Ragamuffin Gospel

Revisiting Habakkuk 3

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“Even if the fig tree does not blossom
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
If the olive trees fail to give fruit
    and the fields produce no food,
If the flocks die far from the fold
    and there are no cattle in the stalls;
Then I will still rejoice in the Eternal!
    I will rejoice in the God who saves me!
The Eternal Lord is my strength!
    He has made my feet like the feet of a deer;
He allows me to walk on high places” (Habakkuk 3:17-19, The Voice).

You can read a verse or verses from the Bible over and over and still miss it. You can hear a familiar passage of Scripture read over a number of years and still not get it.

Habakkuk is speaking here about the purest form of worship. It’s one thing to be able to sing praise songs when your bank account is fat and happy and you have a thriving family and your life is in perfect order.

It’s quite another to raise your hands after being handed a pink slip from your employer. It’s another story to live out a worshipful lifestyle when your checking account is deep in the red.

Worship is simply about God. More than any gifts or blessings from God, we celebrate God for Who He is. Period. God deserves worship on the basis of being God.

If God never chose to do one more blessed thing for me, if God simply let me be and never spoke to me again, He’d still be worthy of my worship. If all God ever did for me was to save my soul on that day many years ago, that would be more than enough reason to spend all the rest of the days of my eternity thanking Him.

Some of the most beautiful worship comes out of dark places and broken hearts. The most powerful testimony is still “Yet though He slay me, still will I trust in Him.”

God deserves worship because God is God. Because God is enough. Because God alone is my deepest desire and need.

 

 

Searching for Sugar Man (and Significance)

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“Home is acceptance” (a line from the documentary, Searching for Sugar Man).

I finally got around to watching a documentary called Searching for Sugar Man. It’s a case of the truth being stranger than fiction. A man records an album back in 1970 that sells virtually no copies in America, yet a bootleg copy finds its way over to South Africa where it blows up. The man known as Rodriguez becomes a superstar on the same level as Elvis Presley or the Beatles. But no one knows who he is. In fact, most people believe he died years ago.

I love stories like that. I love rooting for the underdog. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to most of the music I listen to which falls outside the popular radio-friendly songs most people like.

I love that Jesus loved the underdogs. He not only acknowledge them (which was polar opposite to the way most religious leaders kowtowed to those with money and influence) but went out of His way to reach out to them in love. They were the ones He chose to use in building His kingdom. They were the first evangelists and missionaries and apologists.

In the documentary, it shows the man Rodriguez ended up doing manual construction labor with no clue as to how insanely popular he was in South Africa. I wonder how many will never know how far the ripple effect from their daily random acts of kindness goes. I wonder how many realize that there’s a cloud of witnesses watching and rooting specifically for them as they run their race.

I love how Rodriguez finally realized his dream of playing in front of a packed stadium of adoring fans. It took much longer than he would have imagined it could take. In fact, his dream was so long in coming that he had probably all but given up on it.

I love how God’s promises are never slow or delayed (at least not in His eyes). All of them arrive right on time. None of them are in vain. Every one that He spoke– even the ones that still await fulfillment– are as certain as if they were written in the past tense.

So I do recommend Searching for Sugar Man. I also recommend maybe once in a while  checking out artists that might be a little obscure. For me, the reward is always worth the little extra effort to find them out.

 

Still B-L-E-S-S-E-D

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If you read the first chapter of Ephesians, you will notice how often the Apostle Paul makes use of the word blessed.

Blessed. It’s a word that people use in any number of ways with any number of different meanings.

The idea Paul wants to convey when he speaks of blessing and being blessed is one of having God’s favor over you.

That doesn’t necessarily mean instant and immense wealth. Sometimes it means walking through some dark valleys and difficult pathways through circumstances that are hard to understand but in the end yield a reward and ultimate glory for God.

I’m blessed.

I have God. I have Jesus. I have salvation that I can’t lose and a love that I don’t deserve. I have family and friends who continue to love me day in and day out and so many who model Jesus for me.

I woke up this morning. That’s a huge blessing that so many (including me) will take for granted until someone they love is snatched away in death.

I’m blessed even if tomorrow I lose my job and I end up on the streets. I’m blessed even if I don’t have anything to eat tomorrow. I’m blessed even if I end up alone.

I’m blessed because God in Jesus is my blesser and my blessing. He’s both my giver and gift. He’s the journey and the destination. He’s the race that I run and the prize at the end.

Once you realize how blessed you are, it changes everything. It changes how you see, how you speak, how you live, how you love.

Blessings aren’t for hoarding. You and I are blessed in order that we might be a blessing to someone else. That’s where the greatest blessings come– in the very act of giving away blessings.

So, on this Tuesday, March 29, I say once again that I’m blessed.

