salvation

My Eye on the Goal

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I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back” (Philippians 3:12-14, The Message).

That’s the key, isn’t it. Keeping my eye on the goal?

But what does that look like? Anymore, there’s no such thing as working 40 years for one company and retiring with a gold watch and a pension. The average person will work for several different places across many types of jobs over his or her lifetime.

But what is the goal then? If you read the Apostle Paul in other places, he talks about keeping our eyes on Christ. To keep your eyes on Christ is to keep your eyes on the goal, because Christ is the goal. Not retirement. Not comfortable living. Not a pension. Jesus is the goal.

Not only that but Christ is the means to that goal. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that the poor in spirit are blessed because the Kingdom of God is theirs. That means those of us who know we have nothing to offer God are blessed because we have nowhere to turn and nowhere to lean but on Jesus and the promises of God.

Still, it’s quite easy to get distracted by all the shiny baubles of the world. It’s easy in the midst of a storm to focus on the wind and the waves and take our eyes off of the Master of those winds and waves. We are so easily distracted and forgetful, which is why we need the constant reminder of keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

How do we keep our eyes on Jesus? By preaching the gospel to ourselves at least once a day every day. We need to remember that we’re sinners in need of a Savior. We need to remember that salvation comes through faith by means of repentance and trust in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. We need to remember that we’re saved by faith alone, not by any works or good deeds of ours. We need to remember that Jesus promised that those who trust God with their lives would receive eternal abundant life not just in the hereafter but in the here and now.

May you and I never stop encouraging each other, especially in these last days, to keep our eyes on Jesus as the goal of everything we do and everything we are.

Broken Things

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“God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever” (Vance Havner).

I think if you’re feeling broken beyond compare, you might just be at the point where God is about to do something incredible in you and through you. I don’t mean that you should beat yourself up and think you’re worthless. I think it’s about recognizing that each one of us has been profoundly affected by the original fall and are broken to one degree or another.

The beautiful part of the Gospel is that it’s for broken people. Not only that, God uses broken people to reach other broken people. What the world wants to throw away, God repurposes for His glory. What the world sees as worthless, God sees as priceless.

I love the verse in the Bible that talks about how God uses nobodies to shame those who think that they’re somebodies. 1 Corinthians 1:27 in the New Living Translation says “ Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.”

That’s me. At times, I have been foolish and powerless. We all have. Face it, we’re nothing apart from the sustaining grace of God. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing (at least nothing of eternal significance and value). Even our next heartbeat is a gift from God.

I need to remember that every time I start to think that I am anything on my own apart from God and what He has done in me. Anytime I start thinking that I’m better than anyone else, I need to remember that it took as much of Jesus’ blood to save me as it did anyone else. Who knows what I could have been apart from the saving grace of God?

“You can have my heart, though it isn’t new
It’s been used and broken, and only comes in blue
It’s been down a long road, and it got dirty along the way
If I give it to you, will you make it clean and wash the shame away?

You can have my heart, if you don’t mind broken things
You can have my life; you don’t mind these tears
Well, I heard that you make old things new, so I give these pieces all to you
If you want it, you can have my heart

So beyond repair, nothing I could do
I tried to fix it myself, but it was only worse when I got through
Then you walk right into my darkness and you speak words so sweet
And you hold me like a child, ’til my frozen tears fall at your feet

You can have my heart, if you don’t mind broken things
You can have my life if you don’t mind these tears
Well, I heard that you make old things new
So I give these pieces up to you
If you want it, you can have my heart” (Julie Miller).

Jesus Is Lord

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“Paul often referred to himself as a ‘slave’ of Jesus Christ. Because we’ve grown up in an American democracy, few of us understand the radical nature of Paul’s description.

Paul was literally saying that Jesus bought him. In His death and resurrection, Jesus paid for Paul. Jesus bought his career, desires, dreams, talents—his total life!

Paul had no will of his own, no dreams of his own. They all belonged to Jesus.

Christians often exclaim ‘Jesus is Lord!’ without much thought to what we’re actually saying. When we say this, we’re saying: ‘Jesus owns us. He’s the boss.’

We’re committed to doing WHAT Jesus says to do, WHEN He says to do it, the WAY He says to do it.

