Meet, Know, Follow - BE the Church!

Since earliest times men have seen the earth and sky and all God made, and have known of his existence and great eternal power. So they will have no excuse when they stand before God at Judgment Day. (Romans 1:20 TLB)

While none us is without excuse in knowing there is a God of the universe, not all of the world knows of his plan of salvation for their lives. Isn't that the purpose of the church - the help people meet, know, and follow Jesus with all that is within them? Yet, so many "churches" meet each week with nothing more than a nice, pleasing sermon and a few songs, only to go through the week without one consideration of this thing called 'relationship'. Going to church is far different from being the church. Christ's call was for us to BE the church, not for us to build the buildings and warm the pews! To BE the church, we have to do more that 'go to church' - we have to allow the message to penetrate our hearts and then to affect our actions. We have to live in such a way that others begin to do more than just acknowledge there is a God, but rather that they want a relationship with this God!

To meet someone the two need to be brought into close proximity. Yes, we can meet each other virtually these days through the power of technology, but it just isn't the same as being in the same room, able to touch each other, hearing each other just breathe. Sometimes we need that closeness to just know there is a reality to the connection we feel. Yes, the connection goes on when we are not in the same room, but to really get to know each other we need the privilege of personal connection. We laugh and cry together. We discover and remember together. The power of two together is immeasurable. 

To know someone there needs to be time of specific discovery. We don't get to know one another by osmosis - we ask questions, hear answers, formulate new questions, and so on. We find out favorite things and things not very well liked. We discover things we tolerate and those we just cannot stand. We soon learn each has a viewpoint that makes them unique. In the process of spending time together, we begin to get to 'know' them. Knowing involves not only discovery, but true depth of understanding - like when we finally figure out what makes that other person who and what they are. We find out the things that happened, those that are happening, and what they are planning - all making them who and what they are. To know, we need time together and then we need to pay attention 'on purpose' to each other.

To follow someone one needs to lead. Both cannot lead or else there will be a whole lot of head-butting going on. One leads, the other trusts. The more we get to know the one we are following, the more we will not be placing 'blind trust' in the direction they are leading - it will be a trust that comes from understanding the one who is leading! Following engages the senses, requires the heart to be committed, and involves actions on both parts. The one who leads takes actions committed to helping the one following to make the journey. The one following never takes his eyes off the one leading, because to do so could mean losing one's step. 

We may not think much about 'the church' being a building if we begin to think of it as being US. The building really doesn't matter - it is the people who inhabit that building that are the real church. Just sayin!

Deny it!

I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one shall snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else, so no one can kidnap them from me. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30 TLB)

If you have ever wondered just how 'secure' your salvation is, then wonder no more. The place we hold in God's heart isn't going to change, no matter how poorly we perform or how far we drift from closeness with him. While he'd like nothing more than our uncompromising love and dedication to his principles each and every time we make a decision, he knows the reality of the struggle with our will. He knows we will slip up from time to time and that we will need his forgiveness. If we doubt his love or his power in our lives, we can rest assured in knowing there is absolutely no room for us to doubt. The gift of his Son's life was enough to prove the depth of his love.

Sometimes we might believe we can 'slip away' by the power of some force outside of us - like the enemy of our soul snatching us away from the keeping power of God. This is impossible, although the enemy of our souls will do everything he can to convince us otherwise. Why? He knows if he gets us to doubting our relationship with God, we drift into a 'performance pattern' of trying to 'earn' our salvation again and again. In fact, he points out our shortcomings to get us to do just that - to get us to attempt to do what has already been done for us is really his aim. He doesn't want us to accept that the work is finished on our behalf. He wants us to believe there is still something we have to do to 'earn' our right-standing with God.

Nothing could be further from the truth, but he won't rest in attempting to convince us otherwise. It is this seed of doubt he plants and without fail, our minds and hearts go into overdrive to agree with him at times! The scripture we should stand on when this occurs is the one I chose for us today - no on shall snatch us away from Christ - no one is more powerful - no one has authority over our lives other than God himself. With this in mind, let me just say that we are expected to make right decisions. God doesn't want us making the wrong ones, but he makes a way for us to return to right-standing with him if we do. This is called grace.

Assurance is a tough thing sometimes, especially when people in our lives have let us down. We come to doubt intentions, mistrust promises, and be cautious in our approach to relationships because we have been burned by these things. I have never been burned by God. I have never had cause to doubt even one of his promises. I have never found his intentions on my behalf to be anything short of amazingly wonderful. It isn't easy trusting at times - especially when the world, Satan and his hosts, and even our own minds are causing us to doubt. One thing I know for sure - when I deny those doubts access to my mind and heart, I begin to find strength far outside my own capacity to walk without compromise. Try it - you may be surprised by the results! Just sayin!

It Wins!

There is something grace does each and every time in our lives - it WINS! It has the upper hand each and every time - regardless of how 'bad' our decisions may have been, or how lame our excuses got as we tried to cover up our guilt. Grace WINS - no matter what! That is a message of hope, especially to a sinner like me. I am not exempt from compromise - I mess up and make wrong choices. I am not above speaking a cross word now and again - I get tired, frustrated, and a little bit selfish on occasion. But...each time guilt and shame think they have gotten the upper hand in my life - grace overcomes their moment of triumph and wipes the slate clean again. Grace WINS - hands down!

6 Now all praise to God for his wonderful kindness to us and his favor that he has poured out upon us because we belong to his dearly loved Son. 7 So overflowing is his kindness toward us that he took away all our sins through the blood of his Son, by whom we are saved; 8 and he has showered down upon us the richness of his grace—for how well he understands us and knows what is best for us at all times. (Ephesians 1:6-8 TLB)

Grace isn't given in limited measure - it is poured out upon us. Back in the day when Moses was leading the Israelites through the wilderness, God gave him specific instructions to use something referred to as 'anointing oil' in the ceremony of dedicating men as spiritual leaders over the tribes of Israel. These leaders were referred to as priests, but they differed a bit from what the church of today may call a priest. They had families and they took care of the 'temple' or church building. They spent time in study of the Word of God and they had the responsibility to tell the people what it said, challenging them to live according to it. They didn't have a Bible in every home in those days, so the people were dependent upon the priest to help them understand the Word of God - as the scrolls were unrolled and it was shared with them.

On the day of their dedication into service as a priest, the anointing oil would be poured over their head. It would be placed on their hands and feet, symbolizing that the entire body was to be dedicated to this 'work' of serving the Lord and his people. It was a sign of being made ready for service and also of being made 'clean' or 'set apart' as 'holy'. In essence, God was asking Moses to use the oil as a symbol of what grace does - it covers and it makes clean! There was no magic power in that oil, but it was symbolic. We don't use anointing oil much these days - but we still lay hands on those who will be commissioned into service for the Lord. We pray over them, asking God to make their lives a testimony of his grace - something all of us need to have prayer for, right?

Grace covers - much like the oil did. Oil also soaked in - it left an impact long after the visibility of it was gone. Grace leaves an impact much greater and deeper than oil ever could! It goes way beyond the surface and takes care of all manner of unholiness within! Thank goodness for grace - without it we'd all be pretty much a mess! Just sayin!

Promotion through demotion

For promotion and power come from nowhere on earth, but only from God. He promotes one and deposes another. (Psalm 75:6-7 TLB)

A lot of us think we got where we are today by some progressive achievement of skill, talent, and hard work. The real fact of the matter is that God promotes and he is the one quite capable of holding us back from promotion on occasion, as well! If you have ever been "passed over" for some important task, or perhaps that 'next step' on the corporate ladder, you might have felt a little slighted, or like you 'deserved it'. You get a little ruffled, especially when you see someone get the position that you absolutely know you had greater skill to perform the tasks or a greater familiarity with the work being done. There are just times we don't understand the choices some will make to promote one over another, or how some seem to avoid crisis after crisis while you muddle through. One thing I have learned to trust over the years is that the God I serve is quite capable of keeping me from things I don't really want to be involved in and promoting me into those places where I do need to be involved!