 

A Living Sermon

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There’s an older gentleman that I see on Mondays when I volunteer at Room in the Inn. He isn’t one of the homeless men who get bussed in. He’s one of the many volunteers who faithfully devote their Monday nights to serving these men.

I noticed one night that he was missing part of his right arm. I didn’t think a whole lot about it. I figured it was probably something to do with diabetes. Then I read this and my world got blown up (in a good way):

The Best Sermon I Never Preached

I don’t need to add anything to that. I teared up a bit as I heard one of the volunteers read this tonight at our last Room in the Inn for the season. The guy who read it got choked up.

The lessons for tonight are 1) don’t take any part of your life for granted, 2) appreciate each moment as the rare and precious gift that it is, and 3) remember that worship is still the best medicine there is for what ails you.

 

Easter Even

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“If Easter says anything to us today, it says this: You can put truth in a grave, but it won’t stay there. You can nail it to a cross, wrap it in winding sheets and shut it up in a tomb, but it will rise!” (Clarence W. Hall)

Sometimes Saturday can seem to take forever.

I don’t mean the Saturday where you get to sleep in a little later and take it a little easier.

I mean that day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. That day between utter despair and renewed hope.

For most of the time most of us live in a perpetual Saturday. If you look at the headlines, you will see almost nothing but tragedy and horror staring back at you from the front pages or the biggest bold print on the news website.

How do you cope with all that devastation without the reality of the resurrection? How do you even begin to process all the evil that goes on without the knowledge that Jesus will one day ultimately set all things right?

The only way I can get through the crucifixion part of the story is that I already know the rest of the story. I know that death and the grave are not the end. They don’t get the final word.

Those who are staring the imminent loss of loved ones in the face can look to Jesus who wept over His friend Lazarus but then proceeded to call Him out of His four-day old grave clothes and decay into life. The same Jesus who looked His own death in the face and stepped out of His own tomb on a bright and sunny Sunday morning.

Without that, those who cling to faith are the most pitiful and pathetic people. With it, they are the ones who have the most reason for joy.

It was Friday and it’s been a long Saturday, but Sunday’s comin’!

 

Good Friday Reflections

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“Good Friday is much more than reliving the passion of Jesus; it is entering into solidarity with the passion of all people of our planet…In Jesus all human suffering is collected. The broken heart of Jesus is the broken heart of God. The broken heart of God is the broken heart of the world” (Henri Nouwen).

Once again, I went through a Good Friday prayer experience where I prayed through the seven stations of the cross (because us Baptists aren’t quite as ambitious as those Catholics who have fourteen stations).

I made an intentional effort not to hurry through this year. I sat and meditated and wrote down my thoughts. I read the Scripture and I studied the paintings depicting the events of Good Friday such as Pilate washing his hands after the trial and the Romans forcing Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’ cross.

The thought that kept coming back was this: I too often take for granted the cost of my salvation. It might have been free for me, but it wasn’t free. It cost Jesus in sweat, blood, pain, and life.

It struck me that Jesus could have at any moment on this day decided to bail out. He would have been perfectly within His rights to choose not to die for those who had been reprobates and enemies of God. Yet He saw it through to the end. He stayed the course until He breathed His last.

I know what it’s like to have friends bail on me. Maybe they decided I just wasn’t worth it anymore. Maybe it was just their season of life no longer matched mine.

I’ve probably written off a few people in my time as well. Not that I’m proud of it, but I did.

I’m unceasingly grateful Jesus could see me at my very worst, when I was most cowardly and fearful, and in that moment choose to go all the way to Calvary for me. He chose the nails for me over the comfortable existence He had known in heaven.

Good Friday is only good because of what we’ll be celebrating in two days. In fact, if not for Sunday and what happened then, all my prayers and piety and promises are all in vain.

But thanks be to God that while it may look bleak and hopeless on Friday, Sunday’s comin’!

A Maundy Thursday Prayer

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I copied this from another blog because it spoke so deeply to me on this Maundy Thursday. Here is a prayer from Henri Nouwen:

“I am looking to you, Lord. You have said so many loving words. Your heart has spoken so clearly. Now you want to show me even more clearly how much you love me. Knowing that your Father has put everything in your hands, that you have come from God and are returning to God, you remove your outer garments and, taking a towel, you wrap it around your waist, pour water into a basin and begin to wash my feet, and then wipe them with the towel you are wearing …

You look at me with utter tenderness, saying, ‘I want you to be with me. I want you to have a full share in my life. I want you to belong to me as much as I belong to my Father. I want to wash you completely clean so that you and I can be one and so that you can do to others what I have done to you.’

I am looking at you again, Lord. You stand up and invite me to the table. As we are eating, you take bread, say the blessing, break the bread, and give it to me. ‘Take and eat,’ you say, ‘this is my body given for you.’ Then you take a cup, and, after giving thanks, you hand it to me, saying, ‘This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant poured out for you.’ Knowing that your hour has come to pass from this world to your Father and having loved me, you now love me to the end. You give me everything that you have and are. You pour out for me your very self. All the love that you carry for me in your heart now becomes manifest. You wash my feet and then give me your own body and blood as food and drink” (Henri Nouwen).

