theology

Just Love

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 3 Comments

just-love

A friend of mine told me about how God had recently impressed upon her heart lately the words, “JUST LOVE!” I think that’s God’s word to me, too.

What is the power that conquered death in all its forms and made the fear of death something that the believer no longer has over him or her? Just love.

What is the force that will still be around when all the dictators and kings and presidents have gone to their graves and kingdoms and empires have fallen? Just love.

What will be the power that outlasts hate, overcomes fear, overwhelms ignorance, and will be the last one standing? Just love.

What can’t be stopped by any army or weapon or group that has ever been and ever will be? What has survived centuries of attempts to snuff it out only to grow stronger with time? Just love.

What is God’s ultimate force He has used to end the dominion of sin and overthrow darkness and usher in a new Kingdom with new values where anyone is welcome, nobody is perfect and nothing is impossible? Just love.

What are we as believers called to do to see this Kingdom of God come and see multitudes coming to faith in the Messiah and King, Jesus? Just love.

What will overcome every obstacle and barrier and what will draw people to the God we serve and make them want to know Him? Just love.

What can mend your broken heart, refresh your weary spirit, renew your mind, and heal your sin-scarred body? Just love.

Just love and only love is what will win. God is love and His love for us is so powerful that nothing, not death or the grave or anything else, can keep Him from getting to us and taking us back. Nothing can separate us from Him. Nothing will cause His love for us to stop. Nothing will diminish His love for us in the slightest.

God’s love in us and through us WILL change the world. That one thing I believe with all that is in me!

Amen and amen!

I Love the Way God Works

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I am goofy. I admit that. I don’t think normally and I don’t act normally when I’m nervous (or even when I’m not nervous, for that matter). I am wearing a t-shirt right now that has a clown on it and says, “Normal people scare me.”

While I say all that in jest (mostly), I have to confess that I love the way God works in my life. I love the way He meets me where I am, loves me just as I am, and takes what I have in my hands, no matter how small and paltry and uses it in ways that astound me. I am always amazed at what God can do in and through me when I am surrendered and available. When I am prayed up, confessed up, spiritually armored up. Even when I’m not sometimes.

I love God’s grace because I need it. I love God’s forgiveness because I would be screwed without it. I love His spirit within me, because I know deep down that I couldn’t love anything at all without Him in me. And the more I know of God, the more I love Him. The more I learn about Him, the more I sense my need for Him. All I can do is open up my hands and receive. Even my so-called giving and ministry is simply what spills out of my open hands when I am receiving.

My goal in writing this blog is for you to love God and the way He works as much or more than I do. I want you to know how He sees you and that He is not mad or disappointed in you, but how He cheers for you and is for you and is always with you. How He can take the smallest beginning of surrender and transform your life into something amazing and miraculous. A life that will reflect the glory of God and that will make it impossible for anyone to remain neutral about the God in you. Hopefully, they will be drawn to a God who can make a broken mess into a beautiful masterpiece. Even if not, they won’t be able to see your life changed and remain the same themselves.

I love that God chooses people like me to work in and with. I love that God never gives up on those He chooses. I love that God’s in love with me (and He’s also crazy about you, too). I love that God can take this blog and send it places I would never have dreamed possible and have people read it that I never would have imagined would. I love that God can take anyone at any place at any time and do anything He wants with them.

God amazes me and blows my mind every single day. And I love that about Him!

Amen and amen!

A prayer for my future wife

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 19 Comments

Here I am, thinking about you again and wondering if you’re thinking about me. I have come to the point where I am finally starting to give up striving and trying to make my own plans and my own timing work. I am starting to learn to rest my mind and my heart in God’s plan and His timing. As the name of the book I just got in the mail says, I Gave God Time. That’s all He needs to pull off the biggest miracles– time.

So I pray that your heart is at rest. That you are comfortable where you are and not striving like I have been most of my life. I pray your heart is captured and captivated by Jesus and that you are so enamored and enraptured by His love for you that He becomes everything to you and every other thing in your life falls back into its proper place.

I pray that you are fully coming alive to all that God made you to be. That you know where your beauty comes from and that you treasure your femininity as a gift from God. I pray that your loveliness comes from a Christ-filled countenance and a heart full of compassion and kindness.

I pray that your heart is being set free to love. That all your fears and insecurites are driven away in the face of the Prince of peace, and that peace will rule your heart and mind. I pray you look at every heartache and heartbreak as a means of molding you into the woman who will completely dazzle me.

Waiting is hard, but the longer the wait, the more we will treasure finding each other. I can’t wait to be your husband and do all I can to be a part of  unveiling your true beauty for the world to see. I am waiting for that day, letting God transform me into the man you deserve.

