who here is blind?

Those who can’t seem to get it together are better off than those who think they have a good grip. I would rather sit next to the guy who smells like pot than the woman who looks down on him. I would rather talk to someone with a million questions than listen to someone who has it all figured out. Once you’ve lost the capacity to learn, you’re dead weight.

We all have weaknesses, addictions and tendencies. If you’re not being real, you don’t know what they are. If you can’t spot them, you can’t sandbag against them. The best way to find your weak points is to live without fear of failure while still aware that you’ll fail. When the bomb goes off, trace the wire back to the trigger. Your own sin can be a huge asset when you’re trying to choose where to stand.

Everyone has a tendency toward certain sins. Do you know what yours are? Instead of feeling defeated by your failures, be empowered by the knowledge.

An alcoholic will always be an alcoholic, but he doesn’t have to drink. He can find his triggers and make a plan. If he knows he’s an alcoholic who binges when stressed, he can refer to his escape plan and fight against his natural tendency. This doesn’t mean he’ll never slip. It means he’s got an extra rail between him and the fall.

I never knew I had the capacity to cheat until I cheated. I thought it would be a lot harder to cross that bridge. Before experiencing that failure, there were a lot of behaviors that I never would have seen as foreplay to the consummation of adultery. I knew I was a good person and I saw my behavior as harmless and innocent.

Now that I know where my weaknesses are, a lot of ‘innocent’ behavior doesn’t look as innocent to me. My boundaries are further out and I can spot danger quicker. I would be a fool to say I would never do it again. Not seeing my ability in the first place was one of my biggest mistakes. However, I can acknowledge that I’ve put more distance between me and that pitfall.

If you deny your weakness or are unaware of it, then you will not know where the traps and triggers are and you will not have an escape plan. Those in denial will always be bruised because they’re more scared of labels than of constantly falling into the same hole.

It’s like a blind man refusing to admit that he’s blind. He claims to be able to see clearly, so when he destroys things in his path, he has no excuse and will get no help. If he can’t see clearly, then he won’t clean up his messes properly and will be despised for that, too. If he would realize and admit that he was blind, he would get more help, compassion and mercy. Those who claim to see clearly are expected to see clearly. Anything claiming to be perfect is judged against perfection.

“If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.” -John 9:41

• Do you know where your weaknesses are?
• Do you have an escape route?
• What can you share with others that may help them learn from your mistakes?

potluck religion

I’ve made myself available to those who haven’t bothered to ask. I’m here, ready to be found by those who haven’t bothered to look. -Isaiah 65:1

This massive group of people walk around like they knew Him, but they don’t. They profess their love for Him to each other with a glazed over and detached look in their eyes. They do things on His behalf that He would never do. People base their opinions on Him from their interaction with them.

Meanwhile, there are people who hear bits and pieces of the truth and something stirs inside of them. The problem is, there is so much crap surrounding it that they don’t know what’s truth and what’s religion. They turn to each other and never to Him. The blind leading the blind.

I kept saying ‘I’m here, I’m right here’ to a nation that ignored me. I reached out day after day to a people who turned their backs on me. -Isaiah 65:2

When they hear things that don’t match what the others have taught them, they reject it. They guard their ideal so tightly that challenges are met by a sharp toothed tongue and haughty smirks. A cultish mentality that refuses to see the real Truth when it repeatedly tries to get their attention.

What’s worse, they think they’re on the right track. They lean on scriptures for ‘persecution’ when they know nothing of persecution. Or verses about being ‘hated by the world’ when the world doesn’t hate them, they just don’t want their flavor of religion.

People who make wrong turns, who insist on doing things their own way. They get on my nerves, are rude to my face day after day. Make up their own kitchen religion, a potluck religious stew. -Isaiah 65:3

You get to a point where your system works and anything that disrupts it is ignored. People aren’t looking for the Truth anymore because they’re content. Nobody wants to be wrong, nobody wants to be challenged, they just want comfort. They prefer tradition over Truth. They prefer shackles over freedom.

They hear the truth, but reject it. It seems too easy. They prefer to earn their way. Can’t take a ‘gift’ without feeling the obligation to even the scale. Disrespectful disregard surrounded by double talk and no capacity to be in debt to another. Debtors are less than.

