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In the End

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I am still baffled at how much Christianity in general has become and “our side vs. their side” religion. It’s obvious that everything that’s wrong with the world is “their” fault, with “them” being any group who believes differently than us or who maybe falls into a sin category that we don’t struggle with.

I’m not sure when the end will come or what it will look like. I like to think that I am a pan-millennium person– that it will all pan out in the end. I do know this.

In the end, it won’t matter that we proved our point or showed the other side how very wrong they were. It won’t matter that we had the best arguments and the most clever billboards and bumper stickers around.

It won’t matter that we got “our” people into political office so that we could get “our” agenda and laws put in place and keep “them” from being able to destroy all life as we know it.

It will matter how much we loved people. It will especially matter how much we loved those whom we disagreed with, who sided against us, who ridiculed our beliefs, and who mocked our faith.

It will matter that instead of seeking power, we took the form of servants as our Lord Jesus did, and laid down our lives for others. It will matter that we went to the least of these.

It will matter that we gave food to the hungry, gave a drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, visited the sick and those in prison, and stood up for the outcast and downtrodden. It will matter because what we did for them we did for Jesus. Jesus Himself said so.

In the end, it’s not about taking back a country, but advancing a Kingdom and making way for a King who will make all things right again and turn this world right-side up again.

 

A Borrowed Blog (and a Very Good Reminder)

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This was printed in a church bulletin and later posted in a blog by Jon Acuff called Stuff Christians Like, which is probably my favorite blog out there:

“We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.

We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.

We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there too.

If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.

We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!”

Here is the original blog.

http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2012/07/how-to-welcome-people-to-your-church/

May we remember that no one is beyond saving or out of the reach of the love of Christ.

I Don’t Know a Lot

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I will be the first to confess that there is a whole lot out there that I don’t know. Particularly when it comes to mathematics or statistics or anything having to do with numbers. I escaped Algebra my freshman year at Union University and haven’t looked back since.

Some days, I feel like I know less than I used to. That is, there are a lot more things I am a lot less certain about than I was ten years ago. Or even five.

I do know a few things with an increasing certainty.

1) My God loves me with a love that is radical almost to the point of being embarrassing. It is a love that is prodigal and liberal and generous and unending.

2) That I am as much in need of grace as I ever was. I truly believe that I love grace as much as I see my need of it. Those who think they are fine without it don’t really put much stock into it, but those who know they are lost without it embrace it with every fiber of their beings. I am one of those in the second category.

3) What will convince a lost world of the genuineness of our faith isn’t how well we can defend and prove what we believe or how adamantly we can argue our side or even the impressive number of good works we can muster. It’s about how much we love each other. That was turned the 1st century world upside down and that’s what will turn our world right-side up again.

4) I know for 100% certain that God is good and His plans for me are good. Period. What I think and feel may tell me differently. What my eyes and ears tell me may speak a different story. But I know in the deepest core of my heart and mind that while my feelings and thoughts and eyes and ears may deceive me and lie to me, God never ever will.

I think that’s all I need to know.

My Favorite Psalm (As Of August 8, 2012)

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Note: I don’t always recommend The Message because it gets a little too loose with the translation sometimes. But in this case, it got it right (I think). I probably read this Psalm straight through at least three times. This is almost like reading my own diary.

“I give you all the credit, God— you got me out of that mess,

you didn’t let my foes gloat.

God, my God, I yelled for help

and you put me together.

God, you pulled me out of the grave,

gave me another chance at life

when I was down-and-out.

All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God!

Thank him to his face!

He gets angry once in a while, but across

a lifetime there is only love.

The nights of crying your eyes out

give way to days of laughter.

When things were going great

I crowed, “I’ve got it made.

I’m God’s favorite.

He made me king of the mountain.”

Then you looked the other way

and I fell to pieces.

I called out to you, God;

I laid my case before you:

“Can you sell me for a profit when I’m dead?

auction me off at a cemetery yard sale?

When I’m ‘dust to dust’ my songs

and stories of you won’t sell.

So listen! and be kind!

Help me out of this!”

You did it: you changed wild lament

into whirling dance;

You ripped off my black mourning band

and decked me with wildflowers.

I’m about to burst with song;

I can’t keep quiet about you.

God, my God,

I can’t thank you enough.” (Psalm 30).

Fountain Ramah Church Part II

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image

I went back to Fountain Ramah Church today. I knew exactly where to turn and what to look for this time, so my route wasn’t quite so scenic, if you know what I mean.

The main pastor, Blaise Katshing, spoke about how we should allow ourselves to be colonized by God. It struck me as weird when he said it the first time, like maybe I heard him wrong. But the more heard him speak about it, the more it made sense.

When a country colonizes another, like England did with India a long time ago, the idea was to have the locals learn the customs and language of the colonists. For India, it meant that they learned to speak English, act English, and take on English practices and customs.

If we are colonized by God, it means that He takes over completely. We learn to speak in God’s language and to think like He does. Just like the Indians became English subjects, so we who are colonized by God now belong to the Kingdom of God.