There are a lot of ways God 'promotes' or 'deposes' - it is more than in the realm of career ladders. Every part of life is filled with moments of one rising to the top and another stepping back a little. My kids learned how to ride a bike by me running behind. At first, they needed my support, so I constantly reassured them I would not let go - that it would be me holding them up. At some point, they showed me just how capable of remaining steady on those two wheels they could be and I let go. They were 'promoted' to being independent in riding the two-wheeler, free of training wheels or a helping hand from mom. For a while, it was all about me holding them up. After a little bit, there came that moment of truth when they looked back and realized I was no longer holding the bike upright. For just a moment, there was a look of panic, but it was short-lived as they realized they were doing well now that they had been shown how to ride.

All of life is about learning new things - we never really stop moving away from training wheels moments! There will always be times when we are being 'groomed' by God for the next steps he wants us to take in life - working diligently to give us everything we will need in order to succeed in whatever that venture may be. When God sees fit to 'let go' of us, it isn't because he wants us to be out there on our own - he is just giving us a moment or two to realize how well he has prepared us for what we are about to take on! It wasn't long after the training wheels came off that my son started to create 'jumps' out of old pieces of wood stacked upon each other and sent himself sailing over the edges. At that point, I had to pull him back a little - demotion of sorts. Why? He wasn't ready for those jumps and those jumps weren't all that solidly put together. There are times when God pulls us back a little, and we might think it is so 'unfair' of him to do so, but realize this...he probably knows we are about to get pretty bunged up in the ordeal if we continue as we have been going!

My son eventually learned to jump those ramps, but I urged a little better construction (with actual nails holding those pieces of wood together). I also urged a little more 'lift' on his front tire so he'd not hit the ramp and jut forward, knocking out his pretty white teeth! What did I see that he didn't? The 'dynamics' of his movement and position. I could see because I wasn't the one riding the bike. I could observe his lean, hesitation, and even his speed. I could see that he tried to pull back on the front tire too early, not making connection with the ramp before he did. I could instruct him what to do to change the outcome of that jump. God does the same for us - while it may feel like a little bit of a demotion to just stop what we are doing and listen to him for a while, we can learn how to avoid a whole lot of unpleasant 'recovery time' if we do! Just sayin!

Telling a new story

For if you tell others with your own mouth that Jesus Christ is your Lord and believe in your own heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in his heart that a man becomes right with God; and with his mouth he tells others of his faith, confirming his salvation. (Romans 10:9-10 TLB)

Some would say it is better to remain silent if you are not prepared to act. I would tend to agree. It is way too easy to share our thoughts and all too hard to put some actions behind those ideas and beliefs. Each time we share a thought or belief, we run the risk of rejection or dismissal, but when that idea is backed by the corresponding action it is harder to just dismiss the thought or belief. It is much harder to deny whatever has actions behind it! Those actions actually 'confirm' the validity of the thoughts. 

What we take into our hearts begins with seed thoughts that are considered and concentrated upon within our minds. We might say the gateway to our hearts is through out thoughts. I used to hear the old adage of the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I think otherwise! A man's heart is most deeply affected by what is within his mind and allowed to influence all manner of other thought. The heart is not the physical heart that beats in your chest, but the center of your brain where emotion is deeply connected. Thought connects to emotion and emotion often drives action.

On occasion, I watch a movie that keeps me on the edge of my seat. There is something bad about to happen - that cliff-hanger moment when you don't know if the person will survive their predicament or not. Your own emotions are heightened as you sit and watch the events unfold before you and you are not even part of the event! Why is that? You are taking in small seed thoughts of the event and then before long your heart begins to attach emotions to those thoughts. Your pulse quickens, you find yourself a little 'on edge' or 'nervous', and like it or not, there are probably a lot of 'fight or flight' hormones being released into your body as a result.

You didn't live that moment, but your mind created a perception of the moment and your heart attached the emotions to it. It is as though you were 'in the moment'. It is not always a bad thing to be in the moment, but when we dwell on the wrong stuff too long, the moments become unbearable because the emotions are overwhelming us. The constant barrage of negative emotions just wreaks havoc on our bodies. There are clear-cut instructions in scripture on how to avoid such downfalls, but none so clear as to contemplate or 'think upon' the right kind of stuff - allowing those thoughts to affect the way we begin to walk, emotions attached to those thoughts beginning to affect how it is we act or react in life.

It begins with a thought - it finishes with an action. In between, there is an attachment of emotion. If we want the right actions, we need to begin with the right thoughts. If we want a changed heart, it begins with thinking clearly and on those things important for us to 'think upon'. As a man thinks in his heart, his actions will soon follow. Beliefs are formed based upon considered 'thought' and attached emotion. We act upon beliefs and in time, those begin to affect us deeply. Think upon Christ, his grace, his perfect power at work within us, and allow the emotions of appreciation, trust, hope, and love envelop you. In rather short order, the actions of one's life begin to 'tell a new story'! Just sayin!

Mmmmmm....do you smell the bread baking?

4 I can never stop thanking God for all the wonderful gifts he has given you, now that you are Christ’s: 5 he has enriched your whole life. He has helped you speak out for him and has given you a full understanding of the truth; 6 what I told you Christ could do for you has happened! 7 Now you have every grace and blessing; every spiritual gift and power for doing his will are yours during this time of waiting for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 And he guarantees right up to the end that you will be counted free from all sin and guilt on that day when he returns. 9 God will surely do this for you, for he always does just what he says, and he is the one who invited you into this wonderful friendship with his Son, even Christ our Lord. (I Corinthians 1:4-9 TLB)

As a child, packaged bread moved from just being a loaf placed in a paper wrapper at the bakery to this loaf of "enriched sliced bread" that was conveniently all cut the same size, wrapped to stay fresh in plastic bags, and just the right texture to make the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We had a bakery plant in our town and driving by that plant during the day left you hungry! The delectable aroma of fresh baked bread wafting through the air made you want to slow down and just enjoy it for a while. Our homes used to smell like that, but somehow with the 'new and improved, enriched bread' in a loaf at the grocer we lost the delightful moments of experiencing all that richness wafting through the air. Sometimes what might enrich our lives one way just doesn't enrich it other ways, right? We label those things as 'improvements', but are they really? Unless Christ is at the center of each of those 'improvements' in life, we are probably not experiencing the enrichment as deeply as we could!

Enrichment comes into our lives in various forms, but when Christ is at the center, here are some things we can count on to enrich us like nothing else ever could:

1) A deeper understanding of truth - the ability to recognize truth apart from untruth is indeed a gift we cannot take for granted. There is always at least one element of truth in every lie - it is what makes the untruth believable. The ability to have a full understanding of truth isn't possible if we are trying to sort it out through the eyes clouded by a sin nature. We need to see truth through the eyes that know only purity and holiness - through the eyes of Christ.

2) Every grace and blessing is ours to not only improve our lives, but to become the means by which we invest in the lives of others, as well. Grace is unmerited favor - getting what we don't deserve. Blessing follows closely behind grace, for everything that enriches our lives is a blessing, even when the blessing is disguised behind what some may think of as negative circumstances. Even the 'negative' drives us closer to God - for it makes us desperate for his intervention. Nothing could be more enriching in our lives than to experience his grace time and time again.

3) Every spiritual gift and all the power we need to do his will are ours in Christ Jesus. We don't just get blessed with a little, we get blessed with the 'whole enchilada'. We might think what we have been given in Christ is small in comparison with what we see in another's life, but that is the danger in comparison. We find ourselves thinking we don't have what we need, all the while forgetting that where Christ is is exactly where ALL power and EVERY spiritual gift is free to act!

4) Freedom from all sin and the guilt associated with that sin - this is probably one of the most 'felt' parts of being 'enriched' by Christ's presence. We don't know true freedom until we have experienced it the way Christ provides it. An animal in a cage thinks they are free just because they get set out into a yard with a fence around it. They are still 'encased' in their limited world, though. To be truly free, the animal must not only escape the cage, but scale the wall! To be truly free from sin and guilt, we need to allow Christ to bring down the wall - because scaling it only leaves the wall intact - with the possibility of captivity constantly looming in our rear-view mirror!

We aren't enriched by the things we amass, or the deeds we perform that others label as 'good' or 'sacrificial'. We are enriched because there has been a change of heart - a change of character. This is what God's power within us accomplishes. The more we are enriched by Christ, the more enjoyment of that enrichment we experience! Just sayin!