They say, ‘Keep your distance. Don’t touch me. I’m holier than thou.’ These people gag me. I can’t stand their stench. -Isaiah 65:5

In church, were you taught to keep your distance from ’sinners’? Were you taught to set yourself apart as ‘royalty?’ Did they teach you to ‘call out’ worldly behavior in hopes that they’ll feel condemned enough to convert to Christianity?

This mentality is repulsive and, apparently, it’s not just repulsive to the rest of us. It’s sickening to God.

finding hope

I think emotional hell is in the absence of hope. The product of perceived separation from God. With no God, there is no forgiveness of sins. There is an eternal weight of failure that you can never unload whether you want to or not. There is no sorry that is sufficient, there is no rebuilding, there is no remaining chance. There is no opportunity to reach the destination your entire awareness has been reaching for your whole life and hell is knowing you have more life to live.

Hell is being awake to feel the most dreadful things. It’s the cramping and convulsing of knowledge that you have gone too far.

It’s screaming from behind a sealed off room.

Hope hangs on if there’s a chance that nobody has heard your cries yet. However, if you are heard and still sealed away, then that is where hell is.

Hell is not in knowing that no one can save you. It’s knowing that no one wants to save you. It’s the belief that you are not worth saving.

Separation from God is found in your faith. You find the object of your faith when you find the reason for your hope.

• If you hoped in your capacity to succeed. Your god is your potential.
• If you hoped in your license to be forgiven. Your god is your worth.
• If you hoped in your ability to earn back your standing. Your god is your appeal.

I think God lets us feel hopelessness because it’s the ultimate purification of faith.

When you are at the very end of yourself and all of the things that gave you hope are gone. What if everyone washes their hands of you? What if the mountains, after seeing you, pick up their skirts and walk away from you? What if the stars stop glimmering and blooming flowers lose their smell? Where does your hope come from then?

No one to remind you, nothing to look forward to, no songs sang for you, no letters written to you. Nothing giving you value or, even, evidence of your existence. You’re the ashes of a burned picture, the footprints from an estate sale, an empty crematory incinerator.

Where does your hope come from then?

Have you ever been so lost that your own thoughts are a startler to the otherwise ‘nothing’?

Don’t be afraid to doubt what you thought you knew and question your faith. Doubting everything is the precursor to finding the authentic Truth. Don’t fear questions about what you believe. If the Truth is true, then no question can unravel it.

In all of your doubting, questioning and thinking, it must, at some point, occur to you that you do exist. If you exist, then there must be more. If there is more, then there must be hope.

If hopelessness purifies faith, and mature faith is the goal, then were you put in this place for that reason? You can say that your own failures got you here, but since when was Jesus death not enough to put an end to sin as the end? If sin isn’t the deciding factor regarding you, then it has lost its power.

He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. -Matthew 3:12

Where do they go from here? They’ve lost their good name, their faith in themselves and now sin can’t even define them.

He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned. -Matthew 3:12

The only thing left is hope because this time as an outcast has proven to be crucial. If you hadn’t gone through the dark, you would not know what you know. If you had no reason to doubt and question, you wouldn’t have found the answers that changed everything. There is always hope because not only does your failure say nothing about you, but it’s actually sovereignly used to make you real. And we need more real.

Let the Truth breathe new life into your death. When what you thought should have ruined you didn’t, then what is there left? Nothing but hope that your own personal hell has a purpose. Your faith has been purified and made mature.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. -James 1:2-4

reconcile

the plot:

Their feet pound as they make their way across the terrain. They are the chosen. They’re His children.

Long journeys make them bored and tired. They get on each other’s nerves. Their stumbles bruise and scrape the people closest to them. It’s tempting to separate yourself from the failures of others.

They’ve been promised something better, but the promise fades when the journey drones.

They bring souvenirs. They take travel advice from the locals. They find ways to make their journey easier, only to find that it makes it harder.

Empty backpacks, abandoned egos and a transient disposition is required, but surely there is something for the ’self.’ When reward doesn’t come for their hard work or justice for their wounds, they rely on their own interpretation and bring their own repayment.

the conflict:

The ‘hard to come by‘ becomes the goal and soon it’s dog eat dog. Survival of the fittest is a blood bath. Fend for yourself and leave the weak behind.

Their feet pound as they make their way across the terrain. Spread apart and split off. Little ants scattering to find shade from the desert sun. Hunters lost in the woods. Spiraling in circles while a predator watches them, waiting for them to get tired.

