His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness… -2 Peter 1:3

You have promises that you can count on. First, that you have been given what you need to be who you’re supposed to be and, second, that you have been given an open door to eternal life. You already know that you can’t earn it with your actions. If you can’t earn it with your actions, then you can’t cancel it with your actions. You are in with your belief and you are out with your disbelief.

You are chosen and marked for life. For life.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. -2 Peter 1:5-7

It is a result of faith that you are moral, you gain knowledge, you practice self-control, you stand firm, you’re godly, you are warm toward people, and you trade your judgment in for tolerance.

• do your best
• learn
• be mature
• don’t be a people pleaser
• be spiritual
• be warm toward people
• give them a chance to become something better

You don’t have to be a Christian to be able to do all of those things. They are the qualities of someone you want to be around. I know plenty of non-christians who are better at this stuff than I am.

The difference is your faith. It’s belief that can make the immoral, immature, erratic, unspiritual, mean, intolerant person rethink their outlook and line themselves up with grace. Faith makes a person so full of grace that these qualities spill out of them.

Whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. -2 Peter 1:9

When you remember that you are completely clean and your failures are no longer the core of who you are, then you are free to live like someone with a different core. When you don’t have to defend yourself anymore, you can open yourself up to those who know your worst and give them a chance to learn from their own disbelief and forgetfulness. Have you ever considered that that’s why you’re in their life? You can walk tall in grace, out in the open with warmth and compassion and without fear of being eternally rejected.

Teach, write, speak, sing, or whatever is burning inside you. Stand tall and know that you’re not standing alone. Be warm and kind. Be tolerant of people who are at a different stage of becoming. It’ll all come around.

Be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.-2 Peter 1:10

How do you know that you need Jesus?

I wrote on a friend’s blog a couple of years ago and a comment has stuck with me this entire time. I thought it was ugly, it was hurtful, and the commenter’s mentality still bothers me. I didn’t speak up enough in response and that’s probably why it’s still with me. I was a guest writer in a series about guarding your marriage from an affair. I was the voice of the one who had done the unthinkable. I wrote about how I was able to have an affair and what I learned about boundaries between men and women. I also gave several tips about how to recognize when you’re on the path before you go too far. I thought this information would be eye opening mainly because I’m just like you. I’m not a dirty woman who carries no regard for the sanctity of marriage, but I was naive and learned something that I think can help people avoid my path. The commenter told me that I was the last person she wanted to hear from on this subject. She said that it was like hearing how to be a good parent from someone who drowned their children. She said that she wanted to hear from a woman who had been happily married for decades so she could glean her tips. I was paralyzed from the sting of disregard and I’ve been mad at myself since.

The thing is, a woman who had drowned her children can tell you her symptoms before she did the unthinkable and those who have similar symptoms would be able to be sufficiently scared enough to seek help before they temper the bath water. Nobody thinks they could do something like that and few think they would actually carry out an affair.

Someone who is distracted by feeling alive again doesn’t realize that they’re losing pieces of their loyalty. They won’t identify with a woman who has never felt her heart shift direction.

Along with that, I have been challenged by people who have never faced real adversity in their lives. They grew up in great families, have great lives, and haven’t done anything really …wrong.

It’s hard for me to keep myself from feeling like they don’t have a clue. They don’t know pain, they haven’t seen their worst, and they haven’t really suffered for anything. How can they know a Savior if they’ve never needed to be rescued?

This is my struggle. I struggle with it because I don’t understand how someone can come to terms with the depth of Jesus sacrifice if they haven’t known, without question, that it was the only thing severe enough to actually stand a chance of being sufficient punishment for their own sins.

Like an animal who writhes and convulses before death. I writhed before I believed. I don’t understand people who have never writhed.