Our lives are not our own. We’ve been bought with a price—a terrible, unspeakable price. And how we live now tells the world exactly what we think of Jesus and His death for us” (Mike Glenn).

I sometimes think that if we truly meant what we said when we proclaim that Jesus is Lord, our lives would look totally different. At least mine would.

Can I live in open sin and truthfully say that Jesus is Lord? No.

Can I be permissive about what the Bible forbids and say that Jesus is Lord? No.

Can I call my own shots and ask God to bless what I’ve already decided to do and still claim that Jesus is Lord? Absolutely not.

Can I sing about the joy of the Lord and then live with a sour face and a sad disposition because my true greatest joy is in something other than God that can be taken away, then shout at the top of my lungs that Jesus is Lord? No way.

If Jesus is my Lord, then I have no rights. What He says, goes. Period. I submit to His will 100%. Otherwise, I’m just paying lip service and I am still my own lord. Not Jesus.

The irony of the Bible is that true freedom isn’t doing what you want because then you become a slave to your whims and desires. True freedom comes from being a slave to Jesus and finding your true self in the process. You’re not beholden to anything or anyone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

May we live like Jesus as Lord as often as we say Jesus is Lord. Then more people will want to know Jesus as Savior and Lord.

No Matter What

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“Our prayers for guidance (or for anything else) really begin here: I trust him. This requires abandonment. We are no longer saying, ‘If I trust him, he’ll give me such and such,’ but ‘I trust him. Let him give me or withhold from me what he chooses” (Elisabeth Elliot, God’s Guidance: A Slow & Certain Light).

It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to bargain with God. Something along the lines of “I’ll trust you if you will give me a) a job, b) a spouse, or c) lots of money.”

It feels more like a transaction than faith. If God does X, then I’ll do Y. The trouble is that I’m in no position to bargain with God. He’s the Eternal Lord and King of the Universe who has every right to destroy me because of my sin, and I’m the one who’s only alive at this moment because of His grace.

The truth is that if all God ever did was to save me from an eternity in hell and leave me alone, that would be way more than I deserve. That alone would merit my praise from now until 10,000 X 10,000 years have passed.

But that’s not all God did. He has sustained me and blessed me and been with me through every kind of joy and sorrow, triumph and trial. All He asks in return is my allegiance. My loyalty. My surrender. Me.

It’s not wrong to ask God for things, but the more I spend time with God and in His word and the more I grow in Christlikeness, the things I ask for change and my desire to have them changes.

God doesn’t owe me anything. Even the next breath is a gift. I owe God everything, more than I could possibly ever pay in a million lifetimes. Yet all God asks for is me. I think that’s a good enough reason to trust Him no matter what.

Unglamorous

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“There is nothing thrilling about a labouring man’s work, but it is the labouring man who makes the conceptions of the genius possible; and it is the labouring saint who makes the conceptions of his Master possible. You labour at prayer and results happen all the time from God’s standpoint. What an astonishment it will be to find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you had been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

That’s the part about life that no one really tells you but you learn eventually. 99% of life is unexciting and unadventurous, despite what you may have seen in just about every single movie and television show ever made.

Most of living is showing up and being faithful in your job, at your church, and in your home. Very rarely will anything you do be worthy of a news story or a newspaper headline (or a news website headline to make it 21st century). Hardly anyone outside of your immediate circle will know about most of what you do.

But that’s where God does His best work. When you are committed to be faithful in the small and menial tasks God has placed in front of you, then God can multiply those offerings like the fish and the loaves. He can open up new avenues of service that would not have been available if you weren’t already doing God’s work.

Each person who belongs to Jesus can reach those no one else can reach. Not your pastor. Not your worship leader. Not anyone but you. And your witness is showing up every day and not giving up. That will open up opportunities for you to be able to give a reason for the hope you have in Jesus and lead to gospel conversations.

I truly believe that those who have done the most for the Kingdom of God are those you and I will never know about 99% of the time. They will be the behind the scenes folks who went to work every day, came home and loved their families, and showed up every Sunday to worship and serve.