It means that we carry the Kingdom of God in us because the Kingdom of God is the presence and rule of God. And if we have been taken over by God, it means God now reigns and rules in us.

When we speak, we speak God’s words. Wherever we walk, it is God walking. Whomever we touch, it is God’s healing hands we touch with. That’s what it means to be colonized by God.

I love that church and I love the people that I meet there. I have never known people who grasp as much what it means to be the family of God as these people. I have never felt so welcomed in any place as this place.

I believe that revivial will come from places like this, where the people are crying out to God for a breakthrough and not settling for the Christian status quo, but people who are desperate for God to move in and around them. People who thirst and hunger for God more than anything else in this world.

 

Running the Race

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It’s hard to turn on the television and not hear something about the Olympics. Especially when somebody like Missy Franklin wins the gold medal for the US. You can’t help but want to root for somebody like her, the all-American girl who made us all proud.

I was watching some of the track and field events and watching in awe at the speed of some of these people. They truly are the best at what they do and they win because they’ve invested a lifetime worth of training into preparing for this moment.

Right now, I’m thinking of another race. The race Paul talks about. Only this race isn’t to the fastest or strongest. This race is all about finishing well.

The only way you don’t win this race is not to finish. Sounds easy, right? But there are so many distractions and temptations that try to divert our attention and get us off course and out of the race.

I can personally attest that there have been times when I’ve been paying too much attention to the crowd or who’s around me and comparing my pace to theirs. It’s easy to get too caught up in where you’ve been that you can very lose your way.

There’s only one place I should train my eyes on. One destination I should aim for. The finish line. Paul talks about keeping our eyes on the prize and fixing our eyes on Jesus, the true destination.

In the end, it won’t matter if I ran faster or slower than the person next to me. It won’t matter that I lost focus at times or found myself in the stands instead of in the race at times. It will only matter that I finished well.

It’s not about how you burst out of the gate at the starting gun. It’s not about how fast a pace you set in the beginning. All that matters is finishing well.

That’s good news for me. It means that it’s never too late for me to really start running the race with all that’s in me, arms outstretched toward the destination, eyes locked in on the prize of having Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

It also means that whether I ran great or poorly yesterday doesn’t matter. All that matters is how I run today.

So how will you run your race today?

 

 

Kudos

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I would like to give recognition to some people. You can call it “giving a shout-out” or “giving props,” but for the sake of not dating myself, I’m going to give kudos. Besides, kudos kinda sounds like candy, and who doesn’t like candy?

Kudos to those who are willing to step out from sitting in the same place with the same people at church events and will sit with a stranger and start a conversation and make that person feel welcome. Sometimes, it’s good to break out of the familiar cliques. It’s hard, but worth it.

Kudos to those who send out random notes or texts or posts of encouragement throughout the day. I know for me, those have rarely been random, but have always come at the right time when I needed a good word.

Kudos to those who try and fail regularly, but who keep trying anyway. To those who know that success is 99 steps back, but 100 steps forward.

Kudos to those whose names and faces most people will probably never know, but who are the real heart and soul of any local church. Those who take care of babies in the nursery. Those who stand out in the parking lot and direct traffic. Those who set-up for events and clean up afterward. Those who are mentoring new believers and helping them understand what following Christ really looks like.

Kudos to you for every time you didn’t feel like it, but chose instead to do a small act of kindness anyway. To you who went and served the homeless or volunteered for VBS. To you who smiled and offered a word of encouragement to a stranger. You served Jesus.

You may not feel like you did much or that anyone saw or cared. You may feel that in the grand scheme of things, your little contributions didn’t mean anything.

But God knows and He sees. And just as He knows the number of hairs on your head and the number of tears you’ve cried, He knows all that you’ve done for Him out of a heart full of love and gratitude.

Trust me. He knows.

Nuggets of Wisdom: My Take on Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day

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Yes, I was one of the faithful horde who descended on the local Chick-fil-A en masse today around noon. I had a great chargrilled chicken cool wrap. Then I got to thinking. And I’ve been thinking ever since.

This is not to bash one side or the other, but to ask some very probing questions.

Did I go there out of a true spirit of love or did I go to prove a point or show my political beliefs in action? Is this something the real live, breathing Jesus of the Bible would have done, or just something that the middle-class, white, Republican Jesus would have done?

At the end of the day, Jesus will not ask us who we were against or how much we defended our free speech or how we let everybody know where we stand politically. He will ask, “Did you love the least of these? Did you love your enemies? Did you give to those who can’t ever pay you back?” At the end of the day, all that matters is this: did we love well like Jesus loved us well?

I will probably keep eating at Chick-fil-A, mainly because they have some amazing chicken. Not because of what the owner thinks about marriage, traditional or otherwise. Definitely not because I want to make some political stand.

When I see Jesus, do I want to tell Him that I stood up for the rights of a fast-food restaurant or do I want to tell Him that I stood up for the rights of the outcast, spoke for those with no voice, fed the hungry, took care of the sick, and in so doing, minstered to Jesus Himself?

