peace

Transforming Not Conforming

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity” (2 Cor. 10:3-6, The Message).

I had a pastor who used to say regularly, “Don’t let the world teach you theology.”

I still think about that statement a lot, especially since so many believers get their theology from just about any any every source out there except for the Bible. We’re judging the Bible and God by our own humanistic standards of right and wrong. We have the mentality of saying that “God would never” because we would never, making ourselves the standard to which even God must abide.

But thankfully Romans 12:1-2 talks about being transformed not conformed. Being conformed means that eventually you cease looking like Christ and look exactly like the world. You end up with no message to give a sick society because you have become equally sick. But being transformed means that we no longer are carried along by every wind and wave. It means that we stand out as beacons of hope in a dark world that is desperately searching for meaning and a way out of the chaos it created.

Lord, help us no longer to be conformed to this world and the messages it is constantly sending us through the news and social media and advertising. Instead, transform us by the renewing of our minds through Your holy Word as we saturate ourselves with Scripture. May we be in the world but not of it. May we show the world not what it is but what it can be and be the means through which You can continue to rescue people out of a perishing world into a glorious Kingdom of Light. Amen.

God Knows

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I went hiking at Radnor Lake State Park after work today. It’s been a while, and with all the damage from the ice storm a few months back, the park looked a bit different since the last time.

At least that’s my excuse. Somehow, I missed a turn or took a wrong turn and accidentally skipped part of the trail. I looked up expecting to see an incline but saw the road instead.

Then I remembered that I’ve had dreams about this sort of thing. I’ll be trying to get somewhere but I can never find it. Plus, in my dreams the scenery keeps changing so it’s basically impossible to find anything.

Life’s a bit like that. One day, you look up from scrolling social media or reading a book and wonder how you got where you are. Maybe you thought you’d still be working at the old job. Maybe you thought you’d be married by now. Or maybe you thought you’d have children by now.

It’s not so much that you’re lost, but you’re not where you wanted to be. Some days, it seems that your dreams are dead and you’ll never get to your desired destination. You wonder how you got where you are and if God is even on the job.

But God knows. He’s never taken by surprised by what happens to you. In fact, He works every little detail in your life for His glorious purposes. Maybe God’s saving you from something you can’t yet see. Or maybe God’s got a better destination in mind for you that you’re not ready to receive just yet.

God is big enough to accomplish all through you all that He requires of you. You need to show up and be prayed up and willing to do whatever He asks. Trust Him and above all trust His perfect timing. He will do it.

The Christ We Preach

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“The One we preach is not Christ-in-a-vacuum, nor a mystical Christ unrelated to the real world, nor even only the Jesus of ancient history, but rather the contemporary Christ who once lived and died, and now lives to meet human need in all its variety today. To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence. He gives us a sense of self-worth or personal significance, because he assures us of God’s love for us. He sets us free from guilt because he died for us, from the prison of our own self-centredness by the power of his resurrection, and from paralysing fear because he reigns, all the principalities and powers of evil having been put under his feet. He gives meaning to marriage and home, work and leisure, personhood and citizenship. He introduces us into his new community, the new humanity he is creating. He challenges us to go out into some segment of the world which does not acknowledge him, there to give ourselves in witness and service for him. He promises us that history is neither meaningless nor endless, for one day he will return to terminate it, to destroy death and to usher in the new universe of righteousness and peace” (John Stott).

That is the Christ we preach. This is the Jesus from the Bible, specifically from the Gospels. You can summarize it all up very neatly in John 3:16: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NLT).

If you go to a church that teaches you anything else, don’t walk out. Run. If your church preaches any kind of gospel other than the one from John 3:16 that Jesus and Paul preached, leave. Paul said that if anyone preached another gospel, even an angel from heaven, let that one be accursed.

The beauty of the true gospel is that it’s for everyone. It’s for anyone who will receive it. Anyone can be born again. Anyone can become a new creation. Anyone can be forgiven and set free from sin. Anyone can become a son or daughter of God through the adoption made possible through the cross.

That’s the Christ we preach and teach and worship and serve and love.

Faux Omniscience

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil” (Genesis 3:4-5, The Message).

The lie from the garden was that if Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they’d have the knowledge of good and evil. They’d be like God. The serpent told them the truth — mostly. And it’s that 2% lie mixed in with the 98% truth that got them in trouble and caused them to rebel against God.

Maybe one way that knowledge of good and evil has expressed itself is that we’re currently in an age of information overload. I recently ran across a statement that we consume in 30 minutes the same amount of content that our grandparents got in a month. That floored me.