If you’re not satisfied with where you are or what you’re doing, maybe reframe it as a way of serving Jesus Himself rather than working for an employer. See what you’re doing for your family as serving Jesus. Remember that as you minister to the least of these through your church you are ministering to Jesus Himself.

God honors the longsuffering effort of patient faithfulness. If you can serve not out of your own strength but out of the overflow of the joy of the Lord that comes from time with the Lord, God sees and rewards you and those you serve. You may not get rich or famous, but you will have God’s favor which is by far the best reward of all.

Knowing God

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“We know God but as men born blind know the fire: they know that there is such as thing as fire, for they feel it warm them, but what it is they know not. So, that there is a God we know, but what He is we know little, and indeed we can never search Him out to perfection; a finite creature can never fully comprehend that which is infinite” (Thomas Manton).

As I grow older, I become increasingly thankful that God has made Himself known. I realize more and more that apart from that revelation, I could never hope to know about God, much less know Him.

Romans 1 says that there is enough evidence in nature to prove there is a God. Romans 1 also says that because of sin, our minds are corrupted to the point where we can’t seek after God unless He seeks after us first. Until God shines a light on our hearts, we remain in the dark.

I love the idea that in heaven, we will never fully exhaust all there is to know about God. That’s what will keep our worship from becoming dull (plus having the experience of being in the presence of the living God).

Every time we worship God in heaven, He reveals another aspect of His character. Because God is infinite, there is no end to the joy of learning new things about God. After each time, our worship grows deeper and fuller and richer.

Here on earth, we’re still learning as well. Often because of the old sin nature that’s still within us, we have to unlearn some bad thinking about God in order to be able to fully grasp who He is. But God never tires of us or grows impatient with us or decides that we aren’t worth the effort anymore.

That should make Sunday worship a little sweeter. That hopefully will help you to sing a little louder and live a little bolder as you and I draw closer and closer to our faith one day being made sight.

Known by the Scars

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I have a few scars. One is on my left hand, a reminder from when I was in a wreck back in the day. I pulled out in front of a full-sized truck, thinking it was a four-way stop. It was not.

Thankfully, I ended up being okay aside from a deep cut on my hand from the dashboard and being generally stiff and sore the next day from the impact. My scar is a reminder of how God saved me from my own foolishness that day.

I remember that Jesus also has scars. His resurrected and glorified body still had the nail piercings on His hands and feet, as well as the wound in His side. Those were the proofs that it was really and truly Jesus raised from the dead.

But also it’s a way of giving value to all those who have scars of their own. Some are more obvious than others. Some are hidden, but some are in places where we can’t hide them. Some of us are ashamed or embarrassed by our scars.

But scars tell a story where you survived. Scars are the reminder of something that could have killed you but didn’t. Scars are proof of a divine intervention. In a way, when you can wear your scars proudly, you identify with Jesus and His own scars.

Most of all, your scars should remind you that Jesus bore the wounds that gave Him the scars for you and for me. He was wounded for our transgressions, as it says in Isaiah 53. By His stripes, we are healed. He bore what we should have born because of our sins, and we get the rewards of a perfect life that should only belong to Jesus. That’s the great exchange. That’s the gospel.

Scars can be something to hide, like those humiliating moments or shameful parts of the past, or they can be part of your testimony. A pastor once said that true healing is evident when that part of your story that you swore you’d never tell anybody becomes the first line of your testimony.

“Do you know what St. Peter says to everyone who tries to get into heaven?” 
…
“Peter says, ‘Don’t you have any scars?’ And when most would respond proudly, ‘Well, no, no I don’t,’ Peter says, ‘Why not? Was there nothing worth fighting for?” (Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing).

Tremble, Tremble and Repent

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This isn’t supposed to be a brimstone and hellfire type post (although sometimes I do think we need to bring back preaching that isn’t afraid to step on a few toes while proclaiming the whole gospel for the whole person).

I do think that American Christianity has progressed to the point where it barely resembles New Testament Christianity. People can come to most churches and feel comfortable living in sin and not once feel convicted about their lifestyle choices and behaviors. There is very little accountability and next to no discipline at any given local church.

Yes, Jesus did say to the woman caught in adultery that He didn’t condemn her, but He also added “Go and sin no more.”