We OWE a debt

Pay all your debts except the debt of love for others—never finish paying that! For if you love them, you will be obeying all of God’s laws, fulfilling all his requirements. (Romans 13:8 TLB)

I sometimes use a credit card, but I am sure the banks aren't excited by the fact I don't carry a balance long enough to even pay any interest on it! I use it and pay it off - not liking to have debt. It is one of those cards that actually returns a little money to me by accumulating points with each purchase. I have managed to buy a new computer that way and a tablet, not to mention getting occasional gift cards. So, all in all, it is one practice that has served me well. There is one debt that I will always owe, though - the debt of love. For all of my life I will always be taking steps to 'pay off' that debt!

Some think of debt as a liability. When it comes to loving as Christ loved us, it isn't so much a liability, but an outflow of that love. It is the consideration of others more than ourselves that is hardest in this world. We are 'bent toward' thinking first about ourselves and then we seem to 'make time' for others. While that isn't all bad, since it is important take care of yourself so you remain well, it can be carried a little bit too far on occasion. We sometimes get so wrapped up in our little world that we neglect to see what is going on around us in the worlds of others.

Christ had a way of seeing his world as our world. It incorporated us into his world with every step he took and breath he inhaled. Our world was and is his world - he came to us, for us, lives in us, creates us, goes before us, walks beside us, and graces us with his peace, joy, and love. Nothing in his world was all about him. It was all about us! As much as we might want to think we are living as he did, we still far fall short of his example!

Christ never said, "Hey, look at me. I am the most important one here!" He simply lived as though nothing else mattered to him but us. It is in this way we are to pattern our lives, but we don't do it alone. We love as he loves because he lives in us. We stop living for ourselves because we are now living for him. It isn't about us keeping commandments, it is about us keeping Christ in the right place in our lives. When that is the case, the results will be to live in such a way that his love flows through - making the 'debt of love' we continually owe easier to repay each and every time we have the opportunity to 'pay that debt'. Just sayin!

Dark tunnel ahead

Corrie Ten Boom lived during some of the most horrific times of World War II. She was the daughter of a Dutch watchmaker, intent on helping many Jewish families escape the horror of the Nazi holocaust by hiding them in a small closet while enduring the unsettling repeated searches of her home. Living in those very unsettled times, constantly fearing for their own lives, and the lives of the families they sought to keep from the death sentence of being a Jew in those times, she never lost sight of her faith. She held fast to the certainty she was held in the center of God's arms and regardless of what those men might have sought to do to end her life, she'd was going to do the right thing. I remember hearing her one time, and as I sat in a room listening to her stories of those moments of tremendous fear, this is what she said, "When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer." Yes, it is a tremendous thing to trust!

If you want favor with both God and man, and a reputation for good judgment and common sense, then trust the Lord completely; don’t ever trust yourself. In everything you do, put God first, and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success. (Proverbs 3:5-6 TLB)

I drove to my niece's house yesterday. I have to pass through a tunnel that moves us under some of the main thoroughfares in Phoenix. It is well-lighted, very wide, and with what I count on as made well under great structural engineering. If I didn't take that tunnel, I'd add many minutes to my journey and it would add many a stop, start, and stop again as I navigated through city streets. That tunnel is a means to an end - it gets me there with a measure of convenience that I appreciate. Yet, if I chose to not trust I'd ever make it to the other side of that tunnel, I'd have to make either alternative choices to go around the tunnel, or I'd never reach my destination. The tunnel is always darkest at its midpoint - every tunnel is the same. The deeper we go, the more we count on the trust there is an opening at the other end!

We navigate the tunnels in peaceful trust when we know the engineer is in control. Mom and my grandsons didn't have any concerns about the tunnel, because they trusted me to get them through. One read on his phone, the other continued to read his book, and mom just dozed quietly in the seat next to me. In much the same way, the tunnels of life are navigated not by blind trust, but with purposeful trust. When the family got into the car with me, they trusted I'd bear them safely to my niece's house and back. Both times we'd have to go through that tunnel - both times they'd trust me unquestioningly to get them through. If we can do this in a natural sense, how come we have such a hard time trusting with the same abandon when it comes to allowing God to 'engineer us' through life? Just askin!

Glove or no glove?

The earth belongs to God! Everything in all the world is his!  He is the one who pushed the oceans back to let dry land appear. Who may climb the mountain of the Lord and enter where he lives? Who may stand before the Lord? Only those with pure hands and hearts, who do not practice dishonesty and lying. They will receive God’s own goodness as their blessing from him, planted in their lives by God himself, their Savior. These are the ones who are allowed to stand before the Lord and worship the God of Jacob. (Psalm 24:1-6 TLB)

It was Nathaniel Hawthorne who penned, "A pure hand needs no glove to cover it." There are lots of "gloves" we wear in life, sometimes for protection, at others to hide. I wear gloves in my profession for protection - to avoid the spread of illness. I wear gloves when I garden - to avoid injury. I wear a glove when I play ball - to assist with the capture of the ball. I wore dress white gloves in the military while on parade - to look sharp and crisp with each salute or movement in cadence with others in my battalion. I have age spots now that I am in my 6th decade of life, but I don't wear gloves to 'cover up' or hide them. Why? They are part of who I am and I am not going to change the fact they are there by wearing a pair of gloves. While all the other types of gloves served a good purpose, the ones I would try to wear to 'cover up' any type of 'flaw' in my life would just not cut it when it comes to God knowing who I truly am under that cover-up!

Either my actions are pure, or they are not. One way or the other, nothing really hides the fact I have an impure heart. The only way to truthfully deal with that impurity is to admit it is there, seek the one thing that can change that condition - Christ's presence - and then allow that presence to change me, not cover up what is there! His presence 'plants goodness' in our hearts - it changes the condition of our hearts, not just a little bit, but all the way. Holiness is more than a state of mind - it is a direct result of a changed heart. There is no longer a need to cover up the condition of the heart because the condition has been changed entirely by the presence of Christ in us. The goodness of God is planted within our lives and tended on an ongoing basis by the one who does the planting - God himself!

Pure hand link to a pure heart - the hands do as the heart directs. As is so often pointed out in scripture, it is impossible for a little leaven not to affect the entire loaf - the power and action of that tiny bit of leaven affects the whole because it is invasive in its focus and intent. Sin has a way of affecting more than just a little bit of our heart - this is why we need to have our heart changed, not just the evil intent covered up. We cannot overcome that evil intent because it is like leaven that affects the whole - it cannot be masked entirely. To have pure hands, one needs that which will make the heart pure - Christ and Christ alone. We might think we can put a 'glove over' that part of us that is problematic or 'flawed', but let me assure you, at some point what is hidden will eventually be exposed. Isn't is just better to not need the glove in the first place? Just askin!

Where's that nose pointed?

I have always appreciated John Maxwell's leadership advice. He is an excellent teacher and one of my favorite thoughts from him is that "people may hear your words, but they feel your attitude." Attitude comes in louder and clearer than just about anything else because it is palpable. Even when you attitude is that of apathy or disinterest, there is a certain sense of 'feeling' that presents with your disinterest. Most of the time, we are making judgments about people and how certain interactions went not so much by the actual words, but by the attitude which was displayed while those words were shared.

A relaxed attitude lengthens a man’s life; jealousy rots it away. (Proverbs 14:30 TLB)

3 Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. 4 Don’t just think about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and in what they are doing. (Philippians 2:3-4 TLB)

Attitude is reflected in our actions, words, and even in our expressions. This is why it matters so much that our attitude and our actions are on the same page! We don't want to say one thing, while having an attitude that reflects we don't really mean what we say. We don't want to promise a certain action, while having an attitude that says 'when hell freezes over'. Attitude begins pretty much in our thoughts - as we think, we act. We find our attitude often is 'adjusted' when our thoughts begin to change toward something.

Dread of something usually comes when we think upon the difficulties or unpleasantness of the thing we are about to do. Dread that walk? It might be caused by you first thinking upon how much you will sweat in the heat and that 'colors' your enthusiasm to get out there and just walk off some of that stress you are under. Dread that pile of laundry? It probably isn't so much the task of washing it as it is folding it, hanging it up, ironing it, and then helping it find the right storage location in the various rooms of your house! It could also be the idea that has formed that no one seems to appreciate all that labor you go through to put those clean clothes on their backs.

Attitude really goes a long way in determining how much 'oomph' we put into whatever is before us, doesn't it? If we really aren't getting much out of a relationship, or worse yet, that relationship is one that seems to kind of suck the life out of us, we might not be all that enthusiastic in our interactions with that person. We 'turn off' when around them - 'spending time', but not really enjoying it or being present in the moment. You have probably heard me say on more than one occasion that attitude determines altitude. You cannot climb higher than the attitude of plane's nose - it is an aeronautical term. Wherever the nose is pointed, that is the altitude one will eventually assume.

