Posted: September 29th, 2010 |
Filed under: life |
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Every once in a while I get a letter full of the best questions. Here is my answer to one of those questions:
Do you look at ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ as being relative? (ex: ‘What is right for me may not be right for her.’)
Romans 14 covers this really well. I’ll quote the first few verses for those who don’t like to check on the scriptures references people spout out.
As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. -Romans 14: 1-4 ESV
A person who is weak in the faith department has more restrictions. What is wrong for them, may not be wrong for a person who has strong faith. When you come to a place in your faith that you understand that it is not about what you do, it’s about what God does, then you are not afraid of anything anymore. The fear of making a bad choice is replaced with the assurance that you will make a bad choice and grace will cover you. It’s not a release to do as you please, it’s a release to focus on something else. Love.
The person who doesn’t have as many restrictions in their life, shouldn’t look down on the one who does. The person who refrains from a lot of things because she sees them as sin shouldn’t put her restrictions on someone else or brag about them as though she is going the extra mile. Be careful when you talk about your freedoms or restrictions because people can get caught up on them and condemn each other for them. There are good reasons for both view points, so everyone is free to follow their own convictions.
Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience. -Romans 14:5
For those of you who like to email me with bizarre extremes, I’ll go ahead and answer you now. The scripture means what it says. You are free to be real. The alternative is to fake it.
It’s a personal relationship with God that you have. There is a difference between a leader playing the part of your personal Holy Spirit and them supporting you as you find your own way through your own relationship with God. A religion or group that sets up a person as the utmost authority in someone’s life, even to the point of binding or releasing them from their sin, is questionable. Remember that the next time someone doubts God’s grace in another’s life.
The declaration has been made. You are forgiven. You are set free. Your sin is no more. You are a new creation. The truth is there, the only thing the truth is waiting on is for you to catch up.
When a person stands, He stands before his Master. When a person falls, he falls before his Master. “To His own Master, he stands or falls.” We serve a Master who holds people up so that they can stand before Him.
I love these scriptures because it releases the white knuckled grip of religion as a corporation you have to be a part of and buy in to in order to get the ‘out of this world’ vacation. When you’re released from religion, you don’t have to rely on the approval of anyone before you can move on into the freedom that Jesus came to give you.
Looking at it one way, you could say, “Anything goes. Because of God’s immense generosity and grace, we don’t have to dissect and scrutinize every action to see if it will pass muster.” But the point is not to just get by. We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well. -1 Corinthians 10:23-24 MSG
‘Everything is permissible…’, but not to the point of being owned by something. You can enjoy the things in front of you, but not to the point of putting those things or yourself first. For an example of this, think of the addictions people form that end up taking over their lives.
Your freedom is real. The point of your freedom is not to get out of hell, it’s to serve others in love. (also read 1 Cor. 6:12) It’s the only way to get more freedom. If you use your freedom to serve yourself, you’ll lose it.
It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then? -Galatians 5:13-15
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Posted: September 23rd, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace |
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Sometimes it’s the simplest things that can be the most powerful. The problem with powerfully simple is that it’s too easy to make a trinket out of it and the over exposure turns ‘powerful’ into cheesy.
Sometimes it’s the paper cuts that hurt worse than the wounds in need of stitches. The problem with paper cuts is you get no time off from life to deal with the sting.
I thought I was holding on to grace and if I let go, it would slip away from me. I held on to freedom giving scriptures with a death grip because if my grip slipped, death would find me. I have felt my strength waning. I have fought one too many spiritual battles on, what felt like, my own and the next one was too much. ‘I can’t fight for myself anymore,’ I said. What happens if I let go of my grip?
Is my death grip proof that I don’t believe past my own strength?
Bad days and spiritual attacks against my white knuckles remind me of what I’m running from. Sin’s sickness stealing night’s sleep. Vivid flashes of the time I held the apple. ‘...the apple. And, Lord, how I long to give it back.‘ And the woman bears the brunt. I can take my own and I can feel my legs give and I can hit the ground and feel the earth dig into my knees. I can listen to you scream your disapproval, but you’re only echoing what once ran through my own mind from my own self-judgement made drunk by the giddy vocabulary of Revelations’ ‘accuser’. I can recite it with you. But I can’t take it all. I can’t bear the weight of what someone else did to you. I am not Jesus. I can never do what He did. All lumped on Him and He hit His knees and nobody had pity on the naked man who bled the only thing that can take back the apple.
Is it me who saves me?
A mirror brought on with a shove from a faceless passerby.
I didn’t brace because I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t fight because, what’s the use? I let it hit me and swing me and knock my sweaty fingers loose and I went flying.
Flying, not falling.
‘I bet you didn’t know you could fly.‘
I’m not holding on to grace. Grace is holding on to me.
Some things it takes Jesus to explain.
Posted: September 22nd, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: personal |
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I’m sitting outside with my coffee and the quiet of all four kids off to school.
Today is going to be a good day. I’ve decided.
It just feels good.
I haven’t been writing in my blog as much lately because my spirit has been quiet. My life is busy, but my spirit is quiet and it’s nice. I don’t write when my spirit is quiet because I think it’s better to not force something. Sometimes silence is best.
Things are taking root. Shifting even.
I’m taking classes, I started working full time outside the home, celebrated my birthday last week and I have four little girls in four different schools. I’m also mentally preparing for a conference I’ll be speaking at in a few weeks. It’s a writers conference that I’m extremely honored to be a part of. I hope it happens more.
So, that’s where I am. Where are you? How are you?
I have to run out the door again. My keys are in my hand.
