mercy

To Love Is to Tell the Truth in Love

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“Anyone who sets himself up as ‘religious’ by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world” (James 1:26-27, The Message).

I’ve been watching videos on Youtube from a guy named Becket Cook. He’s a former homosexual who is now a kind of apologist for orthodox biblical Christianity. One of his tenets is that it is not truly loving to affirm anyone in their sin, whether it be in the LGBTQ camp or pre-marital cohabitation or any other sinful lifestyle. He say that the most loving thing you can do is to tell someone the truth in love.

If I believe that the Bible is true, then I must live by it and I must also be willing to abide by what it teaches when it comes to alternate lifestyles and behaviors. I must come from the place where I view my sin just as seriously as I do anybody else’s. Homosexuality or adultery is no more sinful than my pride or my judgmentalism. It’s all sin to God and we are all called to repent.

To love is to be compassionate as Jesus was. He reached out to those who were marginalized and excluded from society. He never turned away anyone who sought Him out in faith. But He also always told them the truth. He never compromised for the sake of acceptance and peace. In fact, many people quite following Him because He spoke the truths that made them uncomfortable and convicted.

We need both. Compassion and conviction aren’t mutually exclusive. We need to hold to our convictions in the midst of compassion toward those in need but we also need to be compassionate when we’re sharing our convictions about what we believe and why.

The point is not to change an aspect of the person. It’s not to get a liberal to vote conservative or to get a gay person into a straight marriage. It’s about redeeming the whole person with the whole gospel. That means that every part of the person needs to be transformed and renewed. The gospel isn’t about making bad people good or making good people better but about making dead people alive.

We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard. We all need to repent and to be forgiven. We all need a Savior who will pay the debt for those sins that we could never hope to pay. We all need a righteousness that we can’t produce on our own but has to come from somewhere else. We need Jesus.

The Third Sunday of Lent

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“Almighty God, 
you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: 

Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, 

that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; 

through Jesus Christ our Lord, 
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 
one God, 
for ever and ever. 

Amen.“

If you’re keeping score, you know there are four more weeks until Easter Sunday. That means 28 more days of Lent. How are you doing with your Lent fasting so far?

I realize not everybody gave up something for Lent. I gave up social media, so I have no idea what’s going on in the outside world. At least I’m missing everybody’s politicized takes on what’s going on in the world, which is probably not a bad thing some days.

But hopefully Lent is a time when we give up something to make room for something better. Hopefully, we replace the time spent watching television or on social media (or eating chocolate) with time to spend with God in worship, adoration, and prayer. Often, we end up substituting in another mindless addiction to take the place of whatever we gave up. Guilty as charged.

But I hope to take whatever time is remaining before Easter Sunday to devote to prayer. At least I hope to spend it reading actual books (including more of the Bible) and going outdoors more. It’s almost like if your life is closed room, it’s good to open up the windows and let in the fresh air.

The older I get, the more I understand that we need God’s help to please God and to do what God wants us to do. Any self-driven efforts will fail and fall far short of what God wants. But if we’re living in the resurrection power of the indwelling Spirit, we can do what pleases God.

Lord, help us to desire You more. Help us to seek You above any amusement or mindless entertainment that helps to pass the time. Help us to know how precious our lives are and to redeem the brief amount of time we’re given in comparison to eternity for Your glory and our greatest good.

Thank You for Your grace that seeks after us even when we’re not all that interested in seeking after You. You are relentless in chasing us down not to punish us or to chastise us but to show us a better way to think and to live. Help us to want for ourselves what You want for us. Amen.

The Real Winners

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So I watched the Super Bowl (or at least most of it). I low key wanted Seattle to win, but I was not going to be a bit disappointed if New England won. Still, I made it into the 4th quarter when Seattle was up 19-0 and decided that it was basically over, so I went to old school Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury.

Spoiler alert: Seattle won.

My favorite these days isn’t so much when my team wins, which is probably a good thing. My Tennessee Titans haven’t won very many games lately and watching them sometimes is about as fun as a root canal. Actually, the root canal may be more enjoyable.

But I love seeing where former and current players have given their lives to Jesus. I love how they can boast not in any individual statistics or games won or lost, but in the fact that they are known and loved by the God of the universe.

That’s the real victory. I know the cartoon is probably supposed to be mocking heaven, but I’d love to think that’s how I will enter heaven. It will be such a sweet relief and an overwhelming joy. I won’t be able to point to a single thing I’ve done for the reason that I got in, but I can say with the thief on the cross that the Man on the middle cross said I could come.