While we cannot always be 'on target' with a positive attitude, fully engaged, and constantly consistent in attitude, we can make great strides by allowing a continual examination of our thoughts to ensure they are pointing us in the right direction to attain a more positive attitude! Just sayin!

No dime store provisions here

Then he said to all, “Anyone who wants to follow me must put aside his own desires and conveniences and carry his cross with him every day and keep close to me! Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it, but whoever insists on keeping his life will lose it; and what profit is there in gaining the whole world when it means forfeiting one’s self? (Luke 9:23-25 TLB)

A few years ago, I had the privilege of being given access to some very expensive tools through an estate sale situation. Prior to this offering, I had a couple of power tools inherited from dad, or some that I had picked up along the way when the need arose. They were inexpensive ones and 'did the job' such as drilling a hole or sanding a rough spot out of some wood, but they were definitely not high quality tools. My neighbor was a professional woodworker, having both a small shop in his backyard and a much larger one for his business venture in town. The chance to pick up some very nice tools at a ridiculously low price was amazing and I jumped on the opportunity. You might have guessed it - those 'inferior' tools from my earlier acquisitions paled in comparison to the Dewalt or Rigid tool brands he had acquired and were now becoming mine. I no longer had a use for the older tools and soon parted with them - because I had something of a much higher quality at my disposal! I wonder if we hold onto things from our past lives that are inferior in quality just because we are unwilling to part with them? If we would just realize the 'caliber' of life we have been given, I think we might be less likely to 'hold on so tightly' to those habits, behaviors, and desires that aren't quite of the same "caliber'!

There are indeed desires best left behind as we step into this life with Jesus - but there are others we just don't realize are 'inferior' until we really take time to get to know what he has provided for our enjoyment in this new life with him. We have to actually take time to get to know him and understand how he works - seeing what he offers in light of what we once possessed. As we begin to appreciate the magnificence of what he offers, the desires we once held so dear begin to pale in comparison! We find ourselves actually considering letting go of those things which 'served a purpose', but are no longer of the same importance to us because we have been given something of a much higher 'caliber' in place of those things. When I first acquired all those tools, I parted them out between my two children and kept some for myself. I had no workshop and limited garage space, so incorporating a whole workshop of tools into my 'space' was difficult. In fact, I didn't even know some of the things those tools would do until now! They occupied space in my shed, but now they are available to me because I have made a space for them in a workshop. Oftentimes we need to 'make space' for the things Christ has provided for our use and enjoyment in life. We have to discover their value - but it isn't apparent to us until we actually make that space for them!

Making space for these things Christ has prepared for us is something we do over time. We don't know the half of what he has provided, but as we begin to open those treasures, we find there are indeed huge treasures of much more value than we once thought possible in our lives. We might not even fully appreciate their value when we first discover their presence - but when we allow those provisions to be put into use, we begin to appreciate how much life is enriched because we have these provisions at our disposal. Provisions such as immeasurable peace in the midst of all manner of anguish and hardship. Or that of unlimited grace that helps us be kind even when the natural desire to respond kindly wouldn't be there. We don't possess these things outside of Christ, but we oftentimes don't appreciate their presence in our lives until we make space for these provisions to be put into full use. To make space, we eliminate what once we held onto as those things by which we 'made do' in life. Those habits and behaviors that helped us 'get by', but which really lacked the same quality or caliber of excellence as the privilege and provision he makes available might have served us well at one time, but they won't serve us well over the long haul. We need to embrace what Christ offers, but to do so, we lay down what once we held onto and embrace what he has provided. Just sayin!

Just change the boundaries!

What happiness for those whose guilt has been forgiven! What joys when sins are covered over! What relief for those who have confessed their sins and God has cleared their record. There was a time when I wouldn’t admit what a sinner I was. But my dishonesty made me miserable and filled my days with frustration.  All day and all night your hand was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water on a sunny day until I finally admitted all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself, “I will confess them to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.  Now I say that each believer should confess his sins to God when he is aware of them, while there is time to be forgiven. Judgment will not touch him if he does. (Psalm 32:1-6 TLB)

There was a time...those simple words have been heard time and time again, recounting the memories of some former condition and now observing the change that has occurred. In some situations, the memory of the 'old' or 'former' condition depicts the 'old' as better than the 'now' because change hasn't been kind. The 'now' of our lives isn't always based on the 'then', unless the 'then' was that moment when we asked Jesus to enter into it!

Guilt is an extreme emotion - often causing us great consternation and lots of anguish. The moment we ask God to help us deal with that which brought those emotions to play in our lives, we begin to see change. We don't ask God to deal with our emotions associated with our sin before we ask God to deal with our sin, though. I think there are times when we get this backward - we want God to let us out from under that load of guilt, but we don't want him to muddle in that area of sin in our lives. We kind of like the sin, we just don't like the feelings of guilt it produces!

Guilt is part of our lives because the action producing that emotion is likely not right for us. It is a little too close to the line, or even outside the boundaries of what God has planned for us. The more we try to ignore the emotional response to our sin, the more we move further and further from those protective boundaries. I think this is how some come to live within their sin (a new set of boundaries being formed) and not feel guilty any longer while in pursuit of that sin. God doesn't change the boundaries - we do. In so doing, we create a new perspective of what is right and wrong in our lives.

Changing the boundaries isn't the answer. Asking God's help to stay within the ones he has created by responding to each occurrence of guilt-producing actions is! Just sayin!

Impotent or Important?

When we were utterly helpless, with no way of escape, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners who had no use for him. Even if we were good, we really wouldn’t expect anyone to die for us, though, of course, that might be barely possible. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:6-8 TLB)

What would you do for someone who 'under-valued' you, having little to no use for you? Most of us would be honest here and say we'd do very little, if anything at all! Why? We live in a world that expects reciprocity! We look for the 'what's in it for me' situations and that is what we go after more than those 'even if it means nothing for me, I will do it anyway' moments. Honestly, we want to 'get' a little out of whatever we 'put into' something, don't we? This is only natural. It is something quite supernatural to give without any expectation of getting!

Helpless people are really powerless. The helplessness isn't that we lack courage or even the 'want to', but that we lack the power to make something happen. We have been 'incapacitated' - we lack the capacity to do whatever needs to be done. A similar word to helpless is impotent - we are inadequate in completing whatever lays before us. The idea here is that we were unable - there was absolutely no way for us to ever make ourselves right with God again. We were without any way of escape - bound by our sin and shame, linked to our past mistakes and failures.

Now, you would think that someone who lacks the capacity to escape - being held in a place of bondage - would want to be free, wouldn't you? Do you know it is quite possible for someone in bondage to become so 'used to' the bondage that they don't even look for freedom any longer? There might be a niggling of desire now and again, but since the bondage has become so much the 'norm', the motivation to try to be free just isn't there any longer. Maybe this is why scripture points out we had 'no use' for Christ. We just didn't see the purpose of a Savior any longer - we had become resigned to our lack of freedom and just didn't see any way out.

Even those who live 'really good lives' have no real way of escaping the fact they were born sinners. The nature to sin is inherent in our genetic make-up. We will eventually compromise, no matter how 'good' we are. The need for Christ's sacrificial death may not even cross our minds because we are working out our own 'destiny' via our 'good deeds', but the truth is that our own destiny won't even get us close to an eternity in God's presence! We need what we don't even know we need - a Savior. 

It is good news that our eternity isn't limited by what we value or what we can do for ourselves. If we counted on these two things to draw us close to God's heart, we'd still be miles and miles away in the end. Just sayin!

Positive or Negative???

Memory requires some effort on our part, does it not? Try learning your mathematical 'times tables' for the first time and you will likely have to 'memorize' the fact that 3 times 3 equals 9. Eventually, in the course of 'rehearsing' that which you have memorized, you will form long-term memory of that fact. It is a fact, not fiction, for three rows of three oranges a piece will yield you nine oranges. There are parts of our memories though that are a little more fiction than fact. We all 'add to' memories, not the stuff we memorize, but the memories made in the moments of life. Most of what we remember will be true, but there are parts of our memories we 'make up' to fill in some gap in those memories. It just could be because we didn't 'take notice' of those things 'in the moment', but now we are recounting something from those moments and realizing there was more we never even saw while we were living in that moment!