…let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. -1 Peter 3:4 ESV
Posted: September 14th, 2010 |
Filed under: life | Tags: purpose |
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“What do you want?” -Jesus; Matthew 20:21
When Jesus asks what you want, He doesn’t differentiate between your physical self and your spiritual self. He just asks. Your answer is what determines who you are. He cares about your physical life because He’s been there and understands what you’re going through. However, He didn’t experience life in a human body to make your own physical life more livable, He came to give life to your spirit. Your new life is at the expense of your physical life. It’s a process that never reaches completion until physical death.
Our life’s purpose is to know God. The more you know God, the more He asks you give of yourself. It’s only when He asks, do you find what you want. Literally and figuratively. ‘Giving of yourself‘ is not satisfied by giving your money to causes or giving your time to missions. It is not sharing the Gospel or preaching an eloquent sermon. Those are great, but they’re acts that you perform. You can perform the acts without knowing God. Therefore, they are not giving of yourself.
If you view the body as something separate from the Spirit, then you can conclude what is yours and what is not yours. That’s where you can find meaning behind the truth that your life is not your own. You can determine what is you and what is not you. The body and the mistakes it makes is not what makes you who you are. The body and the good it does is not what makes you who you are. People who are not believers can out-good believers any day. People who are believers can out-sin people who are not believers any day. Anything that you can do for the sake of the Gospel can be done by those who don’t even believe the Gospel.
Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. -Romans 12:3
The only thing that matters at all in this life is the one thing you cannot do. You cannot save yourself. If you cannot save yourself and salvation comes by faith, then you cannot have faith, or believe, on your own. It has to be given to you.
If you can do everything else, with remarkable self-control, on your own and what comes from you is no longer you, then the only thing that is left is your spirit. You can’t even call the spirit yours if you consider that it is either dead in sin or alive in Christ. If it is yours, it is dead. If it is God’s then it is alive. Your life is not your own.
Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. -Colossians 3:3-4
God gives commands He knows only He can fulfill. This means He gives commands that He knows you can’t fulfill. He tells us to pray continually. I’ve heard people ask how this is possible and I’ve heard even more answers to that question. I believe this is possible because He sent the Holy Spirit to do it for you. Your real self, the spirit within you, is praying continually. When Jesus is talking to you, He ‘s talking to the real you. He’s talking to Himself in you. And the real you, the Holy Spirit in you, is talking back.
When Jesus asks, ‘What do you want?’, He’s conferring with the life He lives through you. If your mouth speaks the words of the Spirit within you, then what you want will come to pass.
Ask in my name, according to my will, and he’ll most certainly give it to you. -Jesus; John 16:23
If you ask for something for yourself, then you will be told that you don’t know what you’re asking.
Jesus responded, “You have no idea what you’re asking.” -Matthew 20:22
The real you, the Spirit within you, does not recognize the language of self and, therefore, does not know what the mouth is asking. You must experience the reality that you are not entitled. You are a servant to something not your own.
Posted: September 6th, 2010 |
Filed under: life |
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We start out with so much hope and aspiration to make it work. When we hear the Gospel and taste the water from the well of life, everything is new and young and full of promise. The thought of betraying our love is foreign and offensive.
“…you will betray me.” -Jesus, Matthew 26:21
If there was a way to avoid it, we would. We try.
We know some betray Him, but not us. Not those who really love Him. We can’t conceive the thought, much less give birth to the arrant rejection. That would make us monsters. Who could actually experience Him and still reject Him? It’s unthinkable.
“It isn’t me, is it, Master?” -Matthew 26:22
The disciples felt the fear of ruin and took turns asking the same question. Did they know that Jesus knew what would happen even though they didn’t have any intention of denying Him? Did they know that they could do what they don’t want to do? Why would they ask if it was them if they knew it wasn’t?
Jesus told His disciples that they would all deny Him because of Him.
Peter answered him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” -Matthew 26:33
I know how Peter felt. I thought I wouldn’t either.
It’s different after you become a Christian. Just because you love Jesus doesn’t mean you won’t sin. It just hurts worse when you do. There are certain behaviors that you will be able to walk away from, but there are still others that won’t walk away from you.
“…you will deny me…” -Jesus, Matthew 26:34
Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same. -Matthew 26:35
You can have the best intentions. Being a Christian doesn’t mean that you’ll stop sinning. It means that you’ll stop dying from it.
There is no suffering like the experience when the one who loves Jesus sins. They are not celebrating. They’re mourning the loss of every good thing they thought about themselves. They’re seeing their monster.
Because of Jesus, we all must see who we are and why we need Him. It’s something that every one of us has to go through. Repeatedly. We will never reach a point when we will not sin because we will never reach a point when we are independent of the cross.
“The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” -Jesus, Matthew 26:41
Posted: September 2nd, 2010 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, purpose |
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“I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.” -God through Isaiah; Romans 10:20 ESV
A person does not have to hear a specific message, say a specific prayer or go to a specific church to find God. You don’t have to ask the right questions or look in the right places. Longevity doesn’t give you an edge. Your parents can’t nurse you in. You can’t be sorry enough, be selfless enough or want it bad enough. You don’t have to want it at all. You don’t have to know anything to know the truth. God busts through people, convention and manners to get to you. People will give you criteria, God will reveal it’s uselessness. People will doubt your sincerity, God doesn’t wait for your sincerity.
You can’t do enough. You can’t want enough. You can’t be sincere enough. You can’t ask enough. There is nothing you can do.
That’s why He does it for you.
‘…not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are…‘ -1 Corinthians 1:26-28 ESV