I think the American church needs to champion social justice AND personal holiness. It’s not an either/or, but a both/and. Read Isaiah 58 if you want to know what biblical social justice looks like, but also read Romans 12:1-2 (and many other passages) that compel us to be holy and set apart.

There’s a lot of emphasis on getting people saved, but not much on discipling them afterward. The result is that many people sitting in any given church service on Sunday know very little about the Bible or the faith they’ve professed to believe. Very few actually know how to live out that faith and apply it to every day situations.

I do think that the American church needs revival. Not the kind where people get saved (although that would be awesome) as much as the kind where the people who are saved start acting and living like it. Including yours truly.

It starts and ends with the Bible. It’s about preaching the gospel to yourself all day every day. It’s about falling at the feet of Jesus and declaring your dependence on Him once again. It’s about living a Romans 12:1-2 life of sacrificial worship that is radically different than the world. It’s about loving God and loving others the way God in Jesus has loved us.

Face Like Flint

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“The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross is the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God” (Oswald Chambers).

I was blessed to be able to watch episodes 1 and 2 of The Chosen Season 5 in theaters. So far, it’s set during the Lord’s Supper with flashbacks to events earlier in the last week of Jesus’ ministry and life. I was able to more fully appreciate the totality of the weight that was on Jesus during these last days. In fact, you might even say that the weight of the world was on His shoulders.

He saw lost and hurting people. He saw misguided and corrupt religious leaders not only not helping people find salvation, but at times actively hindering people from doing so. He saw a temple that had become a market where money mattered over worship and where the house of prayer had become a den of thieves.

Jonathan Roumie portrayed all the inner turmoil that Jesus went through. Sometimes in movies about the Christ, I feel like the divine part gets played up at the expense of the humanity, and Jesus can come across as divinely disinterested and maybe a little bored. But this series has brought Jesus down to earth by emphasizing His humanness but not at the expense of his divine nature.

I remembered as I witness the emotions of Jesus during these first two episodes that Jesus was not called the Man of Sorrows for no reason. It wasn’t a catchy title. Jesus’ heart really did break over the lostness of the world He encountered — first, metaphorically during three years of ministry then literally on the cross when the spear pierced His side.

I can’t wait for the next episodes. And also, I’m dreading these next few scenes a bit. I know where this is heading. It’s not the rom-com portion of the program. In the next few days, we have betrayal, arrest, false trial, execution and death. All leading up to Good Friday. All leading up to Easter Sunday. But the good news is that as the old sermon said, it may be Friday, but Sunday’s comin’.

More than ever, I really can’t wait for that Sunday to get here.

Praying for Muslims During Ramadan

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This year, I tried something new. I signed up through the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention to pray 15 minutes a day for Muslims during the season of Ramadan (February 28-March 30).

It was the first time I’d ever signed up to pray daily for any length of time. I quickly learned that 15 minutes of praying can seem like a loooong time when it’s just you trying to pray what’s in your head. Thankfully, the IMB posted daily reminders to pray with several prompts to guide my intercession. Plus, I found some other helpful websites to guide my prayer time.

Hopefully, this is not a humble brag. It should be something like if I can do this, so can you or anyone else. I believe that all of the greatest revivals in history began with people on their knees in prayer (or in my case laying in bed in prayer). I believe this time is no exception.

One particular website that caught my attention was from an organization called Missio Nexus. They have a radical prayer goal of seeing 10% of all the Muslims in the world come to saving faith in Jesus by 2028. By my reckoning, there are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world currently, so that would mean 180 million worshippers in heaven who formerly prayed to Allah. Or better yet, round that number up to 200 million. Can you imagine how amazing of an impact that would have on the entire world?

I hope every one of you will find a prayer passion, whether it be for an unreached people group or people from a different religion or even people whose paths you cross wherever you live, work, or play. It really does open your eyes to the great big world that exists outside of your and my needs and wants. Definitely keep praying for those needs and wants because God tells us to do that, but also be mindful of the Great Commission to take the gospel into all the world and the Revelation 5 scene with worshippers from every people group, language, continent, color, and nationality. That’s truly where God’s heart lies.