O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me.  You know when I sit or stand. When far away you know my every thought.  You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am.  You know what I am going to say before I even say it.  You both precede and follow me and place your hand of blessing on my head. (Psalm 139:1-5 TLB)

Much of what we 'remember' is based upon the significance of the event or moment. Much of what we memorize is based on some 'fact' or 'subject matter' we want to store away for one reason or another. Memory and fact are not one in the same, though. It can often be our downfall when we remember what would have been best to forget and forget what we might have done well to hold onto! Every now and again, it is good to just sit and recount what it is we remember - allowing God to point out the 'gaps' in our memories that need filling in a little. If we allow him to point out what it was we missed in the moment, we often see these memories from a whole different perspective. If we attempt to paint in those gaps with what we 'imagine' to be true, we can be filling in the gaps with what really is nothing more than imagination.

In the moment, we see only portions of what is around us. It is impossible for us to take everything in with total clarity. We are just not created to comprehend all things at one time. In fact, this is why we learn at a steady pace instead of just waking up one day totally 'smart' in some area! We add fact to fact until we form knowledge of the subject. My math teacher started us out with the one times one equals one because understanding one times anything still leaves you what you started with. When we got to the zero times anything equals zero, I kind of got a little depressed. I was hoping that 'times' thing would always 'multiply'. I didn't expect it to leave me with zero! When she threw in the negative numbers and tried to teach me a negative times a negative equaled a positive, I admit it ... she lost me! If you had less than zero and multiplied it with something else less than zero, how on earth did you get a positive?

I don't know how that works except she told me it was like saying do NOT NOT do something. A double negative really was moving you in a positive direction! It was contradicting the negative. Admit it . . . you were lost right along with me! So, the best I could do with that one was memorize the facts - a positive and a positive yield a positive, opposite signs yield a negative, and two negatives move you back into a positive direction again. There, I have recited the facts and I still don't understand the 'why' behind them! But...I do know that God takes my negatives and turns them to positives. I am not bound by what I remember or the memory parts I didn't form correctly in the moment. I am free to allow a positive to come out of the negative because he is the one who knows how to bring positive out of negative even when I don't! Just sayin!

Not perfect....just evident

20 So they brought the boy, but when he saw Jesus, the demon convulsed the child horribly, and he fell to the ground writhing and foaming at the mouth. 21 “How long has he been this way?” Jesus asked the father. And he replied, “Since he was very small, 22 and the demon often makes him fall into the fire or into water to kill him. Oh, have mercy on us and do something if you can.” 23 “If I can?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if you have faith.” 24 The father instantly replied, “I do have faith; oh, help me to have more!” 25 When Jesus saw the crowd was growing, he rebuked the demon. “O demon of deafness and dumbness,” he said, “I command you to come out of this child and enter him no more!” 26 Then the demon screamed terribly and convulsed the boy again and left him; and the boy lay there limp and motionless, to all appearance dead. A murmur ran through the crowd—“He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him to his feet and he stood up and was all right! (Mark 9:20-27 TLB)

It was Daniel Webster who penned the words, "How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems." The boy 'seemed' dead - he was motionless, limp, seemingly without life. To all appearances, he was a goner. I am so glad God isn't bound by what 'appears' to be, but he is free to take what 'is' and make it what it 'should become'! In my life, that means he has taken what 'appeared' to be without hope and breathed life into those places labeled as 'without hope' and made them alive again! In your life, it can be the same!

There are lots of ways we judge by appearances, aren't there? Some of us do it every time we see someone walk by. Their gait suggested they were tired. Their clothing suggested they didn't take the time to iron that outfit they donned for the day. Their hair standing up on end suggested they got up late and had no time to fix 'the do' before they headed out the door. At first impression, these may be the judgments we make. When we look deeper, though, we understand the 'lazy gait' is really that they just received news their parent has a terminal disease and they are heart-broken inside. The wrinkled clothing isn't because they didn't want to iron them, but that their iron broke and their financial situation won't allow them to buy another one until their next paycheck. The rumpled hair wasn't because they arose late, but that they slept at the bedside of a dying friend last night as they breathed their final breath. Appearances can be quite different from reality - it behooves us to look a little deeper!

What we see on the surface is rarely the way something is - all of us have learned to cleverly mask a certain amount of what we truthfully feel at the moment. It is a rarity to find someone so genuine that they will reveal their true self at each encounter. It is a trust factor - we reveal the most to the ones we trust the most, holding back those things from those we trust the least. The good news is that God doesn't violate our trust - when we are genuine with him, it stays with him! He honors our honesty with his gentle and careful grace sheltering us there in his presence long enough for us to feel safe and secure. 

We see the boy so many times in this passage, but think about the father for just a moment. That boy needed to be free. That father was desperate to see his son truly live free of the epileptic seizures that gripped his body and left his lifeless. That father exposed something of himself that day that couldn't have been easy. Not only did he want his boy to be free, he had to admit he had faith, but it wasn't perfect - he had to ask for Jesus to make up what he lacked! It is a liberating moment when we are truthfully honest with Jesus, admitting we have 'lack' of what we need. To do it publicly required even more vulnerability on this man's part! He probably struggled with is boy's disease privately for many years - his son being considered an 'unfortunate outcast' of society. His willingness to expose not only his son, but himself is what Jesus saw and he met him right where he was. His faith didn't have to be perfect - it just had to be declared! Just sayin!

This is a result of that...

I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 TLB)

Every now and again I try to teach someone something in Excel that will actually make their life easier if they adopt the function or shortcut into their practice. At first, they listen intently. At some point down the road, either they get it, or I see their eyes roll back in their head and you know they will never use that shortcut or function in a million years! What happens is that some are very intent on learning - on wanting to know how this software 'tool' can work FOR them. They have tried to create their own ways of doing the same function, such as selecting all the data at one time, but their method of scrolling for eternity until they find their last row and column of data is just insane when a simple holding of the Control Key and striking the "A" key at the same time will do all that in one simple move! When they see the ease at which they can adopt the new practice of the shortcut, they are delighted! Why? Life just got less complicated! The sooner we realize that the complication is US trying to do things OUR way, the sooner we can get out of the way and adopt the 'new practice' of allowing Christ to live through us - the complication we have added to our lives isn't going to interfere with our forward progress anymore.

At least that is what we think when we say "yes" to Jesus - that those things we have created as these huge 'work arounds' that 'get the job done', but bear a tremendous cost to us, will somehow just be gone in a poof. The truth of the matter is that sometimes we hold onto what we have come to think will 'work' in a particular situation, but which really isn't working FOR us all that well. It might get the job done, but at what cost? I might be able to resist a particular temptation, but at what cost? How much effort has to go into that 'will-power' moment (or moments) to resist? When I embrace the grace God gives to resist that same temptation, it still might require some effort on my part, but the effort is much less when he guides my steps! The 'real life' we live 'in Christ' isn't the result of US the results, but his presence and power creating those results within and through us. 

Almost all the functions within Excel begin with the equal sign. Why? You are telling the computer you want a certain outcome as a result of what you are doing. For example, to add two numbers together, you tell the computer to look for the sum of those two cells and return it in another cell. In real life, we are constantly creating similar scenarios in our minds. We might imagine something, then say "if this happens, then that will be the result" - the famous 'if,then' statement. There are a lot of 'if,then' moments in life. If I am hungry as an infant, I cry, then someone feeds me. The 'if, then' is rewarded. If I do something nice for that person, then they will do something nice in return. How's that one been working for you in life? Not all 'if,then' situations return the desired results, do they? You have to have the right 'if' in order to get the right 'then' and perhaps you will get the desired result. I have created way more functions I thought would work in this lifetime only to find the 'if' or 'then' didn't yield the desired result!

The 'if,then' is only assured when the beginning and ending point is Christ! You want the best results - start with the right formula. In this lifetime, we look for the shortcuts. That isn't all that wrong. But...there are very few that actually yield the results we desire. To be assured of better results, maybe we should start with the 'if Christ is at the center here' and end with the 'then I will listen to what he has to say'. Just sayin!

Avoid that pile...