I’m not sure what my point is, other than if I do anything at all, it should be out of 100% genuine love for Jesus and for all those He created and loved and died for.

I love what Brennan Manning writes concerning all this (or at least I think it relates quite well):

“The Lord Jesus is going to ask each of us one question and only one question: Do you believe that I loved you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? That I longed to hear the sound of your voice?   The real believers there will answer, “Yes, Jesus. I believed in your love and I tried to shape my life as a response to it. But many of us who are so faithful in our ministry, in our practice, in our church going are going to have to reply, “Well frankly, no sir. I mean, I never really believed it. I mean, I heard alot of wonderful sermons and teachings about it. In fact I gave quite a few myself. But I always knew that that was just a way of speaking; a kindly lie, some Christian’s pious pat on the back to cheer me on. And there’s the difference between the real believers and the nominal Christians that are found in our churches across the land. No one can measure like a believer the depth and the intensity of God’s love. But at the same time, no one can measure like a believer the effectiveness of our gloom, pessimism, low self-esteem, self-hatred and despair that block God’s way to us. Do you see why it is so important to lay hold of this basic truth of our faith? Because you’re only going to be as big as your own concept of God.   Do you remember the famous line of the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal? “God made man in his own image, and man returned the compliment”? We often make God in our own image, and He winds up to be as fussy, rude, narrow minded, legalistic, judgemental, unforgiving, unloving as we are.

In the past couple of three years I have preached the gospel to the financial community in Wallstreet, New York City, the airmen and women of the air force academy in Colorado Springs, a thousand positions in Nairobi. I’ve been in churches in Bangor, Maine, Miami, Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, San Diego. And honest, the god of so many Christians I meet is a god who is too small for me. Because he is not the God of the Word, he is not the God revealed by it in Jesus Christ who this moment comes right to your seat and says, ‘I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be. Because you’re never going to be as you should be.'”

Fueled by Joy

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I’ve been thinking about gas a lot lately. I mean the kind you put in your car, not the kind so prominently featured in the Ace Ventura movies or in the ads for Gas-X. This is a family blog, people.

I keep waiting to see one of these signs in front of the nearest Shell gas station (or Exxon or BP or any of the others, for that matter).

I’ve also been thinking about something a friend of mine posted a lot. What if we could run our cars not on gasoline, but on joy? How far could we get and what kind of exhaust would we leave behind?

Maybe that’s not so far-fetched as it sounds. Maybe what the world around us needs to see are lives fueled by joy. Not happiness which comes and goes on a whim and is affected by every little change in circumstance, but joy which God promised us as believers would be made complete in us and remain in us.

How many people in your life are known for being joyful people? Aren’t those the kind of people you gravitate toward? Aren’t those the people you secretly envy at times and wish you could be more like?

Those full of joy, running on the promises of God and powered by the Spirit living inside of them, leave behind an exhaust of peace. They leave behind love. They leave behind patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Most of all, they leave behind more joy, because true joy is infectious and lasting.

You won’t get far fueled by fear. You might get where you’re going fueled by hate, but you destroy yourself in the process. You’ll go nowhere fueled by the need to please everybody or the need to have everyone like and admire you. The best fuel on the market for running your life comes out of pure joy that you can only get from living in the abundant overflow of God’s unconditional love for you and believing His promises about and for you.

So choose to fuel up on joy. You won’t regret it for one single, solitary second.

Awake and Alive

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“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement” (from the movie Joe vs. The Volcano)

The Apostle Paul urges us to not be asleep, but to awake from our slumber. He doesn’t mean to never sleep at all. He means to be alert and paying attention to what’s going on around you. To not have your head buried in the sand and to know the signs of the times. To always be ready for Jesus to come back at any moment.

To be awake is to not sleep-walk through life. It’s to not be so focused on getting stuff done and accumulating stuff and titles and trophies that you miss life. So often, life– real life- is in the small details that we overlook in our rush to get to the next big phase of our existence. We’re either so focused on what’s next or on what in the past we could have done better that we miss what God is doing right now.

I heard a beautiful illustration today about the parable of the virgins waiting on the bridegroom. In the parable, some were ready with their lamps filled with oil and some were not. In that day, the husband-to-be would go away and prepare a place for his bride-tobe, usually adding an addition to his parent’s house. When he was done,  he would come back for her and take her there.

She didn’t know when he was coming back, so she literally had to be ready every single day. She had to be made-up and adorned in her wedding apparel in case today was the day he showed up.

We need to be ready in the same way. We need to be living the faith we proclaim now. We need to be loving people radically and both demonstrating and declaring the supreme goodness of Jesus right now. We need to be Jesus to those around us who need Him desperately right now.

Most of all, we need to live with eyes wide open (as another song I heard once said). Those who are really and truly awake can’t help but see God in everything and see His blessings at every turn. We will be the most joyful, most content, most alive people the world has ever known because we really have seen the glory of the coming of the King.

The question for you and for me is: will we continue to sleep-walk through our existence and wonder at the end what it was all about, or will we come alive to God’s calling and purpose and live in the complete joy of being exactly where God wants us to be living out God’s dream for us?