Having social media and 24-hour news channels has created an unlimited access to everything happening around the world. I heard it referred to as a faux omniscience. We end up being burdened with all the tragedy from all around the world, somehow feeling like we’re supposed to do something to fix it.

Knowing more doesn’t automatically make you wiser. Sometimes, we can know more than our capacity to process it all in a healthy way. Spiritually, sometimes we can be informed and educated past our capacity for obedience. We become consumed by fear and rage and try to take the place of God in figuring our the solutions to all the world’s problems when in spite of all our learning, we’re still quite finite and limited in our understanding.

Only God has the capacity to know everything plus the wisdom to know what to do about it. Only God is in control and sees everything in the world with perfect clarity. Only God is the one who can fix it. And God has already provided the solution through the cross in Christ Jesus. His victory is already assured and all the evil in the world is from a defeated foe.

Perhaps we need less doomscrolling and news bingeing and more time spent with God. Maybe we need less consuming information, especially from secular sources, and more time spent learning the heart of God through the Bible and prayer. I heard once that the antidote to anxiety is always adoration and worship. That’s the best way.

The Blessing of No

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

In my daily Bible reading, I ran across a bit of a strange event in the life of David. The text says that God was angry with David, so He incited David to to a count the number of people in Israel. Even Joab, the commander of David’s army who mostly looked out for himself, didn’t think this was a good idea. But why would God incite David to sin?

I think by this point, David has become a bit prideful and probably had the idea of taking a census so he could feed his own ego about how strong he was militarily. What God did was allow him to get what he wanted and to find out how bad that would turn out.

I think one of the hardest yet most worthwhile lessons we can ever learn as believers is that sometimes God not giving us what we ask for is a blessing rather than a punishment. He knows that if we got what we wanted when we were not ready for it, it would destroy us. Or He has something different and better in store for us that we would ask for if we knew what He knew.

Conversely, God often disciplines us by allowing us to have our own way for the sole purpose of seeing where our own desires lead us apart from God. One of the major points of Romans 1 was that one of the consequences of rejecting God was that they got everything they wanted and it only further alienated them from God, each other, and their very selves.

Sometimes, a NO from God is a blessing. He’s protecting you. He knows that you’re not asking from a place of faith but of lustful desire or a thirst for power or selfish ambition. He also knows that ultimately He can’t give you peace or security apart from Himself because He is our peace and security. He is the ultimate fulfillment of every longing and desire, even though we may not see it at the time.

Thank God for every time He says no or not yet. Trust that what He has for you is better. Believe and live in the knowledge that He is enough. Seek Him and His kingdom first above all else and everything else will fall into place.

God Uses Broken Things

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“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.

Waiting with Hope

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“There are times when everything looks very dark to me——-so dark that I have to wait before I have hope.Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. When we see no hint of success but refuse to despair, when we see nothing but the darkness of night through our window yet keep the shutters open because stars may appear in the sky, and when we have an empty place in our heart yet will not allow it to be filled with anything less then God’s best—- that is the greatest kind of patience in the universe. It is the story of Job in the midst of the storm, Abraham on the road to Moriah, Moses in the desert of Midian, and the Son of Man in the garden of Gethsemane. There is no patience as strong as that which endures because we see ‘him who is invisible’ (Hebrews 11:27). It is the kind of patience that waits for hope.

Dear Lord, You have made waiting beautiful and patience divine.You have taught us that Your will should be accepted, simply because it is Your will. You have revealed to us that a person may see nothing but sorrow in his cup yet still be willing to drink it because of a conviction that Your eyes see further then his own.

Father, give me Your divine power—- the power of Gethsemane. Give me the strength to wait for hope—to look through the window when there are no stars. Even when my joy is gone, give me strength to stand victoriously in the darkest night and say, ‘To my Heavenly Father, the sun still shines.’ I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope. Strive to be one of the few who walk this earth with the ever present realization– every morning, noon, and night that the unknown that people call heaven is directly behind those things that are visible(Galatians 5:5). By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope” (George Matheson).

Easter Monday 2026

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I stayed up late on a school night, but it was worth it. I may feel like a complete zombie in the morning, but I have complete confidence that even this zombie will be resurrected one day just as Jesus was raised from the grave that Easter Sunday morning so long ago.

Seeing Andrew Peterson and company on Easter Monday is my new favorite Easter Monday tradition. There’s something special about hearing and singing the Easter story one more time. I don’t know about you, but I need to be reminded of the gospel as many times as I’m prone to be forgetful, which is often.

My favorite part is the part where they leave Jesus in the tomb and all the lights go out. Then the drums kick in and the crowd goes crazy because we all know what comes next. Death is defeated forever. The grave that could not hold the Messiah will not hold anyone who belongs to Him. Sin and condemnation will not have the last word.