It’s only by the blood of the Lamb. Because Jesus died for me and took my place on that cross, I can live eternally. Because instead of my own sin I now possess the righteousness of the only One who ever lived a perfect and sinless life, I can come boldly to the throne of God. Because of Jesus, I will one day walk through those pearly gates confidently because my confidence is on the grace that saved me and sustains me.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to hoist that Lombardi trophy and be able to have bragging rights about being the best team in the world for at least the next year. I know that the percentage of people on Super Bowl winning teams has got to be minuscule compared to all those who have played football at any level and are watching from the comfort of their couches.

But I will know the joy of walking victoriously into heaven and that victory will last not just for the next year but all the way into eternity. And that offer goes to anyone who says yes to Jesus.

Gatekeepers or Grace Givers

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I think if we’re not careful, we can become gatekeepers of the grace of God. I read recently we judge ourselves by our intentions but others by their actions. In other words, we’re more lenient with ourselves than with others. I see a lot of professing believers posting about how they hope the other person gets karma (which almost always seems to be for somebody other than me).

It’s especially evident when it comes to people we don’t like or with people who think and vote differently than I. It’s almost as if God’s grace exists with exceptions for Donald Trump (or his supporters) and Kamala Harris (and her supporters). We make grace something you have to earn instead of a free gift.

But the truth is that no one is worthy of God’s grace and mercy, but everyone is welcome to it. I’ll say it again because someone out there (maybe me) needs to hear it again: no one is worthy of God’s grace and mercy but everyone is welcome to it.

That means that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. With no exceptions. Anyone who acknowledges their sin and accepts Jesus as Lord and Savior, believes in Him by repenting of their sins and turning to His free gift of salvation, and confesses Him before others will be saved.

I think I get judgmental when I forget how it took the same amount of Jesus’ blood to save me as it took to save anyone else in history. It took all of it. I was (and still am) as much in need of the grace of God to save me and sustain me as anyone else who has ever lived.

The gospel means that no one is too lost to be found, too messed up to find grace, or too far gone to be saved. That’s the hope for the world and the message that every believer has to share with anyone who has ears to hear.

An Evening Prayer

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“Lord, we come to You not because you are our last hope, but because You are our first love.

We’re not waiting to come to You only when we think there’s nothing else we can do. We’re coming to You *before we do anything at all* because waiting on You is *wisest* of all. We trust You to work all this out in Your good time — because that will be the best time, and You are only good and You hold all time. *Kneeling the most lets us stand the bravest.* Tonight we kneel and lay our painful problems in Your hands and thank You for the perfect peace You put in our hearts.

In Jesus’ name, Amen. #EveningPrayer#RestinginHisWord” (Ann Voskamp).

Lord, I confess that I only come to You when I need something. Often, You are my last resort. I acknowledge that when everything is going well, I simply don’t see my need for You. It’s only when life gets difficult and stressful that I finally manage to look up to You.

Thank You for being patient with me. You have shown me more mercy than I deserve. If You treated me the way I treat You most of the time, I probably wouldn’t be here. I’d definitely be a lot worse off than I am.

But Your word says that You are faithful even when I’m faithless. You continue to work in me even when I don’t work at all. You honor Your promise to complete what You started in me even when I make promises to You that I don’t keep.

I know that I can look back and see growth. I can see change. I can see that in the past, my lackadaisical faith wouldn’t have bothered me nearly as much as it does now. I can see that I am more committed to You than I was last year or in the last decade.

Lord, make me more like You. Period.

Grace (by Frederick Buechner)

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“After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody’s much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?

A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There’s nothing YOU have to do. There’s nothing you HAVE to do. There’s nothing you have to DO.

The grace of God means something like: “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”

There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.

Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too” (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking).

I always like the acronym for GRACE – God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense.

That means it is undeserved.

It’s the flip side of mercy. If grace is getting what you don’t deserve, then mercy is not getting what you deserve. And salvation involves both.

May we be a people of mercy and grace in 2025.

Prone to Wander

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“Robert Robinson had been saved out of a tempestuous life of sin through George Whitfield’s ministry in England. Shortly after that, at the age of twenty-three, Robinson wrote the hymn, ‘Come, Thou Fount. Come, Thou Fount of ev’ry blessing, Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise’.

Sadly, Robinson wandered far from those streams and like the Prodigal Son, journeyed into the distant country of carnality. Until one day—he was traveling by stagecoach and sitting beside a young woman engrossed in her book. She ran across a verse she thought was beautiful and asked him what he thought of it. ‘Prone to wander— Lord, I feel it— Prone to leave the God I love’. Bursting into tears Robinson said, ‘Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.’