If they could have stuck together, they could have fought off the attack. But they didn’t. They’re being drug off, one by one. They’re used against each other. Their desires and what they feel they deserve become the weapons.

Wedges are forged in the lives the chosen. Rivers rage a separation between sickness and healing. They’re designed to be united, but when they’re too far apart to hold each others hands, their sickness lingers.

They have one Source of Blood and the blood ties them together. You can’t get rid of your family because every time you sit down to eat, you have to sit with ‘them’ because when He ‘raised us up with him’ and He ’seated us with Him.’ (Eph2:6)

They’ve made each other enemies and it takes two to build a bridge over the raging river between them.

The predator seduces and makes you remember the sin. ‘Don’t walk with them, they did you wrong. Don’t trust them, they’ll hurt you again. Don’t forget the sin.’

The predator seduces and makes you feel justified. ‘You’re a good person, it doesn’t have to make sense. You need this. You deserve this.’

The predator tells you whatever you need to hear, whatever you’ll listen to, to separate you from the group. ‘You’re the only one who ‘gets it.’ The others are dragging you down. Dust your feet off and go off on your own. Forge your own path. Be the hero.’

If you are isolated, then you are weak. If you’re afraid, then you’re in the dark. If you have to focus on the sin, then you’re using your pain to feed your actions.

the climax:

If one member suffers, all suffer together…-1 Corinthians 12:26

When you fall down, you have to see it for what it is. You’ve been seduced by the enemy and your weaknesses were used to trip you. Get back up, do your best to fix the mess and keep walking.

If you’ve been hit by a Christian in a tailspin, you have to see it for what it is. You’re walking a rough terrain and tripping is inevitable. I know it hurts, but they’re your family. Help them to their feet and help them pick up the pieces. The sooner the two of you can walk again, the better. You’re connected, so if they’re left behind, so are you. If you try to move forward you’ll find that you can’t because a piece of you is within them.

You have one option when dealing with others. The one option is segmented in two. You either see others as though you’re seeing yourself or you’re seeing others as though they were Jesus. It’s tangled and inseparable. You’re incapable of separating yourself from yourself, so when you refuse to walk with a fellow believer, you’re refusing Jesus.

[Jesus] 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.” -Luke 10:27

“He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone …that was me—you failed to do it to me.’ -Matthew 25:45

Empty backpacks, abandoned egos and a transient disposition is required. Everyone is either you or Jesus. If you love Him, you’ll love all of them. If you want to walk with Him, you have to walk with the ‘them.’

Are you trying to figure out the godly thing to do with a person? Are you struggling with keeping yourself safe and giving up your right to self? It’s likely that the person you’re holding the furthest from you is the very antibody for what is causing your pain.

The prescription has and will always be Love. Do your part and help build the bridge.

the impressions:

• Do you think it’s important to set aside differences for the sake of the bigger picture?
• What is the bigger picture?
• When you’re sitting at home in your pajamas and you’re not trying to impress anybody, what is that one thing/person/circumstance that is ‘undone’ in your life?

the challenge:

• What can you do today to start being a link for reconciliation?

coming out of the dark

my artist rendered sketch

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. -Psalm 119:105 ESV

I think that when this life is over and we are let in on the mystery, our biggest regret will be not trusting God more. If you think about it, everything boils down to trusting God, so maybe it will be our only regret.

Imagine you’re a name in a completed book (because you are) and you’re only a few chapters in. Books have authors and you’re not your own. It’s hard to imagine an existence that is bigger than ours. It’s mind twisting to imagine being subject to something (Someone) more powerful than us.

Mostly people want to reject the idea that they’re not in control. It takes the ego away. I wouldn’t say these things if I made them up. The scriptures are clear and I’ll never apologize for what they take away from you. Especially if you consider what they give to you. Your loss is your gain.

Doom to you! You pretend to have the inside track. You shut God out and work behind the scenes, Plotting the future as if you knew everything, acting mysterious, never showing your hand. You have everything backward! You treat the potter as a lump of clay. Does a book say to its author, ”He didn’t write a word of me”? Does a meal say to the woman who cooked it, ”She had nothing to do with this”? -Isaiah 29:15-16

The instructions I wrote about are clear and simple. They help us navigate an existence we can’t see. They’re our guide while we walk around in this strange territory. They’re our ‘light for the path‘. You know, ‘a lamp unto [our] feet.’