I read a blog recently that talked about the other side of self-rightiousness. The gist was that people who, like me, believe that they understand grace more than those who haven’t been rescued as dramatically as them can be another form of ‘self-rightious’. ‘Self-rightious’ because we think other believers don’t get it. Even to the point of wondering if a person can really be ‘saved’ if they don’t understand grace. I have often wondered if I was really ‘saved’ before my big sin. That would mean that for nine years I thought I was a Christian when I was actually someone who altered my lifestyle to align with the Christian tradition. I don’t have that answer. I thought I was, but in retrospect with the ability to compare, I have serious doubts. I was a new type of person before, but I have no doubt that I am a new creation after.

If I am right, and I’m not saying I am, then how many other people are just great people who live by the Christian standards, but don’t really know Jesus as a redeemer? Redeemed from what? Don’t you need to know to really know?

Going back to the blog about self-rightiousness: I think a person is self-rightious when they think they have something that others don’t and they hold that over the other’s heads. I don’t think a person is self-rightious if they think they know something that others don’t and they try to spread the word so everyone can know it, too. You can recognize that someone isn’t living in freedom and want that for them enough to keep talking about it.

How do you know that you really need Jesus?

A young man asked Jesus, “Teacher, what good deed must I do tohave eternal life?”

“Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”

 “Which ones?”  

“You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

“All these I have kept. What do I still lack?”

“If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 

When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” -taken from Matthew 19:16-24

I don’t think that passage is just about material wealth. I think it’s about security. I think it’s about not really having a struggle. I think it’s about a really good person with a really good heart, but no real need.

It’s easy for people like me. I want no part of myself because I’ve seen who I really am. I live only for Him, otherwise, I need to be snuffed out.

Jesus said it was harder for them to enter the Kingdom of God and I think it’s because they have to let go of all the good things that they feel they’ve been ‘blessed’ with because it reveals what’s really there. What’s left when all your ‘blessings’ and ease of character are gone? It’s hard to see your need when life doesn’t really give you one. You enter the Kingdom of God by letting go of everything you have to offer, everything you’ve been given, and everything you are. If you have no reason to let that go, then it’s really, really hard for you.

If there is/was nothing missing in your life, if you’ve never reached the magnitude of Jesus sacrifice with your depravity, then how do/did you know you need(ed) Jesus? How do you really know your rescuer?

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. -2 Corinthians 5:18-20

We have one assignment. That assignment is to spread the message of reconciliation. You can’t do this if you are unable to reconcile with another person. I’ll never understand how two people can have nothing to do with each other, but both claim to be serving the same God.

Forgiveness is not about being okay with what someone has done to you. It’s about being okay with letting God take care of you the way He sees fit. Especially when He tells you that He works everything out for your good.

Forgiveness isn’t an emotion, it’s an act of faith. Taking matters into your own hands, refusing to let someone move forward after they fall, is you settling for something much cheaper than reconciliation. You don’t have the luxury of making people pay, anyway. God does and He did, and you can look at the scars on His Son’s body for the proof.

They crossed my line of vision as they walked down the sidewalk. He was young and a bit on the small side. His mechanic’s uniform was too blousy and new to have any street credit yet. Holding his hand was his young wife. She walked slightly taller and thicker than him. She was dressed a too hot for eighty-four degrees, like she worked in an office that was too cold and didn’t get a lot of business. They were just another couple grabbing an afternoon vacation, trying to feel a little human before they have to go back to jobs that just get them by.

I saw them walk in like they had never been here before. I was twisting my lemon slice into my water. I never can get all the juice out without getting it all over my hands. I don’t like to leave the lemon in my glass because I’m not sure how clean it is. If they slice the lemon too thin, it just gets mutilated and I need two or three to really give my water a little lemon bite. I sat smashing lemon bits against the bottom of my glass with my straw while the couple held my attention. It didn’t help that they were at my two o’clock, but there was something about the guy’s body language that made me watch.

