Paul

The Gospel

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“THE GOSPEL IS BAD news before it is good news. It is the news that man is a sinner, to use the old word, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart, that when he looks in the mirror all in a lather what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy. But it is also the news that he is loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy. And yet, so what? So what if even in his sin the slob is loved and forgiven when the very mark and substance of his sin and of his slobbery is that he keeps turning down the love and forgiveness because he either doesn’t believe them or doesn’t want them or just doesn’t give a damn? In answer, the news of the Gospel is that extraordinary things happen to him just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen. Henry Ward Beecher cheats on his wife, his God, himself, but manages to keep on bringing the Gospel to life for people anyway, maybe even for himself. Lear goes berserk on a heath but comes out of it for a few brief hours every inch a king. Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul sets out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ. It is impossible for anybody to leave behind the darkness of the world he carries on his back like a snail, but for God all things are possible. That is the fairy tale. All together they are the truth”(Frederick Buechner).

That’s the beauty of the gospel. The same good news that gets you in the door will be the path you walk up to heaven and the password that gets you in the gate. None of us ever outgrow our need of the gospel. We need to preach it to ourselves every day, multiple times a day, or we’ll start to think that we’re good enough for God or clever enough to believe in the right things or saintly enough to make it to heaven on our own.

But the gospel says this: You can’t, but God can. You tried, you failed, but God gave you His success and took your failure. None of us can ever get to God by any road or by any means, but God in Jesus has come down to us. That’s the gospel.

Passing It On

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“Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you” (Phil. 4:9, NLT).

That’s discipleship. It’s not learning new information so you can impress others with your knowledge. It’s watching godly people and how they live and speak and act, then doing what they do. It’s called practice because you won’t get it right the first time — or the thousandth time. But a lifetime of watching others and doing what they do will lead you to maturity.

The Apostle Paul got it directly from Jesus. He literally had a blinding encounter with the Messiah on the road to Damascus. Paul later says that he spent three years in the wilderness after his salvation and before he began his ministry in earnest. That’s where he learned about faith. Plus, I imagine he spent time with the other apostles and older believers who had spent time with Jesus.

It may seem arrogant for Paul to say in essence, “Do what I do,” but that’s how we learn. I never have been one to learn how to do something by reading instructions out of a book. I do best by watching someone else who knows what they’re doing. Then I basically imitate what I’ve seen.

That’s why it’s vital to be in a church community and also in a smaller group within that community. It’s best if we have people older and wiser than us to show us how to be Christians and how not only to believe but to live out what we believe in real time. Obviously, you start with the Bible, but sometimes you need help in knowing how to practice your faith in obedience.

Lord, help us to spur each other on to godliness and maturity. Keep us mindful that as we watch those we want to be like in the faith, others are watching us and seeing if what we confess is what we really believe. Keep us humble and teachable, but help us to set a good example for those who will follow after us. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.

God Uses Broken Things

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“The prophet Jeremiah said: ‘Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns’ (Jeremiah 4:3). You’ll never have the crop you ought to until you put the plow in, until the old clods are broken. Even the Lord Jesus Christ took the bread at the last supper and said: ‘This is My body which is broken for you.’ People throw broken things away. God uses broken things for His glory” (Adrian Rogers).

I’m thankful God uses broken things instead of throwing them away. God can turn broken circumstances for good for His glory. Best of all, God can use broken people to accomplish His purposes. In fact, He gravitates toward those kinds of people instead of those who have their act together (or at least act like they do).

If you pay attention to the characters in the Bible, you begin to realize that just about every one of them were hot messes. Every single one screwed up at least once or had a character flaw. That’s why the hero to look for in any given bible story isn’t David or Moses or Noah. It’s always God.

Face it. We’re all broken to one degree or another. None of us come close to being perfect. In fact, most of us are doing good to remember our own names some days. But the beautiful part is that God not only works in us in our weaknesses, but He intentionally works THROUGH our weaknesses. They’re the places where God’s strength is made perfect. Just ask Paul.

Remember when the world looks for the best looking or the most talented or the most ambitious, God is looking for the most available. He’s looking for the ones who have messed up multiple times but still show up with expectation, saying, “Here I am, God. Use me today.”

Those are the ones God chooses. Those are the ones God uses.

Unfinished People

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“Unfinished people are dangerous.

Moses wasn’t Moses overnight.

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Rage took over.
Looked left. Looked right. No witnesses.

So he killed him.
Buried the body in the sand.

Forty years later he’s still running when the bush burns. Still seeing blood on his hands.

“Who am I?” he asks.

God sends him anyway.

Not from murderer to hero.
From murderer to man still being worked on.

Paul didn’t become Paul overnight either.

Stephen preached. Rocks flew. Skulls cracked.
Coats piled at Saul’s feet while he approved.

Years later, after writing half your New Testament, he’s still begging God about a thorn.

God doesn’t say, “You’re finished.”

He says, “My grace is sufficient.”