He says ‘don’t worry,’ ‘don’t be afraid’ and all of these other things and we wonder how to carry it out. I say, you can carry it out if you know that He knows what He’s talking about. He has seen what’s ahead and His words are coming back to tell us not to worry and not to be afraid. He’s looking at the outcome when He tells us that. He’s the best ally in life because He’s in eternity and telling us the secrets of life and time. (More complex than a time traveler, but if you need something really simple to mentally grab, try that one.)

He’s this whisper in your spirit telling you that making a friend out of an enemy will lighten your load or that giving your coat to a shirt thief will make you like Him.

I can understand why Jesus used metaphors and similes (parables) so often. This ‘Kingdom’ stuff is cheapened by trying to explain it in plain language. It doesn’t make sense and doesn’t cover it quite right. Take my examples as an artist rendered sketch. I’m constantly trying to improve my ability to paint word pictures so I can show you what I see. I may not be the best artist, but I can see the most amazing things. It drives me crazy when I can’t get my ‘painting’ quite right, but when I do, …there’s nothing like it.

Christians have earned the reputation for being ‘detached’, but not for the same reasons that Jesus has the reputation. Christians, in general, don’t check out what they’re swallowing. Jesus was intensely intelligent. It takes an unbelievable amount of mental strength to not be distracted by everything human when trying to stay focused on the Truth. Imagine driving down a winding country road in the middle of the night with fog and a cartoonish amount of wildlife skirting your path at every moment. That’s what our ‘here and now’ life is like.

Jesus never bought into the same things that the others did. He was like a sane man in a mental institution. We, non-God’s, all have an understanding. We all have our own ‘medication.’ He gets it because He’s spent time in our world, but He’s trying to get us to get Him and His world.

‘Don’t worry, don’t fear.’ We think those are ‘pie in the sky’ notions, but they’re direct instructions from someone who’s been there and knows what He’s talking about. When He says something, drop everything and listen. We’re ‘here’ and ‘now’, He’s eternal. We’d be idiots to not risk everything on Him.

artist rendered sketch

instructions

God’s will supersedes ours. He wins every time and we don’t even have to know what His will is to play our part in this Story of His creation.

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. -Romans 9:30

We have free will and make plans, take steps, set goals and graph progress, but it’s all meaningless smoke if it’s not what God is doing. You can do nothing and it’s done. You can do everything opposite and it’s done. Nobody is taking your will away from you, because your will is useless. You have a will because you’re made in His image, but unless your will is plugged into His, it’s a cheap squeaky toy. The ride is free and it’s going whether you want to take it or not. Your only choice is to take the blinders off or leave them on.

Mortals make elaborate plans, but God has the last word. -Proverbs 16:1

Put God in charge of your work, then what you’ve planned will take place. -Proverbs 16:3

God made everything with a place and purpose; even the wicked are included…-Proverbs 16:4

We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it. -Proverbs 16:9

We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but God’s purpose prevails. -Proverbs 19:21

Our actions are responses to His action.

What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. -Romans 9:13

There is nothing that we can do to mess up His plan. It’s all written in black and white yet, we still find ways to exert our control and explain it away. He’s kept no secrets about having a plan for us, but we keep believing alternate messages that take the power from Him and attempt to put it back in your hands.

Think about this. Wrap your minds around it. This is serious business, rebels. Take it to heart…I am God, the only God you’ve had or ever will have— incomparable, irreplaceable—From the very beginning telling you what the ending will be, All along letting you in on what is going to happen, Assuring you, ‘I’m in this for the long haul, I’ll do exactly what I set out to do,’ … I’ve said it, and I’ll most certainly do it. I’ve planned it, so it’s as good as done. -Isaiah 46:8-11

With these verses, we can assume that there is more to what is going on than what we can sense. His purpose envelopes us. Bad and good. We can watch things work out in spite of themselves. We can witness perfectly constructed plans fail. Again and again, things defy common sense with no explanation.

The Bible tells us that we don’t know what’s going on, but we still behave as though we do. Assume, for a moment, that you don’t have the glasses needed to see things the way they are. Can you even imagine how ridiculous all of your strutting and declaring looks to those who can see clearly?

Your fears are unwarranted and a waste of time. People who are led by fear are dead weight. Your scrambling and grasping is bizarre and embarrassing. Getting offended is evidence of no assurance. People with no faith look backward and never see what’s right in front of them.