He was looking around more with his eyes than with his head, like he didn’t want to be noticed, like he was feeling ‘less-than’. He was holding his own hands, now, and not hers. They were barely breathing, neither said a word. It was like they both felt they didn’t belong but wanted to see what would happen if they walked in. I think the door shutting behind them sealed their presence too tightly and he looked like he wanted to run. He had a dejected look from the moment they walked in, like he was expecting rejection, but he still stood there too afraid to move or make his presence known, but he held his head up. I liked their bravery, even though it wasn’t necessary.

Not a single person in there noticed them but me, and they became a piece of art while I listened to the sounds of glasses hitting wooden tables and forks scraping against ceramic. The low murmur of conversation wasn’t aware of the invisible battle of self-worth that followed them like dust from their road. Only two people were working in the front of the restaurant and both of them were waiters. They sat people as they came in, then waited on them once they were seated. Both were in the back when the couple came in.

The couple gave the world less than two minutes to undo a lifetime of struggle before they turned around and left. They walked in expecting to not fit in and I watched them fulfill their own prophecy. And I wondered, how many times have I done that?

They crossed my line of vision in reverse. A mechanic and his wife holding hands and walking without words. Both heavy with the rejection they brought with them.

The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. -Proverbs 16:4

Sometimes people only read half, watch half, and half listen. God has made everything for his purpose.

They have no idea how limitless he is. Even the wicked for the day of trouble.

I wonder what it was like for Pharaoh to have God harden his heart and then have to watch the outcome. Pharaoh begged Moses to do whatever he could do to make God stop. Moses said that he would have to go at least three days journey away in order to not be disturbed (stoned) by the rest of the Egyptians. Pharaoh agreed, but didn’t want him to go too far…

“…[Don't] go very far away. Plead for me.” -Exodus 8:28

Plead for me.

Pharaoh was in the core of God’s sovereign choice and he knew it. God planned to harden Pharaoh’s heart. This isn’t about looking at Pharaoh like he was a victim. The thing about Pharaoh was that he was the kind of person that would go back to his old ways as soon as the pressure was off. He had his own personality issues. It is about getting people to consider how far God will go to carry out His purpose. “The Lord has made everything for His purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.”

It’s confusing if you only half read, half watch, or half listen. The whole story can’t be boxed up because it’s still telling itself. Being aware of the questions gives you the perspective you need to really love people. It will help you have compassion and not give up on anyone. It’s not about who to blame, it’s about Who to trust. How else can you really offer grace to the undeserving?

Look at what Jesus said about Judas (another ‘vessel of wrath’):

“…not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” -John 17:12

Judas was used to fulfill scripture that was written long before he was born.

Look what God said about Pharaoh:

“When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” -Exodus 4:21

Pharaoh’s end was determined before he knew he had an option.

You have to look at Romans 9. Read the whole thing because I’m only going to quote a little bit of it:

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. -Romans 9:14-18

This doesn’t depend on “human will or exertion, but on God.”  It goes against our human will so violently that people will try to reject it because it’s confusing.

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patiencevessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory…” -Romans 9:19-23

This boils all human effort down to God is God and we are His to be used to whatever end He chooses. We are His creation. He is our Creator. This elevates God to the One we should fear and trust. You have no idea what God is doing or what He’s using.

Things are not as they seem. Outsiders are insiders, insiders are outsiders, and if outsiders are insiders then insiders who are outsiders could still be insiders.

“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved. And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’” -Romans 9:25-26

Jesus turns ‘vessels of wrath’ into His ‘beloved’.

We are not victims. Anyone who knows grace knows that it was undeserved. Seeing the good that was meant by God when the man meant evil does not pardon the man, it just makes him feel small when compared to God. It makes it easier to embrace the reality of grace.

“Yeah,” she says, “I know.”

I loved the haircut. It was funky and bold.

I have colored a guys hair to match his prom date’s dress.  I have dyed a chunk of black and purple stripes in the hair of a single mom. I get the fun people. I help them express themselves and some people have some important things to say.

Like this girl. She told me that her hair used to be down to her hips until recently. Nobody makes a huge hair change without a huge life change, so I asked her what it was. I learned that she had been horribly taken advantage of and traumatized in her first year of college. It was so bad that when she looked in the mirror, she wanted to see somebody different.

