popularity

Fellowship of the Unashamed

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I know I’ve probably posted this previously, but it’s still worth checking out. I remember distinctly being blown away by the radical sentiment of the author. I found out recently that he was a young pastor in Zimbabwe who was martyred for his faith and a little poem was found among his papers that went something like this:

“I’m a part of the fellowship of the unashamed.
The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line.
The decision has been made. I’m a disciple of
Jesus Christ. I won’t look back, let up, slow down,
back away, or be still. My past is redeemed. My present
makes sense and my future is secure.
I’m done and finished with low living, sight walking,
small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams,
tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap living, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position,
promotions, plaudits, or popularity.
I don’t have to be right, or first, or tops,
or recognized, or praised, or rewarded.
I live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience,
lift by prayer, and labor by Holy Spirit power.
My face is set. My gait is fast. My goal is heaven.
My road may be narrow, my way rough, my companions few,
but my guide is reliable and my mission is clear. I will not be bought,
compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back,
deluded or delayed.

I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice or hesitate in the
presence of the adversary.
I will not negotiate at the table of the enemy,
ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander
in the maze of mediocrity.
I won’t give up, shut up, or let up until
I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up,
and preached up for the cause of Christ.

I am a disciple of Jesus.
I must give until I drop, preach until all know,
and work until He comes.
And when He does come for His own,
He’ll have no problems recognizing me.
My colors will be clear!”

Whoo boy, that’s good.

Elvis Turns 80?

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Elvis-Presley

So, today would have been Elvis Presley’s 80th birthday. August 16 will mark 38 years since he passed away very suddenly in 1977 and left the music world in mourning. People still show up at Graceland on the anniversary of his death almost 40 years later to mourn and grieve his passing.

I was a huge Elvis fan when I was a kid. Maybe it’s because my dad loved Elvis’ music. Maybe it was because even at a young age, I connected with the singer who grew up in Memphis and never forgot where he came from even after he became mega-successful.

Elvis is a reminder to all of us that fame can be the best and worst thing to happen to a person. It’s the best because all their dreams come true and it can be the worst because all the scrutiny and pressure on that person increases a thousandfold and any character flaws that person has are magnified and exposed in a myriad of ways.

So maybe that’s why I haven’t been hugely successful and popular with my blog. Yeah, I’ll go with that.

I’ve heard stories about how Elvis never lost his love for Gospel music and always sung spiritual and sacred songs at his concerts. I can’t speak into the man’s beliefs, but to me that says something. It reminds me of my grandmother who passed away from Alzheimer’s a few years back. She couldn’t tell you her address or probably remember your name, but she could still remember the old hymns that she grew up loving.

There’s power in those songs, both old and new. When Andre Crouch sang about the blood that never loses its power, he was singing powerful truth.

So I watched a couple of Elvis movies and remembered that as an actor, Elvis was a really good singer. His movies aren’t the best ever made and can be painfully bad at times, but they’re still fun to watch.

I personally would much rather listen to his Gospel recordings.

Seasons

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image

The writer of Ecclesiastes talked about there being a season for everything in life– a time to be born and a time to die, a time to laugh and a time to mourn, etc.

I’ve found that to be very true. Especially in my social life.

There have been times when I have constantly been around people and there are times when I’ve felt alone. There have been times when I felt very popular and times when it seemed like I was the only one not invited to all the social activities I was seeing plastered all over social media.

I’ve come to terms with that.

I am who I am, regardless of whether that makes me popular or not. I have friends who I still see on a regular basis and some that I don’t see nearly as much as I used to. Again, that’s okay.

It doesn’t matter who else knows me and knows where I am when God does. While it  would be nice to occasionally hang out with celebrities (and who hasn’t daydreamed about that?) and have some of them know your name, the best part of all is that the God of the universe not only knows your name but has it engraved on the palms of His hands.

That’s worth celebrating.

So maybe I spend a night or two alone while people I know are off having a grand time at places I wasn’t invited to. I’ll live. Things like that don’t bother me anymore.

It took a very long time for me to get to this point. I don’t claim to have fully arrived or to be 100% mature about all this, but I am so much further along than I was two years ago.

That’s the key– not so much looking at how far you have to go but seeing how far you’ve already come and the progress, no matter how small it seems, that you’ve made. That’s what really matters.

 

It’s A Good Feeling When . . .

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Elizabethtown-Panerai

It’s a good feeling when you can finally be you– the real you– with no shame or embarrassment. That you can be a full-on goober and not care what anybody else thinks. That you can be the ultimate anti-hipster and go against all that is hip and trendy and not give a rat’s . . . tail.

It’s a good feeling when people walk out of your life and you can smile and wave goodbye and move forward. When you know the people who mind don’t matter and the people who matter don’t mind. The people in your life are God’s blessing to you. When He removes people from your life, it’s often a bigger– though underappreciated– blessing. You never really know what He protected and saved you from when He did that.

It’s a good feeling when you’re content with who you are and realize the best things in life can’t be bought or sold or even valued. When you hear your Abba’s voice and decide that that one voice speaks more meaningfully to you than all the other voices of popularity and fame and success.

It’s a good feeling when you can finally forgive yourself for not being all things to all people, for not being perfect all the time, for being a forgiven sinner and not a first-rate saint. It really is a good feeling when you can not only hear God calling you His beloved in whom He is well pleased, but receive it and live out of it and never ever get over it.