God gives us very clear and simple guides to keep us from running all over each other like sewer rats. His orchestra of creation is playing with or without your cooperation, but it absolutely sends Him through the roof with joy when you catch sight of The Maestro and join in.

Let go of your shortsightedness and know that you know nothing.

Don’t talk so much, it shows your ignorance.

Even dunces who keep quiet are thought to be wise; as long as they keep their mouths shut, they’re smart. -Proverbs 17:28

Don’t be quick to get angry, it shows how blind you are.

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. -Ecclesiastes 7:9 ESV

Be quick to forgive and quick to restore. These are evidences of your faith.

If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. -Galatians 6:1

The most intelligent people know that they don’t have it all figured out.

We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete…We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. [So,] for right now,… we have three things to do to lead us…: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. -1 Corinthians 13:9-13

free to love

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. -1 Corinthians 1-3

When scripture says that ‘the way is straight and narrow’, we make that to mean so many things. You might think that ’straight and narrow’ is hard because you have to refrain from certain activities, but there are people who don’t struggle with the same things the way you do. Some people thoroughly enjoy their life of simplicity and rigorous standards. Maybe you picture ’straight and narrow’ being hard because one false move on your part, one sin, can get you off the path.

Sin is inevitable and living in fear of it is living FOR it. Why live for something from which you’ve been set free?

If you fear something, then you focus all of your energy to keep your fears from becoming reality. Sin is destructive, no doubt, but it does not have the power to re-label you. Grace has the power keep you and God’s sovereignty has the power to use your failures to ultimately benefit you. Sin never wins. Sin is dead. What is dead cannot define you, therefore you are free from it.

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. -Galatians 5:13

While you are not willfully choosing to disregard right and wrong, don’t live in fear of doing something wrong as though your salvation depended on you getting it right.

We are free to relax, free to be forgiven, free to learn from our stumbles and free to get back up.

Take the focus off of yourself and get a grip on God’s grace. It is aggressively defending us in spite of our obvious error. If you can grasp the magnitude of what Jesus did for you,  you will have a lot more time on our hands. If you don’t have to focus on yourself or your behavior, then you can focus on something far more important:

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. -Galatians 5:14

We admire others when they boast the lengths they go to be more ‘extreme in the faith’. Your life and limitations are your own choice based, hopefully, on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. You don’t get extra credit for being obedient and you aren’t elevated because you have more rules than someone else. This strange comparison religious people do is just a game to keep them distracted from the real requirement. Love.

Love is such and easy thing to command, but the hardest thing to do. Love is a choice. Its’ borders are hard for a person to fit through. The way of Love is straight and it is narrow. Not because it’s easy to get off the path or because you avoid a list of failures. It’s ’straight and narrow’ because you can’t take your ’self’ with you.

We are human beings and we need a set of rules to follow so that we can feel more secure. Mostly, that leads to a lack of faith. However, there is a guide in scripture so you don’t have to think very much. Some of them have to do with you and some of them have to do with how you treat people.

My challenge to you is to approach every decision and every relationship with this checklist. Tomorrow I’ll go through the list and bring it to life.

God is Love, so if your focus is this, then your focus is God. Don’t ever feel like you’re wasting yourself for someone who doesn’t receive it or change because of it. You’re not doing it for that person, you’re doing it because you’ve been asked to.

stolen water

“Stolen water is sweet,…” -Proverbs 9:17 ESV

If God cares about you at all, your secret will be found out. The storm-wet footprints of those who slip through the dark may dry by morning, but if you have to work with the lights off, you won’t see the other evidence you left behind. You’re careful not to leave scars, but those who love you can feel when your blood leaves your veins. You erase all the messages, but all it takes is getting your timing off one time and there’s nothing you can do about it. You clear your history, but your brain is missing that button. You can bury the bottle, but you renew your problem every time you empty a new one.

You can’t make yourself not want it and you can’t control how fast you need more. You have an addiction. The honeymoon period lasts a long time, but it’s not long before you realize you’re attached to a ball and chain.

“Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” -Proverbs 9:17 ESV

How many holes do you have to dig before you’ve dug up all your good and you’re nothing but a backyard of buried secrets? No green, no new life and you’re tripping on a rusty chain. Why would anyone take the time to wash a dog that keeps going back to his dingy holes? Maybe you’d prefer the backyard. You can be the paranoid guard of secret holes, always looking over your shoulder.