I knew she wouldn’t say she wanted to look like a boy. I don’t think she even knew it. It wouldn’t matter to her that changing her look won’t change what happened. Pointing out the obvious won’t keep her from waking up screaming in the night trying to regain control.

I didn’t feel the need to try to talk her out of a remedy that won’t work. I didn’t do that because that’s not what I think God does. I don’t think that God always tells the person with OCD that he doesn’t need to wash his hands five times. I think He makes sure he always has soap.

God meets people where they are even if they shouldn’t be there. If God never leaves you, that means that where you go, He goes. No boundary exists that He can’t cross. When you’re lost, He’ll find a way to let you know that He’s there, too. You’re never alone. You’re never really lost.

Love is the most powerful weapon for saving people. Love is strong enough to not have to wait for you to meet a set of standards. There is nothing more powerful than love. If there was, He would have used it instead.

This girl needed to feel more powerful than she was. To her, the most powerful person she could think of was the one who overpowered her. A boy. She needed to feel more like a boy and I gave her my best version of her vision.

She left practically skipping like the little girl she was trying to drown out.

She’ll grow from here, but she needed this pretend strength for now. She’s going to make it and I got to be a little part of dressing her up so that she feels safe again.

They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves. -Genesis 3:7

God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them. -Genesis 3:21

God meets you where you are, even if you shouldn’t be there. He helps you survive where you shouldn’t have wandered. He does this so that you know He’s there and that He loves you. You won’t always be where you are, but no matter where that is, He’s there, too.

‎”Sanctification requires our coming to a place of death, but many of us spend so much time there that we become morbid.” -Oswald Chambers 

When you find yourself helpless to your sinful nature, when you mess up so bad that you want to crawl out of your skin and get away from yourself, when you are screaming for a Savior you thought you understood, but now feel completely unworthy of and alienated from…that is the kind of death that it takes to be free.

It’s not a matter of trying, it’s a matter of helpless fact. When you are begging to be squashed or saved, you are officially “out of the way.” The beauty in the horror.

Those who “add God to their existing ‘good’” don’t have a clue. Those who lose every claim to their own ‘goodness’ are swallowed up by God and have to suffer under the weight of believing in the Unseen Everything and trusting in the Unbridled Anything. All sensibility is contradicted and held together by the Invisible Wonderful that is crashing in on the self-sustained here-and-now.

The spiritual is more real than the so-called reality and the flesh and blood is about to rupture from trying to contain the Uncontainable. It’s terrifying elation. It’s life-threatening Life. It’s the Light that dwarfs the light. It’s the paradox that dumbfounds and ruins everything. It’s the one who says to his lover, “You have ruined me for any other attempt at love.”

God does that. He ruins you for any other attempt at life. He’ll let you resist until you have nothing left. When it’s done, it’s done. He’ll drain you of you and the whole kick about this thing is, you’ll thank Him for it. A person can deny Him until their eyes bleed, but when it’s time, it’s time. There really is no other place to run. Is there?

“First things first. Your business is life, not death. Follow me. Pursue life.” -Jesus in Matthew 8:22

He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we’ve learned: that there’s one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free. Eventually the news is going to get out. This and this only has been my appointed work: getting this news to those who have never heard of God, and explaining how it works by simple faith and plain truth. -1 Timothy 2:4-7

I wonder of Paul knew that there would be a new group of people to add to the ‘need to reach’ list. The group of people who have heard of God, but who have been told that they are mostly excluded. Most of this group can quote scripture and have to fight being angry at Christians. They want to be a part of a faith community, but not one that runs like a high school or a corporation.

My early training led me to believe that discipleship was a method of sterilizing the life. When I was a new Christian, someone took me out and bought me new clothes, another person loaned me several Christian cd’s, and someone else bought me some Christian books to read. I loved it. I was a pregnant 19 year-old and wanted to completely recreate my life. This was perfect for someone who was escaping one life to find a new identity in another.