I once heard a coach tell his team they needed to find out what the other team was going to do - paying close attention to their formation, footing, eye contacts, etc. Then he said to them that this how they could take that next move into their own control - making it almost impossible for that team to 'make that next move'. Maybe this isn't bad advice for our daily lives either. If we were to pay a little closer attention to the enemy of our souls, observing his moment, noticing how he is 'setting things up' so we can take a fall, maybe we'd have a better understanding of how to counter those attacks!

8 Be careful—watch out for attacks from Satan, your great enemy. He prowls around like a hungry, roaring lion, looking for some victim to tear apart. 9 Stand firm when he attacks. Trust the Lord; and remember that other Christians all around the world are going through these sufferings too. (I Peter 5:8-9 TLB)

I think many of us feel it is impossible for us to actually 'stay ahead' of our enemy's attacks. It is like we stand there and just continue to take the beating time and time again, him scoring full-on hits repeatedly in our lives. I honestly believe God has given us all we need to not only recognize his attacks, but to begin to understand his strategies. When we become more familiar with the strategies of our enemy, this is the fuel we need to form a solid defense against him!

God gives us his Word, complete with very specific illustrations and examples of how the enemy of our soul opposes us, setting up attack after attack. For example, the story of David would give us an illustration of why we don't want to attempt to stand alone in life. We need the companionship of others, especially when it comes to facing our enemy. David had a couple very specific examples of when he didn't do very well at resisting temptation when he stood alone - like when he sent his warriors off to 'do war' and he stayed back. That opportunity presented that infamous encounter with Bathsheba and his fall into adultery. 

From this example, I might come to realize I don't do well resisting temptation when I am not doing what it is God has planned for me to do. David was the leader of the army - he was their king. His place was with his soldiers, not back at home camp killing time in leisure activities. I might also recognize that where there is a weakness in my life it becomes harder and harder to 'look the other way' when the temptation is right there in front of me. Either way, I have been given these examples so that I can learn (and you, too) how to recognize where it is the enemy plans on making his attacks. The plans of the enemy are best thwarted when we are paying attention to learning how he moves!

We are also given immediate help - because the Holy Spirit of God indwells us with his presence and power. When we may not immediately recognize we are about to step into a trap, we can count on him to give us that little niggling that lets us know our steps are about to get us into a pretty big pile of poop which will leave a pretty nasty effect that lingers for a lot longer than we might like! Some of what we learn is by studying - at other times, our learning is more by the power of observing. Both are necessary if we are to ever understand and respond to our enemy's attacks. Just sayin!

Good dog or ferocious dog?

Someone once said "faith" has a twin - "doubt". Is it possible that maybe "faith" has a triplet brother - "fear"? Doubt and fear reside alongside each other so much of the time. We may not want to admit it, but when we are doubtful, we have an element of fear that begins to creep into our thoughts and affect our emotions. Doubt leads us to take certain actions or respond in a specific manner. Fear is part of that reaction to doubt. If a large, ferocious looking dog approached me at a dead run, I probably don't have any need to have a sign over the dog's head that tells me I am about to get mauled! Some things we just 'fear' because we have absolutely no doubt about their intent! At other times, doubt just barely creeps in like the tiny chihuahua pattering our way who looks harmless, but when close enough, those teeth can nip at our heels - maybe not with as much power as the huge over-powering dog, but they can still do damage. If both dogs bear their teeth whenever I am around them, I will not trust either one! If the next time I see them they are both wagging their tails and happy to see me, I will likely be a little doubtful they won't 'turn' on me. Past experiences play into doubt, as well as the unknown of what we have never experienced before. Fear has a foundation in both - the outcomes of past experiences often overshadowing what we believe will be the case each time we approach anything even remotely similar in life.

Teach a wise man, and he will be the wiser; teach a good man, and he will learn more.  For the reverence and fear of God are basic to all wisdom. Knowing God results in every other kind of understanding.  “I, Wisdom, will make the hours of your day more profitable and the years of your life more fruitful.”  Wisdom is its own reward, and if you scorn her, you hurt only yourself. (Proverbs 9:9-12 TLB)

A lot of our doubt and fear is based in not knowing what it is we are trusting in at that moment. If we are trusting in the past outcomes as the basis of how we approach things in this lifetime, we will never step out into anything new. If we are always doubtful anything good will come of any new venture, we hold ourselves back from ever taking the first step. There is no change the occurs without the first step - there is no fear overcome without first exposing what we fear to truth. In the case of those two dogs - not all dogs growl, bear their teeth and take joy in noshing on your flesh! To judge all dogs as 'man-eating ferocious creatures' is to exclude a whole lot of really friendly and loving dogs from ever getting near enough to us to change our impression of dogs! All things we fear or doubt must be held up to truth - for truth exposes the reality behind the impression fear or doubt is making upon all the rest of our emotions at that very moment. The good news is that we are never bound by our fears or doubts - we CAN move out from under their control. They aren't our permanent!

Change, or seeing things from a totally new perspective, can oftentimes be the result of having refused to believe what our past experiences have dictated as things we should fear or doubt. It is true we should be concerned that a car coming at us while we are trying to cross the street at the crosswalk brings a mounting fear within. Should that keep us from attempting to ever cross the street? Cars have the capability of striking us down, even doing harm to us. Not every driver behind the wheel will be distracted and not see us, though. Almost every time the drivers of those cars note someone is in the crosswalk, slow down, and stop so as to allow the walker safe passage. The walker must trust in the things put there for their safety - the crosswalk lines, signal that alerts to the safe time to walk across, and the visibility created by us crossing at those designated locations. We have much more to fear when we are attempting to 'cross outside those lines' in life. These are the times when doubt and fear might just niggle us into reconsidering where it is we are heading - this is when doubt and fear are 'good companions'. You see....fear and doubt can be either a 'good dog' or a 'ferocious dog' in our path. We cannot just take them on face-value. We must test them against faith - faith being rooted and grounded in truth. Just sayin!

Intelligent Design - YUP!

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist at the Hayden Planetarium in New York. You might recognize him from the History Channel's show called "The Universe". He was one of the ones opposing keeping Pluto as a planet and who frequently lectures on the extreme "limitations" of any scientist who believes in "intelligent design". His stand is that to believe there is a God and Creator of the universe is to limit the possibilities of all other 'discoveries'. You can be very well educated in the sense of 'intellectual content' and be very empty when it comes to connection with the God of the Universe! If we truly believe all this beauty and majestic 'inter-working' of all of creation could just occur by a 'big bang' or some 'alignment' of the universe's 'forces', then we are missing out on the most amazing relationship we can have with not just this universe, but with the Creator of it all! We live within the confines of a much bigger set of boundaries - those of our human knowledge and understanding.

Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. (Ephesians 1:7 MSG)

The things in the deepest heavens and the yet undiscovered mysteries there - all were set in order by his hand - all are held together by the power of his word. The things we have discovered about our earth and those planets around us - these discoveries are part of his doing - even though we might want to take our claim to fame for them! God reveals himself in all of creation - but the mind's eye and soul's heart must be open to receiving them. Nothing in all of creation is a greater mystery than to be free of sin's dark hold on us - the power it has to sway our minds, direct our heart, and captivate our souls. When we behold Christ, we have at our disposal a full disclosure of all of God's mysteries. We don't need microscopes, telescopes, and magnified lenses galore. We need open eyes, responsive hearts, and yielded wills!

Abundant freedom is no accident - it is purposeful design! Education usually expands our minds - but those scientists who approach education with a heart in tune with God's heart discover much more deeply the truths evident in nature and the vast universe. They should not be criticized for their 'narrow view' of science, but praised because they are discovering truth in the way God intended - through the eyes of their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Discovery takes on new meaning when it is done through the eyes of the one who knows the plan from start to finish, doesn't it? All we need to discover is Christ - the rest  of all that we discover after that is up to him. 

Intelligent design doesn't take a degree in astrophysics to understand or appreciate. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. The human body and mind compare to nothing else. We don't need to understand the vastness of the universe to appreciate the total awesomeness of the God we serve. Just sayin!

How heavy did you say that was?

Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrap themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up; and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us. (Hebrews 12:1 TLB)

What slows you down? As each decade passes, I find the things that once couldn't stop me are more or less obstacles in my path these days. My strength is still good, but it isn't what it was in my twenties or thirties! I didn't used to have an artificial knee and running was no problem for me, but running with 'artificial parts' doesn't exactly make me the Bionic Woman! My grandson took a hike this weekend with his youth group and before he went he packed his 'survival gear'. It was as though he thought he'd have to keep the whole group hydrated, first aid rendered, and possibly navigate the open spaces of the mountains around us with his trusty compass. His pack was full to the brim! Before he left, my daughter had to help him 'pare down' a little bit of the stuff because he'd have worn himself out on the six mile jaunt with as much as he was carrying. He didn't like it, but his mom was right in doing so. In life, we sometimes carry way too much - things that eventually will hold us back if not let go of early on. 

Stripped down we move at a much different pace than we do when we are all burdened down with things we don't really need to carry. If you have ever tripped on your own shoelaces, you know how easily you were 'entangled' in what was really meant to be a thing of help to you in life. Shoelaces were designed to keep our shoes on our feet so we could move with ease and not have excessive movement of our shoe as we did. They were designed for our comfort. Untied they become a source of entanglement - what once was designed for our good becomes an object of frustration and harm to us. We often don't realize how quickly the things that can start out as "good" in our lives can easily turn into things that are more of a burden or entanglement to us. When there is no evaluation of how well those things are 'maintained' or 'monitored' for effect in our lives, we might just find them becoming a burden down the road.

We run best when unburdened. Whatever is burdening you today, it is time to figure out how to 'strip down' from that stuff. Why? It will become your entanglement over the long run and you will trip and fall way too often for your liking! Ask yourself if whatever it is was really meant to be something helpful in your life and now you have allowed it to consume you. If so, then maybe it is time to pull back from that which demands so much of your attention that you miss out on what is happening around you. You don't have to 'get free' all by yourself, you know? You have God's help and the help of others you can 'tap into', but to do so, you must first recognize those things need to change - they need to go. Look down at an untied shoelace or recognize the looseness of the fit of your shoe and you usually stoop down to 'put things in order again', right? Look over your life to see what has become your 'tripping point' and you should be just as willing to 'put things in order again' in those areas, as well. If you find your 'want to' doesn't match your 'need to', then just ask for God's help. Specifically ask him to send you the right person to help you walk that out together - he knows who that should be. We don't have to get unburdened alone. Sometimes we need someone else to point out just how heavy that burden is we are carrying! Just sayin!

Compassion or Condemnation?

"Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation." (Henry Ward Beecher) Most of us need more doses of compassion and far less doses of condemnation! One of the things I used to tell my kids is that the world would find ample opportunity to poke fun at them, finding fault with what they did or what they wore, but within the walls of the home in which they lived, we wanted to do less fault finding and far more accepting. Why? Simply because I knew the 'condemnation' moments would outweigh the 'compassion' moments in this lifetime.

Jehovah is kind and merciful, slow to get angry, full of love. He is good to everyone, and his compassion is intertwined with everything he does. (Psalm 145:8-9 TLB)

Compassion is a "God-word". It involves that deep-seated desire to alleviate the suffering and pain of others, even if it costs you everything. Seldom are we truly encountered by such a great desire here on this earth in those we associate with. God isn't moved by sympathy, but by compassion. He sees great need before him, often knowing others heap piles and piles of condemnation upon us in measures disproportionate to what is deserved. He also knows our tendency to heap even more condemnation upon that pile ourselves!

In this lifetime, those 'condemnation moments' come more regularly than we'd like, but remember this...God's 'compassion moments' are innumerable and are always available to us. To the harshness of this world God speaks kindness to us. To the indifference of those who turn a deaf ear and blind eye to sin around them, God speaks attentive tenderness and consideration. He isn't immune to our cries for mercy anymore than he is blind to our constant hurt because of all the condemnation coming our way daily. 

Before we condemn one another, let us remember that there but for the grace of God we walk ourselves. It is because of his grace we live above condemnation - in compassionate fellowship with him daily. It is because of his kindness toward us that we know the peace of God in the midst of turmoil that would otherwise destroy us. Think about how much words cut, glances in our direction cause us doubt, or silence speaks more than words ever could. Now think about how much grace counters each of these. Which would you rather speak into someone's life today? Condemnation or compassion? I hope it is the latter. Just sayin!

Favorite or Favored?

St Augustine wrote, "God loves each of us as though there were only one of us." Having two kids myself, I know there were moments when one of them would say, "Who do you love more, mom?" Or perhaps they would postulate about who my "favorite child" was at that moment. As a mom, it is hard to not 'play favorites' at times, especially when one kiddo is acting so sweetly while the other one is a terror from you know where! Ask me at that moment and I'd admit - the sweet one was my 'favorite'! It is good we serve a God who has no favorites - whose love and acceptance is not at all dependent on how we are acting or behaving at the moment, isn't it?

I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us. (Romans 8:38;39 TLB)

Behaving is a very good thing - misbehaving is not really all that 'desirable' in any of us. Yet, our misbehavior doesn't 'ruin' God's love for us. His love doesn't 'sour' by our misbehavior, causing more rottenness in our lives. In fact, his love adds whatever is needed in order to remove that 'sourness' or foulness of character created by our misbehavior! When my kiddos would ask me which one was my favorite, they were sometimes quite sincere in their inquiry. I wonder how much of what motivated them to inquire of me as to their 'standing' with me was based on their own insecurity because they knew their own misbehavior may have 'spoiled' the moment?

I think we are kind of like that with God sometimes - wondering if our misbehavior has somehow 'spoiled the moment' with him. We sense there is disappointment because of our actions - knowing full-well that in a natural sense we'd probably feel that disappointment if someone acted that way toward us. It is a good thing God doesn't see things the way we do - that he doesn't count on our actions, but looks instead on the actions of his Son on our behalf. God doesn't 'play favorites' - he loves us equally, in spite of and in the face of each of our 'failures' or 'misbehaving moments'. I don't know how he does it, but he loves each of us as though we were the only ones he loves. It is beyond my comprehension that he can focus on each of us with such unique clarity and pay such close attention to our lives, but he does! None stands as his 'favorite', but in his eyes, we are 'favored'. Just sayin!

How sharp are you?

A dull ax requires great strength; be wise and sharpen the blade. (Ecclesiastes 10:10 TLB)

I am a stickler about using a good sharp knife when I am prepping meals. I don't like to 'hack thru' food items, but prefer that very clean, swift cut while prepping. The desire for a sharp knife means I have to frequently sharpen the blade to keep the 'edge' in the condition I like. In so doing, I actually shorten the length of time it takes to prep. I have had some knives that just don't hold their edge, no matter how much effort I put into sharpening them. Those knives don't get used much in my house, simply because they increase effort! The same attention should be paid to remaining 'sharp' when it comes to my mind, emotions, and spiritual condition!

Just as with the care and treatment of my knives, there needs to be special effort put into maintaining a 'sharp edge' in our spiritual lives. If you find your 'sharpening' has increased in frequency you might ask if the 'edge' being sharpened is really 'taking the sharpening'! As with some of those softer blade knives that don't hold the edge I attempt to put on them, our spiritual lives can get a little 'soft' at times. We might spend a lot more effort trying to 'maintain the edge', but the 'material' we are sharpening isn't going to 'hold it'. 

If you consider what makes a knife durable and dependable, able to maintain the edge, most knife craftsmen will tell you it is a combination of hardness, toughness, the ability to hold up to wear or resistance, and what some call a "corrosion factor". If we take these same components and consider them in light of our spiritual lives, then it might translate something like this:

Hardness - are we engaging in the things that will help us avoid any "deformity" in our character when things like stress and external forces are applied to our daily tasks? If we want to avoid developing weak points on our 'edge' spiritually, we need to be sure we are adding things into the fabric of our lives that actually increase our strength to resist stress and external factors that oppose us, not ignoring them!

Toughness - similar to hardness, but a knife craftsman will tell you the toughness of the blade is the ability to not develop little pits, cracks, and chips along the edge of that blade. Where does the cutting really happen - on the edge. What do cracks, nicks, and chips do when found on the blade's edge - they snag up and make a mess. A chip in a knife's edge makes for much work to rectify it - creating undo friction, stress, and work!

Wear and Corrosion - the knife craftsman will tell you this is the ability to withstand damage - not really to avoid it. Abrasion happens when you cut with a blade. The wear-ability of the blade is in direct correlation to how well it can withstand that abrasiveness. Along that same line, as cuts are made with a blade, things are 'attracted' to the blade - the process of adherence. Corrosion happens when too much 'adherence' occurs, increasing friction, wearing the blade, and eventually dulling it significantly. There is much we can do to avoid both wear and corrosion in our spiritual lives, but both require attention to detail. Both of these factors are dependent upon the make up of the steel - what goes into the steel determines how the steal will withstand damage! Just sayin!