You think it would be better if nobody knew and you can get this under control by yourself. You may be able to make it to the shower before anybody sees what you brought home, but there are some things you can’t wash off. There are things you can’t fix by yourself.

These things burn images into your retina. They carve their messages into the lining of your skin. Nobody can see just how bad it is, but they watch you squirm like a worm on a hot sidewalk, like a princess with a rash, like a star athlete with a twisted ankle.

“Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.” -Proverbs 20:17 ESV

Your digging has damaged roots. You’ve isolated yourself with burned bridges. You were giddy with the attention of seduction, but now you’re just alone. Now you have to face what you’ve become. A fence climber, a gravedigger, a child left behind after a funeral.

“Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” But he does not know that the dead are there. -Proverbs 9:17-18 ESV

You may describe what happened as ‘getting caught’, but you’ve got it wrong. You’ve been found. The backyard has been seized and you’re being questioned while you watch them dig up your secrets. The excruciating shame shocks your body as the cloak of darkness is ripped away. You see your naked form in the light of day and don’t recognize the emaciated mass of gray you’ve become. You’re not so sexy when everybody around you isn’t drunk on stolen water.

There will be gawkers who snap your image while you’re stripped down and squinting under the bright lights of reality. You will be let down by those who you used to respect because when the lights come on, you’ll see them for who they are, too: immature and blind. Don’t pay attention to them. You’ll see the backs of heads more than you will the kindness in eyes. It takes a team of fighters with a lot of faith and a few scars of their own to help you walk.

You’ve been found out because you have a purpose. You’ve gone through your ‘boot camp’ of sin recognition and utter helplessness so that you can be part of a team who help the fallen make the long walk home. We all have impurities in our making. A little pressure, a little heat, a little dance with the devil will make some of those dormant weeds bloom. If you can see it, you can follow it down to the source and root it out.

There are many things you may have built in your life, but if they’re not meant to be there, they’ll be destroyed.

Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely. -1 Corinthians 9:13-15

If you have been caught in your sin, then your shackles have been cut. There is an upward climb through rocky woods before the open spaces of freedom. Sometimes slaves are afraid of the space between chains and freedom, but you don’t have to go this alone. There are others who have been there and there is One who has walked this before. No matter how many times you slip back and lose ground, you will never be left behind. He will never give up on you. When you can run, run. But, even if you have to crawl, keep moving.

The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does. -1 Peter 5:9

make peace

Your experience is not about what is right in front of you. There is always purpose and it’s always something more eternal. Resisting only increases your discomfort, but it does not stop the process. Face the happenings of life with faith that God is not only in control, but He is also good. Faith gives you hope. Lack of faith steals your hope and leaves you feeling like a victim. Victims have a faith problem.

If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn’t much to you in the first place. -Proverbs 24:10

Buildings built on faulty foundations eventually come down. Poorly organized spaces have to be redone. If you want it to be better, then it will have to get worse. Everything is ripped up and pulled out into the open. With everything displaced, you can see things clearly. If you feel displaced, ripped up and pulled out, don’t be afraid. This isn’t for your end, this is for your new beginning.

Go up through her vine rows and destroy, but make not a full end. Strip away her branches, for they are not the LORD’s. -Jeremiah 5:10 ESV

Raw places and phantom pains. It’s okay to cry. Trust that the hand that prunes can be gentle, too. A shivering twig with so far to go, now knows nothing except Who’s in control. Now you know how little you knew when you thought you knew so much. Resting in dependence, lost without Him, what if something attacks you now? What if someone kicks you while you’re down? The One who keeps vigil hushes your trembles. He sings the song of the Keeper over new branches growing while you rest.

“I, the LORD, am its keeper. Every moment I water it. Lest anyone punish it, I keep it night and day. I have no wrath. Would that I had thorns and briers to battle! I would march against them, I would burn them up together. Or let them lay hold of my protection, let them make peace with me, let them make peace with me.” -Isaiah 27:3-5 ESV

He’ll meet your attackers at the door. Armed with fire to burn them where they stand, yet overcome with compassion if they’re open to make peace.

Yes, let them make peace.

keeping it simple

You have to think about what you believe, look at the way you express that and see if they line up. There is always a beginning of simplicity, but it’s so decorated with fancy speech, smart suits and flashy teeth that it becomes something else. Separate the affects from the requirement. Keep it simple-faith and practice-otherwise faith becomes ‘the result of practice’ and practice becomes criteria.

