missions

Lies I have believed

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

Even now I still buy into the lie that says, “No one knows you or wants to know you. No one cares about you. You are not welcome or wanted. You are nothing but a shadow that will pass away and nothing will be different when you’re gone.” Even in the midst of those thoughts, when I am almost completely given over to despair and self-pity, Jesus still speaks freedom and truth into my life and against that lie. He illuminates the darkness and exposes what I have believed for the deception it really is.

When the lie says, “No one really knows you,” Jesus, You say, “I know you down to your innermost parts and I know the plans I have for you.”When the lie says, “No one cares about you,” You say, “I care. I loved you so much that while you were a sinner and hostile to me, I died for you. When the lie says, “You are not wanted,” You say, “Come and drink, you who are thirsty for love and come and eat, you who hunger for acceptance. Come to me and I will never cast you out.”

Jesus,  You say, “If you seek Me and not popularity or acceptance, you will not only find that I am your heart’s greatest desire, but you will also find yourself next to those whose hearts are also tuned in to Me. When you can no longer walk, you will findI have placed other in your path to be My hands to carry you. When you can no longer speak, they will be My voice to speak to you and for you. They will share your burdens, sorrows and joys.”

Jesus, take every lie that I have believed and show it to me through Your eyes as the deception it really is. Bind and rebuke the enemy from my mind and so fill my thoughts with You that there is no room for any other voices. Help me to believe the best about my family and friends and loved ones and never to give up on anyone because You never gave up on me– and never will!

Love Your people through me. May I never take it upon myself to determine who is or is not worthy of receiving Your love, but to remember that no one is worthy of Your love, but Your love made us worthy. Thank You for Your reckless, wild, unrestrained, passionate crazy love for me. Break my heart for what breaks Yours. Heal the dark and scarred and shameful places in me.

Captivate me so that I will only chase after You alone and not make idols out of the people or things or places You put in my path. You know that I am by nature prone to idolatry at times and practical atheism (living as though You didn’t exist). Capture my heart so that nothing else will ever matter next to knowing You and making You known.

Help me to remember that I am broken and part of a community of broken people. I belong to a body of believers who don’t have the future mapped out, but know the One who is the Way; who don’t have life figured out, but know the One who is the Life; and who don’t have the answers, but know the One who is the Truth. You are 100% completely in control and we are 100% completely dependent on You at all times for every single thing. You and you plus nothing else make a great Church. Only You are worth living for and only You are worthy of all the honor and glory and praise I can ever bring and a whole lot more. No one or nothing else. Only You.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

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 peacemakers

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“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9)

Blessed are those who make peace, not those who wait for peace to fall into their laps. We have to work for peace sometimes. As crazy and contradictory as it may seem, we even have to fight for peace sometimes. We have to be willing to pray against the powers of darkness. We have to be willing to practice tough love when the easy thing to do would be to ignore the situation until it goes away. Sometimes peace making can be a bloody and brutal event. Just ask Jesus, who in order to make peace with God for us endured the cross and all the horror and shame there.

There are three types of peace: peace with God, peace with others and peace with yourself. I think that this verse is not so much about finding peace with God as it is establishing or reestablishing peace with others and with yourself.

The Message says, “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.” Jesus prayed for unity of believers above all things for His people. If there is unforgiveness or conflict, it grieves the Holy Spirit. It also is a bad witness to an unbelieving world. If we can’t love each other who we see every day, how can we claim to love a God whom we have not seen? How can anything we say be true if there’s no love to back it up?

Father, forgive me for the times when I was not brave enough to fight for peace and instead settled for truce or a cold war of lost opportunities and relationships. Help me to see that You want your children to love each other and forgive each other and bless each other. Send your Spirit to bring revival into your people so we can be the ones through whom You radically change the world.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Something to think about

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When Jesus rose from the grave, one of the first things He did was to find His disciples and comfort them. Think about that! These are the same disciples who ran away and deserted Him in His greatest hour of need. Jesus would have been totally justified in giving up on the lot of them and starting over with 12 fresh new disciples. I probably would have. But He didn’t. He called them brothers and dined with them and gave them His mission to make disciples of all nations.

And there’s Peter. The one who betrayed Him. The one who denied that he knew Him. He singled Peter out and got Peter to affirm his love for Jesus for every time he had denied him. These 12 men went on to radically transform the entire world. No, wait. Jesus sent His Holy Spirit, who radically transformed the entire known world through the availability of 12 former traitors.

Can God use me after I have failed Him? Can God use you after you have royally messed up? The answer to the question is a resounding YES! God can take brokenness and make something beautiful out of it. God can take a disastrous mistake and turn into the start of something dynamic and revolutionary.

So what do I do with people who have failed me? What hopefully should people whom I have failed (God willing!) do? We should be like Jesus in this and forgive them. Forgiveness is a beautiful word to me because I see daily just how much I need it and how much I need to give it. While giving up on someone is sometimes the proper thing to do, giving second chances is the better thing to do (unless they are intentionally trying to do you harm, in which case you forgive but don’t give them the chance to hurt you again).

Jesus, give me the strength to live this out and by forgiving enable people to come out of shame and into Your glorious light. Help me to remember that as I forgive them, You will forgive me. I can’t do this on my own. I will need You every step of the way. Have Your way in me.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Amazed by God again!

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amazed-cat

“The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I was not prepared for what happened to me tonight. I went to Set Free Nashville tonight hoping to do more than take up space and be a warm body. I had no idea what to expect, only that God would be there. And was He!

I ended up having a really good conversation with one of the homeless men. He shared his life story with me and I listened, which is an accomplishment for an ADDer like me. I ended up receiving the blessing that I thought I would give. The guy I talked to and I are not that different– in fact, the only difference is a couple of bad decisions on his part. Apart from the grace of God, I very easily could have done worse.

I ended up praying with him and as he walked away, I whispered a silent prayer of thanks to God for this conversation. I think my frozen heart is finally starting to thaw and I am just beginning to learn what it means to love with the love of Christ. I know now that what God wants is simply my availability and flexibility. He wants me to show up and wait for Him to really show up! He did.

I didn’t do anything. God did it all. I like to close this blog with very appropriate lyrics from a Sara Groves song:

“Something changed inside me broke wide open all spilled out
Till I had no doubt that something changed
Never would have believed it till I felt it in my own heart
In the deepest part the healing came
And I cannot make it
And I cannot fake it
And I can’t afford it
But it’s mine
Something so amazing in a heart so dark and dim
When a wall falls down and the light comes in
And I cannot make it
And I cannot fake it
And I can’t afford it
But it’s mine”

That is exactly what happened tonight. All praise to the God who can use anybody anytime anywhere to reach out to anyone!