Until then, take courage, dear heart. The night seems long but dawn is just around the corner. Hold on.

A Christmas letter to my future wife

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I’m still waiting for you. And did I mention the whole “not good at waiting” part? More accurately, how badly I suck at waiting? I’m getting better, but I am still very impatient 95% of the time. But I know that this waiting will not have been in vain when I meet you.

I keep thinking of our firsts– first kiss (obviously), first snow to hold hands and walk together through, first night in front of a roaring fireplace, first time we’re both snuggled under the same blanket. . . . so many firsts that are yet to come. The best part will be that we didn’t give up and settle, but held out and found out that miracles do still come true.

I am leaning to stop looking for you with my eyes, and look for you with my heart. I will look for you not through my own eyes, but more and more through God’s eyes. I want to fall in love with your compassionate heart and your tender spirit. Your beauty will be Jesus inside you shining through for the world to see. Or at least for those who have eyes to see.

Remember no matter what anyone tells you you are, you are a daughter of the King. You are royalty– a princess. Don’t let anyone ever treat you as less. You were worth every drop of Jesus’ blood not because of anything in you, but because Jesus set His heart on you and declared you worthy.

I think I am slowly but surely becoming the man who will capture your heart and be worthy of your love. I have bad days when I strive and fail and I have days full of grace when I am finally weak enough to let Jesus do it all. That’s all I can do.

I am thanking Jesus for you in advance and thanking you in advance for being faithful to Jesus and never giving up on me. I’ll be thinking of you a lot this Christmas.

Prophetic words on the Church from Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Wow. This is increcibly prophetic for the Church in America in 2010. This is from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

“In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? l am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great-grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”. But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.”

Bedtime thoughts

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Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).

That’s it. Love God and love others.

But for you to love God, you have to know the reality that God already loves you. For you to love others as yourself, you have to love yourself. Ultimately, you can’t do it. Well, I will only speak for myself here and say that I can’t love God or anybody else, even me, on my own strength. I need Jesus in me, pouring out His agape love, or else I am empty and cold and love-less.

Sometimes, God calls you to love yourself as you love your neighbor. Sometimes, it’s easier to love someone else than to love that person you hang around with every minute of every day. That person who looks back at you in the mirror with accusing eyes that speak of all the impure thoughts, mixed motives, and selfish ambition.

That’s when you and I have to believe what God says about who we are over what we see and think and feel. As a friend of mine told me once, “What you think and feel will lie to you.” But God never will.

God is true. God is love. And God loves you.

And you have all the power of Christ that overcame the grave in you. You have His perfect righteousness that covers your own wretched self-righteous rags of filth.

So be free to love. Love God, love others and love you.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

My bucket list

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First of all, I’d like to know who came up with the expression “kick the bucket” and who first associated it with dying. I’m not losing any sleep over it, but it would be nice to know just in case I’m ever on Jeopardy or a caller on a morning radio show with a chance to win a fabulous prize. I’m just sayin’.

But for real, I do have a bucket list of sorts. It’s not written down, but I have one item on my bucket list. Only one. My one bucket list wish is to hear Jesus say to me at the end of my road, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s all. To please Jesus is not only on my bucket list, it is my bucket list. That being said, I pretty much suck at it. Most of the time, I try to please just about anyone and everyone else before I even attempt to please Jesus.

Still, that’s what I want. More than anything else. Sure, I’d like to see Scotland or meet Bono. And for the record, I would try skydiving, but I have a burning desire to NOT DIE! Plus, I’m not really keen on heights, which is pretty much a prerequisite for jumping out of a plane at 1 gazillion feet in the air.

I want to make Jesus proud of  me. I want to be His hands and feet and serve Him every chance I get, whether He be the person at the cash register at Publix or the homeless man on the corner looking for spare change. I want my whole life to be one big THANK YOU note to Him.

I think I’ll get there. In fact, I know I will, because Jesus told me that He would never leave me or forsake me. He said He would finish the good work He started in me. When He sees a heart that yearns to please Him, He honors that.

So I probably have the shortest bucket list on the planet. Just hopefully not the shortest bucket.

My two cents on spiritual warfare

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A group of guys and I have been watching a DVD series on spiritual warfare by Chip Ingram called The Invisible War (and yes, that was a shameless plug). It got me thinking about the mindset of so many American believers (including me) regarding the whole topic of spiritual warfare. Plainly put, either most of us don’t believe there is an war going on with an enemy that is constantly seeking our destruction. If we believe, we sure don’t live like it much of the time. Again, me included.