You know this has happened to you, this mix up, if you are telling someone that they have to ‘do‘ something to increase their faith. You know that you have stepped on the sidelines if you have perceivable standard for a believer.

When a person eats food, they must, somehow, put the food in their mouth, chew it up and  swallow it. As a result, the body takes the food, breaks it down, uses what it needs and gets rid of the rest. The only requirement for the person to receive the nutrients is to get the food in their body. If they get that one thing right, the other things require no discussion. They are all a given.

If the criteria is to get the food in your body, then the way you get it in your body is not a requirement. Your body breaks down food on its own. It’s an effect that is completely involuntary by the host. Discussing the requirement of that process as though the host had something to do with it is a waste of time.

We can discuss the methods of chewing and divide ourselves on the proper ways to chew and how many times to chew before we swallow. We can form groups of people who agree that the saliva begins the digestion process. We can even assume that those with the most saliva may have an edge on this whole process so we find ways to increase our saliva.

There are so many ways to separate ourselves over the process and so many levels of understanding that can polarize. Those who know that saliva starts the process feel smarter than those who think stomach acid starts the process.

Arguments about spit and bile. Crossed arms, furrowed brows, split families and polarized towns over a system no person can control.

This is what our ‘churches’ have become. Split apart, segregated, segmented, divided, opposed, offended, polarized and full of pride.

The requirement is belief. Some will say that you must ‘confess with your mouth’ and then ‘believe’ (Rom10:9). People can have a conversation all day long about ‘confessing’ until it turns into an insurmountable argument, but it’s like saying a person must get the food in the body before it can be digested. It’s a given. Take away the requirement for ‘belief’ and you do not have the requirement for salvation.

In the same way, you can no more tell your digestive organs how to do their job than you can tell your spirit how to come alive. You are a ‘new creation’ by no doing of yourself. If you could manage that process you would not need belief and with no belief, you need no object of faith. With no object of faith, you do not need Jesus. Anything other than belief is absolutely moot because it’s either a given or an involuntary response.

moot: |moōt| adjective: subject to debate

If there is only one point that is not open for debate, then that should be the only thing we stand for. The only thing we’d risk our lives, social positions, family alliances, finances and credibility on: Jesus is the Son of God. He died for the sins (past, present, future: ALL) of every single person and if you believe that, it’s yours. Period.

1) When you stand for what you believe, what belief are you standing for?

I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. -1 Corinthians 2:2 ESV

No amount of wisdom in practice or maintenance will ever inspire faith. Going to church does not save you. Refraining from any activity will not earn you ‘eternal life.’ Reading your bible, feeding the hungry, being ‘joyful’, an ‘example’ or any other kinetic energy will not secure your ‘inheritance.’

God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. … He will never give up on you. Never forget that. -1 Corinthians 1:8-9

If nothing else but ‘Christ and him crucified’ can save, then why would you stand for anything else? How do you stand up for the belief that Jesus ended sin as the end all? How do you stand up for your belief that Jesus is the son of God and He came, not to condemn, but to rescue (John3:17)?

When someone falls, do you doubt their salvation or do you thank God with them, over them, before them, after them, that Jesus paid for their failures? Do you stand up for your belief by refusing anything less than perfect effort and remarkable delivery? Or do you stand up for your belief by refusing sin as an end?

God stays beside us, keeping us on track. It’s not by what we do, it’s by Who is beside us. He never gives up on us. If you believe that, then show it.

2) How do you do that?

You don’t stand for what you believe by paying attention to yourself. That is the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to be doing. Stop trying to be something you think you should be and just do this:

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. -Colossians 3:12-14

Wear these things:

• compassion: tender mercy, tolerance and fellow feeling
• kindness: warm generosity, selfless concern for others
• humility: submissiveness, your importance is always second to all
• quiet strength: stamina that never lets others know the cost
• discipline: obedience and self control pertaining to these things

Do these things:

• even-tempered: easy going, laid back, not easily offended or quick to assert yourself
• content with second place
• quick to forgive

The way to stand for what you believe is to Love. Be disciplined in Love. Love is all you have to do. The criteria is found in 1 Corinthians 13. You cant’ escape the command to Love. Everything else you do is empty and lost without it. Resolve to do nothing else so that the rest can fall into place.

weighing down the truth with commands other than belief keep the drowning from the only thing that can save them. if they grab on to the Truth, the other ‘effects’ are involuntary responses.