Do we use the light we have?

We despised him and rejected him—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we didn’t care. Yet it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his own sins! (Isaiah 53:3-4 TLB)

Albert Pike said, "We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice." Light came into the world, but the world rejected it almost as though they didn't need light to survive! Even a blind man will tell you without light on someone's part, the things he enjoys so much would not have been created for his use. The things he relies upon for his safety, such as audio cues at the crosswalk, braille lettering on the elevator buttons, and even the knowledge others have that a red-tipped white cane signals a visual deficit on the part of the one carrying it are all part of what was created 'in the light'. If a physically blind man benefits from what light has created, how is it we would think our spiritual blindness wouldn't benefit from the most perfect light? Light comes in many forms, but only one 'form' lasts an eternity. It is that light which so many reject, assuring a very dark and treacherous course into eternity. It wasn't his eternity in light he was assuring on that cross - it was ours! Our grief - our sorrows - our sin...these he bore so as to give us each light beyond all our understanding. 

The leaders who voted in favor of executing Christ that day had no idea what they set in motion - they never really stopped to consider what their own prophets had written years before, as a reminder of how the Messiah would die and what would be accomplished in his death. Had they have listened to their own prophets of the ages, they might have recognized there was something within Christ that bore witness to the truth of all ages and brought light wherever he went. What was set in motion at the cross has never been truly 'finished' because all that the cross did to deal with our grief and sorrow and sin goes on and on into eternity. It is never-ending light and it remains consistent even when other things seem to want to mask it.

If Pike was correct, and I think he might just be, we are all without excuse for not moving into that light! We only experience as much light as we immerse ourselves in, my friends. We don't produce the light, but we allow the light to produce within us the radiance of that light until light replaces every area of darkness within. Grief and sorrow are inward 'issues' or emotions - yet they have an outward effect. The light of God's grace doesn't just deal with outward stuff - it works to bring health to those areas of our deepest need - those areas where we get bogged down in our own misery, sometimes even without our own knowledge of just how heavy that burden has become. Sin produces deep, inward pain. Light produces deep, inward peace. I don't know about you, but I'd rather know the benefits of Light than the results of my sin. Just sayin!

More than a moment

It was Dr. Seuss who said, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." We pretty much like how things begin, but we often feel let down when they end. I know that is the way I approach vacation times - happy that the day has arrived to embark on my adventure; then the final day comes and I must begin the journey back to "normal". Some projects begin the same way - with great gusto and good cheer; then end with a few bumps and bruises, tired muscles, and a sense of a little let down to be completing it. I wonder if we approach some of the moments in our lives with Christ in much this same manner - seeing a closed door behind us as something to mourn rather than to smile about 'because it happened". There will be bumps and bruises along the way sometimes, but remember...we grow by falling and getting up again!

Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should. (Psalm 90:12 TLB)

Our days are few - we must make the best of each one. Life doesn't just 'happen' - we aren't just abandoned to whatever happens without any apparent reason. Even those things that seem to escape reason have a purpose; although that purpose may not be understood some times. The other day I took my daughter to the airport for one of the first flights of the day. It was an early flight, so we anticipated being at the airport about one hour early would be sufficient. We judged leaving 1.5 hours before the flight would allow the 30 minutes travel time and enough time for her to take her time to get to the gate. Well, you guessed it - - - there was a huge traffic issue on the freeway and we were caught in the middle of the muddle. We sat on a two mile stretch of the journey (our last leg of it, mind you) for an hour waiting for traffic to clear from a huge roll-over accident at the specific exit we needed in order to get to the airport. In fact, we were trapped with no way of escape, for there were no other exits. 

Sometimes we feel trapped by what our days bring to us, much like we did in that traffic jam. The minutes just ticked by, the flight came closer and closer to take-off time, and my daughter's peers all sat at the gate awaiting her arrival so they could begin their journey that day. The truth of the matter is that she arrived at the door of the airport 18 minutes before her flight, somehow made it past TSA security checkpoint, and to the door of that flight just as they paged her name for the last time! But...the lesson of the adventure is not the ending, but rather the beginning of this journey. You see, as she loaded her stuff into the car, I was ready to pull out and go, but she needed to talk for a moment with her husband, delaying our start that day by just a few minutes. The cats stood ready at the open door contemplating an escape, and she needed to remind him to herd them back into the house just in case they scurried under her parked car without him noticing.

That simple delay seemed like an eternity as we sat on that traffic clogged section of freeway that day, but 5 minutes earlier might just have placed us in the very spot where that out of control driver created such a mess and sent innocent people to the hospital that day. As we waiting for what seemed an eternity, I knew we were being taught a lesson. The lesson? God holds our lives securely in his hands. As traffic began to clear, we all began to move - picking up the speed as separation between vehicles began to increase. As my speedometer approached 45 mph, we were suddenly cut off from a vehicle to the left of us, crossing two lanes of traffic, cutting across the gore point into oncoming traffic exiting the freeway, and we were run off the road, narrowly avoiding a collision of our own. In a blink of an eye, our vehicle veered off the road, avoiding all other traffic around us, and we were kept safe from what could have proven to be the permanent delay in my daughter's adventure that day.

Sometimes we set out with one thing in mind, but come to the realization the journey will yield something quite different. We saw miracles that day - both in our own lives and in those lives around us. We saw provision that day - both in delivering us safely to our destination and in allowing that flight to be delayed ever so slightly for air conditioning repairs! In those moments, stress levels rose to high proportions, but in equal proportions God's peace overshadowed us. I simply turned to my daughter and spoke with the peaceful assurance of God's control of the matter and said, "You are going to make your flight." We started well, but I think we ended better. We might have wanted to cry with the let down of it all being over and her being safely on her way, but we smiled in the peace of knowing God's hand was clearly in each moment of that early morning's adventure. Maybe you are there today - feeling a little let down at the end of your adventure - don't look back and mourn, but smile with the assurance of having experienced the teachable moments! Just sayin!

I am not hiding

My protection and success come from God alone. He is my refuge, a Rock where no enemy can reach me. (Psalm 62:7 TLB)

Protection is often thought of as the preservation from harm or injury. It comes from the root word 'protectio' in Latin and means "a covering in front". We want God 'out front' in our lives - shielding us from all harm that is attempting to find a means to lay us out. The idea is that of 'guarding' so as to keep safe from invasion or loss. The President of the United States has a 'protection detail' with him wherever he goes. His 'detail' is huge, not only in number, but in the armored vehicles he has at his disposal and the military defense at the ready wherever he goes. The purpose is to keep him safe from any harm that might be planned for him. This allow him to do his job, much like God's protection 'out front' in our lives helps us 'do our job' on this earth. The right 'protection' makes all the difference, doesn't it?

Success speaks of more than just beginning well - it refers to the way something is ended. The 'termination' of the thing is deemed favorable whenever we say it was a 'success', right? The word success comes from the root word for succeed and carries a meaning of thriving, growing, and prospering. With the right 'out front' covering, the ability to thrive is much different than being exposed to the things set against us in this life, isn't it? The one who knows 'success' has accomplished what was intended - the attempt had a positive outcome. The main thing about success is that the desired result is accomplished. As our scripture today points out, with the appropriate covering in place, the ability to see the desired results in life are much better than if we go out there 'exposed' all on our own!

Refuge might be considered to be a hiding place - a place of safety. We only need a place of refuge when danger drives us into that place, right? The root of this word comes from the word meaning to run or flee from. This implies there is danger in what we are escaping - causing us to need a 'hiding place' where we will be safe. I don't live in tornado country, but I have lived in earthquake regions and know every opportunity is taken to instruct people how to find the best place of safety when the ground starts to rumble. You don't run out into the open, you find a sturdy place of safety, such as under a strong table. Why? Things come 'at you' when the ground starts to rumble, maybe not with the force of the tornado's winds, but an earthquake has a damage all its own. Regardless of the 'force' coming against us, we need a place to 'run into' for our safety. Let that be God and you won't ever find your place of refuge faulty! We aren't hiding out - we are sheltering within. Just sayin!