The war is real. The enemy is real. In this world, we are not tourists on vacation, or passengers on some kind of luxury cruise, but soldiers engaged in battle. Our ignorance of the battle and our enemy can only do us harm. We need to wake up to realize that we are under attack. But here’s the best part.

The battle is already won. Chip Ingram said, “As believers in Christ, we don’t fight FOR victory. We fight FROM victory.” That’s the good news (which is why it’s called the gospel!). But there is still a battle.

We fight back by putting on the armor of God as described in Ephesians 6: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. We should pray these on every morning and pray these for each other on a daily basis. We should pray with eyes wide open to the spiritual realm, asking God to give us eyes to see the battle around us like the Elijah prayed for his servant when they were surrounded by the Syrian army. We should pray for discernment and wisdom. Most of all, we should pray at all times to be Spirit-filled and Spirit-controlled, taking every thought captive and submitting them to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

We must fight together. If you are fighting the enemy on your own, apart from other believers, you may succeed for a season, but you will ultimately grow weary and faint. You will stumble and fall. You need other believers praying God’s protection over you, encouraging you and keeping you honest.

We fight ultimately with one weapon– LOVE. Not as a feeling, but as a decisive act of the will. We fight by showing that Calvary’s love is stronger than hate and that love overcomes anything. Chip Ingram said, “Love is giving to another person what they need the most when they deserve it least.” Love is doing whatever you can, even to your own detriment, for the good of the beloved. It means dying to yourself and your rights and own ideas about how the world should work.

So live with eyes wide open, hands raised, side by side with your brothers and sisters in Christ. And remember that the battle is already won and that we have overcome!

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Another prayer from Henri Nouwen (with my own commentary added)

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“I pray tonight for all who witness for you in this world: ministers, priests, and bishops, men and women who have dedicated their lives to you, and all those who try to bring the light of the Gospel into the darkness of this age. Give them courage, strength, perseverance, and hope; fill their hearts and minds with the knowledge of your presence, and let them experience your name as their refuge from all dangers. Most of all, give them the joy of your Spirit, so that wherever they go and whomever they meet they will remove the veil of depression, fatalism, and defeatism and will bring new life to the many who live in constant fear of death. Lord, be with all who bring the Good News. Amen.” (Henri Nouwen)

As the old saying goes (or maybe a new one that I just made up), when you can’t think of anything original, borrow and steal from smarter people than you. Actually, this prayer of Henri Nouwen’s is my prayer, said better than I could ever say it on my own, for my friends who are going out and making disciples of all nations, starting in Nashville and ending up in the uttermost parts of the earth. You inspire me to want to do a lot more than I’m doing right now.

Who knows what God has in store for me or you or anyone? I’ve learned that whatever it is, it’s usually way different than what we thought it would be, and way better. So go with it. Jesus calls us to die every day to our rights and desires and dreams and hopes, so that we can live in God’s greater dream for us. As Oswald Chambers wrote, “Trust God and do the next thing.”

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Some not-so-original thoughts on prayer

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“To pray, I think, does not mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God. As soon as we begin to divide our thoughts about God and thoughts about people and events, we remove God from our daily life and put him into a pious little niche where we can think pious thoughts and experience pious feelings. … Although it is important and even indispensable for the spiritual life to set apart time for God and God alone, prayer can only become unceasing prayer when all our thoughts — beautiful or ugly, high or low, proud or shameful, sorrowful or joyful — can be thought in the presence of God. … Thus, converting our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer moves us from a self-centred monologue to a God-centred dialogue” (Henri Nouwen).

Prayer is not about me letting God in on information He was unaware of, or getting Him to do or change things for me. Prayer is about getting to know the heart and mind of God. It’s about seeing my problems and issues with His eyes. It’s about me being conformed into His image, which is ultimately God’s will for all of us.

Prayer is not just about me alone with God. It’s about me and other believers coming together in one accord before God, praying as one. It’s about seeing and seeking God in every waking moment.

All that to say that I am not really that good at prayer. I can pray in emergencies or crisis, but I forget to pray when I feel I am in status quo normal mode. Sometimes, I even forget about God and all He’s done for me. But I’m learning not to come at God all the time asking for things and not sticking around for His responses. I’m learning to come to God and be open to whatever He has for me. I’m learning to be still and listen. I’m learning to quiet my mind and be still. I’m learning to pray not my will, but Thine.

I am a student in the school of prayer who has a very patient Master who won’t ever flunk me or get frustrated with me or give up on me. He is pleased with my weak efforts and my directionless monologues out of a mind that is so easily distracted by anything and everything else. I have an Interpreter who will take the groans and sighs of mine that can’t find words and turn them into perfect prayers.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.