Although greatly surprised, she reassured him that the ‘streams of mercy’ mentioned in his song still flowed. Mr. Robinson was deeply touched. Turning his ‘wandering heart’ to the Lord, he was restored to full fellowship” (Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories).

I love a good back story, especially when it comes to how hymns were composed. It’s no coincidence that the very words Robert Robinson penned were exactly the words he needed to hear when he had wandered from his faith. God used his own words to speak to him and woo him back.

God still speaks to us in a variety of ways, but primarily through His word. I think so many of us — me included — will go through the day with our Bibles closed and wonder why we haven’t heard from God.

I remember when I got my very first Bible as a first grader, the pastor wrote in the inside of the cover, “This Book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.”

How true that has been. We need God’s word and God’s people around us to help us find the way back when we’ve wandered. We may be prone to wander, but God is always faithful to bring His wayward child back.

Holiness and Mercy

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I was watching a podcast video with Andy Chrisman and Steve Camp talking about how Steve took such a bold stand in the late 90s against what was going on in the Christian music industry at the time. He also spoke about a couple of his songs related to the emerging AIDS crisis in the 80s. One phrase that stood out to me was “holiness never compromised, mercy never restrained.”

That’s the essence of the gospel. We’re never to tolerate sin in the name of mercy, but we’re also never to condemn the sinner in the name of holiness. The same Jesus that told the woman that He didn’t condemn her for her adultery also said, “Go and sin no more.”

Jesus never accommodated sinful lifestyles, but He also never withheld His love from those in those lifestyles who earnestly sought Him in their need. The message He proclaimed was not “I’m OK, you’re OK, just do the best you can” but “I’m calling you out of your sin into something better because I love you enough to want God’s best for you.”

I can’t say that I’m the best at balancing holiness and mercy. I can testify that I’m really good at looking down on sins that I don’t struggle with. I can be more permissive with my own faults than forgiving of others with theirs.

But I believe that Jesus is the one who perfectly embodies holiness and mercy as the 100% God, 100% man who is both just and the justifier. I believe in the gospel message that Jesus can change and transform anybody from anything into something holy. I’m seeing it in my own life and in so many lives of the people I know and love.

The challenge is to hold to both holiness and mercy, not pitting one against the other or elevating one at the expense of the other. We need both. Most of all, we all need Jesus.

I Lived to Tell the Tale

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Some days are great and some days are terrible. Some days just are. This was one of them.

It wasn’t great. It wasn’t terrible. It just was.

Still, it’s got a few things going for it that make it a good day in my book.

I woke up this morning, so that’s a win.

I managed to breathe in and out and my heart kept beating all day. Another win.

I didn’t go hungry or thirsty or naked or cold. Still another win.

I woke up to God’s new mercies and I’m going to bed under His everlasting grace.

I’d call it a very good day, wouldn’t you?

 

Mondays Are Rude

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“Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings” (Ephesians 3:16-19, The Voice).

Mondays are just rude. They come barging in at some ungodly hour of the morning, interrupting your nice, relaxing weekend, making all sorts of demands, sucker-punching you in the face, forcing you to interact with life before you’ve even had your first cup of coffee. Of all the nerve.

Mondays are typically the days when your passwords suddenly don’t work, you spill that beloved cup of coffee on all your papers, and your inbox blows up.

Sometimes, it can feel like Monday can last a lot longer than 24 hours. It can seem to go on for days, weeks, and even months. You don’t feel adequate to handle all that Monday brings.

Relax. Remember this.

God doesn’t just give you enough grace and mercy to get by. He doesn’t just give you enough love to sustain you until Tuesday mercifully arrives. He doesn’t dole out peace with stingy fingers and a dour face.

Your cup runneth over with God’s provisions. You don’t just get enough. You get much,much more.

You get God. Not just what’s leftover when everybody else has gotten their share. You get all of God.

You get so much grace, mercy, love, and peace that it’s like trying to catch the ocean in a thimble (with thanks to Mike Glenn for that image). There’s so much that it overflows your capacity to receive and pours out on those around you, those in the places where you live and work and play.

Honestly, all Mondays come to an end. They seem to last forever, but they’re just 24 hours, like the other six days in the week.

All of God’s grace and mercy and love and peace will never end. Long after Monday is over, those will still be with you. God will still be with you.

And there’s always more refills of coffee.