Your Bible reeks of in-progress redemption.

Exodus doesn’t hide the murder.
Acts doesn’t hide the coats.

KJV. No polish. No PR team.

God will still be working.

You’re not disqualified.
You’re under construction.

Same clay. Same Potter. Same wheel.

Build anyway. Fall anyway. Get up anyway” (The Biblical Man/4 AM on X).

I love that. I don’t think he’s saying that there shouldn’t be consequences to our actions, especially if we break the law and harm others. But nothing we do disqualifies us from God’s grace. Ask Moses. Ask Paul. Ask the thief on the cross. Nothing.

Who you’ve been and who you are don’t necessarily automatically definie who you’ll be. Only God can do that. And God can use the murder and the sin and all the wrong you’ve done and turn it into something positive. He can take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for good.

That’s the gospel. Still.

Pray for Ramadan

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One thing I started this year that will hopefully become a tradition is praying for Muslims during this time of Ramadan, a holy time in Islam where Muslims are encouraged to fast during the day and immerse themselves in Qu’ran reading.

There is a very helpful prayer guide that the International Mission Board has created to encourage believers to pray for Muslims during this time. There is a daily prayer guide that gives specific prayer points for people groups and practices so that we can better pray for God to reach out to these Muslims.

The website is https://pray4digital.com/prayforramadan. You can sign up to pray at certain times during the day throughout Ramadan. I have committed to pray daily from 7:05 to 7:20 pm (though I confess I have yet to pray during my allotted time slot. I usually end up praying later in the evening).

I truly believe all great movements of God start with prayer. I also believe that we have not because we ask not, so I think we should all be praying for a multitude of Muslims to come to faith in Jesus during this time. After all, Jesus is prominent in the Qu’ran, so it’s natural that they could easily be inclined to want to know more about Him.

I’m fairly certain that God is present when two or more are gathered in His name, but I would love to see multitudes of believers who love their Muslim neighbors and friends enough to pray for them. Remember that the same Paul who wrote 1/3 of the New Testament was originally a terrorist against the faith until an encounter with Jesus made Him the biggest champion of Christianity. Anything is possible when it comes to God.

I hope and pray that you will join me in this endeavor in praying for God to move mightily in the Muslim world. Above all, I echo the cry of every believer when I say, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

My Belated Birthday Blog Post

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My birthday ended 33 minutes ago. I was tossing and turning in bed, trying unsuccessfully to sleep when I remembered that I had forgotten to write my daily blog post. I suppose getting a bit forgetful comes with turning 53.

I am blessed. This season of unemployment that I’m in isn’t one that I would have chosen, but I have learned a lot. Not so much new information, though there’s been some. Mostly, it’s just being reminded of what I already knew. It’s having that information go from theoretical to experiential.

I honestly don’t know what’s next. There have been moments of near-panic and high anxiety and there have been moments of calm and serenity. I have had thoughts of “God, please help” and “I can’t wait to see what God does next.”

My main prayer remains the same. It’s the prayer that never fails — Thy will be done. Even if it’s not my will. Even if it means my will, my desires, my goals be undone. Even if it means I am undone. I want God’s will because I know it’s the best.

I don’t believe in the saying that God never gives us more than we can handle. I think God never gives us more than He can handle. It’s true that God never allows us to be tempted beyond what we can bear but gives us a way out. But God’s testing is a different matter. My dependence on God grows as I am tested beyond enduring and I lean on the Lord for strength.

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9, NIV).

There’s joy at the end of this tunnel.

Who’s Trash?

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I recently ran across a Facebook post where someone was calling Elon Musk a piece of trash. I’m not about to defend Mr. Musk since I don’t really know much about him or what he stands for. I do know that it’s easier to point fingers at other people than look in the mirror (and I’m probably the first one to be guilty of that).

I’ve read my Bible, and I’m pretty sure that Elon Musk and Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are all made in the image of God. All bear the imago dei and Jesus died for every single one of them. If that’s trash, then Jesus died for trash. If that’s trash, then God made trash and I suppose that would make God trash (which He is obviously not).

That’s the worst part about elections. People can get very self-righteous and feel it’s okay to speak contemptibly about anyone who is on the “other” side of the political spectrum. Aldus Huxley said, “To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”

But that is not the way of Jesus. Remember He loved His enemies. He died for His enemies. He forgave His enemies while they were in the very act of murdering Him. And that’s the standard if you call yourself a follower of Jesus.

I’ve been around long enough to know that there are no political solutions to spiritual problems. No elected official can right what’s wrong with this country? No bill or amendment or vote can legislate spiritually dead people into life. Only Jesus can do that.

I have to guard against becoming pharisaical in seeing other peoples’ flaws and overlooking my own. I can very easily become judgmental and forget that the very foundation of my faith is the grace by which I’m saved.

So who’s trash? In the eyes of God, no one. No one is beyond redemption. No one is too far gone to save. Ask the Apostle Paul, once a terrorist against Christians and later the biggest advocate for the gospel. The gospel is for everyone.

