You clearly and love You perfectly.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Blessed are the merciful

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“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7)

In the Bible, grace and mercy are many times used together. I’ve heard it put this way that grace is getting what you don’t deserve, and mercy is not getting what you do deserve. Mercy is withholding the right to revenge and giving grace instead. One of God’s characteristics is that He is merciful. If anyone had the right to exact judgment on what we’ve done wrong and how we’ve screwed up and when we’ve outright rebelled against Him, it’s God. But He in HIs grace gives us what we don’t deserve– forgiveness– and in His mercy withholds from us what we do deserve– everlasting punishment in hell.

To be merciful is to be like God. To forgive, even when forgiveness is not sought, is to be like God. Mercy is loving the unloveable. It’s easy to love someone who loves you back, but God calls us to love those who are so caught up in and trapped by fear and addictions that they are unable to love us back.

I like the Message version. It says, “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.”

If you show mercy, you get mercy. I also like to think that one of the characteristics of those who have experienced God’s grace and mercy is that they live out that grace and mercy toward others. You forgive much because you have been forgiven much. You don’t worry about the $100 worth of wrong someone did to you when God just forgave the $1 million worth of wrong you did against Him.

Brennan Manning says it best: “Our encounter with Mercy profoundly affects our interaction with others . . . . We look beyond appearances, beneath surfaces, to recognize others as companions in woundedness. Human flesh is heir to the assaults, within and without, of negative, judgmental thoughts, but we will not consent to them because God is merciful to us. We will not allow these attacks to lead us into the sins of self-preoccupation and self-defense. Swimming in the merciful love of Christ, we are free to laugh at the tendency to assume spiritual superiority– in ourselves. We are free to extend to others the mercy we have received.”

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

A Church Without Walls (Part 2)

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I see a church where we will not be afraid to stand up and declare that Jesus is Lord, that there is no other God but Yahweh, and that there is no other way to heaven but through Jesus Christ. I see a church who instead of condemning sinners, will cry out to God and repent of our lack of love and take the blame for what is wrong with our culture. I see a church who will not just give out of her excess, but will sacrifice to meet the needs of those hurting and needy. I see a church where our worship costs us something and we like David proclaim, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord that which cost me nothing.”

I see a church where it is not about being right, but about giving up your rights. Where we will turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile and keep our word even when it hurts. I see a church who tries to match their lifestyle with what they profess with their lips. I see a church where we stop pretending to be perfect people who have it all together and are so much better than everyone else. Where we admit to being broken and helpless without Jesus and to admitting that the only difference between us and the worst sinner is the grace of God at work in us.

I see a church who is not selling out to a political party or a form of government or a way of life, but who are citizens of a kingdom where the King is Jesus. Where not political might, but the power of prayer and fasting will bring about lasting change.

I see that church and as much as I want that, I have to be the first one to change. Better yet, I need to seek after a transformed heart, God’s own heart, inside me.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Who speaks for you? (expanding on an idea I heard at Kairos)

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kairos2014

When the accuser of the brethren comes against you with accusations of your past, who stands up in your defense and speaks for you?

When other people judge you and make assumptions about you, who speaks on your behalf?

When the voices in your own head are full of condemnation and shame and guilt, who will be lone voice of dissent that will overpower all the other voices?

When you yourself have reached the verdict of guily with the maximum sentence of hopelessness and despair with no chance of parole, who will take your place?

There is one. He who sits on the throne at the right hand of the Father and who ever lives to make intercession for you. Jesus is the one who speaks for you. He is the one who took the blame for all the mistakes and blunders and failures, paid the penalty for those sins and make a spectacle of triumphing over the Enemy on the cross. When all these voices are giving you names (and you give yourself names I can’t print here), Jesus is the one who gives you a new name written on a white tablet that only He knows. And one day you will know it, too.

The One who knows the most about you– and has the most right to condemn you –doesn’t. The One who spoke the first words of creation and will speak the last words at the end of all things speaks the final word on your behalf: “It is finished.” No one else will ever be able to bring up accusations against you again. Jesus is your Advocate and He will never, ever, ever, ever, ever stop fighting for you.

I’ve always loved the saying that goes something like: “When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.”

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Thanks, Mike. These words were a revolution to my mind. I am thinking radically different than I was yesterday. Most of all, thank you, Jesus!

My prayer for tonight after Kairos

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Lord, you have ravished me body and soul. With one look of your eye, you have enraptured my heart and enlarged my vision of You. You have absolutely ruined me for the ordinary and the routine.

Lord, help me to be obedient to you, no matter what the cost. May I go where you send me and be who You call me to be. I want to obey You wholeheartedly and completely, even if no one else notices, because You will notice. I want to follow You, even if those around me disown me or ignore me, because You will never disown me or leave me. Never.

Teach me to love the way You love me. Break my heart for what breaks Yours. Make me Your hands and feet to touch those hurting, lost, and lonely people around me. Transform my heart until it beats with your heartbeat. Transform my eyes until I see that Your plan is for the whole world and not just my little world.

I want my faith to be more than words and professions of love to You. I want to be more than moved and inspired at times; I want to be radically changed from the inside out. I choose to trust You, whether or not I feel it or understand You.

Even if I must go alone, I want to follow You wherever and however You lead.

As always, I believe, but help my unbelief.