Maundy Thursday is the best example of true love. It’s love that is expressed not just in kind words and poetic sentiments but is lived out in sacrificial deeds. It is the supreme selfless love that goes out to people undeserving and often unwilling to receive such love.

May that kind of love fully dwell within our hearts so that we can in turn show love in the breaking of bread and washing of feet and selfless service with those with whom we live and work and play.

 

God’s Sweet Approval

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“Happy is the person who can hold up under the trials of life. At the right time, he’ll know God’s sweet approval and will be crowned with life. As God has promised, the crown awaits all who love Him” (James 1:12, VOICE)

Sometimes, the trials of life can feel devastating. A family member passes away. You lose your job and go through a financial crises. You deal with a debilitating injury or illness like cancer.

Sometimes, it can be the small things that get you down. Maybe a friend who normally texts you back didn’t respond this time. Maybe you had a Murphy’s law kind of day at work where everything that could go wrong did. Maybe it’s nothing specific and you just feel forgotten and abandoned.

Whatever it is, you can always hold up under trials by holding on to God and His sweet approval. The approval of God is not what awaits you at the end of the trial. It’s what gets you through the trial. If you belong to Christ, it belongs to you already.

Knowing God is in your corner and on your side makes any difficult circumstance bearable. Knowing God is still the God who fights for you in your battles makes even the hardest days easier to navigate.

No matter what you’re under, God is still watching over you. No matter how long the wait seems, God’s patience toward you goes longer. Remember, He was not willing that you should perish but that you should have eternal, everlasting, abundant life. He really  is for you.

Remember what God in Jesus went through for you. He thought that you were to die for. He still does.

That’s a reminder that all of us need halfway through another crazy and unpredictable week that never seems to let up.

It’s not that you’ve got this as much as He’s got you.

 

Thoughts on Light and Dark

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“What we are telling you now is the very message we heard from Him: God is purelight, undimmed by darkness of any kind. If we say we have an intimate connection with the Father but we continue stumbling around in darkness, then we are lying because we do not live according to truth. If we walk step by step in the light, where the Father is, then we are ultimately connected to each other through the sacrifice of Jesus His Son. His blood purifies us from all our sins” (1 John 1:5-7, The Voice).

It struck me tonight how staggering the word picture of light and dark really is. I mean, you really can’t get more polar opposites than light and dark. It is literally a night and day difference.

John speaks of believers who formerly walked in darkness  who now walk in light.

That’s not about being a little nicer and a little more patient. That’s not about being a better and more improved version of yourself.

That’s about as radical a change as you can have. That’s about the difference between being dead and being alive.

It makes me wonder why there is such little difference between the lives of some believers and the lives of the unbelievers around them. If I’m truly walking in God’s light, how can I continue to act out of dark motives and desires?

I’m not suggesting that those who follow Jesus are supposed to be perfect. I am saying that they should look and sound different.

My favorite pastor once said that the problem that an unbelieving world has with Christians is not that they are too different from everybody else; it’s that they are too much the same. They speak a good game, but they don’t live the way they speak.

I can say that because I live that way too often. Too many of us are too good at being incognito Christians.

May God continue to lead us into a place where we strive to walk in the light and reflect the radical difference that comes from what only God can do.

 

Palm Sunday

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“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act” (Mahatma Gandhi).

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song” (Pope John Paul II).

“The gifts of the Master are these: freedom, life, hope, new direction, transformation, and intimacy with God. If the cross was the end of the story, we would have no hope. But the cross isn’t the end. Jesus didn’t escape from death; he conquered it and opened the way to heaven for all who will dare to believe. The truth of this moment, if we let it sweep over us, is stunning. It means Jesus really is who he claimed to be, we are really as lost as he said we are, and he really is the only way for us to intimately and spiritually connect with God again” (Steven James, Story).

So we have reached Palm Sunday, one week before Easter.

That means that in eight days, I can resume my social media activities.

More importantly, it reminds me that Easter and what it represents are never very far away.

Easter is more than bunnies and candy.

Easter is even more than wearing my Sunday best to attend church on Sundays as a kid.

Easter means that even though death doesn’t have the final say. It means that although there is a battle raging around us, it has already been won.

Easter means that there is no such thing as too late, too far gone, or hopeless.

If God could raise Jesus from the dead, there is nothing dead in your life that Jesus can’t resurrect.

Easter means there are no final goodbyes for those who are in Christ.

Easter means that Jesus wasn’t just a good man or a great example to follow but God in the flesh, Immanuel who came near to us who were far away so that we who were dead might live again.

That’s Easter.