The only thing is, I don’t think this is what Jesus came to do. Anyone can change their appearance and influences. You don’t need Jesus to be able to reinvent yourself. Besides, this only leads to a huge problem when the person’s real self is no longer able to stay subdued in the back room of their character. The real self will always find a way to find Jesus. You know this is happening when you feel like the truth you’re learning deep in your spirit is a threat to your outer religious life.

“Eventually the truth is going to get out.”

That’s when you realize you have a choice to make.

Discipleship is a method of learning why the simple truth is true. Jesus said He is the truth and there is a lot about where He fits in God’s Plan of Salvation that many people don’t know. For example: Was the sacrifice of Jesus planned first, or was it a response to people? Does Jesus ‘fit’ into “God’s Plan of Salvation”, or is He the Plan of Salvation? If He is the Plan of Salvation, then does that affect when He was planned? If Jesus was planned first, then what does that say about sin?

Along with pushing our real selves back into the back, we’ve pushed the real Gospel back to the back. Now we have this entire group of ‘real’ people who want the ‘real’ Gospel.

It’s a simple faith and a plain truth. Eventually, it’s going to get out. …and so are you.

Here are a few stereotypes about successful people listed by Forbes:

• arrogant
• overbearing
• selfish
• compulsive
• risk takers
• insensitive
• lucky
• competitive

Stereotypes aren’t based on fact, they’re based on general public perception. Stereotypes are formed by people on the outside looking in. Sometimes they’re hurtful and most of the the time they’re wrong.

The study revealed something in human nature that we already know happens. People will compensate for their inadequacy by trying to behave like who they want to be. The only problem is, they are using a stereotype to base their behavior on. They fake it while they’re trying to make it, but the model is flawed. Those who really are successful can see through it and are frustrated that the stereotype is being perpetuated.

“Good” Christians have stereotypes, too.

• always happy
• hardly ever sin
• don’t have doubts
• don’t have the big problems
• don’t have questions
• an example of purity

But every single Christian on the planet knows that list isn’t true for them. Some think it should be, because they think it’s true for other people. They think it’s true for other people because other people want them to think it’s true. Everybody is looking at everybody else and nobody has a clue that nobody has a clue.

Marketers know how to take advantage of people who want to appear more successful. They jack up the prices because people with low-self esteem think that the more you pay for something, the more special it is and it makes them feel more special. They’re being gouged in a psychological game with the greatest tool being human lack of self-worth.

The people who stand to gain the most money when people try to buy their status will literally bank on the fact that even if they think they’re paying too much, people who want to prove their worth and identity will not speak up and blow their cover.

Satan knows how to take advantage of people who want to appear like a good Christian. He wants the stereotype perpetuated so that it gets so far from what Jesus even was that the real Christians look like heretics. The price on grace is jacked up so that people with low-spiritual self-esteem have something to earn that builds their confidence. The harder something is to maintain, the more meaningful it is, the closer to God they feel.

They’re being spiritually gouged with a psychological tool, playing on human nature to get the desired effect. The entity that stands to gain the most when people try to earn their good Christian standing will literally bank on the fact that even though most people know something isn’t right, they won’t speak up and blow their cover. They’ve seen how the proud treat the meek and they don’t want to be in that lot.

So, we have these loud, arrogant people trying to prove their success by being demanding jerks because they think that’s what successful people do. Yet, the whole time, they’re drowning in debt and getting further and further away from the security they’re trying to pretend they have. Then, we have this other group of people who try to fabricate masks of peace, joy, and righteousness with forced spirituality. The whole time, they’re drowning in their own lives, but can’t show it because they’re afraid people will know they don’t have it all together. They’re further and further away from who they think they should be. They only reveal half of their inner battle for self worth when they point out the flaws of others. The other half is hidden behind the mask. When someone points out the flaw of someone else, it’s the last half of a sentence that started with them noticing their own failures.