For me, both Christmas and Easter need more than one day to appreciate fully the incarnation and resurrection. Sometimes I wonder if a lifetime’s not long enough to grasp everything that Jesus accomplished for us in fulfilling all the prophecies and breaking the curse that sin held over us. It will take an eternity to thank Him properly.

I love how Easter heralds in Spring and the annual advent of new life. Gone is the barrenness of winter as flowers bloom and trees bring forth leaves and all is green again. It’s a beautiful picture of life from death, a yearly reminder of the resurrection. We can hope in the fact that since we are in Christ, our story does not in in ashes. We are not left in the dark of the tomb.

May we not relegate the celebration of the resurrection to one day out of the year but to all the days for all the years God gives us. May we always be bold to proclaim that Christ is no longer dead but risen and alive and able to save to the uttermost. May we live as those who have been transformed by this resurrection power that now lives in us through the Holy Spirit. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Easter Saturday 2026

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“This is my Father’s world:
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad!” (Maltbie D. Babcock)

This is the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I don’t know of any faith tradition that observes this day. I imagine that everyone needs a break after Maundy Thursday and Good Friday before Easter Sunday. Besides, what would you celebrate or honor?

As far as we know, nothing happened. I know the Bible talks about how Jesus preached to the spirits in prison between the crucifixion and the resurrection, but I’m honestly not sure what that means. Did Jesus actually descend into hell to proclaim His victory? Was He preaching through Noah to those before the flood? Better minds than mine have had differing opinions for decades.

I do know that most likely the disciples were locked away in a secret room, grieving and terrified of being discovered. Their Lord had just died. They thought the dream was over. Any thought of a future kingdom was as dead as the Rabbi they had followed for three years.

But we have the blessing of hindsight. We can look back, knowing what the next day would bring. We know that those same disciples who had abandoned Jesus in the garden and watched from afar as He was brutally executed would be the same ones to proclaim the gospel with supernatural boldness, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer as Jesus had suffered.

It does seem sometimes that the wrong seems so strong. From every headline, it seems like evil is winning. But we know that this is still the Father’s world. Jesus is still ruler. We know, and one day the whole world will know. So we can look forward with hope and not despair like so many in the world do.

Easter Sunday is a reminder that evil and wrong have already been defeated. Death is not the end. Those who we love and lose who are in the Lord are not lost forever, but are in the very presence of Jesus, and we will see them again.

“And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles’ wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise
I will rise” (Chris Tomlin / Jesse Reeves / Louie Giglio / Matt Maher)

Invited (Good Friday 2026)

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I got a last minute invite from a friend to see Chris Tomlin’s Good Friday worship concert at Bridgestone Arena. He knew someone who had a suite and couldn’t use the tickets, so he got one and invited me to tag along. We got to sit in comfortable chairs and eat free food. Plus there was a concert.

The concert itself was amazing. Chris sang all of his familiar songs that churches have been worshipping with for years. He had a few special guests, including one Michael W. Smith, to help lead us in worship. The highlight of the evening was hearing David Nassar speak. He mentioned hearing a young Iranian girl named Goinosh singing the song Holy Forever in Farsi at 4 am. Lo and behold, they brought her out on stage to sing it in Farsi while the crowd sang it in English.

The best part was that I didn’t have to pay. I knew someone who knew someone, so when I arrived, all I had to do was walk into the suite and enjoy the show. My ticket had already been paid for.

It struck me how that’s a picture of heaven. One day, I’ll show up at those proverbial pearly gates. I won’t have to fork over a large sum of cash or prove a lifetime of good deeds to get in. When I arrive, I can honestly tell them that my purchase price to get in has already been paid in full.

I love the illustration that Allistair Begg uses about the thief on the cross on his first day in heaven. There’s all these angels asking him all sorts of questions about theological concepts that he doesn’t know the answers to. When they ask how he got in, he said, “The Man on the middle cross said I could come.”

That will be my answer if anyone asks. It won’t be because of my sinless life. It won’t be because my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds. It won’t be because God ignored my sin. It will be because once I asked Jesus to save me from my sin and to be my Lord and Savior. I invited Him to live in my heart.

This invitation isn’t just for a future residence in heaven. It gets me into the throne of grace anytime I’m in need. It gets the Holy Spirit inside of me, enabling me to live a life worthy of God. Right now, I have everything I need for life and godliness. Right now, I have 100% of God in me and with me and for me.

My invitation, bought and paid for, is the same that’s offered to anyone who says yes to Jesus. Anyone who repents and believes in Jesus Christ for salvation. It’s not just a ticket to get into heaven, but an invitation into an abundant life in Jesus that starts right now.