That’s How the Gospel Works

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That’s not how I would have done it. If I’d had my way, probably Paul would have gotten his just desserts. He’d have received the same as he gave — that’s how Hollywood typically plays it. I can see his death scene playing out like Hans Gruber falling from the top of the Nakatomi Tower at the end of Die Hard.

But thankfully God’s ways are not like my ways. That same Paul went from being enemy #1 to Jesus and the faith to being the biggest champion of Christianity and spreading the gospel. God turned the bad guy into one of the good guys, as we’d say in old Hollywood.

That’s how the gospel works. The very worst of humanity can be transformed into a saint. And by saint, I don’t mean someone who is a notch above the rest of us and super holy. As I’ve heard it said, a saint isn’t someone who is good but who has seen and embraced the goodness of God.

It’s a bit of an ironic twist that the man who formerly persecuted the Church and made so many martyrs ended up himself becoming a martyr for the very faith he once tried to destroy. Again, that’s how the gospel works. That is something only explainable by the mercy of God.

That’s why I think a lot of the current political rhetoric is foolishness. Neither Biden or Trump are beyond the grace of God. That’s why I pray for the salvation of both every single night. Who knows? What an amazing testimony either one (or both) could have. And yes, I also pray for the salvation of Kamala Harris as well.

Who knows what any of us could be apart from the grace of God? Who knows that any of us could descend further than any Hitler or Stalin or Bin Laden? All of us are capable of any kind of evil apart from God’s continuous mercy.

I know that I’m not a believer because I was so very smart to choose Christ. I know it’s not because I was better than anyone else in the world. It’s only because God chose me first and set His love on me that I could even choose Jesus in the first place.

Billy Joel said, ““If I ever reach heaven I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I had not thought to see there; second, to miss some I had expected to see there; and third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there.”

I think that any of us who end up in heaven will spend eternity amazed that we somehow made it in despite all our unworthiness and all the rest of that eternity will be our endless gratitude and praise for being there and for Jesus who got us there.

What If

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I’ve had some random “what if” questions running through my mind lately and thought I’d share some with you:

-What if instead of shaming people for voting and thinking differently than you, you actually took the time to listen to why they vote and think the way they do?

-What if enough people decided that the two-party politics-as-usual system doesn’t really work anymore (and when has it ever?) and finally were brave enough to vote for a third party candidate?

-What if people who profess faith in Jesus spent less time boycotting and belittling and more time loving their neighbors and living out the Gospel wherever they live, work, and play?

-What if there really is a Tardis floating out there in the universe and you could possibly be invited to go on adventures in it with the Doctor?

-What if more people decided to stop following the mass media like sheep and starting thinking for themselves?

-What if I went to bed at a decent hour for once instead of typing up these blog posts at the very last minute?

-What if Christianity meant less of a political platform or a morality code and more of a transformed lifestyle that looks like Jesus?

-What if we were grateful for every little thing and took time to express our gratitude to those around us in tangible ways?

-What if cats are really aliens who are studying us and are really reporting back to the mothership when they randomly disappear?

-What if I took seriously Paul’s admonition to do everything to the glory of God and offer all of my life as a spiritual act of worship?

-What if we really listened to the people who are confiding in us instead of waiting for a chance to respond?

-What if you could discipline yourself to be joyful in every circumstance, no matter what?

 

If/Then Vs. No Matter What

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A lot of people have an if/then kind of faith. It goes something like this:

If God allows me to experience the fullness of the American dream, then I’ll keep believing.

If God grants me a spouse and children, then I’ll keep believing.

If God sees to it that my children follow in my footsteps and my faith and never disappoint me, then I’ll keep believing.

If God blesses me financially and lets me live comfortably, then I’ll keep believing.

That’s probably what most American Christians believe, although few would be brave enough to confess it.

This is biblical faith:

I will keep believing, no matter what.

If I never get married and have children, I’ll keep believing.

If I never get to where I can live comfortably, I’ll keep believing.

Even if I watch as each of my dreams die, even if God never does one solitary thing more for me beside saving me and granting me this life abundant, I’ll keep believing for as long as He grants me life.

The prophet Habakkuk put it this way:

“Though the cherry trees don’t blossom
    and the strawberries don’t ripen,
Though the apples are worm-eaten
    and the wheat fields stunted,
Though the sheep pens are sheepless
    and the cattle barns empty,
I’m singing joyful praise to God.
    I’m turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God” (Hab. 3:17-18).

If/then faith says that you need more than God, that He isn’t sufficient in and of Himself. It might work for a while, but it eventually falters when the hard times come.

No matter what faith says that God alone is, has been, and will always be enough. It keeps believing, keeps hoping, keeps trusting through any and every circumstance (much like what Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 13). That kind of faith not only lasts, but it keeps you going.

I choose to believe no matter what.

The end.