So go live boldly. Make big mistakes and fail ridiculously. As one of my favorite quotes from a movies goes, “Have the courage to fail big and stick around and make ’em wonder why you’re still smilin’.”

And most of all, go out and love being you because not even you can love being you as much as God does.

 

What I look for in a future wife

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smile

Hello. It’s 2:49 on January 1, 2011, and I can’t sleep, so I blog. I was thinking about what I would want in a mate. Here are some things I want.

She has to have a great smile. Physical beauty would be nice, but the best kind of beauty is that which radiates from the inside and shows itself in acts of compassion and kindness. I want who I marry to be caring and generous and kind and compassionate.

I hope she would be totally in love with me as I will be with her. Someone who looked at me and saw something that every other girl didn’t see. Maybe even something I didn’t see. She will see me through eyes of grace.

I want a woman whose heart is totally enthralled and captivated by Jesus. Not someone who professes Christianity but whose lifestyle is no different than anybody else who doesn’t profess anything. She has to love Jesus way more than she loves me.

I want a woman who is at rest in who she is and where she is, not eternally stuck on being and acting like she’s forever 21. Someone who loves quiet nights and good conversation over hitting night clubs and staying out all night. Someone who loves people and going places, but isn’t constantly seeking the next rush or thrill.

In short, I want a woman whose heart beats with the heartbeat of God. Who is laying down her life everyday for the cause of Christ.

If I want that, I have to be that. I have to be a man of God with character who seeks after Jesus instead of striving after success and popularity. I have to learn to give my life away daily for Christ.

One of the best parts of 2010 was that my hopes for a wife have revived again and I think there really is someone out there for me who will love me for me not who I will become. Someone to whom I won’t be a substitute for someone else or way down on their list, but first on their list.

I know God is faithful and He can do way better than anything I could ever have hoped or dreamed.

Amen and amen!

My prayer for this Wednesday

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O Great Lover of my soul, so captivate my senses that all I see is You, all I hear is Your voice and all I long to do is Your will. Make every breath a prayer, every thought a praise and every action an offering. Speak, O God, through my daily life so that everyone may know how You can turn ashes into beauty, dross into gold and something worthless into something priceless.  Remind me that there is no such thing as a lost cause or a hopeless case with You, because NOTHING is impossible for You!

Help me to see with your eyes, feel with your heart, reach out with your hands, and run with your feet toward the broken, outcast, and hopeless ones. Break my heart like your heart was broken over what sin does to Your people. Give me Your passion to see Your people unified, singing with one voice the praises that are due You, lifting up holy hands in prayer and laying down their lives for Your kingdom.

Forgive me the times I have slandered Your name by professing Your name with my lips and denying the same with my lifestyle. Forgive me for seeking to curry favor with the popular when You have always sought after the widows and orphans and outcasts of the world. Forgive me for making so much of myself and so little of You. Forgive me the times when I was silent out of fear instead of being Your voice to the lost and hurting. Forgive me my weakness and unbelief.

Send your Spirit in a mighty outpouring over this land. Let your revival sweep over your Church and let it begin in me. Awake your peoples to be glad and shout for joy at the Eternal Song that is You. May the buildings were Your people meet be shaken to the core, and the people inside broken and mended into new creations. Let us never quit until we have testified of Your goodness to every tongue, tribe, and nation on the planet.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Lies I have believed

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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.

Blessed are those who are persecuted

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“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).

Persecution is a dirty word these days in American Christian circles. In fact, any word associated with discomfort or pain is frowned upon. We are all supposed to be happily pursuing the American dream and finding fulfillment in Christ as He grants our every wish and never puts us through anything that would remotely resemble suffering. Right?

I think not.

Jesus said that if we follow Him, truly follow Him, and do what He said, we will be persecuted. Not maybe. Not possibly. We will. Maybe the fact that we aren’t facing persecution is that we look more like the world than we do Christ. Satan doesn’t spend effort attacking something or someone who is not a threat. The world won’t either. If we are too busy trying to fit in with the world rather than showing the world how it can be saved, we won’t be persecuted. But we won’t really know what the kingdom of Heaven is like or how sweet knowing Jesus can be.

The Message says, “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.”

The key word here is commitment. Are we really committed enough to follow Jesus even if it actually costs us something? Like our popularity, success, reputations, health, and, God forbid, our lives. Too many of those who profess to believe will follow when following is easy and when it is comfortable, but not when it gets tough or when it becomes unpopular. The only ones who can see it through are those who have been redeemed, forgiven and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Only those who have the power of the resurrection inside can face death, because they know that that power that raised Jesus from the grave will also raise us up to eternal life.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to us when we are persecuted and persevere. What is the kingdom of God? God Himself. God’s rule and authority and power and majesty and glory. In the book of Revelation, John writes that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and by the fact that they did not love their lives even unto death. Only love could motivate anyone to do these things. Only God’s love in us.

God, captivate my heart so that I will be willing to follow You and commit myself to You, regardless of where You send me, regardless of who responds, and regardless of what it costs me. I want to give my life away so that Your kingdom can advance upon the earth and You can reign. Make me your fuel, so Your glory can burn all the more brightly.

As always, I believe. Or I should say in this case I want to believe. Help my unbelief.

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.