People are too afraid to say anything because they think they’re the only one. But, they’re not the only one. Everybody feels inadequate at times. That’s why communities of real, even broken, people are so refreshing and healing. We need more honesty and less of the stereotype.

Speak up, Pontius Pilate. You’re running out of soap.

So don’t be embarrassed to speak up for our Master or for me, his prisoner. Take your share of suffering for the Message along with the rest of us. We can only keep on going, after all, by the power of God, who first saved us and then called us to this holy work. We had nothing to do with it. It was all his idea, a gift prepared for us in Jesus long before we knew anything about it. But we know it now. Since the appearance of our Savior, nothing could be plainer: death defeated, life vindicated in a steady blaze of light, all through the work of Jesus. -2 Timothy 1:8-10 MSG

My most recent dream was interesting. A woman woke up to find that her daughter had been abducted. (I’ve probably been watching too many Lifetime movies.) The woman went into every church she had been a part of, starting from her young Christian days forward. She was searching for the people who used to pour into her as friends and leaders to tell them about what happened so they would start a massive prayer chain on behalf of her missing daughter. The only thing was, this woman had failed horribly in her Christian walk and many of these people no longer would speak to her. However, this situation went beyond the failures of flesh and was a spiritual emergency that desperately needed God.

She went into a church where an old friend was teaching in a children’s class. The old friend, in everyday life, would have nothing to do with her, but given the gravity if the situation, the woman knew that her old friend would put hurt feelings and the doubt of redemption aside to step up and join the fight against the evil that had taken the mother’s daughter. But, in my dream, the old friend would barely look at the mother. Her spiritual arrogance nearly spat on her as the mother was begging for help. When the mother fought through the personal attack and bitter barbed wire that surrounded her old friend, the old friend said, “Well, when you have sinned to the depths that you have, God can’t protect you. This is just part of being a failure and your daughter probably got herself into this mess by learning from you.”

Shot down, but still in desperate need, the mother went to the next church looking for someone who knew her as a child, knew her parents, and watched her daughter grow up. This next woman was so preoccupied with her own “spiritual duties”, that she could barely give the mother the time it took for her to explain what had happened. The mother had to put the horrible reality into words, “I know my daughter is being hurt right this minute.” She wanted the woman to put herself in the shoes of the mother and take in the gravity of the situation. It made such little impact on the religious woman, who was too busy with her own ‘good’ work, to take a time out and listen to the plea of a begging mother.

The mother stood looking around for anyone she could turn to. In this place where people are supposed be warriors who gather together to fight evil, they were all too busy with their projects to notice the urgent need right in front of them.

I know why I had this dream. It’s not about abducted kids…a mother’s worst fear. It’s a problem I and many others have encountered personally and often. It’s about being in the middle of a crisis that needs a church community who actually believe what they preach. Like calling 911 and being hung up on, people are learning that they cannot turn to the church when they need help. Not if they’re flawed. Not if it doesn’t fit in with the agenda, or the latest trend, or the current focus of the religious community.

If you are a known failure, your trauma will be thrown back in your face as though you deserved evil. People need an army on the home front, but everybody is scratching their way to go to some far away place to serve meals of miracles and salvation to everybody else.

Why is it so hard to serve the people you’re closest to? Why is it such a bother to stop your program and rally around someone who can do nothing but take what you offer to people who don’t even speak your language?

I think the religious community, at large and in general, can get so caught up in their religious plans and projects that they fail their neighbors. They fail the people right next to them.

It’s a problem if you can preach unmerited grace, unchained salvation, and unbound miracles to people you don’t know, but cannot offer it to someone you do know.

You become a disciple in your church living room before you can do anything good on ground elsewhere. People within earshot are screaming for the promise you’re making to people you can’t hear.

A religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

 He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

 He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.“

 ”Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

 Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

 Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

 ”A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’

 ”What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?“

 ”The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.

   Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”-Luke 10:25-37 MSG